Author Archives: marcia

Steve Rother’s Latest Beacons

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Note: This message has been edited and in spots rechanneled by the group for better clarity in this format.

Greetings from Home, dear ones. I am Elrah of Rhythmic Service.

You can choose to be on top of the world, if you want to be. You can decide how you want to view life because that new vision is important. I am going to step back here for a moment to bring in my brother the Time Keeper, but I came in first to bring you one of my smiles. There it goes—see, I got you, did I not? You were not going to smile back but I got you anyway. You know I can do that and you can too and it is part of what you are going to be hearing more about. As you start to carry this light, there are so many ways you can use it. You are just starting to find out about the new energies on this side of the portal, and you are going to anchor this in a new way. I am going to step aside and let my brother come in because he has some key words he wants to bring you. Know that I love you and any time you get too serious I am the one sneaking up behind you and tickling your funny bone, to remind you that you are playing a game. You are supposed to be having fun and if you are not having fun, I am going to come and get you so just re-member that.

Greetings from Home. I am the Keeper of Time Today is a very magical day. You have now passed an energetic demarcation point that will allow most humans to begin to anchor in the new energy on this side of the portal. It has been very challenging for most of you. You have felt the differences in time; you have moved from compressed time into expanded time, and simply not been able to bring it into your heads at this point. You notice that it feels different, but you are not able to fully describe the changes or the differences that are taking place globally with all humans everywhere. Now you can start to change this.

Projection of a Shadow World

There was the first quadrant that had to complete. We could not even talk to you about it until the 31st of March. After the third month, we could begin to identify it because you have to settle this in. If we come in with information too early, we can impede your progress instead of helping it along. Therefore, the release of information and the timing of it is of great importance to all humans at this point. This is my job, for I am the Keeper of Time. I am the one who lowers his finger when humanity is ready to accept new information. We tell you, dear ones, you have passed a critical point. It had to do with the length of time past the portal and now you are into your second quadrant. This  is now allowing you to anchor your hearts, whereas before your energy was anchored with your physical body. You were searching in the shadow world that you had projected, because you knew the energy was going to be different. You realized it was all going to change the moment you stepped forward so you projected into it your expectations, belief systems, and daily routines so that everything would appear to be the same. Most reading this message are now at a very high vibration and are starting to see through the clouds. You are seeing through the illusion and the emptiness of the illusion and becoming very dissatisfied.  This is very challenging for most of you to do this because you are starting to see the reality, not the dream. It has been very difficult for you so you have been searching and looking all over for the different parts in your brain to find the right perspective. Most of you have tried on all sorts of new caps, ideas and perspectives during this time. That has been marvelous but now we are going to anchor your heart, because that is the part that has not found its grounding. We tell you, dear ones, that why many of you have felt so distant and challenged at times.

When you left Home, many of you were scarred in a way that has been carried with you throughout most of your lives. Many of you came to the table with all your ideas and said, “I am going in. I am going to live a life on planet Earth and make contracts and do different jobs, to make sure that I offer my part of god on planet Earth in the new energy.” You set up all the potentials. You set everything in motion but one thing that most of you were not expecting was a huge case of separation anxiety. Once you found yourself on planet Earth inside one of these bubbles of biology, you still remembered Home. Although you could not justify it in your brain, your heart knows the way Home and never forgets or takes you too far from it. Many of you experience such tremendous anxiety at that point of separation from Home that you have spent much of your life trying to heal that scar tissue, trying to re-connect that part of you that was missing. Now we tell you it is entirely possible to anchor your heart in new ways. and what you will find is that it has an effect on a global basis. You have always considered yourself to be a complete, the whole being within yourself which you are. But we also tell you that as you step further into this, you are connected to every single being, blade of grass and leaf; they are part of you in some way. Now you will have the opportunity to ground your heart on this side of the portal. As you have the opportunity to do this, you will be able to live in your heart energy much more than you ever thought was possible.

New Needs of the Physical Body

We will tell you that for some of you it is going to be uncomfortable, because most of you are not familiar with stretching your heart that large. The more you do this the more you feel and then you are able to recognize that light in others and help to bring it out. That is the connection that all of you will ground with. You are carrying more light than you have ever carried before; you are holding more energy in your physical body than ever before. Because your grounding has always been with the physical body, but now your spirit has taken over a physical body and therefore the physical body needs regular grounding. What is the grounding? It is everything from drinking water to feeding the body to nurturing it—oh yes, sex, of course. All of the things of Earth are part of that grounding process, but now your spirits need grounding as well. You are carrying more light than ever before and you have new needs even of your physical body, which is the reason there is so much interest in helping the physical change. As you start to align your energy in your physical body it aligns with your spirit automatically, which allows you to carry and be responsive from the spirit not the human. Now you are talking about living in multidimensionality, all of your perfection is here at once where you can call on the larger you, the one you call your higher self. That is the perfect you but you are living on a planet of imperfection. If you held your perfection from Home, you would not be able to play the game. You have great difficulties, and we have seen lots of them come through. You are here, now, to bring that to fruition.

Some of you will step into this very hesitantly because your heart is the part you have always protected. You are free to express your visions and try on different thoughts, but new feelings are much more difficult for you to harmonize with. You have a tendency to hold the old and protect what you have even if it is painful. Now is the time. As you ground in this new energy, your bodies will have an opportunity to connect more of your heart energy than ever before. That is the opportunity for all of you to find a stronger grounding and a new light Home. If you are still carrying some of these old energies with some of the challenges and scar tissue from when you left Home, you can learn to release them. Have you ever heard a baby crying to and you know their spirit is disturbed but you cannot find anything physically wrong? Dear ones, those are often the memories from Home, for when you finally awaken from the dream and open your eyes you will see us and understand what you have been missing. If it were possible we would pull aside the veil for just a moment and show that to you but that would not work either, for all of you would go Home. You would say, “This game is ridiculous. Let us go Home and play.” We would have to start all over again, would we not?

The Challenge: Exercising Your Light

Here is the piece we give you for this month. You are the bearers of light, of a new light. You are carrying a specific percentage of your own energy from Home in the physical body you have right at this moment. If you are able to share your light with 10 people over this next month, it will grow 100 percent. That is a simple equation to understand. How do you share your light with someone? You have opportunities every single day of your life. Most of you say, “Oh, but that does not fit into my world. I cannot say that to this person. I can say it over here in my safe room full of Lightworkers where I can say anything, but over there in my job at the bank, I cannot say that.” Try it. Push the boundaries. If you are not able to actually say something with words do it with your heart energetics. If you are able to touch and make contact with 10 beings over the next month, you will start a wave on planet Earth that will build and crescendo into a new energy toward the end of this year. That is how fast this can happen now. We tell you this because you have done it before. We shared with you a little secret—a mathematical secret quite some years ago. We simply said, share and celebrate these dates because these dates will build upon themselves and you began at the 02-02-02 and went all the way through the 12-12-12 where you walked yourselves through these portals. That was incredibly beautiful from our side of the veil. There was so much cheering going on here that we could not hear ourselves think. No. we do not have ears…and we have no need to think…but there were so many energetics behind you harmonizing with you, that it was amazing.

What happened was that you created the energy and at the time when the world was originally going to end, you had so much energy behind you that it just kept on going. That created a shadow world, comprised largely from your own expectations. Even though the portal was there and you knew that on the other side it would be different, you projected into it your dreams and your hopes. You put forth your image of who you were in that moment, and you created the possibilities to move effortlessly through something that would have quickly taken 90% of all life on Earth. You walked right through it, dear ones, never giving it a second thought. Now you are anchoring in a new way and you say, “Why are things different?” You knew things were going to be different, but you did not know how. You have all been looking for this point, thinking “I will wake up one day and all will be perfect.” We tell you if you did, you would be bored out of your mind. You would not like planet Earth at all, for it is the challenge that often brings you to your senses to who you really are and what your capabilities are. Know that you have made it. Now, what are you going to do with it? That is the real question. You can anchor this energy, you can ground it and find the new ways to balance your body and your spirit. As long as you are working with this, it will work.

We brought up the point of separation anxiety because there are many of you that carry scar tissue from the day you were born, and now is the time to start releasing that. There are many healers all over the planet and more surfacing and awakening every day. Why is that so? It is for the simple reason that you all brought something from Home. You have all brought a key element that only you could carry, so know that is needed now. This is why we are all here together awakening each other from the dream. You are becoming the new human every moment of every day. How will your heart adjust? That is the question. When you find that pain, that difficulty, or even when you love so much that your heart hurts, understand that you are in the right place. You know that you have just stretched your human being to carry more light. It is not about pain; it simply means that you have moved past the pain of separation anxiety. You have not been dumped on Earth, even though many of you feel that way. Some of you feel as if you made a deal and then all of a sudden, it is not there anymore you are all by yourself. We tell you that you were placed there for a very specific reason and you will find it very soon.  Trust your heart, as it always knows the way Home and you will find that if you can move past the fear of stretching your heart. Now you will find the strength that was never there before. Where you have always considered this to be a little bit of a vulnerable area, you would use this part of your brain to think around it,   justify it and to make it work in your world and now it can be pure energy. Allow yourself to reach as many people as possible.

Then there is the part of life on Earth that we see in so many humans called self-doubt. We are not aware of that feeling here at Home, as we are connected to each other in ways that we can see. We see self-doubt as a weak link in a chain that we will not allow here at Home. That may sound harsh to humans but it is not a judgment, only a vibrational measurement and a natural settlement of the universe. Humans have experienced self-doubt often in the third dimension.  Most humans have been successful at pretending to be separate so you do not always know that your greatest strengths are all around you. You have always pretended that they are a part of something else…another teacher, another lesson to learn, or another healing to go through. All of them are connected—one heart on the globe and that is what is taking place. You are connecting the one heart and it is working in ways that you never dreamed.

Take this opportunity and use it consciously over the next month. Touch no less than 10 people with your light freely. Do not try to determine the outcome because that is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to use it to touch them and then let it go on its way. By December 31st of this year you will be celebrating in a new energy of the heart, for now it can exist on planet Earth in a new way. You are creating this reality every single day. It is not possible to predict the future at this time on Earth, because you are writing it the moment your foot hits the ground—you are creating your path. Welcome Home, creators. Welcome to the new planet Earth.

I am the Keeper of Time and I ask you to treat each other with respect. Nurture one another at every opportunity.
Enjoy this new game and play well together.

Espavo.

from:    http://lightworker.com/beacons/2013/2013_07-ExpandingHeart.php

Your Color VIbe for 07/29

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Monday, July 29:     Blue Green

There are songs in the wind.  There are sighs in the wind.  You will hear at the edges of your hearing and find yourself distracted and somewhat off balance.  These are hints of what is to come.  These are reminders that things have changed, and you too are changing.  Many different strains are colliding this week, bringing with them confused feelings, compelling distractions, and the sense that something is missing.  Today you will be somewhere in the middle of this soup.  It is a day for stepping back, for observing, for noticing that things in this mix have reverberations in other themes that are at work in you life right now.  Step back and see what really makes sense for you.  It is a day for acknowledging what really makes a difference for you, what is important, who is important, and for making some decisions.  You have known for a long time that these choices have had to be made.  Now, well, it is time.  Remember, in choosing for yourself, if it is true, heart-centered, and from your core, there is no wrong choice.  Intuition.  Intuition.  Intuition.

Weekly Color VIbe 7/28-8/3

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July 28-August 3

The theme this week is  “I feel the earth move,” and that will be true for anything and everything that you feel is your foundation, your basis, your rock solid.  This means that you must look to becoming more solid, more able to take things as they come and to break out of the old patterning.

Overall Color for the Week:    Frosty White

This is a week for dealing with a lot of the realities, the real realities in your life.  They will come up in all different ways and many at inconvenient times.  There have been so many things that you were not looking at, and this week, well, it is there like a shadow in the wings.  You will be aware of these things in everything that you do.  They can drive you a bit crazy because they are there making you question what is really important and what are you doing right now in terms of what is truly meaningful for WHO you are.  This will not be an easy week, but if you keep a sense of humor and if you are open to your own power, your own possibility, your own uniqueness, well, then this week can be pivotal.  Accept or not.  The choice is up to you.  No worries.  No judgment.  No guilt.  Just go inside, do-be, do-be, do-be, do-BE, and let that be your guide.  Do what is right for you.  You cannot walk another’s path.  You cannot be responsible for their choices.  It is all about you.  Accept that, and be WHO you are.  That is what this week is all about.  The stuff you do not want to deal with, the stuff you feel you have to deal with, and what is really important.  It is time to know the difference.

 

On the larger scale, Gaia has much in store for us this week, so be prepared for anything anywhere.  You can find that there are many elements coming together in a crazy mixture in which water flows uphill and into the air, while the movement of the earth seems more like water than a solid.  Also, weather patterns are shifting so that they no longer follow the old ways.  Storms come and go, and then double back. There will be coming forward some people who will try to explain these things as proof of various religious prophecies, but there will be no general consensus on this as people more and more look to Gaia as a living organism and a mother who has taken her time to see what has been learned and realizes now it is time for some ‘hard’ lessons.  This can lead to some interesting commentaries in the news and among a lot of the spiritually oriented individuals.  There will be kind of free fall in the markets which will take an interesting turn this week, but do not worry!  These will all be explained away as ‘corrections’ or some such thing.  There will also be some indications that the leaders of the world’s governments, including the USA, are not really leading but are being pushed into certain directions due to some large plan to which they are referring.  Along with this, look to the skies for some odd occurrences and perhaps some sightings.  There is also the possibility that people will begin to read messages into the hums that are being heard around the world as the ground in those areas takes on a new measurable vibration.  There is some strange activity going on within the Sun.  There can be some magnetic reverberations as a result of this, so keep your electronics backed up.  The galactic energy is interacting with the Sun in a new way.  Interestingly, tis galactic energy exists in more than one dimension, and as such, has been somewhat overlooked by most astronomers.  There is however the possibility of more cosmic wave and ray phenomena which can lead some of these researchers to start looking into other directions.

Your Color Vibe for 7/28

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Sunday, July 28:   Magenta

This is truly a day for rest, so put aside some of the busy-ness you might have put on your day’s agenda.  There is more happening on more levels that in quite some time, and just feeling the shifts on any level can cause you to be tired.  If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, and this may seem to be for no reason (always frustrating), then take a rest.  This is not a day for beating yourself up because what you think you should be doing, i.e. the eyes of other’s expectations, you are not producing, rather it is a day for finding amazement in the small things.  Your perspective is changing, and this is a good time to accept that and no longer set up a screen.  There just is no time for that any longer.

What’s In Your Beer?

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The Shocking Ingredients In Beer

…by Food Babe

I have to confess, I’m not a beer drinker, but there’s someone in my household that loves it, so I had to figure out the truth. Is beer really healthy? Why are the ingredients not listed on the label? Which brands can we trust? Which brands are trying to slowly poison us with cheap and harmful ingredients? All of these questions were going through my head at once at lightning speed. So a year ago, I started to research what was really in beer and after questioning several beer companies, reading books about food science, and talking to experts, the information I discovered was downright shocking.

I see it all the time. Someone who eats organic, makes the right choices at the grocery store, is fit and lives an extraordinarily healthy lifestyle but then drinks beer like it is going out of style.

Caring about what you eat doesn’t necessarily translate into caring about what you drink and this is a HUGE MISTAKE.

Before we get into what exactly is in beer that you should be worried about, let’s talk about how body reacts to alcohol in general.

Alcohol is metabolized by the body differently than all other calories you consume. Alcohol is one of the only substances that you consume that can permeate your digestive system and go straight into your bloodstream. It bypasses normal digestion and is absorbed into the body intact, where it goes straight into the liver.

Your liver is your main fat-burning organ. If you are trying to lose weight or even maintain your ideal weight, drinking alcohol is one of your worst enemies. The liver is going to metabolize alcohol first vs. the fat you want to get rid of – making weight loss even harder. Additionally, one of the primary functions of the liver is to remove environmental toxins from your body – if it is overtaxed with alcohol, the normal removal of these toxins becomes extremely diminished and can result in rapid aging, loss of libido, and other diseases.

The one thing that has gotten me before and I’m sure many of you – is the health marketing claims on alcohol products making drinking them seem like a good idea and an added “benefit” to your health. The low alcohol content of beer makes it appear as an innocuous beverage and something people throw back without even thinking about it. Who hasn’t seen those studies that say a beer a day is great for you (I want to ask who ever stops at just one beer?)?

So, inherently, alcohol by itself is not a healthy person’s best friend – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Beer, especially American beer, is made with all sorts of ingredients beyond the basic hops, malt and yeast. There are numerous other ingredients used to clarify, stabilize, preserve, enhance the color and flavor of beer.

When you drink beer, there is almost a 100% chance that you don’t know what you are drinking (unless you quizzed the beer companies like I did). The ingredients in beer are not required by law to be listed anywhere on the label and manufacturers have no legal obligation to disclose the ingredients. For regular beer, calorie levels and percent alcohol are optional and for light beer calories are mandatory but alcohol levels are optional.

Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, author of Appetite for Profit, and president of Eat Drink Politics told me the reason that beer companies don’t disclose ingredients is simple: they don’t have to.

“Ingredient labeling on food products and non-alcoholic beverages is required by the Food and Drug Administration. But a whole other federal agency regulates beer, and not very well. The Department of Treasury – the same folks who collect your taxes – oversees alcoholic beverages. That probably explains why we know more about what’s in a can of Coke than a can of Bud. You can also thank the alcohol industry, which has lobbied for years against efforts to require ingredient labeling.”

I figured if the beer companies aren’t required to tell us the exact list of ingredients, I needed to investigate this for myself and asked them the pointed questions until I got the truth.

Slide1

 

First of all, I was able to obtain a baseline list of “legal” additives allowed in beer from the book “Chemicals Additives in Beer” by the Center of Science and Public Interest. This list allowed me to ask specific questions about each beer I investigated. For example – beer sold here in America can contain several of the following ingredients:

  • Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) –  alcohol is already addictive with some people, but with MSG?! Holy smokes.

  • Propylene Glycol (an ingredient found in anti-freeze)

  • Calcium Disodium EDTA (made from formaldehyde, sodium cayanide, and Ethylenediamine)

  • Many different types of sulfites and anti-microbial preservatives (linked to allergies and asthma)

  • Natural Flavors (can come from anything natural including a beavers anal gland)

  • High Fructose Corn Syrup

  • GMO Sugars – Dextrose, Corn Syrup

  • Caramel Coloring (Class III or IV made from ammonia and classified as a carcinogen)

  • FD&C Blue 1 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)

  • FD&C Red 40 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)

  • FD&C Yellow 5 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)

  • Insect-Based Dyes: carmine derived from cochineal insects to color their beer.

  • Animal Based Clarifiers: Findings include isinglass (dried fish bladder), gelatin (from skin, connective tissue, and bones), and casein (found in milk)

  • Foam Control: Used for head retention; (glyceryl monostearate and pepsin are both potentially derived from animals)

  • BPA (Bisphenol A is a component in many can liners and it may leach into the beer. BPA can mimic the female hormone estrogen and may affect sperm count, and other organ functions.)

  • Carrageenan (linked to inflammation in digestive system, IBS and considered a carcinogen in some circumstances)

During my investigation, I couldn’t get a single mainstream beer company to share the full list of ingredients contained in their beer. But I did get some of them to fess up to the use of these ingredients in writing so I’m going to share this information with you now.

Carcinogenic Caramel Coloring

Newcastle, a UK brand, confessed to using what I would consider one of the most controversial food additives. Toasted barley is usually what gives beer its golden or deep brown color, however in this case, Newcastle beer is also colored artificially with caramel color. This caramel coloring is manufactured by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure, which creating carcinogenic compounds. If beer companies were required by law to list the ingredients, Newcastle would likely have to have a cancer warning label under California law because it is a carcinogen proven to cause liver tumors, lung tumors, and thyroid tumors in rats and mice.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Many of the beers I questioned contained one or more possible GMO ingredients.

  • High Fructose Corn Syrup (Guinness – unable to provide an affidavit for non-GMO proof)
  • Corn syrup (Miller Light, Coors, Corona, Fosters, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Stripe)
  • Dextrose (Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch Light, Michelob Ultra)
  • Corn (Red Stripe, Miller Coors Brand, Anheuser-Busch Brands)

Most beers brewed commercially are made with more GMO corn than barley. Many of the companies I contacted dodged the GMO question – however Miller Coors had a very forthcoming and honest response. They stated “Corn syrup gives beer a milder and lighter-bodied flavor” and “Corn syrups may be derived from a mixture of corn (conventional and biotech.)”, admitting their use of GMOs.

Slide2

Pabst Blue Ribbon responded saying their corn syrup was “special” and “made of carbohydrates and some simple sugars like dextrose and maltose.  The sugars are fermented into alcohol and CO2, and the carbohydrates, both from the corn syrup and the malt, remain in the beers as flavor, color and body components.”

Dextrose and maltose can come from a variety of substances that are sweet, but likely are derived from GMO corn because it is super cheap for a company to use corn instead of fruit or other non-GMO sources. With cheap beer – you are not just getting a cheap buzz, you are getting the worst of the worst.  Just like with cheap fast food – if you don’t invest in your beer – you will be drinking a lower quality product like Pabst Blue Ribbon that is made from GMO Corn and Corn Syrup.

In 2007, Greenpeace found unapproved and experimental GMO Rice strain in Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser, Bud Light) beer. Anheuser-Busch responded saying their US-grown long-grained rice “may have micro levels” of a genetically engineered protein called Liberty Link, but added that the protein is “substantially removed or destroyed” during the brewing of beer sold domestically. Don’t you think it’s hard to trust any beer company that gets caught using experimental food made in a laboratory? GMOs have not been tested long term on human beings and one of the main pesticides (Roundup) they spray on GMO crops are linked to inflammation, cancer and other diseases. 

Guinness

High Fructose Corn Syrup & Fish Bladders

Speaking of trusting companies, let’s get one thing straight, Guinness beer is no longer owned by the Irish, they are now owned by a large beer conglomerate called Diageo and manufactured in over 50 different countries. No matter how many St. Patty’s Day celebrations you’ve had with this dark stout, it’s time to stop because they use high fructose corn syrup in their beer. But, Guinness beer also contains isinglass, a gelatin-like substance produced from the swim bladder of a fish. This ingredient helps remove any “haziness,” solids, or yeast byproducts from the beer. Mmmmm… fish bladder sounds delicious, doesn’t? The sneaky thing this beer company does like many of the companies mentioned here today is create an illusion of using the best ingredients when in actuality what they tell you publicly on their websites is a complete farce. On Guinness FAQ’s – they have a question that states: “What are the key ingredients in Guinness” and the answer doesn’t reveal the whole picture – it only states “Our key ingredients – other than inspiration – are roasted, malted barley, hops, yeast and water.” What BS, right?  You have to call, email, question and know the right things to ask to even have a chance at getting the truth. This is insanity.

So What Beers Are Additive and GMO Free?

If you enjoy the occasional beer and wish to maintain your healthy lifestyle, choosing one without GMOs and additives is ideal. Unfortunately, most of the mainstream beers available have additives, but luckily, there are a few that don’t. For example, Sierra Nevada, Heineken, and Amstel Light appear to be pretty clean (but these companies still wouldn’t disclose the full list of ingredients to me. They did say they use non-GMO grains, no artificial ingredients, stabilizers or preservatives).

German Beers are also a good bet. The Germans are very serious about the purity of their beers and enacted a purity law called “Reinheitsgebot” that requires all German beers to be only produced with a core ingredient list of water, hops, yeast, malted barley or wheat. Advocates of German beers insist that they taste cleaner and some even claim they don’t suffer from hangovers as a result.

An obvious choice to consider is also Certified Organic Beers. They are required by law to not include GMOs and other harmful additives. Organic beers also support environmental friendly practices and reduce the amount of pesticides and toxins in our air, support organic farmers – which is a huge plus. (To this day, the beer drinkers in my family haven’t found one they love so if you have suggestions, please let us know in the comments!)

Craft & Microbrews Beers – For certain local craft and micro beers, you can ask those companies for a list of ingredients and many of them will be up front with you. However, companies like Miller Coors are slowly closing in on craft beers and buying them up one by one… like they did when they created the unique popular variety called Blue Moon (the beer you drink with an orange) and Anhesuer-Busch did this with Rolling Rock and Goose Island Brewery. Make sure your favorite craft and microbrew is still independently owned and controlled before taking a sip.

In the end – if you decide to drink beer, you are definitely drinking at your own risk for more reasons than just the crazy ingredients that could be in them. The key point to remember is – if you like to drink beer and want to be healthy, drink it infrequently and quiz the beer companies for the truth. Find a beer that you can trust and stick with it.

For your reference, here are some important questions to ask your favorite beer company:

  1. What are the ingredients in your beer – all of them from start to finish?

  2. Are any of your ingredients GMO?

  3. Do you use any soy, corn, or rice processing ingredients? (Examples include: dextrose, corn syrup, etc.)

  4. Do you add any natural, artificial flavors or colors to the beer? (Examples include:  yellow #5, caramel coloring, red #40, MSG, natural flavors)

  5. Are there any additional preservatives, stabilizers and/or clarifying agents added to your beer during processing? (Examples include: propylene glycol, Calcium Disodium EDTA, anything ending in “sulfite” like sodium metabisulfite, Heptylparaben, isinglass)

If you know someone who drinks beer – share this post with them.

These ingredients are no joke. We must inform and protect each other from these industrial chemicals, untested and potentially harmful ingredients and it starts by sharing your knowledge with the ones you love.

from:    http://foodbabe.com/2013/07/17/the-shocking-ingredients-in-beer/#more-13939

A Hole in the Sun

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Spacecraft Sees Giant ‘Hole’ In the Sun (Video)

SPACE.com

Megan Gannon
Spacecraft Sees Giant 'Hole' In the Sun (Video)
A space telescope aimed at the sun has spotted a gigantic hole in the solar atmosphere — a dark spot that covers nearly a quarter of our closest star, spewing solar material and gas into space.

The so-called coronal hole over the sun’s north pole came into view between July 13 and 18 and was observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. NASA released a video of the sun hole as seen by the SOHO spacecraft, showing the region as a vast dark spot surrounded by solar activity.

Coronal holes are darker, cooler regions of the sun’s atmosphere, or corona, containing little solar material. In these gaps, magnetic field lines whip out into the solar wind rather than looping back to the sun’s surface. Coronal holes can affect space weather, as they send solar particles streaming off the sun about three times faster than the slower wind unleashed elsewhere from the sun’s atmosphere, according to a description from NASA.

“While it’s unclear what causes coronal holes, they correlate to areas on the sun where magnetic fields soar up and away, failing to loop back down to the surface, as they do elsewhere,” NASA’s Karen Fox at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., explained in an image description.

These holes are not uncommon, but their frequency changes with the solar activity cycle. The sun is currently reaching its 11-year peak in activity, known as the solar maximum. Around the time of this peak, the sun’s poles switch their magnetism. The number of coronal holes typically decreases leading up to the switch.

After the reversal, new coronal holes appear near the poles. Then as the sun approaches the solar minimum again, the holes creep closer to the equator, growing in both size and number, according to NASA.

The $1.27-billion (1 billion euros) SOHO satellite was launched in 1995 and is flying a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). It watches solar activity from an orbit about the Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable spot between Earth and the sun that is about 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet.

from:    http://news.yahoo.com/spacecraft-sees-giant-hole-sun-video-153040642.html

Targeting GMO Activists

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As always, do your research.

New Investigation Alleges US Military, Monsanto Targeting GMO Activists and Independent Scientists

Captures

29th July 2013

By Sayer Ji

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

A highly concerning new investigative report from the largest daily newspaper in Germany alleges that Monsanto, the US Military and the US government have colluded to track and disrupt both anti-GMO activists and independent scientists who study the adverse effects of genetically modified food.

As revealed by Sustainable Pulse, on July 13th the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung detailed information on how the US Government “advances the interests of their corporations,” focusing on Monsanto as a prime example.

The report titled, “The Sinister Monsanto Group: ‘Agent Orange’ to Genetically Modified Corn,” described a ‘new fangled cyber war’ being waged against both eco-activists and independent scientists by supporters and former employees of Monsanto, who are described as “operationally powerful assistants” and who have taken up sometimes high ranking posts in the US administration, regulatory authorities, and some of whom have connections deep within the military industrial establishment, including the CIA.

“Monsanto contacts are known to the notorious former secret service agent Joseph Cofer Black, who helped formulate the law of the jungle in the fight against terrorists and other enemies. He is a specialist on dirty work, a total hardliner. He worked for the CIA for almost three decades, among other things as the head of anti-terroism. He later became vice president of the private security company Blackwater, which sent tens of thousands of soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan under US government orders.”

“Thanks to Snowden and Wikileaks, the world has a new idea of how these friends and partners operate where power and money are concerned. The whistle-blowing platform published embassy dispatches two years ago, which also included details about Monsanto and genetic engineering.”

“For example, in 2007, the former US ambassador in Paris, Craig Stapleton, suggested the US government should create a penalties list for EU states which wanted to forbid the cultivation of genetically engineered plants from American companies. The wording of the secret dispatch: “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU.” Pain, retaliation: not exactly the language of diplomacy.”

The report details the case of Australian scientist Judy Carman, whose work on GMOs underwent heavy criticism by Monsanto supporters. Soon sites that published her work were attacked by hackers with apparent military connections:

Hackers regularly target various web pages where Carman publishes her studies and the sites are also systematically observed, at least that is the impression Carman has. Evaluations of IP log files show that not only Monsanto visits the pages regularly, but also various organizations of the U.S. government, including the military. These include the Navy Network Information Center, the Federal Aviation Administration and the United States Army Intelligence Center, an institution of the US Army, which trains soldiers with information gathering. Monsanto’s interest in the studies is understandable, even for Carman. “But I do not understand why the U.S. government and the military are having me observed,” she says.

The report went on to describe the ongoing though mostly failed crusade of the United States, seemingly on behalf of Monsanto, to open up the European Union’s markets to genetically engineered food and feed crops. According to the report:

“The USA is hoping that negotiations started this week for a free-trade agreement between the USA and the EU will also open the markets for genetic engineering.”

“The Americans want to use the Free Trade Agreement to open the European GMO Market. The negotiations will be detailed. Toughness will rule the day. US President Barack Obama has therefore appointed Islam Siddiqui as chief negotiator for agriculture. He has worked for many years for the US ministry of agriculture as an expert. However, hardly anyone in Europe knows: From 2001 to 2008, he represented CropLife America as a registered lobbyist. CropLife America is an important industry association in the United States, representing the interests of pesticide and gene technology manufacturers – including of course Monsanto. “Actually, the EU cannot accept such a chief negotiator because of bias”, says Manfred Hausling, who represents the Green Party in the EU parliament.

If this report is accurate, we can assume that Monsanto has so thoroughly populated both the government and military industrial complex with its own supporters that any remaining illusion of there being a division of Corporation and State has now been dispelled.  Worse, we are bearing witness to the preeminence of the Corporation over State, the very definition of a corpocracy.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2013/07/29/new-investigation-alleges-us-military-monsanto-targeting-gmo-activists-and-independent-scientists/

July 29 — Grand Sextile

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The Grand Sextile and the Planetary Energies of Transformation

Grand Sextile 2013

29th July 2013

By Kate Knodel

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

On July 29, 2013, a powerful planetary alignment – a very rare Grand Sextile – will form in the skies above us. It follows weeks of an unusual and powerful Grand Trine in Water signs involving three planetary giants — Saturn, Jupiter (now conjunct Mars), and Neptune.

 

grand-trine exampleWhen the Moon moves into position at about 1pm EDT, a second Grand Trine in Earth signs (involving the Moon, Venus and Pluto) will form and activate a Grand Sextile, a rare aspect pattern formed by two Grand Trines with six planets moving into position around the dial at 60* from each other (pictured above).

Trines bring ease of energy flow and sextiles bring opportunity. A Grand Sextile points to harmonious relationships among the energies symbolized by the planets in the pattern.

This Grand Sextile creates what is commonly known as a “Star of David” and will be with us for about 7 hours until the Moon, which travels quickly through our skies, moves off. The pattern symbolizes the harmonious union between masculine and feminine and involves the two feminine elements, Water (highlighting emotion) and Earth (highlighting physicality), as well as both of the major feminine planets, Venus and the Moon. It has been called by some “The Return of the Divine Feminine Grand Sextile.”

t-square exampleWhat makes this day interesting, though, are the two T-squares and a Yod that appear in the solar system along with the Grand Sextile.  T-squares are often challenging energy patterns that create dynamism in the energies symbolized by the planets involved in the aspect pattern.  They are created by two squares and an opposition. A square brings conflict and an opposition brings confrontation as the energies of the two planets mirror each other and reflect qualities that, when confronted, bring about growth.

Yod exampleA Yod, also called “The Finger of God,” is an interesting aspect that includes both challenging and supportive elements which create opportunity for laser-focused action in a particular area of life. In this case, Pluto and Neptune afford the opportunity to shine out from our center (Sun in Leo) in whatever area of life (house) Leo falls in your natal chart.

When I study a chart, the first thing I do is sit with the image and see how it comes up off the page — that tells me so much about the energy of the chart. The image of this Grand Sextile is simply exquisite. A perfect hexagon holds two opposing equilateral triangles and four rectangles move beyond the spaces created by the points of the star. When meditating with the image, I see movement in the form, beautiful, free-flowing energy swirling around the center — the Earth upon which we stand.

So, what are the potentials for this pattern? What are the energies coming together in these trines?

Simply put – breakthrough, and the opportunity to step across a threshold from one way of being into another. Saturn in Scorpio has the potential for intense, private, and deep truth, discipline, and boundaries. Neptune in Pisces invites poetic and imaginative creativity, spirituality, and dreaming. Jupiter/Mars in Cancer will make everything bigger, more expansive, more generous and active, courageous, strong, and passionate in nurturing and emotionally-connected ways. This is a soft place for Jupiter and Mars to fall. Pluto in Capricorn has the potential for transformation around structures and stepping into our power in structured and disciplined ways. Venus in Virgo invites us to bring in love, art, and beauty in discriminating and healing ways. And the Moon in Taurus allows us to attract sensual, loyal, and practical energies in order to ground all the other energies.

The T-squares add a significant bit of turbulence and an incredible amount of dynamism to the chart. Without the T-squares, the day would promise to be a little unreal. The T-squares make it a very human day. They promise to both ground us in reality and sweep us away into the storms they create.

A paradox?  Certainly. The chart points very much to paradoxical energies.

The Moon in Taurus is opposite Saturn and both are square the Sun in Leo. On a day that promises harmonious union between masculine and feminine, the chief symbols for the masculine and feminine are in conflict in ways that might create restriction and constriction. On the light side, it could lead to a deeper sense of truth. Pluto is opposite the Mars/Jupiter conjunction and both are square Uranus in Aries. The Pluto-Uranus square that has been such a big player in the solar system for the last year also has a role in Monday’s aspect pattern. That, in relationship with the Mars/Jupiter conjunction will strengthen and expand the energy. And, somehow, all this will dance with all those lovely trine and sextile energies.

In reading what others have written about the planetary energies for July 29, so many of us are coming to similar understandings of this time — an incredible time of opportunity and energies that encourage us to step forward into our creativity, truth, and power. Still, the challenges of transformation continue.

micro macroAt times I find myself simply closing my eyes, breathing, and allowing the waves of whatever all this energy is to just pass through me. As I have been studying the chart for Monday, and the Grand Sextile, I am feeling energetic storm energy and seeing each of us needing to be grounded, with Earth – Gaia – in the center, the still eye of the storm. As above so below. Yes, we are mirroring these energies. Macrocosm and Microcosm.

I think part of what will be key is not judging the energy, which is one reason why I think the deepest wisdom is not to analyze the chart by  trying to “figure it all out” but just being with the energy, just being still, the eye, as the energies swirl. It is liminal time, threshold time — as is the energy.

I feel affirmed in this impression by what is not in the chart. There are no major planets in the air signs — Libra, Gemini, or Aquarius, which are associated with thinking and intellect. This tells me that it is not a day to be up in our heads. It’s a day to sink into our hearts and allow ourselves to be deeply in our bodies. This will help us to manage the ejections of fire that will come with the T-squares and Yod, as well as any temptation to over-think. And as many of these aspect patterns will continue for some days, it may be something to “keep in mind” as we move through the week.

Key to astrology symbols:

key

About the author:

Katherine Cartwright KnodelKate Knodel is an explorer of the landscape of poetry, myth, and our fractured, expanding and healing selves. She is a speaker and workshop leader, writer, astrologer, empowerment coach and transformational training designer.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2013/07/29/the-grand-sextile-and-the-planetary-energies-of-transformation/

Latest on Schrodinger’s Cat

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Bizarre ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ Comes Alive in New Experiments

Jesse Emspak, LiveScience Contributor   |   July 22, 2013

an illustration of the quantum teleportation of 'Schrodinger's Cat' wave packets of light from a past physics study.
New research bolsters the validity of Schrodinger’s Cat, a thought experiment suggesting a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time. (Shown here, an illustration of the quantum teleportation of ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ wave packets of light from a past physics study.)
Credit: Image courtesy of Science/AAAS

The strangeness of the world of the very small that allows a particle to be in two states at once may extend to larger scales, two new studies reveal. If the research proves true, that would bolster the validity of a thought experiment suggesting a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time.

The idea, called Schrödinger’s Cat after the physicist,Erwin Schrödinger, who proposed it in 1935, goes like this: Put a cat in a box with a vial of poison gas. The vial opens when a tiny piece of radioactive metal emits an alpha particle (the nucleus of a helium atom) as it decays. Emitting an alpha particle is a quantum-mechanical process, which means that whether it happens in any given stretch of time is basically random.

Quantum mechanics says that it’s impossible to know whether the radioactive decay has happened (and the cat is dead) unless one measures it — that is, unless the alpha particle interacts with the environment in some way that an observer can see. Until that happens, the alpha particle is emitted and not emitted at the same time. The cat is both dead and alive, a state called superposition. Opening the box is a measurement — one sees the effect of an alpha particle as the dead cat, or the absence of an alpha particle as a live one.

In the two new studies, detailed in the July 21 issue of the journal Nature Physics, researchers used particles of light, or photons, to test the limits of such superposition. If there is no limit to how many particles or photons you can put into a quantum system, that means the cat really is both dead and alive at once, and the act of measuring its state makes the mathematical formulation that describes it (called a wave function) “collapse” into a definite state, alive or dead.

Another possibility, called the many worlds interpretation, would be even weirder: that all the possible states are real, and when the wave function collapses to one state, we’re just experiencing one of many universes that exist simultaneously, in which every possible outcome happens. When the wave function collapses, we (and the cat) remember one history — a dead cat — but there’s another universe where the cat is alive.

Entangling photons

Both experiments, one conducted at Canada’s University of Calgary and the other at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, involved enough photons to be seen with the naked eye, which shows that their quantum properties could be made macroscopic, researchers say.

In the two experiments, researchers measured the quantum states — a group of physical properties, including polarization and phase — of the light using polarization, or the angle through which a photon rotates. One can see polarization while wearing polarized sunglasses and tilting one’s head while looking at the screen of a smart phone or computer. The screen will look black until the head is tilted at a certain angle.

While the exact technique was slightly different in the two experiments, both teams amplified the states of a single photon, entangling it with many other photons, and then restored it to its original state. When a photon gets entangled with other photons the state of the photon is affected by the states of the particles it is entangled with.

The polarization measurements after restoration told the researchers that the quantum entanglement with other photons had happened.

The scientists are now trying to see how large a quantum system can get before it loses its quantum nature. “It’s one of the few big unanswered questions in modern physics,” said Alexander Lvovsky, a professor of physics and lead author of the University of Calgary paper.

Superposition states

The new experiments aren’t the only ones to show superposition states.

In 2010 scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara built a resonator — basically a tiny tuning fork — the size of the pixel on a computer screen, and put it into a superposed state, in which it was both oscillating and not oscillating at the same time. But that wasn’t as extensive a system as those in the two recent papers.

“That experiment corresponds to one quanta,” said Nicolas Gisin, a professor at the University of Geneva, who led the Swiss research team. “Imagine a nano-mechanical motor showing no oscillation and 500 states. That would be ours.”

In the future, both groups will try to expand to bigger systems, where instead of translating a quantum state from a single photon to a large set of photons, they will try to translate the states of one large group to another. But that experiment will be a tough one, because in order to preserve quantum effects, groups of atoms or photons must be completely isolated from the surrounding environment, or the superposition states will be spoiled. “There are a lot more angles of attack,” with more particles, Lvovsky said.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/38339-experiments-bolster-schrodingers-cat-idea.html

Siberia heat Wave, South America Cold, Thailand Rains

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Cold Snap hits southern South America. UPDATE: (and ‘Big Fish in Living Room’ story!)

It has been a wild week for temperature extremes with the amazing heat wave in north central Siberia juxtaposed with an unusual cold spell in portions of Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina occurring simultaneously almost exactly opposite one another on the planet. Scroll down to end of blog for my fishy story! It actually has some context considering the amazing rainfall record set at Chantaburi, Thailand this past week.

South American cold snap

Between 20-25th July a mass of very cold air suddenly froze a large area of southern South America (where temperatures had been running above average for weeks prior to the abrupt change).

Snow was recorded for the first time since 1996 at Catamarca, Argentina (28°S and located at about 500m/1,650’), and cold rain (temperatures of 5-6C/41°-43°°F) at sea level altitudes like Florianopolis, Brazil. Montevideo, Uruguay also experienced rain with temperatures as low as 3C (37°F). The town of Campos Novos, Brazil (at an elevation of 947m/3,100’) had a high temperature of just 3.6°C (38.5°F) and low of -2.7°C (27.1°F) on July 23rd, a daily average of almost freezing (0.9°C/32.8°F). There was no precipitation at the site that day, if so it probably would have been snow. In fact, a little snow was reported in Brazil in the hills above nearby Curitiba for the first time since 1975.

Snowfall in the mountainous region of Santa Catarina, Brazil is not so unusual. Above is an image of a deep snowfall near Rio Grande do Sul during the cold wave of July-August 2010. Ironically, this occurred at the same time as the famous Moscow heat wave of that summer, a somewhat similar situation as is now occurring. Photographer not identified.

There were incredible temperature contrasts in Bolivia (which isn’t unusual given the complex Andean topography) but what was unusual was that it was actually colder at the low elevations in the Amazonian jungle than in the higher mountainous terrain of the country: temperatures at Bolivian locations above 4000m (13,000’) on 23 July were higher than those in the Bolivian portions of the Amazon jungle at low elevations. For instance, the temperature at Reyes (located at 14°S and 140m/462’ elevation) had a maximum of 9.3C/48.8°F while at El Alto Airport, La Paz (elevation 4,000m/13,200’) the temperature maximum reached 13.9°C (57°F). Temperatures in the Chaco region of Bolivia were remarkably chilly with a reading of -5.8°C (21.6°F) observed at Villamontes.

Some places in the middle of the Andes, protected by mountains on all sides, like Cochabamba didn’t experience a single degree drop in temperature, while low areas experienced drops as high as 22-25°C (40-45F) in 24 hours. In Paraguay sleet was recorded in Itapua and the minimum temperature reached -5.2C (21.6°F) at Prats Gill on 24th, not far from the all-time national record of -7.5C (18.5°F) (also set in Prats Gil) on July 13, 2000

The cold air actually filtered as far north as the western part of the Amazon jungle near the Equator, with 7°C (44.6°F) at Rio Branco, Brazil (10°S latitude) and 16°C (60.8°F) at Leticia, Colombia (4°S latitude). Both are low-level sites in the Amazon Basin.

The most exceptional cold wave, in regard to how north cool air has ever penetrated, was that of July 1975 when air of polar origin reached the Caribbean affecting the whole of South America (including the extreme western part of Amazon in Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, the Guyanas, and even Trinidad and Tobago. Unlike other cold waves (such as those of 1955, 1973 and 2010) the July 1975 event didn’t stop south of the Equator, but continued well into the Northern Hemisphere. This remains unique and the only documented occurrence of such an event. The surface high pressure reached 1044 hPa (30.82”) over central South America on July 15, 1975, the highest yet measured (modern records) on the continent (REF: Markgraf, Vera Interhemispheric Climate Linkages p. 37)


500 mb MAP

Surface air temperature anomaly for the week of July 19-24 (top map) and 500 mb height anomalies for the same period (bottom). Note how the cold air over South America is almost exactly on the opposite side of the world from the heat dome over north central Siberia. NCEP/NCAR maps, courtesy of Stu Ostro.

The cold snap this past week was caused by a strong upper-level low centered over the southern third of the continent. Curiously, it has been unusually mild over the portions of Antarctica opposite South America with a high of 7.8C (46.0°F) being recorded at Base Esperanza (63°S), higher than the normal summer average maximum and just 1.5°C less than the Amazonian maximum of Reyes in Bolivia at 14°S latitude!

Meanwhile on the other side of the world…

The unrelenting heat wave in north central Siberia continues with Svetlogorsk (on the Arctic Circle) recording its 13th consecutive day (as of July 26) with temperatures above 30°C (86°F). Meanwhile, all eyes are turning to Western Europe where a potentially historic heat wave is expected to develop this weekend and continue into next week! There is a chance that some all-time national heat records may fall in some countries like Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary when all is said and done.

Phenomenal Rainstorm in Thailand

On a side note, a historic rainstorm has caused serious flooding in portions of southeastern Thailand. Chantaburi picked up 445.7mm (17.55”) of rain on July 23rd with an amazing 385mm (15.16”) of this falling in just 12 hours and an even more amazing 297 mm (11.69”) in just 6 hours! This may be one of the (if not the) heaviest 24-hour rainfall on record for Thailand (previous record was 414.8mm (16.33”) at Ko Samui on March 28, 2011. A famous flood in Bangkok occurred on May 9-10, 1986 when 401.1 mm (15.79”) of rain fell in just 8 hours. The ensuing floods almost cost the mayor (Chamlong) his job.

My ‘fish story’

I lived a few blocks from the Bangkok Met office at the time (during the storm of 1986) on Soi 49 Sukhumvit Rd. and caught a 15″ fish that swam through a break in the screen porch door off my living room which flooded about half a meter deep at one point. My girlfriend at the time and I trapped the sucker hiding under the water-logged couch in the living room. We grilled it later that same day (after the water receded) and it was delicious (no idea what kind of fish it was). I think I must be one of the only people who have caught a large live fish swimming around their living room and then cooked it in their kitchen just 10 feet away hours later :-). I’d love to hear from other WU friends if they have had a similar experience!

METARS for Chantaburi, Thailand July 22-23 when a peak 24-hour rainfall amount of 445.7 mm (17.55”) accumulated, a possible national record. Flooding continues as more rain has since fallen over this region of southeastern Thailand. From OGIMET.

KUDOS: Thanks to Maximiliano Herrera for much of the above information about the cold wave in South America.

Christopher C. Burt
Weather Historian

from:    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/show.html