Just Who is Oana Anyway?

Healing through laughter is not a dream, but a recipe for survival

If you were to read a book about Oana's life, you might easily decide it was a work of fiction. 

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Oana lived twenty years under the grotesque dictatorial regime of Ceausescu. After the fall of communism in 1989 she studied languages at the University in Bucharest, then received her Master’s degree at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. English is her third language. 

She has worn many hats, working as a translator, as a teacher, and eventually caring for animals both domestic and wild. Volunteering in both the U.S. and Canada, she worked for wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centers.

Currently residing in Arizona, Oana continues to dedicate most of her time to her animals and to writing.  

Her first book, The Healings, debuted in November 2010. It is a hard-to-put-down, laugh-out-loud series of adventures of an eccentric duo: a man and his feline partner walking from ‘healer’ to ‘healer’ and hoping to achieve awareness.

Oana’s take on depression is simple and effective: witticism and laughter coupled with the understanding of the frailty of human nature help us heal. An animal companion, real or imaginary, can be very therapeutic as well.

Many a reader – depressed or not -- will recognize the insanity of most of our daily routines and the elusiveness of Truth.

Oana’s current projects include a memoir titled, Romanian Rhapsody, a children’s book, Dr.Schnauzer and Nurse Lhassa, as well as other stories, all written in the same witty humorous style.      
She is also an active member of Central Phoenix Writing Workshop http://www.paloverdepages.com/ and a co-host of Two Unsychronized Souls Radio Show  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkmanandoana 

To learn more about Oana, visit her author’s website www.thehealings.net  

To read excerpts from The Healings go to http://www.thehealings.net/excerpts-from-the-healings.html

The Healings is available in paperback on Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Healings-Oana/dp/0984615482/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289455146&sr=1-1

In Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/The-Healings-ebook/dp/B004BSH0RI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0/192-1862715-7132302?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1289455146&sr=1-1 and Nook format

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-healings-oana/1029789781?ean=2940012775313&itm=1&usri=oana#

We Are Dying Every Day - Deepak Chopra

One reads in many mystical traditions that every person dies at exactly the right time and knows in advance when that time is. But I would like to examine more deeply the concept of dying every day.

To die every day is a choice everyone overlooks. I want to see myself as the same person from day to day in order to preserve my sense of identity. I want to see myself as inhabiting the same body every day because it is disturbing to think that my body is constantly deserting me.

Yet it must, if I am not to be a living mummy. Following the complex timetable of apoptosis, I am given a new body via the mechanism of death. This process happens subtly enough that it passes without notice. No-one sees a two-year-old turning in her body for a new one at age three.

Every day she has the same body, and yet she doesn’t. Only the constant process of renewal – a gift of death – enables her to keep pace with each stage of development. The wonder is that one feels like the same person in the midst of such endless shape-shifting.

Unlike with cell death, I can observe my ideas being born and dying. To support the passage from childish thought to adult thought, the mind has to die every day. My cherished ideas die and never reappear; my most intense experiences are consumed by their own passions; my answer to the question “Who am I?” totally changes from age two to three, three to four, and so on throughout life.

We understand death when we drop the illusion that life must be continuous. All of nature obeys one rhythm – the universe is dying at the speed of light yet it still manages along the way to create this planet and the life forms inhabiting it.

Our bodies are dying at many different speeds at once, beginning with the photons, ascending through chemical dissolution, cell death, tissue regeneration, and finally the death of the whole organism. What are we so afraid of?
Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).


Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/we-are-dying-every-day.html#ixzz1X5TwvJoP

A Positive Approach To Life

Today I decided we all needed something positive to read in light of the economy, the weather patterns and turmoil in our world. Enjoy

A Positive Approach To Life

• Smile at the next person you meet
• Call a friend you haven’t spoken with but have thought about often
• Give a friend, brother, sister, spouse a big hug
• Tell someone how much you appreciate them
• Visit a neighbor who lives alone
• Volunteer at a food bank, hospice or other organization which helps others
• Write a flash fiction that will bring a smile to other’s faces and share it
• Compose a loving poem and leave it where your partner can find it
• Call your mom or dad if you’re lucky enough to have them in your life
• Visit a nursing home, read a story, tell a tale or share your thoughts with a resident
• Remember to say ‘Thank You’
• Take a walk in the woods or park and marvel at the beauty of the world
• Count your blessings – yes you do have many
• Adopt an animal who only has a short time to live
• On this topic, spay or neuter your own animal(s)
• Read a book, article or poem from an unknown author and do a review or blog
• Speak up when you see injustice, rudeness or abuse
• Donate those clothes sitting in your closet for years gathering dust
• Write a letter to a service person to let them know someone does care
• Do a simple task for that elderly neighbor
• Dwell on your positive qualities, they far out shine the negative (if not, change them)
• Stop judging others on your own principals and beliefs. You aren’t walking in their shoes
• Think about the possibilities and make them a reality
• Dance, for it will release your inhibitions and release your freedom
• Most of all, live your life each day as if it was the last and you’ll find yourself being positive without even trying

Monica M. Brinkman,
Author, Poet, Radio Host