RAINBOW RESULTS With Chakra Colors (c) by Polly Guerin

There’s more in a rainbow than meets the eye. It’s all the colors naturally found in sunlight split apart, enabling you to see each color separately but each rainbow color helps you to energize the Chakra centers in your body. A rainbow can send your spirits soaring, it can pump up your energy and even send stress beyond the rainbow. Waiting for a rainbow to appear to reap the benefits doesn’t happen with enough regularity to bring results. To quicken the pace just place a glass of water on a windowsill or better yet hang crystal beads in a window. As the sun’s rays pass through, rainbows will tweak your day in amazing ways.

HAVE A RAINBOW DAY

In my book, The Message is in the Rainbow © 2009 I discuss the powerful ‘feel good’ results that can be achieved merely by focusing on a particular color in the rainbow spectrum. Your root charka center is associated with the color red, your sacral center with the color orange, your solar plexus with the color yellow, your heart center with green, your throat center with blue, your brow center with indigo and your crown center with violet and white. Simply by visualizing the color can produce amazing results. How? Well to assist the process you could place a sheer chiffon scarf in a particular color over your head or purchase colored jells in an art store and hold them in your eye view.

JUMPSTART ENERGY WITH RED

Red is a passionate color and coloring your root chakra with red sends warmth and energy soaring through this center. The energy surge of Red has been known to stimulate circulation and give you that “Can Do” attitude. So don’t let cloudy days dim your outlook on life, carry a red umbrella. Wear red when you want to attract attention, but don’t wear a red suit to the job interview it might just get the interviewer flared up like a bull and your toreador skills won’t come in handy in this situation. Red is drama at the zenith of attention grabbing colors, no wonder sale signs blare their message in red. Put out the welcome mat and paint the entrance hall with touches of red. Its message puts an upbeat spin on entertaining.

TAKE AN ORANGE PLUNGE

Nothing invites happiness more than the color orange. Orange may lack the passion of red but its innate value as a happiness booster makes you feel more confident and energetic. Not everyone can wear orange but a splash of tangerine coaxes affection and perhaps a kiss. Perhaps now is the time to redecorate the family room. Paint a wall warm salmon and turn it into an inviting gathering space with plush orange plump pillows tossed on the sofa. Orange has a gentle flame of its own coloring warmth, enthusiasm and a joyful spirit. Think of a juicy orange and sink your teeth into the aroma that invites you to share the simple goodness of the fruit and happiness.

DIP INTO SUNNY YELLOW

Sunlight and sunflowers guarantee to boost optimism. I’ve often heard people say, “My, doesn’t she have a sunny disposition.” Such a person seems to have captured the sun inside their personality. They are always such a joy to be around. A bedroom decorated with sunny yellow sheets can bath you in a comfy warm glow and lull you to sleep in a bed of happy dreams. A bouquet of sunflowers plucked from the flower fields in Southern Europe has that homespun quality that seems to make the view come up with visions of a simpler, happy time. A dark hallway can be cheered up with yellow paint and lead the way to a warm reception.

HARMONIOUS GREEN

Who would ever think that green could have so many benefits? Every time you visual green or see it in décor you can feel the calm balancing quality of this color. Why? It encourages people to get along with each other and stifles argumentative confrontations in the home or office environment. It is Mother Nature’s color with the promise of rejuvenation, refreshing and rebirthing not only the spring season but with similar effects in home décor. Warm up your rooms with green grassy color and invited the outdoors in. It is associated with the heart chakra where compassion and love dwells.

BLUE HEAVEN AND PEACE

There’s a touch of serenity in the color blue. No wonder it’s America’s favorite color. It has a sense of permanency associated with the color of the constant sky, the cool waters of a pristine lake and the azure beauty in a rainbow. Blue imbues one’s psyche with calm it lowers your blood pressure and stabilizes your heart rate. When it comes to stressful moments stay ‘cool and collected’ seeing yourself through with blue visualization. True blue is Navy the color of authority and trustworthiness. Pile on the blue, especially in the bedroom the private oasis of calm and rest.

INDIGO BLUE THE ALL-SEEING EYE

The Indigo energy center is located just between your eyebrows, which is commonly called the third eye chakra. This is the center of intuitive thinking and a search for enlightenment is at its core. Such individuals are likely to be highly spiritual thinkers, perhaps motivational speakers. They inspire and uplift thinking to its highest level of development. Think Indigo and find your own spiritual awakening or let creativity flow as it never has done before. Indigo invites you to expand and to explore the universe. Make your world more meaningful and capture Indigo from the rainbow.
Make your home, your life a rainbow of happy, positive possibilities.

TONIC IN A TEACUP HEALTH BENEFITS (c)

Mary Cassatt's FIVE O'CLOCK TEA

TONIC IN A TEACUP ©
By Polly Guerin

Tea in the afternoon, tea parties, tea anytime may be a popular pastime but besides the comfort factor lies the many health benefits that drinking tea can provide. Plucked from Mother Nature’s tea garden tea not only quenches thirst, but it encourages friendship and conversation. Most significantly tea can be health promoting. Folk medicine, for example, has long valued tea for sore throats and upset stomachs. However, most people are not aware of which teas are the most beneficial. However, all teas are not created equal.

GREEN TEA IS SUPREME

A host of ailments appear to benefit positively from drinking green tea. Some studies have proven results but many health benefits are attributed to ancient folk lore and common sense. According to modern day researchers antimicrobial molecules contained in green tea helps to preserve teeth, but here’s the catch, as long as you don’t add sugar. Green tea could protect against common eye diseases like glaucoma, but assuredly the brew adds sparkle not only to the day but to your eyes. Depression may need medical attention, but regular exercise and drinking green tea creates the serenity, an oasis of calm that deflects negativity.

INSOMNIA BUSTER

One of the best is chamomile tea which has long been recognized by traditional herbalists as a harmless sedative. In laboratory tests patients were relieved of anxiety and fell into a deep slumber short after drinking chamomile tea. If you have insomnia, drinking herbal tea is not a magic potion. You cannot count on tea alone to induce sleep. The right kind of exercise can also aid the sleep process. It doesn’t mean that you have to exercise before retiring, but a good walk after dinner will be beneficial as well exercise done earlier in the day. Peppermint tea's brisk aroma and stimulating taste make it a fine hot beverage to soothe the stomach and even counteract headaches.

SCENTED TEAS

It’s a pleasant sensory pleasure to smell the aroma of brewed tea laced with spices, but here’s the catch, is the spiced tea real or is the scent sprayed on? Look at the label and the ingredients on spiced tea. It should contain pieces of actual spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, orange or lemon peel. That would be a genuine brew to satisfy your olfactory senses and at the same time provide soothing health benefits. Tea tastes vary; one tea enthusiast squirts lemon in her cup but may cringe at the sight of another pouring milk or honey. Don’t make this issue be a ‘tempest in a teacup,’ over nothing but preference. Just drink your tea and be satisfied.

A BRIEF TEA HISTORY

The birth of tea was quite a serendipitous event. Legend has it that one day in 2737 B.C. the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was boiling water and some leaves from a nearby Camellia sinensis plant floated into the pot. When the emperor drank the brew he declared the potion he unwitting had brewed that day as tea. The incarnation of the tea bag was equally serendipitous when a Boston tea merchant (1900-05) began sending samples of tea in small silk bags to customers to try. And you know what happened next, the convenient little sacks of tea came to dominate the tea market. Iced tea made its debut in 1904 at the Louisiana State Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Mo when the Far East Tea House couldn’t attract fair goers. After some quick witted person poured the hot tea over ice cubes, iced tea saved the day and is one of summer’s popular beverages.

TEA TIME TRIVIA

Our vocabulary is full of tea time trivia; a teacup full for one and how about ‘a tempest in a teacup’ an uproar about little or nothing. Drinking tea has also spurned a host of likely products from tea carts, to an elegant silver or chinaware tea service, the tea caddy, tea cozy, tea towels, tea cakes, tea biscuits, and social events like a tea party, a tea dance, a tea ball. But most of all let’s consider taking a ‘tea break,’ in the morning or afternoon to grant us an intermission from work and to savor tea’s delicious qualities and health benefits.