A few days ago I had my annual eye exam. It was notable in terms of stability. I have used the same pair of glasses for five years now, and there is no real need to change them. I could upgrade the frames and have a slight improvement in vision by doing so, but I can read well enough without having to spend the money for new glasses. I use them for reading and close work, but don’t need them all the time. The doctor said that if I were driving, he would insist that I get a pair of glasses for distance vision, but since I don’t drive, that is not now an issue. Perhaps the best part of the examination is the news that there is, again, no sign of glaucoma or cataracts. On the way out the door, I asked the doctor about any sign of diabetes. He usually mentions it after his examination is completed, but not this time. He said there was definitely no sign of diabetes. I explained to him that this was very important information, since almost every member of my mother’s family has developed diabetes, including my (long deceased) mother and my (still living) sister. It is still my long-term plan to never contract the disease, thanks altogether to following the blood type diet.

Not long ago, poking around on the shelves of the local library, I came across a small book by James D’Adamo, “One Man’s Meat Is Another’s Poison”, the precursor to Eat Right For Your Type. I had never seen it before, so it was interesting to leaf through its pages and recognize the enormous progress that has been made since it appeared. I am grateful that James D’Adamo discovered that different foods were necessary for each blood type, even though he did not completely understand how that could work. It was a beginning, and of course, the basis for our BTD as we know it today. Who knows what our diets will look like after the interlude of time, with more input and information? ‘Tis an exciting journey we are all on, my friends!

I also discovered a lovely series of video films at the library. Toronto has a wonderful library system. If the local library doesn’t have the book/movie, etc. that you’d like to borrow, you can request it, and it will then be delivered from another location to your local branch. In this way, I have been able to access two of the five video films made by Bill Moyers of Public Television fame in 1990 regarding Healing and the Mind. The first was on the shelves of my local branch and was actually the fourth in the series, “The Art of Healing”. It was impressive, as a result of which I ordered the four others in the series. Volume I came last week. It is a spectacular presentation, discussing “The Mystery of Chi” (as in T’ai Chi). Moyers went to China and was guided through traditional Chinese medicine by David Eisenberg, M.D., of Harvard Medical School. Many amazing things are shown on this film, starting with acupuncture and how it is used in China to heal many things. A woman having brain surgery using acupuncture was kept conscious and pain-free while the surgery progressed, with no sign of anxiety from her at all. A finger pressed at the wrist could generate heat that moved through the veins of the person being touched (Bill Moyers, the eternal skeptic). A master of martial arts could repel students by simply holding his hand out (not pushing) and using his chi energy to take them completely off balance and away from him. Even a master calligrapher was shown performing his art and talking about the fact that it could not be done properly if the chi energy was not flowing well! As you can imagine, I am looking forward to seeing the other three titles in the series: “The Mind Body Connection”, “Healing From Within”and “Wounded Healers”. It is difficult not to become even more enthusiastic about the benefits of practicing T'ai Chi, recommended for A and B blood types, after watching this video presentation.

To end this little ramble through various windows into my life recently, a quotation from a Sufi master named Hazrat Inayat Khan, who died in 1927, taken from a book called “Mental Purification and Healing”: ‘The best medicine is a pure diet, nourishing food, fresh air, regularity in action and repose, clearness of thought, pureness of feeling and confidence in the perfect Being, with whom we are all linked and whose expression we are. That is the essence of health. The more we realize this, the more secure will be our health.’

To your good health, all!