Monsanto = Satan AND Awesome Stone Town!

Just in case you don’t already know this, Satan exists.

And its current name is Monsanto.

I’m now in a place (emotionally and spiritually) where I can hear/read about Monsanto without having a nervous breakdown (as I did in January 2011, though I probably didn’t mention it to you as it was a small one).

Why am I talking about this depressing topic? Well, the ElephantJournal article “Monsanto: The Most Evil Company in the Universe” showed up in my twitter feed today.

And you know what? I was ready. I was ready to face it. I feel strong enough in myself at this moment that I knew I wouldn’t start crying or get utterly depressed. I was ready to shift on this topic.

Though I’ve tried to avoid it the past year or two, I was actually thinking about Monsanto around the time of my birthday last month. I am doing Creative Life Coaching sessions with Lakshmi (she’s amazing) and she mentioned that the topics that upset us most can show us where our passions lie, and hence the direction to move in in our lives – our purpose for being here on the planet on this go-’round.

I wrote the word “Monsanto” in my notes; at the end of our session I copy/pasted/Skyped my responses to her questions and exercises and sent them back to her.

Lakshmi lives in Portugal; much of Portugal is GMO-Free, and Lakshmi hadn’t heard of the corporation Monsanto.

So when she saw the word she thought I was talking about the Portuguese town of Monsanto – which I, on the other hand, had never heard of, but had seen a photo of once.

Here’s some crazy synchronicity:

This town Monsanto in Portugal is pretty much THE COOLEST PLACE I HAVE EVER SEEN.

 

Monsanto, Portugal

IT’S BUILD INTO/WITH BOULDERS!

!!!!!!!! HOW COOL IS THIS???

You don’t even understand. Aside from living in a tree house (see my post on how I Want To Live In a Tree Boat House – yes I made it up), living in boulders is pretty much my wet dream. I’ve loved rocks since I can remember,  I grew up bouldering in Southern California, and I have spent hours clamoring over and sprawled across boulders. I don’t really understand why, but I love boulders big time.

So when I saw how this heavy word, THE most upsetting word in the human language (for me anyways) could be shifted in an instant to something so unbelievably cool that I hadn’t even known had existed -

This gave me hope.

Hope that I could overcome the rage/fury/terror that would come up when I heard or saw the word Monsanto.

Because now I know a secret. That yes, Monsanto is a horrible evil life-threatening monster that is overrunning the globe and polluting nature with man’s hubristic fiddling (and the results of man’s hubristic fiddlings are never good; the Greeks knew that).

But now I know that when I think of Monsanto the horror, I can ALSO think of Monsanto the Magical. Monsanto the Magical Boulder Town, which I will someday visit, I sweartogod, if not possibly live.

I can’t wait to go. It’s like combining two of my favorite things, boulders and rooftops!!!

 

Anyways, what do we do when faced with the satanic behemoth monster that is called Monsanto, the one that helped make the nuclear bomb and agent orange and DMT and bovine growth hormone?

Here’s what we do:

1. We educate ourselves as to what vendors sell/products are made using Genetically Modified Organisms and we consciously choose to stop “feeding” them with our money energy (I’m sorry to tell you that Whole Foods surrendered to Monsanto back in 2011, hence my breakdown).
2. We learn to grow our own food.
3. We create local and independent seed banks to protect and share naturally-occurring heirloom seeds.
4. And we enjoy the f#@% out of our delicious, local, organic food.

 

And then, we all go visit Portugal.

Random Thoughts on a Snowy Sunday Morning

Photo by Michelle Perry 2013 Montemezzo, Italy

It’s snowing.

You know what I find amazing? That during the darkest months of the year, crystals fall from the sky, turning everything a bright, reflective white, filling the space and sky with refracted and diffused beams from the low sun.

Balance. It’s so perfectly balanced. Summer: direct sunlight, lots of it, hot, dry, colorful life. Winter: indirect sunlight, lots of water in crystalline form, diffracting and magnifying the little light there is WHILE storing water to saturate the earth in preparation for the dry, hot, lively summer.

It’s like a purification, everything frozen and cleansed and simplified, reduced back to its roots, killed even. And then from that cycle of purification and reduction and simplification and death, new life bursts forth in spring, fed by the death of the old.

Fuckin’ incredible.

Totally unrelated – A question came to me this morning:
Why aren’t there different species of humans?
Why is there only one species?

There are different species of everything else. Insects: millions of species. Birds: about 10,000 species. Monkeys: somewhere between 230-270. (More on the lack of exact numbers later).

So why only one type of humanoid living on this planet today?

It seems a little weird.

I believe a lot of weird shit. Spiritual shit, divinity, channeling, the Law of Attraction, the effects of energy and vibration. I’ve been reading more into the fringe lately – ie about the the Pleiadians. I’m not entirely sold on the story that alien/reptilian beings that are messing with the earth, though I suppose I do believe in other dimensions and it’s kind of silly to believe in that and not believe there are other beings that I might not be sensitive enough/capable of seeing mucking around in the affairs of this little, ignorant planet.

BUT, I’m not entirely sold yet. I believe the things that resonate with me as truth, and for now, that stuff doesn’t really resonate with me. That we’re all divine expressions of creative consciousness, yes, that resonates. But aliens and reptilians who have sinister plans… I wonder if that’s just not our fearful ego-based selves projecting and giving form to things our limited minds can’t yet comprehend in a way that makes sense in our mythology.

Anyways, one species of human. I consulted google. Obviously I’m not the first person who’s wondered about this. BBC wrote an article about it, explaining in a rather arrogant fashion that Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis all died out between 30,000 to 12,000 years ago.

One thing that gets me riled up is how scientific theory and hypothesis is presented as fact. We don’t actually KNOW. I think that scientific writing should be presented as such: THEORY. We believe, we imagine, we theorize, it seems possible that… statements of possibility and imagination, not fact. We don’t have facts. We have imaginings. We have stories. We have theories. The understandings of science is continually in flux; it is not a stable ground on which to construct our imaginings of reality and of ourselves.

Science is a story we tell ourselves, a way to understand the mystery of reality. Much like religion. It’s a set of beliefs, of assumptions, of theories. I don’t believe it should be treated as something different than religion.

Definition of Religion: an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.

Well, science is also an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the physical world and the Universe; but in an attempt to separate it from spirituality and moral values.

There’s a fascinating course from UCLA called “Science, Magic and Religion,” 21 lectures given over the course of a semester that discuss how and why science, magic and religion were separated in recent history, and the implications. I found it on the on OpenCulture.com (fantastic for curious seeker gluttons like us). You can download the course for free from iTunes.

I won’t even get into the politics and economics of our broken scientific system, and the paradigm-shifting multi-reality particle/wave/observer effect of the quantum path. Let’s ignore the placebo effect, and I’ll just touch briefly on the problem with the scientific method: the decline effect, discussed in this article in the New Yorker, which posits that “many [scientific] results that are rigorously proved and accepted start shrinking in later studies.”

“It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

“For many scientists, the effect is especially troubling because of what it exposes about the scientific process. If replication is what separates the rigor of science from the squishiness of pseudoscience, where do we put all these rigorously validated findings that can no longer be proved? Which results should we believe? Francis Bacon, the early-modern philosopher and pioneer of the scientific method, once declared that experiments were essential, because they allowed us to “put nature to the question.” But it appears that nature often gives us different answers.”

Let’s go back to species. Seems simple, right? Like something science comprehends, something we understand, something there shouldn’t be any confusion or mystery about. Species.

How many species on the planet? “This number is very difficult to assess, but the discussed range varies from tens of thousands to billions.”

Tens of thousands to BILLIONS!?! That’s a pretty huge fucking gap.
As I touched on before, here are a few numbers of currently identified species (this number is given to change: 9,998 birds, 5,490 mammals, as many as 10–30 million insects.

We can’t even scientifically assess and comprehend the species currently alive, dying, and evolving on our planet, right now; and we think we can understand and explain a few million years of evolution of the modern man?

Or the Universe?

NASA has a daily photo website. Oddly, the image they posted on January 20th 2013 was of an ancient chunk of something man-made, dredged up from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean sea in 1901. It seems to be from the ancient Greeks. And it appears to be some form of an early computer.

Where the hell did this come from?! Thanks for giving me more questions, NASA!

According to our society’s currently commonly accepted scientific “truths” (assumptions) about the linear history and evolution of man, it’s impossible that this technology existed when it did.

From NASA’s site:

“Explanation: What is it? It was found at the bottom of the sea aboard an ancient Greek ship. Its seeming complexity has prompted decades of study, although some of its functions remained unknown. X-ray images of the device have confirmed the nature of the Antikythera mechanism, and discovered several surprising functions. The Antikythera mechanism has been discovered to be a mechanical computer of an accuracy thought impossible in 80 BC, when the ship that carried it sank. Such sophisticated technology was not thought to be developed by humanity for another 1,000 years. Its wheels and gears create a portable orrery of the sky that predicted star and planet locations as well as lunar and solar eclipses. The Antikythera mechanism, shown above, is 33 centimeters high and therefore similar in size to a large book.”

This thrills me, because it brings the mystery of it all into sharp, real, in-your-face focus.

What if everything we think we know is wrong? Everything we assume we know about history; everything we believe about ourselves? All the stories that we’ve been taught are reality… What if they’re wrong? What would it mean for each one of us, individually, in our lives? I love this because it calls in the power of our imaginations. It begins to break through the limitations and boundaries of what’s accepted. Maybe what we all knew to be true as children but were educated out of believing is what’s really real – Maybe magic is real, and science is telling the lies. Titillating.

This kind of blog is what happens when I wake up early and decide to spend the first half of a Sunday doing whatever I feel like doing, which also included: yogaing, meditating, dancing around to the remix of Ascension by Maxwell, making some collages in my Life Vision book using images of Greece, Bora Bora, and pretty paper, drinking some yerba mate, listening to the Life Visioning techniques of Michael Bernard Beckwith, as summarized by Brian Johnson, and periodically stepping outside onto my front porch to be dusted with damp snowflakes and take deep fresh lungfuls of frigid, snowy Italian countryside air.

CoincidenceSynchronicityManifestingMagic

Coincidence. Synchronicity. Manifesting. Magic.

Lucky shot – stuck the camera out the window and took a photo of Assisi behind us, without knowing there was a rainbow in the sky!

Whatever you want to call it, I love it. I love finding evidence of magical creation in my life.

We’ve been taught that we live in a logical world. But we’ve been lied to. We’ve been taught that logic will keep us safe. But the illusion of safety keeps us limited, trapped, unempowered, and fearful.

All children believe in magic. And as children we’re encouraged to believe in magical lies – Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny. Eventually the lies are revealed, and we’re taught that to be an adult means to accept the fact that magic is a lie, and to grow up we must relinquish our magical powers.

Well, I think that’s crap.
There have been more, but here are a few magical synchronicities that have occurred in the past few days:
#1
On October 5th, I wrote: “Maybe I should take an improv class.” I wanted more laughter in my life, and I wanted to be actively participating in comedy, rather than solely consuming it, as we do by watching funny videos online, movies, etc.

The next day, I found myself in a Clown Workshop. A famous clown, Moriss, from Milan had come to the Academy to give a one-day workshop, and though I don’t have much interest in Clowns or Clownery, I had to be at the Academy to open the doors, so I decided to join.

The Clown had a red nose, white and black face paint, and strip of long hair on the front of his head that he strung through a toilet paper roll, wrapped around and rubber banded, giving himself an absurd, blunt unicorn horn.

The Clown spoke of love. Loving everyone you meet, looking at them with love, feeling it in your heart, having an eternal smile on your face, smiling at everyone you meet because you are loving them, open, fearlessly. He spoke of using the power of Clowning to break out of the normal oppressive boundaries of daily life, the dead feelinglessness of the people in cities, trapped, joyless, in subways and on busses. He spoke of learning to stop thinking and of learning to just feel, and react. Feel and react, without planning or thinking or worrying about judgment. Like a child does.

We did an eye-gazing exercise, a hugging exercise. We learned a few clown secrets, we learned the foundations of juggling. We did improv performances for each other, our courage bolstered behind the red clown noses we wore. It was, of course, terrifying for me to get up in front of everyone and attempt to make them laugh. But I did it anyways.

(I also told the Clown about Burning Man, which he said sounds like his idea of heaven on earth. Yep.)

#2:
October 8th was a grey and foggy day here in Umbria. I wanted to stay at home and work on some personal projects, but I’d told a few people that I’d be available at the Academy. So around 10am I packed up my laptop and put on my boots. It was cold outside, and the walk from my house in the countryside to the Academy is about 20 minutes along a lovely dirt road.

I stepped out the front door, and it was raining. Hard. I don’t have an umbrella, and I didn’t want my computer getting wet on the walk to the Academy. So I figured I’d wait for a break in the rain. There is one guest staying at Villa Gioia (where I live) who has a car. Briefly I thought: maybe he’ll come by and give me a ride! But he didn’t appear.

About ten minutes later, one of my roommates came home. She’d walked home and gotten fairly wet, but she had an umbrella she’d left in her room, and offered it to me. I accepted, ans as I stepped out of the house to make the trek to the Academy, a car I’ve never seen before pulled up. Aside from the occasional guest who has a car, cars rarely pass by the Villa.

The car stopped in front of me and a good-looking italian man rolled down the window. “Vuoi un passaggio?” Would you like a ride?

Why yes, yes I do.

So my new friend Gianluca drove me through the rain to the Academy.

#3:
Yesterday I skyped with my friend Captain Dave in Marseille, France. He goes rock climbing on the weekends, and I expressed how much I wanted to go rock climbing. I have been telling various rock climbing friends around the world that I want to go rock climbing for the past few years, but it just hasn’t worked out.

Today at breakfast, out of the blue, a member of the community here at Ananda walked up to me, and asked: “Do you want to go rock climbing tomorrow?”

Why yes, yes I do.

I know he hadn’t heard my conversation Skype conversation – no one had.

Believers in logic say that it’s just coincidence, a result of me looking for meaning behind happenstance. But if you have the choice, why not choose magic? We create the meaning in our lives, our experience is a result of our beliefs. If I can choose to experience and enjoy a magical life, why wouldn’t I?

As I was typing this today, sitting in the after-rain sunshine in the rolling hills of Umbria, Italy, a big fat ladybug walked up to me, and sat on my arm for awhile.

Which reminded me of this post about Life and Ladybugs that I wrote back in January of this year.

“Though small in size the ladybug is fearless. As fear cannot exist amongst joy, the ladybug brings a message of promise, for they get us back in touch with the joy of living – we must let go of our fears and go back to our roots, to love. We are also taught to restore our trust and faith in the universe, we have to get over ourselves, our egos, and allow life to take its course going with the flow.”

Magical.

Super Tramp Nomad Life

I wrote this post about four months ago, but like many maaaaany blog posts I’ve written, it’s been languishing in my Drafts folder awaiting further editing. Well, I’m in Florence now, and I don’t feel like editing – I feel like going out into the summer rain and getting some gelato. So that’s what I’m doing. Please excuse the unedited rambling, says the perfectionist.

May or June, 2012, El Huecu, Argentina:

One of my oldest friends has been traveling the world since November of 2010. The other day on Facebook she posted a photo of a beach in Sri Lanka, white sanded and turquoised watered, palm trees in the distance and a few puffs of cloud in a pale blue sky, a surf board stuck in the sand. The caption: “The view from my office; busy day.” Someone asked, “Your office? What are you doing out there?” And she replied, “I’m a hobo.”

A hobo. Wiki says the word “may come from the term hoe-boy meaning “farmhand,” or a greeting such as Ho, boy!… or from the railroad greeting, “Ho, beau!” or a syllabic abbreviation of “homeward bound”.

Writer H. L. Mencken wrote this:

Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.”

I’m not sure if she’s a hobo or a tramp. It’s a shame tramp has taken on a negative connotation. I want to be a tramp! Or do I?

Being a hobo has definitely simplified my life. I’ve let go of a lot of my possessions and I’ve learned that I can live with less and less.
I feel content where I am right now, with my life right now.

Though I’m the most content I’ve ever been, there are a few small things I still struggle with: I am still working out procrastination blocks, especially when it comes to painting and writing, and I’m not currently living my intention to meditate two hours a day – one in the morning yes, but that second evening hour hasn’t happened more than a few times. I haven’t rolled out my yoga mat since I left Buenos Aires (I haven’t shaved my legs or armpits either, which is kind of awesome). I’m also eating more than my body needs, out of avoidance and self-soothing.

But I’m practicing acceptance. I saw a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh the other day that resonated with what I’ve been coming to comprehend – ‎”To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”

A woman that I met here in Patagonia, who lives on a beautiful remote ranch, was wondering – does being out here in the middle of nowhere make people crazy and eccentric, or are the crazy and eccentric ones the ones who are drawn to this kind of life? And I wondered – crazy and eccentric compared to what? Eccentric, ex-centric, deviating from the circle, not having the same center. The same center as society? And of course we don’t all have the same center – our hearts and souls call each of us to our own paths, our own hero’s journeys and personal legends.

This song found me the other day as I was laying on some rocks and watching the clouds:

Ella sings of the murmur of the cottonwood trees that you see here in Patagonia, brought to Argentina by settlers, the only plant around here that’s taller than two feet. Cottonwoods, or alamos, reach straight up, towering three stories above the flat desert floor, crowding around ranches. ‘Don’t fence me in’ could be talking about physically being fenced in, but I think what’s more poignant is the longing for emotional freedom – to not be emotionally and psychologically fenced in, trapped by the opinions, expectations and judgements of others; and by the internalized fears and limitations that have been programmed into you.

It seems to me that out here, away from the crush of the judgment and opinons of the “normal” world, people are able to truly be themselves. They’re free. They’re not subject to what others think of them, and they have the freedom be wholly, unlimitedly, crazily, eccentrically themselves.

Homeward bound, searching for that center within, our souls,

We can only be free by accepting ourselves, and loving ourselves – hobo, tramp, whatever.

I find the worst things inmy life are my fears, my internal limitations that keep me stuck, that keep me suffering. The Buddhist word for suffering literally translates to ‘a stuck wheel.’ I am afraid, so I don’t do, nad then I paradoxically create the exact situation I was trying to avoid. My avoidance creates the suffering, the discomfort, the negative consequences I’m trying to hide from, that my fear is trying to protect me from. You are the only one who can fence you in.

“Las Unicas Barreras Son Mentales” Buenos Aires, Jan 2012

Las unicas barrierires son mentales- The only barriers are mental. The only limitations are mental. My only limitations are mental. I have created the sitations in my life that I don’t like, that make me uncomfortable. I am 100% responsible for the good that has come to me, the good that I’ve refused to accept, and the bad that has come to me. I’m like a racehorse. I’ve put the hobbles on myself and then wonder why I can’t run free the way my heart longs too. I wonder what’s stopping me, holding me back, tripping me up. Well, it’s me.

Advice to Me From My 110-Year-Old Self

Advice on how to find more happiness in my life, from my 110-year-old self, who is colorfully dressed, quirky, lives in an adorable house, has traveled the world and created joy and beauty and has a wonderfully smile-creased face. She also still does yoga and is quite limber.

31*-year-old Michelle, here is my advice to you:

Don’t worry so much. Don’t be so scared. Everything works out perfectly.

Live your own truth – protect your body and your mind – they’re the only things that will stay with you your whole life. Well, your mind might go, but you’re stuck in this body. Nothing else stays – not your spouse, children, clothing or friends, not your house or your money or your pets. Don’t drink. Don’t eat toxic crap. Don’t burn your neurons up on drugs that aren’t even that much fun.

Listen to yourself. You already know all the answers. You don’t even have to ask anyone else.

Stop sleeping with guys. It won’t give you the connection you’re looking for. Only you can give that to yourself. Save your emotional, sexual, and mental energy for someone who will reflect it back to you evenly and is committed to co-creating more of it with you. Otherwise it’s a slow leak. You’re never gonna fill your hot air balloon enough to lift you to your highest heights unless you conserve all of that precious, lovely energy you create. Look at all that emotional energy that’s been drained out of you by boys. Not their fault, they were (mostly) sweethearts, but you know you don’t need it.

Feel your feelings, mourn your sadness, and don’t be afraid of pain. You’re strong. You can take any amount of pain, and you are so wonderful and creative that you know how to catalyze that pain into growth and learning and ultimately, more happiness. So rejoice in pain. When you feel pain you know you’ve got a golden opportunity for heart and soul growth. You’re one lucky bitch.

You ARE one lucky bitch. Everything always works out in your favor. And I mean everything. The universe truly smiles on us. You are sooo lucky that you got this beautiful charmed life. Enjoy it, trust it. You are loved and supported always.

Live beyond your fears. Squeeze every last bit of love and joy out of this sucker. What’s there to be afraid of? You’re immortal. Your fears are just psychological constructs, remnants of the lizard brain that thinks that if you make a wrong move, you’re caput. Well guess what – #1. You won’t die of ANY of the things you’re afraid of, like honesty and karaoke and vulnerability and having messy feelings and looking like an idiot fool, and #2. There are no wrong choices. So go ahead and follow your impulses – do whatever the hell it is that you want to do. It’s your life, there are no wrong choices, and NONE of the choices you make are gonna kill you.

Love more. Love more. Love more. ESPECIALLY yourself. You are gorgeous, sweet, talented, kind, intelligent, caring, trustworthy, dependable, strong, loyal. ANY person is lucky to have you in their lives, and you are lucky to have a great travelling partner like yourself. So love yourself more, every day, as much as your huge heart can.

Create. Creation is your intellect combined with attention combined with love combined with divine spirit. The things you create are as beautiful as you are, because you have a beautiful soul. So you are creating beauty and sharing it with the world – what better gift could you possibly give? Your creation is your love made manifest. And you’ve got a lot of it. The only thing that stops creation is fear. Don’t let fear win. Don’t listen to it. NONE of it is real.

Prioritize. This life is long and it is short. Spend it doing what makes you happy. Figure out what those things are and build a map for your life based on that. Otherwise you’ll end up living someone else’s version of happiness (or fear). That’s a waste of your beautiful life.

Accept the now. Be grateful for the good (and there’s a lot). Release your fears. And trust that everything will work out perfectly. It always did.

*I am now 33; I wrote this back in 2010 or 2011 while while on retreat at the Metta Forest Monastery near San Diego, CA. Apparently I meant to post it to my other blog, www.amicamore.com, but never did. I’m so glad I found it, and I’m glad to report I have taken my own advice – I stopped sleeping around and drinking since this writing.

Living Life Forwards

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money in order to do more of what they want so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do in order to have what you want.” – Margaret Young

This quote from www.TheDailyLove.com is just what I needed to hear today.

I was having doubts this morning about my recent choices in life, specifically the choice to end my work relationship with the business partner I moved down to Argentina to work with, and instead follow my heart and focus, really focus, on my own healing and creative expression and desire to live closer to nature.

With the business partner I was seeking to create a financial base to build my dreams on top of; but I’ve realized that that’s not what my soul wants to do. And I can’t compromise anymore, because my soul’s just too damn stubborn; it ends up refusing to participate at all and sabotaging me, manifesting in procrastination, anxiety, guilt, shame and broken commitments. I’ve come to the realization that nothing’s worked because I’m not “being who I really am”; even in this past year of freedom from a day job, I’ve continued to be who I felt like I should be. “Should.” The nastiest word in the English language.

So I think/hope/feel that I’m finally beginning to live my life forwards, rather than backwards – by being who I really am, figuring out what *I* really want, and from there I will “do what I need to do in order to have what I want”. Because I want to, not because I feel like I should.

Following my Inner Light - Río de la Plata

Scientific Censorship + Creating Reality

A year ago I had lunch with one of the first geneticists to come out against GMOs in the ’90s, a little spitfire of a woman named Dr. Mae-Won Ho. After releasing a  report criticizing GMOs, her funding was revoked, her lab was shut down, and she was removed from her position.

Unfortunately this sort of thing happens much more frequently than you’d think would be possible in what is supposed to be an ‘objective’ discipline.

I was reminded of this today while watching climate scientist’s James Hansen’s TED talk today:

“[White House] Energy Policies continued to focus on finding more fossil fuels… I decided to give a public talk criticizing the lack of an appropriate energy policy. This led to calls from the White House to NASA headquarters and I was told that I could not give any talks or speak to the media without prior explicit approval by NASA headquarters.”

‘Science’ is not necessarily objective. It is political, and above all, it is commercial, paid for by people motivated by profit. Though I suppose it’s silly to separate the political from the commercial anymore.

Those scientists who speak out against the general consensus and status quo are often censored or alienated; in that way today is not much different from Galileo’s age, were it not for the existence of a free internet (for now) through which people can much more quickly share and access the truth. Ok well that and the fact that it’s no longer legal to set someone aflame for heresy.

Why am I writing about this? I generally espouse the belief that we create our own realities through our focus, and that it is pointless to waste energy on negativity.

So maybe it’s pride, I-told-you-so, yet another story that illustrates the views I’ve presented on this blog, on Facebook, and in conversations over the last few years.

Maybe it’s awareness – if you are aware of what’s behind the illusions and lies of this material world, you can choose something different. The contrast between what is and what you want can give you the power/energy/motivation to get active in creating what you want.

Where I take issue is with focusing on all of the negativity in the world, posting articles and rants and missives, but not DOING anything about it in one’s own life.

I am trying to live in a way that is aligned with my values, and the strongest of which is living in alignment with the natural world, both for selfish and altruistic reasons. I decided a few weeks ago that I would prefer to live somewhere without cars. At first I was researching intentionally or historically car-free cities; and then the opportunity to live on a ranch in Patagonia popped up, so I took it.

If health and beauty and nature and the environment are important to you, as they are to me, what actions can you take, wherever you’re at, to live in ways that align with your beliefs? Can you ride your bike somewhere instead of driving? Can you make an adventure out of navigating the public transportation system in your city? Can you begin to minimize your consumption of products in general, ALL of which indirectly consume oil via plastic and shipping, and contribute to the destruction of our planet?

I suppose that my reason for focusing on the discouraging yet inspiring stories of people like Dr. Mae-Won Ho and James Hansen is to see what exists now, clarify what I want for myself and my world, and begin to take action that will move me in that direction.

So: What do you want your world to be like? And what choices can you start making that will take you there?

Your Soul is Showing!!!

Today I ran across a great blog post regarding Intimacy, or “showing your soul to another.”

I have intimacy issues, but I didn’t even realize it until a few years ago.  I believe that most people do, because the way our society raises children is deeply, fundamentally wrong. When children attempt to show their souls to adults, adults generally react in one of the following ways:

1. “You shouldn’t feel like that/say that.” (Rejection)

2. “Don’t be weak.” (Protection)

3. “You don’t feel like that, you’re fine.” (Denial)

(Sure, they’re all pretty much the same, but you get my drift).

So, we stop being intimate, and we live our lives at a very shallow and unfulfilling level of interaction.

“Hey, I’m fine! How are you, fine? Great! Yeah, yesterday I did xxx, tomorrow I’m doing xxx, and god, I hate it when xxx does xxx. I’m so busy/stressed/tired, you know, so much going on! Ok love you talk to you soon bye!”

That level is safe and easy. But it sucks and it’s numbing. The shell that protects us, paradoxically, also keeps out the things that make life worth living. Ie, seeing and sharing souls.

The blog post that got me thinking about intimacy was by Beverly Golden at intentblog.com; here’s an excerpt (in which she includes an excerpt from Gaping Void) :

I recently received a daily Gaping Void email by Hugh MacLeod with the subject : Has your soul been seen lately?  Synchronistically, the topic was intimacy.  What followed was a beautiful way to end my piece:

“Intimacy isn’t strictly about romantic relationships, or even relations with family–sometimes it happens quickly, and often times in ways we hardly notice.

I’m talking about that moment when someone allows the world to see what’s inside…what they are really about. It’s about seeing someone for who and what they are and that the glimpse was offered either voluntarily or without the person’s knowledge. This is an incredible moment where our existence suddenly makes sense and all comes together in a singular place. 

For those of you who have experienced this, it’s something that never gets lost in memory or time. It’s like a little mirror we take out every now and then to remember a time when something so complex became so inconceivably simple. It’s pretty incredible.”

For me, this is the essence of what intimacy is really all about.  Dare to be vulnerable, dare to be seen.

Beautiful, no?

By hugh at gapingvoid.com

Do you allow your soul to be seen? How can you express yourself a little more authentically today?

And do you really see other’s souls when they attempt to show them to you, without trying to fix/change/judge them, or are you afraid to look, afraid to feel their pain, afraid you won’t know what to do?

I think we could all do with a little more intimacy practice. It’s what makes life worth living.

Princess Fights for Freedom; Do You?

 

I can’t wait to see ‘Brave’ by Disney/Pixar!

And not just because I love Scottish accents…

Woo hoo for empowering the feminine!

 

The Queen asks a good question – Are you willing to pay the price that freedom costs? I feel like not very many people are.

Some components of the price/cost of freedom: personal responsibility, awareness, courage, choice, introspection, authenticity, fairness, integrity, action…

The current state of the United States of America is an example of what happens when people are not willing to pay the price to protect their freedom, and instead relinquish control to corporations, the government, religions, banks, credit card companies, and anyone else who comes along and offers to cover the price for them.

When someone pays the price for your freedom, it’s no longer yours, and you’re no longer free. Take control of your own life; pay your own way. Make your own decisions, and take action.

Or, you know, we can just continue to sit around distracting ourselves with movies/TV/the media/consumerism, continue working unfulfilling jobs, continue letting those who we allow to pay our price and have control destroy our planet in the name of profits, poisoning our air and water and food and bodies…

<end rant>

Alright, I admit I may have been procrastinating and allowed myself to read some articles about the global economic collapse and possible war with Iran.

Time for me to turn away from dark side and head back towards the light!

Check out lightball/spiritual teacher Mooji, talking about Freedom. Not only is he wise, he’s got an awesome Jamaican/Irish accent, and his name is so fun to say! Moooooooojiiiiiiiiii!!!

“Nobody wants you to be free… What good are you if you’re free? When you’re free no one can control you.”

World’s First Airport Yoga Studio

Guess where it is?

I’m surprise it wasn’t in India… but the next most logical spot: San Francisco.

Photo by Bay Cities News

I remember how delighted I was to see a sign for a “Meditation Room” in the Albuquerque airport; a yoga room is even better! I’ve been tempted to do yoga in airports before, especially with all the traveling I’ve done in the last year, but I never managed to summon up the cojones to do a downward dog in the passenger waiting area.

Photo by Bay Cities News

How did this happen? The director of SFO has been practicing yoga for 18 years, and after hearing someone make an offhand remark that they had everything but a place to do yoga, he made it happen.

And, it’s free to use! They even provide mats.

The world is a-changin’!!! I look forward to the day when it’s normal for everyone to meditate and do yoga, just like everyone brushes their teeth and showers.

LAX has gotta be next.

Official Yoga Pictogram - Photo by Bay Cities News

 

*Thanks to Mariana for sending me the article!