Author Archives: marcia

On Conscious Creation

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Conscious Creation: Becoming an Observer of Your Own Life

June 19th, 2018

By Hilde Larsen

Take a step back. Take a good and long look at your life from an observer’s perspective. Look at it from the outside, and become mindful about what you do and say on a daily basis.

Most of the time our days are filled with the same types of tasks. We go to the same work place, we hang around the same crowd of people, and we engage in the same stuff. But look further and even more specific. Look at the simple things. What are you eating? What are you thinking? When do you get up in the morning, and when do you go to bed? You brush your teeth and you take a shower. How do you dress? Do you work out? A whole series of rituals and repetitions. Most often this is our lives, and that is what is locking us in and holding us back.

Most of the time we are in a sleep-like state, unaware of the fact that we are living this life on autopilot; unknowingly living the same old story that we were brought up to believe we chose. Most of what we do and say in a day has never been chosen, not consciously, it has been programmed. It is fed to us through television, radio, and society in general, which bombards our whole being with signals of the “proper” life. It’s not all bad of course. Most of us have learned and experienced some beautiful things, developed great values, and have met some wonderful people.

Life might be good, but the lies and programming have to go.

The good and bad news is; it’s not your fault. The subconscious mind is simply a programmed chip if you will, that is acting like your pilot. It is keeping you locked into the false belief that you are free and in charge, when in reality — you’re not.

All through school, our lives were put into a system of structure. Through a controlled education on topics and written “truths”, our whole picture of the world, who we are and who we need to be has been molded. Brick by brick our house and the whole city of reality has been formed and built around us, leaving little or no room for creative or free interpretation. The stage has been set. We will be told the same old story, over and over until it sticks. It becomes a truth for all our cells. It does not matter if it is the real truth, it still becomes ours. And we own it and honor it.

This is why becoming an observer is so important to achieving a consciously creating mind. Be aware of how you speak to your friends, what stories you tell. Are they the same complaints about work, your hubby, the children? Maybe you are talking about how you are not feeling good, your health, or other topics that interest you? It can be anything, but as long as it’s not uplifting your spirit, and as long as it’s not reflecting who you are and your inner most pure emotions, it’s holding you back. It is keeping you locked in the grip of the autopilot, and so, life becomes a different day with the same old story.

If you have children, I am sure you have told yourself “I sounded just like my mother/father”. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it tells us a little something about the programming at hand. Without conscious observation, we adopt everything that is shown to us, like behaviors and thought patterns. We learn through ear, mouth and eyes. As children we are like sponges, literally soaking everything in. We watch and learn, listen and record. The hard drive is filled up little by little. We have no filter or manual to go by. We save all and delete nothing; that is the only rule. We do not have the ability to believe or not believe at this point, so we save everything as our truth.

As we grow older, we hold on to it like it’s our connection to ourselves and add it to our past-life and cellular memories. Yes, our cells have memories, and most likely, you are not here for the first time. Your story is much older than your current life. Much of it is inherited from the generations before us. No wonder the story is a powerful one, and that it’s hard to let it go. No wonder we let it run its course, on autopilot, until it really hurts.

This is why we need to become an observer to be able to consciously create anything. Change comes through awareness and the willingness to change; through observing and getting real about our patterns. Until we are aware of our actual thoughts and actions, we remain disempowered. We stay fighting against our own inner programming. Change becomes hard, and life more frustrating.

I know all about not changing my ways until I was almost dead. I made my story my own, and I believed every word of it. I was carrying so many false beliefs that I no longer felt connected to anything but my big head, my stubbornness and my stressful life. Completely disconnected from myself, I had no inner feeling of belonging or self-worth, and I became chronically ill.

Sadly, my story is not unique in the sense that I suffered from my programming. My story is different from many other people’s in the sense that I decided I was done. I was done believing in that nonsense, that falsehood and that old programming. I was done believing I would never get healthy again, and that I was somehow unworthy of health and happiness. I was done believing that I was broken and not whole.

My life was worth it.

I was worth it.

The difference between a belief and the truth

It is easy to believe what everyone else believes; to follow the flow of the masses, never observing our own life or analyzing why we do what we do and believe what we believe. The thing is, until we change how we look at the world, the world stays the same. As long as we keep walking down that same street, that’s where we will be, right?

Observing our lives will help reveal the larger picture. It allows us to detect false beliefs and emotional detachments as well. Stepping out of our heads, where we are so easily manipulated, lets us tap in to our hearts, our innate wisdom, and our pure child-like enthusiasm — and into truth and conscious creations. We even have children’s stories that tell us this; that it is easy to be a sheep in the masses.

The Emperor’s New Clothes is a great example:

Once upon a time, there was an Emperor who was extremely interested in having the best quality clothes. His whole world evolved around it, and he did not care much of anything else. One day several conmen came to see him and told him they were the World`s best weavers. They would make him the most beautiful fabric for his outfits. The Emperor was thrilled. They told him they made fabrics from a very special thread. The garments would appear invisible to anyone who was stupid or not doing their jobs.

The conmen ordered some of the finest materials, and secretly they sold them to get the money. They fooled the Emperor and his servants, by pretending to weave with nothing. The Emperor fired all his staff that couldn`t see this imaginary fabric, as he believed they were liars and not doing their jobs. It became easy for them to lie to keep their jobs. Now they all said they saw the beautiful threads turn to this fantastic textile. 

The Emperor ends up getting dressed in nothing at all, believing that his garments were invisible only to cheaters. He started a procession where his servants walked behind him with their hands raised to hold the cape. The whole town admired him and his new clothes until one young boy yelled that the Emperor had no clothes on, that he was in fact naked.

In this story, great wisdom is revealed. The Emperor wanted to keep his position and did not hesitate to get rid of anyone who threatened it. The conmen were getting rich by fooling, scamming and playing mind games, and the masses were prone to follow the crowd and accept the untruth of the authority. The servants were afraid of losing their jobs, and only the child had no agenda. The young boy is the voice of consciousness in this story. In his naivety and a life deprived of long standing programming and fear, he speaks his truth. I want us all to be this boy, to be able to speak our truths, and to not be held back by the old story.

Only when we break free from the old patterns and awaken to the fact that our power does not emerge from our brain, will we feel and act up to our full potentials. You see, the brain is simply an organ, a tool, to be used or not. Our true power comes from our spirit, our hearts and the God force within us.

The brain can be manipulated, our hearts cannot. Many of our stories hurt us on a daily basis by holding us back from evolving, healing, growing, and creating true happiness and fulfillment for ourselves. They are the roadblocks from hell, and the obstructions of our true essence.

What are the stories we are telling ourselves?

  • I am limited
  • I can never get healthy
  • I am typically not good at anything
  • I do not have the right resources
  • I am too young/old
  • I am not good enough
  • I don’t have enough money and never will
  • I am not beautiful
  • I am not smart enough
  • I cannot help it, it is my genes
  • I was abused, so it is not that easy for me
  • I am all alone, and life is tough
  • I am sick and will never get better
  • Nobody loves me
  • I need to be perfect
  • It is not about me. I am not that important
  • I cannot do this
  • My family will not allow it
  • Nothing good ever happens to me
  • I am weak!

The list is endless. It is a reflection of our bullshit, and in fact, none of this is true. Not ever. Did you find something on this list that you believe is you? If you do, step back and observe. Free of the story of deceit and lies. Free of the old programming. Hopefully you will discover your eagerness to find out the truth that is hidden within you.

“It doesn’t matter how many times a lie has been told, and how many people believe it, it will never be the truth!” – Hilde Larsen

Let this be the time that you step up and take back your power. Let this be the time that you have been waiting for your whole life. Open your mind and heart, and let everything you have ever learned and held as your truth be questioned, and let all of the invisible walls and fences come down. To be able to reach the subconscious mind, the conscious mind has to be up for the task. You have to be willing to see with your eyes open and to look at some less-than-flattering patterns in your life. This is not a competition or a race towards being perfect. Forget perfect! Life is so much larger than that.

A heart felt decision has to be made to be able to follow in your own new footsteps. You are not only the one you have been waiting for, you are the only one you have been waiting for.

You are the teller of your stories, the creator of your thoughts, the master of your actions, and the head of your life operations. You are the observer AND the doer, and the more you step back the more consciously you can create — from your own truth, not that of others.

You are the BOSS; the creative force of nature that can change the course of your life, through observing what you do, think, feel, and believe.

Step back and step forth.

from:    https://wakeup-world.com/2018/06/19/conscious-creation-becoming-an-observer-of-your-own-life/

Towards Decentralization

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Is This The Century of Secession?

JUNE 20, 2018

By Jon Rappoport

Here is the political question of our time: Will it be one future for all, or many futures side by side? Read on.

—Any movement toward secession is a good thing, no matter how ill-conceived. It puts a different idea in minds: defect, decentralize, opt out, strive to become more self-sufficient. This idea can spawn many new strategies, over the long run.

For example, there is a lot of noise about California seceding from the Union.

One plan would split the state up into three parts. This is currently the strongest initiative, because those three parts wouldn’t actually secede; they would become new states.

However, Congress has to OK the formation of new states, and it will never do so.

All this interesting and fertile chaos obscures something else that is happening in California. The Mercury News reports (4/24/18):

“At least 14 Southern California cities and two counties have passed ordinances, and in some cases filed lawsuits, against the state’s controversial sanctuary laws that largely prohibit local and state authorities from cooperating with federal immigration officers [who want to deport illegal immigrants].”

“While the anti-sanctuary wave is rolling across some of California’s most Republican strongholds [Orange and San Diego counties], they aren’t an aftershock from the 2016 election: Democrat Hillary Clinton trounced Trump in Orange County by 8 percentage points and San Diego County by 20 percentage points [if you believe the legitimacy of the vote count].”

According to the Mercury News, here are the local entities that have rebelled against California sanctuary-immigration policy:

Orange County Board of Supervisors
San Diego County Board of Supervisors
Beaumont — Riverside County
Dana Point — Orange County
Ripon — San Joaquin County
Los Alamitos — Orange County
Laguna Niguel — Orange County
San Juan Capistrano — Orange County
Aliso Viejo — Orange County
Mission Viejo — Orange County
Yorba Linda — Orange County
Newport Beach — Orange County
Westminster — Orange County
Huntington Beach — Orange County
Orange — Orange, County
Fountain Valley — Orange County
Escondido –San Diego County

This is where the action is. This movement has legs. It could spread even further.

For example, suppose these rebelling communities get together? Suppose a few leaders have working imaginations? Who knows what they might come up with?

Suppose a few communities in CA decide they don’t like the state’s mandatory child-vaccine law, and they want to refuse its provisions?

One idea (even an unworkable one) gives birth to other ideas. A contagion begins. For example, people consider the original notion of limited government and a Constitutional Republic. Unconscionable government meddlers are seen as meddlers and criminals. A wave builds. People experience glimpses of freedom. They hunger for more. They feel something new stirring in their bones.

They contemplate the possibility that doom is not inevitable.

What would 1776 look like, and how might it play out, today, in a state (California) that once celebrated cutting-edge innovation, before an elite fungal infection rolled in?

The best estimate of the 13 colonies’ population in 1776 is 2.5 million. A federal Republic was designed for a small group, not 325 million people. Jefferson envisioned a ladder of independent Republics—from village to ward to county to state to federal—each emphasizing freedom of the individual, each hamstringing the power of government to the strictest degree possible.

He was not alone. The whole freedom movement of the time was conscious of the danger of unchecked government and corporate control.

It fell to state legislatures to limit corporations by chartering them to do business. If a corporation harmed the public good, the legislature could, without a trial, exile it from the state. This was in line with the prevailing concept (eventually overturned by corrupt judges and business monopolists) that a corporation was not a person, and did not have the rights of an individual.

Any effort in the direction of DECENTRALIZATION is a good thing. We are long overdue in that regard.

And as far Europe is concerned—the countries who birthed the idea of individual freedom after centuries of struggle—from whom the American Founders took their political innovations—the present European Union is a lurching monster—it is a direct contradiction to the profound concept of liberty. It should be repealed on every front and summarily dumped and left at the side of the road—a relic of fascism that once posed as a purveyor of the public good.

DECENTRALIZATION really becomes fascinating when you consider the formation of intentional communities based on political ideas of every stripe. The inhabitants themselves decide the principles that apply. Some version of share and care and equality for all? A Constitutional Republic? A monarchy? Experiments proliferate and stand and fall on their own. With the advance of technology, it’s possible to outfit a local community with its own power supply, its own digital platforms, etc., on behalf of increased self-sufficiency.

The octopoid reach of overweening central governments loses strength. New cultures evolve, side by side. Whatever shapes the political structures of communities take, the underlying effort is pro-independence.

That would be authentic secession.

The vector moves toward the individual and away from the collective.

On the education front, this is already happening, as parents, disgusted with the crime, drugs, social indoctrination, and political correctness in public brainwashing centers, are opting for home schooling.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the so-called Health Freedom movement has been expanding for many decades. It is based on the concept that every person has the right to manage his own health and seek out unconventional treatments. Despite government efforts to corral the population into Big Pharma medicine, citizens have broken out of that mold. In a big way.

Then there is “alternative news.” Untold numbers of decentralized outlets have bloomed across the world. Of course, they are labeled “fake news,” because the mainstream monopolists are terrified they are losing their grip on the minds of populations. In 2001, when I launched my site, nomorefakenews.com, I was acutely aware of mainstream brainwashing in the arena of information. I defected from print journalism and went out on my own. Seventeen years later, I’m still here.

Decentralization on every front is occurring. It isn’t always pretty, and it isn’t always on target, but that’s what you get when you get freedom. Life pushes through worn ground and explores new possibilities.

It all comes back to the individual mind. Is that mind free and wide-ranging or is it programmed? When free minds cooperate, the choices are extensive, and success is possible in many directions.

DECENTRALIZATION IS ALL ABOUT IMAGINATION. That is the key. When individuals conceive the futures they want, by imagining and projecting them, doors and windows into the future open. Not one future for all—but many futures side by side.

One future for all is the totalitarian nightmare. The Globalist nightmare.

Cracking that monolith is the job of this century.

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

from:    https://www.activistpost.com/2018/06/is-this-the-century-of-secession.html

What. DOES Facebook Know About you?

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The 18 things you may not realise Facebook knows about you: Firm reveals the extent of its spying in a 454-page document to Congress

  • Facebook knows your exact mouse movements and battery status
  • It can tell if your browser window is ‘foregrounded or backgrounded’
  • In some cases, it monitors devices around its users or on the same network 
  • The details were revealed in document of answers to Congress following Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in April over the Cambridge Analytica scandal

By TIM COLLINS and AARON BROWN and CHEYENNE MACDONALD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 11:04 EDT, 12 June 2018 | UPDATED: 15:47 EDT, 12 June 2018

WHAT ARE THE 18 METHODS USED BY FACEBOOK TO TRACK USERS REVEALED IN LETTERS TO CONGRESS?

1. ‘Device information’ from ‘computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices,’ as well as your ‘internet service provider or mobile operator’

2. ‘Mouse movements’, which can help distinguish humans from bots

3. ‘App and file names’, including the types of files on your devices

4. ‘Device operations’ such as whether a window running Facebook is ‘foregrounded or backgrounded’

5. ‘Device signals’, including ‘nearby Wi-Fi access points, beacons, and cell towers’ and ‘signal strength’ as well as Bluetooth signals

6. ‘Other devices that are nearby or on their network’

7. ‘Battery level’

8. ‘Available storage space’

9. ‘Plugins’ installed

10. ‘Connection speed’

11. ‘Purchases’ Facebook users make on third-party websites

12. Contact information ‘such as an address book’ and ‘call log or SMS log history’ for Android users with these settings synced

13. Information ‘about how users use features like our camera’

14. The ‘location of a photo or the date a file was created’ through the file’s metadata

15. ‘GPS location, camera, or photo’ information found through your device’s settings

16. Purchases from third-party data providers as well as other information about your ‘online and offline actions’

17. ‘Device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts users use’

18. ‘When others share or comment on a photo of them, send a message to them, or upload, sync or import their contact information’ text

The creepy ways Facebook spies on its users have been detailed in a bumper document presented to Congress.

They include tracking mouse movements, logging battery levels and monitoring devices close to a user that are on the same network.

The 454-page report was created in response to questions Mark Zuckerberg was asked during his appearance before Congress in April.

Lawmakers gave Zuckerberg a public grilling over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but he failed to answer many of their queries.

The new report is Facebook’s attempt to address their questions, although it sheds little new light on the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

However, it does contain multiple disclosures about the way Facebook collects data.

Some are unsurprising, such as the time people spend on Facebook, while others may come as a shock to the majority of users.

Device information

Facebook tracks what device you are using to access the network.

To do this, it will log the hardware manufacturer of your smartphone, connected television, tablet, computer, or other internet-connected devices.

Facebook also tracks the operating system, software versions and web browser.

If you’re using a smartphone, it will keep a record of the mobile carrier, while internet service providers (ISPs) will be stored for users using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection to access Facebook.

In some cases, it will monitor devices that are using the same network as you.

‘Facebook’s services inherently operate on a cross-device basis: understanding when people use our services across multiple devices helps us provide the same personalized experience wherever people use Facebook,’ the firm wrote in the lengthy document.

According to Facebook, this is done, for example, ‘to ensure that a person’s News Feed or profile contains the same content whether they access our services on their mobile phone or in a desktop computer’s web browser.’

Facebook also says this information is used to curate more personalized ads.

 

to find out more, go to:    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5834371/The-18-things-not-realise-Facebook-knows-YOU.html

LIGHTEN UP YOUR WATER

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The Fourth Phase of Water – What You Don’t Know About Water, and Really Should

Story at-a-glance

  • Your body consists of over 99 percent water molecules, but the water in your cells is not regular water, but highly structured water with special properties
  • There is a fourth phase of water, not H2O but H3O2, and can be called living water. It’s more viscous, dense, and alkaline than regular water; has a negative charge, and can hold energy, much like a battery, and deliver energy too
  • The key ingredient to create this highly structured water is light, i.e. electromagnetic energy, whether in the form of visible light, or infrared wavelengths, which we’re surrounded by all the time
  • One reason why infrared saunas make you feel so good is because your body’s cells are deeply penetrated by infrared energy, which builds and stores structured water. The same goes for light therapy, spending time in the sun, and laser therapy
  • Besides optimizing your drinking water by vortexing, you can help support your body’s negative charge by connecting to the Earth, which also has a negative charge. This is the basis of the earthing or grounding technique

Water is clearly one of the most important factors for your health—especially when you consider that your body actually consists of over 99 percent water molecules! I sincerely believe water is a really underappreciated part of the equation of optimal health.

I’ve previously interviewed Dr. Gerald Pollack, who is one of the leading premier research scientists in the world when it comes to understanding the physics of water, and what it means to your health.

Besides being a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, he’s also the founder and editor-in-chief of a scientific journal called Water, and has published many peer-reviewed scientific papers on this topic. He’s even received prestigious awards from the National Institutes of Health.

His book, The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor, is a phenomenal read that is easy to understand even for the non-professional.

It clearly explains the theory of the fourth phase of water, which is nothing short of ground-breaking. The fourth phase of water is, in a nutshell, living water. It’s referred to as EZ water—EZ standing for “exclusion zone”—which has a negative charge. This water can hold energy, much like a battery, and can deliver energy too.

For years, Dr. Pollack had researched muscles and how they contract, and it struck him as odd that the most common ideas about muscle contraction do not involve water, despite the fact that muscle tissue consists of 99 percent water molecules.

How could it be that 99 percent of the molecules were ignored? How could it be that muscle contracts without involving the water in some way? These questions help catalyze his passionate investigation into water.

So You Think You Understand Water?

Gilbert Ling, who was a pioneer in this field, discovered that water in human cells is not ordinary water (H2O), but something far more structured and organized.

“I began to think about water in the context of biology: if water inside the cell was ordered and structured and not bulk water or ordinary water as most biochemists and cell biologists think, then it is really important,” Dr. Pollack says.

Dr. Pollack’s book also touches on some of the most basic features of water, many of which are really not understood. For example, how does evaporation take place? Why does a tea kettle whistle? Also, despite the fact that conventional science tells us freezing is supposed to occur at zero degrees Celsius, experiments show that it can freeze in many different temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Celsius.

There’s actually no one single freezing point for water! Other experiments show that the boiling point of 100 degrees Celsius (or 212 degrees Fahrenheit) does not always hold true either.

“There’s a famous website1 put together by a British scientist, Martin Chaplin. Martin lists numerous anomalies associated with water,” Dr. Pollack says. “In other words, things that shouldn’t be according to what we know about water…

The more anomalies we have, the more we begin to think that maybe there’s something fundamental about water that we really don’t know. That’s the core of what I’m trying to do. In our laboratory at the University of Washington, we’ve done many experiments over the last decade. These experiments have clearly shown the existence of this additional phase of water.”

The reason this fourth phase of water is called the exclusion zone or EZ is because the first thing Dr. Pollack’s team discovered is that it profoundly excludes things. Even small molecules are excluded from EZ water. Surprisingly, EZ water appears in great abundance, including inside most of your cells. Even your extracellular tissues are filled with this kind of water.

to read more, go to:    https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/18/exclusion-zone-water.aspx

On Declining IQs

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Researchers find IQ scores dropping since the 1970s

June 12, 2018 by Bob Yirka, Medical Xpres
intelligent
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A pair of researchers with the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Norway has found that IQ test scores have been slowly dropping over the past several decades. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bernt Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg describe their study and the results they found. They also offer some possible explanations for their findings.

Prior studies have shown that people grew smarter over the first part of last century, as measured by the intelligence quotient—a trend that was dubbed the Flynn effect. Various theories have been proposed to explain this apparent brightening of the human mind, such as better nutrition, health care, education, etc, all factors that might help people grow into smarter adults than they would have otherwise. But, now, according to the researchers in Norway, that trend has ended. Instead of getting smarter, humans have started getting dumber.

The study by the team consisted of analyzing IQ test results from young men entering Norway’s national service (compulsory military duty) during the years 1970 to 2009. In all, 730,000 test results were accounted for. In studying the data, the researchers found that scores declined by an average of seven points per generation, a clear reversal of results going back approximately 70 years.

But it was not all bad news. The researchers also found some differences between family groups, suggesting that some of the decline might be due to environmental factors. But they also suggest that lifestyle changes could account for some of the decline, as well, such as changes in the education system and children reading less and playing video games more. Sadly, other researchers have found similar results. A British team recently found IQ score results falling by 2.5 to 4.3 points every decade since approximately the end of the second world war. And this past December, another group from the U.S. found that children who grew up eating a lot of fish tended to have higher IQs—and they slept better, too, which is another factor involved in adult intelligence levels. Notably, children in many countries in the modern era eat very little fish.

More information: Bernt Bratsberg et al. Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1718793115

Abstract
Population intelligence quotients increased throughout the 20th century—a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect—although recent years have seen a slowdown or reversal of this trend in several countries. To distinguish between the large set of proposed explanations, we categorize hypothesized causal factors by whether they accommodate the existence of within-family Flynn effects. Using administrative register data and cognitive ability scores from military conscription data covering three decades of Norwegian birth cohorts (1962–1991), we show that the observed Flynn effect, its turning point, and subsequent decline can all be fully recovered from within-family variation. The analysis controls for all factors shared by siblings and finds no evidence for prominent causal hypotheses of the decline implicating genes and environmental factors that vary between, but not within, families.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

© 2018 Phys.org

from:    https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-iq-scores-1970s.html

CONSIDERATION:  Perhaps IQ scores are declining due to their no longer being relevant to the kinds of intelligence that is needed for this time.  MC

Zero and the Honeybee – Sweet!

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Honeybees can Understand a Complex Mathematical Concept, Study Proves

A couple days ago, a quite interesting study was published that claims to identify the fact that bees are capable of understanding the mathematical concept of “zero.”

The study reportedly confirms that the honeybee is fully capable of understanding the quantitative value of nothing. Not only that, but they are gifted with the ability to correctly place zero at the beginning of a line of sequential numbers: they can understand zero, one, two, ect.

Of all insects out there, this is supposed to be the first concrete evidence to prove that the brain of an insect has the capability of understanding the concept of zero. This discovery has implications for the understanding of insect brains, but it also has implications about the evolution of complex number processing in living beings, according to articles reporting on the study.

Scientists say there are four distinct stages of understanding the concept of zero in both animal learning, and human culture, psychology, and history.

Stage one is a being understanding that zero means the absence of something, such as zero food, or zero air. A simple amount of visual processing ability can probably ensure a being can understand zero at this level.

Stage two is when a living being understands the difference between “nothing” and “something” with the concept of zero. For example, the absence of daylight once the sun sets is an understanding of zero as “something” vs “nothing.”

Stage three of understanding zero is defined as an understanding of the fact that a numeric value can be assigned to zero, and that zero belongs at the low end of a chronological sequence of numbers. The number line goes zero, one, two, three ect.

Stage four, the most advanced stage, is when a being fully understands that zero can be assigned a symbolic representation of “nothing,” for example 3 – 3 = 0.

So where do honeybees fall in these categories? Honeybees have officially achieved stage three in that process.

Believe it or not, it’s an elite few species across the entirety of life that are capable of understanding “zero” to this degree. The ability to learn or spontaneously develop an understanding of the concept of zero has so far only been observed in honeybees, vervet monkeys, rhesus monkeys, one African gray parrot, and a single chimpanzee.

This is definitely the first time such an advanced understanding of mathematics has been observed in any insects.

So why is zero so important? Throughout the history of humanity, it has apparently been demonstrably significant for a culture to understand it.

For centuries, the concept of zero as a number with a quantitative value went unnoticed. One early example is the Chinese using counting rods to mark a blank space, to represent a place holder in values.

By 628AD as far as we know, zero had a written record and people recognized it as a number by itself. An Indian mathematician named Brahma Gupta wrote about this in his book Brahmasputha Siddhanta.

His work constituted the first written record to provide an actual framework for people doing math to use zero when making calculations.

(Image credit: pixabay,  booksfact, huffingtonpost, sciencebuzz)

from:    https://themindunleashed.com/2018/06/study-proves-honeybees-can-understand-a-complex-mathematical-concept.html

Influences of Light & Color on the Mind

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How Color and Light Influence the Mind

Anadi Martel

The following article is excerpted fromLight Therapies: A Complete Guide to the Healing Power of Light by Anadi Martel, published by Inner Traditions.

Meditation is the inner sun,
The source of inner light.
Osho

Right from the very start of my interest in light in the 1980s what intrigued me most was to find out whether it could contribute to enhancing altered states of consciousness—specifically, the higher state of meditative consciousness. This propelled my interest in developing new techniques for the control of light based on its modulation. I started out by studying its effects directly on myself, and then I examined its effects on others. This process, which was of an empirical nature, showed clearly that certain types of light could indeed have profound effects on the mind and on the psyche.

At the same time it was obvious to me that no technical method could create a state of meditation. Meditation is being present to oneself, a conscious awareness of our experience in the moment. No machine, no technology, can give us this state of awareness. However, nothing prevents us from using technology to contribute to the creation of an interior space that is favorable to meditation, and in so doing helping it to occur—which is what we intended to do by means of visual stimulation. When we accomplished this we discerned that this sort of sensorial approach could have other applications as well. Ma Premo and I both realized that light could have considerable potential for psychotherapeutic applications. However, though we could clearly recognize its effects, we were still incapable of fully comprehending why they were taking place; it was very difficult to understand this correctly by simply relying on the scientific or psychological facts that were available to us at that time.

We discovered in our early experiments that the light we were using seemed to intervene in an intermediate zone between the physiological influence of color in its most concrete biophysical aspect and its purely cognitive impact through its capacity to evoke a rich interior universe. The conventional scientific references at the time took into account only one of these two influences, and this seemed inadequate to us. In fact, it was only gradually, over the course of about twenty years, that we developed a model to better understand the nature of this intermediary domain, and as a result we were able to identify the scope of therapeutic applications of this type of light.

The Power of Color on the Mind

One of our early inspirations came as a result of the first studies about the way the brain reacts to the perception of color. Generations of researchers had already explored the cerebral structures connected to vision, the most important of all our senses. They had started to identify a complex organization capable of decoding information coming from the retina by means of a successive sequence of cerebral centers, each one processing a particular aspect of the visual field, with the major part of the visual cortex found at the back of the brain, where the optic nerve extends to the occipital lobe.

But it was only in 1989 that Lueck et al. identified the anatomical center that specifically processes information about color. This study was accomplished with positron emission tomography (PET), which enabled scientists to see the metabolic activity in the brain in a very direct way. The technique consisted of having subjects view two analogous images, one a set of rectangles in multiple colors (known as “Mondrians” because they evoke similar-looking images made by painter Piet Mondrian) and the other the same set of rectangles in achromatic shades of gray (see fig. 11.1). They took care to preserve equal luminosity in both types of images in order to create the same level of nervous stimulation in the brains of the test subjects. Then they tested to see which cortical zones reacted differently. In this seminal study, which was later published in the journal Nature, they demonstrated that they were able to isolate the brain’s color center* in a region of the visual cortex called the V4 area (Lueck et al. 1989).

*The color center located in the V4 area of the visual cortex includes the lingual gyrus and the fusiform gyrus.

A particular detail that stood out when I read this study was a graph that depicted the levels of activity in the different cerebral areas when subjects viewed the color images and the achromatic images. Naturally, the color center in the brain reacted more actively to the colored version of the image, while another area, called the frontal eye fields, showed a clear suppression of activity with the colored image (see fig. 11.2). This area is to be found in the frontal cortex, the cerebral lobe generally associated with evolved mental activity, such as language, motivation, and planning.

The logical implication is that color appears to reduce mental activity while simultaneously stimulating the visual cortex. It is as though pure color consisted of complete information in itself, in such a way that the brain is not obliged to pursue any further mental analysis. This was in stark contrast to the same image in black and white, in which the frontal eye fields—i.e., higher cortical functions—are stimulated by the absence of color. Could color be a stimulus permitting the increase of global cerebral energy, yet calming the mind at the same time? This was a seductive possibility, because such a function is precisely what meditation does.

This close relationship between color and the mind was again emphasized in an astonishing study carried out by Kosslyn et al. (2000). He applied the same technique as Lueck (PET measurements resulting from viewing the Mondrian images); however, Kosslyn used subjects who were highly suggestible and placed them under hypnosis.* He discovered that in this case the color center reacts less to the actual coloring of the test image than to the suggestion under hypnosis that the image is colored (or not). Not only does color perception influence the mind, as Lueck had shown, but mind influences color perception: the two are intimately linked.

*According to Kosslyn’s study about 8 percent of the general population is highly suggestible to hypnosis.

The Domains of Influence of Light

Let’s examine more closely two important areas where color exerts its influence: the objective domain (working through the physiological and biophysical channels) and the cognitive domain (animating our thoughts and our consciousness).

We have explored a number of influences coming from the objective domain, which are influences mediated by the purely physical properties of light. This includes all those influences to be found in the new light medicine. So we have photobiomodulation, through which light acts directly at the cellular level, stimulating the mitochondrial respiratory chain and modulating the production of ATP, our metabolic energy source. Also influenced is the nonvisual optical pathway, through which light governs the endocrine system by means of the retinohypothalamic tract. Notably, this includes a profound influence on our central internal clock and consequently on circadian rhythm. Another objective effect of light is that of photic entrainment. Here, pulsating light interacts with brain waves to directly induce different mental states.

Many modalities of alternative light medicine come from the objective domain as well. For example, in syntonic optometry the visual field of the subject is exposed to precise colors in order to obtain specific autonomic effects. In Colorpuncture, the colors are chosen and applied according to the stimulated reflex points. The common characteristic of all of these objective influences is the systematic manner in which their action takes place, independent of the will or of any cognitive involvement of the subject.

The cognitive domain of light is that which passes through the sense of vision; this influence is one of the most profound we can have in life. Through vision, we build an interior representation of our entire world. Vision informs our superior cognitive faculties; it can evoke all the emotions, sensations, and thoughts that define us.

We’ve all heard that old truism, “An image is worth a thousand words.” The arts of painting and photography, television, and cinema are visual forms that can give meaning to our existence. In their most exalted manifestations such as sacred geometry or mandalas, images are capable of exerting influence of a higher spiritual nature. When light interacts in such a way with our mental universe, it is not only acting through its physical properties; it becomes a vehicle for the transfer of information through images that are formed by our visual system. The influence of light in this cognitive domain is characterized by the complexity of its form and by its rich informational content.

The Subjective Domain, the Third Area of Influence

So we possess many ways of using light, which can act on either one or the other of these two domains, the objective and the cognitive. But what happens at the boundary between these two? Essentially, in this intermediate domain we try to induce perceptions of a superior cognitive order by using the objective properties of light. For this reason I call this third domain of influence the subjective domainbecause it intervenes at the level of our interior perception, which is subjective. We will see that it concerns one of the most fertile of regions, and this has profound implications for the therapeutic application of color.

What do we mean when we say “perceptions of a superior cognitive order”? This has to do with all cognitive activity capable of inducing within us a harmonious and positive state of being. Such activity can take several forms: any emotion that evokes beauty or pleasure; the sensation of unity with the flow of life; deep relaxation; or, again, an impression of immense peace and security. Why would such perceptions be of particular therapeutic interest? Most of us understand this intuitively: they permit us to rediscover our natural equilibrium, and they open the door to an intrinsic mechanism of healing always ready to move into action when we give it the opportunity.

from:  http://realitysandwich.com

Highway Art as Environment

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Artist Replaces Billboards With Photos of the Landscapes They’re Blocking

Take a drive down any interstate in the United States and what will you see? Billboards, dozens and dozens of billboards. Not only do the advertisements distract commuters, they block stunning scenes of natural landscapes. For these reasons, artist Jennifer Bolande painted surreal landscapes on a collection of billboards that blend into their backgrounds. 

The billboards were installed along the Gene Autry Trail in the sunny state of California. From the right vantage point, commuters could see larger-than-life photographs blend into their majestic backgrounds. 

The project, Visible Distance / Second Sight, was created by Bolande for part of Desert X. The outdoor exhibition of art exhibitions and site-specific work took place across the Coachella Valley between Feb. 25 through April 30, 2017.

Credit: Jennifer Bolande

Explains the DesertX project page:

“Each photograph is unique to its position along this route and at a certain point as one approaches each billboard, perfect alignment with the horizon will occur thus reconnecting the space that the rectangle of the billboard has interrupted.

In the language of billboard advertising this kind of reading is referred to as a Burma-Shave after the shaving cream company of the same name who used sequential placement to create messaging that could be read only from a moving vehicle.

Credit: Jennifer Bolande

Within the desert empire of roadside signs, Bolande chooses to advertise the very thing so often overlooked. Looking up at the billboards our attention is drawn back to the landscape itself, pictured here as a stuttering kinesthetic of real and artificial horizons.”

Credit: Jennifer Bolande

A major objective of Desert X was to raise awareness about global and local issues, ranging from climate change to starry skies, to immigration and tourism to gaming and golf.

Credit: Jennifer Bolande

from:    https://themindunleashed.com/2018/03/artist-replaces-billboards-with-photos-of-the-landscapes-theyre-blocking.html

What’s In Your Garlic?

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Are You Eating Bleached and Chemical Laden Garlic from China?

garlic
by ANYA V

Did you know that  over 80 percent of the garlic sold worldwide comes from China? In fact, a large amount of garlic we consume here in America is  from China. The US imported 138 million pounds last year. Most consumers think that their garlic was grown in California, the “Garlic Capital of the World,” but in reality it was shipped from China. Even “organic” garlic is often from China, where organic certification methods can not be trusted.

Chinese garlic is bleached. According to Henry Bell of the Australian Garlic Industry Association, garlic from China is sprayed with chemicals to stop sprouting, to whiten garlic, and to kill insects and plant matter. He also reports that garlic is grown in untreated sewage, “Bell also calls into question some growing practices in China. “I know for a fact that some garlic growers over there use raw human sewage to fertilize their crops, and I don’t believe the Australian quarantine regulations are strict enough in terms of bacteria testing on imported produce,” he says. “I also challenge the effectiveness of the Chinese methyl bromide fumigation processes.” (http://www.theage.com.au/news/epicure/freshe…) .

Chinese garlic is heavily fumigated with methyl bromide to get rid of any bugs. Methyl bromide is a very toxic hazard. Exposure to high concentrations can cause damage to the respiratory and central nervous systems, even death. According to the UN it is 60 times more damaging than chlorine and is the base of CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons).

Chinese garlic is also contaminated with lead, sulfites and other unsafe compounds.

Chinese garlic may be treated with growth inhibitors and subjected to cold temperatures, as well as over-storage. Over storage is particularly problematic as levels of allicin, one of the major constituents in garlic responsible for its health benefits, start to decline over time.

Fortunately, you can easily spot the difference between California-grown fresh garlic and imported garlic.

Here’s how to spot a California-grown bulb:

American garlic has some of the roots left on the bottom.

American garlic is heavier  than imported garlic.

American garlic is much more  flavorful.

Source: http://livingtraditionally.com

from:    http://realfarmacy.com/bleached-chemical-garlic-china-how-to-spot/

Legacy of Standing Rock

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What Standing Rock Gave the World

Americans saw the Indigenous struggle—the violence, stolen resources, colluding corporations and governments—that goes hand in hand with protecting the Earth.
SRMonet1440.jpg
Jenni Monet

At the height of the movement at Standing Rock, Indigenous teens half a world away in Norway were tattooing their young bodies with an image of a black snake. Derived from Lakota prophecy, the creature had come to represent the controversial Dakota Access pipeline for the thousands of water protectors determined to try to stop it.

It was a show of international solidarity between the Indigenous Sami and the Lakota. “They got tattoos because of the Norwegian money invested in the pipeline,” said Jan Rune Måsø, editor of the Sami news division of Norway’s largest media company, NRK.

Rune Måsø said the story about the tattoos was just one of about a hundred that his team of journalists covered over the course of the months-long pipeline battle in North Dakota. One of them, “The War on the Black Snake,” was awarded top honors at a journalism conference held in Trømsø in November. That story revealed large investments Norwegian banks had made to advance the $3.8 billion energy project, spurring a divestment campaign by the Sami Parliament.

The backstory can be told simply. As early as April 2016, Indigenous activists protested the pipeline’s threat to the Standing Rock Sioux’s primary water supply, the Missouri River. While battles were fought in federal courts, representatives of hundreds of Indigenous groups from around the world—the Maori, the Sami, and the Sarayaku, to name a few—arrived. Temporary communities of thousands were created on the reservation borderlands in nonviolent resistance against the crude oil project. Police arrested more than 800 people, and many water protectors faced attack dogs, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and, once, a water cannon on a freezing night in November. Last February, armored vehicles and police in riot gear cleared the last of the encampments. Recently, investigative journalism by The Intercept has documented that the paramilitary security firm TigerSwan was hired by DAPL parent Energy Transfer Partners to guide North Dakota law enforcement in treating the movement as a “national security threat.”

Oil now flows through the pipeline under the Missouri.

But this Indigenous-led disruption, the awakening resolve that was cultivated at Standing Rock, did not dissolve after February. Rather, it spread in so many different directions that we may never fully realize its reach. The spirit of resistance can easily be found in the half-dozen or so other pipeline battles across the United States. Beyond that, the movement amplified the greater struggle worldwide: treaty rights, sacred sites, and the overall stand to protect Indigenous land and life.

To be sure, post-colonization has always demanded acknowledgment of Indigenous autonomy. It’s what spurred months of international advocacy when Haudenosaunee Chief Deskaheh attempted to speak before the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1923. He wanted to remind the world that European colonizers had honored Iroquois Confederacy nationhood upon entering treaty agreements under the two row wampum.

The stand at Standing Rock, then, was not anything new—just more modern.

Google the words “the next Standing Rock” and you get a smattering of circumstances, mostly posed in the form of a question: Bears Ears, Line 3, Yucca Mountain. “The Next Standing Rock?” the headlines ask.

The story of White Clay, Nebraska, is indicative. When the last tipis came down at Standing Rock, Clarence Matthew III, a middle-aged Sicangu Lakota man better known by his camp nickname, Curly, spared little time migrating to the South Dakota–Nebraska border. There, another fight for justice was mounting, for families living on the neighboring Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This one focused on a decades-long dispute over beer sales targeted at Native American customers mostly prone to alcohol addiction.

Demands turned to broader issues: investigation of dozens of unsolved crimes in White Clay against Native Americans. “Once we got down there, they started telling us about the problems they’ve had, more than just alcohol, the murders, the rapes, and everything that was on the bad side of that alcohol problem,” Matthew said. “It just broke my heart to hear all that.”

Matthew had been caretaker of one of the main communities at Standing Rock, and he settled right in at Camp Justice at the edge of Pine Ridge. He was there with his “water protector family,” others who have adopted camping as an active form of protest.

We’re starting to see other Indigenous communities rise up and say, Let us all speak now.

For all the momentum that the resistance at Standing Rock brought, the Indigenous rights movement in the 21st century faces increasing challenges. Tribal nations tread cautiously under the administration of Donald Trump. Internationally, the militarized protection of extractive energy projects and theft of land persist, despite glaring media attention paid to the rising number of Indigenous peoples killed or jailed for their activism in the face of it.

In a final push for re-election last fall, Standing Rock’s Dave Archambault II gave what would be his last interview as chairman to tribal radio station KLND. Archambault used the airtime to speak matter-of-factly about how the movement had shifted the tribe’s potent public image away from the reservation. “It used to be cool to be Indian; now it’s cool to be from Standing Rock.

“This movement was significant, not just for Standing Rock, but for all of Indian Country and around the world. We made some noise and now we’re starting to see other Indigenous communities rise up and say, Let us all speak now, and it’s pretty powerful and moving,” he said.

Less than a week later and on the same day that the state of North Dakota accepted a $15 million gift from Energy Transfer Partners, Archambault was unseated by former council member Mike Faith, who has said publicly that he believes the overall movement hurt Standing Rock’s economy and neglected daily life for tribal members.

The difference of opinion between the two leaders is a conflict that often lies at the heart of tribal community: protecting the Earth or protecting the Indigenous peoples.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2017, when the Keystone pipeline ruptured and spilled 210,000 gallons of oil in neighboring South Dakota, the newly elected Faith remained notably silent while water protectors responded with outrage, most loudly, closest to home.

Sustaining this awakening is the next great task.

“Ironically, this week most Americans will be sitting down and giving thanks when last year at this time my people were being shot, gassed, and beaten for trying to keep this very thing from happening,” Chairman Harold Frazier from the neighboring Cheyenne River Sioux tribe said in a statement. Like Archambault and other tribal leaders, Frazier was arrested for participating in the Standing Rock occupation.

Leadership in the Indigenous world is not only a difficult balance, but also dangerous.

In Honduras, activist Bertha Zuniga Cáceres is fighting for Indigenous rights in one of the most militarized regions in the world. She is the daughter of Berta Cáceres, the Indigenous Lenca woman who was assassinated after leading a successful campaign to halt construction of the Agua Zarca Dam. Now she is seeking justice for her mother’s death.

The 26-year-old Cáceres is also campaigning to suspend all U.S. military aid to Honduras. In July, she survived an attack by a group of assailants wielding machetes. Just weeks earlier she had been named the new leader of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, the nonprofit organization formerly led by her mother.

“Many organizations, many NGOs, many Indigenous groups are struggling in how to sustain the work that they are doing in the face of these attacks,” said Katharina Rall, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Last year, after the military-style assaults on the camps at Standing Rock, Human Rights Watch expanded its agenda to include a program focused on the environment as a human right. “The fact that we now have an environment and human rights program at our organization is a reflection of this reality that a lot of people face,” Rall said.

Meantime, the organization Global Witness reports that it has never been deadlier to take a stand against companies that steal land and destroy the Earth. In 2016, the watchdog group found that nearly four activists a week are murdered fighting against mining, logging, and other extractive resource development.

Traditional knowledge has kept us in harmony with Mother Earth.

As disturbing as this reality is, it is unsurprising then to recall the military-style violence at Standing Rock: the rows of riot police pointing their guns at unarmed activists standing in the river; tanks shooting water in freezing temperatures at a crowd of people gathered on a bridge. In this one regard, Standing Rock was not unique in the world. It had become crucially important. Americans saw the global struggle faced by the estimated 370 million Indigenous people—the violence, stolen resources, colluding corporations and governments that go hand in hand with protecting the Earth.

Sustaining this awakening is the next great task.

Climate change poses one of the most serious reminders of why the sacred fires ignited at Standing Rock must continue to burn: Indigenous peoples and their knowledge and value systems matter.

At November’s COP23 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim was dressed in traditional Mbororo regalia when she stood in a conference hall demanding that Indigenous knowledge systems be properly acknowledged in Paris Agreement negotiations. The girl who once tended cattle in the region of Chad bordering northeastern Nigeria has now become a bridge for her people and government officials making decisions impacting the fragile ecosystem of Lake Chad, the lifeline for the Mbororo.

“Traditional knowledge has kept us from century to century to be in harmony with Mother Earth,” Ibrahim said. “These knowledges will make for all the difference, but we cannot wait years and years, because climate is changing, and it’s impacting the Earth.”

Other members of the Indigenous Caucus at Bonn say inserting traditional knowledge into the climate talks doesn’t go far enough. Jannie Staffansson, a representative of the Saami Council, wants what Chief Deskaheh had petitioned to the League of Nations nearly a century earlier: sovereign recognition for Indigenous Peoples on an international scale. It would allow equity at the negotiating table—a level playing field to fairly deal with the consequences of a warming planet in the face of land grabs and natural resource extraction.

“Why is it always that Indigenous peoples need to pay for other people’s wealth?” said Staffansson. She paused to check the Snapchat account she had been using to engage with a young Sami audience while at COP, a demographic similar to the teens who got tattoos of the black snake.

“I had friends that went to Standing Rock,” said the 27-year-old. “I was envious of their trip to support self-determination. Self-determination and a just transition is what we have to take into account.”

“We need climate justice in everything we do.”

Jenni Monet wrote this article for The Decolonize Issue, the Spring 2018 issue of YES! Magazine. Jenni is an award-winning journalist and tribal member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico. She’s also executive producer and host of the podcast Still Here.

from:    http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/decolonize/what-standing-rock-gave-the-world-20180316