Bija Bennett is an American author, yoga teacher and seminar leader with extensive training in yoga, fitness, and mind-body health.

A poet, producer and performer and athlete of the inner self, Bija is a speaker whose healing techniques have helped celebrities, corporate CEOs, professional athletes and thousands of others achieve serenity and health.

A Chicago native, Bija earned a Master’s Degree in Dance from University of California, Los Angeles in 1978, and held positions with the Ravinia Festival and the Chicago City Ballet. For more than a decade, she had a close professional association with Deepak Chopra, MD, which included treating thousands of patients at his Ayurvedic medical center and co-leading his seminars across the United States and Europe. She also appeared regularly at the national and international seminars of the Young Presidents’ Organization. A long-time student and teacher of Viniyoga, Bija has studied extensively with T.K.V. Desikachar and Gary Kraftsow.

Bija is also the director/producer of YogaAway’s series of contemporary yoga videos. With her combination of personal charisma, accessible healing skills and distinctive artistic style, she speaks strongly to a cross-generational audience who is interested in holistic health being expressed in new ways.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Bija Bennett, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Integral practice is primarily an outgrowth of different integral theories and philosophies as they intersect with various spiritual practices, holistic health modalities, and transformative regimens associated with the New Paradigm and human potential movement. Some ways to describe integral practice are the experiential application of integral theory, the “holistic disciplines we consciously employ to nurture ourselves and others, and most specifically those practices that both inspire and sustain growth in many dimensions at once,” and to “address and support each aspect of life with the goal of fully realizing all levels of human potential….” These self-care practices target different areas of personal development, such as physical, emotional, creative, and psychosocial, in a combined, synergistic fashion. They may have different emphases depending on the theory that supports each approach, but most include a spiritual, introspective or meditative component as a major feature. The objectives of integral practice could be loosely defined as well-being and wholeness, with, in most cases, an underlying imperative of personal and even societal transformation and evolution.

There is also the question of how to provide necessary customization and individualization of practice, while avoiding a “cafeteria model” that encourages practitioners to choose components according to their own strengths, rather than what is necessary for integral growth and development.

The following can be considered examples of different modalities of integral practice, listed in approximate order of inception: Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga; Integral Transformative Practice (ITP), created by George Leonard and Michael Murphy; Holistic Integration, created by Ramon Albarada and Marina Romero; Integral Lifework, created by T. Collins Logan; and Integral Life Practice (ILP), based on Ken Wilber’s AQAL framework.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Integral (spirituality), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Queen’s Road extends eastwards from the end of Peckham High Street at the junctions of Consort Road and Meeting House Lane, to New Cross Road, a distance of approximately 1.5 km. Queen’s Road was formerly known as Deptford Lane, and was re-named in honour of Queen Victoria, who often passed through it on her way to the Royal Naval School at New Cross. The first branded cigarettes manufactured in Britain were made at a factory on Deptford Lane around 1859 by Robert Peacock Gloag. The brand, Sweet Threes, had a yellowish tissue paper filled with ground tobacco. Gloag had been paymaster to the Turkish forces during the Crimean War (1853-1856), where he is purported to have seen locals smoking. Gloags business on Deptford Lane is largely responsible for the popularity of the cigarette in England today. In 1926 Queen’s Road saw the first holistic health centre in Britain, known as the Pioneer, later known as The Peckham Experiment. It was purposefully located in the area due to the deprived nature of the area, the low income and poor level of education of the population.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article A202 road, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

A revamped Gesundheit! Institute, envisioned as a free, full-scale hospital and health care eco-community, is planned on in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Its goal is to integrate a traditional hospital with alternative medicine. The West Virginia location accepts seasonal volunteers through the website. The new hospital has not been built as Adams continues to seek funding. The current caretaker staff at the West Virginia site consists of one person, but claims to be actively developing educational programs in sustainable systems design targeted to medical students, university alternative break groups, and the general public. Several videos and books have also been produced including the 1998 film, ”Patch Adams”.

Since the 1990s Adams has supported the Ithaca Health Alliance (IHA), founded as the Ithaca Health Fund (IHF) by Paul Glover. In January 2006 IHA launched the

Ithaca Free Clinic, bringing to life key aspects of Adams’ vision. Adams has also given strong praise to [http://www.healthdemocracy.org/book.html ''Health Democracy''], Glover’s book written and published the same year.

In October 2007, Adams and the Gesundheit Board unveiled its campaign to raise $1 million towards building a Teaching Center and Clinic on its land in West Virginia. Adams’ girlfriend, Susan Parenti is the impetus behind this project. The Center and Clinic will enable Gesundheit to see patients and teach health care design.

Adams urges medical students to develop compassionate connections with their patients. His prescription for this kind of care reli

Adams was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award on January 29, 1997.

In 2008, Adams agreed to become honorary chair of the “International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment” or IAACM. In a number of his speeches and essays, Martin Luther King, Jr. had called for such an IAACM, but none was ever created. MindFreedom International, a nonprofit coalition that Gesundheit! belongs to as a sponsor group, launched the IAACM to support “creative maladjustment” and social change.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Patch Adams, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

During the 1970s he worked as a research psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (and worked on many NIMH projects through 1997), and became a lecturer at various colleges. While at NIMH, he developed the first national program for runaway and homeless youth, edited the first comprehensive studies of alternative and holistic medicine, directed the Special Study on Alternative Services for President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health, and created a nationwide preceptorship program for medical students. As Georgetown Medical School’s Director of the Program of Mind-Body Studies and Clinical Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine since 1980, he has helped design and implement a study track for medical students in integrative and alternative medicine, which covers nutrition, self-regulation and relaxation techniques like meditation, and the social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of psychiatry.

Gordon founded the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) in 1991. Designing and offering professional training programs in mind-body medicine, integrative oncology, and nutrition to health and mental health professionals is meant to help them integrate these techniques into their practice and extend help to as many people as possible. Through CMBM Gordon has also applied mind-body skills to global trauma relief in war-torn and disaster-stricken regions such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel, and Gaza as well as in post-9/11 New York and post-Katrina southern Louisiana. Gordon and his colleagues have trained over 3,000 health and mental h

In 2008, CMBM won a research award from the US Department of Defense to study this mind-body approach with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. Gordon was also appointed to chair the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) from 2000-2002 by President Clinton.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article James Samuel Gordon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

In 1940, Szekely and his wife opened a camp they named Rancho la Puerta in Baja California. The camp had one adobe hut and the Szekelys started an organic garden, bought goats and began marketing cheese, and invited like-minded people to visit for $17.50 a week. Guests (who chopped wood, milked goats, and brought their own tents) listened to Szekely’s lectures on achieving good health, long life, and the interdependence of mind, body and spirit. Szekely spoke against herbicides, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, the increasing use of food processing, and the dangers of cigarettes. He emphasized the threat of pollution and the need for pure air and pure water, recommendations for safe sunbathing, and the dangers of cholesterol and fats in the American diet.

As the spa increased in size in the early 1950s and began to operate year-round, visitors of another sort were attracted by the weight-loss potential of Rancho la Puerta’s vegetarian diet. Szekely and his wife began searching for and hiring specialists in yoga and other mind/body exercise regimens, adding a fitness aspect to their offerings.

Today, Rancho La Puerta is a holistic health spa and eco-resort with a staff of nearly 400, owned and operated by the Szekely family. The spa is situated on the slopes of Mount Kuchumaa. The spa includes, among other things, a full-size replica of the labyrinth of the Cathedral of Chartres, of gardens, a organic garden, 87 rooms, eleven gyms, a library, and the Szekely Art Collection—sculpture, painting, glass, and other work primarily by Mexican and South American artists.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Edmund Bordeaux Szekely, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Jock McKeen (John Herbert Ross McKeen) (born October 19, 1946, in Owen Sound, Ontario), is a Canadian physician,

acupuncturist, author and lecturer who co-founded the Haven Institute with Bennet Wong. He has written on East-West medicine, alternative medicine, holistic health, Asian studies and personal growth.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Jock McKeen, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Massage Therapy Institute of Colorado was founded in the mid 1980’s by Dr. Mark Manton. It was during this period that Dr. Manton began training specialized massage techniques to Denver area health care professionals. Soon after the school’s preliminary institutional establishment, Massage Therapy Institute of Colorado also began offering practical and theoretical training in Chinese herbology, classical homeopathy, and nutritional care, in addition to numerous other holistic health care modalities. Encouraged by the growing embrace of eastern, traditional, natural, and alternative medicines, Dr. Manton and several of his close colleagues used the school’s institutional framework to form and establish several other local educational institutes of higher learning and vocational study ,such as Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Homeopathy School of Colorado, and Consolidated Health Institutes of Colorado.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Massage Therapy Institute of Colorado, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Hollyhock Retreat is a retreat located on the sunniest southeastern beach of Cortes Island, British Columbia that offers a range of personal and spiritual development programs on topics including animal communication, relationships, nonviolent communication,, spiritual chanting, Tibetan Buddhism, Kabbalah, yoga, morphic resonance, holistic health, integrative medicine, leadership, and social ventures.

It was created in 1982 on the grounds of the former Cold Mountain Institute.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Hollyhock Retreat, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Naturopathic Medicine is a unique system of health care that addresses the causes of disease, not just its symptoms. Naturopathic Doctors (NDs) are the only Primary Care Providers who are clinically trained in both natural and conventional medicine. Naturopathic Doctors practice integrated, holistic medicine, combining the latest in scientific research with the wisdom of traditional natural therapies. Naturopathic Doctors seek to restore health and promote wellness using the safest, most effective and least invasive therapies available. NDs primarily use a wide range of natural therapies, but also write prescriptions for pharmaceuticals when appropriate. The result is patient-centered medicine that provides the best treatment for everyone’s needs. Licensed California NDs attend 4-year, post-graduate medical schools accredited by the US Dept of Education. NDs are trained in the same medical sciences as MDs, including the latest advances in medicine, with a focus on natural approaches to treatment.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article California Naturopathic Doctors Association, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.