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Once you have chosen what exfoliant to use, you will need to add it to your soap recipe. The perfect spot to add exfoliants is right after your soap has reached trace and you are adding your fragrance, superfat or color to the soap batch. With most exfoliants, because of their fine granular nature, you will want to mix them beforehand with a carrier oil so you don't have to worry about lumps in your soap. There is nothing worse than finding huge pockets of exfoliant in your soap when you are using the soap. Once you have added the exfoliant to the soap mixture, you just need to mix it in thoroughly. Some exfoliants may thicken your soap batch while you are stirring it. Don't panic! Your soap will be fine. Just continue to mix the soap but get it into the mold quickly before it thickens beyond your ability to fill the mold. At this point, you would treat this soap as you would any other soap and allow it to saponify for a few days, cut it and then let it dry in bars.

Fluid (kombucha tea) needed:
14.84 - 19.61 fluid oz

added patchouli and cedar essential oils

The basic ingredients you will need to make your own laundry soap are:

• 3 oz soap (preferably homemade)
• half a cup washing soda
• half a cup borax

Soap: You really can use any bar of soap you like for this. I tend to like to use a simple soap that is made of 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 palm oil and 1/3 coconut oil that has been made with very little superfat discount. You will need to use about 3-4 oz of soap for this recipe.

Washing Soda: The biggest supplier of washing soda is Arm and Hammer. Because of this you might get confused between this product and their baking soda product. They are not the same! Washing soda is sodium carbonate whereas baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. This powder will give your soap a boost in removing dirt and odors.

Borax: This ingredient is a naturally occurring mineral that helps remove various forms of oils and dirts as well as deodorizing the laundry. Borax is just another name for sodium borate and can be found in most grocery stores in the laundry aisle.

The process of putting these ingredients together is not very time consuming and is well worth the cost savings per load of laundry (it costs about a penny a load). Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use half a cup per load. You now have homemade laundry soap!

When you use this soap, you will notice it does not act like laundry detergent when cleaning your clothes. The homemade soap will be a little thiner of a gel than detergent and you will not notice as many soap bubbles when washing. This is perfectly natural and in fact, the bubbles do not indicate any type of cleaning properties. Now enjoy your freedom from the laundry detergent companies!

The actual use of the clay is fairly simple. One way you can use it is in a face-mask. The anti-bacterial properties and the toxin absorbing properties of the clay will work effectively against various types of acne. The clay will also give you skin a radiant glow. To make such a mask, you just need to get a quarter of a cup of bentonite powder and mix in enough water to make a substance that is similar to room-temperature butter. After applying the clay to your face and allowing it to dry, wash off the clay and apply a gentle moisturizer to replace any rancid oil that the clay has removed from your skin.

To take the clay internally, you will want to start out with no more than a teaspoon of clay in an entire glass of water. Your body will need to adjust to the clay just as it does to adding fiber to your diet. The key is to not intake too much clay as to have it start absorbing water from your body making you dehydrated. The more clay you drink, the more you may notice your bowel movements to turn grey. This is normal but it does mean you should not increase the amount of clay you are intaking.

Overall, bentonite powder is a nice natural way to gently flush your body of harmful toxins and heavy metals as well as making your skin look amazing.

Equipment Needed

The first ingredient you will need is soft water. You can obtain this by buying soft distilled water (no mineral water), getting water from a dehumidifier or the traditional way is to collect rain water in a barrel. This ingredient by far is the most important to get right to ensure a good leaching of lye. Next you will need a container with a spout at the bottom. Traditionally this has been a wooden barrel with a hole drilled on the bottom big enough for a cork but if you don't have access to wooden barrels, you can easily use a cooler with a spout at the bottom. You will also need rocks and straw or cheese cloth to filter the ash. The final ingredient you need is wood ashes. The best ashes to use are hardwoods and you want to avoid evergreens (like pine and fir). Other things you can use are ashes of herbs and flowers to add a special touch to your lye.

Quick Reference

• Soft Water
• Rocks
• Straw, grass or cheese cloth
• Container with a closable spout at the bottom
• Wood ash
• A wood, glass or plastic bucket to collect the lye water. (no metal)

Fluid (water and honey) needed:
15.12 - 19.98 fluid oz

vanilla and rose fragrance

Safety Equipment
Safety First! You will need a pair of safety goggles and a pair of safety gloves. Lye is extremely caustic. You'll notice just how caustic if you leave it open on a humid day. You might want to also consider an apron specifically for making soap. Unless you're like me and you think holes in your jeans are cool.

Although 'zafu' is often translated as 'sewn seat' in American English, the meaning of the Japanese 'kanji' is different. 'za' means 'seat' and 'fu' means a seat stuffed with Typha (the fluffy, soft, downy fibres of the disintegrating Typha heads). The Japanese zafu originates in China, where these meditation seats were originally filled with Typha. Today, that is no longer the case in Japan or China. An alternate translation of zafu is 'cushion for sitting' or 'sitting cushion', where za means 'sitting' or 'sit' and fu means 'cushion'. The words zabuton, zafuton and futon are closely linked. The word 'zazen' meaning 'seated meditation' or 'sitting meditation' is also closely linked. In western terms, colloquially speaking, 'zafu' refers to a meditation cushion, and 'zabuton' refers to the cushioned mat on which a zafu is placed.

Metaphysical Farms offers soap making tutorials, soap recipes, a free lye calculator and recipe creation as well as homeopathy and meditation techniques to support your sustainable lifestyle

Someone suggested in a recent post about meditation that I look into the effects of Binaural Beats. I had researched the subject several years ago and had good results but the technology for generating the audio was still in its proprietary phase and so the (free) tools that I was using required C compilers and building your own waveforms in text files. Today, there are binaural sound production application all over the mobile market as well as for home usage.

For those unfamiliar with binaural audio (or binaural beats), the basic premise is that playing two different frequencies, one in the left ear and the other in the right, results in a perceived third frequency. Scientific research has shown that the aural effects are measurable and actually do create these audio frequency hallucinations as well as physical responses to the hallucinated sound as if the listener was actually "hearing" the sound. Further research has shown that brainwave patterns will begin to move closer to the frequency of continual sound. This process is called entrainment and it is this process that has lead to the study and use of binaural beats to change brainwave patterns to reach a desired mental state. The table below lists observed brainwave frequencies and what they are associated with when observing them:

Binaural beat stimulation has been used fairly extensively to induce a variety of states of consciousness, and there has been some work done in regards to the effects of these stimuli on relaxation, focus, attention, and states of consciousness. Studies have shown that with repeated training to distinguish close frequency sounds that a plastic reorganization of the brain occurs for the trained frequencies. So, in theory, those that have trouble quieting the mind or sitting still long enough to focus for meditation could use this method to train the mind to be able to enter into these brainwave states.

How the Kidney Works

The duties of the kidneys are best described by calling them the filters of the blood. Your blood flows constantly through your kidneys to be purified or filtered. You might be surprised to learn that more than 500 grains of waste matter, acids and poisons have to be moved from the blood through the kidneys every 24 hours. You can easily see, therefore, that on this filtering and eliminating depends your health, to a very great extent. Let the kidneys fail to function properly and nature will call your attention to it right away. When your kidneys fail to function correctly you will feel depressed and tired, restless at night, and pains in the back will show up. There might be scanty urine or a desire to urinate frequently. Your head will ache and many other aches and pains will be making their appearance. You really cannot be surprised that you do not feel well. Just figure your kidneys would do only half the work and eliminate only 250 grains of waste, what will become of the other 250 grains? They will be carried back into your blood and poison your system. Watch, therefore, your kidneys and deal with even minor irregularity promptly.To avoid trouble be careful with your diet. Americans consume daily 80 grams of meat or nearly 3 ounces more of proteinthus attempting to dispose of about 35 grams more than we have capacity for. This overload gradually smashes the kidneys and throws them out of commission.

How to do the Kidney Cleanse

The kidney cleanse is a 3-day fast during which you must drink large quantities of distilled water and apple juice. You can drink up to a gallon of each, separately or mixed together. If you haven't tried a fast before, don't worry this cleanse is perfectly healthy. You may be a little hungry, but the apple juice will give you energy and help you feel more full. You can start checking for kidney stones immediately after your first drink of apple juice. Use a simple tea strainer to look for them - they might be very small so look carefully. Not everyone passes kidney stones on this cleanse, but even if you don't its very healthy and will prevent any future problems.