There are things to do and things to get done today, and although you can feel yourself torn in many ways, you will be able to take a few particularly noisome items off your To-Do List. That will ease up a lot of emotional angst that you had been holding onto about these things without even realizing that you were doing it Once that is done, things will begin to fall into place more easily and you will find yourself able to start some real soul-searching in terms of where you are going right now. The current energy is very helpful for taking an honest look around you at what is happening in your life. It can also assist you in knowing what to do next. This is not a great time for massive planning ahead, but it is a good time to know what the next step is going to be.
Massive UFO Caught On Fox News Over Earthquake Center In Westwood, California – VIDEO- UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 31, 2014
Location of sighting: Westwood, California
This is an amazing catch. This person was watching Fox 11 News and caught a UFO revealing itself for a few seconds over Westwood, CA right after the earthquake they had. The light first appears to spread from the UFOs bottom center then to its outer edged of the UFO if you watch in slow motion. This would indicate it shot off out of the area causing charged particles around the ship to be seen. I say this because its similar to a Chinese UFO that was recorded in Aug of 2006 and when it left…it made a similar bright burst (Video Below). Where there are earthquakes, there are UFOs. The two seem to be linked, probably because the underground bases do not have tunnels or doors, but open and close the ground itself causing earthquakes to make room for the UFO to pass through (Friendship Case at Rocca Pia, Italy). And this UFO in the Fox News video is really big and would require a big tunnel to be opened and closed quickly. SCW
Check out the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVM-R49NsMg
Watch below how the UFO leaves. This was a real UFO sighting back in 2008. I remember when it happened. I live in Taiwan. 45 min from China. SCW
All of a sudden, the Nasdaq is absolutely tanking. On Monday, it fell more than 1 percent after dropping 3.6 percent on Thursday and Friday combined. At this point, the Nasdaq is off to the worst start to a year that we have seen since 2008, and we all remember what happened back then. So why is this happening? In recent years, the Nasdaq has been ground zero for “dotcom bubble 2.0”. The hottest stocks in the entire world are on the Nasdaq – we are talking about stocks like Yahoo, Netflix, Apple, Tesla, Google and Facebook.
Those stocks have gone to absolutely incredible heights, but now they are starting to fall. Some are blaming insider selling, and without a doubt the “smart money” is starting to flee the stock market. Just check out this chart. Others are blaming low expectations for first-quarter earnings or the tapering of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. But whatever is causing this decline, it is starting to get alarming. The Nasdaq just experienced its largest three day fall since November 2011.
No stock can resist gravity forever. What goes up must eventually come down. This is especially true for stock prices that become grotesquely distorted.
On Wall Street, a price to earnings ratio of 20 to 25 is usually considered fairly normal. In recent years, the price to earnings ratios for many of these “hot tech stocks” have gone way, way beyond that. For example, posted below is a screen capture from Bloomberg TV that was featured in a recent Zero Hedge article…
There is no way in the world that such valuations are justified.
We have been living in another dotcom bubble, and it was inevitable that it was going to burst at some point.
The following is how one financial industry insider described the carnage that we have seen on the Nasdaq over the past few days…
Gary Kaltbaum, president of money-management firm Kaltbaum Capital Management, describes the carnage of once high-flying “growth” names in the Nasdaq composite, that have come crashing down to earth: “The best we can describe what we have been recently seeing in ‘growth-land’ is a 50-car pileup,” Kaltbaum told clients in a morning research note. “Call them what you want … risk areas, growth stocks, froth areas … they are melting away.”
And of course it isn’t just the Nasdaq that has been seeing declines over the past few days. On Monday, some of the biggest names on the Dow also fell precipitiously…
Visa, Goldman Sachs and Boeing are among the biggest drags on the Dow Monday, falling 2.1%, 2.9% and 1.4% respectively. Weakness in these stocks is especially problematic since the Dow gives greatest weight to the stocks with the highest per-share prices. And at $203.41, $158.56 and $125.59 respectively, Visa, Goldman and Boeing are the stocks that really matter to the measure.
And the trouble in these stocks isn’t just today. So far this year, Visa is down 8.7%, Goldman is off 10.5% and Boeing is down 8.0%.
This recent decline has many analysts groping for answers.
Some believe that it is simply a “rotation” as investors leave growth stocks that have become overvalued and move into safer, more traditional stocks.
Peter Boockvar, chief market strategist at Lindsey Group, believes it’s all about the Fed. “I’m still amazed at the complacency with the Fed taper, and a lot of people still don’t think it’s a big deal,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that the high-fliers are getting popped when the Fed is half way done with QE. We’ve got tightening smack in front of your face with the taper.”
Once the Fed begins to truly reduce its massive bond buying program later this year, markets could see a quarter of their value wiped off the books, a private equity pro told CNBC on Friday.
Jay Jordan, founder of the Jordan Company, issued the dire warning during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying a 25 percent drop could extend to all asset classes. He blames the monetary policies of former Fed chair Ben Bernanke for artificially inflating asset prices through super-low interest rates.
Yet others point to the fact that we are now moving into earnings season, and it is being projected that corporate earnings will come in at very poor levels. In fact, it is being estimated that overall earnings for companies in the S&P 500 for the first quarter will be down 1.2 percent.
So what should we expect to see next?
Whether it happens this month or not, at some point a massive stock market correction is coming. In recent years, the financial markets have become completely and totally divorced from economic reality, and that is a state of affairs that cannot last indefinitely.
Many have compared the current state of affairs to 2008, but to me what is happening right now is eerily reminiscent of 2007. The Dow soared to record heights quite a few times that year, but there were constant rumblings of economic trouble in the background. Stocks began to drop steadily late in the year, and 2008 ultimately turned out to be an utter bloodbath.
I believe that what is happening right now is setting the stage for another financial bloodbath. I truly believe that we will look back on this two-year time period and regard it as a major “turning point” for America.
And as I have written about previously, we are in far worse shape as a nation than we were back in 2008. We have far more debt, the “too big to fail banks” have a much larger share of the banking industry, the derivatives bubble has gotten completely and totally out of control, and our overall economy is far weaker than it was back then.
In other words, we are now even more vulnerable. When the next great financial crisis strikes us, it is going to be absolutely crippling.
Now is not the time to get complacent.
Now is the time to get prepared, because time is running out.
Most likely you are feeling a bit restless and uncertain as April begins – not knowing how the month’s intense energies will play out in your life.
To be sure, as I’ve been writing about on Facebook recently, April’s energies can leave even the most grounded person unglued and in a state of ongoing disquiet. Two eclipses in one month – any time – will catalyze a roller coaster ride. In April, though, with the additional rare grand cross planetary configuration building for decades, it may feel more like an upside-down wild mouse ride.
Here are some suggestions for moving through this cycle with more ease and fewer missteps you will need to address later. If you did not see my last article with specifics on April’s wild ride – including dates of eclipses and the grand cross – please see the Archive on the home page of www.Selacia.com.
Use Uncertainty as a Gift
No one likes to be uncertain, unable to figure out current and future happenstance. It’s in our conditioning to want to know what’s up and where we are headed. When we feel like the road in front of us has a huge fog bank spreading out in all directions and obscuring our view, we can panic. There are gifts, though, described here.
Gift One. Consider the blessings of the fog bank. Yes, there are some. One gift is that the voice of uncertainty within you can catalyze your next big leap forward!
How? If you pay attention with consciousness to this voice, it can catalyze a deeper questioning within. This can give you an expanded understanding of what is not working in your life, and help you to see new remedies not visible before.
Gift Two. Here’s another gift. Uncertainty you feel in April can be a signal from your intuition to steer clear of something not in your highest good. Perhaps you have had intuitive hunches for months about a decision or potential action, but you misread them as signs the timing just wasn’t yet right. April could be the month, however when you finally have clarity with a long-term view – indicating that your planned action would not get you where you want to go.
Keep in mind, of course, that uncertainty is sometimes your ego. That’s different and you want to learn to discern the difference. Feeling uncertain with ego running your mind and emotional responses can lead to a circling of unproductive thoughts that keep you stuck and afraid to take action.
If you discover this happening, there is a solution. You can break the circle by overriding this self-created loop and taking action on what is in front of you – one thing at a time. This is how you take back your power.
Here’s an interesting dynamic to note. It is human nature to feel uncertain when things suddenly and sometimes unexpectedly change. The energies of April are catalyzing these kinds of changes.
Some of what will be occurring may throw you off guard, even if it has no direct impact on you. It’s simply unsettling to know that so much is happening so fast around the world or to people you know – things that you did not expect to happen.
Likewise, some of what will be occurring will in fact be welcome news, evoking feelings like you might have when the sun comes out after a long gloomy winter. An outer world example could be hearing that a loved one you haven’t seen for years is coming across the country on an unplanned business trip. You love the idea of spending time with him or her, but the unexpected visit means that your already full schedule needs to be adjusted.
Gift Three. Here’s a third gift. April’s wild ride of energies can feel like your undoing or you can approach it with an open mind and a willingness to shift old methods. Consider, then, how you can be more allowing and in the moment with what shows up. Become mindful of when you are in your head and intellectualizing solutions – and invite spirit to help you let go.
Life is an evolving process that you can only truly appreciate from your heart space. Your rational mind cannot make sense of the quantum eternal realms, but it will try to figure things out and control every detail. Enjoy more peace with a heart focus. Your gift is shifting to a new fueling system that is heart centered.
There are many things you simply cannot know in advance. Some things, however, are constant and eternal – you can count on them to exist when you get to future points in time. Among these: your true nature is divine, you are light, and you exist as a multidimensional being. You can forget these things, but at each juncture, they are intrinsic to who you really are. No one can take them away and you cannot lose them. Trust this.
About the Author
Selacia, internationally acclaimed author of Earth’s Pivotal Years, is an intuitive healer and guide to others on the path of spiritual awakening.
One of the challenges to more exposure is less time. I can remember, back in the day, with Uranus was arcing over my ascendant, just down the road from the petrol pits, I would spend hours at the typewriter, chasing the comet’s tail. It was my lifeline and the current I would plug into, to channel the chaos of the planet, the order of the stars. It’s a bit more difficult these days as I have been tending to and working with a number of clients. However, writing is and always has been the soul of what I do and when I stay away too long, my spirit atrophies in a particular fashion and I feel like an alien at times in my own life. Writing connects me back to my deeper strata and I feel human again.
So let’s crank it up.
Where do we start?
I have been purposefully avoiding Flight 370 for a number of reasons, most of which is that I still do not get a hot, psychic read on the entire affair. We have been goosed with phantom false flags for the past three years. From Aurora to Sandy Hook, to the Boston Marathon, the script reads like a B movie, replete with actors and extras, all from central casting from the Matrix Theater. And if they aren’t stand ins, then they are company hacks, like Ruslan Tsarni (formerly Tsarnaev) who lives on the CIA’s back forty in Bethesda, Maryland.
These sorts of things have always occurred, they were just, well, more hidden, covertly averted from the public’s gaze. Now it’s tattered and messy. The seams on the fabric of this so-called reality are showing more and more often.
These events not only grab our attention but are used to move the needle of public opinion by manufacturing concern, so much that in the case of Sandy Hook, over $27,000,000 has been raised. That’s a lot of concern and yet, when I check in to feel the pulse and heat of these events, I get nothing but void and empty space.
In the case of the Tsarnaev brothers, I do think that they were shot, killed and in the case of Dhozkar, incarcerated. They were the back-up plan, the fall guys for a false flag directed at angry-white-males that got blown up in real time.
So when Flight 370 ducked out of sight and into the 4th dimension, or Diego Garcia, or wherever it was supposed to go, again, I got nothing.
Zero.
Nada.
Then I held back, waiting for more intel, clues, symbols and signs to accrue. The first reason behind the disappearance behind the flight the “official” story had to do with two supposed hijackers from Iran that had stolen passports. When their horribly botched photoshop images came through, it literally had no legs to stand on and that one lasted about 48 hours. This was the terrorist angle.
Then there was the angry pilot, who had a hard on against the Malaysian government, prepped his escape on his home flight trainer, left his wife and kid , took a self incriminating selfie, and piloted flight 370 into the great beyond. This was the lone nut angle.
This lasted slightly longer than the Iranians with the same legs perps narrative.
On the alternative side there’s been talk of patents and Rothschild backed, corporate espionage and even though I love me some Rothschild scandal, this never seemed to fit for me. Why would someone who purportedly has roughly ¼ of the planet’s entire wealth sweat it out over a chip patent? It’s even more questionable since Rothschild sits on the board of Blackstone, which has a controlling interest in Freescale. And, in case of death, those patents pass the company anyway. This made very little sense.
Then there’s the military contractor brain drain personified by Phillip Wood, who stealthily managed to stick an Iphone up his ass and then take a blacked out selfie from his phone with the coordinates of Diego Garcia embedded in the selfie.
My issue with this scenario and the patent scenario in general, is that if a company was going to send their key employees out, why would they want to put them on the same plane? In corporate America, there are often rules in place that prohibit this kind of travel and how did the Rothschilds or the USA gov get the passenger list so quickly and then use their Skyhawk technology to airjack 370 and land it at an undisclosed location? And if that’s the case, then is this an ongoing operation where hundreds of thousands of flight lists are scanned and classified on a daily basis, just for possible scenarios such as Flight 370?
And why are people going out their way to convince all of us that Phillip Wood is very real? Maybe he is, but based on Aurora, Sandy Hook and Boston, where practically no one was real, wouldn’t it makes sense to establish the realness of Phillip Wood and others related to 370?
Okay, then there’s the scenario that the plane would be re-loaded and retrofitted to appear to look like another plane, stuff it with a nuke and fly it to Russia, China or Palo Alto, crash it and kick start WWIII and oh, by the way the Israelis have a mirror of that very same plane hidden in an airport in Tel Aviv.
None of these scenarios sounds all that plausible and quite frankly, it’s opened a sort of small pox version of conspiracy contagion. Even a seasoned decoder like myself is having a hard time believing any of it and trust me, I want to believe!
So let’s turn to astrology where perhaps we might have some clues.
One of the symbols that many people skipped over when looking at Sochi and the Olympics is a massive, statue of Neptune at the edge of The Black Sea. The Winter Olympics are for all intents and purposes a Neptunian event, since they take place on water—frozen water. Notice the fractal periphery of reality embedded in the image of a towering, frozen pyramid on the ocean
The Olympics as a whole are theaters of ritual and initiation, especially the opening and closing ceremonies. The whole Sochi debacle was one bad story after another; cold water, broken doors, stray dogs, lousy food, hacked computers, anti-gay vigilantes, kids with runny noses punching foreigners in the balls, waiters pissing in your bortsch. It was a travesty, a side-show circus more in line with a banana republic than a world power. Putin was a tyrant, but even worse, a con man who staged the Olympics just to fleece the world and make few million, Federal Reserve notes on the side. It seemed like every story was being cranked out by the SPLC, and their stringers, on an hourly basis.
Then, no sooner did the ice melt did OTPOR and Neocons jump on Ukraine. The negative PR for Putin and Russia was all a ploy to paint such an entirely negative picture that if and when they were gonna throw down in Kiev, that Putin had been painted out to be so vile and corrupt that the US and NATO would be doing the world a big favor by shutting him down.
This is the Neptunian fog of deception employed in the effort to discredit and dehumanize any selected foe or opposition, all the while trumpeting the enlightened position and humanity of the accusers. It’s an old, old story.
Neptune stands guard over the ocean in Sochi, trident in hand, stony and silent. He is the guiding spirit and symbol of what was and is going to unfold. It’s also interesting to note that the trident is part of the Ukrainian coat of arms. Hmmmmmm.
Across the ocean, in the same place where there was once two towers, a massive, 1,776 foot obelisk masquerading as a skyscraper is using twin tridents as part of it’s memorial to the buildings that once stood there. The tridents were support columns from the Twin Towers. Across the water, in New Jersey, two more tridents stand erect like antenna, a way station of memory and illusion.
A few months back, Maseratti launched a dark, apocalyptic, commercial that foretells of a coming event. Notice the opening image. It’s a large and cresting wave.The commercial is for a car they are launching in the USA called, “The Ghibli” which is a hot, dust bearing desert wind, from North Africa. They are the equivalent of the Santa Ana winds in Southern California, also known as “Devil Winds.” Maserati’s logo is a trident if you didn’t catch it in the commercial video.
“Ghilbli” is also the name of the film studio of Miyazaki, which has produced a number of magical manga films for children. One of Miyazaki’s most successful films was “Ponyo” which is a story about a fish girl that wants to become a human girl. The backdrop of the story takes place amongst falling satellites and a wobbling moon. The gravitational field of the planet is off and the world is succumbing to rising tides swallowing up the land and only Ponyo’s intervention as a human girl can save the planet.
Now we have the disappearance of Flight 370 at sea. Have a peak at the logo for Malaysian Airlines.
Guess what movie opened last week?
What is the theme here? Rising tides and the antediluvian creation tale of a sinful world, cleansed and purified by them.
What breaks just two days from now? It’s the next generation of Occupy and the artificially, inseminated color revolution. This one is called, “Planet Spring” and is fronted by the Pied Piper of the New World Order, Russell (Hey I’ve kicked drugs—Neptune) Brand. Neptune is the planet of messiahs, gurus and teachers—good and bad.
Who supposedly funded Occupy? Why it was “The Tides Foundation” of course.
The invocation of Neptune exists on a number of levels. The trident is the undersea version of the pitchfork. So there is something slightly demonic when it comes to old Neptune. This demonic undercurrent was transferred to the Marvel Comics super hero, Sub Mariner, who wields a trident and with his pointy ears carries that devilish charisma befitting a prince from Atlantis.
I managed to uncover and interesting issue from the Sub Mariner back catalog, circa Silver Age; “Come The Cataclysm” Guess what? It’s issue number 33.
Nothing is as it seems. People are actors and actors are just people. Crisis is commonplace and the world is peeling away. The reality construct is dissolving into Neptunian mist and ether.
With Chiron and Neptune, both in Pisces, we are looking at profound levels of deception and illusion, but also the conscious return to what we call “God.”
It is in this zone that a particular hexagram of the I Ching takes on a powerful resonance; Dangerous Depths. Here is the definition of hexagram 29, water above and water below.
“Exposure to danger brings good fortune to those who move beyond it. Like boaters passing through white-water rapids, those faced with serious challenges must remain alert. They must take all available precautions and, above all, must keep going forward so as to remove themselves from harm’s way. Once the danger has passed, good fortune awaits.
The positive side of danger is that it offers an excellent chance to cleanse the senses and strengthen the spirit. Surviving danger brings with it tremendous reinvigoration, and sharpens the eye and mind for future challenges.
It is reckless to court danger, but critical to inner development not to shrink from it either. Those who respond to danger most effectively are those who are able to establish an inner bubble of calm in the midst of the action. A calm center keeps one rooted in the moment, alert and focused. Courage at such times springs from focused attention, from a willingness to penetrate the moment of danger to its very core, so as to shape it and transform it.”
Of course much of this can be metaphorical in that we are all on the precipice of rising tides and emotional overwhelm in these times, but there can also be a literal meaning here, especially when we factor in the Cardinal Cross, of which you will have to wait until tomorrow.
Flight 370 (where have we seen these before?), no matter what the “real” story or “real” cause is, is an immersion into deception, depth, illusion and spectacle. This is what “I believe” is the true meaning behind it—that and a portent of massive Earth changes due to the rising social and coastal tides.
When confronted with dangerous depths, it’s time to become a deep diver.
This is the introduction to the new vaccine book by Tetyana Obukhanych (Ph.D. in immunology from Rockefeller University, New York, NY) Vaccine Illusion. The book is available in pdf e-book form for immediate download here.
Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D.
I know of many alternative health practitioners and even of a few pediatricians who have embraced the non-vaccination approach to health. However, I have yet to encounter one among my own kind: a scientist in the trenches of mainstream biomedical research who does not regard vaccines as the greatest invention of medicine.
I never imagined myself in this position, least so in the very beginning of my Ph.D. research training in immunology. In fact, at that time, I was very enthusiastic about the concept of vaccination, just like any typical immunologist. However, after years of doing research in immunology, observing scientific activities of my superiors, and analyzing vaccine issues, I realized that vaccination is one of the most deceptive inventions the science could ever convince the world to accept.
As we hear more and more about vaccine injuries, many individuals are starting to view vaccination as a necessary evil that has helped us initially to overcome raging epidemics but now causes more damage than benefit to our children.
As an immunologist, I have a different and perhaps a very unique perspective. I have realized that the invention of vaccination in the 18th century has precluded us from seeking to understand what naturally acquired immunity to diseases really is. Had we pursued a different route in the absence of that shortcut, we could have gained a thorough understanding of naturally acquired immunity and developed a truly effective and safe method of disease prevention compared to what vaccines can possibly offer.
The biological term immunity refers to a universally observed phenomenon of becoming unsusceptible to a number of infectious diseases through prior experience. Because of the phonetic similarity between the words immunology and immunity, it is tempting to assume that immunology is a science that studies the state of immunity, but this is not the case. Immunology is a science that studies an artificial process of immunization – i.e., the immune system’s response to injected foreign matter. Immunology does not attempt to study and therefore cannot provide understanding of natural diseases and immunity that follows them. Yet, the “knowledge” about the function of the immune system during the natural process of disease is recklessly inferred from contrived immunologic experiments, which typically consist of injecting laboratory-grown microorganisms (live or dead) or their isolated parts into research animals to represent the state of infection. Because immunologic experiments are unrealistic simulations of the natural process, immunologists’ understanding of nature is limited to understanding their own experimental models. Immunologists have confined the scope of their knowledge to the box of experimental modeling, and they do not wish to see beyond that box. Thinking within the box only reinforces the notion of vaccination and cannot provide any other solution to the problem of diseases.
Despite the fact that the biological basis of naturally acquired immunity is not understood, present day medical practices insist upon artificial manipulation of the immune response (a.k.a. immunization or vaccination) to secure “immunity” without going through the actual disease process. The vaccine-induced process, although not resembling a natural disease, is nevertheless still a disease process with its own risks. And it is not immunity that we gain via vaccination but a puny surrogate of immunity. For this reason, vaccination at its core is neither a safe nor an effective method of disease prevention. Yet, immunologists have nothing better to offer because they can only go as far as their deeply rooted immunologic dogma allows them.
Three important factors have contributed to my gradual disillusionment with immunologic paradigms and their applications – vaccines. First, several significant inconsistencies within immunologic theory made me quite unsatisfied with its attempted explanation of immunity. Second, I observed how some seasoned immunologists would omit mentioning the outcome of crucial experiments to make their publication on new vaccine development strategies look very promising. This made me suspicious about the vaccine development process in general and eager to take a look at the other side of the vaccination debate.
The third factor was the birth of my child. This event compelled me to take a break from laboratory research for a few years. I completely shed my identity of an immunologist and became a parent determined to raise a healthy child. I was amazed at how clueless I was about what really matters for health despite my proficiency in all those fancy immunologic theories amassed in the Ivory Tower. For the sake of my child, I had to reconsider everything I knew in immunology. I searched deeper and deeper for the root of vaccine problems we face today and it all came back to me in clear light.
This book is intended to give parents essential immunologic background for making vaccination decisions for their children. Making vaccination decisions is an important personal responsibility that should not be left to any medical or scientific authority. Parents should educate themselves about vaccines and diseases to the extent that they feel absolutely confident and well prepared for taking full responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.
It is important to estimate risks of vaccine injuries versus risks of exposure to vaccine-targeted microorganisms. But the analysis should not stop there. I urge every parent to consider how vaccines achieve their effects, and if the desired vaccine effects truly benefit our children and our society. The implications of vaccination were not acceptable to me, neither as a parent nor as a scientist, and this book is my effort to tell other parents why.
Another goal of this book is to raise awareness in our society about the urgent necessity to change basic immunologic research in a way that will finally bring us understanding of naturally acquired immunity. It is up to future generations of immunologists to rescue this science and put it on the right track. The benefits for humankind will be enormous, as this would make both vaccine injuries and fear of diseases a matter of the past. But to make this happen, the field of immunology must first be cleared from the weeds of immunologic dogma.
And finally, this book is my attempt to heal the schism in our society between those who oppose vaccines due to vaccine safety concerns and those who oppose the anti-vaccine movement due to the fear of diseases. This schism has brought us enormous suffering by dividing families, friends, and health provider communities. But we all have the same goal: we all want the best for our children. Only by uniting our efforts will we be able to find a solution to the problem of diseases without compromising our health by means of vaccines.
I remember being a very compassionate child. While watching “The Little House on the Prairie,” I cried my eyes out when Laura couldn’t give Pa a Christmas gift. But 12 years of physical abuse and being forced to the confines of the “act-like-a-man box” wrung most of that compassion out of me by the time I reached adulthood.
Although I was what therapists call “high-functioning,” my lack of compassion was like a cancer that poisoned my friendships, relationships, business affairs, and life. At the age of 46, I hit rock bottom. Unemployed and on the verge of divorce, I found myself slapping my four-year-old son’s head when he wouldn’t listen to me.
As a survivor of abuse, I had promised myself that I would never lay a hand on my children, but here I was abusing my beloved son.
Dr. Ted Zeff believes that only compassionate men can save the planet.
I knew I had to change. I started with empathy, which led me to compassion. I committed to a daily meditation practice, took the CCARE Cultivating Compassion class at Stanford University, and completed a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I read and researched everything I could find on compassion.
I found that the more compassion I felt, the happier I became.
Convinced that I had found an essential ingredient to a happy and peaceful life, I started to interview scientific and spiritual experts on compassion, trying to find out what made a compassionate man. Interviewees included Dr. Dacher Keltner, co-founder of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center; Dr. James Doty, founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University; Dr. Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness; Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence; and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen Buddhist monk nominated by Martin Luther King Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.
From these interviews and research, I compiled a list of what makes a compassionate man.
1. Learn to see compassion as strength
Most events I attend that discuss compassion are predominately attended by women. When I asked Thich Nhat Hanh how we could make compassion more attractive to men, he answered, “There must be a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of compassion because compassion is very powerful … Compassion protects us more than guns, bombs, and money.”
Although many men in society see compassion and sympathy as feminine—which translates to a weakness in our patriarchal society—all of the compassionate men I interviewed view compassion as a strength.
Dr. Hanson noted how compassion makes one more courageous since compassion strengthens the heart—courage comes from the French word “coeur,” which means heart. Dacher Keltner argues that Darwin believed in “survival of the kindest,” not the fittest. Dr. Ted Zeff, author of the book Raise an Emotionally Healthy Boy, believes that only compassionate men can save the planet. Zeff argues that “the time has come to break the outdated, rigid male code that insists that all men should be aggressive, thick-skinned, and unemotional”—an excellent description of the act-like-a-man box that I tried to live in.
The compassionate men I interviewed agree with the Dalai Lama when he said, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
2. Have compassionate role models
All of the compassionate men seemed to have role models that supported their compassion instinct. Marc Brackett gives credit to his uncle, Marvin Maurer, who was a social studies teacher trying to instill emotional intelligence in his students before the term “emotional intelligence” was coined. Over 30 years after teaching in middle school, Maurer’s “Feeling Words Curriculum” acts as a key component of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence’s RULER program. Similarly, Marshall Rosenberg, author of the book Nonviolent Communication, constantly mentions his compassionate uncle who cared for his dying grandmother.
Role models are not meant to be worshiped, deified, or prayed to. They are meant to be emulated.
A role model doesn’t necessarily have to be living, or even real. Chade-Meng Tan, author of Search Inside Yourself, cites Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of Gandhi as a role model for compassion. Dr. Rick Hanson posits Ender from the science-fiction novel Ender’s Game as a compassionate role model. Certainly, Jesus and Buddha are obvious role models of compassion. The key is to treat them like role models.
Role models are not meant to be worshiped, deified, or prayed to. They are meant to be emulated. They pave the way for us to walk a similar path. Can we turn the other cheek and love our enemies like Jesus asked us? Can we transcend our ego and see all things as one, like the Buddha did?
In contrast are individuals who were not guided by positive role models. In his book From Wild Man to Wise Man, Franciscan friar Richard Rohr describes what he calls “father hunger”: “Thousands and thousands of men, young and old … grew up without a good man’s love, without a father’s understanding and affirmation.” Rohr, who was a jail chaplain for 14 years, claims that “the only universal pattern I found with men and women in jail was that they did not have a good father.”
Scott Kriens, former CEO of Juniper Networks and founder/director of the 1440 Foundation, concurs: “The most powerful thing we can do for our children is be the example we can hope for.”
3. Strive to transcend gender stereotypes
All of the compassionate men interviewed broke out of the “act-like-a-man” box. At a certain point in his life, Dr. Rick Hanson realized that he was too left-brained, so he made a conscious effort to reconnect with his intuitive, emotional side. When Elad Levinson, program director for Spirit Rock Meditation Center, first encountered loving-kindness and compassion practices, his first reaction was one he claims is fairly typical for men: “Come on! You are being a wuss, Levinson. No way are you going to sit here and wish yourself well.” So the actual practice of compassion instigated his breaking free from gender stereotypes.
Ted Zeff cites a study that found infant boys are more emotionally reactive than infant girls, but by the time a boy reaches five or six years old “he’s learned to repress every emotion except anger, because anger is the only emotion society tells a boy he is allowed to have.” If society restricts men’s emotional spectrum to anger alone, then it is obvious men need to transcend this conditioning to become compassionate.
Dr. Doty points to artificially defined roles as a major problem in our society because they prevent men from showing their vulnerability. “If you can’t be vulnerable, you can’t love,” says Doty. Vulnerability is a key to freedom from the “act-like-a-man” box, for it allows men to remove the armor of masculinity and authentically connect with others.
Both Dr. Doty and Scott Kriens emphasize authenticity as a necessary pathway to compassion. Kriens defines authenticity as “when someone is sharing what they believe as opposed to what they want you to believe.” This opens the door to compassion and true connection with others.
4. Cultivate emotional intelligence
In his book Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson argue that most boys are raised to be emotionally ignorant: “Lacking an emotional education, a boy meets the pressure of adolescence and that singularly cruel peer culture with the only responses he has learned and practiced—and that he know are socially acceptable—the typical ‘manly’ responses of anger, aggression, and emotional withdrawal.”
In contrast, most of the men I interviewed were “emotionally literate.” They seemed to see and feel things with the sensitivity of a Geiger counter. Tears welled up in Doty’s eyes a number of times when he talked about compassion. Hanson explained how he landed in adulthood “from the neck up” then spent a large part of his 20s becoming whole again. Much of Chade-Meng Tan’s Search Inside Yourself training that he developed for the employees of Google is based on emotional intelligence developed through attention training, self-knowledge, and self-mastery.
Similarly, Father Richard Rohr leads initiation groups for young men that force initiates to face pain, loneliness, boredom, and suffering to expand their emotional and spiritual capacity. It is no coincidence that these initiations are held in nature. Nature seems to be an important liminal space that allows boys and men to reconnect with their inner world. Dr. Hanson is an avid mountain climber. Ted Zeff advocates spending time in nature with boys to allow their sensitivity to develop.
5. Practice silence
Almost all of the men I interviewed regularly spend some time in silence. They’d hit “pause” so that they can see themselves and others more clearly. When our interview approached two hours, Dr. Rick Hanson asked to wrap it up so he would have time for his morning meditation. Meng Tan had just returned from a week-long silent meditation retreat a few days before our interview. Scott Kriens started a daily sitting and journaling practice almost ten years ago that he rigorously practices to this day.
Father Richard Rohr practices Christian contemplative prayer, which he says leads to a state of “undefended knowing” that transcends dualistic, us versus them thinking. Rohr argues that true compassion can’t happen without transcending dualistic thinking. “Silence teaches us not to rush to judgment,” says Rohr.
Self-awareness through mindfulness practices like meditation, silent prayer, or being in nature allow compassionate men to embrace suffering without reacting, resisting, or repressing. Thich Nhat Hanh says that mindfulness holds suffering tenderly “like a mother holding a baby.” That poetic image is backed up by more and more research, which is finding that mindfulness can help foster compassion for others.
So the path to making more compassionate men is clear: Understand compassion as a strength, get to know yourself, transcend gender roles, look for positive role models—and become one yourself. If that sounds too complicated, 84-year-old Marvin Maurer sums up being a compassionate man in five easy words, “Be in love with love.”
Federal Reserve official warns bitcoin threatens central banks – and that’s a good thing
04/07/2014 10:48 am Filed Under: BTC – Bitcoin by Andrew Moran
Last week, David Andolfatto, St. Louis Federal Reserve Vice President and Director of Research, published an in-depth presentation on the peer-to-peer decentralized currency bitcoin. This is the first time that such a high level central banking official has studied the cryptocurrency and upon his research he has discovered that it could very well pose a threat to the system – but that’s a good thing.
The Business Insider was able to sit down with Andolfatto and talk about the presentation entitled “Bitcoin and Beyond: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Virtual Currencies,” (PDF) his blog post and bitcoin itself.
He explained that it all began when he attempted to refute that gold is not superior to fiat money, but because bitcoin was in the news he acknowledged that the two share a similarity: there is a fixed money supply. Andolfatto blogged a little bit more and wrote about traditional theories of money.
After this, he was approached by Marcela Williams, the St. Louis Fed’s assistant vice president of strategic communications, to deliver a presentation on bitcoin.
When he first discovered the digital currency, Andolfatto deemed it “silly” and read a blog post by Keynesian economist Paul Krugman and concurred that this was an “intensive effort to mine for gold,” something that the world doesn’t need more of. He performed a little bit more research and then tergiversated.
“I shared in that opinion, but I continued to read about it, and it struck me that that analogy was incorrect — that in fact what these miners were, was mislabeled,” said Andolfatto. “They were performing a communal service, a record-keeping service which is critical to any money system. Mining was a red herring, it’s just one way to reward record keepers for their service, and that protocol could function even with constant supply.”
During his talk, Andolfatto attempted to explain that bitcoin would have immense difficulty competing against the United States dollar because of its fixed money supply. History has shown, says Andolfatto, there is a problem with multiple competing currencies.
“So I asked, how do we think things are going to work out? Do we think merchants are going to accept several different virtual currencies? The relative prices remain stable? Really? What makes you think that? History shows these things are going to fluctuate like crazy.”
He argued that the dollar has remained stable and secure for the past three decades.
In the end, though, bitcoin could be a threat to the establishment, which he argues is a good thing for the Federal Reserve System and other central banks because it prompts these institutions to operate sound policies. If they refrained from doing so then the citizenry would look into another currency.
States have implemented currency controls because it produces demand for a domestic currency – whether it’s in good shape or not – but these days it’s a lot more difficult because everyone has a computer or a smartphone so these regulations make it harder.
“So that’s not gonna happen in the U.S., but to the extent there are other technologies looming out there, that threat might discipline central banks,” said Andolfatto.
– See more at: http://www.pfhub.com/federal-reserve-official-warns-bitcoin-threatens-central-banks-thats-good-thing-501/#sthash.kGlqFLSX.dpuf
An artificial light source was seen this week in this NASA photo which shows light shining upward from…the ground. This could indicate there there is intelligent life below the ground and uses light as we do. This is not a glare from the sun, nor is it an artifact of the photo process. Look closely at the bottom of the light. It has a very flat surface giving us 100% indiction it is from the surface. Sure NASA could go and investigate it, but hey, they are not on Mars to discovery life, but there to stall its discovery. SCW
7.04.2014- 20:27GMT The epicenter is around the lake of Serre-Poncon. No damage has been reported from the French Riviera. It is likely that there will be a few minor aftershocks with a magnitude 5, and there is always a very minor chance that this is a precursor event. The largest historic earthquake was in 1909 killing around 46 people and causing the equivalent of 2 billion Euros damage by today’s estimates.
7.04.2014- 20:25GMT Being underneath the mountains, there is a slight chance of landslides and also a slight chance that some mountain villages will have damage. Barcellonette has reported minor damage already (a small town.)
7.04.2014- 20:15GMT A moderate shallow earthquake has hit the south of France. There is a chance of damage given the depth. It is unlikely much will be discovered tonight.
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 4.9
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-04-07 21:27:01
He explained that it all began when he attempted to refute that gold is not superior to fiat money, but because bitcoin was in the news he acknowledged that the two share a similarity: there is a fixed money supply. Andolfatto blogged a little bit more and wrote about traditional theories of money.
