Gaia Community: Flowerchild's Blog

I was called a Pagan and a Witch in Elburn Herald

http://niecy.gaia.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:31:05 GMT

Well you wouldn't know it when you read the article in the Elburn Herald, but if you've been following the story, you'll know who the so called Elder from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is talking about. Me! And anyone else that attended the Psychic Fair.

At least the Elburn Herald printed about how well the event went. This reporter Martha was very helpful for me. I believe she couldn't believe what was going on in her town.

I was talking to a friend about why all the 'contrast' is happening. It did occur to me that because I've been in the closet as an intuitive (I really don't care for the word psychic) and only recently 'come out'. But before that I had an ingrained fear. Ever since I could remember, as early at 4 years old, I had dreams of being burned alive. I learned through biofeedback that 14 generations ago on my mothers side, I was accused of being a witch and burned.

Interesting update......I just got a call from my office neighbor saying that UPS delivered 4 boxes to me. He said he signed for them and will hold them until I get there later this morning. I didn't order anything! If I do place an order, I have it shipped to my house address, not my office. Too many kids coming in and out of the building.
I guess there maybe more to the story. We'll see.

Tags: Elburn Herald, Witch Hunt

Time Warp back into the witch hunts

http://niecy.gaia.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:25:51 GMT

I've been very busy getting everything together and ready for my very first Ask Your Angels Day Psychic Fair. Well yesterday started the bad dream. I have the day off and looked forward to getting some much needed rest. But for some reason my phone keeps ringing. No longer able to ignore it, I get up to find out that reporters are wanting to get my side of some controversy. What? What controversy? I haven't heard about anything.

I call the reporter and she starts asking me questions about my event on Saturday and if I've heard about the protesters. I was totally caught off guard. I told the reporter that I'm really caught off guard and that I have to think about what century we currently are in. She laughed, and basically told me that this publicity will be good for my event.

I arrive at the office and the secretary and president of the board of the community center, where I lease my office space and where I'll be holding my psychic fair, are waiting for me to arrive. I had a meeting with a woman named Jo that said that she had some very important information that I need to know before my psychic fair. The minister came into my office while I was with a client and left a note asking for a booth at my psychic fair. What? I started feeling nauseous and feeling overwhelmed.
I had meetings, phone calls, said some prayers and after all that happened yesterday, I just left it to the Universe to take care of.

Today I get the paper and there are 2 articles. One from the minister opposing my event and the other with the reporter with her words.

I am all for religious freedom. But this is a man that is instilling fear and almost to the point of a witch hunt. This feels so familiar to me. I KNOW I've been through this before. But this time I will come through stronger.

Please send healing energy, prayers and blessings my way during this event. I just find this so surreal. This is the 21st century??

Tags: elburn psychic fair

What does it mean to just Listen?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:44:28 GMT

I've met many people and I love to listen to their stories. I've come across those that say they listen, but do a LOT more talking than listening. Maybe even asking me a question to engage me in the conversation, but only after I say a few words, they jump in and start talking again. It becomes very clear to me that they are not interested in anything I have to say. Which is just fine, but makes me wonder if people really understand what it means to listen?

Below is some common sense tips on listening skills. But beyond that is to listen with more than what the person is saying out of the mouth. 'Listen' to the body movement. Listen and really pay attention to facial expressions and vocal tones. Where is the person speaking from? Those that speak from the heart or throat chakra tend to really draw me in. More than 70% of communication happens non verbally. So that means even though we may hear words coming from the speaker, what else do you pick up? This is where our intuition comes in. Listen to that.

Read between the words. Or should I say, FEEL between the words. You'll be amazed at what you pick up.

I've been a Certified licensed Sign Language Interpreter for 13 years and have come to consider myself a pro at body and non verbal language. Even though those that can hear and express themselves verbally, there is a LOT more communication happening non verbally. Try it.Just listen. You'll learn a heck of a lot more then if you're doing most of the talking.

Tips for being a good listener

Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don't look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.
Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if you think you know what the person is going to say next, but you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the position of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker's words.
Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When you interrupt, it looks like you aren't listening, even if you really are.
Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can't really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want say next.
Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with phrases such as "My point is..." or "The thing to remember is..."
Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, "When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?"
Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you are really listening. Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!

Thinking fast

Remember: time is on your side! Thoughts move about four times as fast as speech. With practice, while you are listening you will also be able to think about what you are hearing, really understand it, and give feedback to the speaker.

Tags: listening skills

Bird Flu and now Swine Flu - it's a scam

http://niecy.gaia.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:31:05 GMT

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Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?

By Dr. Mercola

American health officials declared a public health emergency as cases of swine flu were confirmed in the U.S. Health officials across the world fear this could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, where seven people are confirmed dead as a result of the new virus.

On Monday April 27th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to four on its six-level threat scale,1 which means they've determined that the virus is capable of human-to-human transmission. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already traveling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

The number of fatalities, and suspected and confirmed cases across the world change depending on the source, so your best bet -- if you want the latest numbers -- is to use Google Maps' Swine Flu Tracker.

Several nations have imposed travel bans, or made plans to quarantine air travelers2 that present symptoms of the swine flu, such as:

Fever of more than 100
Coughing
Runny nose and/or sore throat
Joint aches
Severe headache
Vomiting and/or diarrhea
Lethargy
Lack of appetite
Top global flu experts are trying to predict how dangerous the new swine flu strain will be, as it became clear that they had little information about Mexico's outbreak. It is as yet unclear how many cases occurred in the month or so before the outbreak was detected. It's also unknown whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

Much Fear Mongering Being Promoted

I suspect you have likely been alarmed by the media's coverage of the swine flu scare. It has a noticeable subplot - preparing you for draconian measures to combat a future pandemic as well as forcing you to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations.

On April 27, Time magazine published an article which discusses how dozens died and hundreds were injured from vaccines as a result of the 1976 swine flu fiasco, when the Ford administration attempted to use the infection of soldiers at Fort Dix as a pretext for a mass vaccination of the entire country.

Despite acknowledging that the 1976 farce was an example of “how not to handle a flu outbreak”, the article still introduces the notion that officials “may soon have to consider whether to institute draconian measures to combat the disease”.

WHO and CDC Pandemic Preparedness Seriously Broken

The pandemic warning system has failed as it simply doesn't exist, even in North America and Europe. To improve the system, massive new investments in surveillance, scientific and regulatory infrastructure, basic public health, and global access to common sense interventions like vitamin D optimization are required.

According to the Washington Post, the CDC did not learn about the outbreak until six days after Mexico had begun to impose emergency measures. There should be no excuses. The paradox of this swine flu panic is that, while totally unexpected, it was accurately predicted. Six years ago, Science dedicated a major story to evidence that "after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fasttrack".

However, maybe this is precisely what public health authorities desire.

This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic

My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future. But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.

However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.

As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control. But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?

To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

One Australian news source,3 for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.

Give me a break, if this doesn't sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don't know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu?

In 2005, in 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, those fears were exposed as little more than a cruel hoax, designed to instill fear, and line the pocketbooks of various individuals and industry. I became so convinced by the evidence AGAINST the possibility of a bird flu pandemic that I wrote a New York Times bestselling book, The Bird Flu Hoax, all about the massive fraud involved with the epidemic that never happened..

What is the Swine Flu?

Regular swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease, caused by a type-A influenza virus that affects pigs. The current strain, A(H1N1), is a new variation of an H1N1 virus -- which causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans -- that also contains genetic material of bird and pig versions of the flu.

Interestingly enough, this version has never before been seen in neither human nor animal, which I will discuss a bit later.

This does sound bad. But not so fast. There are a few reasons to not rush to conclusions that this is the deadly pandemic we've been told would occur in the near future (as if anyone could predict it without having some sort of inside knowledge).

Why a True Bird- or Swine Flu Pandemic is HIGHLY Unlikely
While in my opinion it is highly likely factory farming is responsible for producing this viral strain, I believe there is still no cause for concern.

You may not know this, but all H1N1 flu's are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. The reason why the flu shot may or may not work, however, from year to year, is due to mutations. Therefore, there's no vaccine available for this current hybrid flu strain, and naturally, this is feeding the fear that millions of people will die before a vaccine can be made.

However, let me remind you of one very important fact here.

Just a couple of months ago, scientists concluded that the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50-100 million people worldwide in a matter of 18 months -- which all these worst case scenarios are built upon -- was NOT due to the flu itself!4

Instead, they discovered the real culprit was strep infections.

People with influenza often get what is known as a "superinfection" with a bacterial agent. In 1918 it appears to have been Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Since strep is much easier to treat than the flu using modern medicine, a new pandemic would likely be much less dire than it was in the early 20th century, the researchers concluded.

Others, such as evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald,5 claim that a pandemic of this sort simply cannot happen, because in order for it to occur, the world has to change. Not the virus itself, but the world.

In a previous interview for Esquire magazine, in which he discusses the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, he states:

"They think that if a virus mutates, it's an evolutionary event. Well, the virus is mutating because that is what viruses and other pathogens do. But evolution is not just random mutation. It is random mutation coupled with natural selection; it is a battle for competitive advantage among different strains generated by random mutation.

For bird flu to evolve into a human pandemic, the strain that finds a home in humanity has to be a strain that is both highly virulent and highly transmissible. Deadliness has to translate somehow into popularity; H5N1 has to find a way to kill or immobilize its human hosts, and still find other hosts to infect. Usually that doesn't happen."

Ewald goes on to explain that evolution in general is all about trade-offs, and in the evolution of infections the trade-off is between virulence and transmissibility.

What this means is that in order for a "bird flu" or "swine flu" to turn into a human pandemic, it has to find an environment that favors both deadly virulence and ease of transmission.

People living in squalor on the Western Front at the end of World War I generated such an environment, from which the epidemic of 1918 could arise.

Likewise, crowded chicken farms, slaughterhouses, and jam-packed markets of eastern Asia provide another such environment, and that environment gave rise to the bird flu -- a pathogen that both kills and spreads, in birds, but not in humans.

Says Ewald:

"We know that H5N1 is well adapted to birds. We also know that it has a hard time becoming a virus that can move from person to person. It has a hard time without our doing anything. But we can make it harder. We can make sure it has no human population in which to evolve transmissibility. There is no need to rely on the mass extermination of chickens. There is no need to stockpile vaccines for everyone.

By vaccinating just the people most at risk -- the people who work with chickens and the caregivers -- we can prevent it from becoming transmissible among humans. Then it doesn't matter what it does in chickens."

Please remember that, despite the fantastic headlines and projections of MILLIONS of deaths, the H5N1 bird flu virus killed a mere 257 people worldwide since late 2003. As unfortunate as those deaths are, 257 deaths worldwide from any disease, over the course of five years, simply does not constitute an emergency worthy of much attention, let alone fear!

Honestly, your risk of being killed by a lightning strike in the last five years was about 2,300 percent higher than your risk of contracting and dying from the bird flu.6 I'm not kidding! In just one year (2004), more than 1,170 people died from lighting strikes, worldwide.7

So please, as the numbers of confirmed swine flu cases are released, keep a level head and don't let fear run away with your brains.

So is the Swine Flu Getting More or Less Dangerous?

On Sunday, April 26, The Independent reported that more than 1,000 people had contracted the swine flu virus in Mexico, 8 but by the afternoon that same day, Mexican President Calderon declared that more than two-thirds of the 1,300 thought to have contracted the disease had been given a clean bill of health and sent home.9

Additionally, the number of actual confirmed cases appears to be far lower than reported in many media outlets, leading me to believe that many reporters are interchanging the terms "suspected cases" and "confirmed cases."

Interestingly Mexico is the ONLY country in the world where someone has actually died from this disease.Mexico has reported 152 fatalities in flu-like cases in recent days, seven of which have been confirmed as swine flu. Another 19 patients have been confirmed as having swine flu but surviving. About 2,000 people have been hospitalized with symptoms.

By contrast, the United States has had 64 confirmed cases, five hospitalizations and no deaths
According to the World Health Organization's Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response site; as of April 27, there are:

64 laboratory confirmed cases in U.S. -- 0 deaths (reported by CDC as of April 29)
26 confirmed cases in Mexico -- 7 deaths
6 confirmed cases in Canada -- 0 deaths
1 confirmed case in Spain -- 0 deaths
Additionally, nearly all suspected new cases have been reported as mild.

Personally, I am highly skeptical. It simply doesn't add up to a real pandemic.

But it does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu -- and which, so far, only seems to respond to Tamiflu. Are we just that lucky, or... what?

Your Fear Will Make Some People VERY Rich in Today's Crumbling Economy

According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future10 -- and that's without a pandemic outbreak.

More than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc., Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies with a stake in flu treatments and detection, have seen a rise in their shares in a matter of days, and will likely see revenue boosts if the swine flu outbreak continues to spread.

As soon as Homeland Security declared a health emergency, 25 percent -- about 12 million doses -- of Tamiflu and Relenza treatment courses were released from the nation's stockpile. However, beware that the declaration also allows unapproved tests and drugs to be administered to children. Many health- and government officials are more than willing to take that chance with your life, and the life of your child. But are you?

Remember, Tamiflu went through some rough times not too long ago, as the dangers of this drug came to light when, in 2007, the FDA finally began investigating some 1,800 adverse event reports related to the drug. Common side effects of Tamiflu include:

Nausea
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Headache
Dizziness
Fatigue
Cough
All in all, the very symptoms you're trying to avoid.

More serious symptoms included convulsions, delirium or delusions, and 14 deaths in children and teens as a result of neuropsychiatric problems and brain infections (which led Japan to ban Tamiflu for children in 2007). And that's for a drug that, when used as directed, only reduces the duration of influenza symptoms by 1 to 1 ½ days, according to the official data.

But making matters worse, some patients with influenza are at HIGHER risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu. And secondary bacterial infections, as I mentioned earlier, was likely the REAL cause of the mass fatalities during the 1918 pandemic!

Where did This Mysterious New Animal-Human Flu Strain Come From?

Alongside the fear-mongering headlines, I've also seen increasing numbers of reports questioning the true nature of this virus. And rightfully so.

Could a mixed animal-human mutant like this occur naturally? And if not, who made it, and how was it released?

Not one to dabble too deep in conspiracy theories, I don't have to strain very hard to find actual facts to support the notion that this may not be a natural mutation, and that those who stand to gain have the wherewithal to pull off such a stunt.

Just last month I reported on the story that the American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.

The H5N1 virus on its own is not very airborne. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly, biological weapon. If this batch of live bird flu and seasonal flu viruses had reached the public, it could have resulted in dire consequences.

There is a name for this mixing of viruses; it's called "reassortment," and it is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created in the lab. Some scientists say the most recent global outbreak -- the 1977 Russian flu -- was started by a virus created and leaked from a laboratory.

Another example of the less sterling integrity of Big Pharma is the case of Bayer, who sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, even though they knew it was tainted with the AIDS virus.

So while it is morally unthinkable that a drug company would knowingly contaminate flu vaccines with a deadly flu virus such as the bird- or swine flu, it is certainly not impossible. It has already happened more than once.

But there seems to be no repercussions or hard feelings when industry oversteps the boundaries of morality and integrity and enters the arena of obscenity. Because, lo and behold, which company has been chosen to head up efforts, along with WHO, to produce a vaccine against the Mexican swine flu?

Baxter!11 Despite the fact that ink has barely dried on the investigative reports from their should-be-criminal "mistake" against humanity.

According to other sources,12 a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.

In addition, Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick -- the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released, according to a recent article in the Fredrick News Post.13 In February, the top biodefense lab halted all its research into Ebola, anthrax, plague, and other diseases known as "select agents," after they discovered virus samples that weren't listed in its inventory and might have been switched with something else.

Factory Farming Maybe Source of Swine Flu

Another theory as to the cause of Swine Flu might be factory farming. In the United States, pigs travel coast to coast. They can be bred in North Carolina, fattened in the corn belt of Iowa, and slaughtered in California.

While this may reduce short-term costs for the pork industry, the highly contagious nature of diseases like influenza (perhaps made further infectious by the stresses of transport) needs to be considered when calculating the true cost of long-distance live animal transport.

The majority of U.S. pig farms now confine more than 5,000 animals each. With a group of 5,000 animals, if a novel virus shows up it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm.

With massive concentrations of farm animals within which to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.

Should You Accept a Flu Vaccine -- Just to be Safe?

As stated in the New York Times14 and elsewhere, flu experts have no idea whether the current seasonal flu vaccine would offer any protection whatsoever against this exotic mutant, and it will take months to create a new one.

But let me tell you, getting vaccinated now would not only offer no protection and potentially cause great harm, it would most likely be loaded with toxic mercury which is used as a preservative in most flu vaccines..

I've written extensively about the numerous dangers (and ineffectiveness) of flu vaccines, and why I do not recommend them to anyone. So no matter what you hear -- even if it comes from your doctor -- don't get a regular flu shot. They rarely work against seasonal flu...and certainly can't offer protection against a never-before- seen strain.

Currently, the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza are the only drugs that appear effective against the (human flu) H1N1 virus, and I strongly believe taking Tamiflu to protect yourself against this new virus could be a serious mistake -- for all the reasons I already mentioned above.

But in addition to the dangerous side effects of Tamiflu, there is also growing evidence of resistance against the drug. In February, the pre-publication and preliminary findings journal called Nature Precedings published a paper on this concern, stating15:

The dramatic rise of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] resistance in the H1N1 serotype in the 2007/2008 season and the fixing of H274Y in the 2008/2009 season has raised concerns regarding individuals at risk for seasonal influenza, as well as development of similar resistance in the H5N1 serotype [bird flu].

Previously, oseltamivir resistance produced changes in H1N1 and H3N2 at multiple positions in treated patients. In contrast, the recently reported resistance involved patients who had not recently taken oseltamivir.

It's one more reason not to bother with this potentially dangerous drug.

And, once a specific swine flu drug is created, you can be sure that it has not had the time to be tested in clinical trials to determine safety and effectiveness, which puts us right back where I started this article -- with a potential repeat of the last dangerous swine flu vaccine, which destroyed the lives of hundreds of people.

Topping the whole mess off, of course, is the fact that if the new vaccine turns out to be a killer, the pharmaceutical companies responsible are immune from lawsuits -- something I've also warned about before on numerous occasions.

Unfortunately, those prospects won't stop the governments of the world from mandating the vaccine -- a scenario I hope we can all avoid.

How to Protect Yourself Without Dangerous Drugs and Vaccinations

For now, my point is that there are always going to be threats of flu pandemics, real or created, and there will always be potentially toxic vaccines that are peddled as the solution. But you can break free of that whole drug-solution trap by following some natural health principles.

I have not caught a flu in over two decades, and you can avoid it too, without getting vaccinated, by following these simple guidelines, which will keep your immune system in optimal working order so that you're far less likely to acquire the infection to begin with.

Optimize your vitamin D levels. As I've previously reported, optimizing your vitamin D levels is one of the absolute best strategies for avoiding infections of ALL kinds, and vitamin D deficiency is likely the TRUE culprit behind the seasonality of the flu -- not the flu virus itself.
This is probably the single most important and least expensive action you can take. I would STRONGLY urge you to have your vitamin D level monitored to confirm your levels are therapeutic at 50-70 ng.ml and done by a reliable vitamin D lab like Lab Corp.

For those of you in the US we hope to launch a vitamin D testing service through Lab Corp that allows you to have your vitamin D levels checked at your local blood drawing facility, and relatively inexpensively. We hope to offer this service by June 2009.

If you are coming down with flu like symptoms and have not been on vitamin D you can take doses of 50,000 units a day for three days to treat the acute infection. Some researchers like Dr. Cannell, believe the dose could even be as high as 1000 units per pound of body weight for three days.

Avoid Sugar and Processed Foods. Sugar decreases the function of your immune system almost immediately, and as you likely know, a strong immune system is key to fighting off viruses and other illness. Be aware that sugar is present in foods you may not suspect, like ketchup and fruit juice.

Get Enough Rest. Just like it becomes harder for you to get your daily tasks done if you're tired, if your body is overly fatigued it will be harder for it to fight the flu. Be sure to check out my article Guide to a Good Night's Sleep for some great tips to help you get quality rest.

Have Effective Tools to Address Stress . We all face some stress every day, but if stress becomes overwhelming then your body will be less able to fight off the flu and other illness.

If you feel that stress is taking a toll on your health, consider using an energy psychology tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is remarkably effective in relieving stress associated with all kinds of events, from work to family to trauma. You can check out my free, 25-page EFT manual for some guidelines on how to perform EFT.

Exercise. When you exercise, you increase your circulation and your blood flow throughout your body. The components of your immune system are also better circulated, which means your immune system has a better chance of finding an illness before it spreads. You can review my exercise guidelines for some great tips on how to get started.

Take a good source of animal based omega-3 fats like Krill Oil. Increase your intake of healthy and essential fats like the omega-3 found in krill oil, which is crucial for maintaining health. It is also vitally important to avoid damaged omega-6 oils that are trans fats and in processed foods as it will seriously damage your immune response.

Wash Your Hands. Washing your hands will decrease your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don't use antibacterial soap for this -- antibacterial soaps are completely unnecessary, and they cause far more harm than good. Instead, identify a simple chemical-free soap that you can switch your family to.

Eat Garlic Regularly. Garlic works like a broad-spectrum antibiotic against bacteria, virus, and protozoa in the body. And unlike with antibiotics, no resistance can be built up so it is an absolutely safe product to use. However, if you are allergic or don't enjoy garlic it would be best to avoid as it will likely cause more harm than good.

Avoid Hospitals and Vaccines In this particular case, I'd also recommend you stay away from hospitals unless you're having an emergency, as hospitals are prime breeding grounds for infections of all kinds, and could be one of the likeliest places you could be exposed to this new bug. Vaccines will not be available for six months at the minimum but when available they will be ineffective and can lead to crippling paralysis like Guillain-Barré Syndrome just as it did in the 70s.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine...

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Tags:

The Intuitive Edge

http://niecy.gaia.com — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:36:19 GMT

(Jeremy Tarcher, Publisher)

by Zahid Hossain

(Editor's note: For many years--this book was first published in 1983--was THE book on intuition, providing a comprehensive coverage of what had been written about the topic, either by philosophers, academics and others. At the time of its publication, perhaps the only other widely read book on the subject was Awakening Intuition, by Francis Vaughan. Today, there are countless books on intuition; however, The Intuitive Edge remains as an authoritative source. We are grateful to Zahid for his diligence in digesting it for you.

Driven by a deep-set passion to liberate the misconceptions about intuition, Philip Goldberg, a psychologist and educator, tells us how intuition can provide a crucial edge, enhancing our ability to discover, create, predict and evaluate. He teaches us how to recognize it and cultivate it, while showing the central role intuition plays for great scientists and imaginative thinkers. He firmly believes the cultivation of intuition will lead the world to be a better place.

1. The Emergence of Intuition

Intuition is a valuable asset that has existed since time immemorial. Left unrecognized by the majority, it has recently emerged from obscurity being an important ingredient in what we call genius and a subtle guide to daily living. This book is an effort to bring intuition out into the open, recognize the global shift in values, and engender respect for the world within.

Both ancient and modern philosophers have pointed to higher, intuitive forms of knowing, ones that defy traditional, rational, and empirical formulas of proof. However, the scientific world has used the objective tools of learning, with logic and reason, to try to answer questions of the psyche, the spirit and society. Intuition has been subject to various forms of censure and constraint, which has served to drive it underground rather than eradicate it.

The real objectivity of science is the rigorous evaluation of hunches, beliefs and intuitive convictions. What survives we call objective, scientific knowledge. Both Einstein and Newton agreed that the path to the natural laws rested on extraordinary intuition being the instrument of discovery. Individuals become intense advocates of their ideas, not always because of rational deduction but because of unexplainable convictions, which, when proven incorrect, we call them madmen; but, when they are right, they secure a place in history.

Intuition cannot be arranged into a set of rules that can be taught the way logic and quantitative procedures are. It cannot be pinned down, cannot be directly observed and measured. It has also been considered as a chance phenomenon, something that either happens or doesn't. It is for the same reasons that we have courses dealing with sex education but not with love.

Despite our rational-empirical training for processing information and making decisions, we often jump to conclusions, and are oftentimes more right than wrong, using our intuition. Mathematical formulas and sophisticated models fail to accurately forecast our positions or walks of life. Learned economists are baffled by their inability to explain why their formal methodologies do not always culminate in the verity they profess. Yet the person with an intuitive edge comes out on top, using the ‘gut feel' that the rationalist abhors.

2. What It Is: Definitions and Distinctions

Intuition is defined by what it is not: reason, logic, analysis and observation. It is a single event, a snapshot, and it just happens when least expected, without rules. Intuition is inexplicable. Rationality may both precede, and follow, an intuitive breakthrough. Actually, rationality and intuition are symbiotic, work in tandem, and surprisingly, intuition is a part of rational thinking. How often does it happen that we start to analyze something, then have a spontaneous hunch and leap to another track entirely? While deduction follows the rules of logic, intuitive insights can spark an inductive process drawing conclusions from a limited set of observations.

Intuition and psychic phenomena have a relationship to the extent that only precognition qualifies as intuition. The others like telepathy, clairvoyance, and clairaudience offer other sensory channels bringing in data subliminally or psychically. Intuition implies the unexpected. The knowledge revealed cannot be something that most people would come up with under the same circumstances.

3. The Many Faces of Intuition

There are six functional types of experience when we think of intuition: Discovery, Creativity, Evaluation, Operation, Prediction, and Illumination. Discovery is like the "Eureka!" of Archimedes or Watson's breakthrough with the structure of the DNA molecule. Dogged rational work precedes the phase when the inspirational spark of intuition is kindled. Creative intuition is much like discovery intuition except that creative intuition deals with alternatives, options and possibilities. Evaluative intuition is a process that tells us go or don't go, yes or no. Writers and artists evaluate intuitively all the time since there is no way for them to evaluate their work beyond technical considerations like syntax and grammar. Operative intuition is more like a sense of direction than a map, often responsible for what seems like luck. It accounts for Carl Jung's uncanny phenomenon of "synchronicity", those uncanny coincidences of outer and inner events with apparent causal relationship - the accident, both fortuitous and disparaging. Predictive intuition has an element of prophecy. Decisions are by nature predictive since you are banking on an outcome. Hence the ability to accurately forecast is a prized trait in leadership circles. It can also be used as an excellent warning device. Intuitive illumination transcends all the other 5 categories. It is transcendence, and has been given other names like nirvana, cosmic consciousness, samadhi, satori, self-realization.

4. The Intuitive Experience

In a typical intuitive experience, there is a sense of being a recipient as opposed to an initiator. It is the "Aha" which comes spontaneously, a sudden dawning, or total shock. Intuition is holistic to the extent that it is a flash containing an extraordinary amount of information worth a thousand pictures, yet not necessarily focused on any details - the whole rather than the parts. It is the capturing of this intuitive flash and committing it to paper that made musicians and writers like Mozart and Shelley so famous.

Intuition manifests itself in visual, verbal (auditory) or kinesthetic modes - though neither of these is exclusive. Intuition is often symbolic and may be expressed as a visual picture, as words, or as a feeling. At times, the modalities may be combined as when Coleridge saw the images and heard the words to "Kubla Khan". Physical sensations, similarly, interact with images and words, at times producing behavioral instructions, a sudden muscular tension, without a discernable message, just an urge.

An emotion might be a simultaneous expression of an intuition, like an unexplainable happy feeling, or an uncanny uncomfortable feeling. The emotional significance of important intuitions seems to center around happiness, harmony, and beauty. When actually creating, suffering artists were in bliss, their souls delighted. They experienced anguish and misery when they could not create, a lack of illumination, a dramatic expression of the tension, frustration, and sense of incompleteness that accompanies ignorance.

5. Who Is Intuitive

While everybody is intuitive, there are varying degrees of manifestation, acceptance and realization. Psychological studies and research have found that educated people find it easier to let intuition take over while protecting themselves from the social milieu behind a facade of empirical, analytical data. Intuition too can be specialized in one domain - the more practice that is put into it, the better and more effective it gets - just as with anything we do. There is a circular relationship among values, style and intuitive ability. Intuitive style and intuitive quality are two different things - one could simply be a wild guesser, while the other approaches a problem in a systematic, orderly manner. Validity and accuracy are the only ways to gauge quality though consistency is also a valuable consideration.

Certain types of humanity are seen as being more intuitive than others, like women, children, Easterners and primitive tribes. Since empirical evidence suggests that women pick up more peripheral and subliminal material than men, it may well be that the information they have to hand processes an intuitive insight. Whereas men have superior spatial visualization capabilities, a woman tends to have greater ease in switching between left and the right side brain functions. Perhaps cultural factors have indeed made women more intuitive, or it could be argued that women just appear more intuitive because they don't hesitate to express their intuition.

Without stereotyping cultures, it would appear that the non-Western world has more respect for the inner dimension, the non-physical, and the wisdom of symbols, dreams and rituals. However, non-Western scholars and scientists value logical inquiry and rationalism as much as their Western counterparts.

Children have intuitive knowing and unprogrammed perceptions. According to Piaget's model, children go through four stages of development: the sensory motor stage (birth to 1.5 or 2 years), the preoperational stage (from 2 to 7), the concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11 or 12), and formal operations (between 11 and 15). During the evolution of the child to adulthood, educational institutions stifle the natural intuitive abilities. Systematic, logical thought patterns are demanded in excess, and children are taught not to listen to their "inner" voice. Notwithstanding this, children have the intuitive potential and certain natural qualities that aid intuition: curiosity, receptivity, innocence, and wonder. Children have a natural way of surrendering to experience. Their minds are open to intuition and extra-rational discovery.

Carl Jung took intuition most seriously. For him intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension. He claims personality and behavior can be understood in terms of four distinct functions - thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. In turn, they are further divided into pairs of polar opposites, with thinking and feeling on the one axis, and sensation and intuition on the other. According to the Jungian framework, each of us would be located at a certain point on each axis and would fall into one of the 4 quadrants. Sensing and perception are perception functions, while thinking and feeling are judgment functions. Intuition comes from within, looking beyond appearances to inner meanings, relationships, interpretations, and possibilities.

There are various psychological testing instruments to ascertain the learning styles of people as well as the suitability of a type of person to a particular work environment and area of responsibility. In Jungian terminology, the two perception functions work along with the tow judgment functions - thinking and feeling. Both are deliberate, conscious ways of deciding. The late Isabel Briggs Myers designed the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MTBI) used by many corporations to classify people according to their Jungian types. Others have since created variations of it. They are used sometimes in classrooms to gear teaching procedures, and in other instances to find the most suitable person for a particular employment.

There are no easy answers to the question, "Who is intuitive?" The available tests and personality portraits can help us recognize intuitive people. While it is no guarantee, the chances are that independent, confident, flexible people will have learned to use their intuition better than most. They trust their "inner voices".

6. Right Brain, Wrong Theory

Since the 70's, right-brain and left-brain theories became so popular that people tended to use them more often than their astrological types. Scientists generally agree that the left brain represents more the linear or sequential processes, whereas the right brain is interpreted with the terms simultaneous, holistic, or non-linear. Thus intuition is placed in the right hemisphere of the brain in an oversimplification of the intuitive process simply because intuition exhibits right brain characteristics - instantaneous, global, diffuse and without linguistic content, whereas knowledge arrived at through reason is usually packaged with words and dependent upon precise categorization of symbols and concepts.

However, the simple explanations of left and/or right brain activities has normally been the result of inconclusive stimuli being given to subjects who are asked to respond to it. The readings may be just simple perception or a simple response. The tests study how the hemispheres respond to incoming information. There is actually a lot more going on when one has a hunch about an unsolved problem, or the answer to a nagging problem hits you by surprise. What comes together at the intuitive moment most probably has been contributed by both cortical hemispheres, and probably by areas of the brain outside the cortex as well.

The two hemispheres of the brain are connected by the corpus callosum which contains about 200 million fibers enabling as many as 2 billion information events traveling across the corpus callosum every second. We haven't even begun to appreciate the degree of cooperation between the hemispheres.

Research has also shown that inter-hemispheric coherence is highest during transcendental meditation. And yet it will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain alone.

Stanford University neuropsychologist Karl Pribram brought forth the theory that the brain stores information much the same way as does a hologram. Just as the ripples formed by different objects on a calm surface of water may interact synchronously or in opposition, similarly are light wave patterns on a photographic plate able to store and reconstruct an image of what was - in three-dimensional space.

If the brain works like a hologram, storing information in such a way that every bit of information is accessible in every part, then knowledge may not depend entirely on neuronal connections over time and across physical space. Thus do we find the amazing rapidity of intuition!

Holography is a very efficient method of encoding; its principles may very well apply to something as efficient as the intuitive mind.

Another neurobiologist Oliver Sacks connects the mind with what lies "beyond" us, claiming we mirror the nature which made us.

A former colleague of Einstein's, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of London, David Bohm, maintains that the familiar world of cause and effect derives from a deeper realm that exists outside time and space. According to him, we may think of the universe as a vast interference pattern (like the many ripples on a water surface), with every event and every thought contributing to it, like pebbles dropped into a pond. Each mind could then contain within it all the information that ever was in all the universe. We would, in effect, be pieces of an all-pervading holographic plate.

7. The Intuitive Mind

From the philosophies of the Vedas in India, the interpretations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to Aldous Huxley and Descartes, we know that Knowing is contained within our individual consciousness; a part of the whole is the whole of a part. Intuition in particular forms a state of consciousness that fluctuates with experiences of awareness. Intuition is favored by a combination of low arousal and high alertness, a calm, wakeful, receptive state with relatively little extraneous mental noise to interfere with the input of the intuitive mind.

The more coherent the nervous system, the more appropriately can intuition come into its own right, placing the knower's attention to the right place within the mind. If the mind were an ocean, the ripples on the surface represent ordinary active awareness - turbulent and ever changing. Beneath that lies a range of deeper levels, which encompass all unconscious processes and structures.

The quality of intuition depends upon the state of consciousness - expressed in terms of layers of the mind. At maximum coherence, the full range of the ocean could be traversed and the illumination of transcendence would occur. This could only be realized with the calming of the mind from everyday material occupation.

Freud's acknowledgment of the subconscious (as well as the psychologist, Eric Berne) has linked the subconscious to intuition. In this view primal instincts and early experience shape what we do, think and believe. With the holographic model, in which each mind has access to the whole of a universal pattern, follows that anything that happens in the universe, including thought, is simultaneously encoded everywhere else. This concept is not far removed from "perennial philosophy" and modern physics.

From the same reasoning, the deep levels of material creation are all interconnected and the brain is made of the same stuff, as are rocks and stars, as is human consciousness. In physics we have the EPR effect (stands for Einstein and two colleagues, Podolsky and Rosen), which explains the astounding phenomena, associated with subatomic particle reality, in which two subatomic particles that once interacted can respond instantaneously to changes in each other even when they have been separated in space and time.

Carl Jung claims that the mind's depths contain not just the mere depositary of the past, but also future psychic situations and ideas. In Jung's schema, there are two layers of the unconscious, the personal and the collective. The personal contains all the psychic material from forgotten and repressed memories, and impressions gathered from both sensory and subliminal means. The collective is the unconscious that includes the inherited powers of human imagination from time immemorial - universal and primordial, which express themselves in myths and legends. This is collective and common to everyone.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato held that material objects are merely imperfect, transient copies of transcendental, eternal patterns - the forms. These forms, unlike material structures, are universal, absolute, omnipresent and perfect. The material structures are relative, changeable, individuated, localized and defective.

Every form and every structure is a manifestation of the Absolute. And so is the mind. When a person transcends, he comes to know the Self, which is the basis of all creation. Thus do Yogis and mystics turn within themselves and come out knowing how the universe works - they simply perceived their own nature, which is, so to speak, nature's nature.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the most authoritative of the ancient yogic texts, spells out how knowledge of the outer world can be obtained by turning within. He describes what is called the intimacy of intuitive experience, that sense of entering into the object of knowledge and knowing its essence. Immanuel Kant called it knowledge of thing-in-itself.

8. Getting Ready for Intuition

Intuition cannot be ordered, commanded, implored or contrived. We simply have to be ready for it. Make intuition feel that visits are welcomed at any time - it can become a perfect guest, showing up on all the right occasions, dressed properly and bearing felicitous gifts. The intuitive mind cannot be fooled with mumbo-jumbo. Ferret out negative programming and beliefs, including low self-esteem, excessive security needs, fear of change, and desire for control. Someone who feels he can manage unpredictable, changeable, or ambiguous situations is giving intuition a vote of confidence. Create those conditions intentionally to stimulate intuition resulting in personal growth, attitudinal adjustment, reprogramming of the intuitive mind, and the instilling of courage and confidence.

Relax some of the analytic procedures in favor of a degree of informality. Even when the role of intuition is acknowledged, the preparation stage is depicted as strictly rational and well ordered. Unfortunately when followed too rigidly, formal methods can lead to a kind of mental rigidity that can stifle intuition, particularly in its creative function.

It is important to look for, encourage, and expect intuitive input at any stage in the process of solving problems or making decisions. Goals and problems form a feedback loop: the things we want program the mind to look for ways to get them; that leads to the identification of problems, which in turn create objectives for the intuitive mind to work on.

The more precise we are about what we want, the better equipped is intuition to move us directly to the target. Write down clear descriptions of goals and objectives balancing commitment and openness, neither too narrow nor yet overly specific.

We often place blinders on intuition by oversimplifying problems because we are intolerant of complexity. Problems and solutions are seldom in the obvious places, and creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.

We can bring other senses and thought patterns into play by expressing problems, tasks, and goals in several different media, like drawing, music, physically as a charade, a dance, a mime, sculpting, creating a symbol, or even creating brainstormed notations on a piece of paper.

Successful decision makers rely not so much on hard data as on reading expressions, gestures and voice tones, preferring face-to-face meetings over just written reports.

9. Turning Off to Tune In

Many a time, we pursue a problem or a goal, worry it to the extreme, haunt ourselves with the possibility of failure, and sicken ourselves without having the gratification of a successful end. All too often, a simple break form the problem or goal would have been sufficient to intuitively know the solution or outcome. The expression "sleep on it" is truly effective. Some of the most famous people of all time knew when to walk away from a task and return later to find the appropriate solution.

Dreams are sometimes a doorway to the intuitive manifestation of a prophecy, a solution, a result. Yet dreams are riddled with symbolism, and only a good dream psychologist together with the subject dreamer can fittingly translate the dream into reality.

Meditation is a way to incubate, a technique for expanding consciousness. The psychologist Francis Vaughan claims that the regular practice of meditation is the single most powerful means of increasing intuition. Meditation helps as a form of relaxation, but the real value is in nurturing the state of consciousness called illumination. It quietens the mind, activating deeper levels of the mind, producing a restful alertness extremely conducive to the intuitive state. Meditation should be natural and effortless. Be wary of techniques that require intense mental manipulation or strenuous control.

Forceful attempts to quiet the mind are a contradiction. Trying is an active condition, trying to force ideas out of the mind, trying to achieve blankness. Physical means can be used to create a coherent calmness by shifting attention from mental noise to the physical procedure. Yoga is one effective way of using physical procedures to quieten the mind.

Breathing exercises also have a calming and enlivening effect on the nervous system. Muscular tension, when reduced, can bring quiet calmness. It is also a good way to induce sleep.

Inner visualization is another very effective technique to generate insight into feelings and personality traits, bringing about desired changes in attitude, perception, behavior and even physiology. Imagery should be used judicially realizing the difference between intuition and fantasy, fear or desire.

Like a royal personage, intuition is often preceded by a herald, only in this case the announcement is discreet, perhaps hardly a whisper. Learning to recognize and respond to the intimation of intuition is important. If you are attentive, you will sense the herald early.

10. Forgo It, or Go for It?

Intuition does not always work out, as some of us have found out. There are times when you might feel absolutely sure of an intuition, only to discover that you have been deceived, and other times when the intuition is not so convincing and you turn your back on it, only to regret it later. When the situation arises that you are not sure about the intuition, ask the following questions:

- Is the intuition something you don't want to know?

- Are you afraid of censure?

- Are you yielding blindly to authority?

- Are you being self-critical?

- Are you afraid of the new?

- Are you being too demanding?

- Are you selling yourself short?

- Are you afraid of the risk?

- Is it a lack of faith?

The best way to prevent an error is to raise your level of consciousness so that your mind makes fewer mistakes; just as strengthening the body is the best safeguard against disease. Understanding your strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, habits, vulnerabilities, and minor neuroses is the best way to keep psychological nuisances from contaminating intuition.

Whenever possible, submit an intuition to all the analytic and quantitative tests at your disposal. When it comes to certification and evaluation, the rational-empirical methods of scientism are at their best.

Another common error is to confuse correlation with causation; when two things happen concurrently we tend to assume one caused the other. You may take the cold tone in someone's voice as proof of your intuition that he disagrees with you, when in fact he approves of what you say but is fuming inside because your remarks remind him of an argument he had with his wife.

We also tend to selectively seek out information that confirms our beliefs and ignore, forget, or rationalize evidence to the contrary. In analyzing our intuitions, we are often peering into the future darkly.

Keeping a journal sometimes helps to become more aware of signals that indicate when your intuitive voice is leading you in the right direction.

11. Making the World Safe for Intuition

If ever an age cried out for intuitive wisdom, it is ours. The coming decades will be more complex and unpredictable than ever, and the information we will have to process will be not only vast but volatile. Split-second decisions have to be made with limited information and mistakes are not only more probable but potentially more catastrophic. Computers will help immeasurably, but human intuition has to guide their use and fill in the pieces that logical machines cannot supply. In both the public and private spheres, we need innovative thinkers unfettered by ‘psychosclerosis' leaders with nimble minds tuned to high ideals and cosmic intelligence. We need quality intuition. Each one of us is a cell in the collective brain. We are discovering our symbiotic relationship with nature and with one another, and coming to accept the ancient truth that we reap what we sow, our Karma.

Perhaps our biggest task is to build up a comprehensive body of knowledge about intuition. We also need a tremendous research effort to find out how neurological mechanisms differ during intuition and other mental functions such as analysis, everyday reasoning, and formal logic.

Efforts must be made to identify people with intuition of exceptional quality. When we understand the highest expressions of human knowledge, we will better understand how we know anything.

If we succeed, intuition will make the world a safer place for us.

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Words of Wisdom From a 97-Year-Old Physician

http://niecy.gaia.com — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:16:28 GMT

Words of Wisdom From a 97-Year-Old Physician

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the
world's longest-serving physicians and educators. He has been healing
patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at
St. Luke's College of Nursing since 1941.

He has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including one
Living Long, Living Good that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As
the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to
live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better
than the doctor himself:

Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot.
Hinohara says we all remember how as children, when we were having fun,
we often forgot to eat or sleep. He believes that we can keep that
attitude as adults, too, and that it's best not to tire the body with
too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

All people who live long -- regardless of nationality, race or gender --
share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast Hinohara
drinks coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon
of olive oil in it. His lunch is milk and a few cookies. His dinner is
veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean
meat.

Always plan ahead. His schedule book is already full until 2014. In 2016
he plans to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot
later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century
ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was much lower.

Share what you know. Hinohara gives 150 lectures a year, some for 100
elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people.

When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask
whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go
through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can't cure
everyone -- so why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? Hinohara thinks
that music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.

To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. He
take two stairs at a time, to get his muscles moving.

Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it.
Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients, and we all want to
have fun.

Don't be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don't know
when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next
place.

Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they
must accept every patient who appears at their doors. Hinohara helped
design St. Luke's so that it was possible to operate anywhere: in the
basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought he was
crazy, but on March 20, 1995, he was unfortunately proven right when
members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack
in the Tokyo subway. St. Luke's accepted 740 victims and in two
hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly they
lost one person, but they saved 739 lives.

Science alone can't cure or help people. Illness is individual. Each
person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know
the illness and help people, there is a need for liberal and visual
arts, not just medical ones.

Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when Hinohara was 59
years old, he boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. The
plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. He
spent the next four days handcuffed to his seat. As a doctor, he looked
at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how his body slowed down in
a crisis.

Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do.
Hinohara's role model was his father, who went to the United States
in 1900 to study at Duke University, in North Carolina.

It's wonderful to live long. Since the age of 65, Hinohara has worked as
a volunteer. He still puts in 18 hours, seven days a week, and loves
every minute of it.

Sources:
The Japan Times January 29, 2009
<http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090129jk.html>

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Global Warming a Scam? Al Gore sued by Over 30,000 Scientists

http://niecy.gaia.com — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:02:13 GMT

Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for fraud

Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for fraud / John Coleman

Tags:

Does Satan Exist? Nightline Face-Off

http://niecy.gaia.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:15:13 GMT

Nightline FaceOff with Deepak Chopra: Does Satan Exist?

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Were Tainted Vaccines a Conspiracy to Provoke a Pandemic?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:42:30 GMT

Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:50 pm (PDT)

Were Tainted Vaccines a Conspiracy to Provoke a Pandemic?
Czech newspapers are questioning whether the shocking discovery of
vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus -- distributed to
18 countries by the American company Baxter -- were part of a conspiracy
to provoke a pandemic.

Because of laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers,
mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident
is virtually impossible.

Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 (the human form of avian flu)
were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated
with H5N1, invoking "trade secrets." After increased pressure,
they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident.

But in the Czech Republic, reporters are investigating whether the
contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.

The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2
seasonal flu viruses may be the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own
has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne. However, when
combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the
effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly biological weapon.

Sources:
PrisonPlanet.

com March 5, 2009
<http://www.prisonplanet.com/accidental-contamination-of-vaccine-with-li\
ve-avian-flu-virus-virtually-impossible.html>

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What have you learned from the world?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:09:59 GMT

That we are all the same.

Chief Joseph

NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITIONAL CODE OF ETHICS
Inter-Tribal Times, October 1994

1. Each morning upon rising, and each evening before sleeping, give
thanks for the life within you and for all life, for the good things the
Creator has given you and for the opportunity to grow a little more each
day. Consider your thoughts and actions of the past day and seek for the
courage and strength to be a better person. Seek for the things that
will benefit others [everyone].

2. Respect. Respect means "To feel or show honor or esteem for someone
or
something; to consider the well being of, or to treat someone or
something with deference or courtesy". Showing respect is a basic law of
life.

a. Treat every person from the tiniest child to the oldest elder with
respect at all times.

b. Special respect should be given to Elders, Parents, Teachers, and
Community Leaders.

c. No person should be made to feel "put down" by you; avoid hurting
other hearts as you would avoid a deadly poison.

d. Touch nothing that belongs to someone else [especially sacred
Objects] without permission, or an understanding between you.

e. Respect the privacy of every person, never intrude on a person's
quiet moment or personal space.

f. Never walk between people that are conversing.

g. Never interrupt people who are conversing.

h. Speak in a soft voice, especially when you are in the presence of
Elders, strangers or others to whom special respect is due.

i. Do not speak unless invited to do so at gatherings where Elders are
present [except to ask what is expected of you, should you be in doubt].

j. Never speak about others in a negative way, whether they are present
or not.

k. Treat the earth and all of her aspects as your mother. Show deep
respect for the mineral world, the plant world, and the animal world. Do
nothing to pollute our Mother, rise up with wisdom to defend her.

l. Show deep respect for the beliefs and religion of others.

m. Listen with courtesy to what others say, even if you feel that what
they are saying is worthless. Listen with your heart.

n. Respect the wisdom of the people in council. Once you give an idea to
a council meeting it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the people.

Respect demands that you listen intently to the ideas of others in
council and that you do not insist that your idea prevail. Indeed you
should freely support the ideas of others if they are true and good,
even if those ideas are quite different from the ones you have
contributed. The clash of ideas brings forth the Spark of Truth.

3. Once a council has decided something in unity, respect demands that
no one speak secretly against what has been decided. If the council has
made an error, that error will become apparent to everyone in its own
time.

4. Be truthful at all times, and under all conditions.

5. Always treat your guests with honor and consideration. Give of your
best food, your best blankets, the best part of your house, and your
best service to your guests.

6. The hurt of one is the hurt of all, the honor of one is the honor of
all

7. Receive strangers and outsiders with a loving heart and as members of
the human family.

8. All the races and tribes in the world are like the different colored
flowers of one meadow. All are beautiful. As children of the Creator
they must all be respected.

9. To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, nation, and
the world is one of the main purposes for which human beings have been
created. Do not fill yourself with your own affairs and forget your most
important tasks. True happiness comes only to those who dedicate their
lives to the service of others.

10. Observe moderation and balance in all things.

11. Know those things that lead to your well-being, and those things
that lead to your destruction.

12. Listen to and follow the guidance given to your heart. Expect
guidance to come in many forms; in prayer, in dreams, in times of quiet
solitude, and in the words and deeds of wise Elders and friends.

Tags: QaR, learning, teaching, lessons, world, earth

What message does your highest self have for you?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:57:12 GMT

'When you let go of your 'belief system', the thoughts that were handed down to you. They are not yours. When you finally feel free to let them go, your intuition will take over.'

I have been doing a lot of 'soul searching' lately and have questioned where my beliefs come from. And yes, most if not all were pretty much given to me. My basic belief system has been rocked and it can feel like the bottom has fallen out from under me. It was such a beautiful day here in the Chicago area I took a walk. Well the only place I was able to take a walk at between meetings was at a lovely cemetary. I've never been to this cemetary and don't know anyone that is buried there. Did I need to know? No. (belief system)
There was someone that was recently buried as the dirt was freshly covered over the spot at the headstone. I stood there and read the name. Then I asked if my belief system could be buried with them. It felt good. Later that evening before dinner I had the most beautiful meditation. It was such an open light free feeling. I knew. Just a wonderfull feeling of knowing came over me.

Tags: QaR, highest self, wisdom, support, message

The Fractal Holographic Nature of Reality

http://niecy.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:25:13 GMT

If you are not yet familiar with Nassim Haramein's exciting work, prepare yourself for an exhilarating odyssey into hyperspace and beyond. Haramein, who has spent his lifetime researching fields of physics from quantum theory to relativistic equations and cosmology, will lead you along a fascinating discussion geared to a layman's understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe and creation that includes black holes, gravitational forces, dimensions, and the very structure of space itself - all of which are integral parts of his now-complete Unified Field Theory. Haramein's theory is currently in peer review process for publication in physics journals; however, the presentation does not end with the introduction of his theory alone, but includes the discussion of the path that he took to arrive at his views, which weaves between the texts and monuments of ancient civilizations, biology, chemistry and the primordial role of consciousness - all of which lend further credence to the science behind the theory.

Part I

Part II

I hope this works! It's a google video. A total of about 8 1/2 hours of lecture. Great Stuff!

Here's the direct links cuz it doesn't look like the video is working.

Part I

Part II

Enjoy!! I've been watching in segments and LOVE it!

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What if we can't save the world?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:39:23 GMT

R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I...

Tags: QaR, hope, world, future

What would you put in your own personal time capsule?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:43:52 GMT

a mirror, a lock of hair, a baby tooth, a copy of The Tao, a copy of The Book of Secrets by Osho, my own Book of Shadows, peppermint oil, lavendar oil, a copy of the Idiots Guide to Tanta Sex, and a twenkie to see if it really does never decompose.

Tags: QaR, time capsule, future, self

What was the first thought that crossed your mind this morning?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:09:58 GMT

That I wanted to dance!

Tags: QaR, morning, thinking, thoughts, mind

Stairway to Gilligan's Island

http://niecy.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:40:34 GMT

When I was in 6th grade, I was determined to play guitar. I still play once in a while.

This song reminds me so much of when I was growing up. Stairway to Heaven was the first song I ever learned on guitar and I never missed an episode of Gilligan's Island.

Stairway to Gilligan's Island

They go so well together!

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I Pinch

http://niecy.gaia.com — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:31:01 GMT

Determination!

Honda Commercial with Crab

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Where is your favorite place to hide?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 04:15:39 GMT

Exploring in Focus 21! Can't wait to go back! Each time is a new and different experience!

Tags: QaR, hiding, secret

How Many Apples?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:59:38 GMT

A teacher teaching math to 7-year-old Arnav asked him, "If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have?”

Within a few seconds Arnav replied confidently, "Four!"

The dismayed teacher was expecting an effortless correct answer (three). She was disappointed. "Maybe the child did not listen properly," she thought. She repeated, "Arnav, listen carefully. If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have?"

Arnav had seen the disappointment on his teacher's face. He calculated again on his fingers. But within him he was also searching for the answer that will make the teacher happy. His search for the answer was not for the correct one, but the one that will make his teacher happy.

This time hesitatingly he replied, "Four ..."

The disappointment stayed on the teacher's face. She remembered that Arnav liked strawberries. She thought maybe he doesn't like apples, and that is making him lose focus. This time with an exaggerated excitement and twinkling in her eyes she asked, "If I give you one strawberry and one strawberry and one strawberry, then how many will you have?"

Seeing the teacher happy, young Arnav calculated on his fingers again. There was no pressure on him, but a little on the teacher. She wanted her new approach to succeed.

With a hesitating smile young Arnav enquired, "Three?"

The teacher now had a victorious smile. Her approach had succeeded. She wanted to congratulate herself. But one last thing remained. Once again she asked him, "Now if I give you one apple and one apple and one more apple how many will you have?"

Promptly Arnav answered, "Four!"

The teacher was aghast. "How Arnav, how?" she demanded in a little stern and irritated voice.

In a voice that was low and hesitating, young Arnav replied, "Because I already have one apple in my bag."

The Moral of the Story?

When someone gives you an answer that is different from what you expect, don't think they are wrong. There may be an angle that you have not understood at all. You will have to listen and understand, but never listen with a predetermined notion.

It is so important to keep an open mind in life, and that includes what is important to you such as your health. Simply believing the status quo, without searching for a deeper explanation, will often leave you with a superficial solution and an unrealistic slant on reality. Many things may seem true at face value, but if you dig deeper you’ll find that they are actually myths.

So the next time a friend, colleague, farmer, doctor or even a foe offers you an explanation that doesn’t seem quite right, remember Arnav and his apples, and open your mind to seeing life in a different light.

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What do you think you're supposed to learn in this lifetime?

http://niecy.gaia.com — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:48:02 GMT

Be like a child.....Even when I'm physically old....be child-like.

It's too easy to get all caught up and serious in the physical. But remembering the joy in everything. The blessing of the experience, no matter WHAT that experience is. Even if we label the experience negative or positive, there is a blessing.

Tags: QaR, lessons, learning, life, living