The best part of being away is coming home. I love being a Canadian.

Five Reasons:

1. Diverse
2. Small and mighty
3. Refined and wild
4. Marriage for everyone.
5. One year maternity leave for mommas or pappas

- Carrie, Refined Treasure

Oh! this is good. I’m inspired to add my 5:

1. Free luggage carts at the Vancouver Airport (so civilized!)
2. Leonard Cohen is from Montreal
3. Hello! Socialized health care!
4. We steered clear of the Iraq war…for the most part.
5. Maple syrup from the Laurentians

- Danielle, Sacred Dramatic, Ontario born and raised

. . . . . . . .

Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred.
- Christina Baldwin

Rituals ensure that we pay close attention to what’s happening. As Joseph Campbell put it, rites and commemorations “link us to the larger structure”—life beyond what we see. Between gift registries, cocktails, and daily calendars, a small ritual anchors us to the bigness of our lives unfolding.

IDEAS for SIMPLE RITUALS and CELEBRATION-MARKERS:
For Grown-ups:

• For a friend’s birthday: Write a letter to your friend’s child… about your friend (and let your friend read it, of course). “Dear Junior, I’ve known your mom forever and let me tell why she’s so amazing…”
• Daily love notes: Keep a spiral notebook and pen in the bathroom or kitchen to communicate back ‘n’ forth with your partner. For everything from “Babe, I’ll return the rented DVD,” and “Thanks for the hot night,” to “What I love most about you today is…,” this is an easy way to regularly acknowledge each other.
• Wish beads: For a baby shower, have each guest bring two beads or charms to string into a strand of wishes. As the beads are strung on, a wish is recited (and recorded, if you want) for the baby and the mama. (This can also be done for couples getting married. One wish bead for the bride and one for the groom. Feel free to mix this wish bead ritual with stagette cocktails.)

The season of gifting is upon us. Before you head to the mall, think about this:

Landfill or Love?

Here are our favorite gifts to give that are not only low-impact on the environment, but are original, entertaining, comforting, and illuminating:

Event tickets: From Eric Clapton to the Nutcracker, the NHL, or The Doodle Bops, check out www.ticketmaster.com or www.inticketing.com (one tree planted per ticket sold) for events in cities across North America. Wrap it up with the CD or DVD related to the event. This works for international gift-giving, too. Check out the internet for events, restaurants, and attractions in the country where the gift recipient lives. Pay online and there’s no international shipping involved. Many such sites have an English option, if needed.

I am open to receive with every breath I breathe.
- Michael Sun

Your breath is keeping you alive right now. It is essential to life, and yet so easy to take for granted. Shamans use their breath to transport themselves to other dimensions. Yogis see breath as a fundamental force of the universe, the pranayama (prana “vital energy” + yama “self-control”). When we are mindful of our breath we speak and move more gracefully, we are less ignited by life’s struggles, we are more present to what is really going on in ourselves and around us.

THIS WEEK: Create three deep-breath habits. Because it’s so easy to tune out our breathing, it’s really useful to create breathing triggers that can become behaviors. So choose three moments or situations this week that will be your deep-breath moments. The moment before you answer the phone, the moment you open the door to leave, before you take a sip of water, whenever you press send on an email… take one deep breath.

Before you click to close this email message… breathe in and out to let go, breathe in and out to feel what remains, and breathe in and out to flow forward.

One deep breath can soothe pain, annoyances, and hot tempers.
One deep breath can bring a flash of genius or the answer you’ve been searching for.
One deep breath can change your course completely and rightly.

P.S.
A few noteworthy breath-work guides from some of our favorite teachers:

• Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing, by Andrew Weil
• Meditation for Optimum Health: How to Use Mindfulness and Breathing to Heal Your Body and Refresh Your Mind, by Andrew Weil and Jon Kabat-Zinn
• The Breathing Box: 4 Weeks to Healthy Breathing, by Gay Hendricks, with cards, supplement, CD (audio), and DVD

We love beginnings, we appreciate ritual, we believe that the vision you carry in your heart helps create your reality… and there’s no time like a new year to paint a fresh and vivid picture of what you desire.

Our Lifestyle Map is a simple layout of the major domains of self-expression and relating. We typically offer it to Style Statement clients as a guide for journaling about their Style Statement. We encourage them to actively ask themselves “What’s the spirit, the look, and the feel?” of their Style Statement in every area of their life.

The Lifestyle Map is also a great tool for examining what’s working and not working in each area of your life, or listing what you’re grateful for, or managing your weekly to-do list. We have various versions of the Lifestyle Map posted on our fridges, bulletin boards, and in our daily planners. And we’ve used it the last few years with our husbands to map out the year ahead.

Create your twenty percent  weekend. Do it now, today,  don’t wait for next weekend. This is about you, for you.

Five easy steps.

1. Take your second word, what you yearn for, long for and desire. Read the definition out loud.
2. Next, choose an area in the Life Style map mindful that “what you focus on expands” Maybe an area that’s not working as well as you would like it to. Romance, wellness, inspiration, wealth.
3. Create an action that supports your 20%;  A hike up the local mountain, shop for that eggplant sweater you desire, a morning in bed with your loved one.  Choose, say it out loud, write it down, make it real.
4. Be in action – this is the piece de resistance. Allow yourself the pleasure.
5. What did you do? How was it? Love to hear.

Liz Earle believes in affordable natural skincare. Like a chef creating recipes from fresh ingredients Liz works  with local  farmers, Wiltshire Rngland.  with shops in Europe and America her message is

1. Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser makes everyone’s skin look more radiant from the first time you use it
2. Plant oils are better for your skin than mineral oil.
3. Getting out in the fresh air every morning is a great tonic and the best start to the day.
4. Natural source vitamin E is much more potent than the synthetic kind.
5. Body brushing is an easy and inexpensive way of keeping the skin smooth, especially on lumpy, bumpy areas.
6. Quality “me-time” is fast becoming a precious luxury.
7. Skincare should be simple and the 3 easy steps to healthy beautiful skin are to cleanse, tone and moisturize twice daily.
8. Every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours after midnight.
9. It‘s vital to ensure that your customers are happy; if you commit to exceeding customer expectations they will come back to you time and time again.
10. We all need to take responsibility for the beautiful planet we live on – after all it is our legacy.

Joshua Onysko has lived his thirty odd years with passion and purpose: the kind of guy you’d want to date, have your daughter (cousin) date, have your son grow up to be. His bio is wild and mindful.  A traveler of life, actor, ski vagabond, savior of sea turtles and social entrepreneur. In 2000, Pangea Organics was created from Joshua’s desire to bond with his mother, it happened over making soap! Pangea is a line of organic skin and body care, ranging from cold-processed bar soap to shower gel liquid soap, as well as skin care and massage oils. Saving the world with soap! Making a difference each step of the way: employees are well paid,  created plantable packaging and  “We are going over to Zambia, and micro-financing a women-owned cooperative to grow and process our rosemary, geranium, and rose-grass oils, and it’s women who have been widowed by HIV.” He’s our kind of guy!

We asked,

10 Things I know for Sure

1. The future is coming, and I like what it looks like.
2. Women are smarter than men.
3. Pangea is the best skin care company in the world.
4. Natalie Portman will ask me out some day.
5. The only true answers in life are the ones that are not written.
6. Sex will never go out of style.
7. The fringe always predicts the future.
8. We must learn to see the positive, or we will be blinded by the negative
9. Love does conquer all….that’s why we all need a great pre nuptial.
10. That for being a reader of Carrie and Danielle, Pangea is going to place a holiday order at 50% off, email us at Holiday@pangeaorganics.com with Carrie and Danielle in the subject line.

Wrapping Paper

Home Decor, magazine, Architectural plans

Geogrpahy buff, animal lover, National Geographic: for the  wrap gift with Peruvian

Boots are always a Style Statement.  From classic knee-high to sporty hiking styles, boots are a must have fashion piece, there’s just so much choice it can be overwhelming.  So close your eyes and imagine shopping relaxed and trusting your own perspective!  Style Statement guides you in discovering  two magical descriptive words that name your essence and aesthetic.  A compass for making choices: what you buy, what you say, how you interact. When you know  what moves you, what inspires you, what you’re attracted to the result is ease and efficiency. Oh and less mistakes in your wardrobe. Here’s a tip, view top designers then buy in relation to your style and budget.

Which boots are you?

Are  you Modern? You like to be in style and in sync, a bit edgy and unique. Gucci’s black patent leather suede trim ankle boots are for you!

A little bit rock and roll, a lot Bold?  Sexy, playful and eye catching is you! Check out these leopard print tall boots from Guiseppe Zanotti.

A bit nostalgic?  A yearning for London in the sixties? Michael Kors black patent leather Kensington ankle boot pays homage to what has gone before, vintage!

Classic? Prada leather buckle riding boots do the job for work and weekends. Classic likes to go for the best quality, simple and harmonious. Also love historical references.

Natural? Need to pick the kids up from school, take the dog for a walk and email clients on the run Hunter rain boots work for you because Naturals are down to earth, genuine and easy going.

Ten Things I know for sure

Lynn Kanuka, 1984 Olympic track & field medalist, entrepreneur, mother or four, Canada.

“The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.” — Will Durant



Carrie says: Not essential, but a powerful way to grow, stretch and open your heart. My first year of marriage was painfully difficult; adjusting to being with another, letting go, and at the same time learning to stand my ground. Now, I love being married, having a life partner…we are expanding together.



Jessica says: I think it’s an individual thing. Some will tell you they don’t need another to be complete, some think they can’t be fulfilled without a partner. All I know for certain is that personally, right now, a life partner sounds pretty awesome.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” — Carl Jung



Carrie says: For me the beauty of love is in the contrast, both complicated and simple. Does it depend on the individual? Maybe. My husband says I am complicated, he also says I am quirky and interesting!



Jessica says: I think love is simple, but we overthink it until it becomes complicated. Nothing misrepresents love more than an explanation.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” — Mark Twain



Carrie says: I will forgive myself for not listening to my intuition. For allowing myself to think that because others have more experience, education or money they know best. I know what works for me and to neglect my inner voice is disrespecting me, god and the universe.



Jessica says: I gotta forgive myself for wearing my heart on my sleeve — constantly. And for not knowing exactly where I’m going at the moment. Emotions are meant to be felt, and life is going to straighten itself out. I have to sit myself down and repeat that.

“Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; Behind the clouds the sun is shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



Carrie says: I don’t believe in destiny. I believe we create our life, that good attracts good and when life exposes pain, struggle and hardship there is an opportunity to ask “Is this a repeating lesson?” or “What can I learn from this experience?”.



Jessica says: I’m not 100% sure what I believe, but at this point, holding on to the fact that everything does happen for a reason allows me to see beyond obstacles and setbacks. There is a reason for this…just hold tight and you’ll learn it soon.

There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take one with a heart.” — Lao Tzu



Carrie says: Enjoyment!!! The joy of crisp fresh air, the joy of puppy breath and coming home…Life expands with bliss.
.



Jessica says: Enjoyment. I understand the need for some to reach their bliss through restriction, but I’ve never responded well to that theory.  I feel closest to God when I’m (like Carrie) blissfully entangled in goodness.

“You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.” — Ralph Marston



Carrie says: I keep positive energy alive by giving thanks. I am truly blessed with my health, my family and friends. I have moments of grey, wondering ‘why me?’, and in those moments I feel my feelings and then move gracefully towards what is light and positive. I feel positive because I have experienced negative, contrast is a great teacher.
 



Jessica says: I pray. I give thanks when things go right, thanks when things go wrong (at least they’re not worse) and constantly ask for guidance. The more I pray, the less alone I feel, and the easier it is to be consistently happy.

“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.” — James Arthur Baldwin



Carrie says: Delighting my taste buds! I am in Thunder Bay and a fabulous chef, Fern, is serving dinner at my sis’s!! A feast of beauty and flavor!
 



Jessica says: By indulging — just enough — in anything I please!

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” — Maya Angelou

“I like vending machines, because snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at the store, oftentimes I will drop it so that is achieves its maximum flavor potential.” — Mitch Hedberg



Carrie says: My favorite meal of the day is breakfast! After a great run or yoga class I love to have a big bowl of steel cut oats. Top it with Canadian maple syrup and I’m good to go!
 



Jessica says: I second breakfast. There’s nothing better than cereal (3 different kinds at once, of course!) with berries, banana, and a hot mug of English Breakfast tea. Heaven.
 

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.” — Blaise Pascal

““Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.” — Eileen Caddy



Carrie says: Today’s indulgence is spending time with my sister and her family, and connecting with my nieces’ amazing uniqueness and speedy growth!.
 



Jessica says: Squishing my schedule around so I can get into a Bikram Yoga class. The first time I did it, it was amazing, so I need to see if that feeling returns!
 

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” — Albert Einstein



Carrie says: You don’t have to drink eight glasses of water a day! Your body regulates how much you need; are you thirsty, have dry lips? The ultimate test is when you pee — if it’s dark yellow you need more water, light yellow, be mellow!.
 



Jessica says: Being 100% balanced and at peace is boring.
 

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it
will be too late.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson



Carrie says: I will be present to each connection throughout the day. Will not allow the Satori, annoying little voice in my head, to get in the way of being of service.
 



Jessica says: I’ve got to be more keen on listening, as well as putting myself in the other person’s shoes. I will spend today focusing on the words tattooed on my back: Strength and Compassion.
 

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – J. R. R. Tolkien



Carrie says: Creamy rich Lamb Popsicles, at one of the best Indian restaurants in the world, Vij’s. My husband takes me there every year for our anniversary! A Vancouver delight and must for any one who visits!
 



Jessica says: A Mr. Frosty ice cream cone on one of the hottest days I’d ever experienced in NYC. I’m aware that ice cream is not a meal, but it was so satisfying at the time I almost collapsed onto the sidewalk.
 

“I don’t like myself, I’m crazy about myself”. – Mae West



Carrie says: Live my Style Statement’s second word and Treasure the day in every way; my body and spirit, every relationship and business moment!
 



Jessica says: I’m going to push myself at the gym today. Loving myself means working that fitness!
 

“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.” – Robert Louis Stevenson



Carrie says: Running in the forest sets all my creative juices wild! I come back from a run with a clear head and an abundance of ideas!
 



Jessica says: Singing or dancing to live music. It’s the most transient experience…nothing else like it for me!
 

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” – Victor Hugo



Carrie says: The song that would best describe me right now would be The Sound Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel. I am welcoming more silence into my life, observing and listening to its voice, and life is offering wonderful opportunities and lessons in return.
 



Jessica says: Now more than ever, Joyful Girl by Ani DiFranco. The entire song feels immensely personal to me, but I’ve always loved the lines “I do it for the joy it brings/ because I’m a joyful girl / because the world owes me nothing/ and we owe each other the world“.
 

“The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.” – Jean Cocteau



Carrie says: I have several cotton, spaghetti-strap, long undershirts I wear under everything as well as to bed. When I wear them, I feel like a dancer.
 



Jessica says: It’s really all about the underwear. I feel like a woman’s drawers should be stocked with cute and sexy underwear — doesn’t matter if anyone’s gonna see ‘em. A pair of cute underwear can make a girl feel spot on all day long.
 

““In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer”.” – Albert Camus



Carrie says: I adore winter hibernating; spending nights all cozy and snug in my home, creating winter stews, reading and cuddling with my husband.
 



Jessica says: Those long walks I can take in complete and utter stillness, where it’s so quiet I can literally hear the trees move. It’s impossible not to be struck by Mother Nature during those walks.