Solutions

[michelle]

American Betrayal

Concerning his latest essay, David Michael Green said:

"We live in scary times - or so I think, anyhow. There are scary people doing scary things to this country, to its core principles and to the world. But what has been almost more disturbing to me is the failure of those who know better, and who have the capacity to stop this from happening, to actually do so. I feel very much betrayed by some of those folks, and have written an essay accordingly."

The author chastises leaders, old and new, for not speaking out when action was needed, before we got into this mess. Too many chickened out, spoke too late, or didn't speak at all. Mr. Green also has a bit to say to US citizens and their apathy. I agree with that; there are many in our country who still have the blinders on and most likely will continue to ignore their duty to their self, children, and fellow man until it all comes crashing down.

Mr. Green also mentions some of our presidential contenders and their self-serving, forked tongue, lip service to us. Although he doesn't mention the Dennis Kucinich in his essay, I can't think of a better plug for Dennis. Dennis is a political representative who has been hammering away from within our governmental system. He is the only one who embodies what this country needs NOW. If you haven't done so, please visit his thread here and consider supporting Dennis......Michelle

Kucinich for President!
« Thread Started on Dec 13, 2006, 6:22pm »
airdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=1166019736
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American Betrayal

David Michael Green

Some people are hopelessly foolish. Some can’t help it entirely (though a little less TV time would certainly go a long way), because they have been purposely trained to be so. They may be excused.

But too many others know better. That makes them cowardly and self-serving, and there is no excuse for that. Not when people are dying by the tens of thousands there. Not when the republic is being savaged here.

History will record this as America’s most shameful – most inexcusable – moment, and probably the beginning of the end of any further such significant American moments whatsoever, as the empire begins its slow descent. Generations of responsible statesmen and women handed over a largely healthy, sometimes pacific, broadly admired republic to the present administration, which has taken quantum leaps toward unraveling those centuries of painstaking work.

It would be easy to cast the blame for our present predicament on a single ideological movement, or even a single generation, and it would not be wholly inaccurate to do so. The contemporary regressive right is without question a vicious cancer that has invaded the body politic to devastating consequences. Its predations were immensely facilitated by the self-reverential concerns of the Baby Boomers, who not for nothing were once called the Me Generation (that’s capital M, capital G, if you don’t mind). Rest assured, there are no statesmen today because to be one requires consciousness of others, sacrifice of self, moral sensitivity and historical sagacity, all qualities notably absent from this generation.

It is not only the Boomers to blame, however, but their parents as well. Ironically, the so-called “Greatest Generation” – which was indeed great in many ways – was also responsible for at least two crucial mistakes that deeply haunt us today. One was to raise a bunch of self-serving, self-interested children, well-trained for the pursuit of happiness, but woefully unprepared for comprehending or sacrificing what is necessary to sustain and advance the greater good of the commonweal.

The other was the failure of their political class to stand up one last time, at the end of their days, for the values they knew to be crucial, at a time during which those values have been so deeply imperiled. And why didn’t they? For what did they exchange their silence? In the end, the saddest truth is that both generations traded away everything for nothing. In the end, those who had the most only wound up dissipating their honor and their reputations in a failed attempt to cosset their self-serving pusillanimity.

There have always been scandals and offenses against the republic and its values. But in the past, the worst of these were called out by name, regardless of partisan affiliation. It may have taken a while, but ultimately it was Barry Goldwater and fellow Republicans who put an end to Richard Nixon. And not only because he was destroying them politically, but also because they were offended by his offenses against the nation.

But as the radical right and its scorched earth practices have come to power over the last quarter-century, fewer such patriots seemed to appear, just when they were needed most. In 1996, I wondered who amongst the members of the American political pantheon would ask “Where’s the outrage?” when Bob Dole was asking “Where’s the outrage?” concerning a Bill Clinton who was virtually untouched by scandal at that time. And when he was subsequently impeached for lying about having oral sex, not nearly enough of those who could have made a difference stood up and called this attempt at political assassination what it was.

But the new millennium brought a whole other level of abdication to the fore, and in late 2000 the most shameful political exercise of my lifetime (until then) was unraveling before our eyes. I couldn’t help thinking at the time, “Where is the great stentorian voice of reason, honor and fairness from our elder statesmen and women, booming across the land, as the most fundamental principle of the republic was being undermined?” When Antonin Scalia took it upon himself to actually stop the counting of votes on that dark December day, where were those who’d spent a lifetime earning a reputation for probity amongst the American public, and who’d also enjoyed the same lifetime reaping the benefits of living in a free, secure and prosperous society?

Certain of these people perhaps could not stand up because their prior political affiliations would have been used as cudgels against them by the radical right. (But then again, so what? That happens regardless.) Jimmy Carter, who has for decades been far more a humanist, statesman and small-d democrat than he ever was a big-D Democrat, nevertheless probably falls well within this category. I think we now know without question that the Karl Rove machine would have unleashed its savage dogs of defamation against Carter, and branded him a sore loser partisan, or worse, had he stood up then.

Which was why it was even more crucial that the voice of reason should have come from the other side of the aisle. What I really wanted to know back then was, where was Jerry Ford? Where was Bob Dole? Jack Kemp? Howard Baker? (It is truly telling, as an aside, that the list of ‘reasonable voices’ from the GOP leadership of the last several decades ends here, and is perhaps already one or two names too long. Nevertheless, the question remains.) Where were the patriots who understood that principle must come before party, and therefore that if you’re gonna call it a democracy, you damn well need to count the votes?

Of course, it only got worse from there. An eerily similar silence greeted George Bush’s radical agenda when he did come to office the following January. Even before 9/11, these neocon-artists were hurriedly dismantling two generations worth of painstaking diplomacy that had created a host of successful international regimes and multilateral institutions. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had kept a peaceful balance in a nuclear-armed world, had to go. The International Criminal Court? Had to go. The Geneva Conventions? Quaint and obsolete. The Kyoto Protocol? A balanced Middle East policy? All these and more were unceremoniously chucked out the window by a president whose utter lack of foreign policy wisdom is only now becoming apparent to many Americans. But where were those who did know better, and why did they stand by and allow their life’s work and the country they loved to be ruined by the political equivalent of drunken adolescents operating heavy machinery?

And then it got still worse yet. Few events in American history were more shameful than the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2002 and 2003. Few individuals could have had more impact on preventing that tragedy than Jerry Ford or Colin Powell. (George H. W. Bush, who also knew better, may be excused from both these episodes for obvious reasons. Anyhow, he’s got plenty to atone for elsewhere, not least including his progeny.) As to Mr. Ford, many of us assumed that he supported the president and the war all along, only to find out that the opposite was true, but that he would allow that information to be released only upon his death. What was to be gained by that? Neither the GOP nor Bush would have been any better off if this revelation was made a day earlier, let alone several years earlier. The only benefactor was Jerry Ford, who could make his accusations from the safety of his grave, without being subject to the costs sure to be inflicted even on him by the take-no-prisoners mutant monster his party had become. Without wishing to speak ill of the recently departed, this was an act of sheer political cravenness, with enormous consequences for the lives (and deaths) of others.

But surely the hottest place in Hell is being reserved for Colin Powell, who not only violated all his experience, principles, honor and reputation by failing to speak out against the war, but in fact sold that war to a then-skeptical American public by means of his United Nations exhibition in political pornography. No one was better placed in the firmament of American political celebrity to prevent this tragedy than Powell, and no one, therefore, was also better able to sell the war, just as he did. Imagine if Powell had resigned as secretary of state – even silently, even “to spend more time with my family”, let alone with a true explanation for his actions – imagine how different the world might look today. I’d say it is an open question whether Bush could have brought along Congress and the public and gone to war in the face of Powell’s oppositional voice of sanity. And even if the Texas Global Law Massacrer could have still launched the epic battle production he so badly craved, the whole war plan and bogus WMD rationale was always dependent on a cakewalk-blowout-smashing-victory, which would wipe away any empirical, imperial or ethical concerns in a bacchanalia of triumphant chauvinist celebration. When that failed to materialize, Powell’s prior warning would have gone a long way toward undermining Bush’s chances for winning in 2004. His support would have eroded far faster and far earlier with a Powell ‘told-you-so’ as backdrop, probably enough to prevent him from even stealing that election.

I’ve always thought that Colin Powell was way overrated. Like Hillary and Obama today, these political figures strike me as more famous for being famous than for any particular accomplishments. They are the Anna Nicole Smiths of politics. Without the boobs (mostly). And without the psychodrama (ditto). But famous and popular Powell nevertheless was, to the point where he could probably have won the presidency in 1996 had he been willing to run. Along with this fame, Powell also had the wisdom accrued from being just about the only Bush administration official to have actually served in Vietnam, and from subsequent tours of duty as National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From all of this experience he had distilled certain principles about how America should go to war, if necessary, including the required use of overwhelming military force, the support of the American public, strong international cooperation, and the existence of a clear exit strategy.

It is hard to imagine a war more antithetical to the Powell Doctrine than Bush’s Iraq adventure. And yet, even though Powell once reportedly referred to his neocon colleagues as “fucking crazies”, he nevertheless made the war happen – every bit as much as did Bush, in many ways – throwing away in one fell swoop his principles, his fame, his reputation, his honor and his place in history. And – if there’s a shred of intellectual honesty left in the man – his conscience as well. As a former grunt who once served in some politician’s bullshit war, it is unimaginable to me how he sleeps at night knowing that he’s condemned another generation to precisely the same fate.

And for what? Can you possibly sell enough books to buy back your integrity once you’ve done that? Can you possibly be asked for your autograph enough times to regain your sleep? Or was it something else altogether? What is it about George W. Bush that causes grown men like Powell, Ford and the rest to mortgage a lifetime’s achievement for the benefit of this little Caligula, this meritocratic caveat, this dynastic disaster?

I cannot answer that question, but if there is any consolation for these sorry sell-outs (traitor may be too strong a word, but only barely: remember that we are talking about someone who not only allowed “crazies” to kill en masse, but provided the crucial cover that facilitated them doing so), it is that they are not alone.

Every member of Congress from the Vietnam generation should have understood completely and intuitively what was up with the Iraq war resolution, especially since Rove made sure that it was introduced right before the election of 2002. And, of course, they did. But far too many of them opted for the advancement of their own political careers over the literal lives of hundreds of thousands of people. You can talk ‘til you’re blue in the face, but you’ll never convince me that Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards didn’t vote for this abomination thinking that they had to in order to have a chance at becoming president. And so I ask, is there a greater shame imaginable? Especially for John Kerry, who, along with Powell, lived this nightmare himself once upon a time. And who originally made his name by truthfully denouncing that former episode. (Only to denounce his own denunciations thirty years later, when running for president. Evidently he was actually for the Vietnam War before he was against it, before he was for it again.) Are there no limits to the opportunism of which these people are capable?

The correct response to that question may be found in the person of one John McCain (although the short answer, for those of you who like to read the last page of a novel first, is “No”). To be sure, there are certainly some other folks very high up on the hit parade of culpability. Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy – the ‘moderates’ who allowed Scalia to crown Bush president – are definite leading lights in the pantheon of dishonor. So are the Florida election officials who caved to the ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’, and stopped counting votes. And so for that matter is Robert Gates, December’s supposed voice of realpolitik reasonableness and prudence, who has instead gone completely native in the short weeks since he joined the Pimpster-In-Chief’s Washington stable.

But, without question, McCain gets the Oscar for best performance by a prostitute acting in the role of a statesman. It is beginning to appear that there are indeed no limits to the depths he is capable of sinking to in his (probably quite futile, again) attempt to capture the White House.

Here’s a guy who paid the price of Lyndon’s lies and Dick’s deceptions (the first deceptive Dick, that is) more than perhaps anybody this side of those 58,000 poor souls unlucky enough to have their names inscribed on the big black wall. And yet he not only supports Bush’s hopeless war and its escalation, he is calling for an even bigger expansion.

Here’s a guy who blasted Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for their intolerance in 2000, but is now kissing the rings on their pudgy, greasy fingers in the run-up to 2008.

Here’s a guy who made a name for himself as a reformer trying to end the influence of money in politics. (After, that is, he got caught going to bat for Charles Keating in the S&L scandal of the 1980s.) But now he is appointing to his national finance committee some of the same people he was only a year and a half ago accusing in court of trying to “evade and violate” campaign laws. (Apparently McCain was for political corruption before he was against it, before he was for it again.)

Here’s a guy who knows first-hand how scummy a politician George Bush is, and yet gave a disgusting endorsement speech of him at the 2004 Republican convention. A speech which simultaneously referred to Dick Cheney as a “steady, experienced, public‑spirited man”, and to Michael Moore as “a disingenuous film maker”, even though McCain had never even seen the film in question. With this speech, McCain did for Bush’s election what Powell had done for Bush’s war.

And here’s a guy who was savagely maligned by the Rove attack machine in 2000, only to be gearing up to do the same himself. After McCain won in Iowa and New Hampshire that year, the Bush campaign pulled out all the stops, directing its surrogates to accuse McCain – in South Carolina no less – of having an illegitimate child who was the product of an extramarital affair with a black woman, when in fact the girl is his adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Could you imagine, after that, McCain now hiring some of the same people for his own campaign whom he had previously accused of distorting his record, of running “dishonest and dishonorable” ads swift-boating John Kerry, and of using slimy race-baiting ads to defeat Harold Ford in Tennessee only months ago?

Guess what? He has. “This is about winning at the end of the day,” said McCain’s senior strategist, John Weaver. Yeah, no kidding, bro. We hardly noticed.

And isn’t it always about winning with these people? Isn’t that why this country finds itself in the abysmal state it’s in today? Where’s the presidential candidate who’d rather lose the office than his or her principles?

There will always be the Cheneys, Roves and Bushes of this world. The great wisdom of the Founders was to recognize this fact and to develop institutional bulwarks arrayed in opposition to those who would seek power at any cost.

What we’ve learned these last years is that institutions will only take you so far. The difference between the United States Congress (Version 1.0, that is – prior to 2001) and the Chinese National People’s Congress has a lot less to do with what is written in the two countries’ respective constitutions than with their political cultures and the courage of the people who inhabit those bodies. In the last six years, we’ve sure as heck seen the American parliament move far closer toward the rubber-stamp model of the Chinese than the other way around.

And that has been a symptom of a more general malaise which has infected the American body politic, including even our elder statesmen who presumably have almost nothing left to lose by speaking up at that late juncture of their lives. Along came a little would-be Mao figure, with his Stalin- and Goebbels-like sidekicks, and instead of using the institutional powers bequeathed to us by the Founders, virtually everyone in our political solar system ran and hid, when they weren’t instead actually aiding and abetting the depredations of these last, sad years.

What is perhaps even more remarkable is how little the costs would have been, especially for those whose day in power had passed. Perhaps it is only a reflection of my hopeless naiveté, but I still cannot fathom how a person could condemn hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths as a price they’re willing to pay for guarding their personal reputations and power (while ironically doing just the opposite, anyhow).

A strategically placed voice of reason from a trusted figure here or there could have stopped this madness a lot earlier, or at least lessened the magnitude of its severity. That didn’t happen, though, and I can’t think of a time in American history so deserving of shame. If future generations don’t think of us in the worst of terms, it will only be because of our sheer dumb luck.

But, given that we’ve gluttonously consumed several generations’ worth of luck already, that doesn’t seem likely. Expect your children and grandchildren to be very, very angry at you. Expect them to ask why they should be going broke paying their share of taxes, plus your share, plus interest on yours, and getting only a disastrous war and a massively enriched American plutocracy in exchange. Expect them to ask why the planet we live on is screaming in pain and we knowingly let that happen back when it could have been stopped. Expect them to ask why we stood by and allowed an arrogant, stupid and lethal foreign policy make the whole world come to hate them, when it wasn’t actually coming to kill them.

With so little courage on display these last years, perhaps we did in fact get the government we deserved.

But they didn’t.

Source:
www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/American_Betrayal.html?0b2eaaa8

[michelle]

Billboards in Jerusalem - 100,000 for Peace
Date: 3/28/07 10:10:05 PM Eastern Standard Time

Dear friend,

Today in a moment of rare hope for the Middle East, the Arab League is making a serious peace offer to Israel in Riyadh. The international community is rallying in support -- but by refusing to address core issues like the 1967 borders, Israel risks throwing away this chance. Click below to sign our petition, telling Israeli and Arab leaders to lock in a date for real talks – and we'll run our urgent message on billboards in Jerusalem:

www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks

Almost 57,000 of us so far have joined in demanding real negotiations. Can you help us reach 100,000 signatures before the billboards run after Passover next week? The next step will be to deliver the petition to decision-makers. 56% of Israelis say they want their leaders to engage with the new Palestinian government -- support the peaceful majority’s desire for real talks at this crucial moment:

www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks

After the 1967 war, Israelis dreamed of peace with the Arab world. This spring, their goal could be in reach -- but only if the sides sit down to talk about the real issues fast.

Global public opinion matters, and the international community has a vital role in building Mideast peace. If 100,000 of us join in sending this message, we can back up the majority of Palestinians and Israelis who want a real deal, and show that the world stands with them. Please, add your voice today -

www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks

In hope,

Paul, Galit, Ricken, Iain, Tom, Graziela and all at Avaaz

SET A DATE FOR REAL MIDDLE EAST TALKS!

Arab leaders are making a serious peace offer, and the world supports them. Ordinary Israelis want negotiations too - but their leaders risk losing this rare chance. Talks just about security will never bring peace.

Tell Israeli and Arab leaders to make an urgent date for real talks – and we’ll put your message on billboards in Jerusalem where decision-makers will see it. Time is short - sign the petition and act now

Petition to Israeli, Palestinian & international leaders: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies at the heart of a global clash threatening to divide us all. People from every corner of the world want a just and lasting peace in the Middle East - and the international community can and must help bring all sides to the table. Start Real Middle East Talks Now, and stay at the negotiating table until we have peace.

Sign Petition: www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks/?cl=4139741

[michelle]

"The World Says No to Israeli Occupation"
Take Action
40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza on June 8

Celebrating 40 Israeli and Palestinian peace builders

June 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. At AFSC, we’re taking this time to reflect on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to appreciate Palestinians and Israelis who have worked for peace and justice.

During May and June, AFSC presents Faces of Hope – Profiles of Peace. Profiles of Peace includes 40 short biographies of Israeli and Palestinian peace builders. A new profile will be added each weekday beginning May 1 and continuing through June 8. Follow the name links on this page to read each profile.

Also, please mark your calendars on June 10 and 11, 2007 for the rally, teach-in, and lobby day in Washington, DC, The World Says No to Israeli Occupation.

Profiles of Peace
Haidar Abdul Shafi
Ali Abunimah
Ghassan Andoni
Huwaida Arraf
Arik Asherman
Hanan Ashrawi
Naim Ateek
Uri Avnery
Khulood Badawi
Azmi Bishara
Eitan Bronstein
Elias Chacour
Sami Shalom Cherit
Alex Cohn

Mona El-Farra
Nurit Elhanan
Rita Giacaman
Neta Golan
Jeff Halper
Amira Hass
Jad Issac
Zahira Kamal
Laila Kanafani
Yehudit Keshet
Fatima Khaldi
Samiha Khalil
Felicia Langer
Ruchama Marton

Rela Mazali
Jessica Montell
Ilan Pappe
Matti Peled
Edward Said
Isam Sartawi
Yehuda Shaul
Raji Sourani
Gila Svirsky
Leah Tsemel
Michel Warchawski
Jean Zaru

To read Profiles, go to:
afsc.org/israel-palestine/profiles-of-peace/default.htm
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The World Says No to Israeli Occupation
Washington, DC
June 10-11, 2007

Join the American Friends Service Committee, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice on the 40th anniversary of Israel's military occupation in calling for an end to U.S. support for Israeli occupation.

On June 10-11, 2007 thousands of people from all over the country will converge on Washington, DC for a protest, teach-in, and lobby day to call for:

* An end to US military, economic, diplomatic, and corporate support for Israel’s illegal military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

* A change in US policy to one that supports a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis based on equality, human rights and international law, and the full implementation of all relevant UN resolutions.
Get Involved!

1. Come to Washington, DC on June 10 and 11, 2007

Please check back for more information on events planned in Washington DC and around the United States to recognize the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

2. Endorse "The World Says No to Israeli Occupation"

The US Campaign and UFPJ are looking to get 1,000 organizations to endorse the mobilization.

View the list of endorsing organizations and add your organization's endorsement >

3. Send a Letter to Your Members of Congress

The US Campaign and UFPJ will deliver 100,000 individual letters and petition signatures to Congress on June 11 supporting the political demands of the mobilization.

Send your personalized message to Members of Congress protesting US support for Israel's military occupation >

4. Volunteer to Be an Organizer

Volunteer to collect individual signatures and organizational endorsements in your community. The US Campaign and UFPJ will provide you with all the resources you need.

Help us reach our goal of collecting 1,000 organizational endorsements and 100,000 individual signatures by volunteering as an organizer >

For more information:
afsc.org/israel-palestine/activism/World-Says-No.htm
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Note from Michelle: Also see today's posting in our Conscientious Objector thread:

Re: Conscientious Objector
« Reply #22 on Today [6/05/07] at 4:30pm »
Support Israeli Conscientious Objectors

We call on all young people facing mobilization and on all members of the Israeli army to weigh again whether to risk their lives in the service of this repressive and destructive policy.

We believe that there is another way.

Go To:
tinyurl.com/yorw7n

[michelle]

Free Live Gathering with James & Salle Redfield
Tuesday, September 4
8 pm Eastern/US
Accessible via Live Teleconference & Webcast

EXTENDING PRAYER FIELDS
For centuries, religious scriptures, poems, and philosophies have pointed to a latent power of mind within all of us that mysteriously helps to affect what occurs in the future. We are now finding that this prayer power is a field of intention, which moves out from us and can be extended and strengthened, especially when we connect with others in a common vision.
The Eleventh Insight
_______

This week's prayer visualization

Again we have a hurricane pressing down on Honduras and Belize, so we will take time during this week's session to visualize in prayer that Feliz weakens in intensity before landfall.

Recent news releases suggests tensions between the West and Iran are still increasing. We will devote time toward this crisis. We'll also continue our vigil for local solutions in the Middle East and elsewhere, where individual heroes find nonviolent ways to reduce conflict in the world. Furthermore, as usual, we will spend time on the needs of our group participants themselves, especially those facing grief, illness, and a need for clarity about life direction. Don't miss feeling this wonderful energy!


Follow-up discussion
How do we stand for honesty and integrity in our interaction with others? Can we energize our lives and get what we want this way?

_______

Our twice-monthly gatherings have been making a powerful difference, both in people's individual lives and the world at large. Many of you have written us saying that the energy generated from this network of spiritually-minded participants is "indescribable," and we look forward to continuing this healing circle of focused prayer. Like all prayer experience devoted to helping others, many participants have felt the results in their own bodies and received guidance for their own lives.

Research tells us that the more people praying together, the more powerful the prayer and the greater the level of energy felt by the participants. We invite you to join the largest regular prayer network in the world. If you would like to take an active role in maintaining a circle of positive intention across the globe, while going deeper and heightening your own spirituality, join us on Tuesday, September 4.

_______

Teleconference:
Call 212/461-5860 OR 646/519-5860
Caller ID: 6999#

The phone line will open at 7:55pm EDT. Call the number above and follow the directions. Once you are connected to the call, please say your name and where you are from, and then press *6 to mute yourself so the noise level will be kept to a minimum. Each participant will be responsible for their own long-distance phone charges.

Live Webcast @ www.celestinevision.com

_______


Please pass the word on to your friends who might be interested in joining us, and ask them to join our mailing list at www.celestinevision.com so they can be notified of future gatherings.

Click here for a printable reminder

If you'd like a text message reminder delivered to your cell phone, text SUB GLOBALPRAYER to 41411. Please check with your wireless carrier regarding the cost of sending and receiving text messages.

If you can't join us, please hold a supportive prayer vision for the world at that time.

Let's see how large we can grow, and how much difference we can make...

Blessings,
James Redfield
Salle Merrill Redfield

Source:
www.celestinevision.com

[michelle]

A people's peace in the Middle East?
11/29/2007 7:55:08 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: [e-mail]


Dear friends,

This week in Annapolis, US President George W Bush announced a fresh Middle East peace process. Israel and the Palestinian Authority will "make all efforts" to reach a final agreement by the end of 2008. More meetings are planned in Paris, Moscow and the region. But are these talks a major advance toward peace, or a dangerous smokescreen?

Today, we're launching a global interactive poll -- to see if we, citizens around the world, can do any better. Together we will decide the direction of a powerful global campaign on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the coming months, pressing leaders on all sides to make the changes necessary for peace. Just click below to participate in the poll (it should take around 3 minutes), or to view other people's responses:

avaaz-annapolis.questionpro.com/

This poll will decide Avaaz's course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- an urgent global crisis where hope may soon run out. Many diplomats are warning of "devastating consequences" if this peace process is not genuine. But each of us has the chance to make our voice heard, and to act.

There are already over one and a half million people in the Avaaz network. Coming together in this interactive poll, many thousands of us around the world can share our views and look for consensus on the way forward. Some discussions can be difficult. But it's important to have them, and to listen to each other, because then our campaigning together will become all the stronger.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an old problem -- but we are a new global force for democracy. If we can no longer rely on the politicians, generals and diplomats, maybe people power can help tackle the dynamics that have undermined peace before. We can hold our leaders accountable for doing better. And if we agree a way forward, our campaigning could achieve a lot more.

It all starts with this interactive poll -- so click below to share what you think, and find out what others have said:

avaaz-annapolis.questionpro.com/

With hope and determination,

Paul, Galit, Ricken, Graziela, Pascal and the rest of the Avaaz team

__________________________________
ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in London, New York, Paris, Washington DC, Geneva, and Rio de Janeiro.

[michelle]

[glow=red,2,300]Action Alert[/glow]
Monday, December 3, 2007

Call for a Dept of Peace All Week

Dear Supporter,

It's not too late to join our national action to Call for a Department of Peace. We're calling EVERY member of the House of Representatives EVERY thirty minutes from Monday, December 3 through Friday, December 7, 2007.

This massive joint action between The Peace Alliance and the Student Peace Alliance (SPA) was democratically created by nearly 300 youth at the first-ever SPA national conference in October. We're working together to show that EVERY generation calls for peace!

You can still sign up to call your member. Go to callforadepartmentofpeace.pbwiki.com/ and follow the simple instructions to sign up for your slot.

The Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. Ask for your member of Congress and you'll be connected. (If you're not sure who your member is, visit www.congress.org and enter your home address to find out.)

If you would like to make more calls, please go to callforadepartmentofpeace.pbwiki.com/ and sign up to:

Call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Thank the HR 808 cosponsors (see list below), and/or
Call other Representatives. Some volunteers have committed to calling 100 or more Representatives in support of HR 808!
When you call, stay positive and on the topic of the Department of Peace. There's a sample script at the bottom of this email.

In the future we want to build a more efficient and easy to use online action system for call-in actions like this. You can help us do that by donating to SPA here.

Thank for your amazing commitment and support! And thank you to those of you who have already made your call! Just a few minutes of your time can make a world of difference.


Sincerely,

Wendy Greene
Managing Director
The Peace Alliance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sample Script

Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

For Representatives who have not signed onto the legislation:

Hi, my name is________________, and I am calling in support of HR 808, legislation calling for the establishment of a US Department of Peace. Our country needs a strategic, effective approach to resolving conflict nonviolently. We need a unified platform in the Federal Government to support peacebuilding domestically and internationally. Please tell Rep. ___________ that I support the Department of Peace, and that I also ask him/her to support the Department of Peace.


For Representatives who have signed onto the legislation ("cosponsors"):

Hi, my name is ____________, and I am calling to thank Rep. ___________ for signing onto HR 808, the legislation calling for the establishment of a Department of Peace. We need a unified platform in the Federal Government to support peacebuilding domestically and internationally. The establishment of a Department of Peace will provide the investment that our nation must make in peacebuilding. I would like for Rep. ________ to become a champion of this legislation. Please ask the Representative to write a dear-colleagues letter and to continue speaking out in support of the Department of Peace.


Current Cosponsors to HR 808


Representative Albert Russell Wynn (MD-04) (Make sure to call him. He is a major champion of this bill!)

Representative Raul Grijalva (AZ-07)



Representative Lynn C Woolsey (CA-06)

Representative George Miller (CA-07)

Representative Barbara Lee (CA-09)

Representative Ellen O Tauscher (CA-10)

Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark (CA-17)

Representative Mike Honda (CA-15)

Representative Sam Farr (CA-17)

Representative Brad Sherman (CA-27)

Representative Diane Watson (CA-33)

Representative Maxine Waters (CA-35)

Representative Bob Filner (CA-51)

Representative Susan A Davis (CA-53)



Representative John Larson (CT-01)



Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)



Representative Corrine Brown (FL-03)

Representative Alcee L Hastings (FL-23)



Representative Hank Johnson (GA-04)

Representative John Lewis (GA-05)



Representative Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)

Representative Mazie Hirono (HI-02)



Representative Jesse L Jackson, Jr (IL-02)

Representative Luis V Gutierrez (IL-04)

Representative Danny Davis (IL-07)

Representative Janice Schakowsky (IL-09)



Representative Julia Carson (IN-07)



Representative Leonard L Boswell (IA-03)



Representative Elijah E Cummings (MD-07)



Representative John W Olver (MA-01)

Representative James P McGovern (MA-03)

Representative Edward J Markey (MA-07)



Representative Dale E Kildee (MI-05)

Representative Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)

Representative John Conyers, Jr (MI-14)



Representative Betty McCollum (MN-04)

Representative Keith Ellison (MN-05)

Representative James L Oberstar (MN-08)



Representative William Lacy Clay, Jr (MO-01)

Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (MO-05)



Representative Robert Andrews (NJ-01)

Representative Steven Rothman (NJ-09)

Representative Donald Payne (NJ-10)

Representative Rush Holt (NJ-12)



Representative Gregory W Meeks (NY-06)

Representative Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)

Representative Edolphus Towns (NY-10)

Representative Carolyn B Maloney (NY-14)

Representative Charles B Rangel (NY-15)

Representative Jose E Serrano (NY-16)

Representative Michael R McNulty (NY-21)

Representative Maurice D Hinchey (NY-22)



Representative Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)

Representative Dennis J Kucinich (OH-10) Dennis is the one who introduced this legislation...Michelle

Representative Stephanie Jones (OH-11)

Representative Tim Ryan (OH-17)



Representative David Wu (OR-01)

Representative Peter A DeFazio (OR-04)



Representative Chaka Fattah (PA-02)



Representative Al Green (TX-09)

Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)

Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)



Representative Robert C Scott (VA-03)

Representative James P Moran (VA-08)



Representative Jim McDermott (WA-07)



Representative Nick J Rahall, II (WV-03)



Representative Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)

Representative Gwen Moore (WI-04)

For General Inquiries, contact our office at mailto:[e-mail]%20

The Peace Alliance
1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 712 | Washington, DC 20036 | Tel [phone]

[michelle]

Co-Creating The Future of Our Choice
url for this post: tinyurl.com/yv9wlh


For some time I have been at a crossroads as to what to do with the FountainHead Forum. It is not really a forum of discussion anymore; that lasted for a brief period in time and then petered out. Yet we continue to slowly acquire more members....Thank you ALL for that.

So, the FH Forum has become a reading room of sorts, allowing for me to comment on numerous articles concerning various topics. For whatever reasons, I am a witness to world events through this portal. Destiny has brought me to unique life circumstances and the availability of time where I am able to monitor much in our world happenings. A witness I am, sometimes a very unwilling one....It has been difficult and painful at times to view so much negative information. But carry on I do, sifting through endless bad news so you don't have to.

The crossroads I spoke of is this: I am of the belief, the knowing, that we can indeed change the world through two ways. The first is to become the change we wish to see. To change one must learn to be mindful of why we act in the ways we do, particularly when we become harmful to others, the Earth, and ultimately to ourselves. This requires a deep probing of our backgrounds to understand how we have become lost, so to speak. Much can be found in our childhood and upbringing where we were bombarded by the various voices of authority. As children, we inherently knew the simple truths of the Universe. But being powerless against the barrage of authoritative voices, some well meaning, we began to change...to adapt....to conform to expectations. It is the unraveling of self and recognition of the ego and its taming that we are compelled to apply ourselves to if we are to become vehicles of change.

Once you have reached this point in your evolution, that of calming your energy field, you can begin to harness the second method of change in our world....the power of our thoughts combined with meditative action....prayer, if you are more comfortable with that word. Let's begin by defining a more traditional form of prayer, that of asking for something that we believe we do not already have. This is called a 'prayer of petition,' which begins with perceiving a particular lack, and then believing that there is a God out there, sort of a spiritual Santa Claus, who can give it to us. There are a number of problems with this kind of prayer. Primarily it establishes and maintains a kind of spiritual dependency that we can never fully transcend. It is also the ultimate act of separation, the ego's need to be less than or separate from our Creator. The idea that we are One with God is seen as the greatest blasphemy, for we can never depart from the level of a servant, never enter into true communion with the Divine. To do so would really invite trouble, because then we would have to be responsible for what we create. To that I say: Well, we've already created a great big mess out there, all of us in one way or another! We're very good at drawing negativity to ourselves through negative thoughts....Isn't it time we turn that around?

"We are now in a better position to understand two recurrent themes in spiritual experience. Throughout human history there have been mystics of one kind or another who have proclaimed that "I am God", or words to that effect. To the ears of established religion this has often sounded like heresy; "How can this lowly individual claim that he (or sometimes she) is the almighty, eternal creator?" Heresy enough to get one imprisoned, tortured, or even burned at the stake. Such people are not necessarily deluded zealots; they are usually people who have spent considerable time exploring the depths of human consciousness, and their realizations are not to be lightly dismissed. If we look more closely at their statements, what they seem to be saying is that the "I", that innermost essence of ourselves, that pure consciousness that lies at our core, is a universal essence. Whatever we may be conscious of, the faculty of consciousness is something we all share.
This consciousness is the one Truth we cannot deny. It is the absolute certainty of our existence. It is eternal in that it is always there whatever the contents of our experience. It is the essence of everything we know. It is the creator of our world. This is the "God" that we intuitively knew existed, but never quite found. A second recurrent theme in mystical literature is the knowledge of being one with all things, the realization that "I am the Universe", that all is me, and all is in me. As before, these are not necessarily the ravings of a deranged mind. In most spiritual traditions they signify a high state of consciousness, and generally come from adepts with many years of inner exploration. It is far more likely that they represent people who have experienced first-hand that the entire universe -- everything we know from the cells in our bodies to the distant twinkling stars -- exists within the mind, not the other way around. Far from suffering from an illusion, a person in this state is knowing the phenomenal reality for what it is. It is we who are under an illusion when we believe that the world we see around us is actually around us, not within us. These inner explorers have discovered that it truly is "all in the mind"."
- Peter Russell -- Taken from Reality: The grand Illusion www.peterrussell.com/Reality/realityart.php

There is actually a technology of prayer that has been practiced for thousands of years, but which was lost to the West seventeen hundred years ago. To the ancients and still to our indigenous brothers and sisters across the globe, prayer was much more than asking for what they wanted. They knew that the mental decisions they made were only one part of a whole system that activates the creative power of prayer. The mind, they believed, is like a map. One can interpret the territory by reading the map, and can even determine the best route to take in order to arrive at a particular destination. But the mind cannot move the body to that destination. It needs help, like a car needs gas in it. Then the mind can work with the vehicle, directing its path, and so complete the journey.

The ancient communities developed a system of prayer that was more reliable and scientific than anything we have today. It is possible that this wisdom was hidden from us because it was so powerful, and the goal of the early religious institutions was to establish the priests and clerics as intermediaries between Divinity and the people, something that would have been impossible if the people had been so empowered. And yet the real question here is not whether we were ready to harness this power seventeen hundred years ago. The question we should be asking ourselves is -- are we ready now? Because now is the time that the information is finally made accessible to us.

"The nexus of realization is that we are now entering into a real-time crisis period out of which our true spiritual mettle will be more fully tested - probably more than ever before! - and that we are given an opportunity to act as the divine Co-Creators that We Are. It is incumbent upon us to help shift people's attitude and self-perception from complacent, inactive, silent observers of events to empowered, active, telepathically vocal participants into the Shift of Ages we came here to manifest, and also to awaken the God Self within us rather than shun it and cower in fear. We are part of a team that came to Earth to assist in doing a complete planetary make-over, and we each have unique abilities that are being used according to God's Plan for how It envisions the New Earth that is now emerging from the smoldering ruins of a dysfunctional civilization and spiritually slumbering humanity. We just have to trust that each one of us, in our own unique ways, we are contributing to the manifestation of this perfectly designed Divine Blueprint, and to consciously commit to become ever more willing instruments of God's Will. We can accomplished stunning miracles when we become symbiotic partners within God's Presence shining through every cell of our ascending bodies."
- God Within

To sum up the basic principle upon which every other principle of prayer is built, "We must become the peace we seek." In other words, the way to enhance any experience is to come into conscious resonance with that experience, or to vibrate at a similar frequency. In this sense the word 'Pray' means: to become, or to be like. If you want to experience peace, become peace. We are then able to experience ourselves as the source of prayer, rather than the beneficiary. This idea is so foreign to our conventional understanding of prayer that you may be lost at this point. Think of it this way: When you pray 'for' something to happen, then you are focusing on the fact that it is not there already. This is the way most of us were taught to pray. The two main words the soul hears in this case are 'not there,' and so this becomes the real prayer. The soul resonates with 'not-thereness', and therefore does nothing to attract the desired state.

But when we 'Pray Peace,' what we are really doing is feeling as if the peace we seek is already there. We feel the completion of the prayer rather than the lack, and the soul responds accordingly. It begins to resonate with peace, drawing into its sphere the experience of peace, since this is what the mind has focused on. The prayer is answered automatically because the soul has followed an established code, attracting the state that has already been 'felt' rather than the experience that has been resisted. I am mentioning peace here but you can apply the same to any desired outcome: abundance, joy, Earth returned to her pristine state, etc.

As simple as this formula is, it has been the subject of suspicion and debate for nearly two thousand years. The idea that we are powerful spiritual beings has threatened the institutions that were meant to guard our Divine evolution. Why? Simply because the survival of an institution is sometimes more important than the truth upon which the institution was founded. Therefore, the truth must be hidden, unless we mature to the point that the institution loses power. After all, we often use religion in the same way that we use a business -- to gain power and prestige. If people begin to realize that they are one with God and that no intermediary is required to experience our Divine Inheritance, then the institution will need to change its form, and this is the greatest threat for anyone who wants the institution to remain unchanged. The ancients spoke about a time when all this would change, when the water would rise so high that the levy would finally break, flooding the whole valley with Light. Many people believe that we have now entered that prophesied era when peace prevails at last, and there are many signs that seem to affirm this theory. Most cultures have legends and stories about what will happen during the 'Great Shift', and these legends are being fulfilled at an alarming rate.

Could it be that we are finally ready to realize our incredible power, and use it to create a world based upon the laws of love rather than the rules of fear? Has the time arrived when we begin to consciously implement the most powerful force in the universe?

And yet some of us may still find reasons for hanging back. It may happen that, as individuals, we are suspicious of our power. Perhaps we once unleashed it in a fit of anger, and seeing its devastating effects, have foresworn its use. We have been afraid that we lacked the purity to wield it without our imperfections creating unintended side effects. Will the experience of praying peace, of becoming peace, take us safely past this threshold so that suddenly, amazingly, we perceive ourselves as pure?

"Behind the darkness, the LIGHT is always everywhere waiting to be manifested through the minds of all who will support a project of seeing the illusory state of dark forces and robbing them of any power by drawing on Divine Consciousness to dissolve them. Did you know that DIVINE mind power can dissolve clouds? DIVINE Mind Power can dissolve building storms, dissipate hail storms, bring rain, supply amazing protection in the midst of danger."
- The Recorder

The objective of this announcement is this:

FountainHead Forum was brought into being for the sole purpose of brining to LIGHT the duplicity of our world and to shine this LIGHT onto the various parts of the globe where darkness has ruled. And to create a space for the joining together of a like-minded global community. The time to take this forum on a quantum leap forward is NOW. I cannot continue to report news of this darkness anymore unless we all join together and envision a different and better world....It is time to put our shoulders, or rather our minds, to the task of Co-Creating The Future of Our Choice. When I do post the dreary news, I ask that you envision a different outcome from what is being reported on. I may post commentary asking for this this type of 'prayer' from you, as I did today HERE: tinyurl.com/3ar5yy

If I happen to not prompt you in this way, know that you must always observe the news without giving it the energy of your thoughts, unless, of course, it it something positive. What I'm asking you to bring forth is summed up so very well at the following site:

"We see clearly a world of harmony and peace amongst nations, races, genders, ideologies and religions. We see acceptance by all of the many paths available for the human spirit to realize its highest potential through art, music, culture, education, science, religion, adventure and joyous living. We see all life on Planet Earth living in balance, harmony and respect. We see perfect health, well being, infinite abundance and profound inner peace as the norm amongst our brothers and sisters of Planet Earth. We see science and technology maturing to serve the planet in wholesome, productive and abundant ways that feed, clothe, house and nourish the body and spirit of the world’s populations, while nurturing Planet Earth’s pristine nature. We see sustainable communities linked together by worthy causes bringing intelligence, wisdom, compassion, sustenance, spirit, and a sense of belonging and unity to everyone. We see effective government that abides by the principles of Divine Harmony and that operates from a vision of humanity’s greater purpose. We see the people of Planet Earth acting as a single being with vision, intent and conscious creativity while simultaneously honoring and nurturing the Divine Individuality of each member from birth through wholesome education and a vision-oriented social and economic structure. We see the life on Planet Earth joining in a single song of praise and gratitude and reaching out to the heavens for exploration and adventure."
- Taken from the “Be it Now!” Vision www.commonpassion.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=77&Itemid=87

At the end of 2007, I went to the Three Rivers Point in Pittsburgh, PA....I live by the Allegheny River and it is a source of great inspiration for me....At The Point, my son and I gathered with others from Western PA. at this sacred energy portal to listen to the call from Don Alejandro Oxlaj, Grand Elder of the Maya, along with representatives of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers. Don Alejandro is charged as the primary keeper of the teachings, visions and prophecies of the Mayan people. He is head of the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala, Day Keeper of the Mayan Calendar, a 13th generation Quiche Mayan High Priest and a Grand Elder of the Continental Council of Elders and Spiritual Guides of the Americas. He is also an international lecturer on Mayan Culture. Think of it 13 generations; Don Alejandro Oxlaj comes from a line of people dating back over the span of those seventeen hundred years of ignorance I mentioned! We, the people of Western Pa., gathered to listen to his words, to link minds and, to act as co-creators of our future....I was profoundly affected by this experience and it has caused me to write to this announcement. Don Alejandro gives us this timely message: a call to action, a call to come together and be as one: Let us listen to his message, together:

In the name of the Heart of the Heavens and the Heart of the Earth, greetings to you. In the name of the Maya National Council of Elders, Spiritual Guides of Guatemala, we address the following to you for your great magnetic connections at the global level:

The Spirit of the Maya Nation and the Spirit of Mother Earth make us look for ties of friendship with all peoples of the world. The Maya Prophecy tells us “…We will meet for we are one like the fingers of the hand”. We all are children of the Earth, we are flowers of the garden of our Creator coming in different colors, in different shapes, in different sizes, with different aromas; speaking different languages, and each one worshiping and meditating in their own way to the same Creator who has different names according to their own culture.

We hope this communiqué reaches all institutions, in private sectors as well as governmental ones; landowners, scientists, and all people in general. Brothers and sisters, there has been over 500 years of extermination in the face of the earth, extermination of humans, extermination of our brother animals and ancient trees, every day at a faster speed. The elders from the National Council of Elders and Spiritual Guides of Guatemala are keepers of mystical and millenary knowledge. Like the birds, tirelessly in their flight, they live to see the prophecies fulfilled. We want to make all people and governments in the world conscientious, and have them analyze and reflect at the situation of the planet in the present time. Let us start by remembering that the Americas were a paradise 500 years ago. Virgin forests, cities of beautiful animals, cities to an innumerable variety of colorful birds, flying in freedom; they provided food for everyone. The waters were abundant and pure; and the people, they lived in their own traditions, guarding their cultures and conserving the beauty of Mother Earth. Our ancestors lived to be over 100 years old, free from contagion and illnesses. They were respectful and obedient to the laws of our Creator.

Let us talk now about our present times. We enjoy new advances in technology, inventions that make everyday life easier for us, we all use them, but the negative side is that we are finishing up our forests, and contributing to the contamination of the planet, the rivers are drying out, the waters are being contaminated. Our crops are affected by plagues as well as plagues killing our animals. We are threatened by contagious illnesses, incurable illnesses unknown in the past. Very harmful are the use of chemicals, the insecticides, transgenic seeds, etc. And most of all, these days, the nuclear testing: nuclear bombs and a great deal of war weapons, and the war in itself sterilizing or killing the planet Earth and affecting all living beings. Many people are homeless, children begging in the streets, others are involved in prostitution. Predators are on the rise. Dead people appearing daily in the streets, kidnappings, extortion, shootings in the schools, parents killing children, children killing children, parents raping their own kids. All this is a direct result of the contamination. There is no respect; no respect for life. The authorities sell themselves. The justice can be bought or sold.

Now lets speak about the future. We, the traditional Mayan elders, and all indigenous peoples in the world, meditate on the future. We don’t think only for today, the present, we think for tomorrow, for our children, grand children and future generations. We see a dark shadow approaching, a shadow that will cause a lot of harm. It is the great contamination. All this is due to man’s creation. We are digging our own graves. Wars are being transported to other countries; they reason in their speeches it is on behalf of freedom, but the result is more slavery. They speak that it will bring new development, but the result is more hunger for the underdeveloped countries. If we continue like this, the time will come when there are no more soldiers to form battalions. The Maya National Council of Elders of Guatemala ask all nations of the world – their governors and the governed ones – to put a stop to the contamination; and to the big and small enterprises, to find alternatives. We don’t want any more wars, no more death, no more nuclear testing, no more chemicals, because the warming up of the planet is unbearable to Mother Earth. If we don’t change, sooner or later, she will strike back with millions of lives lost.

Our Creator created us here over the face of the earth to worship him, to love and respect each other. We all are equal, we are flowers of the earth, in different sizes, of different colors, with different songs, with different smell, but all looking at our Creator, honoring him with different dances, different music, different ceremonies. We all plead to him, we are his children, he is the creator of all that exist, all that we see and all which is beyond our senses. He has given us our life with an intelligence to do well. Brothers and Sisters of all colors, holding hands around the planet, let us reflect on this, let us meditate in our own way, in our own language, according to our own culture or religion, because we have only one Sun to shine upon us equally, one air that we breath and gives us life, one water that we drink and becomes blood in our veins and all live on Mother Earth. She feeds us, she holds us. Brothers and Sisters of all colors, together united in meditation to make conscience to the men in power, governors, politicians, business people: no more war, no more contaminating bombs, no more death. Together we can make a difference.

Grand Father Sun shines upon all of us equally, he doesn’t know discrimination, he doesn’t get lost on his path, he doesn’t get ahead or behind of himself. He gives us warmth, he gives us life. One Sun, one Air, one Water, One Mother Earth, Grand Father Sun, Grand Mother Moon.

The Maya Prophecy says: “Arise, all arise, not one nor two groups be left behind, together we will see once again the place from where we have come from”

Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj/ Wandering Wolf
Grand Elder of the National Council of Elders Mayas,
Xincas and Garifunas of Guatemala

Are you ready, folks? Ready to let go and take that step into the great unknown? Ready to claim your birthright as co-creators with The First Source, God, whom you are a part of? Join us on our journey....Be active, telepathically....you can do this....be the change you seek!

One last note, I will be posting global meditations at this thread....watch for them and participate!

Yours in the LIGHT,

Michelle

Parts of this article are excerpted from the book Praying Peace by James F. Twyman, in conversation with Gregg Braden and Doreen Virtue, Ph.D
Info/Order this book:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1899171487/innerselfcom

[michelle]

url for this post is: tinyurl.com/ywd67k
The Solar Wave is going Galactic!
Do you have 32 minutes to CHANGE the WORLD?
THE 14th Annual
[glow=red,2,300]SOLAR WAVE 2008[/glow]
A Stellar Synchronized, 24 Hour, Global Equinox Event!
It's FREE - It's GREEN - and it's for all LIVING THINGS!

This is the call to the awakening masses to join together to activate a Huge Stellar Wave
of POSITIVE MASS CONSCIOUSNESS to spontaneous heal all discordant energy on EARTH,
and Initiate a Spontaneous Awakening of Humanity!
To Reclaim Paradise… and usher in the age of
PEACE, HARMONY, LOVE, COMPASSION & IMPECCABILITY
using a window of opportunity at Equinox in the multiplying potential of LOCAL STAR TIME!
This time is coming to your sacred part of the planet
March 21st, 2008 with a FULL MOON!
13:20 to 13:52 at Your Local Sidereal Time.
Exact Equinox is MARCH 20th at 5.48 am UT Time - Exact Full Moon is MARCH 21st 18:40 UT
Exact Maya New Year is Sun Rise March 21st in all time zones - BUT... your exact 13:30 LST Time... this is for you to discover below!

We can shift the Earth back into LIGHT in just one day!
BUT... What if we let this opportunity,
this one small day, go by without taking action...
without putting to use our wisdom and light?
Lets join together and end all doubt
that we are in fact, all that we say we are!

Please network this invitation all over the Earth.

Note From Michelle: "The population of the planet is about 6,795,000,000 (6.8 billion). In Gregg Braden's book "The Divine Matrix", he states that 'the minimum number of people required to jump start a change in consciousness is the square root of 1% of a population.' This means that only 8,244 people are needed to bring about a shift in awareness, to bring about Peace, Harmony, Unity and Balance on the planet once again. Only 8,244 positive people."

Pass along the word to bring healing for Humanity and Mother Earth
Sent From: Aluna Joy

I want to send my overwhelming gratitude and love today
to those who are working so hard to heal, awaken, and raise
the consciousness of this planet up to a place
where we can live in harmony once again.
I know personally how hard it is to do this work,
to inspire others to evolve past being passive, powerless victims
and to take charge of their lives.
I know that when we step out side the box,
it can cause others to fear the change that is inevitable.
Some may even attack us for thinking beyond the current horizon.
Some times we might want to give up because the work appears ineffective.
But we don’t quit…
because awakening ourselves and healing this planet is our destiny.
The Star Elders say
“Destiny is not something that is definable, but is a
living spirit that we put into action each day”.
The action we take each day will create a change in our world no doubt.
Change is a natural unending event in nature.
How we change this world is up to us!
We all know that if we take loving, peaceful, harmonious action,
we can heal our planet, re-awaken humanity,
end our differences, and become a global community.
As the Maya say we are the five fingers on the same hand.
What we do to one finger we do to all of the fingers.
The Maya also say In Lak’ech Ala K’in . .
What I do to you, I do to myself. What I do to myself, I do to you.
We are all connected if we feel this or not.
So today as we head into another powerful Equinox,
I feel my heart open even further.
I ask you to be good to yourself, be good to others,
and share your love and peace and harmony with the world
in every way you can.
Remember Harmony is addictive
and Love is contagious.

With love and respect for all I share this planet with
~ Aluna Joy

One Very Powerful Day for Humanity
A full 24 Hour, Global Equinox Event
Happening on Full Moon Friday, March 21[/b]

This is a call to the awakened masses to join together to activate a Huge Stellar
Wave of POSITIVE MASS CONSCIOUSNESS to transform all discordant energy
on Earth and initiate a spontaneous awakening of all of Humanity!
The Star Elders confirm that because enough people have now awakened, their
ancient prophesies have been pushed ahead by 4 years making 2008
THE YEAR that we can spontaneous shift the world and humanity
back into the light. To further empower this 24 hour period of Mass Awakening,
we are using a 32-minute window of opportunity at Equinox
and synchronizing our efforts to a specific "local star time"
of multiplying potential.
Join Us on March 21st!!
The Power of Equinox ~
EQUINOX is a powerful time to initiate changes in our material world
and shift into new reality. On Equinox, the Earth and Sun are in
perfect balance and harmony, as the sun is centered between the
Northern and Southern hemispheres, and centered between
Heaven and Earth. This creates a sacred cross of balancing
energy that naturally harmonizes the planet and humanity.
Combined with ~ The Power of a Full Moon
At the time of a full moon, the Earth receives more reflected light from the
Sun than at any other time. It is a time when the veils between worlds
are the thinnest and is the most potent time in the lunar cycle for
releasing the power of love, feeling and creative thought.

Combined with ~ The Power of the Planetary Grid Transmissions
Each new and full moon, thousands of people worldwide combine
unified intention while consciously connecting into the planetary
Crystalline Grid. This is a highly advanced New Earth energy system
that serves as the transitory bridge between consciousness paradigms.
The goal of the massive harmonic resonant field created through
our grid unification is to amplify the power of Light on Earth to such a
degree that the resultant global shift in frequency will awaken the
masses and transform world consciousness.

Combined with ~ The Power of the SOLAR WAVE
For the last 13 years, thousands upon thousands of people
and cultures from around the globe have joined together to work with
this powerful energy in a 24 hour wave of creative potential. THIS YEAR,
we are evolving the SOLAR WAVE to a STELLAR ONE! This year we are
adding a tremendous multiplying potential . . . a specific
Local Sidereal Time (a.k.a. Star Time) to synchronize our global efforts
into peak, maximum efficiency to reclaim paradise on Earth.
This special time is a 32-minute window at
13:20 to 13:52 Local Sidereal Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the website where you can get all information: www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/solarwave2008.html

Do you feel that you are potentially ...
the very one ...
that can tip the balance back into the LIGHT?
The one that can put an end to illusions?
The very one that can bring humanity
back into the HEART?
You are the ONE!
So what kind of world do you want?
Do you have 32 minutes to change the world?

Do you know what the definition of insanity is?
It is to do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results. There is no doubt that it is time to change the way we do things. This year we have an awesome opportunity to initiate spontaneous positive change in the mass consciousness and shift the material fabric of our world.

Equinox Graphic courtesy of Mid-Atlantic Geomancy (MAG) www.geomancy.org

Ancient traditions understand that the EQUINOX is a powerful time to initiate changes in our material world and shift into new reality. On Equinox, the Earth and Sun are in perfect balance and harmony, as the sun is centered between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and centered between Heaven and Earth. This creates a sacred cross of balancing energy that naturally harmonizes the planet and humanity.

For the last 13 years, thousands upon thousands of light workers, peacekeepers, shamans, healers, gods and goddesses, angels and saints from around the globe have joined together to work with this powerful energy in a 24 hour wave of creative potential. BUT this year the Star Elders say we are ready to evolve this solar wave to a stellar one! This year the Star Elders call us to work with the equinox but add a hugely multiplying potential . . . a specific local sidereal time LST (a.k.a. Star Time) to synchronize our global efforts to reclaim paradise.

Why Your Local STAR TIME you ask?
Local Sidereal Time (LST) is an Astronomy term, referring to how the planet is oriented relative to the position of the stars. It is a measure of the passing of the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way), overhead. Sidereal time is STELLAR TIME and is approximately 3 minutes, 56 seconds shorter than a solar day. LST is a measure of time independent of the Sun's cycles. Thus, Local Sidereal Time (LST) moves backward in solar time about four minutes a day, two hours a month and one day a year. Anywhere you are on the planet, at the same LST you will see the same stars overhead as anyone anywhere else will at that time. Example . . . your favorite star will set 4 minutes earlier each night. So why do you care about this? Read on and you will!

The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, made some exciting discoveries. They studied a group that had natural clairvoyant, clairsentient, clairaudient, ESP abilities. They discovered that during a specific window of time, that their test group was more accurate by 400% and more in their abilities to "see" or predict events. When scientists examined the accuracy of thousands of ESP predictions, along with the documented times that these anomalous cognitions took place, they were stunned. The precognitive cycle coincided with particular Local Sidereal Time or LST. Scientists discovered that peak efficiency for ESP was repeatedly at 13:30 LST. Working with 13:30 LST could lead to more efficient uses of one's psychic talents.

This means every 23 hours and 56 minutes, humanity has a unique doorway open to them to see through and work with energies that could change the world! The Star Elders say that if we can "see" through the doorway, we can also "project" through the doorway and radically change our world. When we project all our visions of a brilliant future and send healing energies, we can change the world and reclaim paradise. This LST window of opportunity is about 1 hour long… but the Star Elders suggest that from 13:20 to 13:52, only 32 minutes, is the most powerful time in this window. When we consciously work with the energy of heightened harmonious equinox energies, and combined it with local Sidereal times from 13:20 to 13:52, we have a immeasurable amount of potential to make our dreams come true for the planet. It is only 32 minutes . . . one half hour! Do you have time to change the world??? It sounds great doesn't it? But why stop there? What if we could make this event even more powerful?

What if we took this powerful window of Equinox, combined with 13:30 LST energy, and stretched it out over a 24 hour period? It sounds impossible, but it is not. This is why YOU are so important. This is where YOU and all of your healing networks come into play. Let me explain . . . Somewhere on the planet, right now, it is 13:30 LST. Every single moment there is a place on Earth that is in the window of the LST time of 13:30. What The Star Elders are asking us to do is to synchronize our local planetary family with global action. What do you think the potential would be if we got the entire world working with 13:30 LST on Equinox? What if we worked with this window of time within at a powerful sacred site? What do you think the possibilities would be then?

The Star Elders say that enough people are working in the light that we have pushed their ancient prophesies by 4 years making 2008 THE YEAR that we can spontaneous shift the world and humanity back into the light.

So are you in?
Do we have your attention?
Do you want to give
this "change the world" vision
that you hold in your heart a real chance to manifest?
If you are feeling the excitement? . . .
Read on . . .

So here is how the Star Elders suggest
that we create a 24 hour window
where we have an unlimited amount of
stellar juice to change the world
and reclaim paradise:

How to discover what your Local 13:30 Time is for your area.

1. Discover your LOCAL TIME ZONE HERE www.koalanet.com.au/world-time-zones.html. Look for your variation from GMT / UTC. NOTE: As of March 9th, this chart does consider day light savings times, and those locations that also do not observe day light savings times on March 21st.) Write down your time variation. Example Sedona AZ is -7.

2. You need to discover your LOCAL LONGITUDE HERE www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm Where it says, "Centre the map around", input your local area (City, State, Country etc...) and push GO. Write down the Longitude for your area, that you will find to the left under the map. Longitudes will be either (-) or a (+). This is important. Example: Sedona is -111.773500.

3. Now take your LOCAL TIME VARIATION and LOCAL LONGITUDE and go to this really easy 13:30 LST time converter! www.hrvg.org/1330-lst/data-input.html . Input your Longitude, your UTC offset (This is your time variation), the Month "3", and the year "2008", and push submit. You will get a chart of your LST 13:30 times for the entire month on March. On this chart scan down under the "DAY LOCAL" column to "21", then read across to the right for "TIME LOCAL". This is your local 13:30 LST where you live on March 21, 2008. Remember... times on this chart are listed in 24-hour time, and in March our 13:30 LST falls in the middle of the night. This is where we are ALL CATCHING the WAVE so you can't miss out becuase you are going to miss a little shut eye! PLUS it is a very clear time to do inner and planetary work but when most of the world is sleeping! YAHOO! All is in divine order you see. (Example: Input values for Sedona are: Sedona's Longitude -111.773500 , Sedona's UTC Offset time variation -7 . The Month is 3 (March), and the Year is 2008. So 13:30 LST for Sedona, AZ on March 21st is 02:01 AM.

PS... Please be patient with the links above as the server has been getting busy with all of us converting our 13:30 times : ) If you can't get in, try later. If you get stuck... LST VOLENTEERS are listed below! Write one of them for help. Send them your City and Country.

I downloaded this LST clock onto my computer to watch for 13;30 times all year long. www.radiosky.com/sidclockdownload.html. We watch for the 13:30 LST to arrive and work with this time to create our reality everyday . . . right now it is in the wee hours of the morn. We find that we are waking up at this time anyway. So we might as well do something with it!

NEXT... This is the most important step... Pencil in this time in your personal lightwork or healing schedule. Or better yet, plan a gathering or event at this time with all your like minded family. Remember to start your 32 min meditation, 10 minutes before your LST times!! Remember to act locally, but think globally. Remember we are only separated by 6 degrees of separation. So if you send this to 6 people, we can reach the entire conscious community of the planet! Or if you are a hard core net worker, and want to leave no room for doubt, send this to everyone you know, and let's get the entire world unified and working together to reclaim paradise! Remember . . . when two or more are gathered, there is multiplying energy. Remember . . . somewhere, right now, it is 13:30 LST.

On MARCH 21ST, 2008 at 13:30 LST The entire global population of healers and lightworkers will work with the LST window of 13:20 to 13:52. This will create a powerful 24 hour stellar wave across the planet. Just as you may have seen "the Wave" being done at sports and concert venues, we will be doing the same thing, but across the entire planet all within harmonizing equinox energies and your star time window of 13:30. This is a tidal wave of powerful, transforming, healing light and positive vision for a brilliant future. Now get ready for PARADISE! When your local window of 13:30 LST time on March 21st arrives at your physical location on the planet, this is YOUR TIME to put to action all the healing talents and spiritual truth you have taken such great care to learn and develop. At 13:30 LST, give the world and the galaxy ALL YOU GOT! As they said in the 60's, "sock it to 'em!" Send out to humanity, the planet and the stars your knowingness that paradise is here right now and act as if that vision has been realized. Remember . . . when two or more are gathered together in a common focus, the power to change the world is multiplied a thousand times more than if one person was doing it alone. Use your highest, purest intentions, and remember that the truth is within YOU. So just follow your hearts with balance, peace and harmony. It is time to quit dreaming, affirming and praying for change. It is insane to do the same thing over and over again, and not expect the same results. We must BE the change that we want in the world! KNOW that it is so . . . And it will be.

Are you confused about converting your LST time?
Ask one of our LST VOLUNTEERS to help you! See: www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/solarwave2008.html

"We live in an age of prophecy,
during which humanity has the opportunity to re-awaken
to timeless, inter-dependent relationship with the cosmos.
Without a doubt, we are here at this special time
to help fulfill an awesome and delicately orchestrated plan
to align Earth with the cosmos
and humanity with the universal heart.
We are here to awaken to the full potential
of being authentic aware human beings.
It's time to drop your cosmic remote control,
get out of that visualization chair,
and get to work.
Spirit helps those who help themselves.
Spirit works right NOW . . . not yesterday . . . not tomorrow.
Quit watching what is going on and take action.
Use your power to do something
about the imbalances in your world."
- The Star Elders

"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Peace is not something you wish for,
it is something you make, something you do,
something you are and it is something you give away.

EVERYTHING is a PLACEBO!
Your belief in it determines the effect
Armand

"I am only one, but I AM ONE.
I cannot do it all, but I will not refuse to do what I can.
and what I can do, by the grace of the Creator, I will do."
- unknown

Another powerful ceremony you can
join where ever you are !
8,000 DRUMS on March 21 at Noon
LET US STAND TOGETHER
AS ONE PROUD UNITED NATION!
This special event will take place 12 noon EST. It is also a full moon that day and spring equinox is March 20, 2008. (eg. if you are on the west coast, your time will be 10am. this will be your time to be aligned with us here in EST etc. etc.)

For all above and much much more See: www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/solarwave2008.html

[michelle]

Well, I got up in the early morning to participate in the 2008 Solar Wave. [see article above, and maybe the one above that too] It was easy to link up and left me with a very pleasant 'residue'....it's like I took my Joy Pill today!
For any who are skeptical as to the power of our minds affecting planetary happenings, consider the following:

What is the Maharishi Effect?
The short and sweet answer is it is the proof of the power of the Mind to bring peace to the planet.

Most people are not aware that meditation can have a STRONG impact on the apparent free-will behavior of others. The above graph gives an example from multiple studies performed in the midst of an Israel-Lebanon war in 1983-84. (I guess you can't really call it THE Israel-Lebanon war…) [*link below]

Believe it or not, a group of 7000 people meditating - people who weren't even sure if it would "do" anything — were able to reduce the amount of crime, fatalities and terrorist activities around the world.

"Sure," the skeptic would say. "Two to five percent, something like that… a statistical fluke."

It's not two percent. It's not five percent.

Not ten, or twenty, or fifty.

Not even sixty-five. Still too low.

Fully SEVENTY-TWO PERCENT of all terrorist activity STOPPED during the time these 7000 people were meditating, in one instance!

The people themselves didn't even know if it would work — but these results were tested against the best statistical data in the world, from the RAND corporation, and all other effects — weekends, holidays, et cetera — were ruled out. There was only a billions-to-one possibility that anything OTHER than the meditation had been responsible for the effect — which was immediate and highly significant.

This means that fully three out of four people who would normally hit their wife, commit suicide, pick up a gun and shoot at people, or otherwise commit an act of violence… chose NOT to do so.

This was all thanks to the efforts of a group of people they would never see, never meet, never know… but who nonetheless were having a very strong effect.

* Figure 3. During the six-month period from November 13, 1983 to May 18, 1984 a measure of war intensity in Lebanon was most positive during three assemblies in which the number of TM-Sidhi participants exceeded the predicted thresholds required for an influence on the war. Time series analysis indicates significantly greater progress toward peaceful resolution of the conflict during these assemblies than would have been predicted from the prior history of the Lebanon war (p < .00005). The particularly large effect coincident with the Lebanon assembly held in the immediate vicinity of the conflict suggests the importance of proximity in the generation of societal coherence. (Figure courtesy of C.N. Alexander.)
View Figure: www.mum.edu/m_effect/hagelin/fig3.html

[michelle]

url for this post: tinyurl.com/yrk6x9
Study shows compassion meditation changes the brain
March 25, 2008

by Dian Land

Can we train ourselves to be compassionate? A new study suggests the answer is yes. Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Published March 25 in the Public Library of Science One, the study was the first to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to indicate that positive emotions such as loving-kindness and compassion can be learned in the same way as playing a musical instrument or being proficient in a sport. The scans revealed that brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation.

The research suggests that individuals — from children who may engage in bullying to people prone to recurring depression — and society in general could benefit from such meditative practices, says study director Richard Davidson, professor of psychiatry and psychology at UW-Madison and an expert on imaging the effects of meditation. Davidson and UW-Madison associate scientist Antoine Lutz were co-principal investigators on the project.

The study was part of the researchers' ongoing investigations with a group of Tibetan monks and lay practitioners who have practiced meditation for a minimum of 10,000 hours. In this case, Lutz and Davidson worked with 16 monks who have cultivated compassion meditation practices. Sixteen age-matched controls with no previous training were taught the fundamentals of compassion meditation two weeks before the brain scanning took place.

"Many contemplative traditions speak of loving-kindness as the wish for happiness for others and of compassion as the wish to relieve others' suffering. Loving-kindness and compassion are central to the Dalai Lama's philosophy and mission," says Davidson, who has worked extensively with the Tibetan Buddhist leader. "We wanted to see how this voluntary generation of compassion affects the brain systems involved in empathy."

Various techniques are used in compassion meditation, and the training can take years of practice. The controls in this study were asked first to concentrate on loved ones, wishing them well-being and freedom from suffering. After some training, they then were asked to generate such feelings toward all beings without thinking specifically about anyone.

Each of the 32 subjects was placed in the fMRI scanner at the UW-Madison Waisman Center for Brain Imaging, which Davidson directs, and was asked to either begin compassion meditation or refrain from it. During each state, subjects were exposed to negative and positive human vocalizations designed to evoke empathic responses as well as neutral vocalizations: sounds of a distressed woman, a baby laughing and background restaurant noise.

"We used audio instead of visual challenges so that meditators could keep their eyes slightly open but not focused on any visual stimulus, as is typical of this practice," explains Lutz.

The scans revealed significant activity in the insula — a region near the frontal portion of the brain that plays a key role in bodily representations of emotion — when the long-term meditators were generating compassion and were exposed to emotional vocalizations. The strength of insula activation was also associated with the intensity of the meditation as assessed by the participants.

"The insula is extremely important in detecting emotions in general and specifically in mapping bodily responses to emotion — such as heart rate and blood pressure — and making that information available to other parts of the brain," says Davidson, also co-director of the HealthEmotions Research Institute.

Activity also increased in the temporal parietal juncture, particularly the right hemisphere. Studies have implicated this area as important in processing empathy, especially in perceiving the mental and emotional state of others.

"Both of these areas have been linked to emotion sharing and empathy," Davidson says. "The combination of these two effects, which was much more noticeable in the expert meditators as opposed to the novices, was very powerful."

The findings support Davidson and Lutz's working assumption that through training, people can develop skills that promote happiness and compassion.

"People are not just stuck at their respective set points," he says. "We can take advantage of our brain's plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities."

The capacity to cultivate compassion, which involves regulating thoughts and emotions, may also be useful for preventing depression in people who are susceptible to it, Lutz adds.

"Thinking about other people's suffering and not just your own helps to put everything in perspective," he says, adding that learning compassion for oneself is a critical first step in compassion meditation.

The researchers are interested in teaching compassion meditation to youngsters, particularly as they approach adolescence, as a way to prevent bullying, aggression and violence.

"I think this can be one of the tools we use to teach emotional regulation to kids who are at an age where they're vulnerable to going seriously off track," Davidson says.

Compassion meditation can be beneficial in promoting more harmonious relationships of all kinds, Davidson adds.

"The world certainly could use a little more kindness and compassion," he says. "Starting at a local level, the consequences of changing in this way can be directly experienced."

Lutz and Davidson hope to conduct additional studies to evaluate brain changes that may occur in individuals who cultivate positive emotions through the practice of loving-kindness and compassion over time.

Source: www.news.wisc.edu/14944

[michelle]

If You Don't Have Healthy Personal Relationships, How's the World Going to Change?
url for this post: tinyurl.com/3ftswl

The following is a wonderful interview with married couple, Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks. Positive loving relationships don't happen by accident; it takes commitment, self awareness, and a willingness to become responsible for what you create. The Hendricks speak of understanding what you experienced or witnessed in relationships of your past; meaning your own or how families modeled interaction with each other. To change a rocky relationship, one must stop blaming the other and allow for the freedom to express how each feels....of course, one must understand what they themselves are feeling before being able to extend this courtesy to others.

I hope this is useful for you,
Michelle

phenomeNEWS exclusive interview with:
GAY & KATHLYN HENDRICKS

Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks
"Relationships give you
an opportunity to bring a
person into your life where
you can learn something
that doesn't come
naturally to yourself."

Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks met in 1980, so they’re celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. They’ve been happily married, working and playing together ever since. Gay Hendricks is the author or co-author of 35 books. Before founding the Hendricks Institute, he was a professor of counseling at the University of Colorado for 21 years. He holds a PhD from Stanford. Katie Hendricks pioneered the field of mind-body and has taught in graduate programs at major universities. She is the co-author of 10 books and leads seminars for business and health professionals. She also holds a doctorate.

phenomeNEWS: Their classic book, Conscious Loving, is in more homes, on more coffee tables and in more hearts than possibly any other relationship book that’s out there and it continues to be a good seller.

Kathlyn Hendricks: Yes, indeed. We’re very grateful. Everything in there comes out of what we learn and process ourselves and continue to process, so we also benefit from it.

We are very honored to have you with us today. We’re on a planet where we are really relationship conscious, more than ever before. When you were first married, did you have a conscious relationship or how long did it take you to work into it?

Gay Hendricks: That’s a great question. We had a vision of it, but it took us probably two or three years to get to where we could really practice the things we were preaching. When we started out, we were very interested in creating a new kind of relationship that neither one of us had seen before. We had to have a relationship where we could speak to each other honestly about our feelings. So if we were angry or scared or hurt or something, we could talk about that with each other rather than hiding our feelings. So that was important.

The second thing is that we wanted to create a relationship where both of us could take responsibility for what was happening in the relationship rather than blaming the other person, because both of us had grown up in families where there was a lot of blame going on. We wanted to see if we could eliminate that. We also wanted to create a kind of relationship, too, where both of us were actively engaged in our own creative process, that we were both open to and expressive of our creativity. We’d also grown up in a lot of situations and seen a lot of situations where one person or the other in a relationship wasn’t expressing their creativity so they were kind of resentful about it.

We had that vision early on, probably in the first six months or a year of our relationship. But doing things like learning and training to tell the truth all the time and training yourself to take responsibility all the time are things that take a while to master, so I think it took us a couple of years to really get those things working for us. It pays off, though, because now it’s been well over 10 years since either one of us has spoken a blameful or critical word to the other person can’t even remember the last time. It gets easier as you go along.

Katie: When we first met and we recognized each other, there was a very deep level instantly in recognizing the great spirit in each other. We set our intention very early on to create a relationship that ran primarily on positive energy, that didn’t go through what we had seen all around us, of the up-down cycles that feel good and then break an agreement and feel bad or feel good and then criticize each other. Actually, it was a big adventure. We didn’t know if it was possible. We’d never seen it. But we thought, “This is the big adventure that I want to take in my life, to see if it is possible to bring into being a relationship where the fuel is appreciation and creativity.” Claiming ownership of what’s going on and using all of that energy that happens when two people get together creates something that is expanding in love all the time.

So the particulars that we’ve invented, explored and shared with others over the years have come out of that recognition and that vision. I think that the most important first step that we took was to commit to it. We both got fully in. We decided, “Yes, with my whole heart and my whole body, this is what I want.” Excellent! Then with both of you on the same page, it worked.

Gay: Yes. That’s important. It is possible to create a change in a relationship. It is possible to create a conscious relationship where there’s only one person who wants to do it. It’s possible, but it sure makes it a lot easier if both people are at least willing.

Katie: And a lot more fun along the way. One of the most important things for me, personally, was moving into a relationship where I saw (and see) Gay as my ally, my partner and am able to stand with and play with having all of that extra energy to propel us forward into what we really want. This was very different than what I saw all around me growing up and as a young adult, where relationships devolved into power struggles, control struggles and all that energy in the relationship got wasted. It was very exciting to realize that, “Oh, this other person can join with me and be an ally in moving forward in the world.” A lot more fun!

Sure sounds like it. So you were your own first guinea pigs!

Katie: Yes, indeed. And we continue to be. We’re always experimenting with new things. We decided that if we were going to speak to people in the world about what we recommended that we wanted to have a level of alignment and integrity about actually doing what we were asking other people to do.

Excellent! What would you define as or is there such a thing, as an ideal relationship?

Gay: The word ideal, very often it seems like an unattainable goal to me, ideal. After working with several thousand couples to help them create conscious relationships, as well as our own, I can tell you what people are most happy with, that I’ve seen. One is if people in a relationship feel like they have the freedom to not only think out loud but feel out loud.

Katie: That’s nice.

Gay: Thank you. I was comparing that phrase, thinking out loud, the other day and I was realizing I have the freedom in our relationship to feel out loud. You know, if I feel happy, I say I’m happy. If I feel sad, I say I’m sad. I don’t even think about editing or hiding or anything like that any more. I think I spent probably the first half my life, up until I was 30 or so, pretty much hiding all of my feelings. I think an ideal or healthy relationship is where both people have the freedom to think and feel and the freedom to express those feelings and thoughts to the other person.

Another aspect is a complete absence of blame, a complete absence of chronic criticism. That’s important because chronic criticism and chronic blame in many research studies has been found to be the number one thing that erodes the good feeling in a relationship and causes the eventual decline of the relationship. We’ve done our best to eliminate criticism and blame and it’s one of the things I feel proudest of, because there was so much criticism and blame around when I was growing up; it was almost built into the relationships I saw around me. That was considered what you were supposed to do, is kind of nag the person all the time and that kind of thing. I can’t even remember what that feels like now, it’s been so long.

The positive flip side of that is to create a relationship where there is a steady flow of appreciation, where both people are speaking appreciations to the other person, but also appreciating the person in other ways. You know, a touch on the shoulder as you pass or a hug or a kiss. A kind word or a gesture of helpfulness, doing something that would be useful to the other person. Those kinds of things are appreciations and that’s the positive side of what begins to happen when you begin to cut down on the amount of blaming and criticizing that goes on.

I can’t speak highly enough of creativity, though, because to me, one of the major things that goes wrong in relationships is that people get too caught up in the daily stuff of relationship. You know, getting the upstairs toilet fixed and getting the house re-landscaped and all of those kinds of things. They forget to make an effort to express their own creativity that wants to be expressed. It could be writing a symphony or it could be making a good soup. Whatever it is, it engages the person’s creativity. Couples need to encourage one another to express their creativity. Those kinds of things are very key to creating a very healthy, conscious relationship.

Katie: I agree with everything that Gay is saying and I’m just thinking about how both of us, coming from families who were extremely critical and how many people I’ve known who really believe that criticism is necessary in a relationship and actually don’t have a template or a map for what you’re going to do if you’re not trying to criticize your partner. How are they ever going to improve or become a better person? And what I realize in hearing you, Gay, is that our daily lives are a symphony of creativity and appreciation and how much actually is accomplished in a very real way in the world and in our communities and making a contribution when there’s no energy that’s sucked up by blame and criticism. I don’t think people realize the enormous cost of that particular addiction. They get a hit of adrenaline. They get a moment of being right from blaming and criticizing, but the cost is really enormous and if people make a commitment to end blame and criticism and instead focus on creativity, co-creativity and appreciation, their lives will change very quickly. Once they get a better idea, people are very smart and will start gravitating toward living their lives in those streams of appreciation and gratitude.

That’s great! How do each of you individually express your own creativity?

Gay: Lots of ways. I’m a born writer. I love to write and so just about every day I put in an hour or two of writing. Sometimes it’s for books and things like that. But some of it’s purely self-expression, writing poetry and writing a blog just for my own use, not for other people to read, but for me to think out loud.

Katie: And I’m a born mover so I, almost every day, will do several minutes of spontaneous moving – how’s my body want to move – because I, along with lots of other people, am a kinesthetic learner. If I’m moving, I think better and when I’m moving I get lots of ideas. Then I turn those into processes that I can share with students and I turn that into poetry. And sometimes I just move for the joy of moving and feeling the flow of energy in my body. I also love to cook, so one of the things I do almost every day is create something over lunchtime, which I hear and I sense. I hear what Gay might like and I sense into myself kind of the ideal or perfect thing for lunch today and then it’s great pleasure for me to create that. That sense of creating something out of different ingredients is a very creative process for me. And we dance and we talk to each other.

I find speaking to Gay about whatever is going on one of the most creative things I do, because when I speak to him, then it makes real what’s been going on inside. There’s something about expressing in an un-edited way to another person that brings something into being that hasn’t been there before. So I think our talking to each other is one of the creative acts that I most enjoy.

That sounds fabulous!

Katie: It is fabulous! The experience is pretty fabulous.

You mentioned that you take a spiritual approach to your work and you define it as organic spirituality. What is organic spirituality?

Gay: A lot of times people think of spirituality as something to do with their beliefs. You know, one person believes in reincarnation. Another person believes that they’re going to go to heaven if they’re good and hell if they’re bad. A lot people associate it with kind of a mental or theological level of things. When we talk about organic spirituality, it is spirituality that you can feel inside yourself, that doesn’t have anything to do with beliefs. It’s deeper inside yourself than the level of beliefs or things that can be argued about. You can always argue about theology and that sort of thing. People have been arguing about religion for thousands of years. We’re not really interested in that kind of thing.

What we’re interested in, is if you do the kinds of things that we do in conscious relationships, you begin to feel a kind of organic spirituality. This is where you feel connected to the cosmos and you feel connected to yourself and you feel connected to the other person. You feel how we’re more than our thoughts and more than our beliefs and we’re more than who we think we are. We’re connected to the whole unfoldment of creation and so, in a nutshell, what we’re talking about is a kind of spirituality that’s felt uniquely inside yourself, just like you can experience uniquely a deep breath, where you breathe in and you breathe out. You don’t have to think about it. It’s just there.

Katie: Beautiful! I was thinking that the flow of warmth and openness and availability to life and a sense of connection with others, of connection inside. This is reminding me of what I’ve been learning recently through caring for my father and mother who are elderly and have been going through some health issues. Realizing that neither of them, in growing up, really had the opportunity or the direction to develop an inner life. So when the physical body begins to deteriorate, there isn’t anything to draw on to continue a sense of a flow of connection to life. I was feeling grateful for the opportunity to develop that myself, an inner life and to be able to share that with others. It’s not something that needs to be inserted. More, it needs to be uncovered, that people are connected. What’s going on inside me is reflected in what I see in my partner and if I’m open to learning and open to learning what my moment-to-moment body sensations are, I can continue deepening my experience of connection, that deep sense of unity with life that really is our birthright as humans.

You have many similar views. What do you feel about the phrase “like attracts like?” and are you like each other now? Do you have differences that complement each other?

Gay: We’re very different, actually. I think we’re very different in personality level. We’re very unified, though, on the things we most want, the deepest intentions we have. Those are the kinds of things that help with “like attracts like.” One of the things I recognized in Katie early on was she had a real openness to learning. She really was committed deeply to learning as much as she could about everything. I feel that in myself. I don’t feel that I’ll ever stop that. So with things like that, that are very deeply inside ourselves, I think we’re alike. On the personality level, I think it’s kind of “like attracts opposite,” because if you attracted the same kind of a personality to yourself it would be a bit boring. I don’t know how I would describe the differences in our personalities in a word or two. What would you say, Katie?

Katie: I’d say that you’re more introverted and I’m more extroverted. I think that’s something that people could relate to on a personality level. I love to be around people and party and talk to people and Gay can do that for a certain amount of time and then he likes to go off and be by himself. That’s very nurturing, for him. That refuels Gay to be by himself, where I get more refueled by going for a walk with friends or going out dancing.

Gay: That’s a good example, because if I had attracted another introvert into my life, then I wouldn’t have anything I could learn from. Relationships give you an opportunity to bring a person into your life where you can learn something that doesn’t come naturally to yourself. Like Katie can be at a party for a couple of hours and talk to 50 different people and have animated conversations with each of those people and I have to gear up for something like that. Then I take it in smaller doses. If I have animated conversations with three or four people, then go into the kitchen and stand around and suck tea for a while, then go back into the fray again.

Katie: One of the things that I’ve learned from Gay is how to be directly in touch with life, directly in touch with the universe myself, without going through anybody else. The value of stillness, the value of being alone. Those are enormous gifts that people can give to each other, which is one of the reasons that people get into relationships, is to open those opportunities to expand who they are and what they know. One of the great challenges of relationship is that many people mistake getting into a relationship or getting married as license to try and change or control the other person rather than an invitation to open up to learning what they can learn from being together, that they couldn’t learn in any other way.

That’s good. You complement each other. That’s a whole different definition of relationship than perhaps what most of us have witnessed, as you’ve said, when we grew up. We got the white knight on the horse image.

Katie: Yes, that you’re incomplete until somebody comes along to complete you. At the center of our understanding of responsibility is that each person is whole and each person brings their wholeness to the relationship. Each person is creating what is occurring, not one person being a half and the other person being the other half and you leaning on each other or struggling with each other. Problems can be solved very quickly if each person steps in with their wholeness and goes, “Oh, humm. I wonder how I am creating this and how I would like to be creating instead.”

Gay: This brings up a really important topic, too, that we see so many times in our seminars and relationship counseling. Typically what will happen that’s causing a problem in a relationship is a couple will come in and one of them is very logical and one of them is very emotional.

Katie: That’s very common.

Gay: Yes, very common. And if they were looking at it from a cooler perspective they would say, “Well, gosh. Here I am a logical person. The universe has done me a big favor here by sending a person into my life who’s very emotional. That way I can learn about my emotions and then I won’t be just logical. I’ll be 200 percent. I’ll be both logical and emotional.” And the other person, the highly emotional one, would say, “Wow! I’m getting a real favor here from the universe because the universe has served me up a very logical person, which is not something I’m very good at. So maybe I could learn to be an extremely clear thinker as well as a good feeler.” If they were both sane and clear-headed, that’s what they’d see. Typically what happens is they’ve both kind of dug in their heels and made their way of being the right one and are criticizing the other person’s way of being.

We find that, in a relationship, what makes things really work well is you have an openness to learning what the other person has to say and who they are. You have an openness to learning from who they are rather than trying to criticize them for who they are and re-make them in your image. A lot of times what happens is both people are convinced they’re right and that the other person’s way of being is wrong, so they don’t ever learn from each other and they end up like two dogs chasing the other one’s tail around all the time and never look each other in the eye and say, “Wow! What a genius I am for attracting a person different like you so I can learn from you.”

Katie: See the other person as whole and genuinely appreciate them. I like to work with people to have them understand that appreciation is probably one of the most magical steps that people can take and one of the quickest ones to create intimacy. Appreciation has a couple of different qualities. One is to be sensitively aware. If you went into an art museum, one of the great pleasures of the art museum is being sensitively aware of the peculiarities of a certain work of art and how that is, itself, a unique being in the world. Each person is their own becoming work of art and to see your partner with that kind of sensitive awareness really creates magic in relationships.

There’s a great deal of research now about the power of appreciation, that is, focusing primarily on the positive. Another way of saying that would be focusing on what is actually working, focusing on what is positive in that person and between you. The more you focus on that, the more you grow, which is another aspect of appreciation. Your house appreciates in value. Well, your relationship can appreciate in value as well. You can continue to grow in value as you focus on and cultivate very specific appreciation. We have these verbal Valentines and they don’t take very long. You can deliver one in 10 seconds. Something that you genuinely appreciate about a person’s qualities or skills or contributions. Like, I appreciate so much, Gay, the way that you can translate something that’s very complicated into clear words that really touch people. I admire that ability of yours.

Gay: Thank you.

That was nice! We’re smiling!

Katie: The great thing about appreciation is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re giving it or receiving it or in the room when it’s happening, everybody gets the benefit.

Everybody glows!

Katie: Yes.

Some people say we have to face our dark shadows before we can have any kind of healthy relationships. What’s your opinion on that?

Gay: My opinion is the act of labeling it “dark” and “a shadow” makes it painful and difficult. Unnecessarily painful and difficult.

My way of saying that is that we need to be open to discovering and expressing whatever is there, but if you take a generous, open-hearted attitude toward yourself and a generous, open-hearted attitude toward the other person, the material that comes up could be the very same, but you don’t have to label it as dark or shadowy. The truth is that all of us have things inside of ourselves that need to be opened up and talked about and communicated about, but they don’t need to be regarded as scary or threatening.

Here’s the thing, though, if you open a closet that you haven’t looked into or cleaned out in 30 years, if you go into it with a flashlight and just look around, with the light of awareness, what you’re seeing is one thing after another. Some of it needs to be cleared out and some of it needs to be ironed and pressed and hung up… you don’t have to really feel bad about any of it. It’s just stuff. The problem is that if you go into it with your eyes wide shut, if you go into the closet and start looking around with your eyes closed and a closed heart, what you’re going to find is you’re going to be tripping over stuff, stumbling over stuff, banging up against stuff and of course it’s going to be painful then. Or if you you look at you say, “Oh, no! Why is that there?”

Katie: “Why are you doing this to me! Why couldn’t you have taken care of this?”

Gay: Yes. So it’s the act of regarding it as dark that makes it a shadow.

Katie: I’ve learned a lot about that from different kinds of body work that I’ve experienced, where my participation with what is happening really changed it. If I was getting a massage or a Rolfing, I would hold myself and say, “This is really going to hurt,” and it did. When I got curious about it, “Humm, that’s an interesting sensation,” and I would let my awareness be right with what was happening and got interested in it, the actual physical experience changed. So the experience of what I could call pain really stopped being painful. I’ve not only experienced that personally in relationships, but seen that hundreds of times when people open up their awareness, particularly to be present, to be fully present, then whatever is there, whatever is emerging is life, more energy and more flow of connection.

We see people go through all kinds of memories and things that have happened to them, things that have happened to their parents, just about everything that you can imagine that human beings have done to each other. When people are really open and present in experiencing what’s right there, even very deep, deep experiences, they flow through those ease-fully and come out more vibrant, more deeply loving of themselves and others and more deeply available to live their lives fully. So I’m a great fan of going into and going through whatever is there. I call it facing.

In fact, one of the processes that we teach in our longer seminar we call FACT. Gay wrote about a version of it in the book The Corporate Mystic. It’s facing. It’s like going into your closet and opening it and looking around, rather than ignoring it and going past it year after year and going, “Oh, I’ll bet there’s a really horrible thing in there.” And then loving and accepting what’s there and out of loving and accepting, you can make new choices and take new actions. So what we call FACT – facing, accepting, choosing and taking action – is a wonderful tool and process that allows people to bring awareness. The big payoff is that you get to be more and more present in your life right now, while it’s happening.

Have either of you had an experience or comments about teenagers? It’s a time of discovering who you are and they seem to have difficulty with relationships.

Katie: Oh, yes. We’re grandparents now. We created a blended family when we got together, my son and Gay’s daughter and we have grandchildren. We are now two years away from having one of our grandchildren be in the teenage years. So we have some personal experience with teenagers. One of the things that I appreciate most about teenagers is they are, seems to me, going into the closet of possibilities, of possible roles and ways of being in the world and trying on one thing after another to see what fits, what fits me, not like my parents. It’s a great time of experimentation and I found that one of the useful things that I could do when our kids were teenagers was to be there for them, to hold a space of supporting them in finding what they really wanted. What do you really want and how can I support you in moving there? And standing really firmly in what we’ve learned about integrity and how much integrity allows a teenager to build a very, very solid foundation to be able to be successful in the world. Those are the things that we’ve been talking to you about, about feeling your feelings and being able to speak about things straightforwardly. Being able to take genuine, healthy responsibility and keep agreements. Those are really the cornerstones of integrity. If you put love and integrity together, you have really the tools that you need to be able to guide teenagers through the rapids of that time of life.

Beautifully put!

Katie: I can remember talking to my son about feelings just about the time that he could talk, so by the time he was 3 or 4 he could identify his feelings and could recognize my feelings. So he could say to me, “Mommy, are you sad today?” That kind of background and foundation starts when they’re very little and then you really cash in on it when they’re a teenager. If your teenagers will talk to you about what’s really going on with them, then you can really assist them.

That’s important. You mentioned that you have a new project, Illumination University. Tell us about that.

Gay: One of the things that Katie and I have been doing over the past few year is looking around the world and saying, “What does the world really need right now to make this big transition we’re all making to a more conscious world?” And one of the things that we did was become a business partner with a good friend of ours, Stephen Simon, and we created the Spiritual Cinema Circle, a club that has thousands of members now in 70 countries where people get uplifting, inspiring movies every month on DVD. It fills a need that we thought was missing in the world, because a certain segment of the population want to have movies that are insightful, maybe not as noisy, but they’re really about important subjects and touch people’s hearts as well as being just darn good stories. So that’s why we created the Spiritual Cinema Circle.

The next thing we’re working on, which is just launching, is Illumination University. This is a global, virtual learning center. It’s a center where people anywhere in the world can access the very best in learning about things that really matter – relationships, spirituality, self-esteem, conscious manifestation – the kinds of things that people are most concerned with. They can learn 24 hours a day through self-paced cyber courses or you can take live teleseminars where you get to hear the best teachers and speakers in the world. One of my colleagues calls it transformational learning in your pajamas. You can sit in your home and it’s the very same, top of the line learning that you could get from an expensive trip to Esalen or Omega or something. One of the reasons we created Illumination University is because people are liking to travel less so we thought why don’t we create a worldwide, low cost learning alternative. No matter where you are in the world, you can have access to the best transformational teachers there are.

What a great idea!

Gay: One of the most fascinating things that happened as a result of the Spiritual Cinema Circle is that we get emails from people. I got an email from a woman who says she has to travel 25 miles in Pakistan to get to a library where there’s a video player where she can watch our Spiritual Cinema movies every month. She says she always makes this trip because they’re a way for her of connecting to the whole universe of conscious people around the world. I was so touched by that, that it made everything worthwhile, that there was this person out there who wouldn’t be able to do this otherwise. We have another person who’s a member of the Spiritual Cinema Circle who lives near the Arctic Circle. There’s nobody around for 40 miles or something like that. He has a satellite connection to the Internet so he can stay in touch. I’m so excited to be able to communicate with people like that in the world. We do have this large, worldwide community of conscious people and so we want to find ways to connect them all up together.

Katie: So they can communicate with each other, network, create new projects, solve problems in their local communities, celebrate the possibilities of being human, recognize the connection of all living things on the planet and learn how to really be with each other, learning from each other, on a global scale now rather than just on a local level.

The Internet has connected us through more than just visual ways. It’s connecting us through hearts, also. It’s very beautiful.

Katie: Yes.

We want to mention that you have a fabulous website.

Katie: Thank you!

Hendricks.com. It is so refreshing and it is easy to navigate. And, when you ask a question, you can hear the answers.

Katie: We want to help people through all kinds of different senses, so that it’s an enjoyable experience and one that keeps getting refreshed. We’re always changing things on the website. There’s lots of different things there for people.

There are so many innovative ideas that you two are coming up with that we totally applaud and appreciate. It is so wonderful to talk to people who are living it, walking their talk and are proving that you can live happily ever after!

Katie: People should also know that we didn’t see this when we were growing up. I didn’t see it. I had no models. So we basically said we’re going to invent this. We know if we can do it, others can.

You are absolutely being it, for us and everybody else in the world. We appreciate you! Thank you so much!

Katie: We appreciate your time. You’re contributing in the world and connecting people.

Gay: You’re going great work. We appreciate it!

Thank you!

Source: www.phenomenews.com/feb2007/archive_set.htm

[michelle]

Perceiving our Future

Hey, folks. Thanks so much for your increasing visits here at Solutions, and HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!! I'll be putting up an Earth Day post at Sustainable Development under the Our Environment main board after I'm done here; check it out, it is a vision for our future Earth.
I've got a few things for you today on perceiving our future and using your thoughts to Co-create a golden age. First off below, a gift for you today; it's an easily viewed flash video.

May the Power of the One Soul pour through us
May the Love of the One Soul inform our lives
May we fulfill our part in the Principle of Unanimity.
- Taken from The Principle of Unanimity

Keep your thoughts positive!
Blessings to ALL,
Michelle

Virtual Therapy for the Soul - Has Anyone Told you...
Flash video gift, speakers on, please:
www.hasanyonetoldyou.com/
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Stay Focused on The Light
by Patricia Diane Cota-Robles

During this auspicious time, the Beings of Light are consistently imploring us to stay focused on the Light. Even in the face of seeming adversity, it is vital that we use our thoughts, words, feelings and actions to empower what we want to manifest in our lives and in the world. If we focus the power of our attention on our fears and the negativity that is being pushed to the surface to be healed and transmuted into Light, we will empower and sustain the very things we are trying to eliminate on this planet.

Know that with every thought, word, feeling and action you are either adding to the Light of the world or the shadows. Be cognizant of this Truth, and monitor the focus of your attention moment by moment.

In order to inspire you to keep on keeping on, I would like to share with you once again how critical mass affects our ability to change our lives.

REACHING CRITICAL MASS

There is a phenomenon that often causes Humanity to feel frustrated and powerless when it comes to changing our lives. That phenomenon is known as reaching critical mass or, in pop-culture lingo, the tipping point.

When we awaken, we begin to understand the power of our thoughts and feelings. We realize the importance of monitoring the focus of our attention and of controlling our behavior patterns. As a result of our new insight, we put forth the effort to think positively. We strive to hold our thoughts and feelings on what we want to manifest in our lives, instead of on our fears and the things we do not want in our lives. We envision Heaven on Earth, and we breathe life into our thoughtforms with positive affirmations, meditations, decrees, buoyant joy and heartfelt enthusiasm.

But often, after what seems like a valiant effort, we continue to experience many of the same old problems. This unfortunate situation causes us to become discouraged and to lose faith in our ability to change our lives. At that point, we feel like our efforts are futile. That is when we decide to give up, and we stop trying to make our lives better.

When we let go of our visions and our hope, we regress into our old negative thinking patterns. We start dwelling on our fears, problems and challenges instead of our goals, hopes and dreams. As a result of this tragic relapse, things get worse in our lives and our situations appear even more hopeless.

Once we understand the phenomenon of reaching critical mass, it will give us the courage to persevere until our goals are accomplished. We will have the courage to stay focused on the Light, even in the face of apparent failure, which is ALWAYS an illusion.

Everything is comprised of energy, vibration and consciousness. When we explore a minuscule fraction of the vast science of quantum physics, we learn that when something reaches critical mass, there is an UNSTOPPABLE SHIFT that takes place. For instance, when an electron is increasing in vibration, the moment it reaches a critical mass of the higher vibration, the entire electron ascends into the new frequency. The instant the electron reaches critical mass, nothing can prevent this unstoppable shift.

Critical mass is very complex and unique to every situation, but the Company of Heaven has said that for simplicity, we can think of reaching critical mass as 51 percent of the energy, vibration and consciousness of whatever it is we are talking about. For instance, when 51 percent of an electron is vibrating at the higher frequency, the remaining 49 percent is instantly absorbed into the new vibration.

Okay, so how does this facet of quantum physics affect our ability to take charge of our own lives?

As we strive to improve our lives, the same laws of quantum physics apply. These are Universal Laws to which we are ALL subject. When empowering a vision or thoughtform, the moment a critical mass of energy, vibration and consciousness is reached, in alignment with our vision, nothing can stop it from manifesting. The problem is that we never know just when we are going to reach that magical moment of critical mass.

There are often no outer-world signs to indicate that we are on the brink of reaching critical mass. In fact, many times it looks like we are very far away from that instant of transformation. The reason for this is that our I AM Presence is giving us the opportunity to transmute the blocks and resistance to our vision that have surfaced to be cleared out of the way. When this happens, we usually feel a little overwhelmed. We erroneously conclude that our efforts must be failing, and we just give up.

The Beings of Light have said that many times we have been a breath away from reaching a critical mass of our goal. Since we did not realize that, we got discouraged and stopped working toward our life-transforming changes. Consequently, our hopes and dreams were never fulfilled.

Let's not allow that to happen this time. This is a year of new beginnings, and we have never had the magnitude of assistance from On High that we are receiving in 2008.

So, in very practical terms, critical mass means that when we are striving to create prosperity in our lives, the moment our thoughts, words, actions and feelings are vibrating with a critical mass of prosperity consciousness instead of poverty consciousness, our life circumstances will shift, and we will experience prosperity. The moment a critical mass of our energy is aligned with self-esteem and love, we will magnetize positive relationships into our lives. The moment a critical mass of our energy is aligned with peace, harmony and balance, we will manifest those Divine Qualities tangibly in our life experiences.

The key to our success is that we must keep on keeping on even in the face of adversity. It is vital for us to understand that the Light of God is infinitely more powerful than any fragmented human miscreation we may have inadvertently created. Poverty has no power over the Abundance of God. Our Divine Potential is infinitely more powerful than disease, failure, dysfunctional relationships, hatred, greed, corruption, war or any of the other humanly-created maladies appearing on the screen of Life.

As long as we stay focused on the Light and consecrate our energy to empower only the positive experiences we want to create in our lives and in the world, we will manifest our visions and dreams faster than we can possibly imagine.

Whatever you do, do not give up!

This information is being given to us by the Beings of Light in the Realms of Illumined Truth during this critical moment on Earth to help us remember that if we do not like what is happening in our lives, we have the option to do something about it. This is true for each of us individually, and it is true for all of us collectively as a global family.

We do not have to believe in the various Universal Laws in order to exist on Earth, but since we are ALL subject to them, it is just common sense for us to try to accept them. We do not have to believe that every single thought, word, action and feeling we have will go out and affect the world and then return to us to affect our personal lives, but this is happening scientifically, to the letter, in spite of any disbelief we may have.

It is important that we put things back into perspective and accept responsibility for turning our lives around. When we deliberately focus on transforming our lives and cocreating Heaven on Earth, our efforts are empowered by the unfathomable Light of our I AM Presence. Then, if we invoke the assistance of the entire Company of Heaven to intercede on our behalf, our success is assured.

Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
New Age Study of Humanity's Purpose
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit educational organization
Website: www.eraofpeace.org/
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Perceiving your future in the Eternal Now


Molding My World

My world is but a crystal ball
reflecting patterns of my thought.
It's up to me to make the call
to manifest my dreams or not.

When I am feeling full of joy,
with gratitude within my soul,
my thoughts and senses will reflect
the visions that create my goal.

But if I play the victim role
and send my doubts into the world,
reflected back within my soul,
my fears and dreads will be unfurled.

So when I plant the seeds of peace
and love, of joy and harmony,
my crystal globe will then respond
and send these treasures back to me.


How broad is your focus? Are your dreams and desires centered on your future in this lifetime?

What if today were your last day as the entity you call yourself in this life? Would those dreams be of any importance? What of the dreams you had in your last lifetime? Or the one before, or those centuries back? Are they of any importance to you today? Why are you limiting your desires to so fleeting a time? Why not focus on the ETERNAL NOW. Find the beauty in the now. Expect beauty in eternity. Dream your dreams, but outpicture your future as continuous into infinity. Would those dreams change?

Now is the time to create your future in the next world, for it will be in line with your consciousness. How do you see yourself in that new world? What traits and characteristics to you want to take with you? What traits would you like to leave behind? Which traits are you developing as you live your life now? Your world after this life, as with your world in this time, will be in synchrony with your consciousness.

By focusing on raising your consciousness, you can increase the joy, health, and abundance both in your now world and in your world to come.

So how does one raise one's consciousness? First, look at your priorities. Are they all based on what you desire now in your present situation? If so, it is time to broaden them. Your future is infinite. You need to build a foundation that will serve you into infinity. Will the things you are striving for be of value to you a hundred years from now? If you can say yes, then you are on your way to a higher consciousness.

Now what are the building blocks for this rise in consciousness? Let us consider thoughts, words, and actions.

Do your thoughts and words come from the mind or from the heart? If they come from the heart, they are from a basis of love. Love is your essence, and it abides in the heart. It is the hu part of the word human. Hu is an ancient word for God. You are a godman, or an expression of God. (Man in this reference, is neither masculine nor feminine but refers to mankind.) So when you are expressing God's love and light, you are in a high state of consciousness. And when you love and support your brothers and sisters sharing this Earth, you are not only nurturing them but you are preparing yourself to advance to a world based on love, a bountiful world filled with joy in which you are free to explore your new environment and the vast universe, while always before you is the chance to enter higher and higher realms.

You cannot even imagine the wonders that await you, for there is nothing in this Earth experience to compare with what lies before you, the future that awaits you.

There will be no judgment declaring that you have or haven't deserved the right to enter a higher realm. It will simply be a matter of whether the frequency you are vibrating at is in sync with the vibration of the realm you are approaching. If it is not, you would be unable to tolerate the frequency. Your vibratory frequency will depend upon your choices and your perception of who you are. If you recognize your essence and choose to live in a way that expresses God/Love, your consciousness and your vibrations will rise. You will then have a clearer picture of what you want to accomplish and where to set your goals.

Now is the time when mankind has a unique opportunity to advance. Life revolves in cycles, and you are now in the threshold of a new age, the Age of Aquarius. Not only Earth and the humanity populating her, but your entire universe are going through a period of change. The opportunity available in this circumstance is unique to those incarnated at this time, as you have a greater support of the heavens, due to planetary alignment, and the power to mold the field of possibilities that this new age presents to mankind at this point in Earth's history.

Each of you has the power to create, and by the submission of your will to God's will, the future for all will have a beautiful unfolding. For God's will is always for your highest good. Therefore, it is time to recognize the power that you have as an expression of the God Force. Make the choice to form the world of your future the way the Creator intended it to be. Realize that it was you who chose to see yourselves as separate from the Prime Creator who has never seen itself as separate from you, for it dwells within every living thing. The gift of free will has, in a sense, backfired for you, as you chose to see yourself as something other than an individual expression of the God Force. You backed away from using its power within you and instead followed the guidance of the ego you created in its stead.

Now is the time to review all the choices you have made. Which ones brought you happiness? Which ones do you regret? Release the ones that brought you or others grief and let them go. They were simply learning experiences for you and for them. They do not belong in your now. You always have the opportunity to choose again. Align yourself with the wisdom of your heart and change your world.

Jean Warner, as given by The Light
mary.jean.77@ hotmail.com
From: www.eboards4all.com/360514/messages/21078.html

Thoughts to Ponder
www.planetaryheart.com/
www.jeanwarner.com/

Jean's greatest joy is in writing, singing, intermingling with, and learning from, many inspiring lightworkers.

Jean Warner
mary.jean.77@ hotmail.com
1177 Agnes Lane
Gilbert AZ 85296

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Here's another, most recent message from Patricia Diane Cota-Robles. She ends her essay with a speech, Spirit and Stardust, given by U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich, who, as many of you know, I whole heartedly support. After you read his speech, you will understand why the PTBs worked so hard at censoring his message early on in the presidential primaries....He is a man of THE LIGHT.....He'll be back, of this I have no doubt, for the Light is unstoppable!

A Critical Time for the USA and Mother Earth
by Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
April 2008

This is an incredibly powerful time. Whenever there are so many opportunities for Humanity to pause for a moment and focus on God, and the various Spiritual Activities of Light taking place all over the world, the collective Cup of Humanity's Consciousness creates a tremendous portal through which the Light of God will flow to assist us all in our process of transformation.

From every Being of Light in the Realms of Truth, Humanity is being guided to focus the power of our attention on the vision of the New Earth in all her resplendent glory. In spite of the saber rattling and war drums we are being bombarded with by the media, every credible Lightworker is gently turning his or her attention to the mission of cocreating Heaven On Mother Earth…HOME. This is our purpose and reason for being, and it is why we volunteered to be on Earth during this Cosmic Moment.

We have been training for aeons of time for this mission. Within our hearts, we have all of the wisdom, strength, skill, courage and trust we need to succeed God Victoriously. Our responsibility now is to utilize our training. We must monitor our thoughts, words, feelings and actions daily and hourly to be sure we are empowering only the patterns of Heaven on Earth instead of the fragmented, fear­based thoughtforms that are being pushed to the surface all over the planet to be healed and transmuted back into Light.

Every world religion has taught us, in one way or another, that we are responsible for the circumstances occurring in our lives. What we send out through our thoughts, words, actions and feelings returns to us. This is true whether we are focusing our attention on hate or love, poverty or abundance, disease or health, war or peace.

There is a grassroots awakening taking place, and literally millions of people all over the world are genuinely striving to create lives of joy, peace, abundance, health and comfort for themselves and their loved ones. The vast majority of the six and one-half billion people evolving on Earth want the same thing. They want to know that their families are safe and that they can provide food, shelter, security, health care, education and comfort for their loved ones.

The majority of people sincerely care about other people, and they want the best for Humanity and all Life evolving on Earth. Most people truly desire to create a lifestyle that not only supports their basic needs but honors the Earth as well. The people who are willing to deprive others of their livelihood, security, prosperity, health, peace and safety for their own selfish desires are a small minority. Those who are willing to kill people and destroy the Earth for the sake of power and money are also a mere fraction of Humanity.

It will help immensely if we all invoke the Flame of Transfiguring Divine Love pulsating in every person's heart, and ask the Divine Intelligence within that Sacred Flame to reveal the distortion and corruption in their thinking process that allows them to justify harming another part of Life for their own selfish gains. If, moment to moment, we focus the power of our attention on the New Earth and all that means to us in the way of love, peace, harmony, joy, happiness, abundance, health, beauty, limitless physical perfection, fulfillment, spiritual growth, enlightenment, wonder and awe, we will victoriously cocreate . . .

Heaven On Mother Earth-HOME.

On June 9, 2002, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, from Ohio, gave a speech at the Praxis Peace Institute Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. His amazing message is even more important today. In the face of the challenges facing the United States of America and this precious planet, we should all take this message into the deepest recesses of our hearts and respond according to our Inner Guidance. Please, open your heart and allow the words of this profound speech to resonate in the deepest recesses of your Being.

Spirit and Stardust

by U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich

As one studies the images of the Eagle Nebula, brought back by the Hubble Telescope from that place in deep space where stars are born, one can imagine the interplay of Cosmic Forces across space and time, of matter and Spirit dancing to the music of the spheres atop an infinite sea of numbers.

Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the Universe. Matter transcends to return to Spirit. The interchangeability of matter and Spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our Universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and Spirit unite, and we begin: One with the Universe-whole and holy from One source, endless creative energy bursting forth, kinetic, elemental-we, the earth, air, water and fire, source of nearly fifteen billion years of Cosmic spiraling.

We begin as a perfect union of matter and Spirit. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from sky and Earth. In our outstretched hands, we can feel the energy of the Universe. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from water, which nourishes and sanctifies life. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from the primal fire, the pulsating Heart of Creation. We experience the wonder of life, multidimensional and transcendent. We extend our hands upwards, and we are showered with abundance. We ask and we receive. A Universe of plenty flows to us, through us. It is in us. We become filled with endless possibilities.

We need to remember where we came from, to know that we are One, to understand that we are of an undivided whole: race, color, nationality, creed, gender are beams of Light refracted through one great prism. We begin as perfect and journey through life to become more perfect in the singularity of 'I' and in the multiplicity of 'we,' a more perfect union of matter and Spirit. This is human striving. This is where, in Shelley's words, '. . . hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates.' This is what Browning spoke of, our 'reach exceeding our grasp.' This is a search for Heaven within, a quest for our eternal Home.

In our souls' Magnificent, we become conscious of the Cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace; we hear the music of cooperation; we hear music of love. We hear harmony, a celestial symphony in our souls' forgetting; we become unconscious of our Cosmic Birthright, plighted with disharmony, disunity, torn asunder from the stars in a disaster well described by Matthew Arnold in Dover Beach: '. . . the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor Light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain. And we are here, as on a darkling plane, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight where ignorant armies clash by night.'

Today Dover Beach is upon the shores of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Our leaders think the unthinkable and speak of the unspeakable inevitability of nuclear war, of a nuclear attack on New York City, of terrorist attacks throughout our nation, of war against Iraq using nuclear weapons, of biological and chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations, of catastrophic global climate change, of war in outer space.

When death, not life, becomes inevitable, we are presented with an opportunity for great clarity, for a great awakening, to rescue the human spirit from the arms of Morpheus through love, through compassion and through integrating spiritual vision and active citizenship to restore peace to our world. The moment that one world is about to end, a New World is about to begin. We need to remember where we came from because the path HOME is also the way to the future.

In Ohio, the city I represent in the United States Congress, there is a memorial to Peace, named by its sculptor, Marshall A. Fredericks, the 'Fountain of Eternal Life.' A figure rises from the flames, his gaze fixed to the stars, his hands positioned sextant-like as if measuring the distance. Though flames of war from the millions of hearts and the dozens of places wherein it rages may lick at our consciousness, our gaze must be fixed upward to invoke universal principles of unity, of cooperation, of compassion, to infuse our world with peace, to ask for the active Presence of Peace, to expand our capacity to receive it and to express it in our everyday life. We must do this fearlessly and courageously and not breathe in the poison gas of terror. As we receive, so shall we give.

As citizen-diplomats of the world, we send Peace as conscious expression wherever, whenever and to whomever it is needed: to the Middle East, to the Israelis and the Palestinians, to the Pakistanis and the Indians, to Americans and to al-Qaida and to the people of lraq and to all those locked in deadly combat. And we fly to be with the bereft, with those on the brink, to listen compassionately, setting aside judgment and malice to become peacemakers, to intervene, to mediate, to bring ourselves back from the abyss, to bind up the world's wounds.

As we aspire to universal brotherhood and sisterhood, we hearken to the cry from the heart of the world and respond affirmatively to address through thought, word and deed conditions which give rise to conflict: economic exploitation, empire building, political oppression, religious intolerance, poverty, disease, famine, homelessness, struggles over control of water, land, minerals and oil.

We realize that what affects anyone anywhere affects everyone everywhere.

As we help others to heal, we heal ourselves. Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in non-governmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines. New transnational, web-based e-mail and telecommunications systems transcend governments and carry within them the power of qualitative transformation of social and political structures and a new sense of creative intelligence. If governments and their leaders, bound by hierarchy and patriarchy, wedded to military might for legitimacy, fail to grasp the implications of an emerging world consciousness for cooperation, for peace and for sustainability, they may become irrelevant.

As citizen-activists merge the world over, they can become an irresistible force to create Peace and protect the planet. From here will come a new movement to abolish nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction. From here will come the demand for sustainable communities, for new systems of energy, transportation and commerce. From here comes the future rushing in on us.

How does one acquire the capacity for active citizenship? The opportunities exist everyday. In Cleveland, citizens have developed the ability to intercede when schools are scheduled to be closed and have kept the schools open. Citizens can rally to keep hospitals open, to save industries which provide jobs, to protect neighborhood libraries from curtailment of service, to improve community policing, to meet racial, ethnic and religious intolerance openly and directly.

Active citizenship begins with an envisioning of the desired outcome and a conscious application of spiritual principles. I know. I have worked with the people in my own community. I have seen the dynamic of faith in self, faith in one's ability to change things, faith in one's ability to prevail against the odds through an appeal to the Spirit of the world for help, through an appeal to the Spirit of community for participation, through an appeal to the Spirit of cooperation which multiplies energy. I have seen citizens challenge conditions without condemning anyone while invoking principles of non­opposition and inclusion of those who disagree.

I have seen groups of people overcome incredible odds, as they become aware they are participating in a cause beyond self and sense the movement of the inexorable, which comes from unity. When you feel this principle at work, when you see spiritual principles form the basis of active citizenship, you are reminded once again of the merging of Stardust and Spirit. There is creativity. There is magic. There is alchemy.

Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make nonviolence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development, for economic and political justice and for violence control. Its work in violence control will be to support disarmament treaties, peaceful coexistence and peaceful consensus building. Its focus on economic and political justice will examine and enhance resource distribution, human and economic rights and strengthen democratic values.

Domestically, the Department of Peace would address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child abuse, gangs, police/community relations conflicts and work with individuals and groups to achieve changes in attitudes that examine the mythologies of cherished world views such as 'violence is inevitable' or 'war is inevitable.' Thus it will help with the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus.

The Department of Peace will also address human development and the unique concerns of women and children. It will envision and seek to implement plans for Peace education, not simply as a course of study but as a template for all pursuits of knowledge within formal educational settings.

Violence is NOT inevitable. War is NOT inevitable. Nonviolence and peace ARE inevitable. We can make of this world a gift of Peace, which will confirm the presence of universal Spirit in our lives. We can send into the future the gift, which will protect our children from fear, from harm, from destruction.

Carved inside the pediment, which sits atop the marble columns, is a sentinel at the entrance to the United States House of Representatives. Standing resolutely inside this 'Apotheosis of Democracy' is a woman, a shield by her left side, with her outstretched right arm protecting a child happily sitting at her feet. This child holds the Lamp of Knowledge under the protection of this patroness.

This wondrous sculpture by Paul Wayland Bartlett is titled 'Peace Protecting Genius.' Not with nuclear arms, but with a loving maternal arm is the knowing child genius shielded from harm. This is the promise of hope over fear. This is the promise of love, which overcomes all. This is the promise of faith, which overcomes doubt. This is the promise of Light, which overcomes darkness. This is the promise of Peace, which overcomes war.[/i][/b]

For more information on how you can participate in the Department of Peace, you may E-mail Representative Kucinich or the Department of Peace.

www.afdop.org/ Americans for Department of Peace

kucinich.house.gov/ Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
New Age Study of Humanity's Purpose
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit educational organization

Website: www.eraofpeace.org

FAX: [phone];
Phone: [phone]

New Age Study of Humanity's Purpose
PO Box 41883,
Tucson, Arizona 85717

This article is copyrighted, but you have my permission to share it through any medium as long as the proper credit line is included.

©2008 Patricia Diane Cota-Robles

The information in this monthly sharing is being given to Humanity by the Beings of Light in the Realms of Illumined Truth. The Divine Intent of this information is to encourage, empower, uplift and inspire all of us by allowing us to see the bigger picture during these wondrous but often challenging times.

Source: www.eraofpeace.org/latest-news.php

Note: Here's the link to today's Earth Day post:

Re: Sustainable Development
« Reply #31 Today at 2:06pm »
Happy Earth Day!!!!!!!
Go to: tinyurl.com/6rjb3u

[michelle]

Some Truth About Nonviolent Action
And the Power you Hold

Strategic nonviolence has the potential to empower citizens, thwart coups, overthrow dictators and defend nations. This post explores the potential of civilian-based defense—the technique of defending a nation's social institutions using strategic nonviolent action. It is based on the book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, by Gene Sharp.

Historians, who are funded and published by the power elite, have steered citizens away from the fact that Nonviolent Action works. People, stop giving your power away to those who would enslave you!
Michelle

"Power is belief. At some point in our evolution we gave up social power—the power of community—and allowed it to be seized by one person or group. This apparent usurpation is all the more startling when we realize that power is based on simple belief. By allowing ourselves to be convinced that someone else is stronger, more knowledgeable, more moral, closer to God, or just more powerful (whatever that means) than we are, we have in effect participated in our own enslavement."
"When we believe in something, it becomes truth. This is because our beliefs determine the choices we make in our lives, and our actions help shape the world we live in."
THE POWER OF BELIEF: www.fragmentsweb.org/fourtx/powbeltx.html


"The God in me sees the God in you. Think of the problems that would be solved overnight if we truly saw ourselves and each other this way. For it is not enough to only look on your brother as part of the God spark but also do not forget you also are that divine spark of infinite intelligence that creates all things. Don't run from the magnificence of who you truly are and what you can do. Don't give your power away to a government, boss, religion or even a loved one. Each one of you is God. FEEL that with your heart for you cannot comprehend the reality of it with your mind. The mind is an ego trap. You must use your feelings to experience joy, peace, love, these are not mental concepts. They are feelings! How many of you don't even recognize them when you feel them? Stretch those muscles, your heart is the biggest muscle in the body for a reason. Use IT! Look into the eyes of your brother, lover, sister, children and see God there and then look in the mirror and see him there too. Namaste...”
-- Pierre Theilard de Chardin

POWER AND STRUGGLE

This is a review of The Politics of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp. In part one, Power and Struggle, Sharp discusses the nature of political power, why people obey rulers, the limitations of using violence, and how change can be brought about through the use of strategic nonviolence. He also offers reasons why historians have largely ignored the technique of nonviolent struggle.

"Without at least the passive support of the general population and his/her agents, the most powerful dictator in the world becomes just another crackpot with dreams of world domination."

When it comes to strategic nonviolence, Gene Sharp is the man. No one has thought more, spoken more, and written more about the subject. His magnum opus is The Politics of Nonviolent Action, published in 1973. In over 800 pages of heavily footnoted text, Sharp analyzes the technique of nonviolence more methodically and in greater depth than anyone ever has.

All hierarchical systems require the cooperation of people at every level—from the lowliest workers to the highest bureaucrats. When enough people withdraw their support for a long enough time, the power of the ruler disintegrates. The Politics of Nonviolent Action is essentially about how this can be most effectively accomplished. Sharp stresses that strategic nonviolence is not passive, nor is it a way of avoiding conflict. He sees conflict as necessary and inevitable. Strategic nonviolence is a method of actively engaging in resistance through carefully planned campaigns of disobedience and disruption.

In this book Sharp makes no attempt to explore the possibilities of using nonviolence for social change or national defense. Rather, he analyzes nonviolence solely as a technique—the theory behind it, its methods, its dynamics. Politics is broken down into three volumes the first of which, Power and Struggle, I will review here.

THE NATURE OF POWER
Power and Struggle is the smallest of the three volumes (only a hundred pages) but is in some ways the most important because it focuses on the nature of power. The view of power described here is crucial to understanding why nonviolent strategies can be so effective.

Sharp puts forth two ways of looking at the nature of political power. One is the monolithic model, where people are dependent on their ruler for support. This model assumes the government is "...a 'given,' a strong, independent, durable (if not indestructible), self-reinforcing, and self-perpetuating force." From this point of view, the only means of opposing the power structure is with overwhelmingly destructive force. This model provides the justification for war and violent revolution. The monolithic theory of power is only true when both the rulers and the ruled believe it is. For obvious reasons, this is a conception of power that those with power like to perpetuate.

A more realistic view of political power recognizes that rulers derive their power from those over whom they rule. The cooperation of those around a ruler is absolutely essential if (s)he is to have any power at all. Without at least the passive support of the general population and his/her agents (cabinet members, aids, legislative bodies, police, military officers, etc.) the most powerful dictator in the world becomes just another crackpot with dreams of world domination. The technique of strategic nonviolence is based on this insight.

WHY PEOPLE OBEY
Clearly the question of why people obey is central to understanding the dynamics of political power. Sharp lists seven reasons:

1. Habit: In my opinion habit is the main reason people do not question the actions their "superiors" expect of them. Habitual obedience is embedded in all cultures. After all, isn't that what culture is—habitual behavior?
2. Fear of sanctions: It is the fear of sanctions, rather than the sanctions themselves, that is most effective in enforcing obedience.
3. Moral obligation: This "inner constraining power" is the product of cultural programming and deliberate indoctrination by the state, church and media.
4. Self interest: The potential for financial gain and enhanced prestige can entice people to obey.
5. Psychological identification with the ruler: People may feel an emotional tie with the leader or the system, experiencing its victories and defeats as their own. The most common manifestations of this are patriotism and nationalism.
6. Zones of indifference: People often obey commands without consciously questioning their legitimacy.
7. Absence of self-confidence: Some people prefer to hand control of their lives over to the ruling class. They may feel inadequate to make their own decisions.

When analyzing human obedience the psychological factor is decisive. Domination and submission are psychological states of mind. Those who argue against the use of nonviolent tactics like demonstrations or petitions, claiming that they are merely symbolic gestures, forget that power is symbolic as well. Withdrawing support, even symbolically, calls into question the props and illusions that hold Power up. Yet people are often ignorant of the power they hold, and governments conspire to maintain the illusion of their monolithic power, making their subjects feel helpless.

VIOLENT SANCTIONS
It may seem counter-intuitive that nonviolent resistance can be effective against rulers who have massive amounts of force at their disposal. But that is precisely the beauty of nonviolence. Using violence against "violence experts" is the quickest way to have your organization or movement crushed. That is why governments frequently infiltrate opposition groups with agents provocateurs—to sidetrack the movement into violent channels that the violence professionals (police, military, security agencies, etc.) can deal with.

After World War II military historian Basil Liddell Hart interviewed German generals about their reactions to the various forms of resistance they encountered during the war. In his essay "Lessons from Resistance Movements" he writes about the difficulties Nazi generals had in dealing with nonviolence:

"Their evidence also showed the effectiveness of non-violent resistance....Even clearer, was their inability to cope with it. They were experts in violence, and had been trained to deal with opponents who used that method. But other forms of resistance baffle them—and all the more as the methods were subtle and concealed. It was a relief to them when nonviolent forms were mixed with guerrilla action, thus making it easier to combine drastic and suppressive action against both at the same time."

When rulers choose to use their superior force (what Sharp calls "sanctions") against nonviolent actionists, they sometimes find that it does not bring about the desired results. First, all sanctions must be carried out by the ruler's agents (police or military personnel) who may or may not obey (or may drag their feet and only make a show of obeying). A ruler's agents can become unreliable for a number of reasons. They may become reluctant when ordered to commit especially brutal acts against people who are clearly presenting no physical threat. Agents may also feel their leader is losing his/her mantle of authority, or may begin to sympathize with the opposition's cause.

Rulers have another potential problem when using violent sanctions against nonviolent actionists. Too much brutality may result in what Sharp calls "political jiu-jitsu" where the opposition group is able to increase their unity and support while politically throwing the ruler off balance and weakening his/her regime. This can happen when martyrs are created, or when third parties (either foreign countries or internal groups) who were previously neutral are appalled by the brutal treatment of nonviolent actionists and begin to sympathize with their cause.

Furthermore, sanctions do not always achieve their intended effect because it is impossible to physically force a person to obey. To take an extreme example, someone can put a gun to my head and order me to dig a ditch. But the choice to dig or not is still mine. If he pulls the trigger the ditch will certainly not get dug. As Sharp puts it: "It is not the sanctions themselves which produce obedience, but the fear of them." For those who think that it really comes down to the same thing it should be pointed out that history is full of examples where masses of people willfully refused to comply with their ruler's wishes, despite the very real risk of injury or death.

VICTORY
Sharp cites three ways that nonviolent actionists can prevail. The first is conversion. Gandhians and many religious groups insist that converting the opponent to their point of view—winning their hearts and minds—is the only true victory. Accommodation, on the other hand, occurs when the opponent doesn't agree with the resisters, but decides it is too costly to continue the fight. Accommodation is probably the most common path to victory. The third way that success can be achieved is through what Sharp calls nonviolent coercion. This occurs when the opposition is forced to make concessions against its will because its power base has been dissolved. Thus, even when a nonviolent campaign is unable to change its adversary's way of thinking, it can still wield power and influence the course of events.

THE INVISIBLE HISTORY
Until recently, nonviolent action has not been recognized as a legitimate method of struggle. Sharp lists a number of reasons for this oversight:

1. Rarely have nonviolent actionists been romanticized as heroes. Rather, warriors and terrorists and their dramatic acts of heroism are mythologized for future generations.
2. Historians have accepted the dominant culture's view that violence is the only legitimate form of combat.
3. Historians conspire with the ruling class to keep the people ignorant of their own power.
4. Western civilization is "biased toward violence."
It requires a "new way of viewing the world." It is a paradigm whose time has not yet come.
5. Nonviolence has never been seen as a coherent conceptual system. Consequently, historical examples of nonviolent action are viewed as isolated events rather than as different aspects of the same technique of struggle.
6. Nonviolence is unfairly compared to violence. Nonviolence is often used when violence has no chance of success. When nonviolence fails, the method is condemned. But when violence fails, strategy or tactics are blamed—not violence as a method. Nonviolence successes are written off as flukes. Partial successes are seen as total failures.

THE FUTURE
Since The Politics of Nonviolent Action was published, public awareness of nonviolence as a legitimate and effective form of struggle has blossomed. The technique has been used successfully in numerous high visibility conflicts, most notably the ousting of Marcos in the Philippines (1986) and the prevention of a military coup in Russia (1991). Although history is filled with such examples, they seem to be occurring with increasing frequency in the late twentieth century. Perhaps it is an indication that we are finally realizing that using violent methods against those in power—who are violence specialists—is not strategically smart. Perhaps there are more effective ways to wage conflict.

THE OTHER TWO VOLUMES
Part Two: The Methods of Nonviolent Action

Here Sharp examines 198 different kinds of nonviolent actions, giving historical examples of each. He breaks them down into three categories:

1. Protest and persuasion

2. Social, economic and political noncooperation

3. Nonviolent intervention


Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action

This is an exploration of nonviolent strategy and tactics that can be used against violent, repressive opponents. Sharp explains how the relative power relationships of all parties should be carefully analyzed so the resisters can develop a strategy that uses their strengths to attack their opponent's weaknesses. The problem of dealing with brutal repression is explored, along with the phenomenon of "political jiu-jitsu."

Also included in this volume is a discussion of how the act of nonviolent struggle itself can be beneficial to groups and their society. The feeling of empowerment that evolves within resisting groups during a campaign can bring about increased self-esteem and personal development, whereas the use of violence tends to create callousness and de-humanization. The use of nonviolence also disperses power throughout a society, in contrast to violent struggles that tend to centralize power.

1997

Source:
www.fragmentsweb.org/TXT2/p_srevtx.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now, a parable for you:

THE KING WHO RULED NOTHING

The King Who Ruled Nothing is a whimsical parable about a cruel king who ended up a lonely pauper when his subjects stopped obeying his commands. It was published in the October 2005 issue of Global Bits, a newsletter from New Zealand (see the link at the bottom of this page).

"The men think?" screamed the King. "What do I care what the men think? The men do not rule this kingdom—I do. Hang the men who will not fight."


Once upon a time there lived a cruel King who ruled with an iron fist. He was the most powerful King in the world, with a powerful army and an abundance of gold. One day the General of his army came to him with some rather bad news.

"Your Lordship," said the General, "my men are tired of war. They are tired of bad food and mud and blood and they wish to come home. We have already conquered half the world and the royal treasury is bursting with gold. The men think enough is enough."

"The men think?" screamed the King. "What do I care what the men think? The men do not rule this kingdom—I do. Hang the men who will not fight."

"I have, your Highness. I've executed hundreds. But they still will not fight anymore. Now the executioners are refusing to hang any more soldiers."

"Then hang the hangmen," ordered the King.

"Me personally? I'm afraid I couldn't do that. They are all close personal friends."

"Then I'll have you hung. Guards! Seize him!"

But try as he might, the King could not find anyone willing to arrest the General.

"I'll kill you myself then," screamed the furious King.

Just then a palace guard came in and announced that hundreds of women and children were gathering outside the palace gates and demanding that their men be allowed to come home from the wars.

"Tell them to go home," said the King.

"We have," said the guard. "But they won't leave."

"Have them hung then."

"We don't have enough rope."

"Arrest them."

"We don't have enough dungeon space."

"Then let them stay there until hell freezes over," shrieked the King.

"How will we get supplies into the palace, your Highness?" asked the guard.

"We have plenty of supplies for now. All this disobedience has made me hungry. Where's my lunch?"

"The cook has joined the people outside," said the guard.

"Well I still have my gold," said the King. "Have the palace treasurer give a gold coin to everyone who will obey me."

"The palace treasurer has joined the people outside as well," said the guard. "And the rest of the staff is packing their bags."

So the hapless King was forced to cook his own meals, wash his own clothes, dress himself and make his own bed. As time went by, the people surrounding the palace began to go home and resume their lives, and the soldiers straggled home from the wars. The King was forced to take all his gold and move into a small cottage that didn't require so much upkeep.

But still no one would obey him—not the neighborhood children when he told them to get out of his garden, not even his own dog. Day after day, the King would sit and count his gold that no one would accept. Sometimes one of his old subjects would come by and they would enjoy a game of chess, but unlike the old days, they wouldn't let the King win.

Meanwhile, the people in the Kingdom prospered in peace and lived happily ever after.

1990

Source:
www.fragmentsweb.org/stuff/theking.html

[michelle]

Beyonda News
Interdependence Day:
The Evolution Has Begun

I didn't read much of my mail over the holiday weekend; so, sorry I didn't post this sooner. Not to worry, it's still relevant. Consider this my good news post of the day, because the rest, which I have yet to post, is bleak...bleak news for a dying world we are to leave behind

Now, it's no secret, to any who read my posts, that I talk much about the shift in consciousness humanity is currently going through. I'll have much more to say on that in an upcoming Wake Up World post, when I gather my thoughts in a day or two. Until then, relax a bit and let the Swami amuse you, for in his jest, he talks about the same.

The following is Swami's July 4th message. I've posted Steve Bhaerman, as the Swami, and his yearly State of the Universe comical, yet deadly serious, essays in the past, where the Swami's gift of the play on words is used to describe our current state of affairs.

If you are still a fence sitter on whether or not this shift stuff is all real or not consider the following quotes from two well know scientists and a current hot author of metaphysical happenings or, as the Swami says,
"Shift Happens!" ......................................
;D Michelle

"Matter is Energy. Energy is Light. We are all Light Beings."
- Albert Einstein

"Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life..."
- Eckhart Tolle

"At present, people create barriers between each other by their fragmentary thought. Each one operates separately. When these barriers have dissolved, then there arises one mind, where they are all one unit, but each person also retains his or her own individual awareness. That one mind will still exist even when they separate, and when they come together, it will be as if they hadn't separated. It's actually a single intelligence that works with people who are moving in relationship with one another... If you had a number of people who really pulled together and worked together in this way, it would be remarkable. They would stand out so much that everyone would know they were different."
- Quantum physicist and dialogue innovator David Bohm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyonda News
Interdependence Day:
The Evolution Has Begun

“It’s time to celebrate our independence, and recognize our interdependence.”

Remember that movie from a few years ago, Independence Day, that portrayed a horrific disasteroid scenario from the future? Well, it may certainly seem that such a future is in the offing, particularly with all the offing that’s being done right now. But that’s only if we follow the current script.

There’s a new movie in production called Interdependence Day where we humans write an entirely different story. In this one, when some celestial being asks, “How did the human race turn out?” we can proudly declare, “We won!”

Independence began with great promise. Eleven score and twelve years ago, America’s revolutionary founders cut us loose from the Old World model where the rule of gold overruled the Golden Rule, where mining took precedence (“that’s mine, that’s mine, that’s mine”), and the lowest common dominator was king. But the revolution was barely over before the devolution had begun, and 230 years later those same creeps we declared independence from have crept back into power.

We have a new King George who has overruled the rule of law, and this abuse is enabled by an unholy alliance of wholly-owned legislators who do the bidding of the highest bidder. The original multinational corporation, The British East India Company, has now spawned hundreds of imitators, many of whom are predators that live off shore and only come on shore to feed.

These nonliving entities have been granted unlimited life and all the rights of human beings without the burden of human “weaknesses” like conscience and compassion. All too often they use their energy -- what the Chinese call “ch’i” -- to gain unfair advantage. This practice is called “ch’i ting.” No wonder the body politic is rife with sociopathogens!

Meanwhile, fear-gnomes -- little gnomes of gnawing fear -- have been interjected into the mainstream, making us more susceptible to Mad Cowboy Disease, not to mention Truth Decay and Deficit Inattention Disorder. As biologists tell us, when we are put into a state of fear, the blood flows from our forebrain to our hind brain, making us less intelligent and more likely to behave like butt-heads.

So what’s the good news? The good news this July 4th is that we don’t need a revolution in this country. We’ve already had one. What is needed now is the American Evolution, where we the people realize we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for and restore the all-important missing ingredient in government of, by and for the people -- the people.

If fear has hijacked the American dream, we the people must higher-jack it. We must overgrow the fear-based state of emergency, and declare a love-based state of Emerge ‘n See instead. We must emerge from our fearful state of separation and see we are all in this together.

Biology is now confirming what our spiritual teachers have been trying to get through our thick skulls for millennia: Life is not about survival of the fittest, but the thrival of the fittingest. Each of us is a remarkable community of 50 trillion cells, all working together in harmony. In the society beneath our skin, there is universal health care and full employment, truly no cell left behind. Unlike most human nations, the “nations” of cells known as organs cooperate for the benefit of the entire organism. You rarely if ever read about the liver invading the pancreas and laying claim to the Islets of Langerhans.

In this shrinking world that could use a good shrink, we cannot shrink from this profound realization: Human life will not survive without a healthy environment. No matter how fit we might be as individuals, without a planet we are nowhere. If you thought The Man Without a Country was a sad story, that’s nothing compared to The Person Without a Planet.

And so on this Fourth of July, 2008 we hereby declare our independence and our interdependence.

We declare our independence from the limiting belief system that when push comes to shove, whoever does the most pushing and shoving wins.

We declare our independence from the dysfunctional, politically-immature “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy we’ve adopted regarding our government -- we promise not to ask them what they are doing, they promise not to tell us.

We declare our independence from the corporate media, who have disabled the body politic with weapons of mass-distraction. Yes, when it comes to intelligently informing the American public, they stop at nothing. We need nothing less than the truth.

We declare our independence from reality TV and join the cast of a far bigger, and far more amazing show -- reality! Extreme Planetary Makeover ... a world win campaign where the whole world can win.

We declare our independence from blame and vengeance. The laws of karma work well enough, or as Groucho Marx once said, “Time wounds all heels.” We would do better to withdraw our attention from wounding heels, and focus on healing wounds instead.

We declare our independence from the obsolete positions of left and right, and we come front and center to face the music and dance together. We see there are no sides, only angles ... and when seen from the right angle, we are all on the same side.

We declare our independence from the notion that we are better than or less than any other human being. Consider this: Each of us is totally unique, just like everyone else.

And finally, as truly independent, one-of-a-kind entities we declare our interdependence as well.

We declare that each of us is an independent, interdependent cell in the body of humanity, here to regrow the Garden and have a heaven of a time doing it.

As interdependent independent beings, we declare a transparent conspiracy to end the apparent trance that has given us the neocon nightmare we have today. That’s right, a conspiracy to end cons’ piracy. To conspire means to “breathe together,” so anyone who breathes can join our conspiracy to create a world where everyone can breathe easier.

At a time when most of those in power prefer to leave Orwell enough alone, we declare interdependence because the only way to overgrow Big Brother is through bigger brotherhood -- and sisterhood.

As independently interdependent citizens, we hereby declare an American Evolution that will officially begin with the election in November and inauguration in January. For indeed, when these big shots are fired, it will truly be heard -- and cheered -- around the world.

Swami Beyondananda[/color] [/b]

Source: www.wakeuplaughing.com

[michelle]

Yeah, I'm in on this one!....Michelle

A Presidential Solutions Council

The Citizens Solutions Council proposes that the next President of the United States establish a Presidential Solutions Council to identify, connect and communicate what is working in America. This initiative could be a signature domestic program for the next administration.

Everywhere we see systems breakdown, yet it is also true that in every field and function there are successes, innovations and projects that work. But these solutions are not widely known or connected. The Presidential Solutions Council will be a clearinghouse of such projects that are already working in fields such as education, health, environment, energy, and economics. This Council offers a participatory role for citizens for identifying solutions, thereby increasing voter engagement and cultivating greater connection between citizens’ creativity and the governing process.

A key benefit of a Presidential Solutions Council is its broad appeal and support among Democrats, Independents and Republicans, moving beyond partisanship to partnership. Additionally it will identify opportunities for public, private, and non-profit collaboration. It is a doorway to a collaborative future.

The time for this initiative is long overdue. Across America, citizens have already developed breakthrough solutions that deliver superior results and save money. The Presidential Solutions Council will invite every citizen to become a “solutions scout.” With the help of the media and the instantaneous power of the Internet, these solutions can become widespread reality.

When presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy, called for the Peace Corps in a campaign speech, he galvanized Americans to do good works around the world, which continues today. When a presidential candidate now calls for a Presidential Solutions Council, he will galvanize the American people to unleash their creative genius to solve our problems and build a better future for generations to come.

For more information, contact Eleanor LeCain at the Citizens Solutions Council, 6600 5th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20012, [e-mail]



Citizen Mobilization for Presidential Solutions Council

WHAT: To establish a Presidential Solutions Council to identify, connect and communicate successes and innovations that are working in America. Proposed by the nonpartisan Citizens Solutions Council, this signature domestic program based in the White House will cultivate greater connection between citizens’ innovative solutions and the governing process. This Presidential Solutions Council will function as a clearinghouse for breakthroughs in education, health, environment, energy, economics and more. Gathered from local communities, these solutions will be supported by the federal government and communicated across the nation. In this way, a breakthrough anywhere can become a breakthrough everywhere.

WHY: To move beyond oppositional politics and draw on American ingenuity to solve our nation’s problems.

WHEN: This initiative was launched Thursday, August 28: 4 – 4:50 PM (MST)

WHERE: BIG TENT DENVER: Alliance for Sustainable Colorado,1536 Wynkoop

Live: UStream.tv

WHO: Barbara Marx Hubbard, America’s foremost futurist, author and speaker, Eleanor LeCain, visionary strategic planner and former Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of State Sue Ann Taylor, founder and executive producer, Zeel TV

For extended bios visit: www.citizenssolutionscouncil.net

Press Contact: Sali Randel
505-699-9680
[e-mail]

To Read More and Sign Petition:
www.citizenssolutionscouncil.net/CSC/CSC_Home.html