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 2 Feb 2008 @ 12:59, by jazzolog. Spirituality
"This series of maps shows how much the landscape of the eastern United States changed between 1650 and 1992. The maps depict canopy height, the height of the tallest continuous layer of vegetation. In 1650, before colonization, most of the eastern United States was covered in tall forest, shown in dark blue-green. During the next 200 years, the forest disappeared, particularly in New England, the mid-Atlantic, and parts of the Midwest. By 1920, the tall forest was entirely gone, replaced by cities and farms. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the forest began to regrow, but the overall canopy remained much shorter than it had been before 1650. The images are based on a reconstruction of land cover made from records ranging from 1850 census data to modern satellite measurements." [link]
If one could understand a flower as it has its being in God---this would be a higher thing than the whole world!
---Meister Eckhart
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
---Kahlil Gibran
The sound of water says what I think.
---Chuang-Tzu
Are there too many of us? If the world's population of humans has doubled within just a portion of my lifetime, is it cause for alarm? Will God provide? Will Nature take its toll? If great masses die---and continue to die...and are predicted to die, do I shrug in hiding or subconsciously with the thought "There are too many anyway"? Do rich men plot war, famine and drought to eliminate dangerous overpopulation? Who dies? Who lives? Who decides? Does money decide?
Surely I'm not alone in finding discussion of every major problem we face in this country and in this world eventually boils to how many of us there are. George Monbiot wondered in The Guardian on Tuesday why we don't talk about this, and a great flurry of comments has followed. "I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Programme is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is 'our number one environmental problem'. But most greens will not discuss it." [link]
In my opinion, we're silent because it's a moral question. And there's been silence for 50 years...except for occasional explosions about abortion and birth control. Laws are passed and opposed with vigor, but no resolution in the mind of the world. Take it from me, who works in public schools, a great war has been waged in the US over what to teach kids about sex and how. Without much opposition the people who teach sex in the classrooms, and during Bush with federal threats of funding cuts to enforce the morality, have frightened students with huge slides of sexually transmitted diseases. They've referred to a few fertilized cells in a woman's body as a "baby," and they refer to that woman as Mother. They've shown figures from textbooks on an overhead projector that could grow into anything from a stringbean to a gorilla, and they've said, "I know it doesn't look like a person, but that's a baby just like you and me."
Young American adults in their 20s were taught since grade school that if you're pregnant but not ready to parent for the rest of your life, you have it anyway and put it up for adoption. No mention has been made of terminating the pregnancy...and under Bush, again, with threats about funding. My daughter, who is 16, was taught "sex education," and one year in middle school in 3 different classes in a single semester, and not once was she told about birth control...except wait until you're married. How many movies came out this year, and very good ones, about pregnancy and having the baby anyway? And that's in the United States. What do young people learn in Kenya, in Iran? More >
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1 Feb 2008 @ 11:00, by owenwaters. Spirituality
Peace resides in the human heart. Inner peace creates outer peace in your relationships and in the effect that you have upon the global consciousness. More >
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 22 Jan 2008 @ 04:25, by a-d. Spirituality
Posted by/A-d because I believe -just like James does in the Power -and hence necessity- of prayer, as well as in SYNERGY.... "The sum of the (Synergistic) Total, is greater than the sum of its parts" -or something like that... hehe...Consequently, I want as many as possible to join Redfield's Global Projects. You need to click on the link here. [ [link] ]
Also.... James says at the bottom of this article: " So keep passing the word. I believe we are making a big difference." ...and I believe he is right about that! : )
...and here is James! "When we think of prayer, questions always arise. If the divine creator behind this world is omnipotent, wouldn't this Being know what is needed before we do and give it to us? Why doesn't he? What is the purpose of prayer?
Some spiritual traditions deal with this issue by assuming God requires prayer as a test of loyalty or conviction before help is granted. Other traditions hold that prayer is merely an exercise in communication and reverent listening, and that all outcomes follow some divine plan and are outside our influence anyway.
But today, I believe a new consensus is forming based on our direct experience about prayer. Dr. Larry Dossey in his classic book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer
and the Practice of Medicine, surveyed the best of existing prayer research and found several important findings: One is that the longer and more intensely people pray, the greater the effect. Another is that the greater the number of people praying, the more powerful the outcome.
But he also found something else: the more affirmative and faithful the prayer, the more it works, which may be the most important finding of all. Certainly a prayer in which we ask for help is effective, but there is something more powerful and centering that happens when we voice prayers in a more affirmative way.
Look at the Lord's Prayer in the Christian tradition for example. It is not, "Will you give us our daily bread?" It is expressed as an affirmation, "Give us our daily bread." It is not, "Please let your kingdom come." It is "Thy kingdom come," uttered as an expression of faith.
I think what we are discovering is that we have more influence in the outcomes of our lives than we ever thought possible. When we affirm that something will be given to us in our lives, or that some outcome will occur with others, we are directly engaging an energy of creation that flows through us into the world and acts to bring about our request. What seems to be happening spiritually is that we, in our free will, are placed in this world to help accelerate divine evolution. Like it or not, we are in a position of co-creation.
Thankfully, these affirmations or injunctions are weighted on the side of the good, and the just. I think we are finding that prayers outside a greater divine intention in the world don't work as well, but they still can have an influence, especially when we think and thus assign negative characteristics to others.
When we make negative assumptions about others, we actually feel the effects of the pronouncement in ourselves; it's like an energy of prayer that flows though us first as it flows into the world. Saying someone is crazy is to have a prayer effect that calls for them to be exactly that way, crazy. This tends to bring the exact same craziness into ourselves.
Never before have we so understood the old adage, "Be careful what you pray for." Our thoughts and prayers have the energy to bring into existence our intentions, and so our responsibility is clear. We have to engage only in positive affirmations in all situations -- in conversations, in our most hidden thoughts, and certainly in group efforts to amplify this power to uplift the world.
You'll notice in our biweekly prayer group that we pray for only one outcome: that others in the world will come closer to the divine within themselves and thus become more connected with divine intent and proper action in the world. This assumes that every person who opens up can be redeemed in an instant, and insures that our prayer will bring about the most positive outcomes without worrying that we are praying for the wrong things or for the wrong side in a conflict.
It's the only way to further human evolution in the world.
So keep passing the word. I believe we are making a big difference."
******************************
Now that you've come this far; click on "more" and read Redfield's other article:
'The Emergence of Worldwide Prayer Networks' More >
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14 Jan 2008 @ 12:44, by vector8. Spirituality
When I didn't hear my mother getting ready for church this morning, I figured she'd changed her mind. When she woke up she told me she had a splitting headache.
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said.
"Thanks."
As I know my mother believes in taking tablets I said, "Have you taken anything for the headache?" More >
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 7 Jan 2008 @ 23:30, by mortimer. Spirituality
Ori Ogbe
Three Ori Perspectives
In Ifa philosophy there are three perspectives based upon three "tendencies"
Female Ori - - Ori Inu - - Male Ori. More >
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3 Jan 2008 @ 15:50, by craiglang. Spirituality
For years, many including myself have been writing about a coming shift in consciousness - a psychic/spiritual emergence or Awakening. Since this sie is all about the coming New Civilization, I thought I'd pose the question here as to what people here feel that might be like.
I am currently writing a novel series about the transition, the time in which we make the change in consciousness, the apocalypse, the transitioning to the fifth world, or whatever one wants to call it.
There will most likely be a series of books (the first of which is pretty much done and looking for a publisher). The final book will be that in which we make the above-mentioned transition, whatever that might look like. I am currently trying to form a picture to the conclusion in my mind as I write a general backstory for the series.
My questions for the general NCN world are this:
1) How do you think a transition will actually occur (if it does)?
2) Will it be associated with 2012, or some other time? Gradual or sudden? etc...
3) What do you think the world will look like after such a transition?
4) What would life be like in such a world?
5) Will it be Psychic emergence? Some form of enlightenment? Something else? Or will we simply learn (somehow) to live together in a better way?
I have a zillion questions about this, and I've played with some ideas myself. But I'm most interested in the perspective of people in NCN, since this group is about the New Civilization.
Let me know what you think.
Thanx,
-Craig Lang More >
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2 Jan 2008 @ 15:44, by vector8. Spirituality
Last night, my mother mentioned how Christmas passes too quickly. Before you know it, it's over and all the happiness is gone. You're back to feeling the blues.
I believe the happiness is all over very quickly because it wasn't real in the first place. If that happiness was real, it would persist no matter what. More >
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21 Dec 2007 @ 13:57, by vector8. Spirituality
During my bus journey this morning, a lady I usually see in the neighbourhood got on the bus. I smiled and said hello.
"Compliments of the season," she said.
"Same to you," I said.
After a while I said, "Have you done all your Christmas shopping then?"
She frowned.
"Do you celebrate Christmas?" I said.
"I haven't even decided what I'm doing," she said. More >
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6 Dec 2007 @ 18:49, by swanny. Spirituality
Hmmmm this thought of "REEVOLUTION" comes to me today
but not sure what it means or how it could happen....
THE REEVOLUTION OF HUMANITY
Perhaps it ties in somewhat or how with
"World Harmony One"......
video link = [link]
yes help and togetherness is perhaps desireable....
yet I'm of wonder that maybe humanity somehow evolved down the wrong path
and that the path turns out to be a dead end
and that somehow now we have to retrace our steps and latch on to a new star...
now not exactly sure of the who how or whats or whys and stuff
but did humanity alone not the world or gaia persae....
take a wrong turn somehow
followed a false god or false profit or prophet????
yet it seems to evoke more questions than answers
and that even if its possible for us to reevolve more along the lines of the planet....
how could that be done
wheres the repair manual?
sir me More >
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 1 Dec 2007 @ 18:59, by nednednerb. Spirituality
This poem I wrote over the last several years, editing it slowly.
I hope you enjoy it and learn something from it!
It is about my experience of schizophrenia and what I feel like inside myself: like a beautiful bird who could be flying but whose spirit is trapped in a cage.
I don't feel like I'm trapped now, except in the society which I mention in the poem. But I'm an activist and a writer, so I have ways to the means with which to interact with that society, hopefully changing it for the better!!
Without further ado, here is the poem: More >
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