Vulcan Meditation

In any system of meditation, one can categorize the techniques endlessly. One could divide them into active, passive, and waking, or make distinctions between mental, emotional, and physical meditations. Active meditation techniques require you to focus on some object to the exclusion of all else - like a meditating on a symbol, a set of words or an image. A passive meditation involves stilling the mind so that the train of thoughts which occupy our consciousness so pervasively stop. The su...

 Cultivate Good Habits While Your Young

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; ...

 The Wonder of the Fertilized Egg

The opening cast members of the baby-making play are simply a sperm and an egg and a saucy Marvin Gaye song. Once these two cells are joined, they begin producing lots of cells in a small space. The human embryo soon looks like a tiny mulberry. (Indeed, one early development stage is called the morula, Latin for mulberry.) Your mulberry’s first decision is practical: It has to decide what part becomes baby’s body and what part becomes baby’s shelter. This happens quickly. Certain cel...

 Tummy-Time Improves Infant Motor Skills

The recent trend of putting young babies to sleep on their backs also appears to be having an effect on their motor skill acquisition. This posture, which has proven advantageous in reducing the number of SIDS fatalities, does not permit babies to exercise their arm and neck muscles as much as and see the world. In one recent study, pediatricians found that babies who slept on their backs were significantly slower to roll over, sit, crawl, and pull to stand than babies who slept on their stom...