ben goldacre: battling bad science

While I don't agree with everything he has to say, he makes some really good points about how research is skewed for financial gain by the pharmaceutical industry. Worth watching.

On the other hand, these are not the only valid research methods and "hard science" isn't always so clear cut. Anecdotal evidence is also worth noting.

Only those with LOTS of money can perform the kind of control group studies that he discusses--and get them published.

love thursday 09.29.11 ~ love that boy

calleman's view of the 6th night and 7th day

You can read it here.

dr. wayne dyer

a story about what is to come...

Without the body, we are all one.

Anita Moorjani

sapo

I don't really talk dirty to be dirty. It's just a way of communication. Some people are just born cussers.

Dolly

Sapo lives in banana. We have been hearing Sapo for years. Today is the first time I've seen Sapo.

Sapo is a girl. You can tell by the color of her throat. When my friend, MarJo stands in front of the house and talks in his deep voice, Sapo starts talking, too. I think she thinks she wants to be courted.

the only constant is the speed of light

If it is true, then we truly haven’t understood anything about anything.

Alvaro de Rujula

a theorist at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research,

on a report that physicists plan to report that they have detected

subatomic particles moving faster than the speed of light

...or maybe not.

I read this and my insides got so excited. We (collectively) are on the verge of something we have never seen or imagined.

I can't wait to see what's coming. Bring it on!

enlightenment...i'll drink to that

If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.

Jack Handey

I hope I'm drinking beer when it happens. And I hope you're all there to laugh with me.

(Welcome to the Sixth Night and Autumnal Equinox.)

love thursday 09.22.11 ~ holographic universe

In another's eyes I see my plea for forgiveness, and in a hardened frown I see my refusal. When someone murders, I know that I too could have done that, and when someone gives birth, I know that I am capable of that as well. In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and have life and death.

Henri Nouwen

from With Open Hands

It's much easier to want to be One with Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama than with Anton Scalia or Troy Davis. But we are. Everyone of us.

"...whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

"...whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

Matthew 25:45 (NIV)

That sounds like a holographic universe to me.

before & after

2012 - full online movie

Pretty dang interesting! May be too out there for some of you, but I find it thought provoking. If you watch it, tell me what you think....

7 essene mirrors

Until you compare yourself and your experience to an external reference, how can you be anything but perfect?

Gregg Braden

I have a love-hate relationship with YouTube. Often I have difficulty getting the videos to download so that I can watch them all the way through without hang-ups while they are downloading...or even at all. This video is long. It downloaded without a hitch.

I guess I was supposed to watch it. Maybe you are, too:

consider the lilies of the field...

If you're going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can't pick and choose who's going to be the sparrow. It's everybody.

Madeleine L'Engle

Here we are in the Sixth Day of the Mayan Calendar. The place where the new consciousness is flowering--preparing to come into fruition.

Next Friday, the 23rd, we enter the Sixth Night--"fine tuning of the new protoform." Anyone know what the new protoform is?

Unity Consciousness. Oneness. We are all one.

In other words, if I cut off my right hand, my whole body feels it and my left hand has to take up the slack. I don't get to pretend that my low back doesn't hurt and proceed with my life as if pain and limitation don't exist.

War. Famine. Natural disaster. Poverty. Hunger. Illness. Lack of health care. These affect all of us--even the pacifist, well-fed, well-housed, healthy rich.

Are we getting it? Will we get it in time to make a difference.

Only the Beloved knows for sure.

saint honeyboy

Do not think that saintliness comes from occupation; it depends rather on what one is. The kind of work we do does not make us holy, but we may make it holy.

Meister Eckhart

Holiness is being a cat.

Holiness is just being.

Maybe I can wrap my mind around that one of these days...that being is enough. The work comes from who I am being.

one breath

When you find yourself with the Beloved,
embracing for one breath,
In that moment you will find your true destiny.

Rumi

love thursday 09.15.11 ~ another labor of love

Surely the earth can be saved by all the people who insist on love.

Alice Walker

Yes, that is a cast iron pan. We are switching over to using cast iron and getting rid of all the non-stick coatings and undesirable materials.

This pan is old. You can see the pits in the bottom from rust. In fact, when I got this pan from my mom, the entire thing was rust. My dad used to use it in his homemade smoke house when he smoked the salmon and steelhead that he caught. He put vine maple chips in the pan to give the fish flavor. I can't remember the last time he smoked fish. Probably sometime in the 80s.

I used electrolysis, steel brushes on the electric drill, and sand paper with elbow grease to clean it up. Now it's ready for cooking. We probably won't be able to cook eggs in it--at least not with out breaking them--but it will be plenty good for many other things.

Just one more piece of my virtue of reusing.

teach your children well

Modern education pays attention to the development of the brain and the intellect, but this is not enough. We need also to be able to develop warm-heartedness in our educational systems. This we need from kindergarten all the way through university.

HH Dalai Lama

I used to be a classroom teacher. When I was in the classroom, I was too young and hadn't done enough of my personal work to get this. I just pray that I didn't mess too many up too badly.

I'd love to see this curriculum. The best methodology would be modeling, I think.

Yep. Love for no reason at all.

(Name that group!)

i'd love to meet her

If there's a heaven, I hope to hell I go!

Dolly Parton

Hey, Dolly! Let's have a cuppa. Come on over....

and so, i obeyed the beloved

(honeyboy's sabbath)

Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.

Rumi

ten years later...

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history...There is a tiny splinter group, of...a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Dwight Eisenhower

I was there. September 11, 2001, I was in New York--the state, but not the city. Upstate. I was at a Sufi Retreat Center, attending a training for my work.

We started gathering for our morning session when we got the news from our group leader. Shock. The center is rustic and somewhat cut off from outside news, as retreat centers often are. None of us had heard before she told us. Several people had felt the "disturbance in the Force."

Terrorism takes many forms.

As we waited for news, we joined in prayer and upholding everyone involved. We tried to still our own swimming minds. We tried to figure out what this meant about our trip home, since all flights were grounded.

SO and I were on the first flight out of Albany, once the grounding was lifted. Eerie. Security tightened. On the way home we laid over in Atlanta. Nothing was on time. No one was sure when they would be able to get their connecting flights. Armed guards strolled the corridors and rode the trains between terminals. When we got on the flight back to Portland, several large men had already boarded. I turned to SO and said, "I don't think they are all Elite Club Members."

Of course, we won't forget. How can one forget such a horror? How can one perpetrate such a horror?

Countless lives were permanently altered that day. I was scared and inconvenienced. As far as I know, I don't know anyone who was in the buildings or on the planes that fell. But I do know someone who went in to help clean up the aftermath. Read her story here.

hey, beloved...you listening?

(honeyboy loves the guest bed)

Help me to hold preciously / Seeds of doubt, / Seeds of fear. / Grace me with trust to Believe / I will again rebirth into Faith / With Hope to feel / deep watery fresh / thirst for Life / once again.

Catherine Cameron

from Endarkenment Envelop Me

We're almost three-quarters of the way through the Year of the Beloved. Often about now, I start getting a new impression--what's up for next year? Not yet. Not happening.

Have I learned what I need to know from this year? I don't know. Most days I remember that the Beloved is the Beloved. That's good. Some days I am enveloped in the wonderfulness of being beloved. That's good, too. Those days when I am not even sure the Beloved is home, let alone answering my calls are harder. That's what faith is for.

This year, I learned to love for no reason at all. Probably my most life-altering chapter. For that I am grateful. Even though I forget and have to be reminded, the overall effect on my mood and demeanor has been profound. I am much less cranky over all...which is not to say that I never am cranky. And I must admit, being less cranky is much easier on my nervous system (not to mention that of those around me).

Yep. Fall truly has arrived. I'm reflective. You? What are you reflecting on these days?

virtue

All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power.

Ashleigh Brilliant

Lately, work interferes with my life. Don't get me wrong. I like working and I like what I do. However, these days staying home, starting, and finishing projects appeals to me far more than going out into the world.

One of the Mayan Calendar teachers says that we will reach a place where money is no longer used as our currency. I don't know what will be, but if I didn't need the cash flow, I'd spend a lot more time hanging out at home.

The economy and my place in it at this moment in time created created the need for me to be more hands on. I make things rather than buying. When I need to buy, I visit Craig's List and reuse what someone else no longer needs. I don't mind. It even makes me feel virtuous.

What is making you feel virtuous these days?

love thursday 09.08.11 ~ cosmic convergence

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, "What are you going through?"

Simone Weil

Carl Calleman, expert on the Mayan Calendar has this to say.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

In Lak’ech (I am another you).

feline nobility

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

Hindu proverb

"...you must remain in society"

Giving up attachment to the world does not mean that you set yourself apart from it. Generating a desire for others to be happy increases your humanity. As you become less attached to the world, you become more humane. As the very purpose of spiritual practice is to help others, you must remain in society.

Dalai Lama

Damn.

I must admit that spending a week here at home on the urban farm satisfied me. Going back to work appeals much less than continuing the routine here at home.

I guess that's why some people my age retire. I don't know that I will ever be able to do that. At this rate, I might not even have Social Security in a few years.

Really, I don't really want to remove myself from society most of the time. Having the freedom to enter or withdraw at will is mighty nice.

labor day 2011

‎

History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths...but history remembers.

Martin Luther King Jr.

According to commondreams.org (via Moody Analytics) 5% of Americans with the highest income now make 37% of all consumer purchases. Let's see...that leaves 63% of purchases to 95% of us.

We need jobs. We need flow. More specifically, we need cash flow. If we don't have jobs we can't buy and those at the top will not continue to reap the huge profits of the past.

Cutting spending is not the way to do it. Spend responsibly? Yes. Spend wisely? Yes. But if we cut off the flow, everyone starves. Some literally. Some metaphorically.

I recently advertised for some help on craigslist.org. I asked for someone dependable, reliable, and detail oriented. I knew I was not offering a huge amount of money. I offered to pay what I could afford.

The responses I got amazed me. One person asked just how thorough I wanted someone to be for that amount of money. "Kids at Taco Bell earn more than that!" (Not true, by the way.) I suggested that if she didn't want to work for what I was paying that was okay. And oh, by the way, I hoped that Taco Bell was hiring in her area.

Another set up a time to come then told me she wanted more money. I thanked her and told her my offer was firm.

Fortunately, I found someone--two people, in fact, who are willing to work for what I can pay them, take directions then say "thank you." Then at the end of the job they say, "Thank you for letting us work." That is the spirit of labor that developed this country.

We need jobs for these and others who want to work. Yes, even if it means that I lose the good help that I found. Knowing them, they'll probably keep coming back even after they find full time jobs.

Works for me.

walk your talk

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Buddha

And make sure it is your own.

vacation

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

Kahlil Gibran

I've been on vacation this week. Except for the brief sojourn with the rodent, I stayed home, enjoying the resort we're building here.

I'm grateful for the summer weather--finally--though the cool nights belie the name summer and make me face the reality of approaching fall. No longer do I gauge my years by the beginning of the school year. Each season blends into the next, my work unchanging. Only my wardrobe changes. Soon long pants, long sleeves, and shoes with socks replace short, t-shirts, and flip flops.

The lawn mower comes out less frequently. Garden beds have their winter mulch before we have even harvested the tomatoes. We still have strawberries and blossoms, as I plan the "greenhouse" for banana and blackbird this winter.

Labor Day weekend is here. I've reached the point in my life where I wish I did not have to trade my days for gold. But I do. And I am grateful for work I love.

Not yet, though. Vacation lasts three more days...and I intend to wear shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops through them all.

away

We went away for an overnight.

There was a mouse in our room.

HoneyBoy and Mijo stayed home.

Crap.

love thursday 09.01.11 ~ being a beloved

(wedding flowers)

Every great secret makes one poor, it seems. Like a powerful sexual encounter, it cannot be shared and therefore it cannot be understood or valued by others. As a result, it is almost always misunderstood, especially by those who have not yet discovered their own secret or found their own “private room.” The secret of divine intimacy is by definition unshareable, ineffable, and mysterious even to the one who enjoys it. It makes you great, but it also makes you very lonely, and often the subject of cruel accusations, comparisons, and spiritual competition.

Being a beloved son [or daughter] will not make you fit in, but in fact will make you an outsider in almost all circles—sometimes even to yourself, as you question your own self-assuredness and doubt your own best moments. Every secret makes one poor and lonely, living alone in rooms of doubt—the doubt that comes from an unshareable ecstasy.

Richard Rohr

Talking requires words and language--symbols for an experience or understanding that people share. What happens when no known words can express an experience?

In Living With Kundalini, Gopi Krishna says that we will need to develop a new language.

I think he's right.