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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Finding the Heart of the Matter

Assumptions blind us to the heart of the matter before us. The most common reason people cycle around and around working ineffectively on the same issue is their assumptions. The way we view the world creates assumptions, which influence the way we conceptualize our issues and keep us from diagnosing accurately. Without an accurate diagnosis our remedy will be ineffective, whether medical, spiritual or psycho-emotional. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores common contemporary assumptions that disempower our practices before we even start. The remedy? Cultivating a cross-cultural shamanic world-view can diminish our assumptions by simply drawing us back to the real energies that lie under the surface of what is apparent. From this place of deeper truth we can see what lies at the heart of the matter and apply our efforts there. If we are going to work to create change in our lives and our world, let's be sure we are bringing actual remedies to places that truly need change.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

More Fun With Olympics Symbolism

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I just set my DVR to record the Olympics Opening Ceremony tomorrow night, even though I haven't watched or cared about the Olympics since I was a kid. But now I need to know if it will be first contact, or the beginning of the alien war, or just a garden variety terrorist attack, or... who knows. Mostly, I want to see for myself the spectacle of symbolic imagery that William Henry and Chad Stuemke have been talking about.

Henry and Stuemke had another chin wag about the upcoming festivities on Revelations and it's a lot of fun. There is no question that the volume and organization of symbolism we've seen during run-up is staggering -- stargate symbolism, alchemical symbolism, pagan symbolism, alien imagery. Someone is having a lot of fun. And as ever, it's hard to say how much is conscious and deliberate and how much is the subconscious, intuitional, creative process.

While this year seems really over the top, in terms of imagery, I have to say that I really hadn't realized how much the Olympics has been playing with some of these themes in past years -- the alien thing in particular. I didn't know, or didn't remember, until I watched the Red Ice Radio video special, that the 1984 Olympics had produced a spaceship and a giant alien. Says Stuemke, of the 7'8" alien, "Out of this world. Didn't make a lot of sense. But people loved it."

Following Orders: Monsignor Lynn Gets 3 to 6 Years

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Monsignor William Lynn was sentenced this week to just shy of the maximum sentence. He will serve a minimum of three years in prison for failing to protect children from known pedophile priests. There is no question that the harsh sentence is meant to send a message to any church officials who would participate in the cover-up of sexual abuse.

There seems to be something of a sea change in terms of how we deal with the crime of sexual abuse. Sweeping it under the carpet has, at long last, become unacceptable. Monsignor Lynn's sentence is intriguingly synchronous with the NCAA's smack-down of Penn State in light of the Freeh Report.

Prosecutors challenged, not only the cover-up mentality, but the culture of blind obedience to authority on which the Catholic Church relies.

Ann Casey, who attended the sentencing and said she had been a friend of Monsignor Lynn for 36 years, said she believed that he was a scapegoat and a victim of his intense faith in the leaders of the archdiocese. "It was his vow of obedience to the church that landed him this morning in jail," she said.

During the trial, Monsignor Lynn's lawyers argued that he had tried to protect children, but that his powers were limited and that he had followed the instructions of the cardinal at the time, Anthony J. Bevilacqua. But prosecutors argued that Monsignor Lynn played a central role in deciding how to handle complaints against priests and that "following orders" was no defense.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Gift of the Dreamtime with Kelley Harrell

For those of you interested in shamanism you can experience a shaman finding her shaman legs, reshaping the workings of her mind, and awakening her courageous heart in the re-release of Gift of the Dreamtime. For the rest of you this is a story of healing. It is an inspiration for those who have suffered great trauma, like incest, chronic violence, or the soul loss induced by the daily, normal horrors of war, and refuse to be hobbled or accept anything less than the life you came here to live. Join us this week as author and neoshaman, Kelley Harrell shares her experiences and insights with host, Christina Pratt. Kelley has served her local community in North Carolina and an international client base since 2000 through Soul Intent Arts. In her own words, "My path of shamanism is original and claims no culture other than the one of my creation. I do not seek to teach a branded path of shamanism, but to present the map for you to create your own. Through private sessions, classes, and Distance Mystery School, I'm here to create a new tribe of support for children and adults whose lives are blessed with an uncontainable inner knowing. This is The Tribe of the Modern Mystic."

This week's guest:
Kelley Harrell

Kelley is an author and neoshaman living in North Carolina. Her memoir, Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Traumachronicles her pivotal step into the role of shaman. She has been on a shamanic path for over 20 years, works locally and with an international client base. Kelly is an Ascension and Usui Ryoho Reiki and Master, an Ordained Priestess by Global Goddess, and she honors the path of the modern Druid in her practices. She incorporates these other trainings, ways of knowing, and modalities into her shamanic practice, Soul Intent Arts, LLC.

Kelley writes the syndicated column Intentional Insights - Questions and Answers from Within, is a contributing writer for The Huffington Post, and a contributing book reviewer for SageWoman and The Beltane Pages. She is also the proud founder of The Saferoom Project, a non-profit support network for sexual assault survivors, and their partners, family and friends. She joins us today to talk about her work and the re-release of her book, Gift of the Dreamtime.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Now Where Did That Galaxy Come From?

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A team of astronomers has located a well-formed, spiral galaxy in the early universe where one just shouldn't be -- only three billion years from the Big Bang.

Theories of galaxy formation held that the Universe was still too chaotic a place to allow such a perfectly formed or "grand-design" spiral to form.

It should take far longer for gravity to bring matter into thin, neat discs.

But a team reporting in Nature says the galaxy BX442 got the gravitational "kick" it needed to form a spiral from a smaller "dwarf galaxy" orbiting it.

. . .

Having proved that such grand-design spiral galaxies can exist at such an early age of the Universe, Dr Law said the team would now like to look into larger, wider-ranging galaxy surveys such as the Hubble telescope's ongoing Candels survey. 

Tony Robbins's Firewalk Goes Awry

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Oh boy. Here we go again. Tony Robbins, the man James Ray wants so desperately to be, has landed himself in a little hot water of his own. At least 21 people suffered bad burns while attempting one of his firewalks at a seminar in San Jose, California. Most had second and third degree burns. Three went to hospital. The screams of "agony" were described as sounding like people were being "tortured." So, pretty horrible.

To his credit, unlike Ray, Robbins had medical staff on hand in case of emergency. There was also a fire inspector on scene and the proper permitting had been done. And when the medical staff became overwhelmed, the fire inspector was able to call in the fire department for additional support. So no one died. People were treated promptly. No one, to my knowledge, was told it was all "mind over matter," that they were "better than that," or that they were having a "breakthrough," as the blisters formed on their feet. It was treated like the medical emergency that it was. Robbins has been doing these things for thirty years without major incident. So that's all good.

Also, to be fair, Robbins Research International claims that 6,000 people walked the coals Thursday evening. Twenty-one out of 6,000 is practically decimal dust. But I still have to wonder what the point of this little exercise is.

Walking across hot coals on lanes measuring 10 feet long and heated to between 1,200 to 2,000 degrees provides attendees an opportunity to "understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome," according to the motivational speaker's website.

What's the message, then, when you end up in hospital with third degree burns? That you're not so good at overcoming things?

Red Ice Radio: Olympic-Size Strange Special

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

A while ago I posted a William Henry interview on the strange happenings and symbolism associated with the Summer Olympics in London. Red Ice Radio interviewed both Henry and his guest from that show Chad Stuemke, in a special broadcast on the topic. They also brought together a sampling of other perspectives on just what is going on with the Olympics Planning Committee.

It's quite a compendium. In addition to Henry and Stuemke, there are interviews and excerpts of interviews with David Icke, Stewart Swerdlow, Bob Schlenker, Ian Crane, and the late Rik Clay. The commentary ranges from the insightful to the paranoid to the deeply paranoid to the unintentionally hilarious.

Of course much of it revolves around the conspiracy theory du jour, which is to say that the Illuminati is preparing us for a false flag event and/or alien invasion so that our reptilian overlords will be better able to enslave us or kill and eat us... or... it's not entirely clear. Where that argument is the strongest lies in the draconian security measures. London is being fully militarized for this event. But then, Great Britain has been morphing into a police state for a while now -- more than the US, even.

The James Ray Appeal

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Well, I felt this coming for the past two days. So, I'm not even a little surprised we're here. I guess it's nice that they're filing the appeal before Ray's released from his teeny-tiny sentence. I just have one question. Who is Daniel Collins, Esquire? Where's Luis Li? Where's Tom Kelly? Where's that valley girl... oh, what's her name... Truc Do? I'm guessing it's this Daniel Collins from Phoenix who spends 70% of his billable hours on bankruptcy and other credit related cases. Hmmm...

Writing in the brief, attorney Daniel Collins said, "Ray is entitled to a new trial because the trial court erroneously instructed the jury on omissions, and then compounded that error by defining 'duty' in a manner squarely prohibited by settled Arizona case law."

. . .

Collins argued that, if there was a duty at all, it would have been with James Ray International Inc., which failed to have enough medical personnel at the scene, didn't have a defibrillator, inadequate training, and failed to require medical exams for the participants.

Oh, right: JRI. The company in which every corporate office was held by James Ray. (Those meetings must have been fun: Malcovich. Malcovich. Malcovich. Malcovich.) Now where's Tom Kelly's giant company chart?

Excellent Drunvalo Interview on Red Ice Radio

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I had noticed a couple of news items earlier this week regarding planetary magnetics that I wanted to put into some context. I was trying to remember which of Drunvalo's lectures addressed some of the theories regarding potential pole shift but I didn't have time to dig through it. As luck would have it, this freshly minted interview he did with Red Ice Radio pulls a lot of threads together that I had hoped to. The first hour of this interview is a particularly good overview of things Dru has been teaching for years with a level of clarity I've never heard before. The second hour is a bit more... conceptual. But it's all very enjoyable.

The first article I stumbled on is on a new theory that suggests a possible reason for the magnetic reversal of the Earth's poles that occurs periodically. And there is some indication that the next one may already be in process.

Lopsided growth of the Earth's core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand years. If it happened now, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of knocking out global communications and power grids.

One side of Earth's solid inner core grows slightly while the other half melts. Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, used numerical modelling to establish that the axis of Earth's magnetic field lies in the growing hemisphere – a finding that suggests shifts in the field are connected to growth of the inner core.

There are signs that the next switch may be under way: rapid movements of the field's axis to the east in the last few hundred years may be a precursor to the north and south poles trading places, the researchers speculate.

Mr. Deity and Christopher Hitchens

Crossposted from Reflections Journal and Celestial Reflections: A Community of Spirit.

Hilarity ensues when the noted atheist reaches the pearly gates. This does some really funny homage to the man's irascible personality. And the punchline: Now that's a shot.

There's much I disagreed with Chris Hitchens about, from a good many of his opinions on religion -- although he did make some very good, very fair points on occasion -- to many of his political views. Some of those, like his support for the war in Iraq, I found incomprehensible. But at the end of the day, I have to admire the man's brilliance. Even three sheets to the wind, which he often was, he was pretty much always the smartest man in the room. Yes, you can be both smart and wrong-headed.

Anyway, this one's a hoot. I particularly enjoyed the fundraising ad the end. It's a flawless satire of one of those Christian network promos, right down to the DBN logo. Hilarious.

I've also added to the player a spot from Brian Dalton with some driving tips that everyone should really take in. Also one of my husband's pet peeves. Let me tell ya.

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Restoring Spirits of the Land with David Franklin Farkas

What do we do when things stop flourishing? What do we do when houses don't sell, businesses fail, and illness keeps cycling through the family? Where do we go when we sense that the very matrix of the energy that supports life is somehow torn or set asunder? This week guest, David Franklin Farkas, joins host, Christina Pratt to explore practical ways to clear and restore the energies in our physical world so that we are able to maintain good communication and reciprocity with the spirits of the land, the elementals, and the Earth herself. Years ago a moment of prayerful asking how to repair a profound distortion in our energy world David was shown the energetic geometry of the etheric matrix and instructed in how to repair it.Over the past two and a half decades David has developed this proprietary method he calls Quantum Grid Restructuring, which normalizes distortion in the energetic geometry of a buildings and space by clearing the human dramas, the emotional history of human events, and other traumas we inflict on the world around us. These practices support the reconciliation with underground water, ley lines and vortexes as well as offering a context for rescuing ghosts and banishing meaner entities. Join us this week as we explore how to effectively clean up the mess we have made and restore right relationship with our world.

This week's guest:
David Franklin Farkas

David Franklin Farkas is a thought leader, independent (rogue) scholar and master practitioner in the area of remote clearing and healing of land, buildings, people, businesses and situations. He has over 35 years of experience as a professional house healer and ghost rescuer and prefers the term Technician of the Sacred. He also provides clearing and metaphysical coaching for individuals.

David apprenticed for three years with a psychic healer who had been trained by indigenous healers in the Philippines, and was mentored by a Cherokee medicine man. Now, most of his Spiritual and practical training comes directly from the Angelic realm during his work and meditations.

Over the past two and a half decades David has developed a proprietary method called Quantum Grid Restructuring which normalizes distortion in the energetic geometry of a buildings, clearing the human drama and trauma that caused these distortions. This is analogous to reformatting a hard drive on a computer. The old stuff is gone and new information can now be added to the cleared space. He can also see and mitigate issues in the land itself including underground water, ley lines and vortexes.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Full Circle

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I've written before about my near obsession with this basic form. First it possessed my inner vision, so that I seriously considered doing a giant, and I mean giant, canvas... except that I don't paint. Then I began to recognize it in a variety of contexts, penultimately in the giant obsessional painting of Battlestar Galactica character Kara Thrace. And it slowly dawned on me that it appears in a great deal of spiritual iconography. Now it's taken to stalking me.

Rightly or wrongly, Dan Brown calls the stripped down version of this symbol a circumpunct.

Brown has this to say in his novel [The Lost Symbol]: "In the idiom of symbology, there was one symbol that reigned supreme above all others. The oldest and most universal, this symbol fused all the ancient traditions in a single solitary image that represented the illumination of the Egyptian sun god, the triumph of alchemical gold, the wisdom of the Philosopher's Stone, the purity of the Rosicrucian Rose, the moment of Creation, the All, the dominance of the astrological sun, and even the ominscient all-seeing eye that hovered atop the unfinished pyramid. The circumpunct. The symbol of the Source. The origin of all things."

. . .

It is true that the circumpunct symbol has been around for millennia, albeit more often known as "the circle with the dot in the middle". It can symbolise everything from gold in alchemy to a European road sign for city centre. It is commonly used as a solar symbol and reputable sources date this to ancient Egypt, where the symbol has its origins in Ra (or Re), god of the midday sun. In fact, the circle with a midpoint, plus a vertical line is the hieroglyph meaning "sun".

So how did an Egyptian symbol rise to shine again as a token of the ancient mysteries among 21st-century Freemasons in Brown's novel? Langdon's exposition is as follows: "The pyramid builders of Egypt are the forerunners of the modern stonemasons, and the pyramid, along with Egyptian themes, is very common in Masonic symbolism." Very neat. Well done, Brown.

Brown is frustrating to read. I keep expecting there to be more of the depth hinted at by the subject matter but it's never forthcoming. And even in this case, the assigning of lineage and intrigue does nothing to address the pull this symbol has on the imagination or its underpinnings in sacred geometry. But it does flesh out a little context.

Episcopalians Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The other day I posted the exciting news that the Episcopal Church has green-lighted the ordination of transgendered people and taken a step toward gay marriages. This news was less well received by Rob Kerby who quickly pronounced the Church dead... and then he proceeded to dance on its grave. The insufferable post can be found here. The church founded by that wife-killer Henry VIII is on the brink of financial ruin because it's driven all the real Christians away with its liberal agenda... blah, blah, blah... Whatever. Talk to the hand.

True to form Kerby has also been busily blocking and deleting any dissent. Yes, it's not only Pagans and the gay-positive who get chucked down the memory hole on the new Beliefnet. Episcopalian? Gone.

I posted a comment and learned, for sure, that I'm being blocked. My comment was sent straight into moderation. It was deleted without ever seeing the light of day. As you can see, there were only two comments showing, but four comments in the counter, so I'm clearly not the only one who's been marked for moderation.

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Religious Abuse: Animal Cruelty Edition

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The Banality of Evil

Nearly a year ago, after Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison, I wrote something about the phenomenon of religious abuse and speculated that Jeffs's incarceration would not stop the cycle of abuse. Obviously, I was proved right. News of Jeffs's continuing influence keeps trickling out. But I really wasn't prepared for some of the horrors that are occurring under the control of this megalomaniacal pederast. Colorado City and other FLDS communities remain as Jeffs's fiefdoms, with a substantial membership acting as brutal enforcers. The latest casualty? A kitten. Yes, that's right. Some follower -- or followers -- of Jeffs tortured a kitten to death simply to send a message. (This link contains graphic images. Click with care.)

Controversial Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints (FLDS) leader Warren Jeffs’ polygamous sect is accused of sending a cat buried alive in a bucket of concrete to a former church member as a threat. Jeffs was convicted last year on felony charges related to sexual relationships with underage girls, according to The Blaze. A dangerous fast landed the FLDS leader in the hospital in critical condition after his incarceration began. The fundamentalist church once again made headlines after a cat in concrete was sent to a man who had “abandoned the radical sect” as a warning.

AZ Family notes that other former FLDS followers claim to have received similar shocking threats. Isaac Wyler was excommunicated in 2004. He recently discovered the kitten buried in a concrete bucket inside a pipe in his yard. Wyler considers the incident a “threatening message” to “encourage” his silence about the FLDS. Since leaving the FLDS, Wyler has been very outspoken in his opposition to the polygamous sect.

Isaac Wyler has been a thorn in Jeffs's side for years and has been on the receiving end of a lot of threats and intimidation by FLDS enforcers. One of the more telling details in this atrocity points to the scope of the problem. (This link contains graphic images and video. Click with care.)

Frankenstein Mummies of Scotland

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Not so much a horror story as an archaeological mystery, as mummified bodies cobbled together from disparate parts are turned up in Scotland.

An international team of archaeologists have discovered that two mummies found on an island off the coast of Scotland are, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, composed of body parts from several different humans. The mummified remains, as much as 3,500 years old, suggest that the first residents of the island of South Uist in the Hebrides had some previously unsuspected burial practices.

. . .

The two primary skeletons were buried in a fetal position and showed evidence of having been preserved. Chemical evidence suggests they were mummified by being placed in nearby peat bogs for a year or longer. The high acidity and low oxygen content of the bog prevents bacteria from breaking down body tissues. After preservation, the skeletons were apparently removed from the bog and buried.

But the skeletons did not "look right" to the researchers. The female's jaw didn't fit into the rest of her skull, for example. Closer examination of the male, they reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science, showed that arthritis was present on the vertebrae of the neck, but not on the rest of the spine. The lower jaw had all of its teeth, while the upper jaw had none; but the condition of the lower jaw's teeth showed that they had been paired with upper teeth. The team concluded that the skeleton has been assembled from parts of at least three bodies, some of which were separated by several hundred years of time.

Episcopal Church to Ordain the Transgendered

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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One of my earliest career goals was Episcopal priest. I was a very young, very idealistic gal watching the epic battle over women's ordination from the sidelines. I resolved, in a way that only a young idealist can, that if my Church decided the right way, I would one day join the growing ranks of female priests. Obviously, I went another way, but it was something that was still very much under consideration into my early twenties. My spiritual life took me through many twists and turns that outstripped the confines of Christian dogma -- even the very tolerant, ecumenical beliefs of the Episcopal Church. But I am still constantly surprised and gratified to see the Church growing and evolving in ways I could never have expected all those years ago. Yesterday the Episcopal Church approved a measure that would allow ordination of transgendered people.

At its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, the church House of Deputies approved a change to the "nondiscrimination canons" to include "gender identity and expression." The move makes it illegal to bar from the priesthood people who were born into one gender and live as another or who do not identify themselves as male or female.

. . .

The vote by the House of Deputies -- which includes lay people and clergy -- followed Saturday's approval of the non-discrimination clause by the church House of Bishops. Both groups have to approve new legislation.

. . .

"It is not just a good day for transgender Episcopalians and their friends, families and allies. It is a good day for all of us who are part of a church willing to the risk to continue to draw the circle wider as we work to live out our call to make God's inclusive love known to the whole human family," the Rev. Susan Russell, a deputy from the Diocese of Los Angeles and an activist who supported the legislation, said in a statement. 

Also approved was a provisional standard liturgy for blessing same-sex couples. It is the first Christian church to do so. It's a step towards what I'm sure will be an approval to perform gay marriages as they become legal around the country.  It's only a matter of time.

I'm sure this will hasten the great bigots exodus from the Church, but as ever I say, go with God.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Finding the Heart of the Matter

Assumptions blind us to the heart of the matter before us. The most common reason people cycle around and around working ineffectively on the same issue is their assumptions. The way we view the world creates assumptions, which influence the way we conceptualize our issues and keep us from diagnosing accurately. Without an accurate diagnosis our remedy will be ineffective, whether medical, spiritual or psycho-emotional. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores common contemporary assumptions that disempower our practices before we even start. The remedy? Cultivating a cross-cultural shamanic world-view can diminish our assumptions by simply drawing us back to the real energies that lie under the surface of what is apparent. From this place of deeper truth we can see what lies at the heart of the matter and apply our efforts there. If we are going to work to create change in our lives and our world, let's be sure we are bringing actual remedies to places that truly need change.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

The Vatican: Men Behaving Badly

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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The gender war in the Catholic Church appears to be heating up. Major battlefronts have opened up with American nuns -- including one who dared to write about s-e-x -- and the many Catholic women who are tired of being scolded for using birth control. Now one of the Vatican's own journalists has leveled a charge of "misogyny in the Church."

Lucretia Scaraffia edits a new women's supplement for the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. It was a risky venture for the paper to add a prominent, female voice, and it would seem that it hasn't exactly gone smoothly. In a recent interview with Agence French Presse (AFP), Scaraffia bemoaned the "indifference" with which her endeavor has been met. And she railed against a male-centric culture that she blames for the scandals that currently imperil the Church.

"The paedophilia scandal was almost exclusively male," she told AFP, at her book-lined apartment in the Parioli quarter of Rome.

"If there had been women in positions of power they would not have allowed those things to happen.

"Women have long been reputed as sexually dangerous. But it's clear that the danger lay with men and children," she said.

Solar Fireworks, Solar Fears

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The sun has had an active Fourth of July week, setting off a number of fireworks of its own. Sunspot AR1515 let lose with an X class solar flare on Friday, after a week of powerful ejections. An M class flare, earlier in the week caused a minor radio blackout. This one does not appear to be aimed directly at Earth but may cause further radio disruption.

The most powerful solar flare of the summer erupted from the sun on Friday, marking the latest in a string of strong storms this week from our home star.

The sun storm occurred just after 7 p.m. ET and registered as a class X1.1 solar flare — one of the strongest types of solar flares possible, according to the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center, run by NOAA and the National Weather Service.

The huge solar flare erupted from the giant sunspot AR1515, which has already fired off several other powerful storms this week. Space weather scientists were closely watching the sunspot for possible X-class flares.

. . .

In a new alert announcing the X-class solar flare, SWPC officials said the sun storm could a "wide-area blackout" in the high-frequency radio communications.

Did All Dinosaurs Have Feathers?

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Exceptionally well-preserved fossil evidence shows feathers on an early, meat-eating dinosaur, suggesting that plumage on the giant creatures was far more common than previously known.

Previously, paleontologists have found feathers only on coelurosaurs—birdlike dinosaurs that evolved later than so-called megalosaurs such as Sciurumimus.

Because Sciurumimus is not closely related to coelurosaurs, the new fossil suggests feathered dinosaurs were the norm, not the exception, Rauhut said.

"Probably all dinosaurs were feathered," he added, "and we should say good bye to the familiar image of the overgrown lizards."

. . .

According to the study authors, this "obviously" suggests that dinosaurs' common ancestor had feathers, which passed the trait on to each branch of the dinosaur family tree. (See pictures of big, bad, bizarre dinosaurs in National Geographic magazine.)

CERN Strikes Boson

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Those magnificent bastards at CERN may well have discovered the God Particle... and cost Stephen Hawking a hundred bucks. It seems the renowned physicist had bet against the Higgs Boson ever being found. It is still not entirely clear that the particle found by the Large Hadron Collider experiments is the Higgs. It may be a different boson but they are pretty darned sure that it's a boson.

“I think we have it,” said Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN, the multinational research center headquartered in Geneva. The agency is home to the Large Hadron Collider, the immense particle accelerator that produced the new data by colliding protons. The findings were announced by two separate teams. Dr. Heuer called the discovery “a historic milestone.”

He and others said that it was too soon to know for sure, however, whether the new particle is the one predicted by the Standard Model, the theory that has ruled physics for the last half-century. The particle is predicted to imbue elementary particles with mass. It may be an impostor as yet unknown to physics, perhaps the first of many particles yet to be discovered.

That possibility is particularly exciting to physicists, as it could point the way to new, deeper ideas, beyond the Standard Model, about the nature of reality.

For now, some physicists are simply calling it a “Higgslike” particle.

Hunt Vampires Just Like Abe Lincoln

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

You too can hunt real, dead vampires, just like our 16th President. Or at least you could have done if you'd been alive in the early 1900s when these snazzy vampire-slaying kits were available for purchase. Today you'd have to steal one from a museum.

The 19th Century box, containing a crucifix, pistols, wooden stakes and a mallet, was sold for £7,500 at an auction in North Yorkshire on Friday.

It had been left to a Yorkshire woman in her uncle's will.

The Royal Armouries said it expected the box would prove a major attraction when it went on display at the Clarence Dock museum later this year.

. . .

As well as the weaponry, the box contains a copy of the Book of Common Prayer from 1851 and a handwritten extract from the Bible which quotes Luke 19:27.

Admit it. You want one.

No, It is Not a Vagina

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I like Cracked. They're fun. And they do set the record straight on many commonly accepted canards. But on this one, they're just wrong.

Apart from the cross, the most ubiquitous symbol of Christianity is the ichthys, known to us as the Jesus Fish, and today it appears predominantly in its natural habitat -- car bumpers. The ichthys actually dates right back to ancient times, when Christianity was still an obscure sect, and considering that fish and fishing were frequently used as symbols in the Bible, you could argue that it's a more appropriate symbol for the teachings of Christ than the device used to torture and kill him.

. . .

It's a vagina.

One of the names given to the pre-Jesus Jesus Fish is the vesica pisces (vessel of the fish), and it was used as a symbol of every female fertility god ever, from Atargatis (the Syrian fertility goddess), Aphrodite/Venus (the goddess of love and sex) to the pagan Great Mother goddess, where it symbolized her life-giving vulva. Basically, whenever you encountered an image of fish in the pre-Christian world, it was probably an opposite-of-subtle metaphor for lady parts.

No one loves Goddess mythology more than I. And I can truly understand the temptation to tweak sexist, paternalistic, patriarchal, evangelicals by telling them they've put vaginas on their bumpers. But it's a gross oversimplification of a very rich symbol.

And, no, it's not really about Jesus making "fishers of men," either. (Matthew 4:19)

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Restoring Spirits of the Land with David Franklin Farkas

What do we do when things stop flourishing? What do we do when houses don’t sell, businesses fail, and illness keeps cycling through the family? Where do we go when we sense that the very matrix of the energy that supports life is somehow torn or set asunder? This week guest, David Franklin Farkas, joins host, Christina Pratt to explore practical ways to clear and restore the energies in our physical world so that we are able to maintain good communication and reciprocity with the spirits of the land, the elementals, and the Earth herself. Years ago a moment of prayerful asking how to repair a profound distortion in our energy world David was shown the energetic geometry of the etheric matrix and instructed in how to repair it. Over the past two and a half decades David has developed this proprietary method he calls Quantum Grid Restructuring, which normalizes distortion in the energetic geometry of a buildings and space by clearing the human dramas, the emotional history of human events, and other traumas we inflict on the world around us. These practices support the reconciliation with underground water, ley lines and vortexes as well as offering a context for rescuing ghosts and banishing meaner entities. Join us this week as we explore how to effectively clean up the mess we have made and restore right relationship with our world.

This Week's Guest:
David Franklin Farkas

David Franklin Farkas is a thought leader, independent (rogue) scholar and master practitioner in the area of remote clearing and healing of land, buildings, people, businesses and situations. He has over 35 years of experience as a professional house healer and ghost rescuer and prefers the term Technician of the Sacred. He also provides clearing and metaphysical coaching for individuals.

David apprenticed for three years with a psychic healer who had been trained by indigenous healers in the Philippines, and was mentored by a Cherokee medicine man. Now, most of his Spiritual and practical training comes directly from the Angelic realm during his work and meditations.

Over the past two and a half decades David has developed a proprietary method called Quantum Grid Restructuring which normalizes distortion in the energetic geometry of a buildings, clearing the human drama and trauma that caused these distortions. This is analogous to reformatting a hard drive on a computer. The old stuff is gone and new information can now be added to the cleared space. He can also see and mitigate issues in the land itself including underground water, ley lines and vortexes.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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