This partnership allowed Mars to use Hershey in their products.
Hershey had control of chocolate at the time.
Harmful Ingredients Discovered In Candy
In 1976, Red candies were banned due to people’s concern about the questionable dyes. FD&C Red #2 was suspected to be a carcinogen. Red candies were then reintroduced in 1983. However, Mars is still urged by consumers to remove these dangerous artificial colors.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese experienced a similar petition urging them to remove dangerous Yellow #5 and Yellow #6, which was supported by 350,000 signatures!
The CSPI has recommended that warning labels listing the risks of the eight approved FD&C food colors should be a requirement for all products containing these dangerous ingredients. The CSPI’s Dr. Jacobson said:
“The evidence that these petrochemicals worsen some children’s behavior is convincing.
I hope that the committee will advise the agency to both require warning notices and encourage companies voluntarily to switch to safer natural colorings.”
WHAT Are M&M’s Made Of?
Let’s look at the current ingredients listed on a bag of Original M&M’s:
Milk chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, skim milk, milkfat, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial color), sugar, corn starch, >1% corn syrup, dextrin, artificial colors (Blue 1 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 1, Blue 2 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Blue 2), gum acacia.
Sadly, the Mars company has continued to use these artificial colors. Even though the FDA has declared them safe for human consumption, there is clear scientific evidence proving otherwise. What makes it even worse is that there are other natural and safe color alternatives available!
With a 2007 Forbes reported income of $27.4 million dollars, it is time for the Mars company to use that money to make positives changes to their products that will make them safer to eat! Until that day comes… it’s best you give up these dangerous and questionable little chocolates.
Since M&M’s are NOT an option any longer… here is what you can eat instead when you need a chocolate-y fix:
Dark Chocolate: Try the following “clean” chocolate bars:
Forgiveness can be a really sticky issue. Everyone knows it is “blessed” to forgive, yet most of us secretly—or not-so-secretly— harbor grudges, carry resentments, relive betrayals, and plot revenge, if only in our fantasies. After all, we “earned” those stripes through our own pain and anguish. If we let all that go, we lose part of ourselves, don’t we?? If we let it go, it means it doesn’t matter that we were hurt, doesn’t it?? Often people resist forgiving because they believe that in doing so they are condoning the bad behavior, invalidating their own experience and pain, pretending it never happened, and letting the person off “scot free.” That is simply not the case.
Forgiveness means acknowledging and accepting that something very painful happened or, yes, was done to you… and then letting it go and leaving it in the past where it belongs, so you can heal and move on in your own life. The other person probably moved on a long time ago!
And remember, it is totally up to you what, if any, future relationship you have with that person, and that will likely depend on whether he/she apologized, expressed true remorse, made amends, and worked to earn your trust again. Remember the adage: “Hurt me once, shame on YOU. Hurt me twice, shame on ME.” It’s true! “Turning the other cheek” may mean turning and walking away! We definitely don’t have to go back for a “second dose,” and it behooves us to learn from our experiences. We can only learn who people really are by observing, and sometimes experiencing, their actions. Every action is information about who a person is and whether we want him/her in our lives. And, as Maya Angelou said, “When a person shows you who they are, believe them!”
Holding on to past grievances is like permanently holding ourselves in the moment of the pain so we can relive it over and over again.When we are still stuck emotionally in a painful event, we are stuck firmly in the past, not moving forward with our lives, and we are giving our lives over to that single event. It becomes a defining moment for us. Many people actually define their entire existence in terms of what someone else did to them years, or even decades ago! Is it possible they want their entire life to become a shrine to one painful event? Why? What is the emotional payoff for that?
Think of it this way: Someone walks up and hits you in the head with a baseball bat and walks away. Instead of going home to get first aid and heal your wound, you pick up the baseball bat and, over the next few years, periodically pick up the bat and hit yourself in the head again. By the end of five years, you’ve hit yourself in the head a few thousand times, with your built-up anger and resentment adding force to each blow. The person who originally hit you with the bat only did it once. So, at the end of the five years, who caused you the most pain and the most harm? That person or you?
Emotional pain, anger, resentment, and bitterness build up in our systems if we don’t vent them and let them go. Emotions are intended to be Energy in Motion, and emotional energies can cause all kinds of problems if they don’t move out of our systems. They are like toxic fumes that continually swirl around us. They make us sick and, worse, attract more toxic fumes… that will attract more painful events… that will emit more toxic fumes…
We create a continuing loop, and each time we relive the event in our minds, the neural networks that were created become deeper and stronger, so it is easier to “fall back” into that thought and feeling. It poisons our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and our lives, and often the lives of those around us. Before long, we view everything through that filter and our vision, our thoughts, and our emotional processes are so poisoned that the only thing we can see, think, or feel is pain, anger, resentment, and bitterness. We begin to believe that Life is defined by that, and we no longer allow anything else in, because our outer reality always proves that our beliefs are true!
It also traps us in victim mode. By holding on to past grievances and marinating ourselves in those toxic emotions, we give every ounce of our power away to the other person.We give up responsibility for ourselves and our emotional state of being, we wallow in our self-pity, and we give others power over our lives.
The truth is, no one can truly hurt us unless we let them.(OUCH!) Knowingly or unknowingly, we contribute to our own pain. We may not have control over what others do but, contrary to popular belief, we DO have control over how we respond. We can cling to the pain and relive it, or we can heal and walk away. In fact, it is never the experiences that create our lives and who we are, it is how we respond to them. Do we learn and grow and rise above, or do we fall and wallow and give up? It really is our choice.
As is so often the case, we can learn so much from the children. Kids know how to “shake it off,” unless the adults teach them to cling to their pain. A happy child falls, skins a knee, has mom “fix it,” and then runs out to play again. Kids accept that pain is just something that happens in life. They know all too well that sometimes people are mean and do things that hurt them, and they don’t let it stop them. We could use a lot more of that!
We owe it to ourselves to forgive. It is all for US, not for them. Forgiveness is truly a “selfish act,” and it really does set us free.
So how do we do that? When someone betrays us; abuses us; takes advantage of us; causes physical, mental, or emotional harm, how do we work our way to the point where we can forgive them and let it go? How do we, as Jiminy Cricket used to say, “Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again”?
It isn’t always easy, and we generally have to go one step at a time, but it may be the most important part of our healing process. If we can reframe our understanding of the event, we can often change our perspective enough to forgive and make lemonade from those lemons. Here are some ways to reframe:
Recognize that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time. This includes ALL resources, such as emotional understanding and capacity, self-esteem, knowledge, wisdom, experience, energy, ability to empathize with others, and level of overwhelm. Most people are running on empty, especially in the last few years: they are stretched so thin, they don’t have enough time, energy, money, strength, or mental or emotional capacity to cope. People are running on auto-pilot, and when a complex situation presents itself that requires discernment, integrity, generosity, kindness, and love, often they only have the ability to react out of fear. They cannot think about the impact of their actions on other people, because they are struggling just to manage a situation and get through it.
Even when people do try to consider others, they still don’t really know the full impact of their actions; none of us can ever really know, because a person’s reaction to what we do is based not only on what we do, but also on their entire emotional history.
What other people do to us is not really about US. How we react to what other people do to us is not really about THEM.
What people do comes from their state of mind, emotional state, and emotional baggage. How we react to anything that happens to us comes from our state of mind, emotional state, and emotional baggage.
This is an important distinction: our reactions and sensitivities to what others do is our own, based on everything that has ever happened to us and how we have reacted. People can push our buttons without even knowing we have those buttons, and we can push theirs. Heck, I can push people’s buttons just by walking into a room!! What is perfectly fine for one person can be highly offensive, threatening, or pain-invoking for someone else. And we have absolutely no way of knowing that until we find out the hard way, when they react in a totally unexpected way. It’s the same for others and our reactions. The key for all of us is to identify the buttons we have and heal the underlying pain, so there is no longer a button to push!
Forgive them, for they know not what they do. To me, this request, attributed to Jesus on the cross, is one of the most important, and most difficult, lessons in the Bible. When we can recognize that every action, by anyone, is either an act of love or a cry for love,and respond accordingly, we have truly released our attachment to control and pain and moved into love and compassion. When we can learn to be in that space of love and forgiveness, we have taken a giant step in our own healing and evolution.
Even when someone does something intentionally to be mean, inflicting damage or pain on purpose, they still do not know what they are doing or why. They are still only acting from the depths of their own fear, pain, and insecurity, doing the best they can. If bullies were not so terrified and self-loathing, themselves, they would not feel the need to inflict pain on others. Because of the abuse they have endured in their own lives, they can only feel powerful or good about themselves when they are putting others down or abusing them. They are getting through life the only way they know how, by treating others as they have been treated. Instead of healing their own pain, they inflict pain on others. Sadly, it appears that our culture has created a society of bullies. “The sins of the father,” passed down from generation to generation, are the dysfunctional, self-loathing ways of being in the world, based on the accumulated unhealed wounds and pain.
People who feel good about themselves, who are self-aware, and who have worked on their own healing, generally have no need to intentionally cause pain or create conflict; and if they do so by mistake, they usually can recognize it quickly and rectify it or make amends. People who indulge in desperate acts feel desperate inside. People who inflict pain are filled with pain, themselves. People who act badly simply are unable, in that moment, to act any better, for whatever reason. They cannot be focused on you and your pain, because they can only focus on their own. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Recognizing how we often participate in causing ourselves pain is a humbling experience, and an important step toward forgiveness of ourselves and others, as well as toward our own self-awareness.
We must understand that no one can hurt us emotionally unless we “let” them. Nothing anyone else does is deeply painful unless there is something inside us that resonates with it. That unhealed emotional pain inside us—or our attachment to control of external events and others—sets up a resonance and attracts more pain into our lives. It’s those “buttons” again, that keep getting pushed. Used consciously, an emotional response can alert us to our deep, unhealed pain so we can heal it and eliminate the buttons. Unfortunately, we usually just cling more to each painful incident, thus increasing the resonance in an escalating cycle.
When we blame others for how we feel, regardless of what they have done; when we give others the power to hurt us and “ruin” our lives, we keep ourselves trapped in that resonance-pain-resonance-pain feedback loop. And if we feel, deep inside, that we deserve pain—or if we have been betraying ourselves by allowing abuse—then pain and betrayal will become the pattern of our lives until we break the cycle. And it is up to us, not someone else, to do the work to heal and break the cycle. If we allow ourselves to be doormats, we cannot really hold it against someone who wipes his feet on us, because we invited the action, consciously or unconsciously.
As Doctor Phil says, it’s up to us to teach people how to treat us, and we do that every day in every interaction, consciously or unconsciously. We do it by what we allow and what we don’t allow. Our relationships show us what we are teaching people about how we believe we deserve to be treated—and sometimes, that’s not pretty! We often stay in abusive situations, hoping the other person will change, because we are too afraid to empower ourselves to leave and create our own change. Or, deep down, we believe that we deserve it. (We don’t—EVER! And sometimes that’s our biggest lesson!)
We can also sometimes unconsciously “invite” or set ourselves up for disappointment and pain by harboring unrealistic expectations of others and/or by not clearly conveying our expectations to others. That is a trap, and no one wins. Often, we feel that others should somehow “know” what we need, want, or expect (possibly because we are afraid to express our needs clearly, or don’t believe we deserve to have them met). When others do not fulfill those needs or expectations, we take it personally, feel hurt, and hold it against them. But our needs are our responsibility.
We also may expect others to act in the same ways that we would in a given situation; we expect someone to act fairly because we would, or we expect someone to consider our needs and feelings because we would do that for them. We expect others to share our values and integrity and, perhaps to even act in our interests instead of their own. But again, these are unrealistic expectations, and unrealistic expectations only set us
According to a vast array of magical and alchemical texts, hermetic treatises, philosophic works, religious scriptures, and many prominent pieces of literature spanning the ages, it appears that the sole purpose of life is to awaken from our self-imposed slumber. That is, to remember who we really are or to become that which we have always been. This natural proclivity percolating within man to consciously collaborate with an innately irrational unconscious life process is what gives an individual meaning, purpose, and value.
We see this current of thought unequivocally expressed in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first book entitled Nature. While striking a delicate accord between the terms Nature and nature, the work essentially presupposes that the entirely of life has but one aim: to return to the Source.
At bottom, this process of spiritual awakening is ultimately an initiation into the enduring harmony of the world or, if you like, a realignment of our will with the embodied Will of the Universe. It is about ascending that mystical ladder that punctuates the heavens and leads right up to the doorstep of God. It is about the firing of rudimentary clay so as to produce that finished effervescent glaze. In essence, it is about the changing of frequency as the blossoming of our blood allows us to tune back into that ancient theme of the Music of the Spheres. As Cicero wrote in his work The Dream of Scipio:
“Learned men, by imitating this harmony on stringed instruments and in song, have gained for themselves a return to the supernal heights….”
Given all of this, the question naturally arises as to how we know we are marching to the right tune. As we pursue the text of Life, of which we are all on different chapters, there are many indicators of progressthat help one measure the extent to which he/she is successfully moving away from an object-oriented ego-dominated consciousness.
While not everyone experiences the exact same signals, there do seem to be some parallels that persistently appear in the life of the would-be adept. For example, initially you will find yourself engulfed by a series of jaw-dropping “coincidences” (synchronicities). The inner will spill over into the outer as your enthusiasm scintillates like a savory steak, boils to a crescendo, and finally takes off like a 747. This formidable energetic essence of emotion appears to be the elixir that underlies this aboriginal dreamlike state of mind. As Albertus Magnus wrote in his piece De mirabilibus mundi:
“I discovered an instructive account (of Magick) in Avicenna’s Liber Sextus Naturalium, which says that a certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates the other things to her, particularly when she is swept into a great excess of love or hate or the like.When therefore the soul of man falls into a great excess of any passion, it can be proved by experiment that it (the excess) binds things and alters them in the way it wants.”
As these synchronicities abound you will feel like you’re dreaming while in a state of waking consciousness. It’s like being the choreographer of your own inner theatre production. For myself, this was the tipping point where I was forced to reconfigure my cognitive schema relative to how the world is structured and functions. I was forced to see it as it really was – a sort of fiction, mirage, cognitive construction, or illusory transcendental projection of thought itself. Now, while it is true that everyone experiences certain synchronistic phenomena such as the aforementioned, those who are advancing on a shamanic path will notice the regularity and frequency of these occurrences increasing. It may even get to the point where it becomes psychologically worrisome. But obviously fear not for this is all part and parcel of the Way.
The next thing you will start to notice on this journey is the mysterious manifestation of a multitude of omens. Omens are the Spirit’s way of communicating to man through the medium of Nature. They appear to increase in the life of the more spiritual types but this is only an illusion. As Carlos Castaneda wrote in The Power of Silence:
“I am going to tell you a story about the nagual Elias and the manifestation of the spirit. The spirit manifests itself to a sorcerer, especially to a nagual, at every turn. However, this is not the entire truth. The entire truth is that the spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only sorcerers, and naguals in particular, are attuned to such revelations.”
An additional sign of success will be an increased urge to express yourself creatively. At times, and seemingly out of nowhere, an omnivorous voracious impulse will come stampeding through. It completely engulfs even the most left-brain types and almost seems to demand that it be represented in some sort of concrete form be it a painting, sculpture, drawing, or what have you. I say almost because this is not an elemental struggling to survive but rather something that emanates from an innermost need, something that feels akin to duty. Amazingly, in the process of it all, you will feel like your hand is being guided by an invisible force, like you’re an instrument or conduit for the One and All. And when the work is finally complete you will stand back and say, “That was not done by my hand and yet it was.” And this is yet another sign: that of not taking credit.
As you continue to advance something truly astonishing may pop into your life. This being Numbers. Initially, you may even find the number eleven appearing at a frequency beyond that which can reasonably be explained away as statistical anomaly. For instance, there will be many consecutive days, sometimes lasting years, where you will see only the number eleven when you unconsciously look to discover the time. This would be the equivalent of all random variables or data sets falling consistently within the tail range of the normal distribution curve. And no, this is not due to some incessant infatuation with the number eleven or because it holds some kind of deep sentimental value or sacred meaning for you. These experiences often tend to occur before the number gains any symbolic prominence in your mind. What’s important to understand is that these experiences are typically normal and not necessarily a sign of neurosis.
In the end, the Numbers that are mysteriously being issued by Nature represent symbolic attempts to facilitate the process of Individuation; to bridge that gulf within the mind of man that has reached epic proportions.For Numbers, just like the sun, moon, stars, or anything else in Nature, are ultimately symbols.More specifically, they are archetypes of order.As Dr. Carl Jung wrote in his work Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle:
“Hence it is not such an audacious conclusion after all if we define number psychologically as an archetype of order which has become conscious. Remarkably enough, the psychic images of wholeness which are spontaneously produced by the unconscious, the symbols of the self in mandala form, also have a mathematical structure. They are as a rule quaternities. These structures not only possess order, they also create it. This is why they generally appear in times of psychic disorientation in order to compensate a chaotic state or as formulations of numinous experiences. It must be emphasized yet again that they are not inventions of the conscious mind but are spontaneous products of the unconscious, as has been sufficiently shown by experience. Naturally the conscious mind can imitate these patterns of order, but such imitations do not prove that the originals are conscious inventions. From this it follows irrefutably that the unconscious uses number as an ordering factor.”
Another idiosyncratic element that you can expect to confront when traversing this path will be suffering. Just as pain accompanies our entrance into this world, so too does pain accompany the process of mystical regeneration. As part of this suffering you may experience the haughtiness of the vain, the ridicule of the close-minded, the mockery of the egotistical, and the general indifference of the masses. Many may perceive you as some sort of anomaly or worse. They will stare like motorists when they slow down to gawk at some mangled mess on the side of the road. They will think “Does he even realize he’s going nowhere?” Like a hamster in a wheel you may be perceived as moving while remaining still. But not all those who wander are lost.
“They who dance are thought mad by those who hear not the music.”—The Times (London) 1927
Other aspects of this tumultuous terrain include the manifestation of various psychic aberrations that serve to complicate and undermine the Work. In alchemy, these disturbances are generally brushed aside as technical difficulties. However, in the Greek and Latin alchemical texts the psychic nature of these dangers is elaborated upon at length and is described as part demonic and part psychic disturbance i.e. melancholia. With regard to the latter, this represents the confrontation with the shadow or the nigredo phase of the Work. This peculiar psychic state will descend upon you suddenly and without warning. It will be experienced as an extreme boredom unlike anything you have ever experienced. You will literally be left with zero interest in anything. And then, just as suddenly as it arrived, it will depart (for me this lasted exactly 30 days). As to the dangers in general, we get this from the alchemist Aegidius de Vadis who wrote the following in his work Dialogus inter naturam et filium philosophorum (1659):
“I shall keep silent about this science, which has led most of those who work in it into confusion, because there are few indeed who find what they seek, but an infinite number who have plunged to their ruin.”
Ultimately, all of this gloom and doom can be viewed as the training necessary to defeat the Guardian of the Gate. As the old consciousness dissolves a new one is rising to take its place. For one must die to be reborn. And one of the main facets of this figurative death is a separation from one’s mother tongue. The night sea journey of Odysseus is a necessary prerequisite for the return journey home. For was not Christ transfigured in a cave? Did not the Buddha disappear into the desert? So too will we have to traverse the deepest thicket of our own unconscious wilderness if we wish to turn lead into gold. For we are like mushrooms- we grow in the dark. In the words of the primitive Eskimo shaman Igjugarju:
“The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.”—H. Ostermann, The Alaskan Eskimos
As you navigate your way through these stormy seas know that you are on the right path, trust in yourself, and let that Power within radiate outwards in every conceivable direction. Be a mirror of what no one sees but all can sense. Communicate without speaking by allowing your electro-magnetism flood the consciousness of those around you. Act as that catalyst that kick starts the entire cascade of neurological impulses which adds vigor to the soul. For that interminable ocean – the inexhaustible fire that galvanizes, adds an extra spring to your step, and is the source of the second wind – is boiling within.
Asthis rich abundant Infinite Force continues to work itself through you it will eventually effectuate a change in lifestyle. Goals will become more macro as opposed to micro as you begin to exhibit more compassion towards others. And as you learn to love others your capacity for accepting and loving yourself will grow exponentially. With this new found respect, an increased awareness in the importance of physical health will take root. Eventually, a win-win attitude will be adopted and an unusual elation will fill you to the brim. This uncanny cheer will inevitably overflow with the physiological result being a feeling akin to walking on air. Like a balloon there will be times when you feel like your literally going to float away. Precisely then will your shamanic sight, your power of imagination, will be most keen. A broadening of the perceptional horizon will allow you to see the darkness inside others. Through all of this you will feel and look like you’re getting younger even as you grow older.
More and more you will be helped by God as you continue to earn your keep on this path, whether it through devotion, the application of philosophic will, or otherwise. Material progress will also be a critical component in facilitating your spiritual ascent. For if one recalls it was only after a series of worldly victories that the Vision of the Grail presented itself to Parzival. Only when his temporal goal was fulfilled as represented by King Arthur’s court did the call come to go deeper, beyond the bounds of space, time, and causality to a more transpersonal realm. In short, the pathless path that leads to the Garden of the Philosophers opened up after the knight had earned his keep and was ready. As Louis Pasteur once quipped:
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
Eventually, events will begin to occur that will be so startling, so earth-shattering that they would cause even the most ardent non-believer to buckle at the knees. The Mysteries will begin to unfold in your daily life as circumstances, people, experiences, opportunities, etc., are brought in to act as initiatory gods. The Spirit will come out to meet you everywhere you go. As is said in the Corpus Hemeticum (Hermes-Thot),
“Everywhere God will come to meet you, everywhere he will appear to you, at places and times at which you look not for it, in your waking hours and in your sleep, when you are journeying by water and by land, in the nighttime and in the daytime, when you are speaking and when you are silent; for there is nothing which is not God.”
All in all, what’s really transpiring here is the conscious actualization of formerly latent unconscious aspects of our Self. As we continue to advance to higher and higher grades there will be other surprises to be sure – the remembering of past lives and the manifestation of miracles to name just a few. Increasingly, Nature will act as the mirror of an exciting invigorating inner adventure. Life then becomes the Lodge; Life becomes the Initiator. And this is precisely when it will become crystal clear to you that there is no need to seek out a master and that true learning starts when the books stop. For you will have arrived at the realization through experience that the highest Authority is to be found within.
In the end, the grand consummation will take hold and the Vision of the Grail will present itself. At High Noon the fabric of nature will be translucent as the world morphs into a web of effervescent light. Alive to an infinite degree, full of flavor and zeal, boisterous and bubbly, it sizzles until the soul bursts into flames. We then become everything because we resist nothing. Circumambulating back to that Center, where all opposites fluttering within the wheel of space-time coalesce into One, our senses become spiritualized, our instincts integrated, the body transfigured, the world transformed. For we have returned to those eternal heights to hear the Music of the Spheres, behold Beatrice, perceive Paradise, experience the sunrise, and feel the undulations of Infinity. This mesmeric, beatific, magnificent state is our right, our heritage, our destiny. It is the beginning and the end; our past and future. And it is ours to behold right Here and Now.
The Biggest Reason You Should Never Drink Water Stored In Your Car
by Karen Foster
Storage of bottled water has become common place in many vehicles, especially during the summer months. While there are few problems arising from this practice while using glass or stainless steel, there are many concerns relating to plastic water bottles, which is still the majority and number choice made by consumers.
Drivers can certainly relate to finding a lost water bottle on the floor of the car and quenching their thirst, no matter how long the bottle has lived there.
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, when temperatures outside range from 80 degrees to 100 degrees, the temperature inside a car parked in direct sunlight can quickly climb to between 130 to 172. The upper scale on this range is higher than the “low” temperature setting on most conventional ovens.
In terms of heat-rise over time, it makes very little difference whether a car’s windows are closed or partially open. In both cases, a car’s interior temperature can rise approximately 40 degrees within one hour, even when the exterior temperature is only 72F according to a study from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
While there haven’t been widespread outbreaks of illness linked to consumption of contaminated bottled water, bottled water can indeed contain microbes at levels capable of making a person with a weak immune system sick. Bacteria may come from the water source, or can be introduced during the bottling process and multiplied with modest heat. But microbes are just one problem, plastic is another.
Plastic Still A Serious Problem In Bottled Water
A University of Florida study looked at 16 brands of bottled water, and the findings might throw a wrench in current FDA recommendations surrounding bisphenol A (or BPA) levels in plastic water bottles.
BPA is a dangerous chemical linked to health concerns from digestive problems to issues with brain development. It’s was found present in around two billion products in the U.S. that are used on a daily basis. Because it’s the most harmful on developing brains and bodies, children and pregnant women especially need to avoid contact with BPA.
While the current low levels in the plastic have been deemed safe, the researchers for this latest study watched these supposedly harmless levels grow over a four-week period when left in 158-degree heat. Even the FDA has warned to keep hot or boiling liquids out of packaging containing traces of BPA, due to its reactivity with heat.
Plastic water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate, a material that’s used for a lot of food and beverage packaging since it’s lightweight, durable, and shatterproof. However, when heated, it is known to release the chemical BPA, which can affect hormone levels by mimicking estrogen, and may trigger health risks if exposed at high levels. While the initial levels of BPA found in the 16 brands–save for one–did not exceed EPA standards for these chemicals, scientists are more concerned about how the chemicals increased over time.
Some manfacturers have made sensational claims that BPA has been substituted for other safer plastics. “Companies that said they had eliminated BPA or were in the process of doing so did not disclose the substitutes they were using,” so it’s unclear if the BPA-free products were using compounds similar to BPA, such as bisphenol-S, which has been shown to exhibit similar health impacts to BPA.
“If you store water long enough, there may be a concern,” study leader Lena Ma said in a press release.
The public should also be aware that re-using disposable plastic water bottles at any temperature can be harmful if they are not cleaned and dried properly. Accumulating pathogens can make people sick if ingested, causing vomiting or diarrhea. This is true with other types of containers, not just disposable water bottles.
So if you’ve store a water bottle in your vehicle for an undetermined period of time, throw it out and switch to glass or stainless steel.
“Those that have attempted to convince the world that the Sun, the Earth’s primary source of energy and life causes cancer, have done so with malicious intent to deceive the masses into retreating from the one thing that can prevent disease.” — Dave Mihalovic, Naturopathic Doctor and writer. [1]
Truth is, we’ve been systematically lied to about the sun and skin cancer for years. This video presentation explains fully. How many know that there is no definitive proof that the sun alone causes skin cancer? [2]
Can the sun cure cancer?
In the book The Healing Sun, author Dr. Richard Hobday documents a wide array of studies which show that the sun protects against cancer of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. It can also prevent diabetes, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and high blood pressure, osteoporosis, psoriasis and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). [3]
Then there’s the case of Dr. Harland G. Call, who was diagnosed with skin cancer and was advised by a surgeon to have it removed. Instead, he decided to sunbath the cancerous area.
After a short period of continuous sunbathing, the skin cancer was completely gone. He returned to his MD for a confirmation, and his doctor confirmed that the skin cancer had disappeared and no surgery was required. [3]
According to Dr. Bernarr Zovluck, “Cancer is helped by sunbathing, writes Dr. Zane R. Kime. Kime writes that those who get more sunlight have less cancer. Sunbathing heals cancer by building up the immune system and increasing the oxygen in the tissues.” [4]
Still, we’re bombarded almost daily with dire “warnings” from reputable “authorities” admonishing us, for our own good of course, to avoid the sun at all costs.
Epidemic levels of sun phobia
For example, Dr. Robin Ashinoff, chief of dermatological and cosmetic surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center advised: “Wearing sunscreen and then deliberately going out in the sun is almost as [bad] as going out with no sunscreen at all.”
She continued, “You don’t get burned, but the UV rays are still getting into your skin. Sunscreen is important, but you should also wear the right clothing and shield yourself as much as possible from direct sun exposure.” [5]
Is Dr. Ashinoff advocating a vampire lifestyle? The reality is that the vast majority of people, including doctors, have been duped into believing the myth that the sun is toxic, carcinogenic and a deadly health hazard.
That’s why most people slavishly and lavishly slather toxic sunscreens on their skin whenever they anticipate direct contact with the sun’s rays. But in fact, most conventional sunscreens are cancer-causing biohazards. [6] [7]
Meanwhile, the multi-billion-dollar cancer industry and the billion-dollar toxic sunscreen industry are making hay with this hoax. True believers are left scratching their heads in bewilderment as statistics reveal that the dreaded malignant melanoma skin cancer is on the rise. [8]
The sun doctor
Dr. Auguste Rollier opened the first European “Sun Clinic” in 1903 at Leysin, Switzerland. He also wrote a very influential book: Heliotherapy. He was considered the most famous heliotherapist in the world.
At his peak, he operated 36 clinics. Dr. Rollier espoused that the sun was an unsurpassed broad-spectrum medicine. He healed his patients using a wholesome diet combined with the power of the sun.
By 1933, there were over 165 different diseases successfully treated with heliotherapy including tuberculosis, wounds, rickets and much more. Dr. Rollier’s death in 1954 marked the end of sun therapy not because it was ineffective, but because it had been replaced by Big Pharma’s “miracle drugs.” [9]
The culinary use of edible flowers is not a recent trend; it can be traced back thousands of years to the Greeks, Romans, and Chinese. Flowers were traditionally incorporated into many various cuisines –from Asian and East Indian to European, Victorian English, and Middle Eastern. Think of the lush rose petals in Indian food and the bright squash blossoms in the Italian meals.
Edible flowers fell out of grace, but they are making a huge come-back, not only as a fancy garnish, but also as an effective seasoning. Of course, flowers are not everyone’s cup of tea when it comes to cooking. The secret is to learn to pick the right ones and to combine them properly with other ingredients.
The buds and blooms of different plants offer a wide range of flavour, colour, and a tinge of whimsy. Some are irresistibly fragrant and tasty, others are spicy and sharp. Some are lemony or weedy while others are floral or herbaceous. The rich palette of taste and colour make edible flowers a perfect addition to almost every dish. Spruce up the regular meal with these surprisingly delicious blooms.
Not All Flowers Are Edible
Not every flower that you have in your garden is edible. Even though the buds may not be poisonous, they don’t all taste good! Luckily, most of the blooms of fruits, veggies, and herbs work just as great as their fully-grown counterparts. It’s advisable to consume only plants that have been grown without pesticides or with such that are suitable for edible crops. If you buy flowers from expert gardeners, a nursery or garden centres, check to see if they are labelled as edible. Make sure you are not allergic to a certain type of plant before you use it. That said, here are a couple of tips on how to harvest and store your edible flowers.
Pick the blooms and buds just before you use them for the best flavour
Harvest during the cool of the day, after the dew evaporates
Brush off any soil and remove any insects hiding within
Wash the flowers gently and let them air-dry over a paper towel
If not used right away, keep them in the fridge for no longer than 10 days
They can be dried, frozen or preserved in vinegar or oil
Some Flowers You Can Grow and Eat
You can choose from a variety of annuals, biennials, and perennials that will look gorgeous in your garden and will add unique taste to your meals. Planting some of these flowers can introduce benefits both to your garden and your cooking routine. If you are looking for your next gardening projects, here are a couple of ideas you might want to consider:
Nasturtium
There are many reasons to consider planting nasturtium in your garden. These vibrant and versatile annuals serve a double duty – as an exquisite culinary delight and as a natural pest control. The sun-loving greenery will bloom from midsummer until the first frost. Its peppery tasting flowers can be added to fresh salads or used in your favourite pesto recipe. You can also skip the mustard, and stuff the spicy petals into your sandwiches with creamy cheese and sliced tomatoes.
Squash Blossoms
These are probably some of the most widely used edible flowers, especially in the Italian cuisine. Squash blossoms are the flowers of the late-season pumpkins, zucchini, summer squash, and winter squash. The orange and yellow buds can be used raw in a salad or stuffed with cheese. They taste like a more delicate version of squash and can be fried or cooked with creamy rice.
Dill
Dill offers remarkable benefits for both your health and your garden. It contains enzymes that help reduce the free radicals and carcinogens in the human body. Plus it prevents bone loss and has anti-bacterial properties. According to the gardening experts, the blossoms can attract pollinators and beneficial insects into your backyard. The flowers have light dill flavour and are usually added to jars with cucumber pickles.
Chives Blossoms
Chives don’t require any garden maintenance or efforts. Your site is probably filled with these lavender-pink flowers, so why not try them out? Toss them in a fresh salad, add them in a casserole, or cook them with fresh vegetables. Their taste resembles onions so don’t use too many of these pungent flowers.
Violet
Viola odorata or sweet violet is an all time classic when it comes to cooking with edible flowers. It was a favourite treat of English royalty and a popular ingredient during the Victorian era. The taste of this flower pairs well with lemon and chocolate. You can use it in different recipes – from crèmes and desserts to tarts and salads. Violets can be quite challenging when it comes to cooking, because you will need a lot of them to extract enough flavour.
Toy bewitched. Made blind by lusts, disinherited of soul, No common centre Man, no common sire Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams, Feeling himself, his own low self, the whole.
Coleridge: Religious Musings.
Frequency War
Many of us are waking up to the fact that the world we live in is being engineered into a nightmare of controlled reality. We see our planet gutted and destroyed before our eyes and there seems no end to the ongoing ecological insanity. We feel outraged when satanic corporations, protected by ‘law’, pollute the earth in pursuit of reckless greed and deranged ‘respected scientists’ test bio weapons on helpless animals.
Many horrific events in this world don’t make sense to sanity…but they do make sense in terms of frequency.
The satanic cabal of Luciferians that run the circus in this density are physical and energetic parasites. They control everything that affects our lives and to keep us addicted to self, they use the law, media and entertainment industry to target our reptile brains and keep us in the mire of the matrix.
Everything in our multiverse is in a state of vibration and we are immersed in a sea of electro-magnetic resonance, being both transmitter and receiver of vibratory information. The constant bloodbath of war, the misery of millions, animal cruelty, sexual abuse of children, human trafficking, child sacrifice at the grid points of our planet, our fascination with ego and the sense bound world, all act as spiritual anchors that compromise our divine consciousness.
Nothing happens by chance
It is no accident, we are overwhelmed with negativity, in fact, it is deliberate. Human beings run on frequency and our thoughts and feelings affect our DNA. The negatively charged environment of ‘us and them’ prevents us from vibrating faster and we are drowning in fear that is constantly created for us by our handlers. We only have to watch the news to realize we are being played….for are we not constantly bombarded with fear porn and bad news? As a result of this bombardment, most people are in a constant state of fear and stress[reptile mind] and in that state of mind, it is easy to create drama and negative scenarios.
We know so little about who we are, and when we start to observe ourselves in action, we find there’s two of us in one body. The reptile mind can completely take us over, and once we are triggered our behavior can range from insults to physical violence, even murder. Each time we are overwhelmed by these instinctual and negative emotions, we are amplifying the lower frequencies that keep us enslaved to the program of duality…the fear field of the third dimension’s beta operating system-fight/flight.
Our handlers know that if they can keep us in fear, stimulate our base instincts and keep us in the game, we will never be able to upgrade our DNA.
Glamour…the art of deception.
Glamorous and deceptive advertising target our emotions, self image and sexuality. They make us want things we don’t need, products to make us feel and look better… and our reptilian minds are constantly stimulated to want instant gratification, at whatever cost.
And the rub is, most of us don’t even realize we are being controlled.
We are caught up in the spiders web of the ‘I’ll be happy when I …..have a new car, quit drinking, move to a new location, start a new job, lose weight, start a family, get a divorce, and our excuses for our pitiful state of being carries on……ad nauseum.
We are always looking for external gratification to make us feel good about ourselves…and it may for a while…but eventually it fails every time and we are back to where we started with our unhappy lives. To mask the symptoms of our spiritual unease, we escape into the salve of false religions, so called ‘teachers and gurus’, the martyr complex, drama, indiscriminate sex, prescription drugs, recreational drugs and alcohol. And, it would seem that we have been indoctrinated to be always in the ‘rushing mode’, always in a hurry…we lose our car keys, door keys, phone, put things down and can’t find them, go to the shops for something and get everything else but the thing we wanted. We are being constantly distracted by the reptile in our divine minds, and instead of slowing down and staying in the moment, we speed here and there until we are utterly exhausted.
There can be no spiritual development while we are anchored to a negative agenda and our path to liberation lies within ourselves. Once we begin to observe the schism within our own minds, the continuous war of ‘us and them’ in ourselves and our projected selves…the world, we realize that everyone is playing the game of duality and distraction, powering the grid with negative emotions.
Until we can control our thoughts and stay mindful in a positive now, we are all the enemy of planet earth.
The Cosmic Reset
We are in the Cosmic reset, the four year period of grace that follows the end of the Grand Cosmic year of twenty-six thousand years.
At this special time that started on December 21 2012, the planetary influences controlling our lives on Earth are at their weakest, and we have a chance to leave the dense duality of this dimension. This is the ascension timeline, the evolution of the life waves…the spiritual upgrading of our DNA.
Every being is geared to evolve, but we are regressing because our spiritual reality has been compromised by our controllers.
Frequency fences and the hijacking of DNA
There have been many modifications to our original genome, and one of them is the the placement of frequency fences in our consciousness. We are food animals farmed for our emotional distress and caught up in the electro- magnetic balance sheet of karma and, our handlers don’t want the food source they have created to escape the farm[matrix]. By stimulating our lower three ‘animal chakras’: security, sex and ego control of our environment, the powers that be can effectively control and negate the planetary grid, and this in turn keeps us anchored in the third dimension of duality.
The awakening
Many of us are waking up to the cruel realities of this dog eat dog world and are doing our best to save life and not take it. We are moving from ‘below the belt’ up to the fourth chakra of Air, the fourth dimension. No longer are we in service to self, the program of the lower three chakras, we have moved into the heart.
When we change our frequency, it’s almost like a bell rings in the matrix. The last thing our controllers want is for us to turn inward and strive to activate our divided blueprint, so when our bell rings …we can expect a distraction to knock us off course.
This attack can take many forms: psychic attacks, chronic anxiety syndrome, an accident, sudden onset of disease, divorce, eviction, emotional betrayal. The attack is to stimulate the reptile mind and keep us out of balance.
The crossroads
Humanity is at the crossroads and many do not understand that we do not have to function in this lower density. We can follow the reptile mind into the electronic slavery of transhumanism, or take the journey inwards to activate our divided blueprint and make it whole.
Today a special longer treatment of our upcoming Mercury retrograde!
First we should recognize that Mercury will turn retrograde in a Venus ruled sign, just as Venus is moving out of a Mars ruled sign (Aries), and into her own sign of Taurus where she is much more comfortable and empowered. Simultaneously we should notice that Mercury is being strongly emphasized through Jupiter’s upcoming station in Virgo. Both Mars and Saturn, as well as Neptune, are all moving through Jupiter ruled signs, and Jupiter is slowing down to station and turn direct in both the rulership and exaltation of Mercury (Virgo).
Putting this all together we can see some simple themes coming forward. Mercury is a planet whose broadest archetypal actions include analysis, investigation, consideration, skeptical inquiry, curiosity, deconstruction, and critical thinking. So during a retrograde period, especially during the stations, we may find ourselves seriously questioning, analyzing, or deconstructing something. Or we might find that various systems are being broken down into their parts or that they aren’t working correctly or that there is something standing out that needs more careful attention or revision.
From here the question becomes, “WHAT is being analyzed, deconstructed, broken down into its parts, or analyzed?”
Well, remember that this Mercury retrograde leads us back to Mercury’s position over Jupiter and Jupiter’s position in relationship to Saturn, Mars, and Neptune. Learning to see the community dynamics of the planets is an important part of any analysis.
Jupiter in Virgo represents a kind of puritanical, careful, perhaps naive but also meticulous breaking apart of various systems of doctrine, dogma, and belief or praxis. Whether we’re looking at politics or carpentry, religion, philosophy, or accounting, wherever there is a some outdated or unexamined system in place Jupiter in Virgo suggests a second look or a critical evaluation. This is naturally uncomfortable for Jupiter whose nature is more akin to building greater wholes and coordinating successful growth projects rather than taking systems apart or weeding through the parts of vast networks. However, the entire transit of Jupiter in Virgo may also represent a kind of “take it apart” so that it might eventually become better or stronger on the whole.
But it gets even more specific. Jupiter in Virgo is related to the interests and challenges of Neptune, Mars, and Saturn as well. Let’s start with Mars and Saturn.
Both planets in a Jupiter ruled mutable fire sign emphasize separation, schisms, feuds, and factions. Both planets represent the contentions, competitions, and crusades we are fighting on behalf of various new/old ideas and beliefs. With both of these planets being dominated by the square from Jupiter in Virgo, we are seeing not only the feuds of our underlying values and prejudices, many of which represent serious generational or historical divides, but we are seeing these feuds play out as they relate specifically to the deconstruction or critical analysis of entire systems of thought or practice (analysis of both our ideals and the practical implementation of ideals).
Underlying Jupiter’s disposition in Virgo is also the transcendental dream of Neptune in Pisces. Underlying all of these conflicts and systemic analyses are the images of our dreams, of the reaching for something transcendent, for something non-ordinary, for utopia, for salvation, for whatever we want most deeply but cannot see or name. We are looking for God, you might say, in the individual grains of sand..taking apart our sand castles, one grain at a time, until we’ve found the sacred source in each of them and can then, finally, rebuild our castle with renewed integrity…restored faith…a future worth living for.
The problem is that the waves keep coming and interrupting the process! Exception after exception slips in and confuses our counting, until we are forced to reckon with the unaccountable truth…we will never get to the bottom of this. In this sense Jupiter in Virgo is doing his deconstruction on behalf of that which cannot be satisfied. At some point we will say, “This will have to do.”
Now, let’s return all the way back to Mercury retrograde. If Jupiter in Virgo is emphasizing systemic inspections, then this retrograde is going to be an especially important time for these investigations. Because Mercury and Jupiter are stationing simultaneously, and then during Mercury’s retrograde Jupiter will turn direct…signalling the implementation or the change over, or the positive results of the analysis…the first fruits of a process that has been taking place since the beginning of winter when Jupiter went retrograde.
Why can we be so certain that this transformation will be beneficial? Because Mercury will be with Venus in Taurus and in a superior trine to Jupiter. All of which point to the positive integration or joining of disparate parts for the sake of growth. Out of the careful analysis, something cohesive, beautiful, and harmonious is likely to emerge. And remember that by August Jupiter will enter a Venus ruled sign for an entire year.
However, given the simultaneous Mars/Saturn retrogrades, it’s likely that this entire sequence will also continue to feature factions, feuds, and ongoing conflicts or sharp distinctions or debates between various ideas and practices. It’s also possible that the Mercury/Venus signature in relationship to Jupiter reflects compromises that are strategic but also somewhat divisive (driving a hard bargain, forcing someone’s hand, reluctantly giving up any ground to a perceived opponent, etc).
We’ll look more carefully at this over the next few weeks, but hopefully this gives everyone more to think about!
Prayer: Help us to reconsider, to hold each part up to the light, so that we might see as the one who sees everything.
Big Brother is watching you and he wants you to believe that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.
This is a lie, of course, and as we move deeper into the era of state sponsored technological surveillance, we see more evidence that the loss of privacy and confidence in inter-personal communications is transforming the individual into a compliant, self-policing ward of the state.
In one of the first empirical scientific studies to provide concrete evidence of the ‘chilling effects’ that government surveillance has on internet users, Oxford University professor Jon Penney looked at Wikipedia search data and traffic patterns before and after the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden regarding widespread NSA surveillance of the internet. The results demonstrated an immediate trend towards self-censorship, as traffic and searches for terms like ‘Al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb,’ and ‘Taliban’ showed nearly instant and mentionable decline.
The changes were statistically significant enough to indicate that many people automatically alter their own behavior upon realizing that a punitive authoritarian organization is monitoring them for legitimate or perceived wrongdoings.
“If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.” – Jon Penney
In 2013, the organization Pen America conducted a survey of writers in the United States showing that many were already self-censoring themselves in an increasingly oppressive atmosphere of government surveillance. The fear of being caught up in a dragnet of legal and financial problems was sufficient enough for many to change their tone and content, even though no direct physical threat existed.
“The results of this survey—the beginning of a broader investigation into the harms of surveillance—substantiate PEN’s concerns: writers are not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.” [Source]
Commenting on the effects of authoritarian governments which heavily surveil their citizens, Pen America also notes that, “historically, from writers and intellectuals in the Soviet Bloc, and contemporaneously from writers, thinkers, and artists in China, Iran, and elsewhere—aggressive surveillance regimes limit discourse and distort the flow of information and ideas.” This is without question the intended aim of such programs.
That study also included data which indicated how people curtail their online behavior and interactions with other people out of fear of being persecuted by the nanny state:
“Smaller percentages of those surveyed described already changing their day-to-day behavior: 28 percent said they had “curtailed or avoided activities on social media,” with another 12 percent saying they had seriously considered doing it; similar percentages said they had steered clear of certain topics in phone calls or email (24 percent had done so; 9 percent had seriously considered it).” [Source]
Furthermore, in a 2015 study by the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) examining how awareness of government surveillance affected people’s use of Google, the world’s most widely used internet search engine, researchers concluded that, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the US government.”
In general, people’s behavior also changes in ways more favorable to an authoritarian government when surveillance both online and in the real world is as ubiquitous as it already is in American society. The state draws power from a compliant, acquiescent, and self-policing public, and when mass surveillance is applied to the citizenry, with the predictable result of creating a more submissive and conformist citizenry.
This idea was effectively brought to life in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, where the primary surveillance device of the individual was the telescreen, a digital device located in every home that could receive and transmit audio and video, giving individuals zero privacy in their own homes. The beauty of omnipotent surveillance such as this was that the government did not even have to actually be monitoring an individual, because the simple fact that they could be listening and watching was enough to frighten a person into voluntary compliance and self-censorship.
“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You have to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” – George Orwell, 1984
This principle is coming to fruition in our modern world in the form of the internet and social media. Couple this with the creation and publication of government watch lists of all flavors, where people can be arbitrarily restricted from travel, or worse, and we are marching headlong into a brave new world where freedom is tightly constricted not by law, but by a creeping ambiguous fear of what may happen to us if we step out of line. We are creating a society where people may have legally protected free speech, but they dare not use it.
“There is a reason governments, corporations, and multiple other entities of authority crave surveillance. It’s precisely because the possibility of being monitored radically changes individual and collective behavior. Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity. That’s always been intuitively clear. Now, there is mounting empirical evidence proving it.” – Glen Greenwald
School is supposed to help children grow into mature, conscious, responsible, intelligent adults, who have mastered the art of living, and who can contribute their gifts to the world.
School as we know it, however, couldn’t be further from that. In fact, school, as it exists in most places across the planet, helps only to stunt children’s intelligence and fill them with stress and worries, which results in the chaotic world that we experience all around us.
Here are eight ways school is making children stupid and depressed:
1. It teaches children to conform
At school, children are taught to obey orders and blindly follow what they are being told. Children are told what to do, no matter if they like it or not. They are told to sit for hours upon hours at a desk without complaining, doing nothing other than memorizing information that most probably they will never need in their lives. They are told when to talk, when to move, even when to pee. By and by, children learn to stop trusting their inner voice and conform to what authority wants from them, which makes them suppressed, depressed, and unfulfilled.
2. It teaches children what to think, not how to think
School does not teach children how to develop their capacity to think logically so that they can reach to their own conclusions when presented with information. On the contrary, children are forced to believe in things they are being taught, no matter whether they are true or not, or whether they sprout out of their own understanding or not. Hence their critical thinking is prevented from improving, and as a result children are turned into stupid automatons.
3. It teaches children to be uncreative
Children’s imagination is wild, but school suppresses it. Children can be incredibly creative, but the Arts are almost nonexistent in most schools around the world, since a career path in the Arts is usually not considered as profitable. Instead of allowing children to explore their selves by spontaneously expressing their innermost thoughts and feelings through painting, music, theater, and so on, they are confined in four walls, learning boring things that don’t matter to them and don’t help cultivate their mind, heart, and spirit.
4. It teaches children to fear failure
Mistakes help us grow into wiser beings, but school is teaching children to fear failure, as if it is some kind of evil they need to avoid. Children at school are told to study solely in order to pass exams, and those who fail at exams are looked down upon, sometimes even mocked at, as if they are failures themselves. Therefore children learn to do their best in order to avoid making mistakes, which only prevents them from trying to achieve new things later on in life, lest they will encounter any possible failure.
5. It teaches children to think play is bad
Children find tremendous joy in playing, having fun, laughing, doing things for no reason or goal other than play itself. Play makes their heart pulsate with happiness and turns their life into a celebration. Slowly slowly, however, as children are growing up, they are taught that play is not good, since it’s not something productive, and that they should consider it simply as a waste of time. They are taught to be serious, uptight, worried about future ends, which is only making them depressed, not allowing them to let go and relax into the present moment, savoring all the beauties life has to offer.
6. It teaches children to avoid listening to their heart
Unlike adults, children are in touch with their heart. But after years of social conditioning, when they finally turn into adults themselves, they have created thick barriers between themselves and their heart, not paying attention to its voice anymore. This conditioning takes place mainly at school, where almost every day children are forced to do things they hate doing, that they find boring and futile, and which they are taught society will reward them for. As a consequence, they develop the habit of not trusting and following their inner voice and lose touch with what their heart is beating for.
7. It teaches children to associate money with success
Another way school is making children dumb and depressed is by having them confuse monetary gain with successful living. At school, children learn that the primary goal in life is to earn a good salary, and are being told to sacrifice almost one third of their lives learning and doing things just so they can get a degree that will allow them to find a job later in life and most probably work as corporate slaves. Thus children stop pursuing their passions that would give true purpose and meaning to their lives, and instead do dull things that only burden their psyche, and which merely achieve to help them survive but not truly live.
8. It teaches children to sacrifice today for the sake of tomorrow
The present moment is all that we have. The future, just like the past, doesn’t exist, and if we give it too much attention, we will not be able enjoy the here and now. Most people, however, don’t enjoy the present moment, but are always trying to achieve a future end or goal, thinking that once they achieve it, they will be fulfilled and happy. This mentality has been mainly imbued in them via schooling. At school, children are made to believe that sacrificing today by studying hard and following orders will reward them tomorrow by bringing them joy and freedom. Hence children learn to always be focused on the future, which is making them waste their lives and is filling them with regrets that results in immense anguish in their psyche.
said, “When a person shows you who they are, believe them!”
