Author: Mary Gow

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Best Face Mask Ideas So Far

image by anna shvets
Photo by Anna Shvets
No doubt about it. We’re in a time that will be marked in history books.

How has it affected your world?

Lately I’ve been keeping tabs on the ever evolving design of face coverings. I don’t mind wearing one myself, and when I have my sunglasses and a hat on, I feel my introverted self is comforted with the anonymity. Like covering up with a muffler to keep my face warm on a winter day except it’s the first day of autumn with a heat wave of 100 degree temps arriving on the weekend.

Keeping track of designs, I wanted to shout out about three ideas that I would like to see created and available for distribution. The second mask mentioned is available for purchase but the first and third are at different stages of development.

M.I.T.’s iMASC DESIGN

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on this iMASC design. “Called the iMASC, which stands for Injection Molded Autoclavable, Scalable, Conformable, this design could help solve shortage issues.” I love how eye coverings are part of the design. This iMASC is still undergoing research and is not yet available to the public. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/21/mit-researchers-designed-reusable-n95-face-mask-for-healthcare-workers.html

TRANSPARENT MASKS

Another mask in France is allowing people to see the mouth of the speaker:
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/19/914351650/france-encourages-use-of-transparent-masks-to-help-those-with-hearing-loss

My most favorite mask concept right now is the “LEAF – the World’s First FDA-Registered Transparent Face Mask Shows Your Smile While Keeping You Safe.”

I found an article about it.

It doesn’t appear to be available, though, with a wait list for the product when I checked their website at https://www.leaf.healthcare/

Watch an 8 minute Vimeo video about this beautifully designed mask:

Leaf Mask By Alex Lightman from Redcliffe Healthcare on Vimeo.

(I have no affiliation with this company or the creators of this product).

CONCLUSION

My mask of choice is still the one with the pleats, the surgical mask with the little piece of metal at the top. Costco allowed each household to buy up to five boxes of this style, 50 per box.

The masks I presented aren’t especially easy to find yet and I hope that will change sooner than later.

We can select from an ever-growing number of fashionable masks made of fabric. I prefer those you can stick a filter inside to improve its effectiveness. My preference is to buy a reusable transparent one whenever it becomes available.

This face mask design-a-thon has begun and we may only be at the beginning of it.

It’s promising to see the creative ideas evolving so quickly.

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100 Days to Election Day

"Vote," drawing by Mary Gow
“Vote,” drawing with color pencils by Mary Gow
For the past three days I’ve been blown away by the fabulous designs of the speakers at the Typography Festival via Zoom. Their creations sparked my desire to draw up something about the fact that Election Day 2020 is one hundred days away. Voting is a hard-earned privilege to be cherished and exercised whenever possible. Many pieces of art I’ve been creating I’ve begun to think you might enjoy seeing. Here’s to becoming more visible.

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Navigating the Times and Skills

There’s no magic bullet, flip the switch and things will be as they were before. We’re hearing those words often.

I think about hairdressers and other people who need to be very close to a person in order to do their work. How will they get back to what they do?

Now more than ever, are you discovering how to do a lot of things at home?

How to Cut Your Own or Anybody Else's Hair by Bob BentMy mother cut my hair when I was growing up; I occasionally got my hair cut by a hairdresser. I was delighted to find the book How to Cut Your Own or Anybody Else’s Hair, by Bob Bent.

It was a lot of fun cutting my own hair some of the time in college, and cutting friends’ hair too.

Cutting the back area is usually the hardest part that good mirror configurations can help with.

Though the book’s out of print, I see there’s a Dummies book on haircutting on Amazon.

Of course, you can find a lot of helpful videos on YouTube.

Look after your own hair, and others’ hair, when you can, in these days of sheltering at home.

By the way, Harvard University is offering 67 free courses during the quarantine. Check it out by clicking here.

Sending healing thoughts and wishing you well with the skills you’re developing in this unusual time.

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A Healing Technique for the World

Wanted to pass this along from the Foundation For Mind-Being Research, thoughts on healing in this time of COVID-19. If you don’t have time to read this you can skip to the end for a quick summary. Stay healthy!

The World Healing Technique
by Owen Waters

Try the World Healing Technique now and see what a difference it makes to your spiritual life (both immediately and as a delayed reaction) in the following days. There’s nothing quite as uplifting as starting your day by sending healing energy to the world. It brightens your day and makes it feel good to be alive.

Sit upright, preferably with your hands resting in your lap, palms facing upwards. Breathe rhythmically and evenly. Close your eyes and turn away from your everyday thoughts by letting your attention focus on your breath. Whenever you notice your thoughts wandering, peacefully turn away from those thoughts, which can always be dealt with later, and return to focusing on your breath.

Recognize your spiritual nature. Know that you are a spiritual being living in a physical world and ask God or the universal Spirit for the life energy that you are about to use. Give gratitude to the Creator for universal life energy, for everything that you love about your life, and for existence itself. This connection to higher consciousness will amplify your efforts many times.

Take several breaths. With each in-breath, visualize life energy coming into your body, building into a vibrant white light within you and charging every cell of your being with its life-giving energy.

First, visualize the positive change that you want to bring into being in the world. Even though you are healing something that you perceive as negative, it is important to focus, instead, on the desired positive outcome. If you send energy to something negative, you will amplify its power. By sending energy conditioned for a positive outcome, you make that form of healing possible.

For example, in your mind’s eye, instead of a world suffering from strife, visualize the people of the world at peace. When you think of world peace, what is the first symbol that springs to mind – a crowd of happy children, a world without borders? Use that symbol, or, if pictures don’t easily come to mind, simply use the words, world peace, as the focus for your intention.

Or, in the case of a flu pandemic, see the world filled with people who are vibrant in their good health, smiling and breathing freely in the open air.

Or, instead of seeing spiritual ignorance and the suffering that it prolongs, visualize people who are becoming enlightened by spiritual understanding. Use the first picture that comes to mind or the words, world enlightenment.

Or, as yet another example, instead of seeing people displaced and distraught from a recent catastrophe, you could see aid workers being successful in their efforts to bring relief and medical assistance to those people, or use the words, energy to the aid workers.

Now, we’re ready to use the inbreath-outbreath cycle to transmit healing energy for the specified purpose. With every inbreath, see your lungs being filled with the vibrant white light of universal life energy. With every outbreath, send the power of this love and light out to humanity. Direct it as a beam of brilliant white light from your heart chakra out into the world, holding the intention of healing. You can enhance the effect even more by sending energy out from the palms of your hands as well as from your heart.

Perform this as a series of inbreaths and outbreaths for as long as you wish, then relax and spend some time in the afterglow of a spiritual mission well accomplished.

These are the days of action, and that means service to others. Even better, your service to others also helps you in your own spiritual enlightenment. Action and reaction are opposite and equal.

Every time you send your light out into the world, you take another step forward towards your own enlightenment.

The World Healing Technique in Summary
Sit upright with your eyes closed.
Make a spiritual connection, one which includes gratitude for life.
Intend world healing by visualizing the desired positive outcome.
Breathe in life energy with each inbreath.
On each outbreath, repeat your intention and send a beam of white light from your heart to your intended destination.

https://www.spiritualdynamics.net/articles/world-healing/