March 22, 2011

One day, a Nakava employee stuumbled upon a comic strip with the names, Ozzie, Earl, Mooch and Jules. He could not believe this was really a comic strip in the newspaper.

Why was it such a shocking discovery?

We have three employees named Moosh, Ozzy and Jules, and a regular kava bar attendee, Earl.

Bizzare? YES. Coincidence? Maybe. We ended up posting the comic strip on the bulletin board at the kava bar, but

we couldn't help but be curious to find out more about this FASCINATING discovery.

The comic strip is called, Mutts, by Patrick McDonnell. Many people might have already heard of it but I don't think most quite understand it's underlying theme. I may not even fully understand it, but I know it's special.

The chances of a comic strip having the same names as the employees at the Kava Bar are pretty slim to none. But none the less, we try to read up on the Mutts comic strip of the day due to it's "life message insight."

How does any of this relate to the kava bar? Well, I've slowly been understanding the real purpose of kava and the kava bar. It's all very simple, but somehow we need to back track to understand it.

People have been drinking kava for thousands of years. It's Latin name, Piper methysticum, means "intoxicating pepper," thus it has "intoxicating" effects. It's purpose? To help people relax, help calm anxiety, relieve stress and bring together a group of people. Voltaire said, "The art of medicine is amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Kava is a natural plant, and there are many many "natural medications" that exist to help us. The kava bar was opened up to offer people a different form of "healing," and many people even drink kava while in recovery.

The comic strip, Mutts, has a lot of underlying messages that can help people think logically and even opens up the mind to a different world, the "animal world." But aren't we all animals too? Just because we are not dogs or cats or fish, we are a different kind of animal. If we think back to the beginning of time, where there were only natural plants and animals and no pharmaceutical companies or technological advances, the way of life was simple. Mutts offers people an explanation of life using personification in a satirical and comical manner. It tries to explain that all of us, including animals, are the same, only our ability to speak and deduct reason, changes everything.

If we could go back to the way of life thousands of years ago, where man and animals were more in sync rather than placed in a hierarchy, who knows how different things would be. Sure we wouldn't have the technology we have today, but everything would be natural and the idea of "power" and control wouldn't be so important, thus money wouldn't be important, thus perhaps there would be less war and conflict.

Is natural better? The answer is subjective. However, it IS important to recognize what is really happeneing in todays world, to humanity and society. History repeats itself...we must learn from the past. We know that kava can help better a lot of todays world, but ultimately, everyone has to figure that our for themselves.

Visit the Mutts website today! (and don't forget to check out Nakava and Nakamal at Home either  )

ls