Feed the skin you're in. We pay a lot of money for designer products, but what kind of ingredients are these "designers" using?  In the last few blog posts we talked about how the skin is a window into health.

Our skin can be a predictor of internal illness or disease before it grows into something serious. Taking care of our skin can be a regular way of 'checking in' on our inner terrain.

Once we realize how important our skin is as a predictor of health, we learn to nourish it with the ingredients it's crying out for. That may be an anti-itch cream, anti-inflammatory, or anti-microbial cream.

Making your own cream might feel herculean, but the benefits are sure worth it when you need to customize particular ingredients to feed your skin what it needs. When I started writing my other post, Beauty is Only Skin Deep...Uh, Not I wanted to include a recipe for a simple beauty cream. It just got wayyyy too long, so I've included the recipe below. But, the original post is still very interesting. It gives several identifiers for learning to read the skin's health, how outer beauty can only be tended from the inside, and where to start in terms of nutrition in learning about managing health and beauty.

My daughter Maia, with Alaskan Fireweed. (2016)

Sometimes the hardest stories to share are the ones worth telling. It was 2013 in Homer, Alaska when I met Steve Johnson, the founder of Alaskan Flower Essences. For several years I had seen the training he offered, but lived in Seattle and then Livingston, Montana. So, I couldn't swing the long trip to Homer.

In a strange and bizarre twist of events, I found myself unexpectedly living in Anchorage, Alaska. In 2011, we were forced to move after a series of unfortunate events from our home in Montana.

But, that is a different story.

Hailing from Pennsylvania, we're required to pay tribute to all things PA, including PA artists. Some honor Springsteen, others Jon Bon Jovi, and for the millennials there's Taylor Swift. For me, it's Jim Croche, especially his songs "Big Bad Leroy Brown" and "Operator". I even had a friend from Philly whose mom frequented the same beauty shop as  Croche's. We both felt special being two small degrees from him. Today I'm feeling particularly fond of his timeless classic, "If I Could Save Time in a Bottle." Croche tapped into the mystery and surreal ecstasy of the peak experience when he sang, "If I could make days last forever....if words could make wishes come true."

Champions don’t become champions in the ring. They are recognized there. In our boxing ring, the entertainment industry, a performer hears the sound, “Action!” instead of a fight bell. This cues an actor to penetrate through the camera. Bringing scripts to life is our job. From Audrey Hepburn’s charming and charismatic performance as Holly Golightly in Breakfast Tiffany’s (1961) to Matthew McConaughey’s dramatic transformed hustler Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), actors must live, breathe, and believe their characters to capture our hearts.

Some teachers are naturally gifted when it comes to spotting our trouble spots or as Dr. Wayne Dyer calls them, ‘Erroneous Zones.’ These zones are the negative thought patterns so ingrained in our daily consciousness that we can’t see them for ourselves. The greatest teachers pause, listen deeply, and identify our strengths and weaknesses. They aren’t afraid to hurt our feelings by telling us the naked truth. They disarm us with meaning, often times brutal, but always for our own betterment.
Sometimes these masters are unrecognizable to the masses. They work diligently in classrooms, trek quietly up mountainsides, or even serve drinks as our neighborhood bartender.