Due to The Death of a Family Member No New Posts Will Appear Until the Bereavement Process is Over.
I
truly have no way of telling how long that will be. I apologize, but
under the circumstances do not feel the inclination to write. Peace and quiet seem like the appropriate catharsis at this moment in time.
The Forgotten Health Trick You Need to Do for 150 Minutes a Week
Get barefoot for a truly prehistoric health boost.
By Stephen Sinatra, MDOctober 6, 2015
I have long been convinced that the body is healthier when we have more
physical contact with the natural energetic field of the earth. I have
been intensely involved in grounding research for years and have written
extensively about it. In Health Revelations From Heaven and Earth,
it's a topic coauthor Tommy Rosa and I cover a lot. Grounding (also
referred to as Earthing) means connecting your body directly to this
field and experiencing the benefits of connection with the electric
fields of Earth.
This is easy to do. My recommendation is to ground at least 150 minutes a week.
You can do that by going barefoot while gardening, camping, hiking, or
walking on the beach or by swimming in the ocean—there are so many ways
to connect to the natural world.
When
outdoors, wearing thin-soled, plain leather shoes will let you make
contact with the earth's natural vibration. Rubber soles like those of
tennis sneakers or the neoprene found in running shoes keep you
disconnected from the earth. Other ways to ground: You can even
sleep, work, or relax indoors on special conductive sheets or mats
connected to the earth with wires plugged into a grounded wall outlet or
a ground rod outside.
A Prehistoric Prescription
Although studied scientifically in the last decade, grounding dates
back to prehistoric ages. Since the dawn of time, humans have walked
barefoot and have slept on the ground, oblivious to the subtle
energetic signals underfoot that research now shows help regulate
the body's intricate mechanisms. Healers in many cultures
throughout history knew of the natural healing endowment of the earth,
though not in electrical terms.
Stillness and clear mind, by Alice Popkorn
Wikimedia.org
.............................................................................................................
4 Techniques To Ground, Heal, & Balance Your Energy Levels
You
don’t have to be a reiki master to bring energy healing into your
everyday life — I know because I am one. Whenever you feel misaligned,
you can use these four techniques to ground, heal, and balance your
energy levels — just the way a professional energy healer would restore
and balance you.
1. Connecting with the universal flow.
Take
a moment to pause and think about how electricity functions —
electrical cords are rooted into the ground and conduct electricity into
your home or office to keep the lights on and the appliances running.
By
connecting with the universal flow of energy, you can tap into a
constant energetic powerhouse. The easiest way to do this is to envision
a grounding cord springing down through your seat, flowing down through
the floor, into the ground, and connecting it with the earth’s center.
As
you start to feel that connection, breathe into it, allowing the
earth’s energy to come back through the same connection you just made.
Flowing up through your feet, your legs, your abdomen, heart, arms,
neck, and all the way through the top of your head.
Allow this
beam of energy to spew out of the top of your head like a waterfall.
Envision this waterfall of energy returning back into the earth. This
easy visualization fully connects and activates your energetic body with
the universal energy — the flow of life.
I
was 25 years old, my grandmother was dying, and my Adderall use was
quickly becoming an addiction. I was in a world of debt, and losing
friends fast. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, the man
I loved started cheating on me and my relationship ended in violence.
Up
until that point, I'd never had good experiences with dating. My
previous relationships had created a yearning for validation that ruled
me mentally, physically, and emotionally. They caused me to feel weak,
inadequate, and worthless in every aspect of life.
I would constantly attract men who did not appreciate my value because I did not appreciate my own self-worth at the time.
I knew I needed to learn to love myself the way that I wanted someone else to love me. But I didn't know how.
One
night when things were at their worst, I was walking toward my condo
and saw a book sitting on a bench. I could feel a distinct energy
drawing me toward the text, and I stood frozen when I saw the words
"fourth deadly sin" on its cover. When I opened the book, I saw that it
was talking about lust. I'm a spiritual person, and I took the text as a
sign that I needed to stop putting my relationships before God and
myself.
I decided to let go of relationships altogether, and I
made a commitment never to date again. I told myself that fulfilling my
purpose was far more important than anything I could gain from a
romantic partnership. Intimacy was something I thought I would never
have again, and I was totally okay with that.
I avoided situations
in which I could be hit on — I stopped going out and barely
communicated with members of the opposite sex unless they were married
or in a serious relationship. I built a wall around myself that was so
high that I had no idea how anyone could ever break it down. Intimacy
simply wasn’t an option, so my entire life became about working to
create a business. I began developing courses for life coaches and
eventually started traveling near and far to teach at wellness retreats.
Utah's Chronic Homeless Rate Drops 91% When It Gives the Needy Housing2:30
By the end of 2015, the chronically homeless population of Utah may be virtually gone. And the secret is quite simple:
Give homes to the homeless.
"We call it housing first, employment second," said Lloyd Pendleton, director of Utah's Homeless Task Force.
Even Pendleton used to think trying to eradicate homelessness using such an approach was a foolish idea.
"I said: 'You guys must be smoking something. This is totally unrealistic,'" Pendleton said.
But the results are hard to dispute.
In 2005, Utah was home to 1,932 chronically homeless. By April 2015, there were only 178 — a 91 percent drop statewide.
"It's
a philosophical shift in how we go about it," Pendleton said. "You put
them in housing first ... and then help them begin to deal with the
issues that caused them to be homeless."
Chronically homeless
persons — those living on the streets for more than a year, or for four
times in three years, and have a debilitating condition — make up 10
percent of Utah's homeless population but take up more than 50 percent
of the state's resources for the homeless.
By
confronting our scarier emotions — vulnerability, fear, and shame — we
can learn to lead a more “wholehearted” life. Brené Brown shows us the
way.
The toughest moments in life rarely feel like gifts.
Whether it’s losing a job, struggling through a foundering relationship,
or witnessing the death of a loved one, experiences that bring us to
our knees tend to trigger our defenses, not our wisdom.
And yet,
when we humble ourselves enough to open up during awful times —
accepting that we’re vulnerable rather than lashing out or collapsing in
despair — we’re primed to receive “the gifts of imperfection,” explains
best-selling author Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW.
These rewards — courage,
compassion, and connection — are not given to the faint of heart, notes
Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate
College of Social Work who has spent more than a dozen years studying
vulnerability, worthiness, and shame.
It’s tough stuff, she
believes, to embrace vulnerability — what she describes as “the core of
all emotions and feelings.” Yet, in her view, this is a path that leads
straight to heartfelt joy.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to skip over the hard stuff, but it just doesn’t work,” she writes in The Gifts of Imperfection.
“We
don’t change, we don’t grow, and we don’t move forward without the work
[of being vulnerable]. If we really want to live a joyful, connected,
and meaningful life, we must talk about the things that get in the way,”
she notes. (For more on this, see “The Myth of Vulnerability,” below.)
So
how do we confront the obstacles to meaning and intimacy? How do we
practice vulnerability without crumpling or becoming dependent? What
does it mean to live life “wholeheartedly,” as Brown puts it, embracing
not just our successes but also our failures as opportunities for growth and connection?
Brown has devoted her career to helping people answer these questions. In her popular books — I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and her most recent, Rising Strong — she reminds us that getting real with difficulty means we can get real with anything.
In
all communication, there is one thing that each and every one of us
requires. We all want to be appreciated, honoured, and respected. None
of us want to feel criticized, rejected, ignored, or manipulated. To
reduce it to its simplest terms, we each want to feel loved. I do not
mean love in a romantic sense, or some outpouring of emotion, but simple
caring. This is the universal bottom line of every human relationship.
We all want to feel cared for.
If each of us would like to be
treated with care and respect, then it should be our intent to do so
for others. But what often happens is the exact opposite. Instead of
trying to ensure that the other person feels loved and appreciated, we
end up in a vicious circle of recrimination and attack.
It usually
starts by our feelings hurt over something someone said or did. Whether
they intended to hurt us or whether it is all our own creation does not
matter. The fact is we feel hurt, and if we are not fully conscious of
our own inner processes, we are likely to defend ourselves by attacking
back in some way. It’s not the most noble or wisest response,
nevertheless that is the way us less-than-enlightened folk sometimes
react.
We may respond with a cutting remark or criticism, a
resentful tone of voice, a shift in body language, or simply by making
no response at all. Whatever form it takes, the underlying intention is
that the other person should feel just a little hurt—not much, not
enough to disrupt the relationship, but sufficient that the other person
should not feel totally, one hundred per cent, loved.
But
if the other person is also less than enlightened, their response to a
perceived attack will probably be similar to ours. They will probably
attack back, and do or say something intended to make us feel a little
hurt and not totally loved.
So the vicious circle begins. It may
not always be that obvious. On the surface it often looks as if the
relationship is going well; both people are friendly, with no open
hostility. But underneath, a sad game is being played out. Each person,
in their attempts to have the other person behave in a more loving
manner, is actually withholding love from the other. It is little wonder
that many couples end up in therapy.
If
you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be called
up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of insight
is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change. - See more at:
http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpu
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If
you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be called
up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of insight
is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating, journaling,
attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some activities
that are frequently associated with the arising of insight. Our
relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight sprouts
up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential to
create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One
insight might invite us to alter our behavior or adopt a more
compassionate attitude, while another may encourage us to view our past
from a fresh new perspective. More rare is the insight that shifts our
entire take on reality, like when Krishna revealed his true identity to
Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an
insight is a precious gift that springs from our own deep wisdom. How
can we honor this offering? How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a
full flowering so that it serves the highest good?
Sometimes an
insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every cell of our body
that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This happened to me once when
I was practicing walking meditation on a silent retreat. The
insight---about the negative way I was occasionally communicating with
my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience that tears sprang
to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My knees felt like they
might buckle under the intensity of this sudden revelation of the harm I
could be causing. After I returned home, I completely abandoned that
hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless to do so. I have heard
Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to the experience of
picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being knows that we need to
set it down.
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be
called up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of
insight is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One insight might invite us to
alter our behavior or adopt a more compassionate attitude, while another
may encourage us to view our past from a fresh new perspective. More
rare is the insight that shifts our entire take on reality, like when
Krishna revealed his true identity to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an insight is a precious gift
that springs from our own deep wisdom. How can we honor this offering?
How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a full flowering so that it
serves the highest good?
Sometimes an insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every
cell of our body that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This
happened to me once when I was practicing walking meditation on a silent
retreat. The insight---about the negative way I was occasionally
communicating with my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience
that tears sprang to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My
knees felt like they might buckle under the intensity of this sudden
revelation of the harm I could be causing. After I returned home, I
completely abandoned that hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless
to do so. I have heard Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to
the experience of picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being
knows that we need to set it down.
- See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpuf
Nurturing Insight
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be
called up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of
insight is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One insight might invite us to
alter our behavior or adopt a more compassionate attitude, while another
may encourage us to view our past from a fresh new perspective. More
rare is the insight that shifts our entire take on reality, like when
Krishna revealed his true identity to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an insight is a precious gift
that springs from our own deep wisdom. How can we honor this offering?
How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a full flowering so that it
serves the highest good?
Sometimes an insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every
cell of our body that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This
happened to me once when I was practicing walking meditation on a silent
retreat. The insight---about the negative way I was occasionally
communicating with my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience
that tears sprang to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My
knees felt like they might buckle under the intensity of this sudden
revelation of the harm I could be causing. After I returned home, I
completely abandoned that hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless
to do so. I have heard Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to
the experience of picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being
knows that we need to set it down.
- See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpuf
Nurturing Insight
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be
called up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of
insight is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One insight might invite us to
alter our behavior or adopt a more compassionate attitude, while another
may encourage us to view our past from a fresh new perspective. More
rare is the insight that shifts our entire take on reality, like when
Krishna revealed his true identity to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an insight is a precious gift
that springs from our own deep wisdom. How can we honor this offering?
How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a full flowering so that it
serves the highest good?
Sometimes an insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every
cell of our body that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This
happened to me once when I was practicing walking meditation on a silent
retreat. The insight---about the negative way I was occasionally
communicating with my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience
that tears sprang to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My
knees felt like they might buckle under the intensity of this sudden
revelation of the harm I could be causing. After I returned home, I
completely abandoned that hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless
to do so. I have heard Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to
the experience of picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being
knows that we need to set it down.
- See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpuf
Nurturing Insight
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be
called up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of
insight is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One insight might invite us to
alter our behavior or adopt a more compassionate attitude, while another
may encourage us to view our past from a fresh new perspective. More
rare is the insight that shifts our entire take on reality, like when
Krishna revealed his true identity to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an insight is a precious gift
that springs from our own deep wisdom. How can we honor this offering?
How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a full flowering so that it
serves the highest good?
Sometimes an insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every
cell of our body that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This
happened to me once when I was practicing walking meditation on a silent
retreat. The insight---about the negative way I was occasionally
communicating with my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience
that tears sprang to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My
knees felt like they might buckle under the intensity of this sudden
revelation of the harm I could be causing. After I returned home, I
completely abandoned that hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless
to do so. I have heard Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to
the experience of picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being
knows that we need to set it down.
- See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpuf
Nurturing Insight
Submitted by Meg Agnew on August 18, 2012 - 8:33pm
If you’ve had some experience with insights, you know they can’t be
called up on command. The best we can do to encourage the arising of
insight is to create hospitable conditions. Reflecting, meditating,
journaling, attending a silent retreat and walking meditation are some
activities that are frequently associated with the arising of insight.
Our relationships, too, are rich sources of insight. Once an insight
sprouts up, we do have a wonderful opportunity to nurture its potential
to create positive change.
Insights come in many varieties. One insight might invite us to
alter our behavior or adopt a more compassionate attitude, while another
may encourage us to view our past from a fresh new perspective. More
rare is the insight that shifts our entire take on reality, like when
Krishna revealed his true identity to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Whether heart opening or mind blowing, an insight is a precious gift
that springs from our own deep wisdom. How can we honor this offering?
How do we nurture this seed of wisdom into a full flowering so that it
serves the highest good?
Sometimes an insight is such a strong experience of knowing in every
cell of our body that it doesn’t require much cultivation. This
happened to me once when I was practicing walking meditation on a silent
retreat. The insight---about the negative way I was occasionally
communicating with my partner---was such a complete body-mind experience
that tears sprang to my eyes before my brain fully understood why. My
knees felt like they might buckle under the intensity of this sudden
revelation of the harm I could be causing. After I returned home, I
completely abandoned that hurtful behavior and it was almost effortless
to do so. I have heard Phillip compare this kind of dramatic insight to
the experience of picking up a pot that is too hot. Our entire being
knows that we need to set it down.
- See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/blogs/yoga-and-buddhism/nurturing-insight#sthash.f9QWkbdk.dpuf
Many
of us have established “being happy” as one of our main goals in life.
However, our own self-talk often interferes with our ability to achieve
this goal.
We express our beliefs through our self-talk, and these beliefs can
be rational or irrational. While rational beliefs are realistic,
irrational beliefs are those that don’t accurately represent the world.
There are several categories of irrational beliefs, and we’ve all been
guilty of having thoughts that fall into one or more of these categories
at some point or another.
One
of the best ways to increase our happiness is to replace “irrational”
self-talk with more realistic and adaptive self-talk. This post will
explain a great tool for doing this; it’s called Rational Emotive
Behavior Therapy.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) In a Nutshell
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.” – Epictetus
In the mid-1950s, Albert Ellis–an American psychologist– developed a
form of psychotherapy which today is known as Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT). The philosophical basis of REBT is the principle that a
person is not affected emotionally by the events that take place in his
or her life, but rather by his or her interpretation of these outside
events. In short, our thoughts cause our emotions.
Keep reading to discover how you can begin to apply REBT in your own life in order to increase your happiness.
When asked what 3 things he
would like people to know about gratitude, top researcher, Robert
Emmons, said: “First, the practice of gratitude can increase
happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to
achieve–a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can
create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that
cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer
and better quality sleep time”.[1]
First, 25% happier? Who doesn’t want that? Second, we can see lasting results in only a few weeks? And third, we’ll not only be happier–we’ll be healthier
too? If this is true (and it is), then we would be crazy NOT to
practice gratitude! Hopefully these reasons, as well as those I outlined
in my recent post, “10 Benefits of Practicing Gratitude,” are enough to inspire you to give it a try!
Before You Get Started: What You Need to Know
Before you implement a gratitude practice, there are a few things you should know that might help:
1) Remember, the goal is to activelypractice gratitude, not just wait around to feel grateful (more on this in “10 Benefits of Practicing Gratitude”).
2) Studies show, the best way to make gratitude a habit is to spice
it up with different types of gratitude practice. Choose two, three, or
all of the exercises below to get you started. They’re all beneficial,
so choose those that most resonate with you, and feel free to “mix it
up”. The best gratitude practice for you is the one you will stick with!
3) It doesn’t matter exactly how often you practice
gratitude; what matters is that you do it routinely. Every day, once a
week, three times a week–whatever works for you, just stick with it and
keep it consistent. You can even set a goal for how long your
gratitude practice will continue. In 2008, I practiced gratitude for my
“yearly theme” (my alternative to New Year’s Resolutions). For one full
year, my focus was to simply be more grateful each and every day. It was
one of my favorite personal goals of all time, and most of the
practices I started during my “year of gratitude” I still practice
today!
Now that you have the three “rules,” check out the list of ideas below. Then, pick one and get started. Don’t delay–start today!
Art does heal: scientists say appreciating creative works can fight off disease
People visit the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New YorkPhoto: Getty
By Agency
4:15PM GMT 10 Feb 2015
The healing power of art and nature could be real after scientists discovered they boost your immune system.
Seeing
such spine-tingling wonders as the Grand Canyon and Sistine Chapel or
listening to Schubert's Ave Maria can fight off disease, say scientists.
Great
nature and art boost the immune system by lowering levels of chemicals
that cause inflammation that can trigger diabetes, heart attacks and
other illnesses.
Monet's Water Lily Pond paintings
In
two separate experiments on more than 200 young adults reported on a
given day the extent to which they had experienced such positive
emotions as amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, joy, love and
pride.
Samples
of gum and cheek tissue - known as oral mucosal transudate - taken that
same day showed those who experienced more of these - in particular
wonder and amazement - had the lowest levels of the cytokine Interleukin
6 which is a marker of inflammation.
Psychologist Dr Dacher
Keltner, of California University in Berkeley, said: "That awe, wonder
and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests the things we
do to experience these emotions - a walk in nature, losing oneself in
music, beholding art - has a direct influence upon health and life
expectancy."
To
disregard the problems facing the Earth and to proceed with business as
usual in education would be a betrayal of trust. Our students want to
know how to make a difference. They need hope. And it won’t come if all
we can offer is another scientific theory or technological fix. We must
expand our vision to seek non-scientific alternatives. To make a
difference, we must search for different understandings. Let us look to
the wisdom of our ancestors. They believed that intelligence is
not restricted to humans but is possessed by all creatures – plants as
well as animals — and by the Earth itself.
They also believed in
spirits. Human welfare was understood to depend on tapping into these
wellsprings of wisdom, and all ancient societies (just like indigenous
peoples today) had specialists skilled in communication with the natural
world and with spirits. These people we now call shamans, and this
article argues for the inclusion of shamanic practice in the educational
curriculum. Shamanism gives working access to an alternative technique
of acquiring knowledge. Although a pragmatic, time-tested system, it
makes no claim to be science. Its strengths and limitations are
different from those of the sciences and thus complement them. Being
affective and subjective, shamanism offers another way of knowing.
Reason
sets the boundaries far too narrowly for us, and would have us accept
only the known – and that too with limitations – and live in a known
framework, just as if we were sure how far life actually extends. . . .
The more the critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life
becomes. . . . Overvalued reason has this in common with political
absolutism: under its dominion the individual is pauperised. – Carl Jung
Of
course science will offer some valuable new directions, but at the same
time we must expand our vision to seek non-scientific alternatives. To
make a difference, we must search for different understandings. I
am fortunate to live in a country, New Zealand, where many of my
compatriots have an understanding of past and future that is
fundamentally different from the prevailing ‘Western’ view. Most in our
civilisation consider it self-evident that we stand facing the future
with the past behind us, but traditionally for New Zealand Maori it is
the future that is behind them.
This year, we have published several stories about the dwindling monarch butterfly populations and
some of the efforts that have been made to save the species. New
reports last week have indicated that these efforts may actually be
paying off, because Monarch populations are actually beginning to grow
again. In Mexico, one of the main breeding areas for these butterflies,
scientists believe that this year there will be at least three times as many of them this year than there was last year.
During
a recent conference at the Piedra Herrada research reserve, U.S.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said that Mexico and the US will be
working together to create pesticide-free zones for the butterflies to
flourish.
“Mexico, the U.S., and Canada have many species that don’t know our political borders, that cross the borders freely,”
she said during a conference at the Piedra Herrada research reserve,
adding that the three countries will be working together to rebuild the
populations.
She told the audience that they hope to see “225 million monarch butterflies
returning right here to Mexico every year. We believe we can get there
by working together and it sounds like we may be on our way, we hope.”
“We are very glad to report that calculations done before the landfall of Hurricane Patricia showed the monarch
presence could cover up to four hectares, a clear indication that the
efforts mentioned by Secretary Jewell are having a positive effect,” Environment Secretary Rafael Pacchiano said.
“We
estimate that the butterfly population that arrives at the reserve is
as much as three and could reach four times the surface area it occupied
last season,” he added.
For years, environmental experts have been warning about the steady decline of monarch butterfly populations. The causes of this decline have been largely speculation until recently, but a new report suggests that Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup Ready could be responsible.
The
report was recently released by US environment watchdog Center for Food
Safety and sheds new light on what has been happening with monarch butterfly populations. According to the report, Monsanto’s herbicide has wiped out 99 percent of milkweed in corn and soybean fields in the US Midwest since 1999.
This has resulted in a decline of nearly 90 percent in monarch butterfly populations in the past 20 years.
Without the milkweed, the butterfly’s food supply is entirely cut out because caterpillars eat only milkweed plants, and then milkweed is needed again when it is time for the butterfly to lay their eggs.
Although
this is a very serious problem, it is something that the average person
can help to solve. Anyone with some space in their lawn or garden can plant milkweed to help reverse the trend that Monsanto started.
Below
are some PDF guides which give you step by step instructions on how to
plant milkweed and create habitats for monarch butterflies:
John
Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large
events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing
company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and
non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work
at his Facebook page. You can purchase his books, or get your own book published at his website www.JohnVibes.com. This article (Monarch Butterfly Populations Are Rising Again After Years In Decline) was made available via
When
you take a moment and look around at the world, things can seem pretty
messed up. Take 5 or 10 minutes and watch the 6 o’clock news. Chances
are, the entire time, all you are going to see is war, conflict, death,
illness, etc. Sure, this is part of the mainstream media’s content
strategy to sell drama and keep people focused on it, but besides that,
it reveals something real about the current state of our world.
I believe Michael Ellner said it well in his quote: “Just
look at us. Everything is backwards, everything is upside down. Doctors
destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, psychiatrists destroy minds,
scientists destroy truth, major media destroys information, religions
destroy spirituality and governments destroy freedom.”
Now
obviously Ellner’s quote is a simplified way of looking at our current
state, but in many ways it’s bang on. Most of what we do in the name of
“good” ends up destroying something else in the process and is passed
off mainly in the name of profit.
No
longer the sole province of the hemp-swathed sprouting enthusiast,
meditation’s popularity has exploded across our collective faces. Tech companies have embraced mindfulness meditation as
the ultimate productivity. Google has “mindful lunches,” complete with
prayer bells and hour-long vows of silence. And as legitimate meditation
researchers uncover more benefits to our brains, our bodies, and our
psyches, diehard rationalists have been forced to accept the scientific
merits of mindfulness.
My explanation for why interest in
meditation has grown is that it’s a replacement for the nature in which
we no longer reside. For hundreds of thousands of years, we spent our
days in natural settings where much of the mind chatter stops and we
exist in the present moment. The falling leaves sparkling overhead with
sunlight. The herky-jerk scamper of a startled lizard just off the
trail. The erratic brilliant butterfly fluttering through the scene that
you can’t help but stop to watch. That was life for most of human
history. It wasn’t special. It was home. It’s what we knew.
Meditation represents a return to that ancestral state of presence in the moment. And yet I get the sense that more people are talking about meditation than actually meditating on a regular basis. I’m one of them, quick to recommend meditation on MDA
because of the irrefutable benefits but unable to actually sit for a
productive session, let alone a regular meditation routine. It’s hard.
It’s unnatural. And it’s an artifice, albeit one made necessary by our
environment.
Meditation has been shown to provide remarkable benefits to those who manage to stick with it, including but not limited to:
If we simply don’t enjoy meditation or can’t make it work, what options do we have?
How can we get some of those attractive effects of meditation without
actually sitting in a room for 30 minutes a day, every day? Here are 15
alternatives:
Re-uploaded
(again, just in case), since TED's Chris Anderson censored Rupert
Sheldrake, along with Graham Hancock, and removed this video and
Hancock's from the TEDx YouTube channel. They dared question the
Scientistic Orthodoxy, and for that they have been publicly castigated
and defamed. Follow this link for TED's dubious statement on the matter
(and the many comments appropriately critical of TED's rationale): http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-f...
Presumably TED disavows any copyright claim, as they've disavowed association with the videos.
BIO:
Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. (born 28 June 1942) is a biologist and author
of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research
Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge
University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first
class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He
then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University,
where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where
he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College,
Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell
biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he
carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of
cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.
While
at Cambridge, together with Philip Rubery, he discovered the mechanism
of polar auxin transport, the process by which the plant hormone auxin
is carried from the shoots towards the roots.
From
1968 to 1969, based in the Botany Department of the University of
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, he studied rain forest plants. From 1974 to 1985
he was Principal Plant Physiologist and Consultant Physiologist at the
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he helped develop new cropping
systems now widely used by farmers. While in India, he also lived for a
year and a half at the ashram of Fr Bede Griffiths in Tamil Nadu, where
he wrote his first book, A New Science of Life.
From
2005-2010 he was the Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project funded
from Trinity College,Cambridge. He is a Fellow of Schumacher College ,
in Dartington, Devon, a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences near
San Francisco, and a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute in
Connecticut.
He lives in London with his wife Jill Purce and two sons.
He
has appeared in many TV programs in Britain and overseas, and was one
of the participants (along with Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel Dennett,
Oliver Sacks, Freeman Dyson and Stephen Toulmin) in a TV series called A
Glorious Accident, shown on PBS channels throughout the US. He has
often taken part in BBC and other radio programmes. He has written for
newspapers such as the Guardian, where he had a regular monthly column,
The Times, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Sunday Times,
Times Educational Supplement, Times Higher Education Supplement and
Times Literary Supplement, and has contributed to a variety of
magazines, including New Scientist, Resurgence, the Ecologist and the
Spectator.
Books by Rupert Sheldrake:
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981).
New edition 2009 (in the US published as Morphic Resonance)
The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988)
The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God (1992)
Seven Experiments that Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide
to Revolutionary Science (1994) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award
from the British Institute for Social Inventions)
Dogs that
Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of
Animals (1999) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award from the British
Scientific and Medical Network)
The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (2003)
The Science Delusion (2012, published in the US as Science Set Free)
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake discusses TED's controversial decision to remove his talk from their YouTube channel. Rupert's response to TED and its anonymous scientific board may be read on the official TED blog: http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-f...
On his website, in the "Controversies" section, Rupert has documented many instances when he's been forced to publicly respond to false and defamatory statements by leading "skeptics": http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/cont...
Secret Knowledge: We are all and everything is vibrational and interacts/manifests via frequency. An extraordinary film by Producer, David Sereda and James Law. For more information and access to other essential films please proceed to website: http://www.voiceentertainment.net/
Secret Knowledge: We are all and everything is vibrational and interacts/manifests via frequency. An extraordinary film by Producer, David Sereda and James Law. If this film resonates with you, for more information and access to other essential films please proceed to website: http://www.voiceentertainment.net/
Relativity versus quantum mechanics: the battle for the universe
Physicists have spent decades trying to reconcile two very different theories. But is a winner about to emerge – and transform our understanding of everything from time to gravity?
Illustration by Owen Gildersleeve
It is the biggest of problems, it is the smallest of problems. At present physicists have two separate rulebooks explaining how nature works. There is general relativity, which beautifully accounts for gravity and all of the things it dominates: orbiting planets, colliding galaxies, the dynamics of the expanding universe as a whole. That’s big. Then there is quantum mechanics, which handles the other three forces – electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces. Quantum theory is extremely adept at describing what happens when a uranium atom decays, or when individual particles of light hit a solar cell. That’s small.
Now for the problem: relativity and quantum mechanics are fundamentally different theories that have different formulations. It is not just a matter of scientific terminology; it is a clash of genuinely incompatible descriptions of reality.
The conflict between the two halves of physics has been brewing for more than a century – sparked by a pair of 1905 papers by Einstein, one outlining relativity and the other introducing the quantum – but recently it has entered an intriguing, unpredictable new phase. Two notable physicists have staked out extreme positions in their camps, conducting experiments that could finally settle which approach is paramount.
Basically you can think of the division between the relativity and quantum systems as “smooth” versus “chunky”. In general relativity, events are continuous and deterministic, meaning that every cause matches up to a specific, local effect. In quantum mechanics, events produced by the interaction of subatomic particles happen in jumps (yes, quantum leaps), with probabilistic rather than definite outcomes. Quantum rules allow connections forbidden by classical physics. This was demonstrated in a much-discussed recent experiment in which Dutch researchers defied the local effect. They showed that two particles – in this case, electrons – could influence each other instantly, even though they were a mile apart. When you try to interpret smooth relativistic laws in a chunky quantum style, or vice versa, things go dreadfully wrong.
Relativity gives nonsensical answers when you try to scale it down to quantum size, eventually descending to infinite values in its description of gravity. Likewise, quantum mechanics runs into serious trouble when you blow it up to cosmic dimensions. Quantum fields carry a certain amount of energy, even in seemingly empty space, and the amount of energy gets bigger as the fields get bigger. According to Einstein, energy and mass are equivalent (that’s the message of E=mc2), so piling up energy is exactly like piling up mass. Go big enough, and the amount of energy in the quantum fields becomes so great that it creates a black hole that causes the universe to fold in on itself. Oops.
‘Quantum mechanics provided the conceptual tools for the Large Hadron Collider.’ Photograph: Rex Features Craig Hogan, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for Particle Astrophysics at Fermilab, is reinterpreting the quantum side with a novel theory in which the quantum units of space itself might be large enough to be studied directly. Meanwhile, Lee Smolin, a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, is seeking to push physics forward by returning to Einstein’s philosophical roots and extending them in an exciting direction.
To understand what is at stake, look back at the precedents. When Einstein unveiled general relativity, he not only superseded Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity; he also unleashed a new way of looking at physics that led to the modern conception of the Big Bang and black holes, not to mention atomic bombs and the time adjustments essential to your phone’s GPS. Likewise, quantum mechanics did much more than reformulate James Clerk Maxwell’s textbook equations of electricity, magnetism and light. It provided the conceptual tools for the Large Hadron Collider, solar cells, all of modern microelectronics.
What emerges from the dust-up could be nothing less than a third revolution in modern physics, with staggering implications. It could tell us where the laws of nature came from, and whether the cosmos is built on uncertainty or whether it is fundamentally deterministic, with every event linked definitively to a cause.
Read More Here
Collective Evolution
