Author: Manny Kagan

Fridays with Manny

  

What Does Holiday Mean?

You are receiving this on Friday, December 23rd, which is the 5th day of the Jewish holiday Chanukkah, two days before Christmas, a week before New Years and less than two months before Valentine’s Day. All of these events are different; however, what unites them is the definition. They are Holidays. Have you ever thought about what the word holy means? The concept comes from the Torah. The word Kadosh, which translates to holy, means something which is separate from everything else. Israelites, who were called “holy people,” were separated to bring God’s message to other people. For the religious Jews, the Sabbath is considered a holy day. You can think about other usages of holy, such as “holy hour”. This is something I recently created for myself. One day after finishing a business meeting at 3pm downtown, I had an hour and a half before I needed to pick up Max from his doggy sitter. I had a number of options of how to use the time productively. Instead, I drove to Golden Gate Park and spent a holy hour leisurely walking through the Botanical Garden.

What unites all the holidays is that they appear again and again in the calendar. How about my holy hour? It is up to me and you to create a new holihour, time for ourselves and put it in our calendars.

During the holidays, people like to decorate their homes with flowers. Three images I encountered on my walk are holy for me, since I never encountered them before.

Happy Holidays!

Enjoy and Share with a Friend!

www.thehealingimages.com

www.encounterspublishing.com

Fridays with Manny

  

How to Handle Adversity

Some time ago, I was watching a suspense film on TV. There was a scene where a man was running from the pursuer with a rifle through an open field. In the next scene we hear a bang without showing the dead man. This memory came to mind while I am thinking about how our company can survive in the current marketing environment without steady flow of clients. So, I decided to rewrite the script. Instead of running toward the cliff with the pursuer following, my hero is running toward the man with the rifle, yelling, “Wait, wait, I have a question!” The gunman, being a human being, can wait, after all he has the gun. Then our hero asks for a cigarette, even though he isn’t a smoker. They both sit on the log, smoke and and talk about life’s challenges and how it can be easier to resolve conflicts and find solutions together. 

I believe that we all have a choice of which script to write, and how to play the main role in our own movie. Instead of running away from the challenge, run toward it. This is not just positive thinking, but positive action. Miraculously, on the day I wrote this essay, the interest rates came slightly down, and I was able to solve issues with two real estate purchases, and was introduced to a new real estate agent. Life is full of surprises. 

For the images, I decided to share with you beautiful sunrises, since the sun always rises, even when we cannot see it because of the clouds.

Enjoy and Share!

www.thehealingimages.com

www.encounterspublishing.com

Fridays with Manny

  

What Is THI Effect?

Your first question may be, “What is THI?” The idea to create The Healing Images (THI) developed gradually. I like to photograph flowers and show their beauty through special processing. Originally, I posted them on my photo website. And then I came across photo-frames called light boxes. 

To fast forward, I figured out how to combine them together without using electricity. The result – beautiful images of flowers in small specially designed frames. After I set them on a windowsill, the magic happened – the flowers became alive. And then after a few of my friends received gifts from me, they shared that the images made them feel relaxed – helped them fall asleep, stop worrying and to simply feel happy. This is when I decided to put a group of images together and to create the website, “Thehealingimages.com”. And since these images have a special effect on my friends, I decided to call it “THI EFFECT”. I put it all together specially for you. As much as I like to give gifts, it is your turn. First give the gift to yourself, and then I am sure you will decide to bring THI Effect to your friend’s life. 

In our house, I placed THI images on every windowsill, and before going to sleep, both my wife Elfa and I look at our own flower images, and I’ve never slept better. You can have this experience as well. The three images are a sample of many more that you will find here.

Enjoy and Share!

www.thehealingimages.com

www.encounterspublishing.com

Fridays With Manny

  

There Are Never Enough Books

The headline is the last sentence in the article “Why are books appealing? It’s no mystery” written by Carl Nolte which appeared in “San Francisco Chronicle” November 20, 2022. The article is about bookstores in San Francisco. Mr. Nolte, as myself, loves to browse for books in the bookstores.

I always loved books, and have hundreds in my personal library. In the recent interview, which you can watch on YouTube, I was asked what my favorite book is. My answer was that I do not have the favorite one. Which is not exactly correct. Though I read a lot of books, my favorite ones are these which I publish myself in “42 Encounters” series. I favor them because of the joy they bring to the reader. 

As we are approaching chain of holidays – Chanukah, Christmas, New Year and Valentine’s Day, and you are considering which gift to offer to those you care about, consider everlasting gift of a book or beautiful image of a flower. You can find both of them on my new website Thehealingimages.com.


If you already own one of my books, you know how much your friend will favor it as well. Photo-prints have healing power. I will write about them next week.

Enjoy and Share with a Friend!

Fridays with Manny

  

Why Turkey?

The Thanksgiving holiday is usually the time when families gather around the table with a bountiful meal, which traditionally includes turkey. Have you ever wondered why? You may have heard that this has something to do with the Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth Colony and their supposed meal with the locals, the Wampanoag Native American people, in 1621. However, there is no proof the “foul” they ate was turkey. Some historians think it was probably ducks or geese on the menu; a more familiar dish for the settlers from England. The Thanksgiving days were an expression of gratitude for the autumn harvest. The reason the turkey became a popular dish is probably because it was plentiful, the second reason was that they were easily grown on farms, and the very large birds could feed a family.

Personally, I enjoy celebrating and expressing my gratitude every day, and there are a lot of people who enjoy Thanksgiving holiday regardless of their dietary preferences, including myself. As a pescatarian, I do not eat turkey. If you do, and are reading this post on Friday, please enjoy cold turkey (which has its own meaning).

Turkey which is a wild bird, not only evolved as the source of protein grown on farms, but also for some people it became a family pet, as you can see in these images.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy and Share!

www.thehealingimages.com

www.encounterspublishing.com