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2024-03-29T06:01:04Z
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The Courage of Nonviolence
tag:livingwellness.com,2012-10-28:2774974:BlogPost:24168
2012-10-28T06:19:21.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p>[From the book <em><a href="http://www.daisakuikeda.org/sub/books/books-by-category/essays/onebyone.html" target="_blank">One by One</a></em>, by Daisaku Ikeda]</p>
<p><i>"I don't want toys or chocolate. All I want is peace and freedom. People of Europe, people of the world, please find the humanity in your hearts to put an end to this war!"</i></p>
<div align="right">--A young girl of the former Yugoslavia</div>
<p></p>
<p>I was visiting Raj Ghat, where Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian…</p>
<p>[From the book <em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.daisakuikeda.org/sub/books/books-by-category/essays/onebyone.html">One by One</a></em>, by Daisaku Ikeda]</p>
<p><i>"I don't want toys or chocolate. All I want is peace and freedom. People of Europe, people of the world, please find the humanity in your hearts to put an end to this war!"</i></p>
<div align="right">--A young girl of the former Yugoslavia</div>
<p></p>
<p>I was visiting Raj Ghat, where Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian independence, had been cremated.</p>
<p>Somewhere a bird sang. A forest was nearby, and squirrels ran through its lush green thickets.</p>
<p>The area was a spacious, well-tended shrine to nonviolence.</p>
<p>As I offered flowers before the black stone platform that constitutes Gandhi's memorial, I bowed my head.</p>
<p>I pondered Gandhi's brilliant spirit. I thought of his ceaseless struggles to douse the fires of hatred with water drawn from the pure springs of love for humanity.</p>
<p>And I thought of how alone he was in his quest.</p>
<p><strong>"Whose Side Are You On?"</strong></p>
<p>"Gandhi tells us not to retaliate against the Muslims! How can he take their side? There's no way! They killed my family, including my five-year-old son!"</p>
<p>"Is he telling us just to endure the attacks of the Hindus? Ridiculous! Doesn't he know what we Muslims have been through all these years? After all, Gandhi's a Hindu himself, isn't he?"</p>
<p>The elderly sage went everywhere, wherever Hindus and Muslims were mired in blood-stained cycles of conflict and reprisal. He called for the killing to end. But people, crazed by hate, did not listen. They told him to leave, calling his attempts at reconciliation hypocritical or worse. They demanded to know whose side he was on.</p>
<p>But he wasn't on either side. And at the same time, he was on both sides. To him, people are brothers and sisters. How could he stand by, a silent witness to mutual slaughter?</p>
<p>Gandhi declared that he was willing to be cut in two if that was what people wanted, but not for India to be cut in two. What good, he demanded to know, could ever come of hatred? If hate was returned with hate, it would only become more deeply rooted and widespread.</p>
<p>Suppose someone sets fire to your home and you retaliate by setting fire to theirs, soon the whole town will be in flames! Burning down the attacker's house won't bring yours back. Violence solves nothing. By engaging in reprisals, you only hurt yourself.</p>
<p>But no matter how urgently Gandhi called on people to listen to reason, the fires of hatred raged on. Against the lone Gandhi there were far too many people fanning the flames.</p>
<p><strong>Fire Cannot Extinguish Fire</strong></p>
<p>On January 20, 1948--10 days, in fact, before he was assassinated--a handmade bomb was hurled at Gandhi as he attended a gathering. This act of terrorism was carried out by a Hindu youth. Fortunately, the bomb missed the mark and Gandhi survived.</p>
<p>The youth was arrested.</p>
<p>The next day, several adherents of the Sikh faith called on Gandhi and assured him that the culprit was not a Sikh.</p>
<p>Gandhi rebuked them, saying that it mattered nothing at all to him whether the assailant was a Sikh, a Hindu or a Muslim.</p>
<p>Whoever the perpetrator might be, he said, he wished him well.</p>
<p>Gandhi explained that the youth had been taught to think of him as an enemy of the Hindu cause, that hatred had been implanted in his heart. The youth believed what he was taught and was so desperate, so devoid of all hope, that violence seemed the only alternative.</p>
<p>Gandhi felt only pity for the young man. He even told the outraged chief of police to not harass his assailant but make an effort to convert him to right thoughts and actions.</p>
<p>This was always his approach. No one abhorred violence more than Gandhi. At the same time no one knew more deeply that violence can only be countered by nonviolence.</p>
<p>Just as fire is extinguished by water, hatred can only be defeated by love and compassion. Some criticized Gandhi for coddling the terrorist. Others scorned his conviction, calling it sentimental and unrealistic, an empty vision.</p>
<p>Gandhi was alone.</p>
<p>Many revered his name, but few truly shared his beliefs. For Gandhi, nonviolence meant an overflowing love for all humanity, a way of life that emanated from the very marrow of his being. It made life possible; without it, he could not have lived even a moment. But for many of his followers, nonviolence was simply a political strategy, a tactic for winning India's independence from Britain.</p>
<p>Gandhi was alone.</p>
<p>The more earnestly he pursued his religious beliefs, the deeper his love for humanity grew. This love made it all the more impossible for him to ignore the political realities that shaped people's lives. At the same time, contact with these political realities strengthened his conviction that nothing is more essential than the love for humanity that religious faith can inspire.</p>
<p>This placed him, however, in the position of being denounced by both religious figures, who saw his involvement in the sullied realm of politics as driven by personal ambition, and political leaders, who called him ignorant and naïve.</p>
<p>Because he walked the middle way, the true path of humanity that seeks to reconcile apparent contradictions, his beliefs and actions appeared biased to those at the extremes.</p>
<p><strong>Putting an End to Terrorism</strong></p>
<p>The September 11 attacks against the United States were savage beyond words. Our fellow SGI members and friends were among the victims. The attacks provoked universal revulsion and the heartfelt desire that such slaughter never be repeated.</p>
<p>For what crime were these innocent people killed? There is no reason, nothing that could possibly justify such an act. Even if, as has been reported, the perpetrators believed they were acting based on their religious faith, their acts in no way merit the name of martyrdom. Martyrdom means offering up one's own life, not taking the lives of others. True self-sacrifice is made to save others from suffering, to offer them happiness. Any act that involves killing others is reprehensible and purely destructive.</p>
<p>The time has come for humankind to join together to put an end to terrorism. The question is, how can this be achieved? Will military retaliation serve that end? Isn't it likely only to incite more hatred?</p>
<p>Even if, for argument's sake, the immediate "enemy" could be subdued, would that bring true peace? Long-simmering hatreds would only be driven further underground, making it impossible to predict where next in the world they might burst forth. Our world would be tormented with ever greater fear and unease.</p>
<p>Here I am reminded of the simple wisdom of the Aesop fable "The North Wind and the Sun." The North Wind tried to make a traveler remove his coat by assailing him with icy gusts, but the harder the North Wind blew, the tighter the traveler pulled his coat around him.</p>
<p>Peace that is based on the forceful suppression of people's voices and concerns, whether it be in your own or other countries, is a dead peace--the peace of the grave. Surely that is not the peace for which humanity yearns.</p>
<p><strong>Violence vs. Nonviolence: The Struggle of the Twenty-first Century</strong></p>
<p>I am also reminded of a moving episode that Leo Tolstoy related in a letter written two months before his death. The letter, dated September 7, 1910, was addressed to Mahatma Gandhi.</p>
<p>The episode went something like this. There was a test on the subject of religion in a certain girls' school in Moscow. A bishop had come to the school and was quizzing the girls one by one about the Ten Commandments. When he came to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," the bishop asked: "Does God forbid us to kill under all circumstances?"</p>
<p>The girls each answered as they had been taught. "No," they said, "not under all circumstances. We may kill in war or as legal punishment."</p>
<p>"Yes, that's right! You've answered correctly!" said the bishop.</p>
<p>Then one of the girls, her face flushed with indignation, spoke up: "Killing is wrong under all circumstances!"</p>
<p>The bishop was flustered and marshaled all his rhetorical skills to convince the girl that there were exceptions to the commandment against killing, but to no avail.</p>
<p>"No," she declared. "Killing is a sin under all circumstances. It says so in the Old Testament. Moreover, Jesus not only forbade killing but taught that we must do no harm to our neighbors."</p>
<p>In the face of truth in the girl's assertion, the bishop's authority and verbal skills were of no use whatsoever. In the end, he could only fall silent. The young girl, Tolstoy wrote with evident satisfaction, had proven victorious.</p>
<p>Let us amplify the words of that young girl--"It is wrong to kill, even in war!" And let us broadcast them to the world!</p>
<p>The twentieth century was a century of war, a century in which hundreds of millions of people died violent deaths. Have we learned anything from those horrific tragedies? In the new era of the twenty-first century, humanity must be guided by the overriding principle that killing is never acceptable or justified--under any circumstance. Unless we realize this, unless we widely promote and deeply implant the understanding that violence can never be used to advocate one's beliefs, we will have learned nothing from the bitter lessons of the twentieth century.</p>
<p>The real struggle of the twenty-first century will not be between civilizations, nor between religions. It will be between violence and nonviolence. It will be between barbarity and civilization in the truest sense of the word.</p>
<p><strong>Extinguish the Flames of Hatred with a Flood of Dialogue</strong></p>
<p>More than half a century ago, Gandhi sought to break the cycles of violence and reprisal. What distinguishes us from brute beasts, he said, is our continuous striving for moral self-improvement. Humanity is at a crossroads and must choose, he asserted, violence (the law of the jungle) or nonviolence (the law of humanity).</p>
<p>The world today, in fact, has an extraordinary and unprecedented opportunity. We have the chance to open a new page in human history. Now is the time to make the following declaration:</p>
<blockquote><p>We regard terrorist attacks to be a challenge to the law of humanity. It is for just this reason that we refuse to follow the law of the jungle upon which the attacks were based. We declare our determination to find a solution not by military means but through extensive dialogue. Rather than further fuel the flames of hatred, we choose to douse them with a great "flood of dialogue" that will enrich and benefit all humanity.</p>
<p>This is the best, the only means to assure that such horrors are never repeated, and we believe it is the most fitting way to honor the memory of those who lost their lives in the attacks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such a declaration, put into action, would certainly be met with the unstinting praise of future historians.</p>
<p>Great good can come of great evil. But this will not happen on its own. Courage is always required to transform evil into good. Now is the time for each of us to bring forth such courage: the courage of nonviolence, the courage of dialogue, the courage to listen to what we would rather not hear, the courage to restrain the desire for vengeance and be guided by reason.</p>
<p><strong>Peace Is Born from a Willingness to Listen</strong></p>
<p>In conversations with Mrs. Veena Sikri, director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), we discussed Indian philosophy and the tradition of nonviolence. And I spoke of my desire to bring the light of India, with its immense spiritual heritage, to the people of Japan. This wish was eventually realized in the form of an exhibition entitled "King Ashoka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nehru--Healing Touch" that was held in Japan in 1994.</p>
<p>King Ashoka was a wise and virtuous monarch of ancient India (around the third century BCE). After witnessing firsthand the cruel realities of war, he converted to Buddhism, deciding that he would base his rule not on military force but on the Dharma, the principles of Buddhism. When Gandhi was asked whether a nonviolent state was possible, he replied that indeed it was. He pointed to Ashoka's reign as an example, and asserted that it must be possible to reproduce the ancient king's achievement.</p>
<p>Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, was Gandhi's direct disciple. When he visited Japan in 1957, he voiced his profound concern over the escalating violence in the world. In one of his addresses he stated that the only truly effective response to the hydrogen bomb was not a bomb of even bigger destructive capacity but a spiritual "bomb" of compassion. This was just one month after Josei Toda, the second president of the Soka Gakkai, made his own declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Some of the Japanese involved in preparing for the "King Ashoka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nehru" exhibition at first had difficulty appreciating the "healing touch" theme proposed by our Indian partners. This may have been partly because "healing" in the broader sense was not as familiar a term in Japan as it has since become. But no theme goes more to the very heart of nonviolence. For violence is born from a wounded spirit: a spirit burned and blistered by the fire of arrogance; a spirit splintered and frayed by the frustration of powerlessness; a spirit parched with an unquenched thirst for meaning in life; a spirit shriveled and shrunk by feelings of inferiority. The rage that results from injured self-respect, from humiliation, erupts as violence. A culture of violence, which delights in crushing and beating others into submission, spreads throughout society, often amplified by the media.</p>
<p>The American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a student of Gandhi's philosophy. He declared that a person whose spirit is in turmoil cannot truly practice nonviolence. It was my hope that the light of India--a country known in the East since ancient times as "the land of moonlight"--would help spread the spirit of peace, much as the cool beams of the moon bring soothing relief from the maddening heat of the day. From a healed, peaceful heart, humility is born; from humility, a willingness to listen to others is born; from a willingness to listen to others, mutual understanding is born; and from mutual understanding, a peaceful society will be born.</p>
<p>Nonviolence is the highest form of humility; it is supreme courage. Prime Minister Nehru said that the essence of Gandhi's teachings was fearlessness. The Mahatma taught that "the strong are never vindictive" and that dialogue can only be engaged in by the brave.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<hr/><p><b>Works Consulted</b></p>
<p>Fischer, Louis. <em>The Life of Mahatma Gandhi</em>. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1950.</p>
<p>Gandhi, M. K. <em>Gandhi on Non-Violence--A Selection from the Writings of Mahatma Gandhi</em>. Ed. by Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions Publishing Corp., 1965.</p>
<p>Gandhi, M. K. <em>My Religion</em>. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Trust, 1955.</p>
<p>Kytle, Calvin. <em>Gandhi, Soldier of Nonviolence</em>. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1982.</p>
<p>Tolstoy, Leo. <em>Tolstoy's Letters</em>, Vol. 2 (1880-1910). Ed. and trans. by R. F. Christian. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.</p>
<p>Yamazaki, Kayoko. <em>Aru hi mura wa senjo ni natta--Bachuga kara todoita kodomotachi no messeji</em> (One Day Our Village Became a Battlefield--Messages from the Children of Bachuga [in the former Yugoslavia]). Tokyo: Shueisha, 1995.</p>
Integrative Therapies Blend with Allopathic Treatments in Leading Hospitals
tag:livingwellness.com,2012-10-19:2774974:BlogPost:24266
2012-10-19T21:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p><br></br> <font size="5"><b>The Unconventional Is In</b></font></p>
<p><small><i><b>By Noreen Seebacher</b><br></br> HealthScout Reporter</i></small></p>
<p>Alternative therapies are increasingly mingling with mainstream medicine at some of the nation's leading hospitals.</p>
<p>From Los Angeles to New York, physicians and their staffs are giving patients the option to complement their care with procedures that range from aromatherapy, biofeedback and clinical imagery to homeopathy, meditation and…</p>
<p><br/> <font size="5"><b>The Unconventional Is In</b></font></p>
<p><small><i><b>By Noreen Seebacher</b><br/> HealthScout Reporter</i></small></p>
<p>Alternative therapies are increasingly mingling with mainstream medicine at some of the nation's leading hospitals.</p>
<p>From Los Angeles to New York, physicians and their staffs are giving patients the option to complement their care with procedures that range from aromatherapy, biofeedback and clinical imagery to homeopathy, meditation and naturopathy, a form of health care focused on natural healing methods.</p>
<ul>
<li>At the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, psychiatrists are prescribing herbal medicines to help patients overcome depression.</li>
<li>Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, offers complementary treatments for cancer patients, including meditation, massage therapy, yoga and art therapy.</li>
<li>Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City this year opened a specialized Center for Health and Healing, where physicians work alongside chiropractors and practitioners who specialize in homeopathy, clinical imagery and other alternative treatments.</li>
<li>And Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has just completed testing the potential for alternative programs in heart surgery.</li>
</ul>
<p>Dr. William Jagiello, an osteopathic physician and chairman of the Mercy Center's integrative medicine committee, says the growing popularity of alternative treatment is confirmation that "illness doesn't exist in a vacuum" -- and that good medicine integrates spiritual, emotional and cultural aspects.</p>
<p>"At some point in the future, there won't be conventional and unconventional treatments. They'll all be melded into one system. The important thing will be identifying the best treatment for each patient, rather than whether it's mainstream or alternative care," Jagiello predicts.</p>
<p>Hospitals are embracing alternative care for several reasons.</p>
<p>For one thing, new scientific studies have validated some of the practices.</p>
<p>Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, for example, reports that patients who used self-hypnotic relaxation techniques during surgery needed less pain medication, left the operating room sooner and had more stable vital signs during the operation, according to research published in the British journal <i>The Lancet</i>.</p>
<p><b>Fostering cooperation</b></p>
<p>In addition, the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has worked to foster greater understanding of alternative medical practices by those in mainstream medicine. Last spring, for example, it arranged a meeting between alternative medicine practitioners and mainstream researchers to exchange ideas, report on current studies and discuss ways to increase collaborative research in cardiovascular, lung, and blood treatments.</p>
<p>But hospital administrators and physicians also concede they're responding to patient demand.</p>
<p>Between 1990 and 1997, the number of Americans using an alternative therapy rose from about 33 percent to more than 42 percent, according to a 1998 survey in the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i>.</p>
<p>About 83 million Americans in 1997 spent more than $27 billion on such therapies, including herbal medicine, massage, megavitamins, self-help groups, folk remedies, energy healing, and homeopathy, the report found. That total exceeded out-of-pocket spending for all U.S. hospitalizations the same year.</p>
<p>Dr. Matthew Fink, a neurologist and president and chief executive of the Beth Israel Medical Center, says it's foolish for doctors and hospitals to ignore something that will be such a large part of health care for years to come.</p>
<p>"Conventional medicine started to realize it was a little behind what patients wanted," adds Dr. Benjamin Kligler, medical director of Beth Israel's new Center for Health and Healing. The $5 million center, with 17 treatment rooms, pulls together the skills of an eclectic group of professionals, ranging from medical doctors and registered nurses to acupuncturists and massage therapists.</p>
<p>Some, like Kligler, represent multiple disciplines: He is a medical doctor trained in acupuncture, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, and herbal medicine and nutrition.</p>
<p>The goals at the center, and at other institutions that have made alternative practices part of their programs, are to tap into growing consumer interest, and to study whether such therapies work under clinical conditions.</p>
<p>"There are situations where we don't know yet whether something really works, and realize some skepticism is warranted," Kligler notes.</p>
<p><b>Heart patients enthusiastic</b></p>
<p>The ongoing research into these questions includes three recent pilot studies at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles that confirmed the potential of alternative treatments used after open-heart surgery.</p>
<p>Dr. Gregory P. Fontana, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, says almost all of the 60 patients who were given acupuncture, massage or guided imagery in conjunction with their surgery were enthusiastic about the procedures.</p>
<p>Fontana speculates the therapies reduce the need for pain medication in post-operative patients.</p>
<p>"When patients are hospitalized, they're frightened, anxious and worried. There's one thing they know how to do: ask for pain medication," he says.</p>
<p>But, he asks, "Do they need the medication, or just a way to relax?"</p>
<p>Fontana believes some alternative therapies may provide an option for patients. "If they can allow themselves to relax, accept what has happened, and realize a state of well-being, pain becomes a less important part of their consciousness," he explains.</p>
<p>Fontana says 19 of the 20 patients who received acupuncture and massage therapy, and all 20 who received guided imagery -- a form of hypnosis -- said the treatments made significant differences in their recoveries. The real test, Fontana notes, may be patients' willingness to pay for the services out of pocket.</p>
<p>"Most would," he adds.</p>
<p>Sixteen of those who received acupuncture, 15 who received massage therapy and all 20 who received guided imagery said they'd pay $100, $75 and $35, respectively, to obtain the services, he notes.</p>
<p>Fontana has just started more research involving a randomized group of 200 patients. Half will receive an alternative therapy in conjunction with surgery, and half will undergo the surgery by itself. While Fontana and several others who offer heart-surgery programs have investigated alternative therapies, from yoga to herbal supplements to healing energy therapy, he concedes more scientific study is needed.</p>
<p>Supporters of complementary medicine say more research could break down some of the remaining resistance to alternative treatment within the medical community and open the door to expanded insurance coverage for some procedures. With the exception of chiropractic care, which most insurers have traditionally covered for at least some conditions, few carriers offer payment for massage or aromatherapy, for instance.</p>
<p><b>What To Do</b></p>
<p>Alternative therapies and the practitioners who offer them should be chosen as carefully as mainstream physicians, experts caution. Before you agree to any treatment, investigate your options. Ask for referrals from friends and family and physicians, and don't be afraid to shop around for a practitioner who makes you feel comfortable.</p>
<p>The National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offers fact sheets, information about clinical trials and links to other sources of information. You can to the NCCAM Clearinghouse at P.O. Box 8218, Silver Spring, MD 20907-8218.</p>
<p>The Alternative Medicine HomePage, affiliated with the Falk Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, markets itself as a "jumpstation for sources of information on unconventional, unorthodox, unproven, or alternative, complementary, innovative, integrative therapies." The site has a comprehensive list of resources, including links for information on specific diseases, including cancer and HIV.</p>
<p>Source of this article: <a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/hsn/20001225/hl/the_unconventional_is_in_3.html">http://dailynews.yahoo.com</a></p>
Living Wellness SOMYE CENTER for Integrative Therapies
tag:livingwellness.com,2012-06-05:2774974:BlogPost:23099
2012-06-05T04:12:06.000Z
Living Wellness
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<p><span class="font-size-5"><strong>Living Wellness Center for Integrative Therapies</strong></span></p>
<p>The Leading Edge in Whole Person-Centered Care</p>
<p>Experience Soothing Touch & Aromatherapies</p>
<p>Breath, Energy Work, Movement and Sound Healing</p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73500989?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73500989?profile=original" width="99"></img></a> </span></p>
<p>We Consult you to create Healing Environments for your Staff and…</p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><strong>Living Wellness Center for Integrative Therapies</strong></span></p>
<p>The Leading Edge in Whole Person-Centered Care</p>
<p>Experience Soothing Touch & Aromatherapies</p>
<p>Breath, Energy Work, Movement and Sound Healing</p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73500989?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73500989?profile=original" width="99"/></a> </span></p>
<p>We Consult you to create Healing Environments for your Staff and Employees.</p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Care for the Caregiver</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span> Feel empowered with inspiration and increased knowledge of leading edge patient-centered care techniques.</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Dedicated to</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Whole Person-Centered Care</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span> Living Wellness shares learning tools for wellness with Nursing Staffs</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>“Soothe & Empower Mind, Body & Spirit”</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Calming and Rejuvenating 15/20 minute sessions, rotating two to four Staff at a time, lets everyone experience combined therapeutic techniques that include Aromatherapy, Breath-work,</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Guided Imagery and Massage Therapy. </span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>This is an introduction to the precious journey of one’s healing, tailored to each employee’s needs.</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Come away with a sense of increased knowledge, inner well-being and insight into the mind-body connection.</span></em></p>
<p align="center"><em><span>Become energized in a new way, experience your workspace transformed into a healing environment that elevates everyone’s spirit.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span> </span></em></p>
<p>The Living Wellness Integrative Therapies Program</p>
<p>includes a very special Integrative MD and Wholistic Care Team.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>'SOMYÉ RETREATS' RESTORE BODY, MIND & SPIRIT</strong></p>
<p>The Next Living Wellness Event is:</p>
<p>Soothe & Empower, Body, Mind & Spirit,</p>
<p>Saturday, May 26th, 1pm - 2:45pm</p>
<p>(<span class="font-size-1"><em>Modest Introductory Participation Fee</em></span>)</p>
<p>Soothe & Empower with Massage, Aromatherapy,</p>
<p>Energy Work & Sound Healing</p>
<p>in the serene calm of Topanga Canyon.</p>
<p><img alt="TopangaStoryRegular web" src="http://www.onetopanga.com/images/Article_Photos/TopangaStoryRegular_web.jpg" height="215" width="165" class="align-center"/></p>
<p>To Retreat with us in Topanga Canyon</p>
<p>Please RSVP (Space Limited)</p>
<p>by email: pdarbanville@gmail.com</p>
<p>or call Michele at: 310-403-7612</p>
<p></p>
<p>Experience Longer Somye Healing Retreats</p>
<p>Getaway to the natural setting of Topanga, so close in distance, yet so far away in time and space; offering focused, intuitive therapies to guide you through somatic and shamanic healing processes. Reach more deeply into your core essence; expand your energy body amidst the Nature Trails. Experience your mind quieting, the outside world falling away and gently open to the seat of your divine wisdom. From this space awaken an awareness of profound healing, joy and wholeness.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Call for LW Brochure and Events Calendar</p>
HUMANITY'S UPCOMING SHIFT SEEN IN MAYAN & ANCIENT CIVILIZATION'S WISDOM
tag:livingwellness.com,2012-01-08:2774974:BlogPost:20897
2012-01-08T21:12:51.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p></p>
<h1>26. Hunab K'u Has Flashed Like Lightning!</h1>
<p><b>In the Mayan religion, the serpent symbolically represents the seven powers of light, energies distributed throughout the body as a gift of the Giver of Movement and Measure, Hunab K'u (the Creator). The seven powers combined and awakened form a circuit of energy focused through the crown of the head to join in the Dance and Flow of energies of the Creator.…</b><br></br><br></br></p>
<p></p>
<h1>26. Hunab K'u Has Flashed Like Lightning!</h1>
<p><b>In the Mayan religion, the serpent symbolically represents the seven powers of light, energies distributed throughout the body as a gift of the Giver of Movement and Measure, Hunab K'u (the Creator). The seven powers combined and awakened form a circuit of energy focused through the crown of the head to join in the Dance and Flow of energies of the Creator.</b><br/><br/><span class="floatimgleft"><span class="floatimgleft"><img border="1" src="http://adishakti.org/images/prophecy_25.jpg" width="267" height="360"/><br clear="left"/></span></span></p>
<div class="subtitles2">The Great Mayan Goddess</div>
<p><b>Reawakening of the Cosmic Human</b><br/><br/>"Have you felt the deep inner calling of hidden truth? Do you feel sacred knowledge is just waiting for you to grab it? The Mayas believe this coming spring is a time when you will begin to remember. In the spring of 1995, we are to enter a new cycle of time that the Mayas believe will be deeply profound and exceptionally transforming, far surpassing what we have experienced to date. By the use of ancient calendar cycles based on the cosmos, the Mayas understand that the spring equinox of 1995 is the completion of a Mayan prophesy that marks the end of two cycles of K’altun (two cycles of 260 years), bringing us to the time when ancient and hidden knowledge is to be reawakened in the human DNA. The Mayas understand it is the end of the "age of belief" and the beginning of "the age of knowledge." The Mayas called it the Itza Age — or, as our Western world says, the Age of Aquarius. With the initiation of this new cycle of time, we will no longer be veiled by illusion. We will remember all that has been forgotten. The limitations of the unconscious will be wiped away.<br/><br/>Hunbatz Men, a Mayan shaman, asked me to share this ancient Mayan prophesy and a simple solar initiation. He said this information is for everyone, not just the Maya. He said being Mayan is something that is in the heart and spirit, not just created by the color of the skin. This sacred prophesy is the call for the light workers of the earth garden to reunite and harmonize the Earth, to bridge the gaps between the continents, religions, cultures and races for all ages, for all time. It is time to sing our heart songs and begin to live our true solar destiny.<br/><br/>The following, paraphrased from a sacred Mayan text, belongs to initiates all over the world who seek Solar Initiation:<br/><br/><i>"In the year 1475, before the arrival of the Spanish, the Supreme Maya Council revealed that a calendar cycle of twice the K’altun of 260 years had to go by in order for the Mayan Solar Culture to flourish again for the benefit of mankind....In the spring of 1995, this 520-year period will be completed, bringing to an end the cycle of darkness brought by the Spaniards to the land of the Sun....1995 is a decisive year and the sacred human race will have to enter the path of cosmic light if it is to remain a thinking species....The human race will have to seek the path of initiation on Earth and in Heaven....Through Solar Initiation they will be able to see the luminosity of the great spirit....through Solar Initiation, the sleeping body of mankind can be awakened....Hunab K’u [the Mayan name for God] will flash like lightning that will pierce through the shadows that envelop the human race. Let us prepare to receive the light of knowledge that comes from Hunab K’u and transcend into the memory of the creator and become beings of eternal luminosity."</i><br/><br/>Aluna Joy Yaxk’in<br/><br/>(Aluna Joy Yaxk’in works with the cosmic and traditional teachings of the Maya. She is the founder of Hauk’in Publishing, an organization dedicated to the rediscovery of the cosmic wisdom of the Maya, and author of The Mayan Suns, a daily journal, and Mayan Solar Destiny Readings, both based on the sacred calendar. For information, contact Aluna Joy Yaxk’in, c/o Hauk’in Publishing, P.O. Box 1351, Mt. Shasta, CA 96067.)<br/><br/></p>
<hr/><p><br/><span class="floatimgleft"><img src="http://adishakti.org/images/temple_of_kukulkan.jpg" alt="Temple of Kukulkan" width="185" height="124" border="1"/><br clear="left"/><small>Temple of Kukulkan</small></span></p>
<p><b>Temple of Kukulkan (Serpent)</b><br/><br/>"Quetzalcoatl taught the ancients all the necessary skills to advance their civilization, from mathematics and science to agriculture and astronomy, as well as the famous Mayan calendrical formulae which predicts the end of the world to be December 21st 2012. He taught the people to live in peace and then moved on disappearing across the sea, but he promised he would someday return. Unfortunately for the ancient inhabitants of Mexico they mistook the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors and Cortez in 1519 as Quetzalcaotl's return, bringing about their tragic doom. Accepting them with open arms and treating them with utmost reverence the ancient people expected their newly arrived god to bestow great benevolence upon them. Instead the Spanish invaders brought nothing but greed and brutality for their trusting hosts.<br/><br/>The name Quetzalcoatl (ket-tsul'kwot-ul) means "plumed or feathered serpent". We must certainly then mention the great ancient city of Chichen Itza on Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. There, twice a year, an amazing spectacle related to the feathered serpent god takes place:<br/><br/>"The Temple of Kukulkan (the Feathered Serpent God, also known as Quetzalcoatl) is the largest and most important ceremonial structure at Chichen Itza. This ninety-foot tall pyramid was built during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries directly upon the multiple foundations of previous temples. The pyramid is a store-house of information on the Mayan calendar. ... The northern stairway was the principal sacred path leading to the summit. At sunset on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, an interplay between the sun's light and the edges of the stepped terraces on the pyramid creates a fascinating - and very brief - shadow display upon the sides of the northern stairway. A serrated line of seven interlocking triangles (<a href="http://adishakti.org/subtle_system/chakras.htm"><u>chakras</u></a>) gives the impression of a long tail leading downward to the stone head of the serpent Kukulkan (<a href="http://adishakti.org/subtle_system/kundalini.htm"><u>Kundalini</u></a>), at the base of the stairway." (Linda Casselman)<br/><br/>So then, on these two very important dates, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, it appears that Quetzalcoatl is indeed present among his people as the shadow of the serpent moves along the steps of the Pyramid of Kulkulkan.<br/><br/><font color="#800000">"This Power is placed in the triangular bone which is called as sacrum, which means Greeks knew about this centre. They very well knew about it, that’s why they called it sacred, sacrum. In many countries there has been a manifestation that they know about this particular Power.<br/><br/>I happened to go to Colombia where I collected an authentic antique copy of the antique necklace. The necklace had at its bottom a Kundalini and even the earrings had the Kundalini, but, surprisingly, it was from the Indians of America, though it is now kept in the museum in Colombia. It was in America that people knew about <a href="http://adishakti.org/subtle_system/kundalini.htm" title="Kundalini"><u>Kundalini</u></a>, definitely absolutely in three and a half coil they had done this pattern very well. Is very surprising that it was done even before Columbus came here."<br/><br/>Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi<br/>Philadelphia, USA — Oct 15, 1993</font></p>
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<hr size="1"/><p><br/><span class="floatimgleft"><img src="http://adishakti.org/images/serpent_mound.jpg" width="197" height="264" alt="The Serpent Mpound" border="1"/><br clear="left"/><small>Serpent Mound and associated <br/>constellations-Draco and the Little <br/>Dipper. <a href="http://adishakti.org/images/serpent_mound_L.jpg"><font color="#000080">Aerial photo</font></a></small></span><b>Great Serpent Mound</b><br/><br/>A most fascinating ancient Native American archaeological site found in Ohio, USA, called the "Great Serpent Mound", features an undulating snake's body, its coiled tail reminiscent of the Kundalini lying dormant in the sacrum. In its mouth appears an egg, symbol of the potential actualization of Second Birth. <br/><br/>Is it possible, then, that the ancient Native American Peoples were worshiping the Divine Feminine and were deeply aware of the symbolic, spiritual significance of the Serpent Power and the Primordial Egg?<br/><br/>Although scholars are uncertain as to the precise significance of this Great Serpent Mound, it is, however, highly likely that this site was revered by American Indians as the sacred representation of Kundalini awakening (Second Birth).<br/><br/>Other sources offer added information on the Great Serpent Mound:<br/><br/>"The Great Serpent Mound, in Adams County, Ohio, USA, is considered to be the world's largest serpent effigy. The mound is a quarter of a mile long and five feet high, and it was originally much higher."[1]<br/><br/>"The Great Serpent Mound continues to wind its quarter-mile length along an Ohio hilltop...By the end of the nineteenth century, archaeologists were able to show that the mounds had in fact been built by Native American civilizations many centuries before-a-long-lost-civilization such as Greece, Persia, Holy Land or mythical island of Atlantis."[2] <br/><br/>"...the two structures [Stonehenge and the Great Serpent Mound in the USA] share the same timeline. From carbon dating in and around Stonehenge, the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) gives an early date for the core of Stonehenge at 3,000 B.C.E. or 5,000 years ago. The design of Serpent Mound was conceived about 5,000 years ago as well-and is therefore among the oldest of earth and stone works in North America--or in fact the world. In this, Stonehenge and Serpent Mound are coeval. That time period is referred to in North American archaeology as being of the "Archaic Period" (approximately 6000 B.C.E. to 1000 B.C.E.) <br/><br/><a href="http://www.greatserpentmound.info/stonehenge.html">www.greatserpentmound.info/stonehenge.html</a> <br/><br/></p>
<hr/><p><br/>"<b>Awakening Quetzalcoatl/Kulkulcan: The Seven Powers of the Serpent</b><br/><br/>In the Mayan religion, the serpent symbolically represents the seven powers of light, energies distributed throughout the body as a gift of the Giver of Movement and Measure, Hunab K'u (the Creator). The seven powers combined and awakened form a circuit of energy focused through the crown of the head to join in the Dance and Flow of energies of the Creator. This flowering of energy through the crown chakra was often depicted through brightly feathered headdresses for the priests. The legends of Queztalcoatl are that he would appear as a rainbowed serpent with a crown or ruff of brightly colored feathers, as a macaw, or as a man with feathers waving from the top of his head - the headresses of the priests imitated and honored the feathered coif of both the serpent and the humanoid form.<br/><br/>The Hindu seven chakras match and are the same as the Mayan seven powers of light. The Mayan colors for these power centers are different, being the wavelengths/colors of the rainbow flowing upwards from red at the base chakra to violet at the crown. These seven colors together form the light of the sun, and the rainbow gives the pathway and seven steps upwards through the seven power points of "light" located within the human body. The water and air (rain/mist) break the light of the sun into the seven separate colors/powers.<br/><br/>The seven notes of the major scale in chakra toning correspond directly to the seven wavelengths of the rainbow color scale, as each tonal vibration going upwards is slightly increased in speed of wavelength.<br/><br/>The Hindu word kundalini directly corresponds to the Mayan word k'ultanlilni (a combination of the words for gods/pyramid/speak/ vibration/nose/vibration).<br/><br/>A brief digression on that "nose" reference in k'ultanlilni: By Mayan tradition, the Divine breath enters through the nose. This concept is often represented in sacred art by beings with large noses that look like elephant trunks, inscribed with signs and glyphs representing the wind and planets. The nose, the wind and the planets have a direct cosmic relationship. Mayan priests are depicted with large prominent noses; it is unknown if this is artistic license gifting the priest with the Divine Nose by virtue of his position, or if Priests were encouraged and selected from among the prominently proboscid populace.<br/><br/>The seven powers of light are represented in temple pyramids as seven triangles of light on the steps of the temple in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, that appear during the vernal and autumnal equinox. The number seven is sacred within Mayan culture. It is considered to be the number of the Divine and a reminder of the galactic forces and energies from which the Mayan religion formed. The seven isosceles triangles that form on March 22 and September 23 on the steps of the temple in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, allow the Priest to ascending the pyramid through the seven powers of light and into the mouth of the serpent of sacred knowledge.<br/><br/>The triangular and pyramidal energy conduits are based upon the structure of the water molecule. The bioelectromagnetic energy released from the inhalation/exhalation and the body's transformation/change of oxygen to co2 creates the energy released (the change in angle of separation of hydrogen on either side of the water molecule (h2o). My interpretation of this is the Divine breath brings water and air together within the body to form the fire of bioelectric energy. This energy focused through breathing and energetic concentration through the chakras in sequence produces the Serpent.<br/><br/>The Mayans had specific words to use to awaken these powers. Kulkulcan is a combination of k'ul (sacred vibrations), and can (sacred teaching). The energy radiating from the crown chakra (often symbolized by feathers) is cizin. Inlilnaluk' translates as "to receive sacred knowledge (literally self/vibration/mount/swallow)" and lol is "relationship between vibration and spirit". The beginning colors of the seven powers of light, red flowing into orange, is considered the color(s) of the galactic force (Milky Way Galaxy); the word for that color combination/force/energy is chacla."<br/><br/><br/><a href="http://www.thelema.net">www.thelema.net</a><br/><br/></p>
<hr/><p><br/><b>Something never seen before in the history of humanity</b><br/><br/>"Floyd Hand, a Sioux medicine man from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, said the birth (of Miracle, the White Buffalo) would affect all humans, not just Native Americans. “It’s an omen that’s bringing a change and a new world. The twenty-first century that is coming is going to unify all of us.”<br/><br/>Far south of him, ancient Mayan prophecies similarly predicted a coming change. Using their amazingly accurate calendar cycles, the Mayans said that the spring equinox of 1995 marked the end of two 260-year cycles known as K’altun. Upon the completion of the cycles, the Mayans say, we arrive at the time when ancient and hidden knowledge is to be awakened. They call it the end of the “age of belief” and the dawning of the Itza age, the “age of knowledge.”<br/><br/>The prophecy was written by the Supreme Maya Council in 1475, before the arrival of the conquistadors. Almost in anticipation of the bearded conquerors from the east, the council said that a time of darkness was near at hand and that two K’altun had to pass before the Mayan solar culture would flourish again. Once the time had passed, the council predicted, Hunab K’u — God, in Mayan — would flash like lightning and pierce through the shadows that envelop the human race. The council said that then we would begin to remember the ancient knowledge of the universe. That flood of knowledge would bring the rebirth of humanity’s spirituality and a unification of the people of the Earth in an age of peace.<br/><br/>On the other side of the world from the homeland of the Mayas, the same belief — that we are ending an age of darkness and entering an age of light and wisdom — is upheld in the prophecies of Indian astrology. Ages in that ancient belief stretch millions of years and are therefore impossible to pinpoint precisely. But according to various Indian astrologers, we have now reached the end of the Dark Age, the end of the spirit’s descent into matter, and the end of the last of the six epochs of the Kali Yuga. Now we must pass through a final cleansing stage before the spirit once again rises in the Satva Yuga, the “age of light.”<br/><br/>Already, we can see the points of lights shining, one here and one there. They are lighting in those who will carry the message. Maybe they won’t all shine at the same moment for now, but that doesn’t mean they should be turned off or that they will shine any dimmer because we try to close our eyes to them. The lights are there already, shining in the darkness, lighting our way to a new tomorrow. And as more and more lights shine, they will brighten our way and brighten our world...<br/><br/>Where we are going is to something brand new, something never seen before in the history of humanity."<br/><br/>Walter Mercado, <i>Beyond The Horizon: Visions of a New Millennium,</i> <br/>A Time Warner Company, 1997 p. 15-7.<br/><br/> </p>
<hr/><p><br/>"<b>The Cosmic Return Of Spiritual Education</b><br/> Mayan Elder Hunbatz Men (PDF format)<br/><br/>March 16, 1999, will be, in my Mayan calendar, the day K'AN-10, month UAYEB-3, year CHICHAN-12. On this date, we will perform Mayan ceremony and will consort with the planets Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Father Sun, Sister Moon and the Pleiades. This ceremony that will be carried out in the water of the cenote is to help us enter into the new era of Aquarius. The planets previously mentioned will be in the sky in the middle of the day to observe us and to help us enter into this Mayan cosmic initiation, into the knowledge of the new Magnetic Pole of Spiritual Education. The whole of humanity today needs the education coming from the cosmos, because, as it is known, the education of modern civilization is not complying with the universal creator's correct educational mandates. Many times it contradicts it without understanding it; today we have an imposed civilization personified by humanity's manipulators.<br/><br/>Only the wisdom of the new cosmic time will come to correct that which has been badly done, only the great creative forces of the cosmos and of Mother Earth will correct the mistaken road that was imposed upon humanity. Only the universal creators TEPEU, GUGUMATZ and HUYUB CAAN will disturb 2000 years of mistaken direction, and they will eradicate these thousands of years of darkness.<br/><br/>Let us see, with our true human power, a little of our Mayan cosmic solar memory. In this way we will begin to understand what we have nowadays forgotten. Not knowing how to remember also has to do with the bad education that was imposed in all places where western colonialism reached. Today our obligation is to begin to remember. As Mayan I can remember with my cosmic mind, and you also, kind reader, can begin to remember with your cosmic mind, because you also are Mayan, you are a cosmic being who has come from HUNAB K'U, from the new time of universal wisdom.<br/><br/>When the universal memory began to wake up in remote times, there we were with our spirit. When our sacred body began to form, it had already been impressed in its first manifestation of life the memory of the universe. Afterwards everything was concluded for the great creator HUNAB K'U, our god that made us according to the great universal law. HUNAB K'U put the sacred measure in our body and spirit and also included the proportion of the universe in us.<br/><br/>When the creator HUNAB K'U concluded its creation, it gave us a little of its power, endowing us with seven corporal and spiritual powers. There are two more powers that we cannot take until we understand and develop the seven powers. One of these two powers is up in the universe and the other one is below in nature. They are complementary powers to the other seven powers that correspond to our body and spirit.<br/><br/>Inside our memory as great power exists our religion. This is an aspect so important that current humanity has not been able to understand it, because 2000 years of religious competition have confused even more of humanity. The proof we have of this is the great quantity of religions that exist in the entire world. One of the main current misfortunes is that each religious group says that God the creator is only on their side and that they are the chosen people of God.<br/><br/>It is important that humanity understands how the Maya of tradition understand the religious principle, of how it governs the actual body that we have. Accessing some of our ancestral memory will take us to remote boundaries of our existence; it will make us remember the lands and religion that do not exist today. We cannot see them because those great sacred lands and religion are under the waters of the sea.<br/><br/>When those that write history did not yet exist, religion already existed and was practiced by many people. When the god HUNAB K'U made the first cell of the human being he made it religiously. For this reason the human being was born of religion and consequently is religious from his root. In his cosmic thought is his religion, in his universal spirit is his religion, and in his earthly body is also his religion.<br/><br/>Many thousands of years that can go back to millions, the human being was in many lands that today cannot be seen physically, but, however, this information is in the memory. The Maya knew about this memory and wrote of it in their sacred books and stelae, and also shaped it in their pyramids. It is necessary to remember this history, because this information can help humanity reorient so that we take our true road, so that we no longer believe in the false history written or planned by some historians like Robert Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and the Constantines.<br/><br/>Before the Maya arrived in the sacred lands where today we trod and live, they were in other lands that today are under the waters of the sea. They emigrated to many places as well long ago, as did a lot of people of different ethnic groups. In very remote times they lived in places with very high mountains sometimes covered with many trees and other times with a lot of ice; they were also in desert lands that sometimes became very fertile lands. Many of those lands arose from the waters, others disappeared with time; some transformed into very big lands, others into small lands.<br/><br/>The Maya can remember the last great sacred lands of the continent of Lemuria, or LEMULIA in the Mayan language, there where the cosmic religion that came from another continent that today rests under the waters of the sea was understood and practiced. Many peoples inherited the sacred symbols of LEMULIA, such as for example the symbol called the star of David of the Hebrews.<br/><br/>In the times of LEMULIA, the symbols represented the summary of wisdom. They also represented religion. They worshipped the symbols, not like some religions that commercialize these sacred symbols nowadays. The true sense of these symbols come from LEMULIA. Still the majority of humanity cannot understand them. In order for the human being to understand these symbols, he has to enter into the land of the cosmic initiation.<br/><br/>Some indigenous groups, such as the Hopis, were in the sacred lands of LEMULIA. They came from the south of the American continent in order to settle down in what today is the United States of North America. When they arrived in these lands, many of the lands were under the sea. The Hopis have in their registered memory the big changes that have occurred to the sacred lands of the north of this continent of America.<br/><br/>Every several thousands of years, the Magnetic Pole of Religion arises in a different part of the Earth. When this happens, the ancient wise men of knowledge travel, taking with them the previous Magnetic Religious power that they took care of in order to deposit it in the new location. When in LEMULIA this great power indicated by the cosmos and Mother Earth arose, people with high degrees of initiation traveled to help ease the activation of this new sacred place where the New Spiritual Education would arise.<br/><br/>Through the passing of the millennia, LEMULIA fulfilled its sacred mission as educator of humanity. From here arose many teachers whose names are not remembered by human beings today. From this continent we inherited many symbols of cosmic wisdom that are still used today. When the time of LEMULIA completed its cycle indicated by the Mayan calendars, LEMULIA returned under the waters of the sea.<br/><br/>The Itzaes of tradition can remember when we were in the continent of Atlantis or ATLANTIHA in the Mayan language. For thousands and thousands of years we lived in these sacred lands where we ended up understanding the reason for our existence on these lands created by our supreme HUNAB K'U. In those remote times our sacred religious symbols were in all the locations of the continent of ATLANTIHA and those that inhabited these lands could understand these symbols that represent all. When ATLANTIHA arose from the waters of the sea, many teachers came to deposit the religious sacred wisdom to this new place; they came following a cosmic order. The LEMULIANS were present in order to deposit the great power to the ATLANTIHANS. With rites and ceremonies they made the transitions of power. Then Mother Earth was pleased by the great respect that was given, for in that time the human being understood when Mother Earth gave an order to change the Magnetic Pole.<br/><br/>In lands of the continent of the ATLANTIHA, there existed many communities that understood the cosmic spiritual work. Inside these communities, the old Itzaes, for many hundreds of thousands of years, cohabited with this cosmic wisdom in the continent of ATLANTIHA. Here there arose more sacred symbols about which they gave teaching and the symbols were also worshipped for the totality of universal wisdom that they contained. All time begins and also finishes. The cycle indicated cosmically by the calendars also marked that the continent of ATLANTIHA would arrive at its end. When this began to happen, many communities emigrated to other places. In this way great ATLANTIHA arose from the sea and in this way returned to the sea. The Magnetic Pole of Spiritual Religious Education had already fulfilled its cycle of educating humanity, and cosmically the order had already been given that this great power would have to be in another location on Mother Earth.<br/><br/>Many teachers of ATLANTIHA emigrated to other lands and took the spiritual and scientific knowledge with them to their new establishments. The ATLANTIHAN/Itza community also had to emigrate to new lands. Here it is where the great continent that is today called America arose, but the original name of these sacred lands for us, the Itzaes of tradition, is TAMAUNCHAN. Before settling in these lands that we inhabit today, the Itzaes traveled to many places, among them are mentioned the sacred lands of today's indigenous Kogis.<br/><br/>When the indigenous Kogis-Taironas arrived in the high lands of what are today the countries of Venezuela and Colombia, the forests of today in the country of Brazil did not exist. This fact indicates to us great antiquity. These indigenous brothers settled in the high lands of Sierra Madre of Santa Marta; these are geographically located between the western part of Venezuela and the eastern part of Colombia. Also what is today the Yucatán Peninsula, México, and the lands of Central America were under the waters of the sea. When these sacred lands arose from the waters, then the Itzaes arrived. They already knew what would be the destiny of these new lands.<br/><br/>The Magnetic Pole of Religious Education of ATLANTIHA had already reached its end; Mother Earth and the cosmos had already indicated which would be the new location where the new religious-scientific education would arise. At that time, the Itzaes that had waited for these new lands of light ended up populating these sacred lands. They brought the sacred symbols of the inherited wisdom of ATLANTIHA to deposit here. Note: I must indicate that there already were inhabitants in the high lands of this continent of Mesoamerica.<br/><br/>Then arose the great TAMUANCHAN as a continuator of the Cosmic Spiritual Education ordered by the new Magnetic Pole. In these sacred lands arose the high initiatic degree of Kukulkan, or K'UUK'MEXCAN in the Mayan language. In that time Itza educated the initiates in order to understand the symbols of the snake and the eagle, when the initiates understood these symbols of consciousness, then already they could understand the seven powers of the human being. When they then comprehended these powers of the body, then they were clever enough to understand the other two complementary powers, the high one of the cosmos and the one under the earth.<br/><br/>The Itza brought the knowledge of ATLANTIHA, but being in these new lands of TAMUANCHAN, developed more spiritual knowledge together with the inhabitants of these new lands, with those who are today called the Maya. In this manner the Maya inherited the knowledge of the ATLANTIHAS; for many thousands of years this Magnetic Pole of Spiritual Education was in the power of the Maya. They, with what they learned from the Itzaes in their time together, developed this cosmic wisdom even more. Then they created with their sacred language the word of HUNAB K'U, so that with this word they would represent the great concept of the creation of the universe."<br/><br/>Hunbatz Men, elder, Itza Maya Tradition.<br/>Communicated on December 1998<br/><a href="http://www.spiritual-endeavors.org">www.spiritual-endeavors.org</a></p>
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<h3>QUOTES OF SHRI MATAJI</h3>
<p><span class="floatimgleft"><img src="http://adishakti.org/images/adi_shakti_107.jpg" alt="The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi" width="160" height="218" border="1"/><br clear="left"/><small>Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi</small></span></p>
<p><font color="#800000">"It is important to understand about your own Kundalini, as Self realisation is Self knowledge and the one who gives Self knowledge is your own Kundalini because when she rises , she points out what are the problems on your Chakras. Now we say that it is pure desire. It is your chaste desire. It has no lust or greed in it. That power is your Mother and She Is settled down in the triangular bone. She knows everything about you just as a tape recorder. She is absolute knowledge. Because She is so pure that whatever Chakra She touches, She knows what is wrong with that Chakra before hand; so She is quite prepared and She adjusts herself fully so that you do not get a problem by the awakening. If any Chakra is constricted , She waits and goes on slowly opening that Chakra.<br/><br/>The Kundalini is the primordial power and is reflected in you. In a human being, it is like many strands of energy, like rope. This energy is all twisted together to form that Kundalini. In a human being the strands are 3 x 7 = 21 Nadis raised to the power of 108. When your kundalini rises, one or two strands out of this come up and pierce the fontanelle bone. It has to pass through the innermost nadi known as Brahma Nadi. It is a spiral movement throughout. The kundalini is spiral and nadis are also like a spiral. The outer most nadi is the right side Nadi, “Pingala Nadi”. The second innermost is Ida Nadi. She starts sending these threads through Brahma Nadi; by that they relax the centre. By relaxing of Centre, the sympathetic nervous system also starts relaxing, your pupils start dilating and when it has pierced the Agnya, then the eyes will be completely dilated and shining. Then She enters into Sahasrara.<br/><br/>It is absolutely the pure light of knowledge of love, compassion and attention. All these things are in that energy. We know of many energies like electrical, light energy etc. These energies cannot think. They cannot adjust and work on their own.<br/><br/>They have to be handled by us. But this energy itself is the living energy and knows how to handle itself. It thinks. If you see a seed being sprouted, you will find at the tip of the seed, there is a small little cell which knows how to go around the soft places, how to encircle the stones and how to find its way towards the source. That cell has got a little Kundalini in it. But within you a tremendous force of Kundalini exists. When a realised soul says that he should have more compassion, as my compassion, is not alright; my concern about others, my generosity is not alright, I have exploited other’s love. Then this energy starts moving, giving you that greater dimension of love and compassion. If you do not want to grow in your awareness then She does not supply the energy which is stored in you.<br/><br/>The Kundalini is there to nourish you, look after you and make you grow by giving you a higher, wider and deeper personality. All her power is nothing but love. She gives the power to forgive. Even when you think, the energy for thinking comes from Kundalini because you are asking her help.<br/><br/>The power of Kundalini is absolute purity, auspiciousness, holiness, chastity, self respect, pure love, detachment, concern, enlightened attention to give you Joy. As a mother will try whatever is possible to give Joy to her child, in the same way, this Kundalini has only one power and that is how to give Joy to her own Children. When we talk in the light of Kundalini, we have to understand that this light spreads in your life, outside your life and expresses itself in a very beautiful manner.<br/><br/>When you worship Adi Kundalini, the reflection in you, which is your Kundalini, is very happy. Also the deities feel happy.<br/><br/>The power of Kundalini which is your own Mother has to rise and manifest itself, because of your Pure Desire. In your introspection, pujas and in your Meditation, you should see for yourself, why are you in Meditation. It is for Pure Desire of compassion and love to be awakened within us. The growth has started and you will find that this shell which is human conditioning and ego will just break open. It is in the triangular bone, which comes up, manifests and can save the whole world. Just see the magnificence, the expansion, the greatness of this Kundalini which was within you and which came up in its full strength and has shown tremendous things.<br/><br/>The joy we feel during music recitals is because Kundalini is dancing. She gets happy because you ask for nothing but enjoyment of collectivity.<br/><br/>You are yourself fully connected when you are absolutely detached and your Kundalini is dancing. You are alone and never alone. This oneness with the whole gives you all the security and joy you want. That’s why the Kundalini awakening means collectivity. Unless and until you want pure collectivity in your being Kundalini won’t rise.<br/><br/>When you worship Adi Kundalini, You are trying to cleanse your Kundalini, as well as please the Deities. This is an object. It cannot be changed. But the reflector can change. The movement of Kundalini depends on temperament of person. Kundalini can give you honesty, and faith in honesty by actualising the experience. Supposing you want to go to a garden and you are suddenly there. Then you will know that your desire is pure and it has worked out. All such miracles happen. The pure desire works out because it is powerful.<br/><br/>When it works, the whole thing works out and you develop faith. That faith is within you. Nobody can challenge you, if you have faith, it will be done. Your Pure desire is now being fulfilled, you are now connected and you are now Divine. You are realised souls. You are different from others. For you, all this subtle knowledge is being absorbed, because your Kundalini is absorbing it. Whatever is absorbed is absorbed back by me. But that becomes like a barometer. You immediately know without thinking, asking, you know about anyone because Kundalini is the reflector. The better a reflector, you become, the more the Kundalini shows. Though Kundalini is an individual Mother, in her functions and methods. She is just the same. You cannot cheat the Kundalini, She knows you out and out. We must meditate to get into thoughtless awareness by which we allow the Kundalini to grow."<br/><br/>Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi</font></p>
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<p><font color="#800000">"I am here to tell you about the last breakthrough of our evolution. This breakthrough of our evolution in our awareness has to happen in these modern times and has been, moreover, recorded in the writings of many seers. These are the times called as the "Decadent Times" last called by the great saint Vyasa who has written the Gita, and it is the decadence of humanity that we see around in every way possible.<br/><br/>Now I would like to tell the secret knowledge of our inner being which was known in India thousands of years back. For our evolution and spiritual ascent there is a residual power within us which is located in the triangular bone at the base of our spine. This residual power was available thousands of years back in India, the awakening of the Kundalini was done, traditionally, on an individual basis only. One guru would give awakening to on disciple. As a result of that awakening, what happens is that you achieve your self-realisation, your self-hood. Secondly, when this power is awakened, it rises and passes through six subtle energy centres in your body, nourishing them and integrating them. Ultimately this power breaks through the fontanelle bone area called as the Talu or Divine Love, which is described in the Bible also as the "<a href="http://adishakti.org/forum/ruach_the_breath_of_god_experienced_daily_as_cool_breeze_wind_by_SYs_(1)_11-06-2004.htm"><font color="#000080">cool breeze</font></a> of the Holy Ghost", also in the Koran as "<a href="http://al-qiyamah.org/ruh_of_allah.htm"><font color="#000080">Ruh</font></a>" and also in the India scriptures as "<a href="http://adishakti.org/forum/raising_kundalini_with_sahaja_yoga_11-13-2006.htm"><font color="#000080">Paramchaitanya</font></a>". Patanjali has called it as "Ritambhara Pragya". Whatever the name, this is a power which is all-pervading, which does all the subtle works of living process, of evolutionary process. The existence of this all-pervading energy is not felt before realisation but after self-realisation you can feel it on your finger tips or at the centre of your palm or above the fontanelle bone area.<br/><br/>Actually, this knowledge existed a long time beck but my contribution, if there is any, is that we can now achieve en masse realisation. Thousands can achieve mass realisation. It is a gift of this time where it was predicted that such global transformation will take place. In as many as 65 countries, thousands of people have attained their self-realisation through Sahaja Yoga....<br/><br/>May the Divine bless you all.<br/><br/>Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi</font></p>
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<p>"But today it is the day I declare I am the One who have to save the humanity. I declare I am the One who is Adi Shakti, who is the Mother of all Mothers, who is the Primordial Mother, the Shakti (Divine Primordial Power) of the Desire of God, who has incarnated on this Earth to give meaning to itself, to this Creation, to human beings, and I am sure that through My Love and Patience and My Powers I am going to achieve it.<br/><br/>I was the One who was born again and again. But now I have come in My complete Form and with complete Powers. I have come on this Earth not only for salvation of human beings, not only for their emancipation, but for granting them the Kingdom of Heaven, the Joy, the Bliss that your Father wants to bestow upon you."<br/><br/>Shri Puratana Devi<br/><br/>(Purantana 801st: Primordial or Ancient) </p>
<div class="subtitles2"></div>
<div class="quotestext"><p></p>
</div>
<h3>ADDITIONAL QUOTES</h3>
<div class="quotestext2"><p>“We are living the times of the prophecies and now in another calendar of Ox Lahu Baktun. It also talks about the cycle of the great changes. In this cycle of the 5085 years in the Mayan calendar there are still 15 more years to go before this calendar can be completed. When this cycle is completed and another restoration of the planet will begin.<br/><br/>The world once again has fallen into neglecting nature. The world has been led by the materialistic ways, and humanity needs to transcend this cycle and to live in a more subtle dimension. Right now only the spiritual people in this planet are living this process. The indigenous groups of the planet are also living this process. But the great majority of humanity has no idea of these changes. These changes can be very catastrophic. It is my goal that the different indigenous and spiritual groups might come together as the new warriors of the light. With their tools of love they bring the message to humanity that their attitude needs to change. We need these positive attitudes as far as the different indigenous and spiritual groups and their relationship with nature, with our brothers and sisters the trees, with our brothers and sisters the animals, and with our Mother Earth.<br/><br/>Even though we have neglected and abused Mother Earth, we have taken her skin off, we have contaminated her waters, we have contaminated her wind, she is still serving us in a great way. Disobedient children we have been, yet she still loves us and nurtures us. We must understand that Grandfather Sun shines its light on us, no matter what color or shape or size we are. We must see each other with this attitude in mind. If a great part of humanity begins to understand this process, not only on an intellectual level, but also at a level of living it, those drastic changes that those prophecies talk about might not be so drastic.<br/><br/>Ancient sky watchers and wisdom keepers of the original traditions of Mother Earth remind us of our cosmic origins and how re-aligning with the cosmos can give us essential energy needed to live together harmoniously and with honor for our Mother Earth. They teach that everything that happens in the sky affects our perceptions and our evolution. We are not separate from anything or anyone. It is clear that these current times on Mother Earth are like no other. These are the times in which all races, from all directions, must come together in harmony and unity.”<br/><br/><a href="http://www.lightnews.org">www.lightnews.org</a></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“Before the fall of man, apparently, we all performed at higher vibratory levels. Mayan myths indicate that we will once again reach the higher stage of evolution which we once enjoyed. The Mayan name for God was Hunab K'u...<br/><br/>The Bible tells us to seek the kingdom of heaven, and all else shall be added unto us. Yet, if our subconscious mind believes we can't enter heaven, then we are trapped here on earth. If the childlike subconscious mind believes that we can't enter heaven until we die (as dogma-spouting ministers tell us), then we will not try to ascend while we are still alive. Thus, we construct our own prison bars -- mentally. The reptile symbolizes the "dragon" which "guards the door to heaven". We can't enter until the subconscious realizes that it can indeed open the door.<br/><br/>It's interesting to note that Christian, Egyptian, Mayan and Oriental religions all predict a time when man will again perform in accordance with his true design. The Sphinx sits on a circle in the Egyptian desert. Half virgin, half lion, the structure faces 180 degrees across the circle. Its placement indicates the time of its construction as some time between the Ages of Virgo and Leo (Which are astrologically symbolized by a virgin and a lion). It gazes directly across the circle at the cusp of Pisces and Aquarius which is our current time period. This is the time that the Egyptians believed they would again reincarnate into the earth plane and be able to ascend the "staircase to heaven". Interesting prediction is it not?<br/><br/>The ancient Mayans were also avid astrologers. The Mayan calendar was constructed to accurately predict the time when God will create a sixth new world. They believed we all live in an astrological hoop of life. After incarnating to learn life experiences during each of twelve astrological ages, some of us will be ready for new experiences at a higher vibratory level. Those who still believe in God after the hoop of life is completed will live in a new world that God creates for them. The Mayan calendar predicts that God's sixth new world will be completed by December 21 in the year 2012.<br/><br/>The ancients also believed that as each new astrological age arrived, a teacher would be sent to the earth plane to teach us what to expect during the following age. The last teacher, Jesus, told us that He would come again and that those who believed Him would be able to ascend as He did.” <br/><br/><a href="http://www.newleaf-dist.com/">www.newleaf-dist.com/</a></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“Through Solar Initiation they will be able to see the luminosity of the great spirit... through Solar Initiation, the sleeping body of mankind can be awakened... Hunab KÆu (God in Mayan) will flash like lightning that will pierce through the shadows that envelop the human race. Let us prepare to receive the light of knowledge that comes from Hunab KÆu and transcend into the memory of the creator and become beings of eternal luminosity.<br/><br/>The Mayas understand this auspicious event as an initiation into cosmic consciousness that will reawaken humanity into the Age of Knowledge. By the use of the magnetic grid that covers planet earth, the solar ceremonies in Chichan Itza will create a unifying intent to activate humanity into Galactic citizenship. This will be done by harmonizing the earth and its peoples thus initiating the healing process for the entire planet and humanity as we enter the age of knowledge and peace. We will begin to remember the ancient knowledge of the cosmos.”<br/><br/>Aluna Joy Yaxk'in, <i>The Reawakening of the Cosmic Human</i></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“In her research the most compelling source she came up with was "Los Calendarios Mayas Y Hunab K'U" by mayan astronomer/ astrologer Hunbatz Men. H. Men decoded much the 17 Mayan calenders. Of these, the calender " Calendario edel Tzek'eb o Pleyades" which describes the timing and meaning of our Sun's orbit around the cetnral star of the Pleiades, which is Alcyone. According to this, our Sun has 26,000 year cycle around Alcyon and each one of these great cycles is equivilant to one of the Ages of Sun in the Aztec calender. We will complete a 26,000 year cycle accrding to the calender in Dec of 2012. We will also be completing a larger 104,000 year cycle and begin "El Quinto Sol". In this cycle, those who stay will become a cosmic humanity and contact with other worlds will be possible. Notice, she says, how closely 26,000year orbit of Sun, the 26,00 year photon cycle,and our precession of the equinoxes correspond closely to timing of glacial cycles from core sample taken at the poles. The first time the earth's orbit entered the photon belt was in March of 1986. Every year since we spend a week longer on either side ( entering and exiting ). This means we right NOW ( Feb95) in the photon belt ( since early Jan) and will exit in early May. By the year 2001 will be in more of the year than out. By 2012 earth's entire orbit will be in the photon belt. The most intense part of the transition will be when our Sun moves fully into the Photon Belt in late 1998 or early 1999- the apex of the predicted earth changes. The action of the photon belt, will also have significant effect on the pineal gland. that's why everyone's psychic energy is starting to ramp up. Barbara HC theorizes that the photon action will have alot to do with unlocking and decoding our DNA for the next leap in evolution. Understanding these cycles is crucial to the awakening process we are all experiencing and will help reduce the physical, mental and emotional shock of this transition.”<br/><br/>Barbara Hand Clow, Age of Light (sypnosis)<br/><a href="http://www.salemctr.com/">www.salemctr.com/</a></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“This is the essence of the Gnosis achieved by not only the Maya, but most likely all the great civilizations of the Americas at one time or another. As each indigenous American came to this realization, their need for a civilization disappeared into time and the memory of man. As each civilization rose to attain its own brand of highly pragmatic Gnosis, its people reverted to a simple existence without the need of kings, priests, government, or civilization. However, each vanishing civilization left the seeds of their knowledge so that those who would eventually come after might replant, nurture, and perhaps bring forth an even more beautiful creation.<br/><br/>This was the pattern of history of the Americas. First came the Olmecs, then the Teotihuacanos, then the Maya, the Toltecs and so on. The Aztecs were also destined to follow in those footsteps, but their development was halted by the Spanish Conquest. To the South, the Nazcas were replaced by the Moche. When they fell, the Chimu carried the standard until they themselves passed it to the Inca. The Inca were also kept from attaining their ultimate evolution by Pizzarro and his band of Conquistadores...<br/><br/>But there is no need to grieve. The Gnostics of the New World left us something more precious than pyramids of stone, ornate murals, or memories of civilizations in their golden age. They left us the words to describe the very essence of the Gnosis that will lead us into the next millennium and beyond. "Our spirits are energy that will one day reintegrate into the great cosmos. Thus, it is on Earth that we reap our fortunes or suffer our conse quences, and nowhere else”<br/><br/><a href="http://www.gnosticism.org/">www.gnosticism.org/</a></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“We are living the times of the prophecies and now in another calendar of Ox Lahu Baktun. It also talks about the cycle of the great changes. In this cycle of the 5085 years in the Mayan calendar there are still 15 more years to go before this calendar can be completed. When this cycle is completed and another restoration of the planet will begin.<br/><br/>The world once again has fallen into neglecting nature. The world has been led by the materialistic ways, and humanity needs to transcend this cycle and to live in a more subtle dimension. Right now only the spiritual people in this planet are living this process. The indigenous groups of the planet are also living this process. But the great majority of humanity has no idea of these changes. These changes can be very catastrophic. It is my goal that the different indigenous and spiritual groups might come together as the new warriors of the light. With their tools of love they bring the message to humanity that their attitude needs to change. We need these positive attitudes as far as the different indigenous and spiritual groups and their relationship with nature, with our brothers and sisters the trees, with our brothers and sisters the animals, and with our Mother Earth.<br/><br/>Even though we have neglected and abused Mother Earth, we have taken her skin off, we have contaminated her waters, we have contaminated her wind, she is still serving us in a great way. Disobedient children we have been, yet she still loves us and nurtures us. We must understand that Grandfather Sun shines its light on us, no matter what color or shape or size we are. We must see each other with this attitude in mind. If a great part of humanity begins to understand this process, not only on an intellectual level, but also at a level of living it, those drastic changes that those prophecies talk about might not be so drastic.<br/><br/>Ancient sky watchers and wisdom keepers of the original traditions of Mother Earth remind us of our cosmic origins and how re-aligning with the cosmos can give us essential energy needed to live together harmoniously and with honor for our Mother Earth. They teach that everything that happens in the sky affects our perceptions and our evolution. We are not separate from anything or anyone. It is clear that these current times on Mother Earth are like no other. These are the times in which all races, from all directions, must come together in harmony and unity.”<br/><br/><a href="http://www.lightnews.org/">www.lightnews.org/</a></p>
<br/><hr size="1"/><br/><p>“The Maya developed their calendar long before the Julian or Gregorian calendars came into existence. The Mayan Calendar is based on naturally occurring energy cycles and a close connection to Mother Earth, the Sun, and the Pleiades. Because the Maya honored Mother Earth and the energy cycles that are present here, they were in tune with the cycles. They had access to information that is not available to 'modern people' because 'modern people' are extremely limited by their belief systems.<br/><br/>The Maya gained knowledge about many cycles which occur on Earth. They recognized a 13-day cycle of energy which comes from galactic sources. They also came to know a 20-day energy cycle coming from the Sun. By studying the cycles and their interaction with each other, the Maya gained an understanding of life on Earth that far exceeds our 'modern' beliefs. Fortunately, this knowledge is becoming available to us at this time to assist in our 'return to natural harmony'...<br/><br/>As the Grand Cycle nears completion, something very interesting is also happening in the Pleiades constellation. The star Maya is the 3rd star of the Pleiades constellation. The star Maya passes through the Photon Band for about 2000 years and out of the band for about 1,200 years. It's orbital path around Alcyone is shorter since it is closer to Alcyone. Our Sun will enter the Photon Band in 1998 and become completely within the Band by 2002. As our Sun leaves the Galactic Night and enters the Band, the star Maya also enters the Photon Band. These two stars are synchronized at this time. As the star Maya returns to the Photon Band, the Mayan Beings of Light are returning to Earth to assist us as the Grand Cycle comes to completion. Grand Events are about to occur and Ancient Wisdom is returning to Earth. Know that you have all chosen to be here on Earth at this time to experience what will be...<br/><br/>Time is not linear. We have been taught to think of Time as only going forward, from one point to another. I think it is more accurate to think of Time as a spiral, as cycles. In an ancient time, our Mother Earth was pristine and all of her life forms lived in harmony and honor. It is possible to heal the Earth and restore Her to her pristine state by merging the Ancient Times with the present. To accomplish this, we must first rid ourselves of the limitation of believing that Time is linear. The Mayan and Dreamspell Calendars can assist us greatly in coming to a greater understanding of Time. It is something that must be experienced. It is difficult to put into words because our language lacks the terms to express the nature of Time.<br/><br/>We create our Reality. For whatever reason or purpose, the mass consciousness of humanity is embracing linear time and creating a very limited reality. As each of us shifts out of the mass consciousness, it helps to change the whole. Love and Honor your Mother Earth. Receive the Galactic Synchronization Beam from the Sun. Sing the song of your Soul. Listen to your Heart.”<br/><br/><a href="http://www.web.axelero.hu/">www.web.axelero.hu/</a> </p>
</div>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<h3>REFERENCES</h3>
<div class="notes">[1]Calloway, Colin G.Indians of the Northeast / Colin G.Calloway - The First Americans series.New York, NY,USA. Facts on File,Inc. Copyright,1991.ISBN: 0-8160-2389-1. pp. 15,16<br/>[2]Wood, Marion. The World of Native Americans, First Edition. New York, NY10010,156 Fifth Ave. Peter Bedwick Books.1997. ISBN: 0750022760(hc.) pp.10,11</div>
Topanga Canyon Certified Farmers Market Report
tag:livingwellness.com,2011-04-22:2774974:BlogPost:10667
2011-04-22T04:31:07.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
Happy Earth Day Topanga!<br />
<div>In honor of Earth Day this issue of the newsletter will be a little more dedicated to some of the reasons why organic and sustainable farming practices are so important to our health and the health of our planet. Did you know that agriculture can affect climate change? Yep, it's true. The research is showing increasingly that organic farming has some of the greatest potential to store carbon. The whole system of organic farming and other sustainable practices…</div>
Happy Earth Day Topanga!<br />
<div>In honor of Earth Day this issue of the newsletter will be a little more dedicated to some of the reasons why organic and sustainable farming practices are so important to our health and the health of our planet. Did you know that agriculture can affect climate change? Yep, it's true. The research is showing increasingly that organic farming has some of the greatest potential to store carbon. The whole system of organic farming and other sustainable practices that come out of the organic toolbox all really focus on soil building. Keeping carbon in the soil rather than letting it escape into the atmosphere makes for healthier crops and combats global warming. Did you also know that just this week researchers discovered that <b>half</b> of the meat in the U.S. may be widely contaminated with strains of drug-resistant bacteria? The study's leader said the animals most likely harbored these drug resistant pathogens because antibiotics routinely are fed to livestock to promote growth and prevent disease in crowded pens on large farms. The AMA, the World Health Organization and other medical groups have warned that the misuse of antibiotics in food animal production may be creating a serious problem for human health by fostering development of drug-resistant bacteria. Oh, and did I mention that some of the meat and poultry samples tested were purchased in Los Angeles?</div>
<div>Don't despair, meat-eaters! We are so fortunate to have access to some of the cleanest, healthiest meat, chicken, and eggs right here in our very own farmers market. Not only does <b>Novy Ranches</b> never use antibiotics or have disgusting crowded pens but they have created a closed herd, meaning that they breed all of their own cows and never allow outside cows into their herd. <b>Lily's Eggs</b> also provides antibiotic-free, seriously free-range naturally fed chicken and eggs. If you pay close attention, you'll see that eggs are seasonal, with spring, appropriately enough, being the most prolific time. Hens don't lay as much during hot weather and Lily's gives a lot of thought to keeping the birds cool. They have built palapas (dried-palm-leaf umbrellas), installed sprinklers on the roofs of the open-door chicken houses, and provide lots of shady trees and bamboo. Eggs are collected twice a day at Lily's, more often when it's hot. If you notice smaller eggs among your dozen, they are most likely from younger hens, rather than a sign of an inferior product.</div>
<div>My favorite item in the market last week? The red-veined spinach at <b>McGrath Family Farms</b>. It's an entirely different creature than the green spinach and is bred to be cut as baby greens. It's beautiful. The taste is sweet with nutty spinach undertones and it's definitely best used raw where it's delicate flavor and texture can be most appreciated.</div>
<div>There's a lot happening in the Canyon this weekend, namely Topanga Earth Day! Check out the incredible schedule of events at <a href="http://www.livingwellness.com/profiles/blog/new" target="_blank">www.topangaearthday.org</a><a href="http://%20www.topangaearthday.org" target="_blank"></a> <a href="http://www.topangaearthday.org/" target="_blank"></a>or on their Facebook page. And I have to give a big birthday shout-out to Topanga's Earth Day Birthday Goddess of Dance and Beauty, the fabulous Devon Farr! Happy Birthday Devon - I love you!!!!</div>
<div>See you tomorrow!</div>
<font color="#888888"><br />
</font><div><font color="#888888">Elise</font></div>
Carter to End Cuba Trip Meeting With Dissidents
tag:livingwellness.com,2011-03-30:2774974:BlogPost:9669
2011-03-30T15:11:57.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p>HAVANA — Former President Jimmy Carter planned to meet with Cuban dissidents early Wednesday following two days of talks with President Raul Castro, other government officials and religious leaders in a trip he hopes will boost strained U.S.-Cuban relations.</p>
<p>Speculation about the three-day trip has focused on whether he will leave with imprisoned U.S. contractor Alan Gross, who was recently sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of illegally importing communications…</p>
<p>HAVANA — Former President Jimmy Carter planned to meet with Cuban dissidents early Wednesday following two days of talks with President Raul Castro, other government officials and religious leaders in a trip he hopes will boost strained U.S.-Cuban relations.</p>
<p>Speculation about the three-day trip has focused on whether he will leave with imprisoned U.S. contractor Alan Gross, who was recently sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of illegally importing communications equipment — though there has been no sign of a resolution to that dispute between Washington and Havana.</p>
<p><strong>Editor's Notes:</strong></p>
Members of Cuba's small dissident community, including internationally renowned blogger Yoani Sanchez and Oswaldo Paya, who sought a referendum on the communist government and guarantees of such rights as free speech and private business ownership, confirmed that they, among others, were invited to the breakfast meeting in historic Old Havana.<br />
<p>Carter was scheduled to give a news conference Wednesday afternoon before leaving the island.</p>
<p>Cuban opposition members have achieved certain fame overseas for their marches, hunger strikes and other activities to push for political and economic change. Visiting U.S. officials often meet with them, although it rankles the Cuban government.</p>
<p>They are not as well known on the island, however, and the government calls them mercenaries paid by Washington to undermine the government. Recently a U.S. diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks described the dissidents as riven by petty rivalries and hopelessly out of touch, with leaders too focused on funding their operations to mount a serious opposition.</p>
<p>Gross was arrested in December 2009 while working on a USAID-backed democracy-building project and convicted of crimes against state security earlier this month in a case that has blocked improved ties between the U.S. and Cuba.</p>
<p>Carter's visit came soon after the sentencing, and its sudden announcement sparked expectations that he might help facilitate Gross' release. Last August, the 39th U.S. president and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize traveled to North Korea to secure the release of an imprisoned American.</p>
<p>He said Tuesday that he discussed the Gross case with Cuban officials but was visiting to talk about strained ties.</p>
<p>"I am not here to take [Gross] out of the country," Carter said in Spanish.</p>
<p>"We are here to visit the Cubans, the heads of government and private citizens. It is a great pleasure for us to return to Havana," he added. "I hope we can contribute to better relations between the two countries."</p>
<p>Accompanied by former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the ex-president met with Raul Castro at the Government Palace for private talks, but there was no word on what they talked about.</p>
<p>Castro and Carter later arrived by motorcade for an apparent late dinner at an upscale restaurant in Old Havana.</p>
<p>Gross has said he was working to improve Internet communications for Cuba's tiny Jewish community, though community leaders deny knowing or working with him.</p>
<p>Havana considers such USAID projects to be aimed at toppling the government.</p>
<p>Washington and Havana have not had formal diplomatic relations since the 1960s, and the United States maintains economic and financial sanctions on the island.</p>
<p>U.S. officials say no thaw in relations is possible while Gross is in prison.</p>
<p>Carter — who was president from 1977 to 1981 — previously visited Cuba in 2002, becoming the only former U.S. president to do so since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.</p>
<p>© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.</p>
Living Wellness Integrative Health Program Serves LA's Nurses & Caregivers
tag:livingwellness.com,2010-06-29:2774974:BlogPost:5281
2010-06-29T15:00:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 36pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">C</span></b><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">ENTURY</span></b> <b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 36pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">C</span></b><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">ITY…</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 36pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">C</span></b><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">ENTURY</span></b> <b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 36pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">C</span></b><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">ITY</span></b> <b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 36pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">N</span></b><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">EWS</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: green; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black'">JUNE 29 – JULY 12, 2010</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria" size="4"><strong>LA’s SKILLED NURSING FACILITIES BRING IN ‘LIVING WELLNESS’s</strong></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria" size="4"><strong>COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES FOR THEIR STAFF</strong></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">by Dana Kline</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">Health just took on a whole new meaning of renewal for skilled nursing staffs from Pasadena and Downtown LA to Beverly Hills as Health Care Administrators turn the table on our front line caregivers and bring in Complementary Therapies for their Nurses! ‘Living Wellness’, out of Topanga, CA., is bringing them self care techniques such as massage, aromatherapy, T’ai Chi, Yoga and Reflexology to decrease their stress and increase their stamina.</font></font></span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">At Highland Park’s, Amberwood Convalescent Hospital, in appreciation of National Nursing & Nursing Home Week, Administrator, Jeanie Barrett, brought ‘Living Wellness’s team of holistic healers and massage therapists in to practice and share self-care techniques with her staff. Using integrative healing modalities, [Complementary and Alternative Modalities, known as CAM] every employee, from her Nurses, to Nurse Assistants, Kitchen, Laundry, Administration and Maintenance Staff, received a light healing massage and aromatherapy treatment.</font></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><font color="#000000"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Cambria">Living Wellness directors, Philip and Michele D’Arbanville, along with their staff, provided unique</font></span></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">health</span></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Cambria">experiences for the caregivers. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“We believe in health support and CAM education for those serving our loved ones in skilled nursing facilities”,</i> said Philip, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“The better care they’re taking of themselves and their families, the more superior care our loved ones in these centers will receive.”</i></font></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><font color="#000000"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Holly Ianieri, Administrator of Alexandria Care Center also chose to reward her staff for their constant, dedicated work by introducing them to this special world of CAM Therapies, - so they can learn to use it for themselves. “</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Cambria">They all work so hard, day in and day out, providing quality care for our residents, they deserve some health support and stress relief themselves.” she said. </font></span></i></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">When the Living Wellness team comes in to give their sessions, the excitement is omnipresent. Massage tables are set up, fresh cut flowers adorn the room and celestial music delights the ear. Between the wafting lavender and citrus diffused air, the room is completely transformed into a Spa Health Center. Receiving light massage and aromatherapy treatments, employees experience the calming and inspirational affects of plant essentials, such as lavender and wintergreen. Invigorating peppermint oil infused water is also served as an ‘after-treatment’ stimulant to ease each employee’s return to work.</font></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">Starting with aching backs, sore feet and headaches, the myriad of post massage faces soon beam with smiles, thrilled by improvement in their emotional, physical and psychological states. Malu Monteclaro, RN from Alexandria Care Center raved, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“I love the therapeutic effect. They found the exact pressure points in my neck to relieve my shoulder pain and headache. The lavender and thyme oil sent me back to work with a big smile.”</i></font></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#000000"><font face="Cambria">The Living Wellness staff is always moved by the interest expressed by the employees for their personal and professional use of the oils and complementary therapies. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The sessions are so successful that we’re providing more education, so they can learn how to work effectively with these modalities themselves,”</i> said Michele<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">,” This is not a one time occurrence, where we create an environment and then it’s forgotten. These health techniques benefit everyone. Our ongoing program teaches the most simple and effective methods to alleviate depression, fatigue and stress and increase stamina.”</i> It is a real sign of the progressive times in healthcare today that LA’s skilled nursing administrators are bringing these healing modalities to their employees for the ultimate benefit of their residents.</font></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in -1in 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Cambria" color="#000000" size="3">['Living Wellness' can be reached at <a href="mailto:pdarbanville@gmail.com">pdarbanville@gmail.com</a> or 310-663-5007]</font></p>
Cutting through Obstacles - Tibetan Monks & Nuns 2009 Tour
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-10-10:2774974:BlogPost:3967
2009-10-10T18:11:15.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
October 10 - through October 25th in Los Angeles, CA. area.<br />
The Zangdokpalri Foundation for Great Compassion Presents Rigdzin Dorje Rinpoche with the Monks & Nuns of Zangdokpalri<br />
<br />
His Holiness the Dalai Lama received<br />
the Blessing of Kunzang Dechen Lingpa's<br />
terma at the Blessing of the Foundation of the Temple in Arunachal<br />
<br />
"This Healing Chod was one of the most beautiful, important<br />
things I have done for myself." - Sharon Salzberg<br />
<br />
The Tibetan Healing Chod: The unique Healing Chod from the…
October 10 - through October 25th in Los Angeles, CA. area.<br />
The Zangdokpalri Foundation for Great Compassion Presents Rigdzin Dorje Rinpoche with the Monks & Nuns of Zangdokpalri<br />
<br />
His Holiness the Dalai Lama received<br />
the Blessing of Kunzang Dechen Lingpa's<br />
terma at the Blessing of the Foundation of the Temple in Arunachal<br />
<br />
"This Healing Chod was one of the most beautiful, important<br />
things I have done for myself." - Sharon Salzberg<br />
<br />
The Tibetan Healing Chod: The unique Healing Chod from the mind treasure of Kunzang Dechen Lingpa is an ancient Buddhist ritual known for its power to heal mental and physical sickness, remove karmic obstacles to spiritual growth, and address human suffering. During this multiple-session Healing Chö ceremony, there will be no teachings to listen to, no instructions to follow or techniques to learn. Just bring your favorite pillow, a blanket or mat, lay down and relax while Rinpoche and the monks and nuns perform four musically compelling rituals (with breaks in between). The sacred sound of drums, bells, horns, chants and mantra, along with the accomplished realizations of Rinpoche and the monks and nuns, initiate the favorable conditions necessary to pacify the causes of discord and illness. For Healing Chod please plan to arrive a 15-30 minutes earlier than the scheduled starting time of the first session.<br />
<br />
See Schedule on our Home Page Scheduling and Link for Los Angeles & West Coast times and locations.<br />
www.totalgoodness.org
Obama Should Meet With the Dalai Lama Soon
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-10-10:2774974:BlogPost:3966
2009-10-10T17:57:50.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
On the night of his historic and inspiring election as the first African-American president, Barack Obama spoke of the trajectory of history. He paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”<br />
These are hopeful words, and for those who seek justice and human rights, they are a reminder that we cannot simply stand by and wait for the arc to bend. We have a duty to use our power and influence to hasten its trajectory.<br />
That is why two…
On the night of his historic and inspiring election as the first African-American president, Barack Obama spoke of the trajectory of history. He paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”<br />
These are hopeful words, and for those who seek justice and human rights, they are a reminder that we cannot simply stand by and wait for the arc to bend. We have a duty to use our power and influence to hasten its trajectory.<br />
That is why two years ago my father, the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), presented the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the Dalai Lama with the wholehearted bipartisan support of Congress. This award, one of our nation’s highest civilian honors, was bestowed in recognition of the Dalai Lama’s unique moral stature as one of the most highly honored peacemakers of our time. At that time, Congressman Lantos said to the Chinese government, “Let this man of peace visit Beijing.”<br />
Now, with great respect and confident optimism, we urge Obama to let this simple Buddhist monk visit the White House as well.<br />
The Dalai Lama has waged a lifelong peaceful struggle for social justice for Tibetans and others around the world. Under his leadership, Tibetans have formed a democratically elected government in exile. The Dalai Lama has made numerous conciliatory gestures toward the Chinese government, recognizing the sovereignty of China and seeking only cultural and religious autonomy and basic human rights for Tibet and the Tibetan people. And yet China maintains an iron-fisted rule over Tibet and continues to demonize this gentle man of peace.<br />
We regret that despite escalating human rights violations in Tibet, the White House has chosen not to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama while he is in Washington this week, preferring a time that will be less irritating to the Chinese government and after the president’s own trip to China. We are concerned that this time may never come.<br />
In arguing against offending Chinese sensibilities, some assert that a foreign policy that intervenes, even symbolically, to help those whose rights are being violated is incompatible with a foreign policy that embraces non-imperialism.<br />
The Buddhist tradition, which the Dalai Lama represents, offers a way to resolve this conflict through the wisdom of balance. In Buddhism, one is taught to balance compassion and faith with rational thinking and logic. Obama is a true master of such reasonable and fair-minded thinking, and he should apply this approach to American foreign policy principles as well.<br />
Compassion and commitment to universal human rights call on us to help the most vulnerable members of our society, no matter what borders they dwell within. If we continue to delay addressing human rights violations, these issues will not rise to the top of the agenda until they deteriorate to the point where the world faces an intolerable crisis of conscience. History will judge us harshly if we permit this to happen.<br />
We urge Obama to set a foreign policy agenda that includes human rights as a critical component while at the same time pursuing our important shared national interests with the government of China.<br />
In the Tibetan fashion, this will be both the compassionate and logical thing to do.<br />
Today the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice will honor the Dalai Lama with our inaugural human rights prize. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will make the presentation. We hope that in the near future the president will honor this humble yet great man with a warm invitation to the White House.<br />
<br />
Katrina Lantos Swett is president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice and daughter of late Rep. Tom Lantos, the first Member of Congress to invite the Dalai Lama to speak in Washington, D.C.<br />
<br />
by Katrina Lantos Swett<br />
Special to Roll Call<br />
Oct. 6, 2009, 12 a.m.
My Talk with the Dalai Lama
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-08-27:2774974:BlogPost:3704
2009-08-27T00:36:41.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
by Raghavan Iyer<br />
LONDON, EAST AND WEST LTD. 1961<br />
<br />
I must warn you at the very outset that I propose to speak to you this afternoon not as former President of the Oxford Union, nor as an Oxford don. I want to abdicate this role and speak to you as a seeker and a pilgrim, because that was the way in which I went to the Dalai Lama. That is the only justification for my trying to tell you what he said to me during that memorable and moving interview which he graciously granted me last March,…
by Raghavan Iyer<br />
LONDON, EAST AND WEST LTD. 1961<br />
<br />
I must warn you at the very outset that I propose to speak to you this afternoon not as former President of the Oxford Union, nor as an Oxford don. I want to abdicate this role and speak to you as a seeker and a pilgrim, because that was the way in which I went to the Dalai Lama. That is the only justification for my trying to tell you what he said to me during that memorable and moving interview which he graciously granted me last March, exactly a year after his exile from Tibet into India. I feel that I must share with you my recollections of what he said to me, particularly in view of his own feeling about this country. He regarded England as a force for good in the world of to-day, as playing a most unique role in the West. He said that London was the spiritual and ethical centre of Europe and when I asked him whether this meant that many wise souls had begun to take incarnation in this country, he assented. He also stated that even the Government in this country was more aware of the position of Tibet than perhaps in any other country of the West. I feel, therefore, that I ought to tell a sympathetic audience of this sort, as faithfully as I can recall it, what the Dalai Lama said to me in answer to a number of questions that I put to him.<br />
<br />
I must first make some preliminary remarks about the distinctive significance of the interview, and the difficulty of reproducing it this afternoon. The Dalai Lama is a remarkable man by any standards, rare in any age but perhaps unique in ours. He is five years younger than I am, and yet throughout the interview I knew I was in the august presence of a man who is ageless, who could assume a variety of poses, utterly without affectation. He was wise and benevolent, but also art-less and child-like; he was intensely involved, yet deeply detached, in every utterance; he was a most lovable man of a divinely meek disposition but he was also something else. He was an impassive, impersonal presence. He spoke as a pure vehicle, as something greater and grander than normally manifests to man. He did not claim to be, one never thought he was, perfect or infallible, but in his company I felt the freshness of immense personal purity, a visible holiness that shone out of an inner wholeness. And not only that I felt that almost for the first time I was communicating effectively and adequately with another human being, and I want to say this at the beginning because it is so difficult to bring back to this kind of atmosphere or perhaps to any other the manner of the communication that took place between the Dalai Lama and myself. All distinctions of personality vanished. There was not the slightest consciousness of the tricks or even the inappropriateness of language. He spoke in Tibetan; I spoke in English with the help of a competent interpreter. He under-stood my English, but I did not understand his Tibetan. Yet right through the interview I felt that here was a man who was articulating every single relevant thought that he had in his mind. If his language was careful and succinct his thought was controlled and precise. Far from merely trying to do the right thing by his interrogator, far from being simply polite all that, he was wholly absorbed in the strenuous process as exactly, as pointedly as language would allow, each significant thought that arose in his mind in reference to each enquiry that I raised. This, I suggest, was a most uncommon method of communication. Throughout we both felt that we were human beings beyond peculiarities that affect the limitations of personality. He gave me a sense of equal participation, a sense of something more glorious than either of us, which I have never before had, and which in fact contrasted soon after this interview with other imposing personalities that I had the privilege of meeting in India.<br />
<br />
I now invite you to consider two statements of Eastern wisdom. There is a passage in the Bhagavad Gita, the classic scripture of the Hindu tradition, in which Krishna says to Arjuna, In whatsoever way men approach me, in that way also do I assist them.” There is also an aphorism in a Tibetan text, “Thou canst not travel on the path before thou hast become that path itself” This is a paradox—how to put oneself in advance in that very position in which alone one could properly receive and which one aspires to attain. This was the challenge that I faced.<br />
<br />
To translate this into more familiar terms. I urge you to show “a willing suspension of disbelief.” in a Wordsworthian sense, in receiving what the Dalai Lama had to give me.<br />
<br />
As I have said something about my own attitude to him and to Tibet surely I must show how I came to a position where I felt this special sanctity about the Dalai Lama. Twenty years ago, sometime after the conferment of the traditional sacred thread, I began to feel dubious about decadent orthodoxy of present-day Brahmanism, I gradually became more and more aware through Theosophy of the inner identity, the harmony between primeval Hinduism and pure Buddhism, been largely forgotten in India through the centuries, and I drew increasingly to Tibet. I was fortunate to have as a spiritual teacher in India who spoke to me several times, in the fifties, of what the tragedy that lay ahead for Tibet and for the whole world. He told me that after the tragic events that were about to take would be a new and unprecedented coming together of India and Tibet, that we would enter a new phase of history for Asia and the world. Before the end of this century active centres of initiation would be set up in India.. Orthodoxy Would everywhere retreat. A new spiritual force would emerge with a profound message for the world as a whole.<br />
<br />
So I had been prepared, in a manner of speaking, for the recent events in Tibet that have troubled us all. But although I had been told these things I must assure you that I took these remarks with due deference but without, of course, any burning sense of urgency. In May, 1958, my mentor wrote to me from India: “‘Night cometh ‘ no man shall work,’ and this aphorism has several implications.” In August he passed away, at the age of seventy-seven.<br />
<br />
In March of last year, two weeks before the great descent of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama into India, there came into my hands by the strangest of coincidences (what we in the East would call karma or destiny) a little book by the Russian painter and traveller, ‘Nicholas Roerich, called The Heart of Asia, published thirty years ago in 1929. In that book Roerich did not just repeat well-known travellers tales about Tibet. He spoke freely and frankly about some of the ancient prophecies that he had, heard during his enchanting expedition to Mongolia and Tibet. He spoke about the end of the old: order and the second Reformation in Tibet, about the thirteenth incarnation of the Dalai Lama and about the taking over of Tibet by the Panchen Lama, and, above all; about the new incarnation of Shambhalla, and the terrible troubles that were bound to take place before this great event.<br />
<br />
Now I Want every one of you to put yourself in my position. If a book of this sort came into your hands and you read it with intense interest, and then two weeks after that event, without any warning or expectation, you heard the sudden news of the tragic events in Tibet and the providential escape of the Dalai Lama into India, I think it would give you, as it gave me, a feeling that one was ready for anything, that one had entered into a new and strange phase of history that would, affect the world in ways unknown to us at present. Having felt this, I also conceived the desire to see the Dalai Lama during my next visit to India. I was able to arrange my trip early this year.<br />
<br />
As soon as I arrived in Delhi last March, I thought that perhaps the best way of contacting the Dalai Lama would be though the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India. Having been myself briefly in Government service, I thought that would perhaps be the easiest way to manage it. But very soon I found out that this was really unnecessary and even undesirable, that the best way for me to see the Dalai Lama was to write to him directly. The Government did not want to act as an intermediary or a bridge or in any way come between the Dalai Lama and those who wanted to see him. I therefore wrote directly to the Dalai Lama without any expectation of reward or result. I wrote about my own interest for twenty years in Tibetan Wisdom, and the work I was now doing and left it entirely to his convenience to give me an opportunity to see him if he thought fit. Frankly, I was mildly pessimistic because I had been told that the Dalai Lama was then about to move from Mussoorie in the hills near Dehra Dun further north to Dharamsala. I also gathered that he had not been seeing almost anyone for about a month. I was fortunate to hear from his private secretary very soon. I was told that I could see His Holiness at 11 a.m. on 28th March. It was, of course, almost exactly a year since he had entered Indian territory.<br />
<br />
I went on the 27th to Dehra Dun and left on the 28th morning for Mussoorie. I asked a number of people about the formalities, and I must say that in most cases I was greeted with surprise and scepticism. In fact, very few people in the Indian cities could see the unusual if not unique significance of the Dalai Lama. This depressed me because I knew that in Oxford itself, and in England. when he left Tibet, even cynics and scoffers as well as the popular press preserved a due deference towards this remarkable man. And yet here in India I found many people not to mention some scurrilous weeklies, pouring scorn upon the Dalai Lama who, at the very least. was a helpless exile with an excellent cause. Much fuss had been made about the physical treasure that he was supposed to have removed from Tibet.<br />
<br />
In Mussoorie I bought a white silk scarf, as was the custom, to present to the Dalai Lama. I went straight to Birla House where he was staying. I was told by the Government clerk there that the Dalai Lama had not granted such an interview for some time, and that it was not likely to last long. The moment I saw his secretary and was conducted straight into the presence of the Dalai Lama, all my concern about the interview vanished. I was greeted by this most radiant personality with outstretched arms and from then on I was completely in his hands. He beckoned me to a comfortable chair on his left. Straight opposite him sat his courteous interpreter and secretary. Opposite me on his right sat a most distinguished looking Lama with a powerful countenance and gentle yet penetrating eyes; and I felt completely disarmed by the Dalai Lama whose utterly restful and benevolent manner came so naturally to him. Throughout the interview I was aware of the encouraging response of the venerable Lama seated opposite to me.<br />
<br />
When we were seated, there was a long pause, a spell of silence during which time itself seemed to have come to stop. I suddenly found that the questions which I had intended to ask him I could not raise. And then I looked at him and said that I was deeply sorry to belong to a people who did not at present appreciate his true significance, who did not understand the inner meaning of his descent into India. His Holiness was visibly moved, and then be seemed to concentrate his gaze upwards on one particular spot on his right, at which he looked while formulating his answers to all my questions. When I spoke (in English) he looked at me. When he spoke (in Tibetan) he looked at this point in space so that he could be wholly attentive to what he wished to say. He said that he understood how I felt. But we must be patient. People had begun to see the significance of what had happened. These things would take time. We were dealing here not with governments and officials, but with common people. Awareness was already to be found among them of what had happened. This would increase. Then he turned to me and asked me how long I planned to stay on in Delhi. When I said that I was going to stay on until the beginning of April, he wondered whether I might attend the Afro-Asian Convention on Tibet, organized by Jaya Prakash Narayan I said that I hoped to if I was in Delhi, at the time.<br />
<br />
Then I asked him straight away, without any waste of words, about the Panchen Lama, whether he was in touch with him, and about his own role in relation to the events that were then taking place. He paused and said with complete conviction that the Panchen Lama was not a free agent, but he would not go against the needs of his own religion, his own people, his own country. When I asked him whether recent events were going to lead towards a far reaching Renaissance of Buddhism, of Bodhi-Dharma or the Divine Wisdom, and whether we were entitled to expect the new incarnation from Shambhalla, he assented but also cautioned me most gently against any kind of determinism. Of course we might know what was due to happen, but we must wait upon events. We must not expect things to happen exactly in the order that we might formulate in our own minds. He stressed that we were really at the beginning of a process that was going to take quite some time, that there was now even more evil in the world than had been expected by the wise Lamas of Tibet. When he said this, he gave me the impression that all the time the initiates with whom he was connected had to come to terms with human free-will, and could not in advance lay down any limits to the depths of human degradation in this dark age.<br />
<br />
I must say that throughout the interview, as at this point, when he spoke about evil in Tibet or anywhere else, he did not speak as a man with a cause, he did not speak as a Tibetan, not even as a custodian of an ancient community. He spoke entirely as a human being seated on some kind of invisible summit but speaking about humanity, about human nature, about the level to which it had begun to sink. As he spoke I felt that any of the customary categories which we apply to describe the contemporary malady would be misleading, not only that, to do this would savour of spiritual conceit I then asked him a direct question about the way in which the cause of Tibet could be advanced, for example, in this country and generally in the West. He spoke with feeling and joy about the work of the Tibet Society. He said that it had done very good work in England, that it was a step in the right direction, and it was in this connection that he said what I mentioned at the very beginning about England and about the British Government.<br />
<br />
Having said this, he went to suggest that I should keep in touch with the Tibet Society with which I have been slightly connected from the beginning, and he also spoke very warmly about Mr. Beaufort-Palmer, who initiated the work of the Society. Then I asked him as to whether in the work of the Society and generally in support of the cause of Tibet, the political or the spiritual side of Tibet should be stressed. Human rights violated. Should attention he drawn to this and to the cause of Tibetan independence, or should one stress much more the spiritual role of Tibet and the less obvious obstacles that had been raised by intruders into Tibet? He said in answer to this that it entirely depended upon circumstances, because we must not lose sight of either aspect of the matter. He said that when people came to stress entirely the political side, then it was the time for us to speak about the indestructible aspect of Tibet. But when on the other hand we had to speak about the spiritual “Tibet we must not underplay the political importance of what had happened. He said with absolute confidence that truth would ultimately triumph, but in our own sphere there was great need to convey to the public around us the full significance of events. He implied that this was not usually to be found, that it was not only necessary not to exaggerate it was equally necessary not to underestimate or play down, the true significance of events.<br />
<br />
Then he spoke about the significance of such events to the whole world. He refered to a tremendous awakening that was taking among large masses of people everywhere, quite independent of ideology or the of states. He said that these newly-awakened forces all over the world must find suitable focal points for effective expression. This represented not merely the conscience of humanity but also the new political awareness on a world-wide plane, the indispensable and indivisible nature of the moral solidarity of mankind. I asked him in this connection about the present predicament of Tibet, and about conditions in Tibet. The Dalai Lama then spoke most movingly about what was happening. He said that monks have been forced to marry, there was desecration of monasteries and of shrines, that although there was much to be reformed in Tibet the method of reformation was wholly violent and wholly materialistic, and there was no recognition of the moral law or the significance of Tibetan tradition. He spoke with complete conviction about the inevitability of the ultimate triumph of truth. I think he meant this in two senses. Anyone who speaks about the cause of Tibet should do so with as much purity as possible, that is, without bringing in irreverent epithets derived from the language of the cold war. If one spoke simply and directly about what was being done to human beings by human beings in that part of the world, then the truth would shine. People would see. Further, if more people began to do this on a world-wide scale the truth in Tibet would shine, the truth of the great tradition that was being torn apart by people to whom it meant nothing.<br />
<br />
Then I asked him about his attitude to Communism, and here, without pronouncing about Communism in general, he turned to me and said with serene satisfaction that the danger of communism in India had completely passed in the last few months. I thought perhaps he was referring to what had happened in Kerala. In fact, he meant much more than that—there was a new awareness among the common people all over the country of the dangers of Communism in India. The sacrifice and the ideation of unseen seers had helped large numbers of people to see clearly, more clearly than before, the nature of Communism in India.<br />
<br />
At this point when talking about how we should combat evil on the political plane. I mentioned to him my own interest in Gandhi and that was writing a book on Gandhi. He spoke of him almost as a forerunner of the new enlightenment. He said that the truths which Gandhi embodied in his life were being increasingly recognized, especially with the advent of nuclear weapons, by people in many parts of the world. It was our duty to uphold the truth as we knew it even in the company of people whose selfishness and short-sightedness prevented them from seeing it. We must always attempt to do this as the mind of man was mutable and the soul of man was unpredictable. We never could say in advance when a person might respond to a genuinely moral and spiritual appeal, based upon personal sacrifice and a clear formulation of the truth as we understand it. However, we must recognize that there were people conditioned to regard themselves and to behave simply as animals, who showed no recognition of truth or the moral law or any of the fundamental decencies of politics and of humanity. When such men were ruthlessly opposed to our non-violent efforts, we must be ready to realize, and have the courage to see, that to persist in them would be a form of self-murder.<br />
<br />
Then I turned to him and asked him whether he was referring to the Dugpas, to sorcerers and to ‘soulless men.’ When I said this, his interpreter could not translate it because the word ‘Dugpa’ has two senses. Literally, it refers to an inhabitant of Bhutan, and using that meaning his interpreter could not make sense of what I was saying. There is another meaning to the word, meaning an evil being, or even a sorcerer, and to my surprise this seemed to be unfamiliar to the interpreter. But the Dalai Lama showed that he understood exactly what I had in mind. The Dalai Lama hinted at an important point which was understood by Spinoza in Europe but which is often ignored. There is no real distinction in the long run between the true self-interest of a person and an unpleasant duty. There were unfortunately people who persisted in doing things which were going to harm them above all as well as others. He spoke with quiet compassion about these ignorant though cunning evil-doers. It would be most wrong for us, he implied, to condemn them or to dismiss them out of the horizon of our sympathy, as they did more harm to themselves than to other human beings, although they could not see it. Sometimes people were able to see the truth but through selfishness they could not apply it. There were also people who were utterly misguided in their view of what was in their own interest. If only they could know, if only they were not so short-sighted through their own desperation and through their own false concepts, they would see more clearly what was in their interest and that this could not be so very different for different peoples. In all conflicts the combatants ought to realize that their ultimate interests were the same, but this was exactly what was so difficult. Therefore, it was always the people who could stand outside a violent conflict in any part of the world to-day, who, by their awareness of this ultimate identity of interests between both sides in terms of their common survival and in relation to the whole of humanity, could be an active force for good. They could act as a check on the recurrent and ever-increasing nature of evil, generated by folly, selfishness and above all short-sightedness.<br />
<br />
Then I turned to the important question of the relations between Asia and Europe in our time. I mentioned my own feeling that there had been for a long time some sort of glass curtain between Asia and Europe, which was in great danger of being reduced in the coming years to something like the Iron Curtain. He was very interested in this and kindly promised a message for a book that I am editing on this subject. Then he asked me what I thought would be, in terms of my analysis, the likelihood of serious conflict. He asked me this in such a way that I could not refrain from answering. I said, I thought there was a real danger that certain fanatics in the Far East and in Western Europe would play upon these traditional prejudices, and suddenly the old, obscurantist clichés about Asia and Europe would gain greater currency and be put to dangerous uses. He gravely indicated that he shared this fear of growing antagonism. Although in India Communism had receded, if Communism spread elsewhere, it would link up with this ancient antipathy, and that would be a disaster.<br />
<br />
The Dalai Lama then spoke with compelling concern about China as an ancient civilization that had been going down for centuries. He said it had been going down for a long time and it was now in a militant mood. I asked him whether he feared that it would in fact become more aggressive and move out into other areas of the world, and even come to Europe. He said that though we must be prepared for the worst, we must not be carried away by our pessimism. We should go on speaking a language that was still understood by some people in China. This I thought was most moving. We must not write off China and adopt the hostile posture of the angry anti-Communists. There was still in China a potential response to an ancient language that was part of Chinese tradition, and we must go on speaking it in order to avoid war or in preparation for the period after the great cataclysm.<br />
<br />
Then he spoke in answer to another question about the submerging of the spiritual tradition in Tibet which was taking place at the same time as the subtle diffusion of spiritual teaching on a much wider level in the outside world. He said that there had been a time in the history of Tibet when a similar darkness prevailed. For sixty to seventy years not a text was seen in public, not a monk was allowed to move openly, and spiritual life was driven underground. To-day there was a similar attack in Tibet upon the traditional system of spiritual teaching, but this, of course, would not affect the teachings themselves or their true custodians who would go into retreat. At the same time in India and elsewhere, in India initially, because that is where Tibetan thought was now beginning to move, there would be a revival and a diffusion of Tibetan Buddhism. I must say here that he never once used the phrase ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ because he was not speaking about any ism. He used words signifying gnosis or wisdom, the spiritual life, the Divine Religion or the Ancient Teaching. He also referred, with utmost reverence, to the teaching and the name of the Buddha, but he never used any word with a sectarian sound. Then he spoke once again about a world-wide awakening that was now becoming evident, not only on the political plane but even more on the religious plane. There was a beautiful balance in his answers between the bright and the darker side. He ever had his eye on the essentials. It was not so important that people should call themselves by any partisan label as that they should reveal in their lives an awareness of the teaching of great spiritual instructors like the Buddha regarding the moral law and the means to enlightenment. When I asked him about the pledge* of Kwan-Yin and the choice between salvation and renunciation, he said that true liberation must be for all and was, therefore, inseparable from renunciation.[ * ‘Never will I seek nor receive individual salvation; never will I enter final peace alone; but forever and always will I strive for the redemption of every single creature from the bonds of conditioned existence.”]<br />
<br />
I then asked him about the spiritual treasures of Tibet. The eye of the world being attracted to the externals of life, was focused on the so-called physical treasure. But there must be spiritual treasure which must have come with His Holiness into India. Was I right in this surmise? He replied that priceless texts had been moved out of Tibet well in time; these had never before left Tibet. Now that these precious texts were on Indian soil, this land was blessed thereby.<br />
<br />
Then I asked him about the belief that the Reformation of Tibet in the fourteenth century was connected with the Reformation in Europe and that Tibet was also linked up with the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe. Perhaps the time had come for a new Enlightenment and Reformation in Asia, similar to the secularization of spiritual teaching in the West. He agreed and said that we need to translate spiritual and religious truths into a political and social form.<br />
<br />
The interview then ended on a personal note. I told him again about my own work, and I also told him about my little son who had shown intense interest in the Dalai Lama. He very kindly asked his secretary to give me pictures of himself for my son, and also copies of a Hindi translation of a Tibetan text, to which he had written a short but extremely significant preface. In that preface he spoke about the coming together of Tibet, the Land of Bodhi or Divine Wisdom, and India, the Land of the Aryas (using the word in the original, pure sense), the Land of Nobility. The last thing that he uttered was in answer to a specific enquiry of mine for a last word, a last bit of advice, and he said only this, that he was very glad that I was keeping in touch with Jaya Prakash Narayan, for whom he had high respect.<br />
<br />
The interview was over. His Holiness gave me back the white silk scarf that I had presented to him, as was the custom. The security officers were puzzled at the length of the interview because it went on for almost an hour and a half, but they were assured that this had been entirely in accordance with the Dalai Lama’s wish. Then they turned to me and said that not many people besides his disciples came and talked about spiritual matters with His Holiness. When I explained the nature of my interest in the Dalai Lama, one of them, who had looked rather cynical about everything, said, “Actually, for us too, although we do not show it, we find it deeply significant that we are in his presence, and the more we see him and the people round him, the more we respect him and his mother.” This I thought was a very good note on which to end my own visit to Birla House and I left in a state of exaltation and extreme gratitude.<br />
<br />
<br />
Raghavan Iyer was a ULT theosophist.<br />
This conversation found here: http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/study_referenc.htm,<br />
referenced by LW member, Katinka Hesselink.
The Dynamics for Peace in the Middle East
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-07-22:2774974:BlogPost:3245
2009-07-22T03:50:15.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73501031?profile=original"></img></p>
<i>The three critical dynamics determining whether the Middle East conflict moves towards peace: US-Israel relations, Israeli compliance with international laws and norms, and the capacity of the Arabs to engage meaningfully in promoting a credible peace process.</i><br />
<br />
By RAMI G. KHOURI in Beirut | 21 July 2009<br />
<br />
One of the most important political dynamics in the Middle East these days is the escalating war of words between the United States and…
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/73501031?profile=original" alt=""/></p>
<i>The three critical dynamics determining whether the Middle East conflict moves towards peace: US-Israel relations, Israeli compliance with international laws and norms, and the capacity of the Arabs to engage meaningfully in promoting a credible peace process.</i><br />
<br />
By RAMI G. KHOURI in Beirut | 21 July 2009<br />
<br />
One of the most important political dynamics in the Middle East these days is the escalating war of words between the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the international demand to freeze Jewish settlements and colonies in Arab lands occupied in 1967. It is surprising yet heartening that the Obama team has come out strongly demanding that Israel freeze the expansion of all settlements and colonies, with no exceptions for natural growth, pre-approved projects or anything else.<br />
<br />
More unusual has been the American president’s public reiteration of this position, including in the presence of the Israeli prime minister in the White House. The United States took this stance one significant step forward a few days ago when it publicly called for the reversal of official Israeli approval for building a new Jewish housing project in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Arab east Jerusalem.<br />
<br />
Settlements expansion is only one of many core issues comprising the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflict; yet it has become the litmus test of three critical dynamics that may determine whether this conflict moves towards peaceful resolution or continues to radicalize and destabilize the entire Middle East as it has for over 60 years. These three are US-Israel relations, Israeli compliance with international laws and norms, and the capacity of the Arabs to engage meaningfully in promoting a credible peace process.<br />
<br />
President Obama has taken a very strong, public position against continued Israeli colonization probably because he understands that this position enjoys the backing of international law, American public opinion, every other country in the world, and probably a majority of Israelis themselves who would sacrifice their colonization program for a genuine, lasting, and comprehensive peace agreement with all the Arab neighbors.<br />
<br />
If Obama runs into problems with his economic reform and health care programs, the pro-Israeli zealots in the United States could jump on the president’s vulnerability to help him inside the US if he backs off pressuring Israel on its colonization ventures. Much of this will depend on how the debate is framed, which raises the second point: Will Israel finally be forced by global pressure to comply with international law and UN resolutions, or will it forever decide where it complies and where it defies the rest of the world’s sense of right and wrong?<br />
<br />
A few days ago, replying to Washington’s demand that Israel stop colonizing Arab east Jerusalem, Netanyahu said: “United Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged. We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem.”<br />
<br />
Well, the whole point of living by the rule of law is that your rights are restricted by the rights of others — in this case, Israel’s right to live in West Jerusalem is restricted by its acceptance of the rights of the Palestinian Arabs to enjoy sovereignty in East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements and colonies are an illegal, criminal activity, and even the United States now has the basic decency and courage to say this out loud. Israeli “sovereignty” over all of Jerusalem is rejected by the entire world, other than a few Christian fundamentalist nut-cases in the United States and their equally extremist Likud-run pro-Israeli lobbyists.<br />
<br />
The third issue that must be clarified soon is whether the Arab world will watch this political drama on television as disinterested bystanders, or get serious and engage in tough diplomacy by clarifying to Israel our will to coexist on the basis of equal and simultaneous rights for Arabs and Israelis without perpetually making one-sided concessions due to our own collective weakness.<br />
<br />
President Obama and his family touched the world earlier this month when they visited Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, the former depot of the transatlantic slave trade that reminds the world of the evils and inhumanities of the colonial era. Obama said there: “As painful as it is, I think that it helps to teach all of us that we have to do what we can to fight against the kinds of evils that sadly still exist in our world, not just on this continent but in every corner of the globe.”<br />
<br />
One of those evils in our corner of the globe, in the view of the entire world, is Israeli colonization in occupied Arab lands that many of us see as perhaps the last, lingering remnant of the sort of 18th and 19th Century colonization that included the transatlantic slave trade.<br />
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Our common challenge is to reconcile the two legitimacies of Israeli and Arab nationalism in Palestine by creating two adjacent states and resolving the refugee issue. The twin first steps to this must be Arab acceptance of Israel — this has been offered and reiterated repeatedly since 2002 — and Israel’s reciprocal acceptance of Palestinian statehood through the proxy act of agreeing to cessation of Jewish colonization as a first step on the road to genuine peace and coexistence.<br />
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Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.<br />
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Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri — distributed by Agence Global
Actors, Writers, and Designers Call For Release of Aung San Suu Kyi
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-05-16:2774974:BlogPost:1946
2009-05-16T06:26:50.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
Actors, Writers, and Designers Call For Release of Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
May 15th, 2009<br />
Media Release From Burma Campaign UK<br />
<br />
For Immediate Release 15th May 2009<br />
<br />
For more information contact Zoya Phan on 44 (0)7738630139<br />
<br />
Actors, Writers, and Designers Call For Release of Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
<br />
Some of Britain’s most distinguished actors and writers have added their names to a global petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners. The petition calls on United Nations…
Actors, Writers, and Designers Call For Release of Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
May 15th, 2009<br />
Media Release From Burma Campaign UK<br />
<br />
For Immediate Release 15th May 2009<br />
<br />
For more information contact Zoya Phan on 44 (0)7738630139<br />
<br />
Actors, Writers, and Designers Call For Release of Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
<br />
Some of Britain’s most distinguished actors and writers have added their names to a global petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners. The petition calls on United Nations SecretaCry General Ban Ki Moon to make securing the release of the prisoners a top priority.<br />
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Yesterday, Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned in Burma’s notorious Insein jail. She will face a trial on Friday for breaking the terms of her house arrest, after an American entered her home and refused to leave.<br />
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Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley, Diane Rigg, Zoe Wanamaker, Juliet Stevenson, Tony Robinson, Phillip Pullman, Monica Ali and Joanna Trollope are among 30 famous people to back the Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now! campaign. The campaign is being organised by former political prisoners<br />
<br />
“The world is horrified by the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners,” said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator at Burma Campaign UK. “Ban Ki Moon must take action, not just sit behind a desk in New York issuing statements of concern.”<br />
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More than three-hundred thousand people have signed the petition calling for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to secure the release of Burma’s political prisoners.<br />
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A new report – Silent Killing Fields - published this week by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, has exposed the systematic denial of medical care for political prisoners. Last week Aung San Suu Kyi, who is ill and under house arrest, was denied medical care after her doctor was arrested. Although her doctor’s assistant has now been allowed to visit her, her doctor remains in jail, with no explanation from the dictatorship as to why he has been arrested.<br />
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The petition can be signed online at: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/fbppn.htm<br />
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Full list of those supporting the campaign:<br />
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Ben Kingsley<br />
<br />
Joanna Lumley<br />
<br />
Ian McKellan<br />
<br />
Jo Brand<br />
<br />
Zoe Wanamaker<br />
<br />
Victoria Wood<br />
<br />
Diana Rigg<br />
<br />
Tony Robinson<br />
<br />
Juliet Stevenson<br />
<br />
Tom Stoppard<br />
<br />
Monica Ali<br />
<br />
Iain Banks<br />
<br />
Charles Dance<br />
<br />
Terry Gilliam<br />
<br />
Ben Fogle<br />
<br />
Sandy Gall<br />
<br />
David Hare<br />
<br />
Nicholas Hytner<br />
<br />
Miriam Karlin<br />
<br />
John O’Farrell<br />
<br />
Philip Pullman<br />
<br />
Rose Tremain<br />
<br />
Joanna Trollope<br />
<br />
Sarah Waters<br />
<br />
Selina Scott<br />
<br />
Sharon Davies<br />
<br />
Nicole Farhi<br />
<br />
Tim Sebastian<br />
<br />
Jane Asher<br />
<br />
Maureen Lipman<br />
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For more information contact Zoya Phan on 44 (0)7738630139
Levels of Meditation...
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-04-01:2774974:BlogPost:1250
2009-04-01T18:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<a href="http://www.allconsidering.com/2009/levels-of-meditation/"><i>by Katinka Hesselink</i></a><br />
<br />
Levels of Meditation: relaxation, concentration, contemplation, awareness…<br />
<br />
My friend Richard's asking: How do you usually distinguish contemplation from meditation?<br />
<br />
I’d say contemplation is a type of meditation: a type with more thought than most. To explain the matter as well as I understand it (can’t do better than that after all), I think I have to categorize all types of meditation - or…
<a href="http://www.allconsidering.com/2009/levels-of-meditation/"><i>by Katinka Hesselink</i></a><br />
<br />
Levels of Meditation: relaxation, concentration, contemplation, awareness…<br />
<br />
My friend Richard's asking: How do you usually distinguish contemplation from meditation?<br />
<br />
I’d say contemplation is a type of meditation: a type with more thought than most. To explain the matter as well as I understand it (can’t do better than that after all), I think I have to categorize all types of meditation - or what’s usually called meditation. I looked up the subject in the Yoga Sutras, which I’ve been studying lately. I also turned to what works of Ken Wilber I have in my library, asked my twitter friends, and of course I looked online.<br />
<br />
There are various ways of categorizing meditation practices. One way is by looking at what purpose people have in meditating. For instance @Cherylbinstock suggested I meditate to create angels. I believe there is only one type of angel we might create - and that is to become angels to others ourselves. There are of course people who meditate because they think it will bring them more success in life, or peace of mind, or help cope with stress. The traditional object was - at the opposite end of the spectrum: Nirvana, Enlightenment - ultimate release from all human suffering.<br />
<br />
Ken Wilber noted, about traditional forms of meditation, that they aim at different transpersonal realms. “Some aim for psychic experiences, some for the deity mysticism of the subtle realm, some for the formlessness and Freedom of the Causal Witness, and some for nondual Unity of One Taste.” (A Brief History of Everything, p. 255)<br />
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Since Richard asks my personal opinion - I feel that the quality of meditation should be measured, at least in part, by the answer to the question: are you awake when you meditate? Does your meditation resemble more a slumber, or a piercing light of awareness? The first hardly deserves the name meditation. It’s a form of relaxation that may help one to live a less stressful life, but so may an afternoon nap.<br />
<br />
Awareness can be an ingredient in any kind of meditation. In the highest types of meditation, awareness becomes empty. Not the emptiness of mindlessness, but more the stillness of a mind not bothered by repetitive thought and useless chatter.<br />
<br />
LEVELS OF MEDITATION<br />
<br />
I think then that the following summary fits the various types of meditation we see today rather well - not in aim, but in method.<br />
<br />
Relaxation - meditation music for instance fits this level<br />
Concentration. Examples of this include:<br />
visualization<br />
affirmations<br />
mantras<br />
Contemplation<br />
Awareness<br />
I’ve organized them by what I consider their level. But the levels do mix and merge. These are after all merely words - and this kind of stuff transcends words almost by definition.<br />
<br />
The first - relaxation - is on the list because much that people call meditation falls into this category. It is not what I would call meditation, but I’m not one to ignore popular opinion. As I’ve said though - there is nothing wrong with it either.<br />
<br />
The second - concentration - is one that does deserve the name meditation perhaps a bit more. I think it’s necessary to be able to learn to concentrate on one subject for a longer period of time, if one is to progress spiritually. However, a study of math would serve the purpose just as well as learning to visualize a Buddha God form. Affirmations may be very useful to become conscious of what you unconsciously feel about yourself, and learn to alter that. But psychotherapy may serve that purpose just as well.<br />
<br />
Coming to mantras I’m a bit mixed. I’ve been warned frequently that mantras may, especially if overused, open people up to unconscious forces that they aren’t ready for. Actually, this is probably true for all kinds of meditation. Proceed with caution - and preferably under the guidance of a qualified teacher. I was very surprised to read in the Yoga Sutras that real meditation on the mantra Aum included thinking about it’s meaning…<br />
<br />
Very suitable to my story that - because that brings me to the next level of meditation: contemplation.<br />
<br />
Contemplation, or jnana yoga, is the type of meditation Blavatsky felt was best for Westerners. Jnana Yoga is a type of thinking about subjects that includes intuition. It’s a calm kind of thought, where the stillness of awareness is brought to whatever subject is being studied. Or at least - that’s how I understand it. This is the kind of meditation that I do myself - I’ve been taken off that path by my university studies, but now that I’m no longer having to try to fit the scientific train of thought, I find my mind is slowly finding it’s way back to its natural channels. Which is a relief.<br />
<br />
The next step is one that I’ve only read about. I’ve tried visualisation, but aside from noting that I’m quite capable of it, it bores me. Meditation to music sends me to sleep - or more boredom. Various types of concentration: again, I can concentrate alright - but concentration on books does seem a tad bit more useful to me than concentration on mantras for instance. And, as I think I’ve made clear, too much concentration on books doesn’t work for me either. I’m finding a middle path in the form of contemplation.<br />
<br />
So - what IS the next step. The step beyond contemplation? It’s one that many these days would seek without having even tried the previous steps. I think for those that can, the others aren’t necessary. But for those that end up failing would be safer off trying one of the others (or none).<br />
<br />
Awareness ultimately needs no object. From concentration to contemplation is a step that includes turning inward - listening to the still small voice. The next step is realizing that between observed (thoughts and feelings) and observer there is no difference. That is: ultimately all is ONE. Ken Wilber puts it as follows (though Jiddu Krishnamurti might as easily have been quoted).<br />
<br />
Rather, as you calmly rest in this observing awareness - watching mind and body and nature float by - you might begin to notice that what you are actually feeling is simply a sense of freedom, a sense of release, a sense of not being found to any of the objects you are calmly witnessing. (A Brief History of Everything, p. 252)<br />
<br />
In front of you the clouds parade by, your thoughts parade by, bodily sensations parade by, and you are none of them. (A Brief History of Everything, p. 253)<br />
<br />
This of course explains the duality of most meditation quite well. I’m sure anyone who has tried Zen Sitting Meditation recognizes this experience. It is the prelude to the next step - described as fulcrum 9 and 10 in Wilber’s ‘Sex, Ecology, Spirituality’. I confess, I don’t get the difference between fulcrum 9 and 10. But let me take a description from the last stage: the nondual stage of meditation:<br />
<br />
Abiding as I-I, the world arises as before, but now there is no one to witness it. I-I is not “in here” looking “out there”: there is no in here, no out there, only this. It is the radical end of all egocentrism, all geocentrism, all biocentrism, all sociocentrism, all theocentrism, because it is the radical end of all centrisms, period. … As Dzogchen Buddhists would put it, because all phenomena are primordially empty, all phenomena, just as they are, are self-liberated as they arise.<br />
<br />
I don’t know whether that’s a true description of that ultimate state, or whether the words of Ken Wilber the author outran the knowledge of Ken Wilber the mystic. But since it is surely beyond my experience, I will not bother with it any further. Instead let me share some of the interesting links my twitter friends shared when I asked what I should write about meditation. Each is far easier to attain than the exulted ground just discussed.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.allconsidering.com/2009/levels-of-meditation/">Katinka Hesselink: http://www.allconsidering.com/2009/levels-of-meditation/</a>
Can Peace and Harmony Actually Heal the World?
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-03-24:2774974:BlogPost:985
2009-03-24T10:00:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<i>by Philip D'Arbanville</i><br />
<br />
Could it be that the world relies on humans to think clearly - and in harmony - for its survival? The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) at Princeton University just may prove that the Morphogenetic Field Theory is more than pseudoscience. Based on a hypothesis developed by English scientist Rupert Sheldrake, which was influenced by Carl Jung's controversial theory of the Collective Unconscious, the GCP aims to prove that all of mankind is connected through a…
<i>by Philip D'Arbanville</i><br />
<br />
Could it be that the world relies on humans to think clearly - and in harmony - for its survival? The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) at Princeton University just may prove that the Morphogenetic Field Theory is more than pseudoscience. Based on a hypothesis developed by English scientist Rupert Sheldrake, which was influenced by Carl Jung's controversial theory of the Collective Unconscious, the GCP aims to prove that all of mankind is connected through a powerful mind field.<br />
<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/morpho.jpg" width="414" height="276" alt="morphogenetic"/><br />
<br />
<br />
If Jung's theory that a "reservoir of the experiences of our species" actually exists, then the morphogenetic field is where this knowledge resides. Sheldrake's theory postulates that these fields contain a sort of "universal database" of human intelligence that is shared amongst all living beings.<br />
<br />
This knowledge is necessary for beings to not only exist, but also to evolve. For example, 200 years ago, it took nearly a week for a child to learn how to ride a bicycle. Since then, generations of children have learned this ability. As a result, the imprint of that knowledge has carried into humankind's morphogenetic field so that now it typically takes a child only a few hours to master the balance needed to ride a bike.<br />
<br />
Since 1998, the GCP has monitored 50 diode machines around the globe in an effort to determine if the consciousness of mankind actually exists. Through the use of white noise signals, these machines are believed to have the ability to measure if the morphogenetic field is influenced by our behaviors, our interactions with other beings or even the occurrence of tragic world events.<br />
<br />
For example, each time there has been a tragedy that arouses collective world mourning, such as Princess Diana's death and 9/11, the diodes have registered an interruption in the random, yet statistical, pattern that exists when the world is in harmony.<br />
<br />
Fascinatingly, these disturbances have been detected hours before the event even happened. For example, all 50 diodes worldwide simultaneously registered a disturbance in the morphogenetic field five hours before the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center. Researchers for the GCP believe this is most likely the time the terrorists put their long-planned attack into motion.<br />
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The scientific proof of the connective link between all living beings and the morphogenetic field has the potential to radically change the 21st century. If we truly have a constant impact not only on each other, but on future generations and the health of our world, our responsibility as humans may have just been ratcheted up a few notches.
Environmental Racism Transforms Swinomish Teens
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-03-20:2774974:BlogPost:924
2009-03-20T14:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<h4 style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">by Philip D’Arbanville and Nicole Kidder</h4>
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<br></br><p style="font-size:12pt;">Three years ago, the choice between doing time in a teen detention center for drug possession or shooting a film seemed like an easy one to Cody Cayou (Swinomish), Nick Clark (Grand Ronde/Swinomish) and Travis Tom (Swinomish/Lummi). The boys envisioned meeting girls while creating a rap video or maybe even a gangsta…</p>
<h4 style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">by Philip D’Arbanville and Nicole Kidder</h4>
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<br/><p style="font-size:12pt;">Three years ago, the choice between doing time in a teen detention center for drug possession or shooting a film seemed like an easy one to Cody Cayou (Swinomish), Nick Clark (Grand Ronde/Swinomish) and Travis Tom (Swinomish/Lummi). The boys envisioned meeting girls while creating a rap video or maybe even a gangsta movie.</p>
<p><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/MP1.jpg"/></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">What they didn’t foresee was how their mistakes would end up transforming not only their lives, but also the future of the entire Swinomish community. Childhood friends who grew up on the Rez skateboarding and playing basketball, Clark’s father had split, Cayou’s mother had passed away and Tom had just recently lost his sister.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Hurting, rebellious teenagers without a clear direction, the boys were desperately seeking a place to fit in. As they descended into a world filled with drugs, alcohol and violence, they finally attracted the attention of local law enforcement. Instead of being abandoned in the juvenile justice system, they were lovingly guided to Longhouse Media, an educational film program for Native teens.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">According to co-founder Tracy Rector (Seminole), the nonprofit organization was founded in 2005 to “catalyze indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation and social change.” The group’s primary program, Native Lens, brings digital media training to Native youth in rural and urban settings. “We believe youth can use this technology to explore personal and community issues, such as education, environmental degradation, traditional health care and cultural pride.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Just ten months after Longhouse Media opened its doors, co-founder Annie Silverstein found herself sitting across a table from the three beanie-clad, chair-spinning teens on a cold October day. Silverstein informed the boys that Native Lens had received an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant, which meant their video would focus on the environmental impacts two local oil refineries - Shell and Tesoro - have had on their tribal lands.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Less than thrilled with the turn of events, the boys reluctantly agreed to do the project. In the end, their journey produced the incredibly candid, heartfelt documentary March Point, which unearthed more than a century of hidden corruption about their people’s history, heritage, land and natural commerce.</p>
<br />
<h4 style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">A Winding Journey of Discovery</h4>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">During their initial research, the boys discovered that several Coastal Salish speaking tribes, including the Swinomish, Samish, Kikyalus and Lower Skagit, have inhabited the valleys and shorelines of northwest Washington’s Skagit, San Juan and Island counties for centuries.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Established under the 1855 Elliott Point Treaty, the Swinomish Reservation is situated on the peninsula of Fidalgo Island, about 70 miles north of Seattle. Most residents are nestled along the Swinomish Channel, which serves as the Reservation’s eastern boundary.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/MP2.jpg"/></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Two historic events finally caught the boys’ attention. In 1873, President Grant retracted a portion of the Swinomish Reservation, known as March Point, and gave it to non-Native settlers. Nearly 60 years later, two oil refineries that process crude oil into diesel, gasoline, propane and other fuels, were constructed on the land.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">In the 1960s, as community and environmental health concerns grew, some leaders began to question whether the oil refineries even had a right to be on the land. Claiming the seizure of March Point was an illegal breach of their treaty rights, the tribe petitioned the Indian Claims Commission to reestablish their original boundaries. When their pleas fell upon deaf ears, the tribe launched a plan to buy back the lost land; as of 2004, more than 1,000 acres were once again under Swinomish control.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">In the film, when Allan Olson, general manager for the tribe, tells the boys that the oil companies should owe the tribe “millions and millions of dollars for leasing the land”, Cayou asked, “You mean, we should be bling-blingin’ like the oil company executives?”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Community concerns about the unusually high number of toxic illnesses and cancer cases during the past 25 years eventually led the boys to tribal elder Brian Cladoosby, who told the boys, “Every year, they have a cleanup of the refinery. It’s called The Shutdown. During the 60s and 70s, they took a lot of that cleanup material and they dumped it in the middle of our reservation.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Cladoosby also believes the community should be worried about other things. “I’m not sure how toxic the chemicals are that are released into the atmosphere. I know I see a lot of smoke or steam or things coming out of those plants, so I imagine when the north wind is blowing, and that stuff is flowing toward our Swinomish Reservation, the air quality is being impacted.”</p>
<p><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/MP3.jpg" width="469" height="281"/></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Subsequent research by Cayou, Clark and Tom turned up published reports indicating the presence of heavy metals and chemical contamination in the Tribal tidelands and waters, where many of the community’s residents harvest clams, crabs and fish. Tribal lore claims that the salmonwere once so numerous that one could walk across the river on their backs. Today, there are large areas of the coastline considered unsafe, even though tribal-enforced testing of shellfish has not turned up any unacceptable levels of contamination, to date.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“It’s scary,” says one resident in the film with a shrug, “but, I’m not going to quit eating it. It’s an important part of who we are.”</p>
<br />
<h4 style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">The Awakening</h4>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">As the boys delved deeper into the community’s accusations of pollution and political corruption, they become painfully aware that their tribe’s health and future were being systematically destroyed.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">In a <strong>Discussion Guide</strong> on the documentary, published in conjunction with PBS, Rector writes, “The problems that Native communities face today are directly linked to a history of forced isolation, oppression and genocide. This inheritance and its impact on Native culture have contributed to violence, hopelessness, addiction and low self-esteem among Native youth…Throughout tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest, drug abuse, illiteracy, child abuse, poor health and nutrition and post-traumatic stress disorder are all well documented.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“It’s tough staying out of trouble here because of the many challenges we face every day,” Cayou says in the film. “But, we care about our family, our tribe and our culture.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“There are a lot of drugs in this community,” Clark admits. “My life was just going down the drain. If I didn’t get involved in Native Lens, I don’t know where I’d be right now. Probably on the streets somewhere or locked up or…I don’t know.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">As storytellers, the boys’ passion grew organically, emerging in a sense of responsibility, discipline and focus. Cayou and Clark preferred a methodical approach, while Tom was more spontaneous. When they learned how to take charge of interviewing the subjects and began to master different shooting techniques, Rector and co-producer Annie Silverstein took a backseat.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“After screening a day’s footage, it was often surprising how intuitive the boys’ perceptions and comments were for the story,” says Rector, who estimates they shot about 50 percent of the film. “They would invariably address the issues at hand in their own way, which was often much more gutsy and powerful.”</p>
<p><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/Mp4.jpg"/></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">As the story began to take shape, the teens realized that the burden of finding serious solutions to these problems now fell on their shoulders. Native American activist Billy Frank Jr. advised them, “One of your generation will be sitting in my chair very soon and younger tribe members will be asking you questions. What will you do for the Swinomish Tribe?”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Such startling questions lay heavy on the boys’ minds. Although they had grown tremendously throughout the project, Cayou, Clark and Tom still felt incapable of dealing with all these inherited responsibilities.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“Until we find a healthier way to make cars go without oil, we have to do everything we can to protect our home because the next generation is depending on it,” Cayou later reflects in the film.</p>
<br />
<h4 style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">Feeling Their Way Out of the Box</h4>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">When the boys received the news that they would be able to attend the Constituents Coffee with Washington State Senator Patty Murray in Washington, D.C., they began diligently preparing for the meeting. Even the night before, lounging in plush animal-print robes in the “most luxurious room we’ve ever seen”, the boys reviewed Murray’s stance on environmental issues.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Still, they worried whether anyone would step forward to take responsibility for the wrongs the federal government had perpetrated upon the tribe. They feared no one would come forward to help them solve their concerns.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">While the boys were unable to tape the interview, they do share a very poignant moment with the audience after the momentous meeting. Slumped on a park bench, huddled in oversized jackets and ski hats that protect them from the harsh winter chill, the boys’ disappointment is obvious:</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“We asked her some questions and she asked us questions,” explains Travis as he shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“Seems like she’s really supportive of the environment,” chimes in Cody.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“I thought it was pretty cool because there were a lot of rich people in there. I don’t know if they were rich, but it was bright in there. We were probably the only dark faces,” says Travis, looking at the ground.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“A lot of smart people,” Cody says, “and, we didn’t fit in because we didn’t have suits on.”</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“Yeah,” Travis adds, “with ties.”</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“And, we’re not pol-i-ti-cians,” says Nick, speaking up for the first time.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“Don’t have to be,” Travis quips. “All you need is a suit and a tie, Nick.”</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>Nick responds with a silent nod.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“We felt out of the box,” Travis explains awkwardly.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“Yeah, like we weren’t supposed to be there or something,” says Cody. “But, she listened to us, so it’s all good.”</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“We should meet more Senators,” Cody suggests.</em></p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;"><em>“No,” Travis says, “I’ll feel out of the box again.”</em></p>
<br />
<h4 style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Arial,Verdana;color:black">A Film Inspires Hope</h4>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">According to PBS’ “Independent Lens” program, “March Point questions for the first time the legality of the reservation boundary adjustment and documents the refineries’ environmental impacts.” The documentary, which aired on November 18, has received widespread critical acclaim in the film festival circuit, including Best Documentary at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto in October.</p>
<p><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/MP5.jpg"/></p>
<br />
<p style="font-size:12pt;">To view a trailer of March Point, click on the link below:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80nfzX7wzlQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80nfzX7wzlQ</a></p>
<br />
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Mikula, who posted a comment on the March Point website after seeing the PBS screening, says, “I laughed and cried and fell in love with the work and the young men behind this amazing effort. As an old oil refinery worker, I can tell you that there is no way that industry will be made safer for the environment…These men deserve a standing applause for all the work they have done to get the truth out and tell the story of their people’s connections to the land and water. My grandfather was Cherokee, so that makes me a Native with a ‘bright face’ and an inner fire for our Mother Earth. You are the glorious sons of your people.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">“We hope this film will give the audience a window into the unique beauty of the Coast Salish people and their way of life,” Rector recently told PBS. “Also, it is our desire that March Point will bring awareness to the issues of environmental racism and the resulting disparity of big corporations on tribal lands and near people of color. Finally, we hope that governmental officials and local citizens will be inspired to take action in the cleanup of pollution from Puget Sound so the First People of the region can continue subsistence practices which nurture their rich cultural heritage and support good health.”</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">The boys have not only inspired those who have come in contact with the film, but the experience transformed their own lives, as well. Now seniors at La Conner High School, all three have improved their grades and Cayou and Clark plan to study filmmaking in college.</p>
<p style="font-size:12pt;">Native Lens hopes it can inspire more youth to follow their example. Longhouse Media started with financial support from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, but now receives funds from the Lummi Indian Nation, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Skokomish Tribal Nation, Squaxin Island Tribe, Suquamish Tribe and the Tulalip Tribes, as well as National Geographic and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The next large project for the youth at Swinomish is to produce a monthly show for the tribal television station and for Seattle’s cable station SCAN-TV.</p>
<br />
<p style="font-size:13pt;"><em>March Point is available on DVD at <strong><a href="http://www.marchpointmovie.com">www.marchpointmovie.com</a></strong>. Community screenings of the film are available throughout North America and a <strong>Discussion Guide</strong> is available for download PBS’ website. For more information about <strong>Longhouse Media</strong> or the Native Lens project, contact Tracy Rector at 206/387-2468 or <a href="mailto:nativelens@mac.com">nativelens@mac.com.</a></em></p>
Green Building
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-03-14:2774974:BlogPost:764
2009-03-14T19:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
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<br></br><br></br>What Makes a Building Green?<br></br>
A green building, also known as a sustainable building, is a structure that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green Buildings are designed to meet certain objectives such as protecting occupant health; improving employee productivity; using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing the overall impact to the environment.<br />
<br />
What are the Economic…
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<br/><br/>What Makes a Building Green?<br/>
A green building, also known as a sustainable building, is a structure that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green Buildings are designed to meet certain objectives such as protecting occupant health; improving employee productivity; using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing the overall impact to the environment.<br />
<br />
What are the Economic Benefits of Green Building?<br />
<br />
A green building may cost more up front, but saves through lower operating costs over the life of the building. The green building approach applies a project life cycle cost analysis for determining the appropriate up-front expenditure. This analytical method calculates costs over the useful life of the asset.<br />
<br />
These and other cost savings can only be fully realized when they are incorporated at the project's conceptual design phase with the assistance of an integrated team of professionals. The integrated systems approach ensures that the building is designed as one system rather than a collection of stand-alone systems.<br />
<br />
Some benefits, such as improving occupant health, comfort, productivity, reducing pollution and landfill waste are not easily quantified. Consequently, they are not adequately considered in cost analysis. For this reason, consider setting aside a small portion of the building budget to cover differential costs associated with less tangible green building benefits or to cover the cost of researching and analyzing green building options.<br />
<br />
Even with a tight budget, many green building measures can be incorporated with minimal or zero increased up-front costs and they can yield enormous savings.<br />
<br />
What are the Elements of Green Buildings?<br />
<br />
Below is a sampling of green building practices.<br />
<br />
Sighting:<br />
<br />
Start by selecting a site well suited to take advantage of mass transit. Protect and retain existing landscaping and natural features. Select plants that have low water and pesticide needs, and generate minimum plant trimmings. Use compost and mulches. This will save water and time. Recycled content paving materials, furnishings, and mulches help close the recycling loop.<br />
<br />
Energy Efficiency:<br />
<br />
Most buildings can reach energy efficiency levels far beyond California Title 24 standards, yet most only strive to meet the standard. It is reasonable to strive for 40 percent less energy than Title 24 standards. The following strategies contribute to this goal.<br />
<br />
Passive design strategies can dramatically affect building energy performance. These measures include building shape and orientation, passive solar design, and the use of natural lighting. Develop strategies to provide natural lighting. Studies have shown that it has a positive impact on productivity and well being. Install high-efficiency lighting systems with advanced lighting controls. Include motion sensors tied to dimmable lighting controls. Task lighting reduces general overhead light levels. Use a properly sized and energy-efficient heat/cooling system in conjunction with a thermally efficient building shell. Maximize light colors for roofing and wall finish materials; install high R-value wall and ceiling insulation; and use minimal glass on east and west exposures. Minimize the electric loads from lighting, equipment, and appliances. Consider alternative energy sources such as photovoltaics and fuel cells that are now available in new products and applications. Renewable energy sources provide a great symbol of emerging technologies for the future. Computer modeling is an extremely useful tool in optimizing design of electrical and mechanical systems and the building shell.<br />
<br />
Materials Efficiency:<br />
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Select sustainable construction materials and products by evaluating several characteristics such as reused and recycled content, zero or low off gassing of harmful air emissions, zero or low toxicity, sustainable harvested materials, high recyclability, durability, longevity, and local production. Such products promote resource conservation and efficiency. Using recycled-content products also helps develop markets for recycled materials that are being diverted from California's landfills, as mandated by the Integrated Waste Management Act. Use dimensional planning and other material efficiency strategies. These strategies reduce the amount of building materials needed and cut construction costs. For example, design rooms on 4-foot multiples to conform to standard-sized wallboard and plywood sheets. Reuse and recycle construction and demolition materials. For example, using inert demolition materials as a base course for a parking lot keeps materials out of landfills and costs less. Require plans for managing materials through deconstruction, demolition, and construction. Design with adequate space to facilitate recycling collection and to incorporate a solid waste management program that prevents waste generation.<br />
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Water Efficiency:<br />
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Design for dual plumbing to use recycled water for toilet flushing or a gray water system that recovers rainwater or other non-potable water for site irrigation.<br />
Minimize wastewater by using ultra low-flush toilets, low-flow shower heads, and other water conserving fixtures. Use re-circulating systems for centralized hot water distribution. Install point-of-use hot water heating systems for more distant locations. Use a water budget approach that schedules irrigation using the California Irrigation Management Information System data for landscaping. Meter the landscape separately from buildings. Use micro-irrigation (which excludes sprinklers and high-pressure sprayers) to supply water in non-turf areas. Use state-of-the-art irrigation controllers and self-closing nozzles on hoses.<br />
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Occupant Health and Safety:<br />
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Recent studies reveal that buildings with good overall environmental quality can reduce the rate of respiratory disease, allergy, asthma, sick building symptoms, and enhance worker performance. The potential financial benefits of improving indoor environments exceed costs by a factor of 8 and 14.<br />
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Choose construction materials and interior finish products with zero or low emissions to improve indoor air quality. Many building materials and cleaning/ maintenance products emit toxic gases, such as volatile organic compounds (VOC) and formaldehyde. These gases can have a detrimental impact on occupants' health and productivity.<br />
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Provide adequate ventilation and a high-efficiency, in-duct filtration system. Heating and cooling systems that ensure adequate ventilation and proper filtration can have a dramatic and positive impact on indoor air quality.<br />
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Prevent indoor microbial contamination through selection of materials resistant to microbial growth, provide effective drainage from the roof and surrounding landscape, install adequate ventilation in bathrooms, allow proper drainage of air-conditioning coils, and design other building systems to control humidity.<br />
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Building Operation and Maintenance:<br />
<br />
Green building measures cannot achieve their goals unless they work as intended. Building commissioning includes testing and adjusting the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems to ensure that all equipment meets design criteria. It also includes instructing the staff on the operation and maintenance of equipment.<br />
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Over time, building performance can be assured through measurement, adjustment, and upgrading. Proper maintenance ensures that a building continues to perform as designed and commissioned.<br />
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City of San Diego's RidgeHaven Green Building<br />
<br />
At a glance, the Ridgehaven Building appears identical to its neighbor. In 1996, however, the 73,000 sq ft. Ridgehaven Building was completely renovated with many cost-effective sustainable performance methodologies and technologies. As a result, the Ridgehaven Building now uses 65 percent less total energy than its nearly identical neighbor, yielding a saving of more than $70,000 in annual utility costs. This equates to $1 per sq ft. in annual savings. Even more important, the building occupants love its light and "healthy" atmosphere, boosting their productivity.<br />
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Steps to Ensure Success:<br />
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Establish a vision that embraces sustainable principles and an integrated design approach. Develop a clear statement of the project's vision, goals, design criteria, and priorities. Develop a project budget that covers green building measures. Allocate contingencies for additional research and analysis of specific options. Seek sponsorship or grant opportunities. Seek advice of a design professional with green building experience.Select a design and construction team that is committed to the project vision. Modify the RFQ/RFP selection process to ensure the contractors have appropriate qualifications to identify, select, and implement an integrated system of green building measures. Develop a project schedule that allows for systems testing and commissioning. Develop contract plans and specifications to ensure that the building design is at a suitable level of building performance. Create effective incentives and oversight.
Share Your Story
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-24:2774974:BlogPost:6
2009-02-24T02:08:23.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
BLOG YOUR STORY*SHAPE YOUR VISION*TRANSFORM YOUR WORLD,<br/>
Share your story. Empower your voice<br/>Write about your creative vision, your healing story, your deepest insight, share your creative process from inspiration to actualization, share in you and your friend's Community Actions for Social and Environmental Change,<br/>Spread the Word with your Stories for Positive Change.<br/>Help lead the way to transform our world.
BLOG YOUR STORY*SHAPE YOUR VISION*TRANSFORM YOUR WORLD,<br/>
Share your story. Empower your voice<br/>Write about your creative vision, your healing story, your deepest insight, share your creative process from inspiration to actualization, share in you and your friend's Community Actions for Social and Environmental Change,<br/>Spread the Word with your Stories for Positive Change.<br/>Help lead the way to transform our world.
The Peacemaker Within by Michele D'Arbanville
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-19:2774974:BlogPost:264
2009-02-19T07:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
<img height="314" src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/tet.jpg" width="420"></img><br />
<br></br>
The Peacemaker Within<br />
Nurture the Peacekeeper through World Vision Walks<br />
Thich Nhat Hanh’s Annual PeaceWalk & LWF’s “Walk Across the World”<br />
by Michele D’Arbanville<br />
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The moment I stepped into the street at 6th and MacArther in downtown Los Angeles with Thich Nhat Hanh on his annual Peace Walk, I experienced a deep sense of belonging; a oneness with all who seek to transcend the boundaries of racial and social injustice and an awareness of our connection to the suffering of…
<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/tet.jpg" width="420" height="314"/><br />
<br/>
The Peacemaker Within<br />
Nurture the Peacekeeper through World Vision Walks<br />
Thich Nhat Hanh’s Annual PeaceWalk & LWF’s “Walk Across the World”<br />
by Michele D’Arbanville<br />
<br />
The moment I stepped into the street at 6th and MacArther in downtown Los Angeles with Thich Nhat Hanh on his annual Peace Walk, I experienced a deep sense of belonging; a oneness with all who seek to transcend the boundaries of racial and social injustice and an awareness of our connection to the suffering of all people. Flooded with emotion, I recalled those in our past and present, who have walked and stood for peace in the face of violence.<br />
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Enlightened souls who’ve led the way, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Monks, The Dalai Lama, all those who participated in the non-violent protests in Tibet, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Germany, USSR, Yugoslavia, China and Lebanon, are all part of a human heart chain that stretches far back into our historic past, our Native Americans, Knights of the Roundtable, Kshatriya Warriors of Ancient India and around 600BC it is said, Gautama Buddha, helped make all Asia mild.<br />
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One of today’s revered spiritual teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls himself a simple monk. He says, “Peace is in Every Step. Each step we take is the doorway to the kingdom of happiness.” The Vietnamese, Buddhist Priest, known affectionately as, “Thai”, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King. He shows us ways to calm the mind and open the heart.<br />
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Might the simple act of walking for peace break us open to spiritual consciousness and principles of deep listening, compassion and non-violence?<br />
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As I stepped into the streets, taking long, slow breaths, an inner spaciousness and a sense of universal responsibility entered into the walking meditation. I felt a collective memory of those who have walked before me, as peacemakers for social justice, understanding, tolerance and peace. The heart of the great universe called on my strength, all of our fearlessness called up my truth. Each human who has suffered, penetrated the sphere of my heart. Yes, we are all truly part of this larger heart, beating in unison for truth.<br />
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What does it mean to be a peacemaker in this time?<br />
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Each breath, each step becomes nourishment for the places inside ourselves that aren’t comfortable, the parts inside that need healing…even the perceived enemies inside and out…we breathe each step for them and us.<br />
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“We must meet hate with creative love, love is the most durable power in the world. Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” said, Martin Luther King.<br />
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When we guide our bodies, hearts and minds to hold this message, our intention for non-violence becomes clear. As we walk in our everyday life we carry the spiritual lineage of peacemaking that these great teachers have passed on to us. We become Peacemakers for the planet.<br />
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Helpful ways to heal include spiritual retreats, peacemaking workshops, World Vision Walks and Sacred World Arts and Music gatherings. At a previous retreat through, “The Open Center”, Thai took thirty of us through the streets of New York City in the late ‘80s. We gathered to share in the wisdom of this then little known Vietnamese monk.<br />
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He led us through the streets of Manhattan, hearts leading the way in a walking meditation, as we gently stepped in unison, even getting on and off subways together. The heart pilgrimage took us from downtown’s SOHO all the way uptown to a grassy knoll on the upper east side of Central Park. There we all participated in a Dharma Talk with Thai.<br />
The experience engendered deep trust, silence and loving kindness.<br />
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If we listen to our hearts for the message of peace in every step we take, in every breath we breathe and every gesture we make, then each precious moment is filled with conscious presence. The challenge is great and the rewards even greater. As we guide ourselves to hold a strong vision of Tolerance and Non-Violence, we help each other at this vital time. We join in a collective healing that breaks us open to the heart and turns the cycle from greed and need into giving love and abundance.<br />
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“There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” said, Mahatma Gandhi.<br />
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In honor of Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, October 2nd, Living Wellness Foundation held a World Vision Walk for Tolerance at Self Realization Fellowship’s beautiful ‘Lake Shrine’ in Pacific Palisades. We all walked slowly around the beautiful lake with the brothers and sisters of SRF, the ‘Full Circle Learning’ students and community members. The children sang the most poignant song, “…A glorious vision is waiting for you, a personal mission, if only you will see it through…” Thoughts were shared about Gandhi’s teachings on Non-Violence, “Satyagraha” and the ‘Full Circle’ children signed the ‘Walk Across the World in Unity and Harmony’ flag. Their prayers and wishes for peace joined those of Jane Goodall, The Tibetan Monks & Nuns of Zangdokpalri and many others from all the World’s Cultures. October 2nd, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, has now been sanctioned by the United Nations as a, ‘Day of Non-Violence’. This October 2nd, was a worldwide event for LWF, with walks in Channai, India, and Northern California as well. The Walk Across the World, Paths to Tolerance Program is a worldwide coordinated effort that seeks to raise awareness for tolerance and understanding, which cumulatively logs walker’s distances throughout the year to equal the earth’s circumference of 24,800 miles collectively by the end of October 2, 2008.<br />
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We stepped into the street and dropped into a collective soul memory, a reminiscence that included the pain and suffering of all who had walked before us, those who made so many sacrifices. They made sacred the land they walked on. Now we are present, all striving to heal injustice in an act of non-violence, walking together in harmony. We walk together on this earth, shadow steps of light, learning to carry and share these seeds of wisdom, to create a collective awareness within, from which we all can heal our world.<br/>
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<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/pdarbanville/LWassets/p5.jpg" width="650" height="488"/>
"Ayurveda Healing Through the Eastern India Tragedy" by Philip D'Arbanville
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-16:2774974:BlogPost:130
2009-02-16T08:30:00.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
Lest we forget the madness in Mumbai, India, which tore at the very fabric of our collective hearts as we witnessed the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel burning up in flames, India still mourns the innocent lives lost during that killing spree. And the world is still recovering, wondering how it is going to heal in the wake of these continuing terrorist attacks.<br />
Mumbai’s Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis spoke through tears in Israel of their shared mourning. Mutual victims, they had nine of their followers…
Lest we forget the madness in Mumbai, India, which tore at the very fabric of our collective hearts as we witnessed the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel burning up in flames, India still mourns the innocent lives lost during that killing spree. And the world is still recovering, wondering how it is going to heal in the wake of these continuing terrorist attacks.<br />
Mumbai’s Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis spoke through tears in Israel of their shared mourning. Mutual victims, they had nine of their followers killed in the senseless carnage. Yet, of the terrorists, they said, “We need to shower these lost souls with love they can’t forget, to instill in them a deep awareness of their humanity.”<br />
Americans from Charlottesville, Virginia, who were in Mumbai on a spiritual retreat under the leadership of Charles Cannon, founder of the Synchronicity Foundation, say they’re overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and compassion toward them. The group lost Alan Scherr, 58, and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, in the terrorist assault on the Oberoi Hotel.<br />
Cannon also spoke of the need for contemplation and understanding that we are all one human family hurting ourselves out of ignorance. “Humankind must create ways to provide education for everyone on the fundamental principles of nature, which are rooted in all the great religions, sciences and philosophies,” he said.<br />
As India moves forward in its emotional and spiritual healing, many will turn to the 6,000-year-old tradition of Ayurveda, a healing science that combines body, mind and soul. The principles of Ayurveda guide followers in how to keep hurt from turning into despair, anger and hate by learning how to transmute those negative feelings into compassion, healing, hope and love. It may be that these are the exact principles that can provide the education that is so badly needed for our world to begin to heal.<br />
Ayur means “life” in Sanskrit. The origins of Ayurveda date back to the Vedas, the ancient spiritual texts of India. One of the four Vedas that teach about the essence of life and nature, the Atharvaveda, contains the principles of healing upon which Ayurveda is based. Known for enhancing longevity, Ayurveda has influenced many of the older healing traditions, including Tibetan, Chinese and Greek medicine. As a result, it is recognized by many as the mother of healing.<br />
This “Science of Life” is an ancient system of soul-mind-body awareness that helps restore balance and preserve health. Its healing methodology seeks to uncover the causal nature of any imbalance and restore that imbalance to equilibrium, thus healing all symptoms and preventing further disturbances. Application of its practice is said to instill greater awareness of one’s consciousness through the experience of finding one’s center equilibrium point and learning to hold on to that balance.<br />
Unlike traditional Western medicine, Ayurveda is understood to be a lifelong endeavor. A Doctor of Ayurvedic Medicine is not separate from practicing the healing program in his or her own life. They are expected to walk the walk, while facilitating the healing of others. .<br />
Ayurveda uses a theory of five great elements - ether, air, fire, water and earth - to represent the foundation of how nature functions, including human beings. In all living beings, these five elemental energies combine to form doshas, which manifest as Vata (air/ether), Pitta (fire/sun/water) and Kapha (earth/water). According to Ayurveda tradition, every human being is born with a unique mix of these doshas, which ultimately determine each person’s physical, sensory, mental and emotional tendencies. When a person’s unique combination of qualities is identified, a personal treatment plan is devised to not only restore vitality, but also maintain a positive state of health.<br />
While this philosophy on health may not have trickled down to mainstream society, a majority of Americans are familiar with several Ayurveda influenced practices, such as Yoga, Acupressure, Naturopathy, meditation and massage. Although standards of practice are still being established for licensing Ayurveda in the U.S., reputable schools are currently training practitioners in New Mexico, Washington, California and elsewhere. In India, the training is typically a five and a half year program, with additional internships for another few years.<br />
The Kerala Ayurvedic Academy and Clinic in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood offers a complete educational program for training, as well as a treatment center with experienced practitioners. The physicians encourage clients to relax into a thorough exploration of their physical, emotional and mental natures. An initial visit begins with simple healing practices to balance the physical body and calm the mind. This brings vigor and clarity to one’s nature. Further practices help release toxins and purify the body, mind and soul.<br />
According to Dana Oennin, LMP, Head of Clinic Administration, these treatments can have immediate impact. “Recently, a woman who’d been using a cane came in and had an external basti treatment. Her leg showed remarkable improvement after just one treatment and she is returning for another,” Oennin explains of the 40-minute procedure that uses a topical dough dam and a special herbal warm oil mix. “More and more people are becoming acquainted with Ayurveda’s gentle, yet powerful, healing effects.”<br />
The first visit with an Ayurvedic practitioner typically lasts one and half hours and results in a recommended lifelong health plan based on the patient’s temperament. The practitioner recommends the best foods to eat, exercises to engage in and healing treatments to explore, which may include oil massages, herbal steams, herbal remedies, meditation, sound, color or light therapy. Typically, a deep relaxation oil treatment will also be employed. All treatments are prescribed in a cyclic rhythm in harmony with the seasons. Patients often speak of how their “being” responds to, and eventually becomes intimately acquainted with, their own innate cyclic patterns. Ayurveda believes that this is the key to a vibrantly healthy body, mind and spirit.
"Movement Awareness & Martial Arts" by Suze Angel,M.A.,Feldenkrais Practitioner
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-16:2774974:BlogPost:145
2009-02-16T08:29:37.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
My own interest in the Feldenkrais MethodSM was sparked by my desperate need for the work. A fall on the ice left me disabled with a low back injury. After following the usual medical and chiropratic treatment for nine months with only occasional alleviation of pain, one lesson in Functional Integration* gave me a sense of well-being that bordered on euphoria. I knew immediately that I needed as much of that feeling as I could get and embarked on a quest for Feldenkrais that eventually led me…
My own interest in the Feldenkrais MethodSM was sparked by my desperate need for the work. A fall on the ice left me disabled with a low back injury. After following the usual medical and chiropratic treatment for nine months with only occasional alleviation of pain, one lesson in Functional Integration* gave me a sense of well-being that bordered on euphoria. I knew immediately that I needed as much of that feeling as I could get and embarked on a quest for Feldenkrais that eventually led me to Moshe himself.<br />
As a participant in his four-year Feldenkrais Professional Training Program held in Amherst, Massachusetts, I rolled around on the floor of a huge gymnasium for nine weeks each summer with 220 other curious people who felt similarly drawn to Moshe’s unique approach to learning. My personal learning not only freed me from the pain syndrome I had been locked into, but gave me a fluidity of motion and increased mobility, so that I now move better than before my accident. More significant than my body’s recovery is the change in my self-image and my expanded concept of what I can do. It has given me the confidence to make a major move from Washington, D.C. on my own and to re-establish myself here in Orange County, practicing a profession that is virtually unknown.<br />
Moshe Feldenkrais was an Israeli scientist with a Ph.D. in Physics and Engineering from the Sorbonne in Paris, but his training program was absolutely non-academic. He led us through an experience of self-discovery that started with how our bodies function in movement. We repeated simple little movements, sequentially arranged, that somehow magically freed up our bodies, so that we could do larger, complicated actions with incredible ease and grace. As we played with these movements, he directed our attention to how the different parts of the body interact to create movement. He took us back through the basic functions of infant development – rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing up and walking – to fill in the gaps in our initial learning, which were obvious to his practiced eye by how we moved in class.<br />
Moshe was the first Westerner to hold a black belt in judo, and his books on the subject are well known in France. He understood human movement from so many points of view that few people could even begin to match his skill. Knowing that understanding of human functions must come from the inside out, he attempted to re-create for us the kind of experimentation and discovery that he himself had experienced in developing his method.<br />
He interspersed the movement lessons with rambling stories that alternately fascinated and bored us, and with bad-tempered outbursts that inspired a whole gamut of reactions on the part of his students. Our frustration brought our habitual patterns of behavior to our awareness. We began to comprehend just how our emotional state influenced our ability to perform physically, and how our self-image and our habitual modes of acting limited us. All the time, we had the relatively concrete example of our constantly expanding repertoire of movement capacity as a reference point.<br />
My own personal realization of this phenomenon came during my second year of training when I placed the sole of my foot on my forehead with comfort and learned to stand on my head. I had never done either in my whole life, even before I had a “bad back and bad neck.” I began to examine my other limitations.<br />
In pushing the edges of my perceived limitations, I followed the model Moshe had taught us in movement classes that used feedback gained though the nervous system. We move, we feel and we know. The knowing cannot always be put into words, but a movement that is felt often seems more real than a thought. When thought and feeling are put together, a mind/body connection is established taking us into a realm of being which is fully integrated. Such harmony of action flows with an ease and efficiency that can only come when resistance has been eliminated.<br />
By paying attention to very small movements, we learn how to discard the unnecessary components in building a more complex action such as sitting up, for example. Through this same process we can also learn to streamline our conflicting motivations into a clear intention. With this knowledge of how to direct our mind and body to do whatever we wish, comes a natural confidence that enables us to use our whole selves, physically, emotionally and intellectually. This integrated use of self, characterized by Moshe as Functional Integration* is the goal of this method.<br />
Having previously taught French to uninterested high school students, I find it very rewarding now to be teaching people basic functions which can significantly improve the quality of their lives. A recent client was an eleven year old girl who had broken her hip and was still limping six months after the operation. I helped her learn to shift her weight to that leg more easily in walking. In compensating for the injury, she had also developed a pattern of twisting the shoulders and tilting her head to one side. If left uncorrected, in favoring the injured leg she might have further distorted the use of her body. This could have resulted in undue stress on the stronger side, eventually leading to ankle or knee problems. With increased awareness and attention she will now be able to resume her athletic activities in a balanced fashion.<br />
Another student was a fifty-year-old businessman who took aerobic classes to get back in shape. An old shoulder injury prevented him from lifting his arms overhead, and strangely enough, the more he exercised the less flexible he became, despite his weight loss and firmer muscle tone. After three lessons in Functional Integration his aerobics teacher stopped the class to comment on his improved flexibility. I told this story to another client who promptly sent me her husband. A rather skeptical lawyer, he was certain that there was no cure for the stiffness of old age which was catching up with him. After his first three lessons with me, his aerobics teacher complimented him on his newfound flexibility. Still the skeptic, he jokingly inquired if I had a special arrangement with all the aerobics teachers in town. In both cases the improved flexibility came from using the trunk of the body more efficiently, rather than attempting only to stretch tendons and muscles of the limbs. They had also learned to relax chronically contracted antagonistic muscles which were limiting movement and causing them to become “muscle-bound” after their workout.<br />
Although my practice in Washington, D.C. was primarily with healthy adults who came for management of stress and chronic muscle tension, I have also worked with people with various disorders of the neuro-muscular system such as stroke, ataxia and cerebral palsy. The work has effectively improved their balance in walking and given them confidence to attempt activities that they avoided out of fear of failure and possible embarrassment.<br />
A six-year-old boy with ataxia confided in me that his dream was to climb a tree like his classmates. After he learned to relax the shortened hamstring and musculature of his contracted left leg, his gait improved considerably. In a few weeks he could climb up the tree, and in another week he could also climb down, which is harder. He progressed to jumping, standing on his head and other activities that his increasing self-confidence prompted him to try. He got very interested in the idea of his muscles directing his bones and told me he could almost see his muscles riding a bicycle.<br />
This method of imagining the body kinesthetically in movement is an important component of the Feldenkrais Method. People with partial or complete paralysis can use their good side to teach the other side to move. In Awareness Through Movements classes we often do the movement on one side only. On the opposite side we simply imagine in minute detail how it felt to actually do it. Students often find that the learning transfers from one side of the brain to the other, and that the side which only imagined the movement can perform better than the other.<br />
Learning can also take place on a strictly neuro-muscular level, with no conscious understanding of what is taking place. After six months of my working with an eight-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who doesn’t speak, her nurse and teachers noticed a dramatic improvement in her balance, the sensory ability of the affected right side and her ability to relate to others. With her, all the teaching and learning has been non-verbal, through gentle touching, to which the child responds very well.<br />
As a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, I enjoy the freedom I have in determining how to work with a particular client and the variety of human functions that it can effectively improve. Moshe’s philosophy is that what we do is not so important as how we do it. I am very pleased to be involved in a profession which encourages my own personal growth through continually exploring the “how of doing” as I help my students live better lives.<br />
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Suze Angel, M.A. is a Fulbright Scholar and an authorized Feldenkrais∗ practitioner. Suze was disabled by a fall and rehabilitated herself completely through a four year professional training program with Moshe Feldenkrais, the originator of this unique and much acclaimed method of body/mind integration.
"The Quest for Vision" by Eileen Joyce
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-16:2774974:BlogPost:144
2009-02-16T08:10:57.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
I think everyone remembers their first vision quest so vividly because it marks such a dramatic shift in their experience on the spiritual path. Before I attempted my first quest in 1982, I had already been on a very disciplined and focused spiritual path for over ten years. I had already done long fasting and taken long spiritual retreats. Couple this background with a lifetime love of nature and time spent out of doors and I felt I was primed for the quest experience.<br />
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However, my previous…
I think everyone remembers their first vision quest so vividly because it marks such a dramatic shift in their experience on the spiritual path. Before I attempted my first quest in 1982, I had already been on a very disciplined and focused spiritual path for over ten years. I had already done long fasting and taken long spiritual retreats. Couple this background with a lifetime love of nature and time spent out of doors and I felt I was primed for the quest experience.<br />
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However, my previous spiritual training had left me unprepared for the quest. It had taught me much about transcending the physical dimension by rising to an expanded awareness. I could enter this expanded spiritual awareness easily, however that ease seemed not to make a difference to my day to day experience and action. I had begun to feel a curious but definite split within myself. After first wondering whether it was some bizarre aberration within my own experience I began to think that the split was a result of the nature of the spiritual path I had been following, a path so focused on transcendence.<br />
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Every one of us is a duality, one part physical and personal, and one part spiritual essence. By and large, my previous spiritual path sought to enliven the spiritual side of my nature by focusing on transcendence. However, this created a gulf between the physical and spiritual sides of myself. This seemed to be true for others as well. The more we practiced spiritual techniques, the wider the gap grew and we actually become more unbalanced than we were before we started. Today, there are seekers who have been on the spiritual path for many years who hold a great deal of light in their hearts, but their personal lives are still dominated by emotional distress, anger, and fear.<br />
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The vision quest originates a different path to spirit. Instead of seeking spiritual growth through ascension and transcendence, it derives its power through the process of descent into and through the physical. Simply being a small circle without food or distraction, leaves us only the environment around us and ourselves for our awareness to dance within.<br />
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We descend into our physical/mental/emotional self and gain deep, though sometimes uncomfortable, understanding and clarity. Then, we descend further into the natural world and the power and importance of our connection there. Finally we drop below the physical veneer into the subtle rhythms of life itself and are expanded into the universal spiritual consciousness. The path of the quest, then, leaves us grounded and embodied, as the ground and the body have become the pathway into spirit.<br />
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However, at the start of this first quest, I only dimly intuited these things. I was struggling to articulate them. I did believe that the unique nature of the quest would open to me the experience of insight and vision into the directions I should, or would, be following in my life. Because I felt very stuck in my life, I needed that awareness badly. Paradoxically, I approached this first quest with a certain cockiness. From within the framework of my past experience, I expected it to be easy. However, it turned out to be, in many ways, the hardest thing I had ever done.<br />
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Our quest protector was Tom Brown, Jr., author and leader of the world’s largest wilderness awareness and survival school. He explained that this quest had been passed to him through his teacher, Stalking Wolf, an Apache elder and shaman. He warned us that our task would be daunting. For indigenous peoples, the entrance to the quest was far easier than we would face. They lived close to the earth and were familiar with her rhythms, her voices. For them, it was a few short steps into the quest. Modern peoples, stepping out from busy lives in a culture steeped in almost constant, frenetic action, would have a much longer journey into the purity of the wilderness. He said that the challenge would be great.<br />
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However, his strongest warning was about the greatest challenge we would encounter, and that would be the coming face to face with ourselves. He said that most of modern life distracted us from that encounter but when we remove all distraction, as we do in the vision quest, we can no longer avoid it. We see all the way to the core of our heart, all illusion is stripped away. When he told us that, I felt fear at his words because I felt sure that I would succumb to all the darkness that I sensed behind my quiet presence.<br />
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Those four days and nights I spent in my quest circle, turned out to be one of the hardest things I had ever done, but I was hooked. It temporarily stripped me of all the knowledge and information I had gained along my spiritual path and forced me to confront the truth of who I was, and to see both what I had, and had not, accomplished along my way. It foretold of a hope of healing and showed me the pathway. It cut through the dogma and the conceptual so prevalent in modern spirituality, and brought me face to face with myself.<br />
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I found that the path of the vision quest opens both personal and spiritual vision and insight to us. Through descent, we ourselves, and then nature, become the pathway for us to approach the spiritual heart of life. As we walk this path we find that we are able to carry our spiritual awareness within our humanness. Our thoughts and feelings become inspired and purified by the visions, both personal and universal, that have touched and transformed our hearts and minds. Within this experience our awareness becomes seamless, it fills into the dark places within ourselves, shedding light and personal insight. It fills in our connections with the natural world with deep understanding and feeling, and we expand into the sacred spiritual realms. In other words, the vision quest can heal the essential human split between the physical and spiritual, rather than making it wider.<br />
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I was blessed and I have been blessed with many grand visions over the years, not the least of which was to become a quest protector. I have now guided over a thousand people to Grandfather, Stalking Wolf’s vision of the quest. In that first quest, a commitment was born that has spanned over 18 years and included approximately 30 quests of various lengths. I found a path that could bring me home, and I have stuck with it.<br />
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Coaching In My Life.<br />
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Coaching is a way of being, a way of communicating, a way of living. It is choosing in every moment to listen or speak or do something based on what I am committed to, not just on what I am thinking or feeling. Coaching is choosing to be powerful and vulnerable at the same time.<br />
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When I am being a coach I am being me. I am being a woman who is passionate about making a difference in every conversation I have, every action that I take.<br />
I am honest when I admit that I don’t always want to do the work or even think that I can do it. But I am willing to do it anyway and take the risk of looking foolish or inadequate.<br />
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In coaching, I am using the gifts that I have been given and the lessons I have learned. It starts within myself, with being aware of my thoughts and hearing my heart as I awaken and experience each moment of the day.<br />
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Some days my first thoughts are what I did not do yesterday or some unpleasant feelings I’m having about someone. I feel heavy and burdened. I feel like lying on the couch and not doing anything. I ask, “Who cares and what does it matter anyway?”<br />
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I am recalling one of those days, feeling depressed. Then a thought arrives. It says, “Amy (my daughter) needs a math tutor.” My heart sounds out how much<br />
I love my daughter and how much I want her to have the education that can give her choices in life.<br />
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I am fully present to how I will do whatever it takes to provide her with whatever she needs. I am now conscious of what I am committed to. I quickly review what’s been accomplished. I see what is missing.<br />
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I jump off the couch and start jamming around the house to get ready for the day. Then the phone rings. My accountant never received the paperwork needed to prepare my tax form. I go into panic. As my thoughts come fast and furious, Amy yells out something from the other room. I look down at my schedule and see that I have an appointment in twenty minutes.<br />
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As I start to race, the coach in me says, “Stop!” I sit, listen and breathe. In the space of a minute, I connect with what I am here to accomplish, and with joy of being given so much richness in my life. I go talk with Amy, then gather my paperwork and get on with my day.<br />
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I am so grateful to have the distinction and power of conscious thinking, honest emotions and creative actions in my life. Coaching has been instrumental in bringing this out in me.<br />
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Coaching is a process of shifting from knowing the answer to asking questions. It is asking what are you committed to? What are the facts? What is missing? What would be possible if you include that which is missing?<br />
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Coaching is bringing out the best in ourselves and in others. When we hear what is truly wanted and needed, we can uncover the most effective way to get there.<br />
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A coach is someone who is more committed to a person’s fulfillment than to his or her comfort with the status quo. In order for coaches to do their work, there must be a desire for coaching and a clear project at hand. The request for coaching can only be made when we are ready to make the changes that will take us out of the box where we have kept ourselves.<br />
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The times that I make the biggest difference in my own life and in those around me are when I choose to act based on a commitment, not on what feels easy. I risk telling the truth. The truth oftentimes brings up difficult thoughts and feelings. I must be willing to confront these before the truth can do its work of setting me free.<br />
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I must be prepared to deal with whatever shows up. I use coaching principles of listening, of stating the facts, of acknowledging what’s been accomplished, and being open to what’s possible.<br />
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The power of commitment which coaching brings out in me gives me the discipline to do my mental, physical, emotional and spiritual exercises.<br />
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The joy and peace that is the result of this work gives me the possibility of serving my purpose, and of choosing happiness in the moment no matter what the circumstance.<br />
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Having a coach in my corner has given me a way to consistently know and live my purpose. I have especially been thankful for coaching when I am starting and completing major projects and transitions.<br />
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Coaching can make all the difference when we take on the job that we are to do and allow for all of the support that is available.<br />
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Eileen Joyce
WALK ACROSS THE WORLD™
tag:livingwellness.com,2009-02-15:2774974:BlogPost:128
2009-02-15T23:40:17.000Z
Living Wellness
https://livingwellness.com/profile/Philip
WALK ACROSS THE WORLD is a worldwide coordinated program bringing spiritual and community leaders, children and adults into global collaboration to 'Walk for Tolerance & Understanding’. Walker’s distances will be logged throughout the year to culminate annually on October 2nd. Our goal is to have the combined total distance covered on all the walks in a year’s time equal the circumference of our Earth, some 24,800 miles.<br />
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One especially fun part of the Living Wellness mission is educating…
WALK ACROSS THE WORLD is a worldwide coordinated program bringing spiritual and community leaders, children and adults into global collaboration to 'Walk for Tolerance & Understanding’. Walker’s distances will be logged throughout the year to culminate annually on October 2nd. Our goal is to have the combined total distance covered on all the walks in a year’s time equal the circumference of our Earth, some 24,800 miles.<br />
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One especially fun part of the Living Wellness mission is educating children. In the tradition of great naturalists like, Thoreau and Emerson, great humanitarians such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we encourage all who walk to take conscious steps upon the living earth. Many inner- city children have been limited in their interaction with Nature, so the Living Wellness walks provide a special opportunity for them to commune with the great outdoors and appreciate life itself from a whole new perspective.<br />
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We encourage children, young people and adults to share about their special walks in writing and on video by posting their work on livingwellness.com and having them blog about their most moving experiences. We look together at all the important traditions of walks in many different cultures the world over, such as the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage through Spain, the ‘Walk-Abouts’ of Australian Aboriginals, the sacred temple walks of ancient Japan, and the Bhuto movement journey, the Johnny Appleseed walk of service to Nature, the ‘On Walden Pond’ poetic naturalist appreciation walk, the many walks for many worthwhile causes, and even to Health and Sports style Walkathons and Olympic Speed-walking. What style of walk will you try? -…maybe one from another culture? Walk and share your story; add in your mileage! Walk with your friends and community in common purpose for a higher cause. Make new walking friends in different countries, exchange your stories and videos on livingwellness.com Ultimately, our Walks together create an expanded awareness of global unity, cultural understanding and mutual respect.