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 19 Nov 2002 @ 10:11, by craiglang. Neighborhood
Sunday, during our monthly Dome Healing Meditation circle in Minneapolis, an interesting and rather irreverent image came through to many of us. The vision was of a troupe of medieval comedy players entering the village square. Their purpose was not to convey any message, nor was it to accomplish anything momentous. It's mission was levity. It's goal was to poke fun of the authority which viewed itself as being above the townspeople - to mock the rigid system which held the people in place.
There was a piper, a drummer, and several players. However, The key member of the troupe was the "fool". This character wore the typically abnoxious bright garb, cap, and slippers of a joker. His acts continued to poke fun of the mayor, who became more and more annoyed as his antics went on. All this was of course, to the delight of the towns-people, who had not had this much fun in months.
At one point, many of the soldiers who normally guarded the city walls, cast their swords aside and came down from their guard stations to join the fetivities. Even the stern expression on the statue of the town's patron and founder turned to a smile. (reminiscent of the movie "Chocolat")
By the end of the meditation circle, although we had all remained in deep trance, the laughter among us seemed to have, in itself, become a living entity. It did wonders to break the seriousness of what many of us had felt in previous days - the sense of impending darkness and danger. For a moment the heaviness was gone, replaced by lighthearted fun.
One person in the circle wondered if this was the trickster (Coyote). But that explanation seemed to have too much meaning. This moment was one which was free of content, but completely and delightfully full of laughter. At this moment, we could ignore that which would otherwise be considered important. We could poke fun of the the politics, the message and the rules of authority.
And this was the "non-message" of the jester: Sometimes we can cast the seriousness aside, ignore our concerns and simply spoof the system. Just for a moment, we can be the fool.
Namaste,
-Craig More >
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 18 Nov 2002 @ 22:24, by ming. Environment, Ecology
"'Living Machines' are whole systems approaches to treating wastewater. They are solar-powered, accelerated versions of the water treatment facilities found in mature natural systems. Incorporating helpful microbes, plants, snails and fish into diverse, self-organizing and responsive communities, Living Machines are site-specific, biological solutions that re-route waste streams into resources." That is from this introduction. See companies like Ocean Arks or Living Machines that create ecologically sound ways of dealing with waste water, often better than any purely technological solution could accomplish. A lot of good stuff seems to be going on in the State of Vermont, with companies such as Ben & Jerry's leading the way. More >
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 18 Nov 2002 @ 10:51, by swan. Visual Arts, Graphics
Photocollage and writing by John Ashbaugh koravya More >
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 15 Nov 2002 @ 20:05, by unity1. Medicine, Healthcare
Our hear is crying out to us to listen to it...to stop ignoring those uncomfortable feelings. The biggest challenge facing us individually and as a race is not the threat of war, nor environmental degradation, but to come from our hearts..but first we must understand what our heart actually is/does.
Our heart is more than a pump. Researchers are discovering what mystics throughout the ages have known and in these trying times when there is so much fear, anger, and hatred around, its our challenge to realise there we also need to understand just how our heart works and the effects it can have in our lives... for futher info go to www.heartmath.org
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For centuries, the heart has been considered the source of emotion, courage and wisdom. At the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) Research Center, we are exploring the physiological mechanisms by which the heart communicates with the brain, thereby influencing information processing, perceptions, emotions and health. We are asking questions such as: Why do people experience the feeling or sensation of love and other positive emotional states in the area of the heart and what are the physiological ramifications of these emotions? How do stress and different emotional states affect the autonomic nervous system, the hormonal and immune systems, the heart and brain?
Over the years we have experimented with different psychological and physiological measures, but it was consistently heart rate variability, or heart rhythms, that stood out as the most dynamic and reflective of inner emotional states and stress. It became clear that negative emotions lead to increased disorder in the heart’s rhythms and in the autonomic nervous system, thereby adversely affecting the rest of the body. In contrast, positive emotions create increased harmonyand coherence in heart rhythms and improve balance in the nervous system. The health implications are easy to understand: Disharmony in the nervous system leads to inefficiency and increased stress on the heart and other organs while harmonious rhythms are more efficient and less stressful to the body's systems.
More intriguing are the dramatic positive changes that occur when techniques are applied that increase coherence in rhythmic patterns of heart rate variability. These include shifts in perception and the ability to reduce stress and deal more effectively with difficult situations. We observed that the heart was acting as though it had a mind of its own and was profoundly influencing the way we perceive and respond to the world. In essence, it appeared that the heart was affecting intelligence and awareness.
The answers to many of our original questions now provide a scientific basis to explain how and why the heart affects mental clarity, creativity, emotional balance and personal effectiveness. Our research and that of others indicate that the heart is far more than a simple pump. The heart is, in fact, a highly complex, self-organized information processing center with its own functional “brain” that communicates with and influences the cranial brain via the nervous system, hormonal system and other pathways. These influences profoundly affect brain function and most of the body’s major organs, and ultimately determine the quality of life......read a small history of heart research More >
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 15 Nov 2002 @ 02:31, by swan. Ideas, Creativity
This is a beautiful meditation and blessings to the author who wrote it who is yet to be known.
Collage by swan
"I speak directly to the Child within. I want you to know I have prepared a safe place for you. In this place, you will not be violated. In this place, you will not be judged. In this place, you will be loved, honored, respected and supported. In this place, you will be listened to, accepted, and allowed complete freedom to express whatever you need to express. Here, in this safe place, you can feel whatever you need to feel. Here, you'll be comforted and understood. You have carried some burdens for a long time. You were able to do that because you are smart and very strong. You had to do that because you had no choice. I want you to know that you have different choices now. Now, if you choose, you can begin to let go of some of those burdens, that pain, and those secret feelings. Anything you want to release can be released, and I will help you. Anything you still need to hold on to, to make you feel safe, you can hold on to. I will honor your boundaries. I understand you tried to speak out some things before, and were not allowed to be yourself or tell your truth. I understand that it may take a little time before you trust me, and that is good because it means you have learned to protect yourself. I will give you the time you need to trust me, and to trust the adult you have become. You can remember a little or a lot, or you can just let the memories release through emotion or breath. You have different choices now. You are in control. Remember who you are." More >
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12 Nov 2002 @ 15:30, by sharie. Politics
Now that we've discovered the software programs which count the votes at the ballot box were created by companies owned by Senators and Campaign Managers ad nauseum, I suspect the results were determined prior to the elections.
See [link]
I think of all the hatred focused on the U.S. now...
and all of our sports teams proudly wearing the American flag on their uniforms, representing our *country* which is controlled by a criminal dictator...
and I think of our public funds being siphoned off into private bank accounts while the 2004 Presidential election results are being programmed into the computer software...
I'm thinking our residents might wanna come up with a whole new identity, a new flag, a new symbol, a new constitution... to set us apart from the dictator, so the world knows how we feel about what's going on in our lives.
The whole Iraq thing, for example, is so bizarre.
Back in July, Cheney was being investigated for price-fixing when he was the Energy Commissioner.
Suddenly we have the war against Iraq getting front page coverage.
Do I think the need to attack Iraq is fabricated by the *administration* who will benefit from it?
Yes.
Based on Bush-Cheney investments in weapons companies, how much do they stand to profit from weapons sales to the U.S. Government [contracts they will issue, paid for courtesy of the American people]?
(This is disgusting.)
How many babies and children and men and women will be slaughtered for this *necessary* war?
The bizarre thing is that fuel cell cars are coming off the assembly lines at Ford, Honda, etc., etc., which will begin a reduction in the demands for gas and oil, so I don't see how the Iraq war is about war... (or about biological weapons)... it's more about the Bush-Cheney faction wanting to control the world, to control the U.N.
But why?
Are they religious fanatics?
Control freaks?
Money grubbers to the nth degree?
It reminds me of the chemtrails, and the one airline mechanic and one employee who came online to tell what they knew about them, how they discovered them onboard, and how the military was forcing them to participate in their covert dumpings, and how they learned who was behind it all.
They said that some of the world's billionaires believed that the earth was doomed, and that the one way to make a better world was to wipe out the population down to a small fraction and to start over... with new dogma, new mind programming, new laws, and that the elitists would create a whole new world... through mass murder.
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11 Nov 2002 @ 20:22, by bushman. Space Exploration
As you know, I have been following an ancciant trail, a path traveled by the gods, maybe. As the truth of our past shyly or slyly shows itself. Now we know why there was chariots for the gods, since they lived on Mars, maybe. Something big happened not just here on Earth, but the entire solar system. I heard an interview the other night with an astronaught, he said that space had a smell, the smell of burnt gun powder. They smell it when they come back into the air lock and on thier space suits. I've seen pictures of the dark side of the moon, soot covered craters and lots of them. I've seen proof that Mars was probably a Moon, because of it's shape. Now heres the rest of the story, ask an architect to look at a satilite picture of some native american ruins, lol. Then after he is done, have him draw the ruins in 3d from what he sees from the sat pic, then for fun tell him when he is done that it was a sat pic from Mars, then see the look on his face, lol. Now heres a sat pic, of some ruins near Flagstaff Arizona. [link]
Now, go to this site, I think you will see the connection or was that direction, lol.
[link]
Now heres some of the story writen in stone, litraly.
[link]
What is important on this page is the first 2 pics. The NASA pic of the cosmic radiation on Mars as it relates to human life. The areas in red are not safe for human life or life in genral as we know it anyway, due to high radiation. The pic next to it, is a native american drawing, notice the circle in the center of the sun. this pic was in some rooms that look more like class rooms than apartments, as the forest service claims. Why do I know this? Simple the native teachers used a speaker stone as did the elders, each room had its own speaker stone on the floor. Usualy you find these speaker stones in elder circles, they would pass the stone around, and if anyone had anything to say they could while they had the stone, other wise they could not speak till they had the stone. More proof that these ruins where class rooms was that the drawings got more involved from one room to another.
Let's see just one more that caught my eye today, well 2 if you count the new MJ12 documents that have surfaced from the depths of the freedom of information act. But just this one is enough to top this story off. :}
[link] More >
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 10 Nov 2002 @ 19:09, by ming. Social System Design
David Reed talks about Group Forming.
David Reed is an Internet veteran credited with what is sometimes called Reed's Law, which says, essentially, that networks that facilitate easy group forming are subject to potentially exponential growth. So, here's a little bit of math:
Broadcast media or traditional industrial age businesses grow roughly in ratio to how many listeners or customers they have. Twice as many listeners/viewers means twice as good. Twice as many people who see your ad means twice as many customers which means twice as good. We can use the symbol N for the value. N number of people gives a value of N. That is called proportional growth.
But if we're talking about a network, where the participants can communicate with each other, the rules change. Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, noticed that, and it is known as Metcalfe's Law that the value of a network increases with the square of the number of members. Think about the phone system. If you can only talk with a few people it isn't worth much. The more people you can call, the more valuable it is. Twice as many people make it not just twice as good, but four times (the square) as good. Roughly. So, the value is N2.
And now David Reed says that if we're talking about not just a network, but a community, the rules change again. The number of different interactions that might happen within a group of N people would be 2N. That is what is called exponential growth. So, if the members of the network can't just communicate one-to-one, but they can get together in groups of all kinds of sizes, the potential value is huge.
That's maybe a bit tenuous, as there's nothing at all automatic about it. It is what potentially can happen. But useful groups don't necessarily form just because it is possible for them to do so. I am, however, extremely interested in discovering factors that help groups to form and to self-organize. So, what it is that actually creates a Group Forming Network (GFN)? I'm not sure if Reed has an answer, but I'll keep looking.
One third of a century ago in an article entitled "The Computer as a Communication Medium," J.C.R. Licklider and Bob Taylor wrote the following, which was part of what inspired David Reed and others to build the first Internet:What will on-line interactive communities be like? Â… they will consist of geographically separated members Â… communities not of common location, but of common interest. Â… The whole will constitute a labile network of networks-ever changing in both content and configuration. Â… the impact Â… will be very great-both on the individual and on society. Â… First, Â… because the people with whom one interacts will be selected more by commonality Â… than by accidents of proximity. More >
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 8 Nov 2002 @ 23:59, by ming. Politics
The first U.S. congressional candidate with a weblog, Tara Sue Grubb in North Carolina, ended up with 11.19% of the votes, despite next to no funding, and no traditional campaigning. She ran her campaign directly to the Internet through her weblog. Heheh, I notice that I provided 0.85% of her total funding, by sending her $30 through PayPal, and I'm not even in her state. Ed Cone has some commentary. More >
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6 Nov 2002 @ 11:57, by sharie. Personal Development
What in your life makes you feel sad?
What sadness have you been carrying around a long time?
A couple months ago, I woke up from an intense dream that stuck with me for weeks and weeks.
It just wouldn't go away.
I got the feeling that maybe there was something I was supposed to understand from it, and so I tuned myself into the feeling of the dream to see what it was trying to say to me.
It dealt with a period of my life almost 25 years ago that had always been a mystery to me. I was never able to make sense of events that had occurred.
As I *felt* and embraced what this dream was communicating to me, I was struck by a shocking insight.
That time in my life had been immediately following a serious car accident that I was in. I was the passenger, and knocked unconscious on impact. The two cars were both totaled.
I was taken to the hospital for an x-ray, and then told I had a concussion. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but as I look back on the accident and how mangled the metal was, and that I'd hit my head on impact, I realize the injury that the soft tissue of my brain must've sustained. I realized I was brain damaged by the accident. It wasn't permanent but it was about six months before I began to feel like myself again.
Meanwhile the upheaval in my life was catastrophic and heartbreaking.
And it was *always* a mystery to me the turn of events that occurred... until I had this dream that made me look closely at when it all started.
There wasn't anyone to care for me or help me, or even explain to me what was going on.
I was just brain damaged and hadn't a clue. I didn't even understand that I was brain damaged.
It is such a relief to finally understand that pivotal moment of my life, and to understand why my life took such a drastically course than the one I'd been on.
It had always been the saddest part of my life, and now to understand it was all because of a car accident... I feel myself changing mentally... and emotionally.
All because of a dream.
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