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Friday March 9, 2007

The lavender, quick! My electromagnetic field’s awry

by Yair Lapid

This week I noticed there’s something wrong with me.

I believe it came to my attention as I was flipping through the article “Four Ways to Get Up on the Right Side of the Bed” in Menta, an Israeli magazine devoted to health issues. Let me quote at least one of the suggestions connected to breathing:

“Focus on the region of the third eye — between the eyebrows. After a few moments, you will begin to feel and see colors floating and filling you. Go with the feeling and imagine how the colors are encircling you. Use your imagination to create a huge bubble, preferably green (the most peaceful color) and float inside it. Stay like this for 10 minutes.”

I remind you, all this is supposed to happen in the morning, the time of the day when I usually read the newspaper and shoo the kids out of the house against their will (no, Lior, you don’t have the flu in your knees, off to school with you). But wait, it’s not over — the magazine has another suggestion:

“To increase the sense of general well-being, use aromatic oils known to have a calming effect on the nervous system. Put eight drops of the oil in a hot bath and luxuriate in it with your partner.”

The magazine does not say why eight drops, or where exactly to put them, or where one is supposed to find a bathtub big enough for two. But the article does list the oils that are recommended:

“Bergamot oil diminishes anxiety and nervousness; sandalwood for tranquility and serenity; lavender for peace; orange (or any citrus) contributes to a better frame of mind; ti bar, an Indian mixture which increases serenity; cedar and frankincense for focus and for inner peace.”

A little embarrassed, I read this to my partner. I asked her if it wasn’t dangerous to take a bath precisely at a time when I’m supposed to be floating in a green bubble.

“Leave me alone,” she snapped irritably. “I haven’t had my first coffee of the morning and you’re already starting with your questions.”

Which means there’s something wrong with her, too.

It seems that there is a right way to live, and we are the only ones who don’t have a clue. There are people who get up every morning and slather their bodies with bergamot oil and from that moment on they are all smiles and serenity.

There is — and I already said this, I know — something wrong with me. I don’t weigh the right amount or eat properly. I don’t suntan properly or work out at the right hours. I am aware of this because of another magazine article called “Morning, Afternoon or Evening — the Best Hours for Exercise.”

Let me skip ahead to the bottom line here: “It doesn’t matter what time of the day the average person works out,” reports the magazine in its infinite wisdom. “The most important thing is to continue to exercise and not waste energy on the question of whether or not you are doing it at the right or wrong time of day.”

The magazine, by the way, like all of those that focus on physical fitness, tells readers to exercise at least five days a week — right after you get fired from work and send the children to the orphanage.

The truth is that no normal person has the time to work out five times a week, or get up in the morning and add aromatic oils to the bath, or “eat more fiber.” What do those fibers look like, by the way? And where do you find them in a hamburger?

Then comes the second stage. If you do not heed what we say — they threaten all the time — a bitter fate awaits you and your family will die within minutes.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from the beginning of a magazine article that appeared in Parents under the innocent headline “How to Protect Your Children’s Teeth”: “Neglecting teeth can be the onset of a disaster for the child. It can lead to simple tooth decay first and develop into an abscess, which can spread to the jaw and skull and endanger the child’s life.”

Let me say something in response: It’s not true. If your child doesn’t brush his teeth three times a day, it’s pretty disgusting. But the only thing liable to penetrate his skull will be his parents’ nonsense.

I remember when we thought we were grown up already. We didn’t always eat the things that were good for us, but we carried out our lives without the spiritually misguided telling us what to do. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but someone who strives for perfection is someone who is persecuted and depressed, someone who in the end emerges from his green bubble and is found alone on the water tower spraying bullets from an M-16 in every direction.

But it’s entirely possible I think this way because I haven’t received a personal coaching session from a Ms. Hani, who works — and I quote for the last time — “to identify and align one’s personal frequency to a more balanced internal electromagnetic field.”

Yair Lapid is an Israeli journalist and columnist for Ynetnews.com, where this column previously appeared.

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