Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what's waiting out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.
- Pema Chodron

Please support Scott Purvis
on his June ride for Aids Lifecycle 7

This coming June 1-7 I will be riding my bicycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles in AIDS LifeCycle 7. I will ride more than 545 miles along the coast, over mountains and through miles of farmland with 2,500 other riders.

Last year, AIDS LifeCycle 6 helped to raise $11 million for the Los Angeles Gay And Lesbian Center which provides free medical care to those who can't afford treatment and distributed more than $17 million worth of free HIV medications last year. The Center also provides one-on-one and group therapy, mobile testing/counseling, education, advocacy, and prevention services.

I have been training for this ride for almost nine months now in the gym, on the bike and with chiropractic help at Dr. Lynn's office and I know I will not only finish, but do so with pride, respect and a just a little bit of soreness.

I do need to raise $2,500 to be eligible to participate though and that
has turned out to be harder than the training. Please help me get to the ride and donate to AIDS LifeCycle. Donations are tax deductible for next year and will be helping out a great non-profit organization that is providing aid to a very under-served population. Please go to my website at www.aidslifecycle.org/5015.

If you are interested in the AIDS/LifeCycle please go to
www.aidslifecycle.org or call (323) 993-7483.

Thanks - Scott Purvis

Unless you are balanced you can't function with ease and grace; every step drains energy and the evening finds you falling asleep with a book or in front of the TV (unless you have young kids, then you're trying to sleep every free moment).

In addition to fatigue, signs of structural imbalance include feelings of tightness, joints that are "noisy," an inability to move or turn in either direction or as easily as you once could and premature aging. Make sure you're balanced - come in for a chiropractic checkup.

Your nerves and chiropractic

This illustration shows how the nerves traveling from your brain and spinal cord connect to your stomach, intestines, reproductive organs, glands, muscles, eyes, ears, arms, legs, hands, feet - everywhere.

Nerves send information, energy and even nourishment to your body parts. If there is the slightest blockage to this communication, nearly any system (digestive, eliminative, immune, cardiovascular, vision, hearing, nervous, etc.) can function less efficiently and you will not be able to adapt as easily to physical, chemical, emotional or environmental stresses.

Subluxations interfere with your nerve communications. Most people who are ill have subluxations - often with no pain at the site of the subluxation itself.

Doctors of Chiropractic are specially trained to locate and correct subluxations, hidden distortions that cause dis-ease and interfere with your health and happiness. Please tell all your friends who are living on drugs or are suffering that they probably have subluxations in their body that only a Doctor of Chiropractic can locate and correct.

How many earthquakes rumble under your feet every year? Every day?

The magnitude or strength of an earthquake is measured using the Richter scale. Each numerical jump in this scale is in the order of ten (i.e. a 7.0 earthquake is ten times more powerful than a 6.0).

But that's practically nothing compared to the fact that about 8,000 "very minor" (1-2 strength) earthquakes occur each day! The seemingly safe, secure and stable planet we inhabit is in fact constantly vibrating, shuddering and shaking.

Does the same happen in our lives? A cataclysmic "great" event can shake us to our very core. Mercifully they are usually rare. Less rare are "major" and "strong" challenges that may loosen the floorboards under us. More often still are the smaller "minor" and "very minor" events that can upset our stability on a daily (or even hourly) basis.

Don't people behave like the earth? The most complacent, dull-appearing individual is, under the surface, a roiling, crashing, cascading collection of dreams, passions, desires, fears, tragedies, hopes, failures and triumphs.

Under the surface - even if deeply covered - beneath the stultifying tedium that too often seems to crush our spirits we will always find a noble soul yearning for freedom and exhilaration. Always.

Will we break through our denials and fears and embrace the wonder, excitement and mystery of life? Too many answer "no." They choose to exist: safe, predictable and increasingly numb. For them, experience brings no insight, age brings no wisdom; there is no epiphany, not in this world. They live and die with many of their pains unhealed and many of their joys not experienced.

Sometimes we only need a gentle shaking. Sometimes a slight feeling of unease is enough to awaken us from our slumbers to take action to repair our lives. Sometimes it takes a great cataclysm, a severe illness or terrible suffering, before an opening, an abyss to our deeper self reveals the incredible potential we are so close to. We then declare, "I will not merely exist, I will not live as if I were a helpless being waiting for death. I will awaken, heal, grow, thrive and enjoy every moment of being alive."

May we only need the slightest nudge to learn our lessons; but if we do experience a cataclysm, may we glean every bit of wisdom, strength, growth and healing that it brings to us.

A woman was worried about her family's addiction to diet soda. After researching the effects of aspartame, she decided to perform her own experiment. She got 108 rats. For nearly 3 years she fed some of the rats the equivalent, for their body weight, of two-thirds the aspartame contained in 8-oz. of diet soda each day.

"I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: ‘No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.'" Eleanor Roosevelt

6 reasons not to mess with children

1. A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal, its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah.'
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?'
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him.'

2. A kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.'
The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.'
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.'

3. A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six-year-olds. After explaining the commandment to 'honor' thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?'
Without missing a beat one little boy, the oldest of a family, answered, 'Thou shall not kill.'

4. The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor'.'
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.'

5. A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.'
'Yes,' the class said.
'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position, the blood doesn't run into my feet?'
A little fellow shouted, 'Cause your feet ain't empty.'

6. The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: 'Take only ONE. God is watching.'
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples.'