Eden & Elle Magazine January 2009 - Page 1 - Contents 3 4 6 10 16 20 22 32 36 38 41 42 46 48 Editors letter Ekaterina – Worldly woman Debra – Woman of loving Prosperity Monthly Interview –Josselyne Herman-Saccio, United Global Shift Anonymous – Miracle Belief, a life story about faith & believing EXCLUSIVE! Tips for an even more beautiful you 97% Model of the Month – T. Marlene – Winner BBW MySpace 2008 Richard – Healing Man (guest writer) NEW! The Monthly Alternative Ward – Wingman of Thoughts NEW! Noticeboard Erotic Joy of the Month Poetic Thoughts & Feelings The five most important words in your life Editors letter Dear Gals & Pals, Happy New Year!!! Welcome to the January issue 2009 issue of Eden & Elle, the magazine which combines eye opening, true to the heart articles with timely information on a multitude of subjects, a revealing and in depth interview and features the 'everyday' woman – women of all shapes, size and ages in a photo shoot showing that they can look just as beautiful posing for a glamour photographer as the latest centerfold. 2008 was a turbulent year for many with the financial crisis being the icing on the cake so to speak, but I am utterly convinced that 2009 will be the beginning of an awesome time for each and every one of you. Yes, it will require emotional work, but I trust that Eden & Elle will be one of the platforms that helps you achieve your desires. Like minds produce like results, so together we can make the change this world. This issue is packed with wonderful insights and I encourage you to take the time to read each and every article written for all of them contain a message that is beneficial in some form or other. Share Eden & Elle with your friends and let them reap the rewards that it contains. I have the great pleasure of introducing you to Richard Gentle, a man whos’ insights are astounding and is capable of putting them into word everyone can understand. Ward de Craene joins us from now on as a monthly contributor so get ready for some exquisite writing and experiences! Our monthly interview is with a person I admire deeply and thoroughly enjoyed talking to. Josselyne Herman-Saccio is a multi talented woman who though very busy workwise and now is focussing on helping the people on this planet in more ways than one. Her cause United Global Shift, along with PeacePromises and Art of Peace is causing a tidal wave shift in awareness – don’t miss it! The exclusive on page 16 is written by a man who wishes to remain anonymous but his story is one that will have you in tears of sadness then joy and shows you that belief is very powerful. Steve and his soulmate are on vacation but should be back in time for the february issue, Eden & Elle wishes them a wonderful holiday! I’m certain that their travels will give them fuel for exciting and helpful articles in future issues. Our 97% Model of the Month is T. Marlene. She is the winner of the Ms. BBW MySpace 2008 contest and a darn gorgeous one! T. Marlene is on a mission to change the focus of the fashion industry. As a plus size model she is taking the modelling industry by storm and judging from her photos it won’t be long before she succeeds. With Debras’ article you receive extremely valuable tips on how to go about living a fiscal and environmentally friendly better life. If we all had the habits she does we would be living in a much cleaner, more prosperous world. Ekaterina writes about her Russian New Years’ and of course much, much more.... Take the time to let the words written in this issue seep into the core of your being and I am certain a shift in the positive direction will take place. Enjoy! Yours warmly, Désirée Deul Chief Editor Ekaterina – Worldly Woman Coming from Russia, Ekaterina lived in 4 different countries and speaks 4 different languages. She worked as a financial analyst of banks and as a headhunter and currently is writing a PhD thesis in the UK. In her spare time Ekaterina writes, dances, reads Tarot cards and studies shamanism, tantra and magic. She has her own blog, well worth reading: http://otterwisdom.blogspot.com Holiday season.....Doing something nice? In Russia, contrary to most countries in Western Europe, it’s the New Year which is the most important day rather than Christmas. We do celebrate Christmas as well, but it’s on Seventh of January (orthodox Christmas) and until recently, it was a long forgotten feast, as under communism no one really took notice of that day. However, even now, it’s New Year, which is long-awaited for and when family and friends gather together. Celebrating New Year in Russia is a totally different experience than in Western Europe. First of all, even teenagers prefer to wait till the clock rings twelve with their family. Secondly, there is a big festive table loaded with the most delicious food. And thirdly, there is usually some snow, which allows people to continue celebrating outside with a glass of champagne. My own New Year experiences were always full of surprises. Once I remember that I was hesitating for days between either celebrating New Year with my family or going to a party of my best friend (there would be still loads of nice home-made food). On the thirtieth of December my boyfriend and a female friend of mine came for a cup of tea. I was living alone then, at the age of eighteen. While sipping our tea we realized that we wanted something different for New Year. We all wanted some kind of adventure so at some point we came up with the idea to organize the New Year at my house, with only four of us, my boyfriend, his friend, my female friend and me. This was at the time when it was still difficult to get food at shops. Especially on the thirty-first of December. The whole day, the four of us went running around the shops for food. We succeeded in the end and when we finally sat at the table at ten o’clock at night we had so many dishes on it that the following day I had to put food into plastic boxes to give it to my friends returning home! It was the best New Year I can ever remember. My boyfriend proposed that evening, I ended up not marrying him, but this New Year surprise stayed in my heart. Another New Year was one I had in a taxi with one of my best friends and her mother. My dad was then dating another woman (with my mom, already divorced being in another country). He had sent the three of us to some kind of wellness center near Moscow to celebrate New Years’ eve there. When we arrived we immediately realized that behind a luxury hotel promised to my father by his friend was something much worse than the cheapest hostel. So, at seven in the evening we took the train back to Moscow arriving there around ten. When we entered the apartment of my best friend’s mother we quickly concluded that without a tree and food this New Years’ eve would be the worst memory ever. The only festive item in the house was the bottle of champagne. There was no other solution than to call my father to announce that we were coming to my house, where he wished to celebrate the New Year with his new love, just two of them. Fortunately we took the bottle of champagne with us, because by the time we found a taxi it was already ten to twelve. A minute before midnight, we asked the cab driver to pull over for two minutes to drink some champagne before continuing our journey. Fortunately, once we arrived at my house, we had a very warm welcome. Both my dad and his date were meeting us with glasses of champagne on the stairs. One final New Year I’ll share is one where I had to participate at karaoke at my other best friend’s house. I consider myself an awful singer, but that day after many glasses of champagne I thought I was a queen of pop music, and won many goodies. After having moved to Western Europe I quickly realized that the way New Years’ eve is celebrated here is not the same as in Russia. There is less anticipation, less yummy, delicious food and gorgeous presents. And most importantly, there are much less surprises. I miss Russian New Years. Ekaterina can be reached at thoughts@edenandelle.com Debra – Woman of loving Prosperity Debra Schneider is a single mom with prosperity consciousness, is old enough to have wisdom and young and healthy enough to enjoy it. After having travelled extensively through Europe and The States, she now resides in New York State together with her daughter. 100 HABITS FOR A FISCALLY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE LIFE The wild economic swings of the past few months have left most of us breathless. And many also penniless. I have listened to upbeat, normally positive friends extol the gloom and doom of the planet. I have seen politicians scramble to take blame, place blame and attempt to avoid shame as they prophesize the worst fiscal crisis of the past two centuries. I have certainly seen my net worth diminish. But I am not in the least bit concerned. Let’s look at worst case scenario. Out on the street with no food, no home, no Blahniks. Yes, these are cruel times. So why I am not worried? Well besides remembering the wisdom of everyone from Bob Marley to Bobby McFerrin to Alfred E. Newman, I have great fiscal habits. I always have. I have my mother to thank for this. Her philosophy about money was a simple one. ALWAYS LIVE UNDER YOUR MEANS. I always thought this was plain common sense. I never realized until the s—t hit the fan that I was living like an alien from another planet. I could hardly wrap my brain around subprime mortgages. I was initially livid at the bankers and mortgage brokers who lied to honest hard working people about the type of loan that they were being issued. Balloon mortgage. Variable mortgage. Fancy terms to hide exorbitant rates at the end of the tunnel. But then I heard another story. In fact many home owners were told to lie about their incomes. Many of these people have said to their children at one time or another, “So if your friends asked you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?” Yet, they feel they have no responsibility for the results of a lie they told on a legal document. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. My personal opinion is that every banker, mortgage broker or stock broker that took a subprime mortgage should be held fiscally responsible for their part in the crisis. The multimillion dollar bonuses should be paid back. The retirement funds should be used to create a fund for homeowners that have been harmed by the scandal. I also think homeowners that lied on their applications should be liable as well. All privileges come with responsibility. Again another shot of wisdom from my mom who is getting smarter and smarter the older I get. OK . This is not going to be done. The law makers and the bankers/brokers are in bed together and it will take many Obama terms to unravel the nightmare. But I think instead of waiting for President Elect Obama (perhaps President by the time you read this) to make it all right again, we could all adopt a few habits that would support his efforts to set us on the right track. So I have created my list of 100 Habits that you can practice so that we can clean the planet of the bad Karma that we have endured for the last 8 years. And being that it is just before the New Year (Chinese maybe?) you can call them resolutions……NAH, call them habits because there is a protocol for developing a habit, while with a resolution you can always change your mind. Habit Number 1 IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE MONEY IN THE BANK…..DON’T BUY IT The credit card companies will love me for this one. I am actually not saying not to use a credit card. On the contrary, I have 3 and use them for absolutely everything. I just pay them off each and every month. Now just think about how crazy you think that sounds….then think about how crazy it is that you think this is crazy. Habit Number 2 USE THE CREDIT OF CREDIT CARD COMPANIES FOR YOUR OWN BENEFIT They have been using you for most of your adult life. That is not a good relationship IMO. The reason I have 3 credit cards is that I use different ones at different times of the month. They all have different closing dates. The 1ST, the 10TH and the 20TH of the month. From the 2ND until the 10TH I use the one due on the 1ST. From the 11TH until the 19TH I use the one due on the 29TH. You catch the pattern. When I charge on the 2ND I will not be billed for what that purchase for almost 2 months. And I NEVER pay interest. Habit Number 3 GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD THAT YOU OR YOUR CHILDREN NEED THE LATEST TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET. How long did you wait until you got a Wii, an Xbox or a Plasma screen TV? Do you know that a man was killed on Long Island on Black Friday this year when he got in the way of a ravenous horde that were killing to be the first to get a mammoth sized flat screen for $600.00? I didn’t get my daughter an Ipod until she was 13. While she felt deprived and was the last of her friends to get one, I can assure you she did not suffer socially or personally. She survived. And I survived her nagging as well. I still don’t have any gadgets for my TV besides a DVD player that I bought 5 years ago for $99.00. Habit Number 4 CANCEL YOUR CABLE TV SERVICE I love the announcements that I get from cable companies telling me how much they are going to save me. How can you save money that you haven’t spent? My daughter went to a Waldorf school until she was in 4TH grade and we appreciated and obeyed the admonishment to keep TV out of her life. When my daughter was about 7 the AMA finally issued a statement that it is harmful to put a child under 2 in front of a TV set. My personal experience is that our children would be more than willing to do without 500 channels. The question is, would you? I am going to take a break here to say that I have just received some more fiscal bad news. Some very reputable investment broker just got caught in the most devious and devastating Ponzi scheme in history. 50 billion dollars worth of retirement funds, charitable donations and investments are gone. Well, no, correction….they never existed. I am not going to go into detail about how this has affected me personally, but I will say it HAS affected me on paper, but not personally…. Habit Number 5 DO NOT TAKE YOUR INVESTMENTS PERSONALLY If there is one thing we have learned from the latest financial crisis (devastation) is that there is no security out there. There were fabulously wealthy people (Frank Lautenberg, one of the wealthiest legislators in this country, Steven Spielberg and the largest bank in the world) who have lost HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in this scheme. I had to emphasize this because most of us cannot even conceive of having this kind of wealth. Yet within a moment it is gone. It never really existed so in fact it was only our perception that it existed. When I say it never existed….this man faked documents that he sent to his mostly wealthy customers telling them about all of the great places that he was investing. This man was once the chairman of the Nasdaq, so we are talking highly reputable….POOF GONE….If I thought I was my money, and I were a victim of this scheme, OMG would I be devastated. Because I live well within my means…below my means in fact, I would be able to look at the paper loss and say “Thank God I don’t need that money to live. Thank God I am still able to live as I always have”. I have been practicing financial moderation throughout the boom years. So if I don’t let fear envelope my thoughts, nothing but a number on a piece of paper has the ability to change my life. Habit Number 6 LIVE YOUR LIFE AS THOUGH IT WAS A LAW TO REUSE AND RECYCLE It should be a law after all. It isn’t that I believe we should be told what to do, but for the most part if we aren’t, we usually take the path of least resistance. OK, the next few habits are going to be fiscal as well as environmental. Habit Number 7 WHEN IT IS AVAILABLE, BUY RECYCLED PAPER AND RECYLE IT AFTER YOU HAVE BOUGHT IT First let’s start with computer paper. There is not a piece of paper that comes into my house whether it is in the mail or home in the form of a letter from school, that is not checked to see if it is written double sided. If it is not, it is inserted into my printer to be used for everything from reservation hard copies, to scratch paper for grocery lists. When it has been used completely it is then put into a paper bag where it will end up as another round of recycled paper Habit Number 8 BRING YOUR OWN BAGS TO THE STORE AND USE THEM INSTEAD OF THE PAPER OR PLASTIC BAGS THAT YOU GET FOR FREE This should in fact be my number one habit as it is the one I am most fanatical about. It is also the easiest to do. We are the only country on the planet that gives away tons and tons of plastic bags and does not even demand we reuse them. This is a travesty. I even bring my cloth bags to the store when I buy clothing. I have to say it was a struggle when I bought some personal items at Victoria’s Secret and I insisted on using my own bag and was adamant that I did not want the layers of tissue paper that they normally wrap a purchase in. There was some snickering behind the counter as I left the store. I must say I did some snickering of my own. Habit Number 9 WHEN YOU MUST TAKE A BAG, WHETHER PAPER OR PLASTIC, REUSE IT I already mentioned my use for the occasional paper bag that comes my way. I only take a plastic bag if it is the right size for my garbage pail. I am not very happy that I live in a place at the moment that will not allow me to recycle my kitchen waste. And I have no place to dump it so that it can turn into valuable fertilizer. As it is, I fill one small bag a week with food waste….stems and pits that cannot be used. I know I said 100. I could and probably will write 1000, but that will be another article, or perhaps a book. Please let me know what your great fiscal habits are. I will use them and give you full credit. Now that is what I call a good emotional habit. Always remember to give credit when someone does something nice for you. I call that gratitude, but that is fodder for another article. Have a healthy and prosperous New Year. As my mom always says. “ The one thing money cannot buy is good health”. Hugs, Debra Debra can be reached via thoughts@edenandelle.com January Interview A new year is a synonym for a new beginning and what better way to start afresh than to become more aware of ourselves, our planet, our loved ones and the way we treat everyone and everything. That is why Eden & Elle is thrilled to introduce you to Josselyne Herman-Saccio, a woman with a heart of gold, on a mission ‘causing a united global shift in what is possible for humanity in areas of the environment, livelihood, health and education’. Not only is she very successful in doing this, she is also a multitalented individual were singing, songwriting and producing are only a few of the many colorful, rewarding ventures she has undertaken. Josselyne Herman-Saccio E&E : Your bio on your website www.jhamanagement.com is very impressive. You are an entrepreneur, fundraiser, personal manager and owner of Josselyne Herman & Associates……can you tell our readers how you manage to combine these roles? J.H : I am also the president of our 173 Unit Coop board, treasurer of the PTA, treasurer of the Art of Peace charitable trust, board member of Musicians for World Harmony, lead programs for Landmark Education and have a new puppy!!! ☺ I am only able to accomplish this "having it all" through what I learned from taking the Landmark education curriculum for living. It was there that I was (and am) able to expand my capacity to take things on in life and have everything work. E&E : Your management company is dedicated to making peoples' dreams come true…..what kind of people do you help and could you elaborate a little on this? J.H : Mostly we work with actors and some writers/recording artists but we focus on actors and empowering them to take action on their dreams so that they may accomplish them. E&E : You have also started a global awareness project named United Global Shift Inc, www.unitedglobalshift.com that is a big leap from the entertainment industry, what inspired you to start this project and can you tell us more about it? J.H : I see peace on the planet is possible in my lifetime and I can’t think of any better project to work on or dedicate my life to. E&E : There is also a second website concerning awareness that you are working on namely, www.peacepromises.com why the two different websites, is this an extension of the main website or something totally different? J.H : Peace Promises is a United Global Shift project, committed to cause peace on the planet one person at a time. It is a site where you can create promises that cause peace in your life where you are right now. It began with a vision to have 100 million people promise to stop arguing in their life…imagine if that happened, what could be possible? Not only for people individually, but in families, communities, society etc…. E&E : Your daughter Sophie inspired you to produce a benefit gala in 2001, do you feel that your children are at the basis of your latest projects United Global Shift and Peace Promises? J.H : I do think that being a parent has me look at the world in terms of a long range future and what we are leaving them to inherit. I love my children and for sure I am committed to leaving them a peaceful planet. E&E : What are your hopes and goals for this project? J.H : My goal is to cause a global movement where people begin to see the patterns and systems that are giving us our current reality and by seeing and being aware of the current patterns, are empowered and enabled to create new patterns. To create a movement of pattern makers if you will. Educated, inspired, committed human beings who are unwilling to continue on the track we are going and are willing to take action to shift it. People who will be the shift they want to see in the world. E&E : What can readers who are interested and moved by the projects and who wish to contribute in some form or other, do to help? J.H : Obviously financial contributions make a tremendous difference, sponsoring nonprofit teams to get educated in a full spectrum system shifting approach. Also, going to www.peacepromises.com to make a peace promise creates a demand for peace. We are committed to making peace more profitable than war, the more subscribers, the more we can create that reality with weapons companies, advertisers etc… E&E : Is United Global Shift and PeacePromises only active in the U.S.? If so, are there plans to expand to other continents? J.H : We have a satellite in Australia and intend to expand around the globe when the appropriate chapter head emerge. E&E : Here in Europe we have mandatory separation of garbage in each household. Paper, all plastic containers & tin, glass, and remaining waste has to be put in different garbage containers. There is also a financial bonus for people who buy 'cleaner' cars or use environmentally friendly heating/electricity, do you feel that the United States is doing enough to help the planet become a cleaner and healthier place to live?
Eden & Elle Magazine January 2009 - Page 1
Eden & Elle Magazine January 2009 - Page 2
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