Monthly Archives: June 2011

“The Second Coming” W.B. Yeats

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One of my favorite poems:

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 


Take A Breather

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Things are hectic and crazy these days.  There seems little prospect of this changing.  Our job is to deal, to cope, perhaps even to overcome.  In order to do this, we need to be in contact with WHO we are as much as possible.

The good thing about being in contact with our WHO is that we have a sense of our own worth and our own power. What we choose to so with that is our own stuff.

Under any circumstances, there is no judgement here. Rather, I am offering a suggestion for a way to make through the day with a little less stress.  It is an easy method, but as we learn from reading Taoism, the small stuff is generally the hardest.  We are conditioned to complicate.  To find reasons, to find motives to make observations.  What if you just needed one.  Hmm, not very… democratic?

Well, enough of that.  I have a small exercise (no huffing and puffing required) that, if used on a daily basis, can bring a bit of peace into the day.

Take a minute out of every hour of the day to center.  (If you are awake fourteen hours, that is fourteen minutes.  Not bad.) Just put everything down.  Close your eyes or perhaps focus your eyes on a peaceful picture.  Take two deep breaths.  See all the stuff just rolling off of you.  It can puddle at your feet.  You can send down into whatever is below you.  Feel how great it is to let things go for a bit. Watch it as it goes.  Then see a great white, shining light come down and flow through your body.  Renewing your energy.  Re-establishing WHO you are in your core self.  When it has fully engulfed you, go to your heart center, take two deep breaths. Add a bit of gratitude, a Namaste, whatever, and come back to where you were.

The end.  A one minute vacation to the center of it all.

Nabro Volcano Eruption

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Eritrea volcano eruption : NASA satellite image proves the eruption comes from historic Nabra volcano

Last update: June 13, 2011 at 4:24 pm by By Armand Vervaeck and James Daniell

Earthquake / Eruption summary : During the late afternoon and evening of June 12 2011, a series of moderate earthquakes struck the Afambo, Eritrea area. The moderate earthquakes were followed by 2 strong 5.7 earthquakes. Based on the earthquake pattern and the locations of the epicenter, volcano activity seemed imminent.

to read more go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2011/06/12/unusual-series-of-moderate-volcanic-earthquakes-in-eritrea-and-ethiopia/

Correlation-Roundup & Birth Defects

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by Lucia Graves

Roundup Birth Defects: Regulators Knew World’s Best-Selling Herbicide Causes Problems, New Report Finds

Roundup Ready

WASHINGTON — Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new reportreleased Tuesday.

The report, “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?” found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

But despite such warnings, and although the European Commission has known that glyphosate causes malformations since at least 2002, the information was not made public

to read more go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/roundup-birth-defects-herbicide-regulators_n_872862.html

 

Ayahuascan Experience

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Peru: Hell and Back—Video Exclusive
Deep in the Amazon jungle, writer Kira Salak tests ayahuasca, a shamanistic medicinal ritual, and finds a terrifying—but enlightening—world within.
Photo: An ayahuasca ceremony in Peru
INTO THE LIGHT: Shamans (from left) Hamilton Souther, Julio Gerena Pinedo, and Alberto Torres Davila preside over an ayahuasca ceremony in the Peruvian Amazon. Drawn by the prospect of life-changing visions, visitors come from around the world to take part.
For centuries, Amazonian shamans have used ayahuasca as a window into the soul. The sacrament, they claim, can cure any illness. The author joins in this ancient ritual and finds the worlds within more terrifying—and enlightening—than ever imagined.

I will never forget what it was like. The overwhelming misery. The certainty of never-ending suffering. No one to help you, no way to escape. Everywhere I looked: darkness so thick that the idea of light seemed inconceivable.

to read more and see the video, go to:    http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0603/features/peru.html

New Info on Sunspots Due Tuesday

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‘Major Result’ on Sunspot Cycle to be Announced Tuesday

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 10 June 2011 Time: 05:00 PM ET
A photo of a sunspot taken in May 2010, with Earth shown to scale. The image has been colorized for aesthetic reasons. This image with 0.1 arcsecond resolution from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope represents the limit of what is currently possible in te
A photo of a sunspot taken in May 2010, with Earth shown to scale. The image has been colorized for aesthetic reasons. This image with 0.1 arcsecond resolution from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope represents the limit of what is currently possible in terms of spatial resolution.
CREDIT: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, V.M.J. Henriques (sunspot), NASA Apollo 17 (Earth)

Astronomers will unveil a “major result” on Tuesday (June 14) regarding the sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle.

The announcement will be made at a solar physics conference in New Mexico, according to an alert released today (June 10) by the American Astronomical Society. The discussion will begin at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).

Sunspots are blotches on the sun that appear dark because they are significantly cooler than the rest of the solar surface. While they look small from our vantage point on Earth, these enigmatic structures can be huge — up to 30,000 miles (48,280 kilometers) across, or as wide as the planet Neptune. Sunspots last for a few days or weeks before dissipating. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth’s Star]

to read more, go to: http://www.space.com/11936-sun-weather-sunspot-cycle-announcement-preview.html

Tiny Satellite Spies

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U.S. Army Wants Tiny Satellites as Orbital Spies

Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 25 May 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET
The SMDC-ONE is a 10-inch long, 10-pound satellite that is the first in a family of Army nanosatellites that SMDC/ARSTRAT engineers hope to launch as a new capability for the war fighter.

The SMDC-ONE is a 10-inch long, 10-pound satellite that is the first in a family of Army nanosatellites that SMDC/ARSTRAT engineers hope to launch as a new capability for the war fighter.
CREDIT: Kari Hawkins/USAG Redstone

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The United States Army is making a serious push to launch swarms of tiny, inexpensive spy satellites, which would serve as eyes and ears for soldiers on the ground.

The move is an attempt to adapt to the changing nature of warfare, which increasingly requires small bands of American soldiers to hunt down elusive targets in rough, isolated terrain, such as the craggy hills of Afghanistan. The new satellites could help reduce the difficulty and danger of such operations.

to read more go to:

http://www.space.com/11771-military-space-army-tiny-spy-satellites.html

The first of these nanosatellites launched in December 2010, marking the first time an Army-built satellite made it to orbit since 1960. And many more could be coming soon, Army officials said. [Video: Defense Satellites to Watch Entire World – All the Time]

 


Solar Prominences

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fr/spaceweather.com

SOLAR ACTIVITY: The chance of strong solar flares today is low, but the chance of giant prominences is 100%. Mike Borman photographed this one from his backyard observatory in Evansville, Indiana:

“A number of giant prominences are dancing around the limb of the sun,” he reports. “They have beautifully intricate shapes.”

Prominences are tendrils of hot plasma held aloft by solar magnetic fields. Today’s are big enough to see with ease using no more than backyard solar telescopes. Where should you point your optics? Targets of interest may be found in a full-disk photo taken by Borman.

 

Canine Connection

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Canine Connection: Study Explores How Dogs Think and Learn About Human Behavior

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2011) — Dog owners often attest to their canine companion’s seeming ability to read their minds. How do dogs they learn to beg for food or behave badly primarily when we’re not looking? According to Monique Udell and her team, from the University of Florida in the US, the way that dogs come to respond to the level of people’s attentiveness tells us something about the ways dogs think and learn about human behavior. Their research, published online in Springer’s journalLearning & Behavior, suggests it is down to a combination of specific cues, context and previous experience.

to read more, go to:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110609084808.htm

 

June 12-18

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Overall Color for the Week:    Clear

There are many things that will be coming to the surface this week, and in all areas.  Much has been hidden, hinted at, and/or redirected.  The many facades around these things will come tumbling down.  This can lead to disruption, emotions, reactions, and re-evaluations.  Many of these are way overdue.  This is week when  the energies will attempt to bring what is happening on the Earth into sync with the changes that are going on in the Universe. There is much resistance to this, and you will see this all around you.  People that you know will step out of their usual patterns in an attempt to convince themselves and others that things are not changing, that things are staying the same, that there is no need to look at the world from a new perspective.  When they cannot convince themselves of this, the emotions will follow, and oftentimes, the blame. People do not like to admit they are wrong, and they will, therefore, look outside themselves for someone to pin it on. Unfortunately there are mirrors everywhere, and they tell us what it is that we are unwilling to see for ourselves. This will not be an easy week, however if you are alert to the energies and the possibilities, you will find, with time, that this week was crucial for you in being able to move forward in your own power and to find the success that you know is yours.  This week is characterized by clarity.  This is in all areas.  That means that you may just have to confront your own hidden truths and secrets.  Stay centered, stay grounded, and you will find this one of the best weeks of your life. Continue reading →