Every week using mainly his hands but also armed with scissors, a knife and scalpel, Joao Teixeira de Faria, a self-styled Brazilian medium and “psychic surgeon,” treats thousands of sick people who claim to be cured. Among those who have sought the services of the healer known as “John of God” has been none other than Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the popular Brazilian ex-president, now said to be in remission from larynx cancer.
Naturally evolved ancient forests are sacred and primeval life giving shrines, and standing and intact, large and contiguous primary rainforest and other old forests are a requirement for sustaining global ecology and achieving local advancement. Old forests are a vital part of the biosphere’s ecological infrastructure – and have a prominent, central role in making the Earth habitable through their cycling of carbon, energy, water, and nutrients.
J.G. Vibes is a vocal activist, author of dozens of eye-opening articles about our society and culture, and the author of the recently published book, The Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance. He also promotes raves, all-night dance music parties, is an aficionado of electronic music and has a high appreciation for artwork that points at overlooked truths in our world.
You gotta relax, man. Life in 2012 means a degree of stress, for just about everyone. Our bodies and minds can take a lot of abuse, but its all too easy to get into a negative cycle, and just keep sinking. You don’t sleep well, you get up late, so you don’t eat, your blood sugar is low, so your temper is short, etc. Stress. If you need more time, more energy, or better sleep, then its worth taking the time to relax and meditate.
When it comes to achieving total wellness, there are many factors to consider, but most of us don’t think of meditation as being important in maintaining physical vitality. It’s time to pay attention to the many scientists who have been reporting fascinating research on meditation and how it benefits the brain.
On the 12th August 2011 my life changed forever. I had been to the doctor three times before about experiencing pain in my lower abdomen. He did the usual urine and blood test and announced it was a bladder infection. Weeks of antibiotics later, I was sicker than ever.
Is it true that the foods and beverages you consume cause your blood to become more alkaline or acidic? Contrary to popular hype, the answer is: not to any significant degree. Here’s why.
It took over 20 years of gardening to realize that I didn’t have to work so hard to achieve a fruitful harvest. As the limitless energy of my youth gradually gave way to the physical realities of mid-life, the slow accretion of experience eventually led to an awareness that less work can result in greater crop yields.
Art History is a valid account of our past and culture, as insightful as the written word. Creating is fundamental to being alive. Art making is a communication skill, one that some believe defines our being human. There are heights to the intellect that cannot be achieved through logical reasoning alone, nothing can replace the knowledge one gains from exploring the imagination.
The moon is a powerful force of nature. Just step outside in the middle of the night when the sky is clear and the moon is full and look it for a moment. You won’t be able to deny that it feels magical and intense and amazing. And people over time haven’t been able to deny that either. In fact, the moon has been a central part of many myths and legends across different cultures precisely because of how powerful this part of the sky is.
Z, Waking Times
Calling out to all slaves: raise yourselves to the consciousness of your slavery. The world that has been set up before you, erected without your consideration, is a farce. Rise up! Kill the false power within you. Kick your inert-self off its too-comfortable couch. Dismantle the false world hanging over you, the canopy built by past generations. Rise up! Become a freedom unto yourself.
Real information is everything. It’s our food. Either we’re getting the adulterated stuff or we’re getting real nourishment. It makes a world of difference in how we feel and think and affects the very course of our lives and hence the rest of humanity since we each affect it so profoundly. I avoid TV at any cost. It’s toxic and completely destructive.
Z, Waking Times
We live in a consumerist society, and our culture reflects that. Unfortunately the reflection is ugly. It shows us an image of greed and excessive wastefulness camouflaged by an outlandish hyper-reality. If we were to peel back this hyper-reality we would reveal the throbbing hunger of our animal nature: the need to be recognized.
The wonderful thing about meditation is that anybody can do it. Contrary to popular belief there is no right or wrong way to practice it. It is an innate expression of the soul, and can be done anywhere, anytime, any environment, whilst engaged in anything. It can happen whilst walking in the woods, washing the laundry, swimming in the ocean, dancing, singing, chopping wood, surfing, running, sitting in a busy airport waiting for your plane…
What would you say if we told you there was a country that used 99.2% renewable energy, has kept is GDP growing for decades, disbanded its military, and transformed itself from one of the most deforested nations in the Western hemisphere to one with forest cover over half its area?
It was not an election campaign that returned George Galloway to parliament as the new MP for Bradford West on March 29, in the process securing over 50 percent of votes cast and one of the largest majorities of any Member of Parliament currently sitting in the House of Commons, it was a political movement, one that grew exponentially in the weeks and days leading up to polling day.
That we can go back to a completely harvesting society is a pipe dream, similar to the nineteenth century dreams of infinite progress and complete social equality. But it is equally apparent that unless our moral decision-making does not encompass at least a larger part of our natural and social environments, we cannot achieve what we cherish and aspire toward.
Options for 2012: Impending doomsday disaster? Global financial market collapse? Earth changes? Or perhaps a consciously held combination of all three? What about an impending quantum shift, the presence of higher human or divine values in the commerce and exchange of relationship? What about the possibility of a world-changing tsunami of consciousness? And if the latter is my choice, what are the steps necessary to have that call to consciousness heard and made manifest?
An important new study in the realm of astrophysics has revealed that up to 40 percent of red dwarfs (a type of star or “sun”) may harbor a large Earth-like planet orbiting at just the right distance to support life as we know it. The study was led by Dr Xavier Bonfils of the Grenoble University in France.
Entropy. That measure of disorder that increases as energy is dissipated into unusable forms effects many aspects of our present human condition. It is easy to grasp the principle as it pertains directly to heat. We see the energy of a fire heat our food, but we also can see a great deal of heat going out unused and unusable. This extra heat can be seen as increasing the disorder, as the molecules affected move more rapidly and more disordered.
