Boo Boo & Tattoo Sticks

Tattoo Stick
.5oz $8.00

Boo Boo Stick
.5oz $6.00

Heal your skin with first aid complements of Mother Nature! Replace 3 products with 1! Antibiotic ointments, hydrocortisone & topical analgesics!

Why smear toxins into your open wounds?

Organic herbs (self heal, calendula, comfrey leaf & root, chickweed and nettles) infused in organic olive oil and cold pressed grapeseed oils, with organic hemp oil, beeswax, medicinal grade essential oils of lavender, tea tree, german chamomile and everlasting, Bach Rescue Remedy, FES self heal and preserved with vitamin E. For the Tattoo Stick, there is also rosa rubignosa(rose hip seed oil).

Call 866-(568-8726) or email maria@lotusbody.com for more information!

Body Butter

Lotus Body Butter
8 oz jar $30.00
2 oz jar $15.00

Experience true luxury, without all the toxic chemicals.
Organic herbs(self heal, calendula, comfrey leaf & root, chickweed, oatstraw, nettles and green and white tea) are infused in organic olive oil and cold pressed grapeseed oil and blended with organic hemp oil, beeswax, organic extra virgin coconut oil, rose hip seed oil, medicinal grade essential oils of lavender, sweet orange, bergamot, german chamomile, rosemary verbenon, everlasting, palmarosa, carrot seed and ylang ylang. Energetically enhanced with Bach Rescue Remedy and FES Self Heal. Gently preserved with vitamin E.

Call 866-568-8726 or e mail maria@lotusbody for more information and have healthier, dewy skin in days!

New Products!

Hello Everyone!

We are in the middle of a site redesign, but I wanted you to be able to see all of our new products! I am going to post the pictures here along with prices for you to check out!

I also wanted to remind everyone that our Holiday Open House is coming up. Saturday, December 8 from 11 am until 6 pm at Marning Glory Market, 3260 Niles Rd in Saint Joseph, MI.
Essential Collection $150.00
Medicinal grade essential oil blends in Mother Nature's First Aid kit. 4-5ml bottles 1-4ml Packaged in a handmade crate made with reclaimed cedar slats.
Headache Oil
Antiseptic Oil
Sleep Oil
Fungus Amongus Oil
Immunity Oil

Experience the difference of genuine and authentic essential oils! Call 866-(568-8726) or email maria@lotusbody.com for more details!

Honoring the Wholeness in Life

It never ceases to amaze me how generous people can be! This is one of our more beautiful qualities as humans, our capacity for compassion and kindness. This, unfortunately, is not evident to most Americans who watch the news and read the paper everyday, the daily fear report.

It’s sad, really, when you think about it.

The news really teaches us to fear one another and to feel alone and unsupported when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. I have learned this first hand in the past few weeks in planning my event to benefit survivors of domestic abuse and animals. I am having a bake sale and a raffle and have been asking local area businesses to donate items to raffle. The response has been terrific! People are coming out of nowhere wanting to support the cause! It should be a grand event! Thank you to everyone who is participating!

If you are in the area, come out and buy some muffins and a raffle ticket…you could win a great prize and at the same time feel great about serving a good cause. If you come out, please also bring your gently used clothing, toys and cell phones to donate to the shelters.

Bake Sale and Raffle
November 3 2007
11am to 6pm
Morning Glory Market
3260 Niles Rd
Saint Joseph, MI

This is a benefit for the Safe Shelter for women and children survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault and for Animal Aid, a local no kill shelter that rescues, houses and re-homes countless animals yearly.

Please bring your gently used clothing and toys for the shelter and old cell phones, projectkopeg has offered recycle these phones and send us a check for the shelter!

We will also have lots of yummy homemade baked goods for sale; I am even resurrecting some of my old dog treat recipes from my years as DharmaDog! We will also be selling catnip mice and squeaky fuzzy dog bones!

Hope to see you there!

Save the Date!

I know that it is early, but the date is set for our annual Holiday Open House! This year, our Party will be held at Morning Glory Market on Saturday, December 8 from 11am until 6pm. Mark it on your calendar so you don't forget! As always, there will be food and beverages as well as everything on your shopping list and more! Stay tuned for more details!
Peace and Light,
Maria

The Art of Listening

The Art of Listening
This is the essence of biodynamic craniosacral work. Every body has a story to tell, many stories in fact. Every experience you have had in your lifetime is stored in every cell of your body, the body remembers it all. If the experience was traumatic or overwhelming then it is held with a greater intensity, one that can and often does manifest physically. With enough insults to the system, we quickly become run down, depleted and energetically and emotionally wrought. I liken this to a circus performer who is spinning plates on sticks. The more you are holding in your system, the more plates you are trying to keep in the air. Can you feel the energy expenditure going out in order to secure each plate? This is what your body does each day that you carry traumatic experience with you. You have to ask yourself then, how much is left for living your life?
BCST works with your system on 3 levels, body (physical), mind (emotions) and soul (spiritual) to resolve these traumas, build resource and stimulate the Health that is ever present within your system. As you resolve the issues that are being held, a plate comes down and the energy it took to maintain it comes back to you and any pain associated with it can begin to heal and resolve. The 3 levels are interconnected, if you always focus on one without acknowledging and integrating the others then the patterns you are seeking to heal cannot fully resolve. That is why many physical modalities become habitual, because without integration there is no healing. The physical piece cannot resolve if the emotional and spiritual core is not acknowledged, honored and addressed. I will go so far to say that there is no physical pain that does not have at its core an emotional and spiritual component. Often times this piece just needs to be heard to be released. Being Heard. Isn’t that what we all crave and long for? For someone to just listen to our story with a compassionate heart and an open mind and really hear us. That is a powerful gift. That is the essence of BCST. The session is not about me deciding what is best for you or feeling a pattern and changing it, it is about listening to the wisdom in your body and honoring what you need in that moment. It is about creating the safety and space to work with these rough edges without fear or overwhelm. It is about showing you the power you have within you to heal yourself. This is your divine gift. Do you want it?
Peace and Light,
Maria

The Future

LotusBody.com is going to be undergoing some reconstruction in the coming weeks, the store will remain open in it’s present form until the reconstruction is complete and I will announce the grand re-opening! Some items to look forward to are a podcast/videocast, monthly sales and promotions, all of our new products fully featured and all of your wonderful testimonials! Stay tuned for our first videocast where I will eat some of my Body Butter spread on toast!

Sins of Omission

I am often asked how Lotus Body products differ from all of the other products out there labeled natural and or organic. This can be a complicated question to answer because there is a lot of deception in the marketplace because the competition is heavy. The deception begins with the FDA, who does not police the health and beauty product market at all. This means that people can say whatever they want on their labels with impunity. There are varying degrees of deception.

The first is the lie of omission. They just don’t tell you what they preserve with so it appears that they don’t use any toxic preservatives. But you have to remember that oil and water don’t mix and that water unpreserved will grow mold in 2 to 3 days. Vitamin E, essential oils and rosemary oleoresin are oil-based so they can only preserve the oil portion of the emulsion. You have to also preserve the water portion (water content can be aloe vera, flower waters, milks…) this can only be done with a formaldehyde or phenol based preservative. Grapefruit seed extract will buy you some time but not a lot and they are finding that it is not the grapefruit seed that is actually responsible for the preservation but the parabens that they use to preserve the grapefruit seed extract! So if you are reading a label and there is no listed preservative, assume there is something scary lurking within.

The second lie is “paraben-free” on the label. Parabens are a formaldehyde-based preservative that have been used for years in body care products as well as food. They are also known as methyl-, propyl-, ethyl- and butyl-paraben and have become a big deal lately because they have been found in cancerous breast tumors. People are recognizing that parabens are not a good thing and the big companies are exploiting that for their own gain. Sure there may be no “parabens” in their products but what did they replace it with? If it needed a paraben before and there is nothing listed as a preservative now…what do you think is going on? I will discuss preservatives in depth in a later article.

The third area of deception is in essential oils. As many of you know this is a huge area of contention for me as an aromatherapist who is trained in the use of genuine and authentic medicinal-grade essential oils. All essential oils are NOT created equal, especially in America. I say that because once again this is an unregulated area and there is such an enormous lack of understanding of the healing effects of essential oils in this country that it is almost impossible to tell what is real and what is not. Any company can call any oil a natural or real essential oil even if it is made in a lab and is synthetic. Yes, this is true. I will say that 99.9% of all of the rose and jasmine and neroli and Melissa oils on the market today are synthetic. That is why so many people feel nauseas after smelling rose oil, it is not real. And to make it worse, all synthetic fragrances are formaldehyde based! Now, isn’t that nice. Honestly, if you see any of those oils for sale for less that $100.00 for 5 mls, it is a fake, period.

So, back to the original question, what makes Lotus Body products different from everything else out there? Honesty, integrity and a pit bull attitude regarding labeling. I will never use a synthetic essential oil, I will never use a toxic preservative and I will always tell you exactly what is in my products and to prove to you how pure they are, I will eat them in front of you! How many other companies out there will do that for you?

Peace.

Maria

I Take It Personally

It was Easter 2000 when Bob and I were driving to his parents for brunch when we saw a scared little pit bull sitting on the median in the highway. She pulled us to her and we instinctively stopped to see if we could help. She was scared but very sweet, we picked her up and put her in the car and proceeded to brunch. We named her Sunday and she was a loyal and devoted little lover of a dog. It was evident that her history was not pleasant. She had scars and cuts on her face and head and an indent on her back that was the size of a pipe. We knew that she had been used either as a fighting dog or a bait dog. We don't know if she had been dumped on the highway or if she had escaped. Either way, she was ours. We worked with her for 6 months, training, healing, loving. As time passed, the scars that she bore, both physical and emotional began to take their toll on her. She became increasingly aggressive toward anyone who came into our home and toward our cat and our other beloved dog, Jack. When she lunged at a newborn infant, we knew that the most loving(albeit heartbreaking) choice was to let her go back to spirit. Sunday died in my arms in 2001.

When I see the faces of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick's property, I see my Sunday and I take it personally. If you have ever loved a dog or any animal, you should, too.

This type of behavior is reprehensible and is indicative of a deeper disease in our society that needs to be dealt with.
The NFL and Hollywood are dealing with this issue at best by ignoring it, at worst, glorifying it by allowing it to permeate films, media and music.

We support with our dollars every time we buy music, go to a movie or buy products that are endorsed by such athletes, musicians and actors who endorse and participate in dog fighting. Our ignorance does not release us from responsibility.

We need to become aware of the money trail and shut it down.

Here is a list of Vick's corporate sponsors:

• Nike: http://niketown.nike.com/niketown/info/privacy.jsp?item=privacy

• EA Sports: http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

• Hasbro: http://hasbro.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/hasbro.cfg/php/enduser/

• Rawlings: http://www.rawlings.com/

• Kraft: http://www.kraftfoods.com/main.aspx?m=contact_us/cu_form1

• Coca-Cola and Powerade (owned by CocaCola): http://www.coca-cola.com/template1/index.jsp?locale=en_US(click on contact us)

Contact the Atlanta Falcons and let them know that you will be turning them off if Vick is allowed to play.

• http://www.atlantafalcons.com/About/Contact_Us.asp

Contact the NFL and tell Commissioner Roger Goodell that not only should Vick be suspended but that when he is found guilty, banned from professional football for life. Both PETA and the Humane Society have active petitions.

• http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/petition_dog_fighting
• https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_2007_dogfighting_nfl2?qp_source=gaba6w

Please join me in protecting dogs and all animals from abuse and neglect.

Our collective love can transform this barbaric and tragic situation and provide a safer world for all of us to coexist. For all of the "Sunday's" in this world.

Peace and Light,
Maria

Support Hemp in the US!

Hello again

It was just brought to my attention again, the annoying and obnoxious habit of our wonderful government to suppress and make illegal that which will heal our world the most.

This time it is Hemp. It is illegal to grow hemp in the go ole US of A because, well they want you to believe that it is because of it's cousin mary jane but it is really because it would put the tree killers and the monsanto sanctioned chemical laden cotton growers out of business. Not to mention the fact that if we all consumed a bit of hemp a day, we would all be a lot healthier.

Ruth at Ruth's Hemp Foods has created a Hemp Bar to support the cause of 2 farmers in North Dakota who have filed a lawsuit against the DEA so they can legally grow hemp in the US. 100% of the profits from the sales of this bar are going to the cause until Oct. 4 and then 20% thereafter for the life of the bar. This is a cause worth supporting! Check it out at http://www.ruthshempfoods.com/votehemp

You can get more information about the cause at http://www.votehemp.com

Lotus Body has been proudly using organic hemp oil in our lip balms and sore muscle salve from the beginning and will be joining the crusade in the near future...stay tuned for details!

Peace, Light and Hemp!
Maria