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NOT The Cookie Cutter Healthy Lifestyle

One of the things that draws me to Ayurveda is the fact that it is not a “one size fits all” system of health. Instead of pushing medications that may help mask one issue while most likely bringing on other issues, Ayurveda looks at the individual and what imbalances that individual may have and then works to create health and balance for that person.

The ideal goal for living according to Ayurveda is perfect health. Not “feeling kinda well”, not “doing ok”, not “feeling not so bad”. Health – perfect health. Having your body be perfectly in balance. An interesting thing is that what is perfect balance for me is not perfect balance for you. Or “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”. Things that could create balance and perfect health for me with a pitta/kapha constitution, for example, would not necessarily make my son with a vata/pitta constitution healthy – in fact it could do quite the opposite.

But, knowing what balances you and how to find that balance can lead you towards perfect health. With Ayurveda, you actually treat the issue and not just mask the symptom – which encourages healing and restores health.

I think of this when I see this commercial that is out right now for heartburn medication. Some man is talking about how he’s off to a chili cookoff and he’s worried that he will get heartburn from eating all the spicy chili. He deals with this issue by taking some of the medicine and – voila – no heartburn. Although what it does is merely mask the symptoms of heartburn and usually these medications cause many health issues of their own. I always think he’d be better to either not eat the chili and find something else to eat that will help soothe the heating, or to get to the root of the source of his heartburn and deal with that imbalance. But, that can’t be dealt with by just popping a pill. Usually there’s a lifestyle change involved and we are so hesitant to commit to having to change our lifestyle – even if it’s going to make us healthier.

It’s empowering, exciting and enlightening to come back into touch with your true self and gain an awareness of how your own individual body functions and reacts to things. You are one of a kind and you can’t cookie cutter yourself into any lifestyle or treatment plan for yourself. Honouring your body and spirit means just that. Honouring the space within you that strives for perfect, balanced health.

By the way – a good night’s sleep really is something that most of us in our culture could really benefit from. I mean being asleep before 10pm and sleeping straight through until 6am. Or longer to pay back our sleep debt. We are a culture of chronically overtired people. After all, sleep is one of the three pillars of life:

“There are three supports (pillars) of life. They are food, sleep and observances of bramacharya. Being supported by these, the body is endowed with strength, complexion and growth, and this continues up [until] the full span of life, provided that the person does not indulge in regimens detrimental to health.” — Charaka Samhita

Namaste ~

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The Lesser Man

I’ve been watching this season of the Biggest Loser. I usually start watching a season – sometimes I finish – sometimes I feel like I don’t connect with any of the contestants, or the way they run the show bugs me and I quit watching. So far I’m still watching this season. It seems as though after all the controversy of last season they’re working a bit more on the reasons you are overweight and how to get to a healthy weight. We shall see.

The one person who I really liked was Mike Murburg. He joined The Biggest Loser at 399 lbs and was still grieving the death of his 20 year old son who had been killed during Special Forces training. He seemed to be one of those exceptional men who are tough as nails on the outside and squishy teddy bears on the inside (I have a few of these types of men in my family). He talked a lot about needing to lose his “grief weight” so that he could move on and then lose his other weight. I also liked him because he reminded me of the character Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation who deadpans everything, seems to care about nothing, and has a soft heart of gold underneath it all (and I loved that show because Rob Lowe was on it..)

I’m a few weeks behind on TBL, but yesterday I was watching the episode where Mike was at Last Chance Canyon and was talking to his trainer Bob. He read him this poem that he wrote:

THE LESSER MAN

I fight against the lesser man within.
For he is a coward, a drunkard and a fraud.
He is lazy; he is good companion to no one.
Yet he is and lives and breathes.
He is not my flesh and blood,
but he is in me.
He says less and less these days
for I am no longer interested in what he has to say,
or how he is feeling.
He always repeats his cacaphonic chorus.
He always feels the same – lousy
No, I have finally heard the infant song of my better self.

If you ignore the lesser man he will come back and he will burn that house down.
I am here to nurture it and love it as a child’s,
To grow it strong, sensible and reliable
and teach it love and humility,
to give it kindness
and to listen to its needs and cries.
In a way, it is both a birth
and a rebirth.
A good soul can never be reborn too many times.
Yet a house can only have so many rooms.
and the birth of a new child into an old home
leaves no spare room for the imposter to occupy.
And though he may never completely leave on his own accord,
I can at least guarantee that his stay while here
shall never be a comfortable one.

It spoke to me on so many levels. But the line saying If you ignore the lesser man he will come back and he will burn that house down – that is where I am now. I ignored my lesser man and he came back and burned my house down! I lost a bunch of weight and had myself in a really happy place with good friends and happy kids and a thin body and I ignored the lesser man. I was so sure that I would never gain weight again that I got cocky- then I got fat (and unhappy).  Even more dangerously, I let people on the outside tell that lesser man that he was right (myself included) and that let him grow stronger when I should have been bringing him down.

This poem reminded me that even when I get “to where I want to be” both physically and spiritually, I can never ignore that lesser (wo)man. Being a work in progress means that I’m always a work in progress and I can’t ever forget that.

I am so thankful that Mike wrote this poem and then shared it with the world. It is filled with inspiration and I know I will be returning to read it many times on my journey.

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There is no Try

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” The Empire Strikes Back

I was a kid when the first series of Star Wars movies came out. I loved going to see them in the theatre and thought Yoda was a weirdly cute little green man who spoke in a funny manner. It wasn’t until my son fell into the Star Wars culture that I really stopped and listened to what that weird little green man was saying. Who knew that he was so full of wisdom?

Perhaps one of his best remembered quotes is the one above “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

I came across something very similar to this in one of my morning readings the other day. It told the story of a man who was explaining to someone else how futile it was to say that she would “try” to improve the relationship she had with a family member. To show what he was talking about he picked up a pen and dropped it on the floor. Then he leaned down and started batting away at the pen with his fingers. He began saying “I’m trying to pick up the pen. I’ll just keep trying“. After fumbling around for a while, he finally reached over and grabbed it with his fingers and picked it up.

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

It got me to thinking about all the things I try and do. I’ll try and lose weight. I’ll try to be patient with the kids. I’ll try to be a better friend. I’ll try to get around to cleaning the house (ha! at least that one I know is a feeble try when I say it). I’ll try to be on time. I’ll try to work harder on my coursework. I’ll try to write more.

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

It’s totally true, if I simply said I was going to do something then I would do it. I will be patient with you, no matter what, I will take deep breaths, be present in the moment, accept that not everything will go my way. I will be patient. I will be on time, I will leave early, I will be organized so that I am not running at the last minute. I will be on time. I will work harder on my course work. I will set aside certain hours during the day that are just dedicated to working, it is a priority and something I want to do. I will put in more hours. I will work harder on my course work.

There is no try.

I think I’ve tried to do a lot of things in my life. Knowing what my limitations are (I’m not going to turn invisible or be able to fly realistically in this lifetime) I have to keep focused on what it is I want to do. Then set my intention on doing. Because there is no try.

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Always Find the Funny

This morning after a nice hot shower I was getting dressed and pulled on my hoodie. Too late I realized that I had put it on backwards and was left standing there not only feeling like an idiot, but unable to see. The hood part is kind of tight so it took me a bit of struggling to get myself free. As I was standing there, arms up in the air and face covered by hood I heard the thundering of an Ellaphant (Ella the cat) coming towards me. I heard one meowwww – which I took for cat laughter – and then she started licking my toes. The one thing she knew drives me absolutely insane. She scratchy licked away while I flailed about trying to free myself.

Once properly sorted out I texted the story to a good friend of mine who responded that I had just described the last four years of her life in one funny anecdote.

Which made me giggle because I can relate to that. In the scheme of life I sometimes feel like I’m walking around with my hoodie on my face and someone licking my toes to see if it will drive me insane. And honestly, if I can’t find the funny in these moments I probably will end up a nervous, depressed wreck.

And on the other side of it, had this been one of the kids and I had come across them I would have taken the opportunity to tickle them until they collapsed. Because you have to find the funny in every moment.

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A Person of Infinite Value

If I had to pick our Pastor’s catchphrase it would be that “you are a loved child of God”. She says it at least once a week somewhere during service and I hear her say it often in the hallways of the church, especially to the children. So it’s a phrase that sticks in my head, gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling, and then I move on from it and push it to the back of my mind.

Last year, Jacob was having some sort of friend issue at school. Middle school can be so hard with all the changing hormones and fickle friendships. Everything feels so urgent and important in the moment it’s hard to remind them that all these difficult feelings will soon pass. He was describing some mean things that some of the other kids were saying to him. I tried to come up with something to make him feel better: “middle school is hard. It will all pass soon.” “Maybe they had a really bad morning at home and came to school already angry and took it out on you.” “What they say has really nothing to do with you, it’s a reflection of them.” and “Sometimes people are just jerks.” Nothing was really making him feel any better, and while I knew I couldn’t magically fix the issue, I wanted so badly to give something to make him feel a little bit more happy.

Pastor’s words came back to me then and I reminded him how she always says that “you are a loved child of God.” We always talk about how God made you perfectly and he doesn’t make mistakes (granted I usually am using that in relation to them talking about getting tattoos or something – I add in that you wouldn’t put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari). Something about this really clicked with him and it actually seemed to make things a bit more bearable. You have to be ok because you are a loved child of God. He loves you and He made you and He does not make mistakes.

Fast forward to this year and Jacob’s English teacher uses a phrase that really hit home for me “you are a person of infinite value”. I had to ponder it for days. Immediately I could see that yes Jacob is a person of infinite value and Jenna is a person of infinite value. That part was easy. But if that was true then maybe, perhaps, I am a person of infinite value? That one took me a bit longer to wrap my head around.

My whole life I’ve had at least one person I’ve kept in my closest circle of “people” who has gone out of their way to make sure they told me on a regular basis that I was in fact NOT a person of any kind of value. All the insecurities and doubts I’ve ever had about myself this “friend” (and there have been different ones throughout the years) has voiced loudly and clearly to me – just to remind me that I was not the only one who could see those things that perhaps devalued me. I know other people have had these “friends” in their lives as well whispering in their ear that they’re not good enough, not thin enough, not smart enough, not fun enough, not doing well enough…

As a stay at home mom in an area where most other moms are working I also get questioned by people that I don’t even know about why I’m home with my kids. Why aren’t I out being productive and doing something of value? No matter how many times I try to explain to them that I think what I do has value, that being home for my kids especially when we move every couple of years and never have any outside family support right near us, means that I provide a safe and secure place for the kids to fall back into at the end of their day. By the way, I’ve also done the working mom thing and that’s insanely difficult also – I quickly discovered I could do many things, but I could only balance a couple of things well.

So, I always had this voice in the back of my head questioning my value (and thanks to some poor social choices also sometimes right out there to be heard as well). But I kept thinking of what Jacob kept coming home from school saying that his teacher says “you are a person of infinite value.”

I started thinking what if I am? What if just maybe those other voices were wrong and how I am and what I’m doing does have value? Maybe that nagging voice that says that I screwed myself by giving up my career building years to stay home and raise my kids while we moved and moved is wrong? Maybe there is more value in that for me than any career ever could have given me?

Accepting that I have value, or am a person of infinite value means that I can breathe deep and accept the fact that the choices I’ve made and the things I am doing right now are right. I actually don’t have to prove myself or my value to anyone because I know that I have value and therefore it does not matter what someone else says or feels about what I do. Because it does not matter how they value me because my value is not theirs to judge.

This thinking then led me to those people. The ones who have gone out of their way to be hurtful. If I am a person of infinite value just because I exist, then they also have to be a person of infinite value. Ugh. A little harder to stomach. Much easier to just think of them as assholes. But, the reality is if we are all loved children of God and people of infinite value then even these people have value. I hope there aren’t people out in the world who feel like I’ve set out to destroy them on purpose, but I’m not so naive as to believe that there aren’t people who feel I’ve been less than nice to them. I’m sure there many people whom I’ve hurt, much as I would like to say otherwise.

Just because people have done something hurtful does not change the fact that they also are people of infinite value. Which means getting mad and staying mad about things that they have done or said accomplishes nothing in the long run (easy to say, hard to do). Also that judging them does not work either, because much as my value is not theirs to judge – their value is not mine to judge. No matter how much I feel about them in that moment of hurt. No matter if they really truly are trying to destroy me. Their value as a person is not mine to judge. They are still people of infinite value. Sometimes difficult to feel and believe, but still true nonetheless.

I’ve realized that not every person you meet in your life needs to stay in your life and that some of these people of infinite value are better off just passing through your life. Sometimes you don’t bring out the best in people, have nothing in common, or just don’t click. And that’s ok too. It’s not necessary to put up with someone treating you poorly just because they have value – because that takes away from your value. But, it does not make them a bad person. Just, perhaps, a person whom you should shake hands with and then pass on by.

But, trying to see each and every person I come across daily as a person of infinite value has really made me try and see the best in each person. We all have our struggles, we all have our stories and we are all coping the best way we know. Some of us are in phases where we need more love and assistance than others are. But, we all have infinite value. Even the person who cut you off on your drive home today.

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Quitters sometimes win (something better)

Yesterday was crazy sock day at my daughter’s school. She was so excited, two weeks ago we came across the ugliest, craziest pair of socks and she convinced me to buy them for her so she could go to school and have *the* craziest socks. Well, she did wear those socks and had a lot of fun at school with everyone enjoying her crazy socks.

After school they move the crazy sock party over to the local roller rink and she decided she really wanted to go skating. She’s not had very much experience skating, but I was all for her going and hanging out with her friends and learning how to be more comfortable on her skates.

We went to the rink, paid to get in, paid for the skate rental, and paid for the thing-a-magig that she used to hold onto for balance. She went out onto the rink and I kid you not was out for 15 seconds before she was at the wall crying because she couldn’t make her skates move forward and saying she wanted to quit. I insisted that she head back out to the floor and show me how it was that her skates weren’t moving and after many more tears she turned around shuffled her feet back and forth and wailed “see, I can’t move, this isn’t working. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

So, with her standing there crying about how this was completely impossible to do after her 30 seconds of trying something in me snapped. I said “you need then to make a choice. Either we stay here and you keep tying to skate because trying it is the only way you’re ever going to get any better, or we leave and we go home.”

It went back and forth with her trying to convince me that she could just sit on the side and watch, or that she could go to the playzone (more money), or go get a snack (more money and crappy food). I was trying to convince her that at 9.5 she needed to finally learn how to make those roller skates do what she wanted them to do. After a few minutes of me whisper-yelling and her crying she got off, took off her skates and returned everything. We left the rink with both of us in tears (mine frustration, hers sadness). I pulled the whole “you’re going home and to your room. I am NEVER taking you roller skating again.” And she was sobbing “I could have won the contest for the craziest socks.”

I cranked out in the car the wonderful lecture about quitters and how quitters never get anywhere and how it was better to at least try and fail than it was to just stop and quit. That we aren’t a family of quitters (you know, every guilt trip in the book about quitting).

As we pulled up to the house I said that because she had missed her running club after school to go to this party and since she had not skated at all that she had to come to the river and walk the dog with me. So she sat in the car and cried while I went in and got the happiest dog in the world and put her in the back of the car.

By the time we got down to the river she was still crying and honestly at this time I was at a complete loss for words as to what to say. I realized that I’d got much madder than I should have and also knew that her crying always brings out the absolute worst in me. We walked down the path holding hands and I said that what had happened was over and that what we needed to do was try and focus on the beautiful area we were walking in and see how happy Dottie was and try and let it go. And then I decided to just shut my yapper and try and take everything in.

When I did stop talking and just walked with her holding onto her little hand the most amazing thing happened. She started processing out loud what had happened. She started with how she wished she hadn’t quit, that she had quit because she didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of her friends because she didn’t know how to skate, and that she had ended up looking like an even bigger idiot instead.

That pretty much stopped me right in my tracks. Who hasn’t not tried something new because the people around them already could do it and they didn’t want to look like an idiot? I think of all the things in school I was never brave enough to try because I didn’t want to look stupid in front of everyone else.

My heart went out to her. I shared what I was feeling and said that unfortunately almost everyone has had that same thing happen and that I was sorry I hadn’t been more sensitive to how she was feeling.

She kept on walking and talking and processing what she had been feeling and how she had handled it differently and how she wished she could go back in time and change it.

Then all of a sudden she stopped on the path and looked all around her and said “You know what mom? I’m pretty lucky that I’m here, it’s so pretty and this is actually a much nicer thing to do than to be inside roller skating. I will just let all that go because all it does is make me feel sad and I’m going to really take in how wonderful it is to be right here, right now.”

I have never been so proud of this little girl. I told her that quitting was when you simply stopped doing something and that I didn’t think she was a quitter at all. Nobody who was a quitter would be able to take a negative experience and be able to work through it so thoroughly and be able to see sunshine and joy at the end of it.

We held hands and walked along the beautiful path and my heart was so full of joy that I have been blessed with such an amazing teacher. I am thankful every day for my two kids, they have brought me more joy and love and fulfillment than I could have ever thought possible.

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A Gratitude Reminder

I have an awesome raincoat. I bought it about 8 years ago at Lululemon and I wear it all the time. I always get compliments on it (even after so many years), it keeps me dry and it’s comfortable and I do really like wearing it.

There is an elderly couple in our church whom I love watching and I so admire not only their relationship with each other, but their whole attitude towards life. Last year we had a potluck at church and after we ate there was a band playing music. The only person who got up and danced was this lady. She was so happy and having so much fun and I remember thinking to myself -that’s how I want to age. With joy for life and a bounce in my step. Every week when I see them they are both smiling and look genuinely happy.

Last Sunday I ran into her in the bathroom before church and she complemented me on my raincoat and I responded with something like “Thanks, but I wish I didn’t have to be wearing it today” (it was a chilly, rainy, overcast day).

As soon as I said it I thought in my head ‘here I’ve been working so hard on gratitude and finding things to be thankful for in every little moment. No sooner does someone hand me something so easy to be thankful for and I’m complaining.’ I was still standing there trying to figure out how to turn it around when she did it for me. She answered with “Well yes, but on the days when you need a raincoat you can be thankful you have such a nice one to wear.”

I just answered with “Well said, that’s exactly how I feel. I am thankful for that.”

I’m pretty sure that a big part of how she’s lived such a long and happy life is because she does find those little things to be thankful for that lead to bigger things to be thankful for.

I’m thankful I ran into her. She helped change my perspective.

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Listening for my honeypots

After ranting away here earlier, I did a bit of reading this morning from the book The Tao of Pooh which I have read years ago and kind of fell back into. Winnie The Pooh described perfectly my feelings about needing some silence so I can come back into myself.

“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “We’ve missed our way somehow.”

They were having a rest in a small sand-pit on the top of the Forest. Pooh was getting rather tired of the sand-pit, and suspected it of following them about, because whichever direction they started in, they always ended up at it, and each time, as it came through the mist at then, Rabbit said triumphantly, ‘Now I know where we are!” and Pooh said sadly, “So do I,” and Piglet said nothing. He had tried to think of something to say, but the only thing he could think of was, “Help, help!” and it seemed silly to say that, when he had Pooh and Rabbit with him.

“Well,” said Rabbit, after a long silence in which nobody thanked him for the nice walk they were having, “we’d better get on, I suppose. Which way shall we try?”

“How would it be,” said Pooh slowly, “if as soon as we’re out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?”

“What’s the good of that?” asked Rabbit.

“Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought if we looked for this Pit, we’d be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren’t looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really.”

“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit…

“If I walked away from this Pit, and then walked back to it, of course I should find it.”

“Well, I just thought perhaps you wouldn’t,” said Pooh. “I just thought.”

“Try,” said Piglet suddenly. “We’ll wait here for you.”

Rabbit gave a laugh to show how silly Piglet was, and walked into the mist. After he had gone a hundred yards, he turned and walked back again… and after Pooh and Piglet had waited twenty minutes for him, Pooh got up.

“I just thought,” said Pooh. “Now then, Piglet, let’s go home.”

“But Pooh,” cried Piglet all excited, “do you know the way?”

“No,” said Pooh. “But there are twelve pots of honey in my cupboard, and they’ve been calling to me for hours. I couldn’t hear them properly before, because Rabbit would talk, but if nobody says anything except those twelve pots, I think, Piglet, I shall know where they’re calling from. Come on.”

They walked off together; and for a long time Piglet said nothing, so as not to interrupt the pots; and then suddenly he made a squeaky noise… and an oo-noise… because now he began to know where he was; but he still didn’t dare to say so out loud, in case he wasn’t. And just when he was getting so sure of himself that it didn’t matter whether the pots went on calling or not, there was a shout in front of them, and out of the mist came Christopher Robin. 

(The Tao of Pooh, pp12-14)

Something I have truly learned for myself on my journey is that I can’t hear anything of any great importance unless I have allowed myself to settle into silence. It’s when my body, mind and soul are relaxed and quiet that I truly can truly hear and absorb what is important. If there is nonstop noise be it another person, the TV, or music I can’t settle into silence.

When I first started meditating and trying to embrace silence I found it really difficult. Then I had to listen to all the garbage that was running in my head and I had to figure out what to do with that. So, I understand why some people fill empty space with nonstop noise. However the new me has learned to not only embrace, but crave that time of stillness.

If I don’t have quiet I can’t hear my honeypots calling me so I know which direction to go.

By no means do I want or need quiet all day long, but this time of the morning seems to be an important one for me for setting up my day.

That being said, I took my Dotted Dog out a bit later and we did go for our walk. It was wonderful.

The happiest dog in the world:

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The beautiful scenery I enjoy on my walk:

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This is my favourite tree. It kind of looks like he’s dipping his toes in the water

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I am so thankful that I did manage to get out and enjoy this beauty. It DID in fact set me up for a wonderful day and I am incredibly thankful for that.

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Meditation noises

I was watching a really bad show yesterday. I’m almost ashamed to admit it it was so bad. I knew it was not my type of show and yet kept watching it anyway. It was Garfunkel and Oats – which may be some people’s cup of tea, but as I was watching it all I could think was “they cancelled The Crazy Ones yet decided this was acceptable, entertaining tv?” Yet I kept watching. In my defense I was folding laundry and had very little going on in the brain activity department at the time.

At some point in the show the two main characters decided to meditate. As they sat there you got a little glimpse into the horrors that were going on inside their brains. After a couple of minutes they both opened their eyes and looked at each other and said something like ‘meditating is terrible, it brings up all the truths about ourselves that we we try to hide from by watching tv’.

and I was like OMG, that is so true. In fact I was probably doing it right then. I could have had a quiet meditative moment, or listened to some relaxing music (Deval Primal makes my spirit sing), but instead I decided to drown whatever thoughts I had running in my brain with tv. Now, I’m not saying that all the noises that my brain need to be listened to. Nor is the purpose of meditation to listen to those noises. But sometimes when I’m meditating, these little irritating truths that I’ve been trying to hide from surface and I have to deal with them. Things that I didn’t know or thought I’d been able to hide from myself (ha!) come raging out into the open when I sit in my silence connecting to the Source. Sometimes I don’t want to. But I do have to say that my life has become better since I’ve been meditating. Since I’ve been able to learn how to sit in stillness. Since the quiet in my brain isn’t as scary as it used to be.

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