Esoterica

Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows

In true feline form, cats took their time deciding whether to jump into humans’ laps.

In a new comprehensive study of the spread of domesticated cats, DNA analysis suggests that cats lived for thousands of years alongside humans before they were domesticated. During that time, their genes have changed little from those of wildcats, apart from picking up one recent tweak: the distinctive stripes and dots of the tabby cat.

Researchers surveyed the DNA of more than 200 cats spanning the last 9,000 years, including ancient Romanian cat remains, Egyptian cat mummies, and modern African wildcat specimens. Two major cat lineages contributed to the domestic feline we know today, they report in a study published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The earlier ancestors of today’s domestic cats spread from southwest Asia and into Europe as early as 4400 B.C. The cats likely started hanging around farming communities in the Fertile Crescent about 8,000 years ago, where they settled into a mutually beneficial relationship as humans’ rodent patrol. (See little-known small cats in “Out of the Shadows, the Wildcats You’ve Never Seen.”)

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Are We Changing the Spirit World? With Kelley Harrell

Is there a parallel between our effect on the physical world, like climate change and polluting our elemental resources, and changes in the spirit world? And most importantly, if there is, what shall we do about it? Multiple practitioners of shamanic arts have begun to experience worn out guides and depleted spirits of the land. Our daily acts of micro aggression, consuming resources without gratitude, and outright violence against the "Other" is taking its toll in both worlds. Kelley Harrell of SoulIntentArts.com joins host, Christina Pratt, this week to explore what happens first when we begin to engage in shamanic activism, the sobering truth of what spirit can and can't do, and some cold hard reality about how we need to get out of our own way.

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 Trauma chronicles 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.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Lyle Jeffs In Custody, Not Raptured

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Acting on a tip from a pawn shop in South Dakota, the FBI has captured fugitive Lyle Jeffs. It appears that the disgraced FLDS leader did not in fact experience "the miracle of rapture" as his attorney had speculated. He was found living in his car, not a heavenly chariot.

The owner of a small-town South Dakota pawn shop says Lyle Jeffs revealed who he was on Tuesday when he pawned two pairs of Leatherman pliers for $37 and provided identification.

River City Treasures and Pawn owner Kevin Haug says a store employee in the small town of Yankton notified him that Jeffs was wanted by the FBI after Jeffs had left the store.

Haug says Jeffs provided his last name as his first name, going by Jeffs Lyle Steed.

. . .

He says Jeffs during his first visit was fidgeting, seemed nervous and "acting like a freak."

Esoterica

The Weird Little Industry Behind a Mesmerizing Instrument

Josiah Collett, a 10-year-old autistic boy from Broxbourne, England, had always struggled with social interactions. But things were getting worse. In school, his peers told him that he shouldn’t be alive. He spent nights crying, unable to explain to his parents what had happened.

“He was retreating into his own world,” his mother Georgia told me. “We couldn’t get through to him, and he couldn’t get through to us.”

During a family vacation to Belgium, the Collett family heard a “gorgeous, hypnotic sound” coming from the distance. They followed it down the street and found a busker playing something that looked like a cross between a caveman tool and a flying saucer. The busker tapped the instrument, called a “handpan,” which emitted both drum-like rhythms and delicate harmonies.

The mix of percussion and melody intrigued Georgia, Josiah’s mother. Josiah was always preternaturally talented when it came to music—he taught himself to play drums when he was two years old—and Georgia wondered if this new instrument, which so resembled a drum but was more expressive, might be good for Josiah.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Shamanic View of Mental Illness-Tacey: Part Two

Aboriginal elders warned the religious missionaries they encountered that if the trials of initiation were stopped then an even greater suffering would be unleashed on the uninitiated. We see this greater suffering unfolding today in the epidemics of depression, mental illness, addiction, sexual abuse, and suicide plaguing the contemporary "first world" and those who follow in our developmental and religious footsteps. In Gods and Diseases David Tacey explains what our ego-based society cannot understand, that it is "the task of culture to tell the person who he or she really is." And that it is through the trials of initiation that the person comes to believe that deeper truth and use it as the foundation for sustainable mental wellness. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she continues to explore the power in Tacey's work from his book, Gods and Diseases, which offers a an important way to look at mental illness and the possible new paths toward health and wellbeing that this point of view opens up.

**This show originally aired September 2, 2014**

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Esoterica

The Brain Literally Starts Eating Itself When It Doesn't Get Enough Sleep

The reason we sleep goes far beyond simply replenishing our energy levels every 12 hours - our brains actually change states when we sleep to clear away the toxic byproducts of neural activity left behind during the day.

Weirdly enough, the same process starts to occur in brains that are chronically sleep-deprived too - except it's kicked into hyperdrive. Researchers have found that persistently poor sleep causes the brain to clear a significant amount of neurons and synaptic connections, and recovering sleep might not be able to reverse the damage.

A team led by neuroscientist Michele Bellesi from the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy has examined the mammalian brain's response to poor sleeping habits, and found a bizarre similarity between the well-rested and sleepless mice.

. . .

Think of it like the garbage being cleared out while you're asleep, versus someone coming into your house after several sleepless nights and indiscriminately tossing out your television, fridge, and family dog.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Shamanic View of Mental Illness-Tacey: Part One

What we diagnose as "mental illness" today grows ever more resistant to reason, logic, pharmaceuticals, or medicine. What if these are not illnesses of the mind, but diseases of the spirit? Author and scholar, David Tacey, explores how we would understand and treat mental illness if we understood that by shutting spirit out of our lives with our beliefs we have forced spirit to enter through the side door of illness. When we understand how spirit is trying to work with us through disease we can see that our suffering can be resolved or transformed only when we introduce the dimension of our soul into the healing equation. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she shares Tacey's work from his book, Gods and Diseases, which offers a powerful example of the way in which looking at mental illness through a different lens opens up new possible paths to health and well-being.

**This show originally aired August 26, 2014**

Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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Esoterica

Genetic Study Reveals The Surprising Ancestry Of Ancient Egyptians

The first whole genome analysis of ancient Egyptian mummies has revealed that they were more closely related to other ancient people from the Levant, while modern Egyptians are now genetically closer to Sub-Saharan Africans. The results, published in Nature Communications, could pave the way for future genetic studies of mummies.

The researchers were interested in looking at whether or not population genetics recorded the major shifts in Egyptian demographics. Located as a gateway between two continents, and surviving for thousands of years as Caucasian, Near Eastern, and African empires were rising and falling, Egypt represents an incredible insight into the movement of cultures, ideas, and people.

“We wanted to test if the conquest of Alexander the Great and other foreign powers has left a genetic imprint on the ancient Egyptian population,” explained Verena Schuenemann, one of the lead authors of the paper. To do this, they recovered the mitochondrial genome from 90 mummies, as well as for the first time ever the entire genome of three mummies. These were then compared with the genetics of modern Egyptians, to see how they differed.

What they found was very interesting. Over the 1,300-year period that the mummies represented, the researchers found that there was no real shift in genetics, suggesting that despite successive invasions and influxes of foreign people from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the population genetics stayed surprisingly stable.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanic Healing: Traditional Medicine for the Modern World with Itzhak Beery

"Why is it that Western medicine doesn't have the answers and proper treatments for contemporary people?" Asks author, teacher, and healer, Itzhak Beery, in his new book "Shamanic Healing: Traditional Medicine for the Modern World". Join us this week as we discuss how is it that people who are unable to find a path of healing in allopathic or alternative care are "miraculously" healed by practitioners who are trained to use ancient shamanic healing tools? Is something fatally wrong in the approach we take in health care in our modern society? Shamanism offers its practitioners an alternative way of life, personal empowerment, and a kindhearted community which all lead to sustained health and well-being. Shamanism helps us get in touch with our own dreams, magic, and the great mystery at the heart of it all.

This week's guest:
Itzhak Beery

Itzhak Beery is an internationally recognized shamanic healer and teacher. He is initiated in Andean and Amazonian shamanism and has trained intensively with other elders from South and North America. He is also an accomplished visual artist and owner of an award-winning advertising agency in New York City.

Itzhak is the founder of ShamanPortal.org and cofounder of the New York Shamanic Circle. He is on the faculty of New York Open Center and his work has been featured in the New York Times, films, TV, and webinars with Evolver network.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is Soul Loss? Part Two

What is soul loss? In Part Two we explore why other modalities that are effective in healing other physical and emotional wounds simply are not the right tool for retrieving soul parts. Soul retrieval is an ancient healing form specifically designed to address soul loss effectively, safely, and without unnecessary further trauma. Soul loss happens to humans regardless of whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, practicing their personal version of spiritual, or have no belief in the soul what so ever. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the many ways your life can be changed by opening to the return of your fragmented soul and allowing your True Self to be restored by the integration of your lost self and illumination by your soul's own divine nature.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Bleeding the Beast That Is Warren Jeffs

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Members of the FLDS really don't like to pay taxes. They don't readily cooperate with the government, or acknowledge its authority. FLDS children are taught that Warren Jeffs is president of the United States. They will take financial support from illicit government forces, though, as we recently saw with the food stamp case, which ended in generous plea deals and the possible rapture of Lyle Jeffs. Their pattern of tax evasion and collecting millions in benefits is part of a "bleeding the beast" philosophy.

FLDS may be waging a slow war of attrition against the government, but it's one they appear to be losing. That sword cuts both ways. In fact, their lack of cooperation with federal and state government can mean that they're cutting off their noses to spite their collective face. Secular forces are gradually eating up their land and property wealth and it's their own refusal to cooperate with these forces, which in many cases are trying to help them, that could cost them everything.

Case in point, Short Creek, the FLDS stronghold made up of Hilldale, UT, and Colorado City, AZ,  is currently seeing an exodus of FLDS faithful. They would rather leave their homes than sign agreements and pay their property taxes.

"The Crick" is managed through a trust called the UEP (United Effort Plan). Originally set up by Warren Jeffs, the UEP was seized by the State of Utah, which argued that it was being egregiously mismanaged. Among the problems, those who were excommunicated were made homeless. As a state run trust, the UEP no longer applies a religious test, and some FLDS "apostates" have been able to reclaim homes in their old community, alongside those who remain devoted to "Prophet" Warren Jeffs. But FLDS members are in arrears.