Future Positive — Timothy Wilken, MD writes: I began using healing mediation to help my patients in the late 1970s. I created individual tapes for each patient, my scripts were based on a blend of breathing techniques, progressive muscular relaxation, autogenic training, guided imagery, and self-hypnosis. These tapes proved to be powerful tools for helping my patients heal both emotional and physical injuries.

In 2007, when I was personally challenged with a serious illness, I reached for them to help me heal myself. Since then I make it my practice to personally use healing meditation daily. While I have memorized many scripts, I am constantly searching for new healing meditations.

It was my great delight to discover Candace Pert’s Psychosomatic Wellness. She has wonderful meditations on this CD album. I try to listen to them daily. I keep them on my iPod so they are handy. (01/28/10)

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CommUnity of Minds — Barack Obama speaking on January 17, 2010: We gather here, on a Sabbath, during a time of profound difficulty for our nation and for our world.  In such a time, it soothes the soul to seek out the Divine in a spirit of prayer; to seek solace among a community of believers.  But we are not here just to ask the Lord for His blessing.  We aren’t here just to interpret His Scripture.  We’re also here to call on the memory of one of His noble servants, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now, it’s fitting that we do so here, within the four walls of Vermont Avenue Baptist Church — here, in a church that rose like the phoenix from the ashes of the civil war; here in a church formed by freed slaves, whose founding pastor had worn the union blue; here in a church from whose pews congregants set out for marches and from whom choir anthems of freedom were heard; from whose sanctuary King himself would sermonize from time to time. …

On Thursday, December 6, 1956.  And before Dr. King had pointed us to the mountaintop, before he told us about his dream in front of the Lincoln Memorial, King came here, as a 27-year-old preacher, to speak on what he called “The Challenge of a New Age.”  “The Challenge of a New Age.”  It was a period of triumph, but also uncertainty, for Dr. King and his followers — because just weeks earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered the desegregation of Montgomery’s buses, a hard-wrought, hard-fought victory that would put an end to the 381-day historic boycott down in Montgomery, Alabama.

And yet, as Dr. King rose to take that pulpit, the future still seemed daunting.  It wasn’t clear what would come next for the movement that Dr. King led.  It wasn’t clear how we were going to reach the Promised Land.  Because segregation was still rife; lynchings still a fact.  Yes, the Supreme Court had ruled not only on the Montgomery buses, but also on Brown v. Board of Education.  And yet that ruling was defied throughout the South  — by schools and by states; they ignored it with impunity.  And here in the nation’s capital, the federal government had yet to fully align itself with the laws on its books and the ideals of its founding.

So it’s not hard for us, then, to imagine that moment.  We can imagine folks coming to this church, happy about the boycott being over.  We can also imagine them, though, coming here concerned about their future, sometimes second-guessing strategy, maybe fighting off some creeping doubts, perhaps despairing about whether the movement in which they had placed so many of their hopes — a movement in which they believed so deeply — could actually deliver on its promise.

So here we are, more than half a century later, once again facing the challenges of a new age.  Here we are, once more marching toward an unknown future, what I call the Joshua generation to their Moses generation — the great inheritors of progress paid for with sweat and blood, and sometimes life itself.

We’ve inherited the progress of unjust laws that are now overturned.  We take for granted the progress of a ballot being available to anybody who wants to take the time to actually vote. We enjoy the fruits of prejudice and bigotry being lifted — slowly, sometimes in fits and starts, but irrevocably — from human hearts.  It’s that progress that made it possible for me to be here today; for the good people of this country to elect an African American the 44th President of the United States of America.

Reverend Wheeler mentioned the inauguration, last year’s election.  You know, on the heels of that victory over a year ago, there were some who suggested that somehow we had entered into a post-racial America, all those problems would be solved.  There were those who argued that because I had spoke of a need for unity in this country that our nation was somehow entering into a period of post-partisanship.  That didn’t work out so well.  There was a hope shared by many that life would be better from the moment that I swore that oath.

Of course, as we meet here today, one year later, we know the promise of that moment has not yet been fully fulfilled.  Because of an era of greed and irresponsibility that sowed the seeds of its own demise, because of persistent economic troubles unaddressed through the generations, because of a banking crisis that brought the financial system to the brink of catastrophe, we are being tested — in our own lives and as a nation — as few have been tested before.

Unemployment is at its highest level in more than a quarter of a century.  Nowhere is it higher than the African American community.  Poverty is on the rise.  Home ownership is slipping. Beyond our shores, our sons and daughters are fighting two wars. Closer to home, our Haitian brothers and sisters are in desperate need.  Bruised, battered, many people are legitimately feeling doubt, even despair, about the future.  Like those who came to this church on that Thursday in 1956, folks are wondering, where do we go from here?

I understand those feelings.  I understand the frustration and sometimes anger that so many folks feel as they struggle to stay afloat.  I get letters from folks around the country every day; I read 10 a night out of the 40,000 that we receive.  And there are stories of hardship and desperation, in some cases, pleading for help:  I need a job.  I’m about to lose my home.  I don’t have health care — it’s about to cause my family to be bankrupt.  Sometimes you get letters from children:  My mama or my daddy have lost their jobs, is there something you can do to help?  Ten letters like that a day we read.

So, yes, we’re passing through a hard winter.  It’s the hardest in some time.  But let’s always remember that, as a people, the American people, we’ve weathered some hard winters before.  This country was founded during some harsh winters.  The fishermen, the laborers, the craftsmen who made camp at Valley Forge — they weathered a hard winter.  The slaves and the freedmen who rode an underground railroad, seeking the light of justice under the cover of night — they weathered a hard winter. The seamstress whose feet were tired, the pastor whose voice echoes through the ages — they weathered some hard winters.  It was for them, as it is for us, difficult, in the dead of winter, to sometimes see spring coming.  They, too, sometimes felt their hopes deflate.  And yet, each season, the frost melts, the cold recedes, the sun reappears.  So it was for earlier generations and so it will be for us.

What we need to do is to just ask what lessons we can learn from those earlier generations about how they sustained themselves during those hard winters, how they persevered and prevailed.  Let us in this Joshua generation learn how that Moses generation overcame. Let me offer a few thoughts on this. 

First and foremost, they did so by remaining firm in their resolve. …

Second, they understood that as much as our government and our political parties had betrayed them in the past — as much as our nation itself had betrayed its own ideals — government, if aligned with the interests of its people, can be — and must be  — a force for good. …

Third, our predecessors were never so consumed with theoretical debates that they couldn’t see progress when it came. …

Fourth, at the core of King’s success was an appeal to conscience that touched hearts and opened minds, a commitment to universal ideals — of freedom, of justice, of equality — that spoke to all people, not just some people. …

Let’s work to change the political system, as imperfect as it is.  I know people can feel down about the way things are going sometimes here in Washington.  I know it’s tempting to give up on the political process.  But we’ve put in place tougher rules on lobbying and ethics and transparency — tougher rules than any administration in history.  It’s not enough, but it’s progress.  Progress is possible.  Don’t give up on voting.  Don’t give up on advocacy.  Don’t give up on activism.  There are too many needs to be met, too much work to be done.  Like Dr. King said, “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”

Let us broaden our coalition, building a confederation not of liberals or conservatives, not of red states or blue states, but of all Americans who are hurting today, and searching for a better tomorrow.  The urgency of the hour demands that we make common cause with all of America’s workers — white, black, brown — all of whom are being hammered by this recession, all of whom are yearning for that spring to come.  It demands that we reach out to those who’ve been left out in the cold even when the economy is good, even when we’re not in recession — the youth in the inner cities, the youth here in Washington, D.C., people in rural communities who haven’t seen prosperity reach them for a very long time.  It demands that we fight discrimination, whatever form it may come.  That means we fight discrimination  against gays and lesbians, and we make common cause to reform our immigration system.

And finally, we have to recognize, as Dr. King did, that progress can’t just come from without — it also has to come from within.  And over the past year, for example, we’ve made meaningful improvements in the field of education.  I’ve got a terrific Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.  He’s been working hard with states and working hard with the D.C. school district, and we’ve insisted on reform, and we’ve insisted on accountability.  We we’re putting in more money and we’ve provided more Pell Grants and more tuition tax credits and simpler financial aid forms.  We’ve done all that, but parents still need to parent.  (Applause.)  Kids still need to own up to their responsibilities.  We still have to set high expectations for our young people.  Folks can’t simply look to government for all the answers without also looking inside themselves, inside their own homes, for some of the answers.

Progress will only come if we’re willing to promote that ethic of hard work, a sense of responsibility, in our own lives. I’m not talking, by the way, just to the African American community.  Sometimes when I say these things people assme, well, he’s just talking to black people about working hard.  No, no, no, no.  I’m talking to the American community.  Because somewhere along the way, we, as a nation, began to lose touch with some of our core values.  You know what I’m talking about.  We became enraptured with the false prophets who prophesized an easy path to success, paved with credit cards and home equity loans and get-rich-quick schemes, and the most important thing was to be a celebrity; it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you get on TV.  That’s everybody.

We forgot what made the bus boycott a success; what made the civil rights movement a success; what made the United States of America a success — that, in this country, there’s no substitute for hard work, no substitute for a job well done, no substitute for being responsible stewards of God’s blessings.

What we’re called to do, then, is rebuild America from its foundation on up.  To reinvest in the essentials that we’ve neglected for too long — like health care, like education, like a better energy policy, like basic infrastructure, like scientific research.  Our generation is called to buckle down and get back to basics.

We must do so not only for ourselves, but also for our children, and their children.  For Jordan and for Austin.  That’s a sacrifice that falls on us to make.  It’s a much smaller sacrifice than the Moses generation had to make, but it’s still a sacrifice.

Yes, it’s hard to transition to a clean energy economy.  Sometimes it may be inconvenient, but it’s a sacrifice that we have to make.  It’s hard to be fiscally responsible when we have all these human needs, and we’re inheriting enormous deficits and debt, but that’s a sacrifice that we’re going to have to make.  You know, it’s easy, after a hard day’s work, to just put your kid in front of the TV set — you’re tired, don’t want to fuss with them — instead of reading to them, but that’s a sacrifice we must joyfully accept.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a good father and good mother. Sometimes it’s hard to be a good neighbor, or a good citizen, to give up time in service of others, to give something of ourselves to a cause that’s greater than ourselves — as Michelle and I are urging folks to do tomorrow to honor and celebrate Dr. King.  But these are sacrifices that we are called to make.  These are sacrifices that our faith calls us to make.  Our faith in the future.  Our faith in America.  Our faith in God.

And on his sermon all those years ago, Dr. King quoted a poet’s verse:

Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
And behind the dim unknown stands God
Within the shadows keeping watch above his own.

Even as Dr. King stood in this church, a victory in the past and uncertainty in the future, he trusted God.  He trusted that God would make a way.  A way for prayers to be answered.  A way for our union to be perfected.  A way for the arc of the moral universe, no matter how long, to slowly bend towards truth and bend towards freedom, to bend towards justice.  He had faith that God would make a way out of no way.

You know, folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm. They say, all this stuff coming at you, how come you just seem calm?  …

But let me tell you — during those times it’s faith that keeps me calm.  It’s faith that gives me peace.  The same faith that leads a single mother to work two jobs to put a roof over her head when she has doubts.  The same faith that keeps an unemployed father to keep on submitting job applications even after he’s been rejected a hundred times.  The same faith that says to a teacher even if the first nine children she’s teaching she can’t reach, that that 10th one she’s going to be able to reach.  The same faith that breaks the silence of an earthquake’s wake with the sound of prayers and hymns sung by a Haitian community.  A faith in things not seen, in better days ahead, in Him who holds the future in the hollow of His hand.  A faith that lets us mount up on wings like eagles; lets us run and not be weary; lets us walk and not faint.

So let us hold fast to that faith, as Joshua held fast to the faith of his fathers, and together, we shall overcome the challenges of a new age.  Together, we shall seize the promise of this moment.  (01/26/10)

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CNN Money — Shawn Tulley writes: Here we go again. Less than two years after the housing market collapsed, the U.S. economy is threatened by a new bubble in asset prices. This time, four billowing balloons are hovering: two commodities — gold and oil — stocks, and government bonds.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that last week’s 5% drop in the S&P, and the recent sell-off in oil, remotely makes them fairly valued, let alone bargains. Equities and commodities, as well as Treasuries, which actually rallied as stocks dropped, still have a long way to fall. The reason: They’ve already seen huge run-ups that put their prices far above their historic averages, and far above the levels justified by fundamentals. …

So how do you spot a bubble? My view is that we’re now seeing the same signs that exposed the frenzy in real estate: prices flying far above their historic averages, measured either in inflation-adjusted dollars (commodities) or as a ratio of the income they produce (stocks and Treasuries). Watch for gravity to take over, just as it did in housing.

Treasuries

The rate on the 10-year Treasury is now a mere 3.6%, well below the 5.5% rate that it averaged between 1993 and 2007, a period where inflation ran at an annual 3% clip, meaning that the “real rate” after inflation, stood at about 2.5%.

So let’s assume that future inflation also averages 3%, about where it stood in the second half of 2009. At today’s prices, Treasuries are offering a real yield of just 0.6% — 1.9 points below our 14-year average.

But as the economy recovers and the threat of inflation causes the Fed to tighten monetary policy by raising rates, the yield could rise to 5.5%, handing investors a big loss. Reminder: When yields rise, bond prices fall.

Yet even that scenario is optimistic. Given the huge deficits from the bailouts, it’s likely that investors will want a far bigger cushion for expected inflation — which suggests, says Wesbury, that the yield on 10-year bills could go over 6% in 2011. …

Stocks

Let’s assume that investors want a 10% return from stocks (a 7% real return plus 3% gains from inflation). But at current prices, there is no way that the S&P can deliver those kind of gains in future years.

Here’s why: Think of the S&P as one company that provides a total return in two components, a dividend yield and a capital gain. Together, the two should equal 10%. But the two are inversely correlated. The lower the dividend yield, the higher the earnings growth rate must be to get you to that 10%. When yields are extremely low, those growth rates become mathematically impossible.

Right now, the P/E multiple for the S&P is an extremely high 20, based on a formula developed by economist Robert Shiller that removes the constant gyrations that can under or overstate the ratio, and the dividend yield is just over 2%. So to hit that 10%, earnings must rise 8% — assuming 3% inflation, 5% annually in real terms.

But earnings tend to track GDP, which rises about 3% a year over long periods, though far more slowly in a recession. So 3% real GDP growth isn’t nearly enough to lift profits 5%. That implies that stock prices must drop sharply: A fallback to their historic P/E of around 14 would require a 29% correction, taking the S&P from its current level of 1,092 to around 770.

“Stocks will disappoint us if we buy them when they’re expensive and delight us if we buy them when they’re cheap,” says Rob Arnott, chief of asset manager Research Affiliates. Now, they’re extremely expensive, and destined to disappoint. (01/26/10)

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TARPLEY.net — On January 25, 2010, historian Webster Griffin Tarpley wrote:

My dear Senator,

I am writing to urge you to vote against the confirmation of Ben Bernanke for a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Bernanke has failed in his responsibilities both as a banking regulator and in his administration of Federal Reserve lending. Bernanke presided over the final phase of the $1.5 quadrillion financial derivatives bubble which is the central cause of the present world economic depression. He was the principal advocate for the reckless and irresponsible policy of bailing out bankrupt money center institutions, allowing them to live on as zombie banks at astronomical taxpayer expense, but with no corresponding benefit whatsoever for the economic life of the broader society. Bernanke is responsible for the super-toxic alphabet soup of Federal Reserve lending facilities like the TAF, the TALF, and so forth. These betrayals of the public trust have offered 0% credit to predatory institutions including Wall Street banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, money market funds, and other financial institutions. Bernanke has thus used public resources to subsidize financial speculation in all of its most destructive forums, while doing almost nothing to provide cheap credit for production that would benefit factories, farms, mines, building construction, small business, exports, scientific research, energy production, and infrastructure building. Economic activity in all of these fields is now dying for lack of credit, which is being denied by the very institutions Bernanke is trying to save. Everything that Bernanke has done is diametrically opposed to the rational credit policy needed to fight an economic depression.

Bernanke must therefore be rejected. Instead, the Senate should support a new Fed chairman with the qualifications necessary to preside over the nationalization of this illegal, unconstitutional, and failed institution. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 must be repealed. The future of the Fed is as a bureau of the United States Treasury responsible for providing cheap federal lending as a public utility for productive activity in the form of tangible physical commodity output, not speculation and financial services. In the future, the size of the money supply, short-term interest rates, and the approved categories of lending must be taken out of the hands of unelected and unaccountable cliques of predatory bankers, and deliberated in the full glare of publicity by the House, the Senate, and the president, as the United States Constitution actually requires. Because of Bernanke’s pattern of subservience to Wall Street interests, it is clear that he cannot be the official suited to to carry out this historic transition. Worse, reports concerning telephone calls made by Treasury Secretary Geithner in September 2008 suggest that Bernanke may also be a party to illegal operations by the Fed in regard to the bailout of AIG and its derivatives counterparties at that time. It is unthinkable that the Senate would approve Bernanke unless and until these grave suspicions have been cleared up.

Today’s newspapers suggest that Bernanke, even if he should be rejected by the Senate this week, would still attempt to stay in power as a member of the Board of Governors through 2020, exerting his power through his colleagues presently on the board. This would amount to nothing less than a bankers’ insurrection. In this eventuality, the Congress must swiftly impeach Bernanke and remove him from office immediately. (01/26/10)

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Cluster F%#k Nation — James Howard Kunstler writes: A lot of things started shaking loose last week, and not just in Haiti.  The Scott Brown senate seat victory in Massachusetts shook loose a Democratic “super-majority” that only had to be constructed because the US Senate stupidly turned the filibuster into standard operating procedure where it once was a seldom-used procedural dodge employed strictly by villains seeking to paralyze the chamber.  Thanks to the new system, the senate is now in a continual state of paralysis.

The election in Massachusetts prompted President Obama to understand that the voters were pissed off — among other things — about the special privileges of banks and bankers, after a year of force-feeding them taxpayer money like Strasbourg geese. So he outlined a bank discipline offensive that sounded an awful lot like the return of the Glass-Steagall Act — which several of his top advisors (Summers, Rubin…) had a direct hand in repealing a decade ago — only without proposing to reinstate Glass Steagall. Go figure. Note: for all the bluster, Mr. Obama did not mention activating the moribund Department of Justice, where Attorney General Eric Holder has been in a coma all year. Somebody ought to inform the president that he has an entire criminal investigation division there, and that a little brisk leadership could gin them up into action as they were following the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s (when Republicans were in power, by the way).

Now, one big question is how come the president waited until after the Massachusetts election debacle to man up with the banks? Did it only just come to him that they were looting the nation — with government assistance? Pretty obviously nobody will believe that Mr. Obama is sincere about reining in fraud-ridden Wall Street until he issues pink slips to the Goldman Sachs alumni who have been running him like a radio-controlled monster truck: Summers, Geithner, Rubin, et al.  There was a hint of that last week, when the president made his statement with “the big guy,” Paul Volker, standing right behind him. Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner have both claimed more than once that they are “not regulators.” That must partly explain the absence of meaningful regulation all year.  My guess is that Geithner is about to be tossed overboard like a feculent weiner, and that the president is praying for the senate to vote against Bernanke’s reconfirmation this week. …

We should be turning our efforts and our remaining resources toward the task of becoming  that differently-organized, finer-scaled society.The money that went into propping up the automobile companies could have been used to rebuild the entire railroad system between Boston and the Great Lakes, and the capital squandered on AIG and its offshoot claimants could have rebuilt everything else the rest of the way to Seattle. Is it really so hard to imagine what history requires of you?

Apparently so. That’s why movements like Naziism start. If there ever was another nation beautifully primed for an explosion of deadly irrational politics, it’s us. And it looks to me as if that’s exactly what we’re going to get — especially now that the Supreme Court has made it possible for corporations to buy elections lock, stock, and barrel. I hope our constitutional law professor president turns his attention to proposing a legislative act that will sharply reign in the putative “personhood” prerogatives of corporations. They are relatively new entities in legal history, and their supposed “rights,” duties, obligations, and limits have been regularly subject to re-definition over the past hundred years.  There’s no reason to believe that the court’s current ideas are definitive. In fact, they are completely crazy — given the fact that the fundamental character of corporations is sociopathic, insofar as their only express allegiance is to their shareholders, meaning they are devoid of any sense of the public interest, meaning they are unfit to participate in electoral politics. (01/26/10)

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Future Positive — Willis W. Harman speaking in 1996: One of the most important aspects of these forces for change is the apparent emergence of a new worldview… On the other hand, there are many indications ofthe possible emergence of a trans-modern picture of reality differing both from the scientific worldview and the traditional religious worldview.

This emerging “trans-modern ” worldview, involves a shift in the locus of authority from external to “inner knowing.” It has basically turned away from the older scientific view that ultimate reality is “fundamental particles,” and trusts perceptions of the wholeness and spiritual aspect of organisms, ecosystems, Gaia and Cosmos. This implies a spiritual reality, and ultimate trust in the authority of the whole. It amounts to a reconciliation of scientific inquiry with the “perennial wisdom” at the core of the world’s spiritual traditions. It continues to involve a confidence in scientific inquiry, but an inquiry whose metaphysical base has shifted from the reductionist, objectivist, positivist base of 19th- and 20th-century science to a more holistic and transcendental metaphysical foundation.

The modern worldview is based on Western science which, in terms of its goals of prediction, control, and generation of manipulative technologies, is amazingly successful. Nevertheless, it is an artifact of Western culture and it does have its limitations. The core of the current challenge to the scientific worldview can be taken to be “consciousness,” which has come to be a code word for a wide range of human experience, including conscious awareness or subjectivity, intentionality, selective attention, intuition, creativity, relationship of mind to healing, spiritual sensibility, and a range of anomalous experience and phenomena. Efforts toward incorporating within the scientific purview any or all of this territory has proven to be an extremely difficult task.

The fundamental reason for this difficulty appears to be that Western science has been caught in a basic dualistic trap – that of considering the subject doing the mapping as separate from the map.Getting a more accurate map (more based on modern physics, more “holistic”, more “systems”) will not solve this problem. Rather, we must realize that thoughts are not merely a reflection on reality, but are also a movement of that reality itself. The mapmaker, the self, the thinking and knowing subject, is actually a product and a performance of that which it seeks to know and represent.

Modern Western science fundamentally entails three important metaphysical assumptions: a. Realism (ontological-leads to epistemological conclusion). There is a real world which is, in essence, physically measurable (positivism). We are embedded in that world, follow its laws, and have evolved from an ancient origin. Mind or consciousness evolved within that world; the world pre-existed before its appearance, and continues to exist and persist independent of consciousness. b. Objectivism (epistemological and ontological) That real world exists independently of mind, and can be studied as object. That is, it is accessible to sense perception and can be intersubjectively observed and validated. c. Reductionism (epistemological). That real world is described by the laws of physics, which apply everywhere. The essence of the scientific endeavor is to provide explanations for complex phenomena in terms of the characteristics of, and interactions among, their component parts.

These underlying assumptions are directly challenged by a wide range of data regarding “anomalous” phenomena, and by a wide range of human experience. The critical epistemological issue is whether we humans have basically one way of contacting Reality (namely, through the physical senses) or two (the second being the deep intuition). The importance of the issue shows up in a central ontological question namely whether consciousness is caused (by physiological processes in the brain, which in turn are consequences of the long evolutionary process) or causal (in the sense that consciousness is not only a causal factor in present phenomena, but also a causal factor throughout the entire evolutionary process). Western scientific method urges toward the former choice in both cases, whereas the phenomena of consciousness suggest the latter choice in both cases.

A step toward resolving this long-standing impasse may be the recognition that it is, in a sense, a historical accident that physics was taken to be the root science. That led naturally enough to such ideas as seeking objectivity through separating observer and observed; taking reality to be essentially that which can be physically measured; and seeking explanations of the whole in terms of understanding the parts.

But what if the study of living systems had been taken to be the root science, rather than physics? Had this been the case, science would undoubtedly have taken a more holistic turn. It would have recognized that wholes are self-evidently more than the sum of their parts, and would have adopted an epistemology more congenial to living organisms. It might well have adopted a different ontological stance in viewing reality. (01/18/10)

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CommUnity of Minds — Catherine Bean Weser writes: It is an auspicious time. The years from 2009 through 2012 are full of tremendous possibility. Energies are shifting and in cosmic time, these years are ones of cosmic awakening. To live in an awakened manner means to be fearless, present, and in a state of total freedom in the One Life.

It all starts with self-acceptance. The truth is that trying to change who you are in the moment, to become something that you think you are not, is delusion, based on an assumption of inadequacy. Cosmic awakening sees that there is no progression of events or strategies that will take you to a point of awakening. We would describe the recognition of an awakened experience as something more like a random encounter with your deep self. Your deep self is always present, although your intellect and mind often chatter to try to distract you from that knowing.

We suggest that all of you have had such random encounters with the deepest, most essential aspects of your total being, and that each random encounter is a spontaneous initiatory experience.  With these encounters as reference points of the deep self, eventually the intellect, the dualistic device designed  to hold us in time and space, relinquishes its control and you live in the awakened state fully realizing it.

The doors are always open and in the course of simply experiencing your life, you are very likely to have many random encounters with your deep self. They are those times when you have direct perception without intellectual interference, without judgment or comment from your history or your process.

Often it is in the midst of the chaos and the upheaval of your deepest and darkest issues that a random encounter occurs. Like the lotus spontaneously arising from the seemingly darkest waters, the absolute perfection of  all suddenly is realized. It is as if your attention snaps and a breakdown/breakthrough allows the unpremeditated light to shine.

All along you probably had an intuition of something more profound, underneath the heavy cloak that keeps you from your joy. The cloak drops to the floor and with a “thud” all is light once again. This is a random encounter with the deep self. It is an initiatory experience which reinforces what you know to be truth and light–what you know, but often cannot articulate or explain.

In those times when you feel despair or confusion, are engulfed by fear or ignorance, you have probably noticed that meditation is difficult if not impossible. That is because meditation has become, in that state, a strategy for the alleviation of personal distress. You unconsciously try to make meditation take you from what is to something other than what is–and it doesn’t work. Meditation is the method by which we reinforce the knowing of the silent center of our being; therefore, it is best to meditate when we are in more neutral states, and not when we want to change what we mistakenly believe to be real.

Your intellect or your dualistic mental body is tenacious; it holds on to a sense of security based on social conventions, faith, history, and many other tenets of belief. If you can shift your sense of security from what your intellect believes is real to knowing the pure creative energy you embody, you can experience liberation, freedom, and an awakened life.

If you are secure in your creativity, then you will have an answer or response for anything that should confront you. If you respond creatively to every challenge you face, all possibilities exist and all results are possible. This flexibility is going to be especially useful in the next three years when it is likely that there will be many changes and challenges confronting most people on the planet. (01/18/10)

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BBC Medical Science — Swapping a daily glass of wine for a slightly weaker alternative could be enough to lower the risk of some cancers, a charity suggests. Studies suggest that people who drink wine with an alcohol content of 10% rather than 14% might benefit, says the World Cancer Research Fund. The charity called for more low-alcohol wines and beers to be available for sale.

An industry expert said UK consumers were asking for “lighter” wines. The calculation was based on figures in a 2007 report which looked at the evidence for a link between alcohol consumption and cancer.

That report recommended that men should have no more than two drinks a day, and women no more than one. The figures used to reach that conclusion were detailed enough to reveal the likely extra risk posed by each extra 10 grams of alcohol - just over one unit - regularly consumed.

From this, scientists calculated that, in theory, a person drinking one large 250ml glass of wine a night would have a 7% lower risk of bowel cancer if they normally drank 10% strength wine rather than 14%. …

Dr Rachel Thompson, science programme manager for WCRF, said: “From a cancer prevention point of view it is best not to drink at all. But we have to be realistic, and the fact is that many people in the UK enjoy a drink and see it as part of their social life. Making this change might seem quite minor to do, but it could have a real impact on cancer risk.

“If everyone who drinks 14% wine at the moment switched to lower-alcohol wine tomorrow, for example, it is likely hundreds of cancer cases in the UK a year could be prevented.”

She said that while it was possible to find weaker alternatives, most wines still had a strength of 13% or 14%, and called on retailers to make more weaker wines available. Beer drinkers could also expect similar benefits if they switched from premium strength to lower-alcohol brands. (01/18/10)

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CommUnity of Minds — Ilargi writes: The case of Iceland and its financial shenanigans is, if nothing else, intriguing and amusing. Not for some of the people involved, I know, and I mean no disrespect. But it is in the way the situation is dealt with and in how various parties try to come out on top.

A short background: Iceland had 3 main banks who all, albeit to various degrees, made unrealistic profits for investors and depositors in early 21st century times, and then went bust. One bank, Icesave, which had many clients in England and Holland, owes these clients some $6 billion, a sum the Iceland government is held responsible for and initially seems to have agreed to pay. The people of Iceland, all 320,000 of them as it were, have started questioning why they should pay for foreign investors’ losses with banks with whom they have no connection other than that they happen to be located in their country.

Britain’s decision to put Iceland on some terror alert list because of the banking affair is likely a big factor in this, as well as in the decision by the president to let the people decide in a referendum on February 20 whether they want to pay back the losses of foreign investors who had accounts with Icesave only so they could get a few basis points more interest on their funds. It doesn’t look like they will.

Which may put Iceland on some black list, with the IMF threatening to withdraw emergency funds and Scandinavian loans in peril. The Dutch threat to block Iceland’s entry into the EU is seen in Reykjavik as similar to Britain’s terror list boondoggle. The prevailing sentiment these days among the geysers can best be summarized like this: “We may be small, but we ain’t your bitch”. And that is a sentiment that may provoke a lot of sympathy, provided the Icelanders play their cards right.

In the next 6 weeks they will come under huge international pressure to pay up or else, for there’s nothing the international community fears more than members who don’t play by the rules, no matter how inane and insane they are. Plus, of course, Iceland is not some small African nation full of poor black people, it’s a small European nation full of the kind of people that wealthy US and EU citizens can identify with: white and relatively affluent. They could be your neighbors. They could be your family. They could be you.

So how reasonable is it for Britain and the Netherlands to demand restitution of losses suffered? Interesting question. The answer is not that easy, since it begs the next question. Who is to blame for the losses? There’s the bankers, who went megalomaniacal, and got much bigger than banks based in what is population-wise not more than a mid-size town ought to be. But Iceland is a member of the EEA, the European Economic Area, which gives its banks the right to expand to the rest of the EU.

So alright, let’s see. First to blame: the bankers. Second: The Icelandic government, who should have regulated its banks much closer. Third, the governments of Holland and England, who should have done due diligence and demanded far more strict guarantees from the banks. Fourth, the Dutch and British investors, individuals, local governments and companies, who all should have read the fine print. Fifth, the people of Iceland, who were living it up with the cash floating in freely. …

But in the end, as I’m pondering all this, what is probably the most interesting part of it is that the American people ARE in fact in the same boat as the Icelanders. The main difference between them may well be that the latter stand up for themselves, where the former don’t understand what’s going on. The US government has indeed already pledged $14 trillion in public funds (with a total risk of up to $24 trillion) for US bank losses. It’s just that American banks are covered by the ability of the US to borrow enough money in international markets to cover their losses, something for which Iceland is simply too small. And also, the US gets to bleep around with accounting rules, so bank losses can remain hidden for a long time (though not forever).

So while it may look like the situations are entirely different, they’re not really. On the ground level, it’s the citizens who are being forced to pay for institutional gambling debts, the old adage of keep profits private and make losses public. China doesn’t go to Obama to demand payment guarantees tomorrow morning, but it’s all just a matter of size. That size determines that the Icelandic situation is far more transparent, since smaller make simpler. But down the line, the Iceland banks weren’t the greatest gamblers, it was Wall Street and the City of London. And the $20,000 that Icelanders “owe” per capita (in the eyes of others) isn’t really the issue, it won’t kill them. They just take a stand against what they see as bullies.

The amount Americans “owe”, though, is already more than twice as much per capita at $14 trillion. And there’s no end in sight, since none of that money has been used to actively solve problems, it’s all merely hiding them for a while longer.

In other words, here’s waiting for the moment Americans become more like Icelanders, and stand up against bullies (I’m sure Oprah has advice to provide on the topic). But also, here’s not holding any breath, and here’s expecting that by the time any sizeable group stands up, the amounts owed will be a multiple of $20,000 and enough to generate debt and poverty for years, if not decades, to come. (01/07/2010)

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BBC Environmental Science — Large quantities of oil spilled during the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster still persists beneath gravel beaches in the region, a study has found. Writing in Nature Geoscience, a team of scientists found that oil just a few inches down was dissipating up to 1,000 times slower than oil on the surface.

They suggested that a lack of oxygen and nutrients in the gravel was slowing the dispersal of the remaining oil. The results could have implications for cleaning up future spills, they added.

Considered to be one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 38,000 tonnes of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, after the vessel hit a reef.

As a result, more than 2,000km (1,250 miles) of coastline was affected, killing thousands of seabirds and having a serious impact on the region’s fishing industry. In the five years after the disaster, the oil was shown to be dispersing at a rate of about 70% each year.

Most clean-up operations in the area ended in 1992 because the remaining oil was expected to disperse within a few years. A later study discovered that the oil was disappearing at rate of just 4% each year, and that an estimate 20,000 gallons remained in the beaches. (01/18/10)

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