Jan 31, 2010

Air Force Greenlights Pagan Temple

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



A couple of years ago, I was able to report major strides in the acknowledgment of Wiccan service members, when the Veterans Administration finally authorized the use of pentacles on tombstones. It is with no small degree of glee that I am able, now, to report a major development in religious freedom in the armed services. The Air Force is providing a ritual space for Wiccans, and other Pagans, at its Colorado Springs base.

The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado will set aside a worship space for followers of "Earth-centered" religions such as Wicca and Druidism, according to an Air Force news release.

A stone circle atop a hill on the base in Colorado Springs will likely be dedicated in a ceremony March 10, according to the release, and be available to cadets and other service members who live in the area. The base already has worship spaces for Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Buddhist, the release said.

Jan 28, 2010

China Reconsidering Tibet Problem

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




According to Newsweek, the Chinese government has realized how badly it bungled Tibet. Pouring billions of dollars into urban development has not won over the indigenous population they have mercilessly repressed. Does that ever work?

After the mass riots there in March 2008, Tibet faded once again into relative obscurity—the province of foreign-affairs wonks, adventure tourists, and a few well-organized protest groups who object to China's rule there. But during that time, Beijing has come slowly to two painful realizations. First, the restive plateau it had treated for decades as a colony is central to its national plan: development and stability are "vital to ethnic unity, social stability, and national security," President Hu Jintao recently told his Politburo. And second, a corollary realization: China's government has been mishandling the issue of Tibet all along.

. . .

Suddenly, then, the Dalai Lama is not the problem but rather a pivotal part of the solution. As Tibet expert and author Robert Thurman says, the Dalai Lama is the key to giving China legitimate sovereignty over Tibet as an autonomous region within China because he would inspire his people to stay inside China in case of a referendum on independence. His growing following within mainland China (the number of Chinese Buddhists attending the Dalai Lama's teaching sessions in Dharamsala is growing quickly) can also help calm the simmering discontent among the Chinese who have been left untouched by the benefits of China's impressive economic growth, which has created a hunger for spiritual growth.

The Dalai Lama will be 75 in July. He is revered by the Tibetans and admired around the world. Any deal with him will have the unquestioned legitimacy and support that is so vital to China's aspirations. And his absence will spell uncertainty and a lack of moral authority over Tibetans—which can only hinder China's aim of becoming a global superpower.

Rapprochement between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama? Dare we hope?

Jan 27, 2010

Cafe



Around the Web, Around the World


"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How to Thrive in Challenging Times with Sandra Ingerman

In her latest work, How to Thrive in Changing Times: Simple Tools to Create True Health, Wealth, Peace and Joy for Yourself and the Earth, therapist and author, Sandra Ingerman provides many valuable insights into unlocking our creativity to deal with our challenging and turbulent times. With her usual clarity and open heart, she offers a fresh perspective on transforming your own inner pollution for outer benefit. Join us as we explore how Ingerman's new book points us toward a new way of being in the world and offers the practices needed to support that change. This is book is a call to action! Ingerman believes that the work begins by learning how to shift our daily thoughts and words. She encourages people to think of themselves as members of a growing global community of conscious change agents, who together, can shift the challenges on the planet today. Working as a global community we can bring forth the invisible energies and manifest a world we truly wish to live in.

This week's guest:
Sandra Ingerman


Sandra Ingerman, MA, is a licensed therapist and the author of numerous books including How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, Soul Retrieval, and Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins. She is also the author of several lecture programs produced by Sounds True. Sandra lives in New Mexico and can be found online at www.sandraingerman.com.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 2PM Pacific

http://www.modavox.com/7thWaveNetwork

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Jan 26, 2010

Mr. Deity's Crazy Logic

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




Some very biting satire from the folks at Mr. Deity, addressing the violence and total absurdity of the Old Testament God. Watching this episode, I can't help but think of John Lash's correlation of Jehovah with the deluded, psychotic Demiurge Yaldabaoth described by the Gnostics. Look at it through that lens and the whole thing starts make a crazy sort of sense.

Jan 25, 2010

James Arthur Ray on Sweat Lodge Deaths

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




James Arthur Ray has broken his silence and granted an exclusive interview to New York magazine. Ray's legal team has conducted its own investigation and exonerated him of all wrong-doing. The white paper testifying to his innocence appears on his web site. The long and the short of it: Move along folks. Nothin' to see here.

John Lash on the Gnostic Mysteries

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Some really good interviews with Gnostic scholar John Lamb Lash recently popped up on YouTube. Both allow him to explain pretty thoroughly his unique take on the Nag Hammadi Codices. I've posted a few things on Lash and his Metahistory site, previously, although I should caveat that whatever links I've posted are probably dead. The site seems to be constantly undergoing reorganization, and becomes more confusing with every innovation.

Lash's take on the Gnostics is unusual in its rejection of the idea that what is written in the Nag Hammadi texts is associated with Christianity. His book Not in His Image explores a Gnosticism that is entirely pagan, and a Judeo-Christian movement that is adversarial to these ancient teachings and cultures.

Jan 24, 2010

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Around the Web, Around the World


New WINGS Update from Karen Bishop

New and Different Outcomes...Believing Again

From the onset of the earthquake in Haiti until it completed its core purpose (but there will still be more beautiful tendrils to come) on January 22, the energies were crying “distress!” or “SOS!,” or “911!” , or “I need help right now!” or even simply “I feel empty and drained” and “where am I anyway?” These energies were felt by all of us, no matter if we were aware of the situation in Haiti or not.

Many souls were sending out a distress signal because of the insecurity they were feeling. And this insecurity could feel downright uncomfortable, unstable, and for many, excruciatingly fearful with a powerless slant as we may not have been sure how and where to move forward or what to hold onto. Add to this the lower level interpretations of the Haiti earthquake, and it is no wonder that many souls were experiencing a new insecurity, instability, and exhaustion from all the surrounding energies.

This is an unprecedented time for us for several reasons, of which I will describe below. It is also a very precarious one, as things are indeed still a bit unstable now, even though we are making great progress in embracing the new shifts and allowing them to set the tone for our very new reality. We could still very well go into a time of a new unpleasant and dark reality if we are not careful, and if we are not mindful of what is now occurring. Even so, I personally trust that things will unfold quite nicely if we remember who we are and remain at the helm as the powerful creators that we were intended to be, as we turn the tide from the old reality experience to the new.

Jan 20, 2010

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Around the Web, Around the World


"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Listening to Voices

We all listen to voices in our heads. Some voices offer wise counsel or gut knowing while others are just an inner critic or frightened child. How do you learn which voices to listen to and which ones to ignore? How do you sort the voices after a spiritual awakening? For many the voice of spirit help is lost in the cacophony of voices in the head. The most essential gift shamanism offers each of us is direct revelation, which comes as visions, voices or experiences with our own helping spirits. While the shaman is a specialist in working with these spirits, everyone has spirit help and everyone can learn to communicate effectively with that help. How do you know you are listening to your helping spirits and not just making it up? What if you can't hear anything at all and feel stuck or lost and alone. What if you have the opposite problem? You hear too many voices and don't know who to listen to. The answer is simple. It comes from the heart and begins with our willingness to feel.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 2PM Pacific

http://www.modavox.com/7thWaveNetwork

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Jan 19, 2010

Graham Hancock Discovers the Ancient Teachers

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Really fun interview with Graham Hancock exploring his body of work. Hancock makes the most of rather surface questions asked and manages to cover significant features of very diverse areas of his research and experience. He retraces his journalistic progression from East Africa correspondent for The Economist to his quest for the Ark of the Covenant in The Sign and the Seal, and how this opened the door to his incredible research into ancient mysteries and the possibilities of a great, lost civilization. He also goes into a fair bit of depth on Supernatural, his exploration of psychotropes in shamanic practice, and discusses the theories surrounding the correlation between UFO experiences and legends of the Fae. The lucidity with which he explains these very challenging concepts, and even distills the information down to soundbites, is quite astonishing. Like all of his work, very worthwhile.

Graham Hancock's books and other media can be found in the bookstore.

Jan 18, 2010

Mercury Direct



Mercury turned direct this past Friday and the final reverberations that usually occur for a day or two after a planet turns direct should be subsiding. We still have a retrograde Mars in the fixed fire sign of Leo and retrograde Saturn in the cardinal air sign of Libra, so all does not feel as clear or move as freely as we might have hoped. World focus is on Haiti right now and the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. The new moon and eclipse energy in the sign of Capricorn on the 15th amplified the square between Saturn and the Pluto/Mercury conjunction, and the moon drew in energy from the retrograde Mars at the time of the eclipse. Whenever I see a Mercury and Mars retrograde happen at the same time, I think of sudden death because my father passed suddenly during a time when both those planets were retrograde. Perhaps retrograde Mars and Mercury open a door for leaving the planet suddenly. At the time, I had been planning a vacation and was unable to get a flight for the day I wanted to travel (Mercury retrograde, of course), but despite being able to scope the ephemeris and know it was not the “best” day for me to travel, I took the only day available. That day, while driving to the airport with my family, my father died of a heart attack on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Despite my astrological knowledge and my own reservations about traveling during difficult planetary energy, I was not able to foresee my father’s death; however, upon looking more closely at the planets and our respective charts after the event, the writing was on the wall, as the expression goes. We tend to see something only when we are looking for it.

Jan 17, 2010

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Around the Web, Around the World


New WINGS Update from Karen Bishop

The Shift of January 15 and the Meaning of the Haiti Earthquake

Over the many years that I have been writing energy alerts, and now WINGS posts, there have been but a handful of significant shifts that have occurred. The ascension process was designed to move us, expand us, and raise the consciousness of the planet through ourselves, one step at a time, in order to alleviate as much discomfort as possible. In this way, for the most part, it has been a slow and steady process. None-the-less, at specific times, more dramatic and pivotal shifts have also occurred, but these shifts were far and few between.

. . .

Leading up to January 15th, in which there occurred a new moon, a solar eclipse, and when Mercury resumed its forward movement, some manifestations occurred as well. Crying for no particular reason, or at least feeling like it (because of the Haiti heart opening…see below), feelings of a severe lack of self-confidence, feeling acutely vulnerable and fragile, feeling a loss of support or lack of anything in our spaces, feelings of wanting to be alone, or that being around others was irritating, massive and frequent hot flashes, being cold with an inability to get warm, panic, anxiety and depression, and sleepless nights along with daytime fatigue were but a few of the many symptoms of the impending shift.

During the day of January 15th, the energy was beginning its shift, and this created movement which commonly manifests as feeling jittery and rattled for no apparent reason. During our sleep time on the night of January 15th, a massive release occurred. This created some interesting and revealing dreams for many. What happened, was that we were now ready for our move forward… for our new directions to finally take hold, and for a massive and intense release of the past. This release and final decision making at our soul levels was greatly experienced through our dreams, or at our higher levels.

Jan 16, 2010

Ring of Fire: Eclipse 2010

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



The longest annular solar Eclipse of the millennium was visible to residents of Africa and China. The rest of us can only see pictures, but here is a round-up of some the striking images from around the web, with links to galleries and slideshows.

Jan 14, 2010

Mr. Deity: More Fun with Gender Roles

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




Shortly after getting pounded for trafficking in female stereotypes, Mr. Deity is back and exploiting gender role humor to its fullest. I note that Brian Dalton preemptively apologizes for his hatred of women, in the commentary. Very, very funny.

Of Avatar and Catholics... and Other Christian Arrogance

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Avatar



As I said here,  I've been, over the past couple of weeks, noting incidents of jaw-dropping arrogance, in the name of Christianity. Having been raised in the Episcopal Church, with its emphasis on ecumenicism and tolerance, I always find this kind of thing rather jarring. So, as promised, here's a quick round-up. Sadly, I think this could be a regular feature.

The Vatican vs. Avatar:

The Vatican has weighed in on mega-blockbuster "Avatar" and given it the thumbs down. Some of the criticism is fair. The story is a little "simplistic." It is a James Cameron vehicle, after all, so it's somewhat formulaic. Anyone who expected otherwise from "Avatar" would be disappointed. It is still wildly entertaining and cinematically spectacular. (See it in Imax 3D, if you can. You won't regret it.)

Of course the chief criticisms from the Vatican newspaper and radio are ideological, not artistic.

Jan 13, 2010

Pat Robertson on Haiti's Pact with the Devil

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




I've been cataloging a number of recent, arrogant, public pronouncements, offered in the name of Christianity. More to come on that, but Pat Robertson's latest hateful outburst requires a stand alone post.

In the aftermath of this horrific tragedy in Haiti, one which may have caused as many as 100,000 deaths, Pat Robertson is, once again, blaming the victims, and citing their sinful nature. What's the problem in Haiti? A pact with the devil, according to Robertson. Citing no source for the information -- perhaps God has been bending his ear again -- he announces that Haiti turned to Satan, in hopes of ending the tyranny of French Imperialsm. He's not so certain about what French leader was oppressing the Haitians, but he's quite certain about the whole deal with the devil thing.

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

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Cup of Coffee



Around the Web, Around the World


"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanism and Autism

The Horse Boy is both a book and a movie about Rupert, Kristin, and Rowan Isaacson's ride across Mongolia in search of traditional shamanic healing for Rowan and his autism. The story is exquisite and heart-breakingly beautiful. Rupert explains, "As a family we did something crazy. We ended up going half way across the world in search of a miracle." And they found one. Rowan is still autistic and he did get healed of three of the worst presentations of his symptoms. This week, shaman and host, Christina Pratt, draws on her experience with autistic children and Rowan's story to explore what this tells us about the relationship between shamanism and autism. It does not tell us that horses and Mongolian shamans cure autism. But it does show us that a true relationship between a child and his/her personal power animal, the parent's willingness to heal themselves, and aspects of shamanic healing together can give parents real hope and new options for healing.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2PM Pacific

http://www.modavox.com/7thWaveNetwork

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Jan 12, 2010

Review: Battlestar Galactica -- The Plan

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




The following review contains spoilers. Previous posts on the new "Battlestar Galactica" can be found here.


The makers of the makers fall before the child.
Accessing defense system.
Handshake. Handshake. Second level clear.
(It's begun.)
Accepting scan.
Love outlasts death.
(Been a long time coming.)
Apotheosis was the beginning before the beginning.
Devices on alert. Observe the procedures of a general alert.
The base and the pinnacle.
The flower inside the fruit that is both its parent and its child.
Jump.


~ The Hybrid




"The center holds. The falcon hears the falconer," intones the hybrid, as she coordinates the attack that would annihilate the 12 colonies of Kobol. But, of course, the center does not hold, and the plan begins to unravel almost immediately.

Jan 10, 2010

Doctor Who and Grandmother Spider

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

(The following is my attempt to shamelessly ape the stylings of Christopher Knowles. It is my first such attempt. Developing...)




An interesting article on how the forming Earth avoided falling into the sun caught my eye this morning. I read it with avid interest to see if, perhaps, it pointed to a giant arachnid queen organizing the particles of the developing planet, a la Doctor Who's "The Runaway Bride" (Season 3, Episode 0).

I fully admit to having been stuck to my leather couch during the two day Doctor Who marathon on BBC America -- the lead in to David Tennant's swan song.  It kept sending my husband screaming from the living room, so I recorded a few to watch later. I was that engrossed by it. Something to do with the paucity of new Doctor Who content this year, although the specials have been quite special.

Zecharia Sitchin: Where Creationism and Evolution Collide

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



There's a little write-up on Zecharia Sitchin in the New York Times metro section the other day. It definitely treats him like a curiosity, but there's no such thing as bad publicity, I guess.

In Mr. Sitchin’s Upper West Side kitchen, evolution and creationism collide. He is an apparently sane, sharp, University of London-educated 89-year-old who has spent his life arguing that people evolved with a little genetic intervention from ancient astronauts who came to Earth and needed laborers to mine gold to bring back to Nibiru, a planet we have yet to recognize.

Outlandish, yes, but also somehow intriguing from this cute, distinguished old man whom you may have seen shuffling slowly down Broadway with his cane, and thought, “Is Art Carney still alive?”

. . .

“Well, you could start by calling me the most controversial 89-year-old man in New York,” Mr. Sitchin says. “Or you could just say I write books. I understand you’ve got to have an opening sentence, but describing my theories in a sentence, or even something like a newspaper article, is impossible. It will make me look silly.”

Mr. Sitchin has been called silly before — by scientists, historians and archaeologists who dismiss his theories as pseudoscience and fault their underpinnings: his translations of ancient texts and his understanding of physics. And yet, he has a devoted following of readers.

His 13 books, with names like “Genesis Revisited” and “The Earth Chronicles,” have sold millions of copies and been translated into 25 languages. “And Albanian is coming,” he notes, spooning the Taster’s Choice into two mugs.

You get the idea. He's one of the many endearing, eccentric Manhattanites the city takes such pride in displaying.

The complete works of Zecharia Sitchin can be found in the bookstore.

Hollow Earth and Sonic Boom

Lately I have been noticing the odd synchronistic doubling that happens from time to time. Some people notice it with numbers, seeing double and triple digits repeatedly. That happens for me, too, but I also see the same words, expressions, or pictures pop up. I still haven’t figured out quite what this means. I think I am in a flow state, or where I should be, or it is a message of energy alignment, like breadcrumbs on a path guiding my attention so that I can find the way. I first noticed I had stepped into this kind of energy a few days ago when my family and I watched G-Force. One of the Guinea pigs was named Darwin. That same evening, Charles Darwin popped up in a novel I was reading and again while I was online.

Today I found a comment in my e-mail from a blog reader that was full of links to videos about a Crystal Child. Most likely, they found me based on a search, because I have written about having a Crystal Child. I began to open some of the links and discovered a series of videos featuring a young woman named Jessica Schab. The videos are in a series and the main topic is 2012, something of interest to almost everyone. I was curious to hear what she had to say, so I began listening. By the beginning of the second video, I began to get a bit restless and considered moving on (My, how high-speed information has jaded me – it takes something really good to keep me on any site past 10 minutes.) when the phrases “tip of the iceberg”, “sonic boom”, and “earth’s core” and “hollow earth” came up. The other day, for no reason I could think of, I remembered a time about 24 years ago, when my daughter’s father and I were walking around a park with our daughter in her stroller. We experienced what must have been the aftereffect of a sonic boom, although I can’t recall hearing any sound – just feeling and seeing a freight train of energy that moved through and past us quickly. I shared the memory with my daughter and it prompted me to do a search on sonic booms, where I learned what we had felt and seen is known as a boom carpet. Something inside me has always felt it was related somehow to UFO and ET experiences that began during that time period. In the last few days, my daughter and I had a discussion about the earth’s core and I had expressed the feeling that it is probably hollow and filled with people. And yesterday I posted “the tip of the iceberg” in my blog post. So, when all these repeated themselves, my spidey senses tingled and I decided to listen further. I got to the end of the fourth in a series of videos and couldn’t find the next, so I followed the link on YouTube to Jessica’s website, which has me sidetracked now from watching more video content while I explore her site a bit. Then I decided to type up this post before my attention wanders further. Here’s Jessica Schab’s site – enjoy!

Thank you to Congreso de Ciencia y Espíritu for sharing the videos of Jessica Schab.

Originally posted to Dunnea.net

Jan 9, 2010

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Coffee Being Poured into a Cup



Around the Web, Around the World


New WINGS Update from Karen Bishop

Creating the New Reality...Completing Step One

Our foundations may also be beginning to take shape. Things in our lives may be experiencing a re-structuring in order that they now fit us in every way, or at least, support the new endeavors and new “us” that is now emerging. Backing out occurred so that we could “come back” to our true and authentic selves. Because of this, we may experience a time when we simply do not wish to connect to anyone, as we need to be free and clear, in order to experience our true selves, and anchor in to that energy, before we begin to connect to others. Being in the presence of many others at the same time can thus feel like a great irritation, like we are swatting at flies, or at best, make us unusually irritable.

We are in a very New World now. We left the old world energetically in September of 2009, and as the weeks progressed, the entire planet split off and moved somewhere else in order to begin again. “But things still look the same to me!” you may be thinking. We had to start somewhere. We could not start with nothing, as that space of nothingness can be very uncomfortable for many, as some of us well know. So then, we held the “illusion” of the old reality in our conscious minds. What we remember and still hold in our minds, is what we will see. This is how energy works. We are basically in some kind of new reality “overlay” right now. A sort of duplicate of the Old World while we begin to create the New World. Nothing can exist unless we think we see it. I wrote a lot about this in my first books, and it is so nice to finally be back to that energetic space once again as a planet. And when we hold the Old World in our conscious minds, it will not only continue to exist, but will continue to create itself with where it is.

So then, what is happening is that we are keeping the Old World alive right here, while we begin the process of creating the New World. It is quite amazing to see how this process will unfold. First, we begin creating within ourselves. We restore ourselves to our true and authentic selves, or rather, who we came to be when we were born into a physical form this time around. The first phase of the ascension process spun off as much density as possible within us, so that our true and authentic selves, or what I commonly refer to as our “gold nuggets,” are what remained. And even so, we may have found that we are still uncovering aspects of ourselves which are out of balance with the New World. It seems to never end… aye!

In case you missed Bishop's New Year's update, being that it was New Year's Day and all, it can be found here.

Jan 8, 2010

Tip of the Greed Iceberg

The Sins: Greed

This morning I booted up the computer and headed to Yahoo to check an email account. The first thing I saw was this article about destroyed merchandise in trash bags a young woman named Cynthia Magnus discovered in Manhattan behind H&M store and a Walmart on 35th street. The story made the New York Times.

Recently, during a family shopping trip to our nearest Walmart, I looked at the stores we were passing – Target, KMart, Old Navy – all touting deep after-Christmas discounts, and thought of all the unused, unsold clothes, shoes, etc. still sitting on shelves and racks. I said to my daughter, “I wonder what happens to all that unsold stuff?” To which she replied, “Big Lots.” I said, “No, Big Lots doesn’t buy up all that stuff. Maybe some of it gets sold in bulk to third world countries. I hope so.” I then recalled the trashed merchandise I had seen in my own time. Slashed shoes in the dumpster behind the Fayva Shoe Store in Riverhead, New York. Books with their front covers torn off in dumpsters behind book stores. For all I know, this practice continues, because I still see notices in some paperbacks informing me that the book may be considered “stolen” if I purchased it without its cover. The book sellers remove the covers and return them for a credit when unsold and then trash the rest of the book. And I personally worked for a company that followed the same trashing practice. In the 1990s I worked for Waldbaum’s Supermarkets on Long Island and saw massive quantities of perfectly good food sent down the garbage chute, including an entire refrigerated truckload of turkeys after one Thanksgiving. When I asked the management why all this food had to be thrown away rather than donated to people, I was told it was due to insurance regulations. Tropical and decorative plants from the produce and floral departments were also trashed. Now, concern over donating some outdated food that might be spoiled and sicken someone, leading to a lawsuit has some validity; however, where do tropical and decorative plants figure into that equation? Often, I attempted to take home the plants and despite the fact that they were being tossed into the trash, I was repeatedly told I could not take home the trash plants!

Jan 7, 2010

Graham Hancock: Underworld

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Hat tip to documentaries 2 be seen and to Graham Hancock, who has been busily scouring the web for available content related to his body of work, and posting links on Facebook. Many of them I've found and posted previously. Some not and the following is a new find. It's the documentary of Underworld on google video. The sound quality is not that great, but it's still very worth viewing. (Underworld, the book, is available in the bookstore.)

Jan 6, 2010

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Power of Dance

"The difficulties we face can motivate our greatest growth and healing," says our guest Marsha Scarbrough, author of Medicine Dance: One woman's healing journey into the world of Native American sweatlodges, drumming meditations and dance fasts. "But you have to follow whatever healing path inspires you, no matter how crazy!" This week Marsha will share what she has learned about the power of dance to heal from her work with Native American teacher, Beautiful Painted Arrow/Joseph Rael and Ayo Adeyemi Nigerian master drummer/ Yoruba ceremonial leader. In indigenous cultures, dance is not a performance. It's a meditation for the dancer. The movement itself is prayer. Dance and rhythm are the means by which shamans can repaired or restored vibration. Since we are actually vibration rhythm, dance, and ritual can be used to heal us. The possibilities to create global and personal healing are endless when you have a group trance with positive intention, rhythm, and the power of dance.

This Week's Guest:
Marsha Scarbrough

Marsha Scarbrough's is the author of Medicine Dance: One woman's healing journey into the world of Native American sweatlodges, drumming meditations and dance fasts. Along the way, Marsha traveled with Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax, danced with movement guru Gabrielle Roth, earned a brown belt in karate from martial arts legend Tak Kubota, participated in healing ceremonies with Native American mystic Beautiful Painted Arrow/ Joseph Rael and produced workshops for Nigerian master drummer/ Yoruba ceremonial leader Ayo Adeyemi. Marsha and her book can be found on her website: www.medicinedancebook.com.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 2PM Pacific

http://www.modavox.com/7thWaveNetwork

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

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