In the world of Round Up Ready corn and other genetically modified crops, we’re in dire need of another ‘solution.’ Frank Kutka has been working on ‘Organic Ready’ corn for over 15 years as an all-around answer to biotech’s cancer causing crops.
Kutka is a plant breeder who has been attempting to grow corn that naturally resists GM crop contamination through cross-pollination, thus eliminating Monsanto’s prevalently grown GMO corn from infesting organic farmer’s crops.
Kutka has been searching for traits in the ancient grain teosinte which makes it very unlikely that GM pollen can enter corn silk, thus making cross-pollination nearly impossible. He explains:
“The trait has been known and used for decades. It was first used in popcorn in the 1950s and then in white corn varieties in the 1970s… It greatly reduces the risk of out-crossing.”
Kutka has been searching for this pollen-blocking trait since 2001, when he was a student at Cornell University. If he is successful, then it will make the job of organic farmers much easier, since many of them face contamination of crops that they work very hard to keep organic, paying exorbitant fees to obtain a USDA organic label.
Needless to say, Kutka, like all farmers growing organic crops, faces an enormous challenge. U.S. farmers currently plant millions of acres of GMO corn, among other GMO crops. Around 93% of the year’s corn crop was genetically modified.
While this makes Monsanto happy, it leaves those looking for non-contaminated, heirloom, organic, non-GMO corn a little miffed, to say the least. These millions of acres of corn can also easily contaminate other crops – including those which are not even corn, just because Mother Nature continues to work. GMO genes cross over into other plants, causing them to contain variant DNA like the mother plant. This is many argue that GMO crops must be banned, and that GMO labeling simply isn’t enough.
In 2014, a survey of organic farmers from 17 states, predominantly in the Midwest, shows 67% of farmers planned to delay planting corn so their crops would pollinate later than their neighbors’ GM corn, at an average cost of $16,000. Delaying the growing season is just one expense organic farmers have to contend with in competition with corporate seed monopolies.
Kutka hopes his ‘Organic Ready’ corn will be able to remedy cross-pollination of ‘Roundup Ready’ crops within the year.
Reprinted with permission by earthfireinstitute.org
Something made me look outside my office window… An intensity of energy? An unusual movement caught my eye. Loki the fox was crouched in his enclosure looking very excited and very predatory. Above him a panicked bird was flying circles, panting, terrified of stopping for a moment. I rushed out. At any moment Loki could leap and vitality would become a pile of lifeless black and white feathers. The moment I opened the door to Loki’s enclosure a crack the magpie shot out, directly over my head, faster than I could believe. He had seen the possibility of freedom and made an instantaneous calculation that the fox was a greater danger than the human. End result: Well-entertained fox; safe and wiser bird.
Looking out the window over my computer, I almost always see one or more of the handsome black and white birds flitting, hopping, perching or observing. I see them every day. All over the property they are squawking, stealing, plotting, complaining, playing, inventing, and generally declaring their presence and vivid life-force. But because I see them every day, I fall prey to that common human quality of taking them for granted, barely noticing them. If I even give them that much recognition. As I walk to my writing cabin absorbed in human thoughts, I am ignoring their busy lives as they flit all around me going about their magpie business. How could this happen? It is a function of the human brain to adjust and accept and then not really see any more. When we are children everything is full of wonder, but there is no reason we can’t keep that alive. We just have to work at it a bit. Familiar, does not mean ordinary. And I forgot that.
I “knew” that the crows and magpies we see all around us are smart, but that’s as far as my awareness went. I had to go to halfway around the world to India to get a new appreciation for them—specifically to an international conference on animals held in New Delhi this past month. One of the presentations was on the intelligence of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies. Dr. Auguste von Bayern, a researcher with impeccable credentials from top animal behavior institutes, flew in just for a day, driven by her discoveries to help change the perceptions of these maligned birds.
She presented evidence showing that their brain size in relation to body mass is equal to that of great apes and dolphins, and only slightly lower than humans. And that it is not just their brain size, but cognitive abilities as well, that are on par with those of the great apes. In fact they are considered by some researchers to be among the most intelligent of all animals.
How can that be? Aren’t mammals the most highly evolved, most intelligent creatures on the planet? We used to say “birdbrain” because we measured the brains of birds using ours as reference point. But our human-oriented perspective led us astray. The sharp intelligence of corvids arises despite the fact that their brains are built in a way that is fundamentally different from those of mammals. Corvids use a portion of their brain that has no direct counterpart to humans, parts that we discounted because they didn’t fit the location of intelligence in the human brain. Apparently acute intelligences have evolved more then once, in different ways.
Thinking Birds
Evidence of the intelligence of crows, magpies and other members of the corvid family are plentiful. Corvids have been recorded to recall their food’s hiding place up to nine months later. The Clark’s nutcracker, a type of North American crow, collects up to 30,000 pine seeds over three weeks in November, then carefully buries them for safekeeping over an area of 200 square miles. Over the next eight months, it succeeds in retrieving over 90 percent of them, even when they are covered in feet of snow. Brain power.
Urban-living crows have learned to use road traffic for cracking tough nuts. On a university campus in Japan, crows and humans line up patiently, waiting for the traffic to halt. When the lights change, the birds hop in front of the cars and place walnuts, which they picked from the adjoining trees, on the road. After the lights turn green again, the birds fly away and vehicles drive over the nuts, cracking them open. The birds wait patiently with human pedestrians for a red light before retrieving their prize. If the cars miss the nuts, the birds sometimes hop back and put them somewhere else on the road. Or they sit on electricity wires and drop them in front of vehicles. (From the BBC series “The Life of Birds”.) Crows have shown remarkable innovative tool-making abilities even beyond those of chimpanzees.
Members of the corvid family have been known to watch other birds, observe where the other birds hide their food, and steal it once the owner leaves. They also move their food around between hiding places to avoid thievery, but only if they have previously been thieves themselves. Cache robbing is common. Knowing the character of their compatriots (through their own mischievous efforts), a magpie often makes several false caches before making a real one. They use their own experience of having been a thief to predict the behavior of a pilferer, and can determine the safest course to protect their caches from being pilfered.
What the above examples show is that these birds are thinking. That is one of the things that’s so interesting. They demonstrate many of the intellectual abilities we associate with human thinking but without language This suggests that many of our intellectual abilities which we assumed we need language for, we don’t. That opens a window into understanding our own thinking in a different way.
Social Birds
Corvids are also intensely social birds with a strong sense of community. They send out sentinels so the others can eat without worrying about predators. They provide mutual aid. A group of crows in England took turns lifting garbage bin lids while their companions collected food, showing a capacity for teamwork. The bond between the male and female is extremely strong and often lifelong. They build nests together, and the male will feed the female as she sits patiently on her precious eggs. Both parents look after the chicks. Young corvids play elaborate social games similar to “king of the mountain” and “follow the leader;” they manipulate, pass, and balance sticks, and show what certainly looks like joy as they slide down smooth surfaces, climb or fly back up, and do it again. And again. They have a sense of self, recognizing themselves in a mirror. They have been reported to recognize each other as individuals; call one another by “name.” The black-billed magpie, the ones outside my window, have been seen to hold a “funeral.” When one magpie discovers a dead one, it begins calling loudly to attract other magpies. The gathering of loudly calling magpies (up to 40 birds have been observed) may last for 10 to 15 minutes before the birds fly off silently.
I see these raucous, chattering, vibrant, brassy birds very differently now, these direct descendants of dinosaurs. As a result my world is richer and more colorful. Not only are they definitely extroverted, opinionated beings, but once you tune in you sense an awareness, an alertness, an intelligence. It reminds me that we are surrounded by the many intelligences of other beings. That gives a wonderful sense of companionship.
You would think, living with bears and wolves and many other animals, that the appreciation I developed would carry over to all species. But in my busyness running an organization, which involves human-centered and human-created necessities such as fundraising, insurance, and staffing, I got lost in my own head. I just pretty much ignored magpies and the great vitality they add to the land. It is a constant learning to be ever more open to what is around us and not get lost in our own busyness. It so impoverishes us. I wonder how we can help each other enter into, or stay, in the mode of broader awareness. I will work on that but would welcome your thoughts. Maybe I will try to concentrate for one week on each life form around me – birds, mammals, trees, plants. That promises a lifetime of learning, increasing awareness and companionship.
PS – About that magpie who almost got caught… how come, if they are so smart? They are birds of great appetites as well as great intelligence, and I suspect greed got the better of him. Apparently it is possible to be greedy as well as intelligent…
Very strong deep earthquake shakes Afghanistan and the surrounding countries
Last update: August 10, 2015 at 4:17 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
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Update 15:46 UTC : We have seen Urdu reports mentioning cracks in houses in Pakistan.
Update 15:44 UTC : Due to the depth of 200 km the earthquake was felt in a radius of several thousand kilometers.
34km (21mi) WSW of Ashkasham, Afghanistan
43km (27mi) WSW of Ishkashim, Tajikistan
50km (31mi) SE of Jarm, Afghanistan
86km (53mi) SE of Fayzabad, Afghanistan
287km (178mi) NE of Kabul, Afghanistan
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 5.9
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2015-08-10 14:35:25
THE SUNSPOT THAT WON’T EXPLODE: Measuring more than 150,000 km wide, sunspot AR2396 is one of the biggest sunspots of the current solar cycle. For the past week it has crossed the solar disk apparently poised to explode. Yet it has not. “It is a sleeping giant,” says Sergio Castillo, who photographed the behemoth from his backyard observatory in Corona, CA:
“AR2396 is huge, but dormant,” says Castillo. “There are very few flares erupting out of it.”
Castillo took the picture using a “Calcium K” filter tuned to the light of ionized calcium atoms in the sun’s lower atmosphere. Calcium K filters highlight the bright magnetic froth that sometimes forms around a sunspot’s dark core. AR2396 is very frothy, indeed.
Magnetic froth, however, does not herald an explosion. It merely means that the sunspot is photogenic.
Things will start slowly today, and it is probably best not to attempt to rush. There is a purpose in pattern, and there is a centering that can happen when you take your time. You will still be able to get some of those chores done. As the day progresses you will be in for some interesting revelations about people, places, and things. This is not a day for taking for granted. It is a day to be prepared for just about anything that comes your way. Again, there are things that you are needing to know and there will be hints and clues, symbols and signs. It is a good idea to take them seriously and give them some thought. These days it is well to pay attention to your dreams.
If I could give you just one piece of advice, it would be, “Trust Yourself.” Stop looking outside for the answers. Stop looking to others to tell you how to live your life – or to hand you temporary solutions to problems that only came about because you did not trust yourself in the first place!
Trusting yourself should be the most natural thing to do, but it’s not. Our world is structured, in such a way, that everything tells us, “Whatever you do, don’t trust yourself.”
If you cannot trust yourself, you are powerless to make good choices, which often leads to making choices based on pressure or opinions of others. Even if they are well-intentioned, no one ever knows what is best for you, but you. If you spend a lifetime dis-trusting yourself and seeking external guidance, eventually you end up with a life that doesn’t suit you or make you happy. If you do not trust yourself, you are also likely to repress self-expression, ultimately leading to chronic complacency or even depression.
As a crisis outreach counselor for seven years and a spiritual life coach for almost twenty, I have noticed patterns, and the one pattern that shows up every single time is that depressed, confused and overwhelmed people do not trust themselves, and, in fact, are often immobilized out of fear of making the wrong choice.
But, it is not just people in crisis, it is virtually everyone! In fact, many of the issues that we face today are a result of not trusting ourselves and could be easily resolved by the Power of Self-trust.
Self-trust Has Been Brainwashed Out of Us. But Why?
Most of the world’s child raising standards revolve around teaching children to obey authority – including institutions of religion, education, medical, government and even media. Children are punished for questioning authority and thinking for themselves, while being rewarded for memorization and following the rules. This precise “formula” teaches children not to trust themselves. If you cannot think for yourself and you look to authority figures for answers, how can you ever trust yourself?
Children who don’t trust themselves grow up to be adults who also blindly depend on external sources for information, guidance, rules, laws and regulations – most of these external sources have their own hidden agendas which do not support the individual.
We have given our power away because we do not know how to look within for the answers.
Misdirected Trust in Outside Sources?
Maybe humanity is in crisis, not because we have been mindlessly trusting institutions that have their own best interests at heart, but rather because we are nottrusting ourselves! If we really trusted ourselves and we looked within for the answers, we would not give our power to any of these outside sources because we would be able to decipher the truth from the lies.
Trusting yourself activates an inner energetic switch that puts you in the driver’s seat, and allows you to be the conscious creator of your life.
I spent much of my life looking to others for the answers and not trusting myself, and as a result I racked up countless bad decisions, including failed marriages, great financial loss, and tons of issues that could have been easily avoided. But somehow, through it all, there was this inner-knowing that I had to find a way to trust myself despite what the world was telling me.
Knowing that this was the key, and despite evidence to the contrary, I made the conscious choice to trust myself above and beyond all else, and as I began to believe in myself, my choices improved and my life improved, and the more I believed in myself, the more I could trust myself. As I stepped fully into my power, clarity became the norm, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. By believing in myself and trusting myself, even if I still made mistakes from time to time, I was granted access to a body of knowledge that continues to transform my life, and allows me to help others do the same.
There is an incredible power inside of you that can only be accessed through the power of self-trust.
You may not have anyone in your life saying, “Trust yourself,” but I am saying it to you now. This is the key that will allow you access to the control panel of your life. If you do not trust yourself, you are denied access. The mere act of trusting yourself activates your consciousness in such a way that your life becomes super-charged.
Yes, it might require a leap of faith. Like me, you might have a long list of reasons why you should never trust yourself – do it anyway, and keep doing it until you have a long list of reasons why you can trust yourself. The only way that you can ever trust yourself, is by trusting yourself.
What Does it Mean to Trust Yourself?
Your body and mind are priceless technology that will guide you every step of the way on your journey through life. Your body gives you energetic and emotional signals to show you which way to turn and even what to do. Your mind gives you inspiration, visions and ideas to pursue that are intended to guide you in the direction of your highest good. In order to trust yourself you must be in touch with this inner guidance system.
Your Inner Guidance System Holds the Answers
Your inner guidance system is a network of physical, intuitive and emotional information that speaks directly to you – through all your senses. Your senses feed you information so that you can make good conscious choices. You already trust your inner guidance system in many ways. For example, if you eat something that tastes rotten, you stop eating it. If you smell smoke, you check for fire. If you hear a cry, you look to see if someone needs help. If you touch a hot stove, you let go immediately.
Most of us unconditionally trust these everyday aspects of inner guidance, but higher levels of inner guidance are where we usually stop trusting ourselves. We don’t trust our sixth sense which is intuition nor do we trust our emotional senses. If you desire to take back your power, and reclaim your freedom to make conscious choices, these two elements of inner guidance are most essential.
When you understand how your inner guidance speaks through your emotional senses and your sixth sense, information can be as clear as knowing when to take your hand off a hot stove.
Emotional Guidance Technology
An integral aspect of your inner guidance system is the technology of emotions. Your emotions were given to you to experience life but emotions are also a system of inner guidance.
If you want to trust yourself, you must get in touch with your emotions, and you must feel. If you push down your emotions, you cut off your natural guidance, and as a result you cannot trust yourself.
If you have unhealed emotional issues, those issues can be easily triggered by everyday life – better known as emotional reactions. Emotional reactions are designed to protect you and keep you on guard, but emotional reactions are not good intuitive guides because they are tied to events and traumas in the past. Therefore, releasing pent-up and unhealed emotions is essential.
A high quality emotional guidance system is anchored firmly in the now, pulsating clear emotions that provide guidance that can direct your actions, aligning you with your purpose, path and passion.
Your Body Speaks
If you want to hear your inner guidance, you must get in your body where that guidance is available.
Our bodies always tell us when we are in the wrong job or an unhealthy relationship. Every bodily issue is a communication from your body – attempting to tell you something. When you don’t pay attention over a long period of time, small challenges in the body often turn into disease.
In order to get in your body, you must stop criticizing your body or judging your body in any way. You must love your body and listen to your body. The more you care for your body, the healthier your body will become and the more information and guidance it will provide.
You already know what to do to care for your body so I’m not going to tell you. If you are unsure, ask your body – this is the point.
The entire body is important but if you just started focusing on two areas, for most people it would be the heart and the gut.
Don’t Be Afraid to “Make Mistakes”
We often don’t trust ourselves because we are afraid of making mistakes, but it is a catch twenty-two because as long as you are afraid of making mistakes, you will not be able to trust yourself. And, in fact, the fear of making mistakes causes us to make more mistakes because we are not trusting ourselves – it is a vicious cycle, but one that you can overcome.
The point is to even trust your mistakes because you never know where a mistake might take you. There is higher guidance and a higher plan in everything we do, including the mistakes we make.
Let Go of What “The World Will Say”
It is impossible to trust yourself, if you are worried about “what the world will say,” be that family, friends or society.
How can you trust what you are perceiving, when you are filtering your perceptions through the minds of others? As long as you care more about the opinions of others than your own opinions, your inner guidance will go unnoticed by you.
If you alter your behavior in order to please others, or you want to be seen positively in their eyes, you have cut yourself off from your intrinsic wisdom and personalized guidance that comes from deep within.
In order to trust yourself, you must let go of the need to please others.
Forgo Comparison
You must drop comparison and stop comparing yourself to anyone at any time. Comparison keeps you trapped in the limitations of the collective. As long as you compare yourself to anyone, you cannot be in full control of your life. This includes competing with others for success and also pointing out that you are not the only one experiencing something. Every time you say, “other people do it, so I am not the only one, or others have it worse,” you are giving yourself an excuse not to listen to your inner guidance – and to stay stuck.
Eradicate Worry
Chronic worrying keeps you from accessing inner knowledge and trusting that knowledge, therefore, you must calm your mind and body of worry. Instead of focusing on what you do not want, focus your attention on what you do want. The opposite of worry is conscious creation.
Stop Getting Ahead of Yourself
If you are constantly busy and running from one activity to another, you are likely moving faster than the speed of life. How can you trust yourself if you are moving too fast and getting ahead of yourself? Slow down! Be here now. Pay attention to what you are doing, and feeling.
By the way, stress is an indicator that you are not listening to your inner guidance.
Be Conscious
We are always told to be present, but “be present” to what exactly? There are uncountable things to be present to at any given moment. Instead of trying to be present, be conscious. Be conscious of your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. The more conscious you are, the more you can access inner guidance.
Listen to Your Physical Energy
Your natural physical energy will always be an incredible guide. When we are going in a positive direction for ourselves, we always have an abundance of energy, even if something is challenging. If, however, we are going in the wrong direction, we often lack energy.
Follow Your Emotional Energy
Happiness is positive emotional energy – if you follow your joy, you will be following your inner guidance. Dread, stress and overwhelm are emotions that tell you that you are going the wrong way. Follow your joy and you will always be guided.
Quiet Your Mind
If you are trying to figure out solutions, the answers will not come to a mind that is not open or available to receiving information or inspiration. Answers come through a quiet mind. You cannot expect to access inner guidance when your mind is going a mile a minute or your mental energy is split.
Stop Depending on Spiritual Arts
There is nothing wrong with numerology, astrology or psychics, as long as you don’t give anyone or anything more power than you give yourself. We are talking about trusting yourself and your own guidance more than anything or anyone, including angels, guides and masters.
Teach Your Children
If you are a parent, teacher or care-giver, teach your children how to trust themselves.
What If I Am Just Making It Up?
Maybe you ask, “How do I know that I am receiving inner guidance and I am not making it up?” There is a very thin line between intuition and conscious creation. It is no accident that the third eye of intuition is also called the eye of imagination.
When we receive an intuitive hit or vision, we are seeing one possible outcome or path. Your intuition is not telling you that this is the only path, or this is what you should do. Your intuition is simply showing you one possibility, based on your current trajectory, which is likely determined by your beliefs.
Nothing is set in stone until you believe it is. This is where your power lies. Not to decipher if something is true or not, but rather to determine if what you intuitively perceive supports you or not. If it does support you, then consciously give power to it, by choosing to believe it, but, if it doesn’t, let it go.
The question is not, “Is my inner guidance correct?”
The question is, “Does this path support me and does it feel good?”
So, yes, make it up – make it all up. This is how you consciously create your life through the power of imagination and the belief that you apply to your imagination. This is the pinnacle of trusting yourself.
You may not realize it right now, but everything is Make Believe – this means that your beliefs make up your reality, so why not consciously “make believe” a reality that is full of joy, peace, fun and abundance.
Trust the Process
We humans are very quick to jump to conclusions. As soon as something seems to be going astray we stop trusting the process. The thing is, life is tricky – often it seems like circumstances are taking us away from our destination when actually life is creating a more direct route. I know that it is difficult to trust the process when the process seems to be taking you in the “wrong direction,” but trust it anyway. If you release control, just a little bit, you might discover that just because things seem to be bat-crazy doesn’t mean they really are.
Here’s the Catch…
As much as you trust yourself, you must also trust the Universe. There is an All Knowing Power that is at work in all moments and at all times. This grand and infinite power runs the whole show – it orchestrates the rising of the sun, the birth of the stars, and even the perfect rhythm of your body – pumping your blood and controlling all the trillions of cells to do what they are supposed to do. If you only trust yourself without trusting the Universe, you miss the point, and if you only trust the Universe without trusting yourself, you cut off your power as conscious creator of your life.
In order to be a successful adventurer through the dimensions of creation, you must learn to really trust yourself and listen to your inner guidance, and you must also trust this Infinite Power to take you wherever you want to go.
In this beautiful co-creative dance with the Universe anything and everything is possible… Dream Big!
Free Mediation – Please join me in a short, but powerful, mediation designed to help you connect with your inner guidance. Go to http://www.nanice.com/meditatenow
EARTH IS CROSSING TWO COMET DEBRIS STREAMS: The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) is scanning the skies above North America for echoes from disintegrating meteoroids. There are plenty of echoes to detect. The latest CMOR sky map shows two active radiants in the night sky–one associated with the Perseid meteor shower (PER) and another with the Southern Delta Aquarids (SDA):
Perseids come from 109P/Swift-Tuttle, a large comet with a rich debris stream. The shower is expected to peak this year on August 12-13 with as many as 100+ meteors per hour. Of all the meteor showers of the year, the Perseids produce the most fireballs.
While we are waiting for the Perseids to peak, the Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower is making its own contribution. Caused by debris from an ancient sungrazing comet, this shower produces 10 to 20 meteors per hour every year in late July and early August.
Earth’s simultaneous interaction with these two debris streams should keep the meteor rate elevated for the entire week ahead. Be alert for flashes of light in the night sky
The evidence is mounting – GMOs are a danger to health. Long-term studies have revealed organ damage, cancer, and reproductive damage in second and third generation animal studies. There are doctors who are willing to publicly take a stand against genetic engineering. Here are a few of them.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Dr. Mehmet Oz is a renowned heart surgeon and the host of the popular television show, The Dr. OZ Show.
Whether you support genetically engineered crops or not, the freedom to make an informed choice should belong to consumers. The bill in Congress this month proposing to block states from independently requiring labeling offers a coup to pro-GMO groups.
As a scientist, I am not that concerned about GMOs themselves, but I am worried about why they were created. Highly toxic herbicides would kill crops unless they were genetically modified, but with the genetic upgrade, these plants can be doused with much higher doses, with potential complications to the environment. The WHO believes that glyphosate is “probably a human carcinogen.” Perhaps we are all showing “disdain for science and evidence-based medicine,” but I would argue that unleashing these products creates a real-time experiment on the human species. Sure, we will eventually know if these pesticides are a problem, but at the expense of the pain and suffering and disease in real people. I owe my kids more. And so do you.
Dr. John H. Boyles
Board certified in the American Environmental Medicine and the American board of Otolaryngology, Dr. Boyles currently practices medicine in Centerville Ohio at the Dayton Ear Nose & Throat Surgeons, Inc.
This exchange of DNA between the species is totally against nature. We simply don’t know what it will produce. We don’t know if it is safe, and it has not yet been proven to be safe.
We do not fully understand how gene spicing works within a single species. We certainly can’t predict how it will work when attempting to combine more than one species.
Yes, the means by which to prove safety was developed around the year 2000. No companies performing the gene splicing will use the procedures, because if their product were to be proven unsafe, then they cannot sell that product.
Patients at Dayton Ear, Nose, & Throat Surgeons, Inc. were tested for allergies with organic and genetically modified varieties of foods. Some of the patients tested reacted both to the organic soy and the altered soy. Other patients reacted to the GMO soy, but had no reaction to organic soy. Another group tested positively to the organic, but had no allergic reaction to the GMO soy. And some patients had no allergic reaction to either the GMO soy or the organic soy.
It has come to our attention that by altering genes, scientists are creating a separate allergy to foods that did not exist in patients before. By changing or altering the structure of the plant, GMOs can cause separate reactions from the same food.
You owe it to yourself and your family to make healthier food choices. Any allergic person can benefit from a diet with increased organic foods. Control what you can, and steer clear of GMO foods.
Dr. Emily Lindner
Dr. Emily Lindner is an internist with a dual practice of Internal Medicine and Complementary/Integrative Medicine. She is certified in Functional and Nutritional Medicine.
I tell my patients to avoid genetically modified foods because in my experience, with those foods there is more allergies and asthma. … And what emanates from that is everything. Lots of arthritis problems, autoimmune diseases, anxiety… neurological problems; anything that comes from an inspired immune system response.
When I change people from a GMO diet to a GMO-free diet I see results instantaneously in people who have foggy thinking and people who have gut symptoms like bloating, gas, irritation. In terms of allergies, it might take two to five days. In terms of depression, it starts to lift almost instantaneously. It takes from a day, to certainly within two weeks.
Dr. Robin Bernhoft
Dr. Robin Bernhoft is a surgeon who retrained in environmental medicine after suffering from an environmental illness caused by the toxic skin scrubs used before surgery. He has since regained his health.
“…all physicians should prescribe non-genetically modified food for all patients, and that we should educate all of our patients on the potential health dangers, and known health dangers of GMO food.”
Dr. Mercola
Dr. Mercola is an osteopathic physician and an entrepreneur. He is known for being a strong proponent of alternative medicine.
Monsanto and other biotech companies claim genetically modified (GM) crops have no impact on the environment and are perfectly safe to eat.
Federal departments in charge of food safety in the US and Canada have not conducted tests to affirm this alleged “safety,” but rather have taken the industry-conducted research at face value, allowing millions of acres of GM crops to overtake farmland.
These foods, largely in the form of GM corn and soy (although there are other GM crops, too, like sugar beets, papaya and crookneck squash), can now be found in the majority of processed foods in the US.
In other words, if you eat processed foods, you’re already eating them… and these crops are already being freely planted in the environment. But what if it turns out that Monsanto was wrong, and the GM crops aren’t actually safe?
Monsanto is the world leader in GM crops, and their Web site would have you believe that they are the answer to world hunger. Thanks to their heavy PR campaign, if you’ve been primarily a reader of the mainstream press, you’ve probably been misled into thinking GM crops are, in fact, the greatest thing since sliced bread, that they provide better yields of equal or better quality food, pest and weed resistance, reduced reliance on pesticides, and more… But thankfully, the truth is unfolding and the tide is finally beginning to turn.
Dr. Russell Blaylock
Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon. He practiced medicine for 25 years before pursuing his nutritional studies and research full time. He now owns a nutritional practice, and is a health practitioner, lecturer, and author. He is known for confronting controversial issues in medicine and backing up his arguments with impeccable research. He warns that most of the studies on GMOs are terminated within or at ninety days and test animals are destroyed – with good reason. The following comments are in response to a long-term GMO study published in the journal, “Food and Chemical Toxicology.”
Virtually all of these studies use rats and are terminated at 90 days.This study clearly shows that most of the harmful effects of GMO foods occur after 90 days.
In this study, animals were fed the GMO corn for two years in concentrations commensurate to what people would eat. What they found is beyond shocking.
The animals fed GMO food died two to three times more often than the animals eating a normal diet. Male rats demonstrated liver damage 2.5 to 5.5 times more often than control rats.
Of extreme concern was the finding that the females developed massive breast tumors at a high rate in the GMO-fed animals.
Even more frightening is that almost half of all babies are now being fed soy-based formula. This is not the only study to find problems with GMO foods, but it is the most damning.
In my estimation, all GMO foods should be removed from stores, and GMO crops should be destroyed. The implications of this disaster is almost beyond belief and GMO crops are being heavily promoted all over the world by the IMF, Council on Foreign Relations, and other international organizations.
Dr. Richard Lacey M.D., Ph.D
Dr. Lacey is an expert in food safety issues who served for four years on a U.K. government advisory panel on food as it relates to human and animal health. In 1989-1990, he warned against the practice of feeding cattle rendered meat from sheep and other animals, predicting the “mad cow” epidemic before it occurred. He has written five books on food safety, including one published by Cambridge University Press in 1994 containing a detailed discussion of genetically engineered food. He does not believe GMOs are safe and clearly reminds us that their safety has never been established.
It is my considered judgment that employing the process of recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) in producing new plant varieties entails a set of risks to the health of the consumer that are not ordinarily presented by traditional breeding techniques. It is also my considered judgment that food products derived from such genetically engineered organisms are not generally recognized as safe on the basis of scientific procedures within the community of experts qualified to assess their safety.
Recombinant DNA technology is an inherently risky method for producing new foods. Its risks are in large part due to the complexity and interdependency of the parts of a living system, including its DNA. Wedging foreign genetic material in an essentially random manner into an organism’s genome necessarily causes some degree of disruption, and the disruption could be multi-faceted. Further, whether singular or multi-faceted, the disruptive influence could well result in the presence of unexpected toxins or allergens or in the degradation of nutritional value. Further, because of the complexity and interactivity of living systems — and because of the extent to which our understanding of them is still quite deficient — it is impossible to predict what specific problems could result in the case of any particular genetically engineered organism.
…To the best of my judgment, neither genetically engineered foods as a general class nor any genetically engineered food in particular is generally recognized as safe among those experts qualified by training and experience to evaluate their safety…
…In my opinion, the number of scientists who are not convinced about the safety of genetically engineered foods is substantial enough to prevent the existence of a general recognition of safety. Second, there is insufficient evidence to support a belief that genetically engineered foods are safe. I am not aware of any study in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that establishes the safety of even one specific genetically engineered food let alone the safety of these foods as a general class.Few properly designed toxicological feeding studies have even been attempted, and I know of none that was satisfactorily completed. Those who claim that genetically engineered foods are as safe as naturally produced ones are clearly not basing their claims on scientific procedures that demonstrate safety to a reasonable degree of certainty. Rather, they are primarily basing their claims on a set of assumptions that, besides being empirically unsubstantiated, are in several respects at odds with the bulk of the evidence.
The main assumptions are: (a) that producing food through recombinant DNA technology in itself entails no greater risks than producing it through sexual reproduction between members of the same species and (b) that the same safeguards commonly employed by breeders using conventional techniques will suffice for genetically engineered foods.
As far as I can ascertain, the current policy of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is primarily based on these two assumptions. Therefore, although it claims to be “science-based,” this claim has no solid basis in fact. The only way to base the claims about the safety of genetically engineered food in science is to establish each one to be safe through standard scientific procedures, not through assumptions that reflect more wishful thinking than hard fact.
American Academy of Environmental Medicine
This is an official statement from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
Genetically Modified Foods
According to the World Health Organization, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are “organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in such a way that does not occur naturally.” This technology is also referred to as “genetic engineering”, “biotechnology” or “recombinant DNA technology” and consists of randomly inserting genetic fragments of DNA from one organism to another, usually from a different species. For example, an artificial combination of genes that includes a gene to produce the pesticide Cry1Ab protein (commonly known as Bt toxin), originally found in Bacillus thuringiensis, is inserted in to the DNA of corn randomly. Both the location of the transferred gene sequence in the corn DNA and the consequences of the insertion differ with each insertion. The plant cells that have taken up the inserted gene are then grown in a lab using tissue culture and/or nutrient medium that allows them to develop into plants that are used to grow GM food crops.
Natural breeding processes have been safely utilized for the past several thousand years. In contrast, “GE crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years.”
Despite these differences, safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of “substantial equivalence” such that “if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food.” However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.
There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill’s Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility.The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.
…Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.
In spite of this risk, the biotechnology industry claims that GM foods can feed the world through production of higher crop yields. However, a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed 12 academic studies and indicates otherwise: “The several thousand field trials over the last 20 years for genes aimed at increasing operational or intrinsic yield (of crops) indicate a significant undertaking. Yet none of these field trials have resulted in increased yield in commercialized major food/feed crops, with the exception of Bt corn.” However, it was further stated that this increase is largely due to traditional breeding improvements.
Therefore, because GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health and are without benefit, the AAEM believes that it is imperative to adopt the precautionary principle, which is one of the main regulatory tools of the European Union environmental and health policy and serves as a foundation for several international agreements.
…With the precautionary principle in mind, because GM foods have not been properly tested for human consumption, and because there is ample evidence of probable harm, the AAEM asks:
Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.
Physicians to consider the possible role of GM foods in the disease processes of the patients they treat and to document any changes in patient health when changing from GM food to non-GM food.
Our members, the medical community, and the independent scientific community to gather case studies potentially related to GM food consumption and health effects, begin epidemiological research to investigate the role of GM foods on human health, and conduct safe methods of determining the effect of GM foods on human health.
For a moratorium on GM food, implementation of immediate long term independent safety testing, and labeling of GM foods, which is necessary for the health and safety of consumers.
(This statement was reviewed and approved by the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine on May 8, 2009.)
Conclusion
In America, there is a fascination and an appreciation of most new technologies. Before GMOs were widely adopted more medical professionals and scientists marveled at the technological advancements making genetic engineering possible; this awe and wonder was widespread long before the downsides of GMOs became well known. It turns out they are worse than almost anyone thought.
Now that GMOs have been widely adopted in the American diet, more and more doctors are discovering that GMOs are devastating to our health. It is becoming more common for doctors to advise their patients to avoid GMOs. Recently, members of Sermo, an online community of physicians, were surveyed as to whether or not they support GMO labeling. The majority, 68% of them are in favor of requiring food manufacturers to label products containing GMOs.
For years, there has been a tired argument that if you’re against GMOs then you’re against science, but just because we have the technology to do something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should. The majority of new technologies are abandoned due to flaws that become painfully apparent after they have become widespread. At present we are feeling that pain.
Be sure to check out Doctors Against Vaccines and Understanding and Detoxifying from GMOs.
Many people are finally becoming acquainted with how plants such as cannabis are effective medicinally. Others are very familiar with the healing abilities of garlic, spinach, ginger and of course echinacea. However, there are so many others whose medicinal potential are rarely if ever mentioned and yet rival and even exceed those mentioned above in many areas.
Medicinal plants contain a wide array of chemical compounds. They have a distinct order to their perfection. Natural selection pressures push these plants to “try out” variations on molecules to enhance the plant’s odds of surviving stressful environments. So, often, one molecule is present in the greatest amount and has the most dramatic effect in a human body — but along with it are variations of that molecule in the same plant.
Human beings and plants have co-evolved for millions of years, so it makes perfect sense that our complex bodies would be adapted to absorb needed, beneficial compounds from many varieties of complex plants and ignore the rest. However, no plant should be ignored when it comes to advancing human health.
1. Dandelion
They’re edible flowering plants which widely grow in South America. Dandelions are used to make recipes and drinks. Flowers, leafs and roots of dandelion are used to make food items for medicinal purposes. The act as a cleaning tonic for blood vessels while effectively increasing the functionality of the liver. They balance blood sugar and cholesterol levels. They also prevent gallstones and improve the functioning of the pancreas.
2. California Poppy
The brilliant blooms of the California Poppy make this opioid plant an iconic one. The plant is an effective nervine (anxiety reliever) and is safe for use on agitated children. Can be made into a a tea for quick relief of nervousness and tension. A stronger decoction will offer pain relief. (A decoction is made by “stewing” all safe plant parts, including stems and roots if possible, in water for several hours and, ideally, soaking overnight.)
3. Marigold
Marigold is a flowering plant which grows in wide rage of soils. They are used to cook and add color to many summer dishes. This plant can also cure many skin problems and can effectively reduce skin blemishes. It’s one of the best choices for instant relief from fever. It can reduce swelling to any body parts within short periods. Marigold is also one of the best herbs for headaches and tooth aches. Its anti-inflammatory properties help cure allergies, prevent tumors and also optimize the growth of new blood vessels.
4. Tansy
If you’ve decided to backpack through Europe instead of the mountains of Mexico (but why?), you’ll want to know about a few helpful medicinal plants. Tansy is an old-world aster and remedy, used for flavoring beer and stews as well as repelling insects. Rubbing the leaves on the skin provides an effective bug repellent, but tansy can also be used to treat worms. It is said to be poisonous when extracted, but a few leaves are not harmful if ingested.
5. Lady Ferns Lady ferns are long light green plants native to the northern hemisphere and one of the oldest plants on Earth. They also heal a number of diseases in naturally. It is a recommended herb for fevers and coughs, prevention against worms and defending against asthma, pneumonia and bronchitis. They are also effective for cuts and sunburns.
6. Alfalfa Alfalfa is fodder for livestock for a reason: it’s incredibly rich in minerals and health-promoting nutrients and compounds. With roots that grow 20 to 30 feet deep, alfalfa is considered the “father of all plants”. (It also contains a high amount of protein for a green.) Alfalfa originally grew in the Mediterranean and Middle East but has now spread to most of Europe and the Americans. It can treat morning sickness, nausea, kidney stones, kidney pain and urinary discomfort. It is a powerful diuretic and has a bit of stimulant power, helping to energize after a bout with illness. It’s a liver and bowel cleanser and long-term can help reduce cholesterol. You can purchase seeds and sprouts, but it’s fine to eat the leaves straight from the earth.
7. Tea Tree Tea tree is one of the most powerful plants effective against dangerous bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. It effectively prevents insects and can cure insects bites almost instantly. Tea tree oil is one of the best solutions to keep fungus at bay and also prevent against head lice. It gives quick relief from cuts and burns and also is one of the fastest ways to remove dandruff. Tea tree also effective for headaches and colds.
8. Catnip
The cannabis of the cat kingdom. Famous for making cats deliriously crazy, catnip has health properties that are great for humans, too. Catnip can relieve cold symptoms (helpful if you’re on a camping trip and don’t have access to Nyquil). It’s useful in breaking a fever as it promotes sweating. Catnip also helps stop excessive bleeding and swelling when applied rather than ingested. This mint plant (yep, another one) is also reportedly helpful in treating gas, stomach aches, and migraines. Catnip can stimulate uterine contractions, so it should not be consumed by pregnant women. It grows in the Northern Hemisphere.
9. Thyme Thyme is widely used as an aromatic plant, as well as an edible one. It effectively prevents small insects and provides many many health benefits mainly for lung problems such as shortness in breath. It provides better prevention against foodborne bacterial infections than any medication and keeps blood pressure level. It reduces the risk of colon cancer and is also a remedy for skin problems such as dryness, redness and swelling. It acts as a relaxing herb by calming down the nervous system.
10. Sage Sage is an incredibly useful herb, widely considered to be perhaps the most valuable herb. It is anti-flammatory, anti-oxidant, and antifungal. In fact, according to a noted resource World’s Healthiest Foods, “Its reputation as a panacea is even represented in its scientific name, Salvia officinalis, derived from the Latin word, salvere, which means ‘to be saved’.” It was used as a preservative for meat before the advent of refrigeration (eminently useful: you never know when you’ll be forced to hunt in the wild). Sage aids digestion, relieves cramps, reduces diarrhea, dries up phlegm, fights colds, reduces inflammation and swelling, acts as a salve for cuts and burns, and kills bacteria. Sage apparently even brings color back to gray hair. A definite concern when lost in the woods.
11. Brucea Javanica
Beyond limited empirical observations, not all medicinal plants have established scientific studies to support their effectiveness. However, in the case of Brucea javanica, it is one of those plants in which scientific investigations have provided enough evidence to prove that it has an impressive efficacy for the treatment of cervical, bladder and pancreatic cancers. Its selective toxicity has also been found to kill 70% of breast cancer cells. Brucea javanica (Brucea javanica (L.) Merr) is one of those plants that needs far more recognition in this catergory for its incredible ability to selectively kill cancer cells.
12. Navajo Tea
Also called greenthread, Plains Tea or Coyote Plant, this plant has been used for centuries by Native Americans to quickly relieve that most brutal and irritating of infections: the UTI (urinary tract infection). Best when made into a tea or decoction.
13. Red Clover
Native to Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia, red clover is now ubiquitous worldwide. The plant’s reddish pink blossoms can be used for coughs and colds, but they are an excellent detoxifier and blood cleanser as well.
14. Sweet Marjoram
Marjoram and oregano are often used interchangeably, but the aromatic sweet marjoram is slightly different. The Greeks called it the “Joy of the Mountain” and it was revered throughout the Mediterranean for its fragrance, flavor and medicinal value. The famous French herbs de provence and Middle Eastern za’atar both use sweet marjoram. Marjoram has many uses (it’s a famous digestive aid) but it is effective as an antifungal, antibacterial and disinfectant treatment in a pinch.
15. Feverfew Feverfew is a plant that has well-known and documented health properties and medicinal benefits, yet it’s barely ever mentioned in health circles. This anti-inflammatory can treat rheumatism, arthritis and, most famously, migraine headaches and tension headaches. It’s also good for alleviating tension and general anxiety (it is a natural serotonin inhibitor). It also helps to reduce swelling and bruising. Though feverfew is most effective when taken daily, it can be a helpful pain reliever when no Advil is on hand.
16. Sweet Violet
Native to Europe and Asia, sweet violet is cultivated around the world and is a pleasant, delicate purple color. When brewed into a syrup the plant is effective as a treatment for colds, flu and coughs or sore throat. However, when made as a tea, it is wonderfully effective for relieving headaches and muscle and body pain.
17. Winter Savory Winter savory is your savior against insect bites and stings. One of the most effective natural plant treatments for bug bites is originally from Europe and the Mediterranean but often shows up elsewhere thanks to global trade. In addition to being an antiseptic, it is delicious — used for flavoring meats and stews — and all parts are edible.
About the author: Mae Chan holds degrees in both physiology and nutritional sciences. She is also blogger and and technology enthusiast with a passion for disseminating information about health.
Conner Habib’s series The Sex Radicals will be appearing regularly this summer on Reality Sandwich.
“Civilization has not yet begun.” –Wilhelm Reich (1897 – 1957)
To view sexologist and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich as our culture views him, move through his life backwards. When he’s remembered today, he’s summed up and dismissed by his sad ending. He’s thought of mostly as a madman, dying alone in prison, a fraud, discredited by the government.
To view his life as one of his supporters, move through it from the beginning of his career to the end; he worked tirelessly to help others, and was eventually driven mad by the mad world he lived in.
To really understand Reich, the narrative shouldn’t be backwards/forwards. We should look instead at his ideas — whether they are true or false — and the possibilities they create for us. Instead of taking a linear approach, we can take a sexual one. Pain and pleasure intertwined. Thought and action. Tension and release. View Wilhelm Reich as a paradox: a man who revealed a new, loving world to us in an angry language we still can’t understand, a man whose work was officially dismissed as ludicrous but also taken seriously enough to merit governmental seizure and destruction when all his journals, books, and papers were burned by the FDA.
Here’s a lengthy quote from Reich’s book, The Murder of Christ: The Emotional Plague of Mankind, which, complete with shouting capital letters, shows him in all his glory: a profoundly clear thinker, ranting in a crazy tone, shocking us with truth and confusion all at once.
“It IS possible to get out of a trap. However, in order to break out of a prison, one first must confess to being in a prison. The trap is man’s emotional structure, his character structure. There is little use in devising systems of thought about the nature of the trap if the only thing to do in order to get out of the trap is to know the trap and to find the exit. Everything else is utterly useless…
The first thing to do is to find the exit out of the trap.
The nature of the trap has no interest whatsoever beyond this one crucial point: WHERE IS THE EXIT OUT OF THE TRAP?
One can decorate a trap to make life more comfortable in it.
This is done by the Michelangelos and the Shakespeares and the Goethes. One can invent makeshift contraptions to secure longer life in the trap. This is done by the great scientists and physicians, the Meyers and the Pasteurs and the Flemings. One can devise great art in healing broken bones when one falls into the trap.
The crucial point still is and remains: to find the exit out of the trap…
The exit remains hidden. It is the greatest riddle of all. The most ridiculous as well as tragic thing is this:
THE EXIT IS CLEARLY VISIBLE TO ALL TRAPPED IN THE HOLE. YET NOBODY SEEMS TO SEE IT. EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE THE EXIT IS. YET NOBODY SEEMS TO MAKE A MOVE TOWARD IT. MORE: WHOEVER MOVES TOWARD THE EXIT, OR WHOEVER POINTS TOWARD IT IS DECLARED CRAZY OR A CRIMINAL OR A SINNER TO BURN IN HELL.
It turns out that the trouble is not with the trap or even with finding the exit. The trouble is WITHIN THE TRAPPED ONES.
All this is, seen from outside the trap, incomprehensible to a simple mind. It is even somehow insane. Why don’t they see and move toward the clearly visible exit? As soon as they get close to the exit they start screaming and run away from it. As soon as anyone among them tries to get out, they kill him. Only a very few slip out of the trap in the dark night when everybody is asleep.”
Reich was an Austrian-born student of Sigmund Freud’s; he was a promising figure in psychoanalysis who eventually departed from the circles that praised him. Contrary to the common condemnation of psychoanalysis for its preoccupation with sex, Reich’s idea was that it didn’t focus on sex enough.
For Reich sex was it.
He allowed the mysteries of sexuality and sexual drives to lead him to a deep and frantic understanding of our culture. It’s an understanding that shakes you away as you follow, and I can’t claim to understand it fully. To read Reich is to allow yourself to live in inspiration rather than total clarity. So here are four of his basic concepts, which intertwine and grow out of one another:
Character analysis, character armor, orgastic potency, and orgone energy.
With his concept of character analysis, Reich worked to examine what people’s resistances to health and happiness were. Why were they avoiding wholeness and integration? How did they excuse themselves into surviving — knowingly or unknowingly — in suffering? Unlike analysts before him, Reich sought to be more precise and less moralizing. What are the moments of your life, he wanted to know, that have led to your characteristic defensive behaviors? We have a torrent of emotions within us awaiting expression, we are shamed into silence by our families, our cultures, our partners. The chilling effect of these outside forces turns our emotions into “frozen history.”
If this aspect of character analysis seems common, Reich’s theory of character armor and the corresponding concept of orgastic potency are still waiting to be embraced. Character armor was premised on the idea that the body is a sort of material reflection of the emotional state. Or to use Simone de Beauvoir’s words, “The body isn’t a thing, it’s a situation; it’s our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.” Whenever we have a defensive emotional gesture, it becomes bound up in our situations, our projects, our bodies, stuck like a choke. For instance, people with anxiety issues often have shallow breathing patterns or tense jaws. These knots in the body stop energetic flow and cause all sorts of health and mood problems that might seem unrelated to the initial characteristic defense.
If you’re flinching at the word “energetic,” you’ll want to know that Reich tried to flesh out what that meant. As with much of his work, he both succeeded and failed. His concept of “energy” was sexual energy, a refined version of the psychoanalytic idea of “libido.” He believed sexual excitation underlies many of our motivations, but also that it is a continuation of the creation of life itself. The same exuberant force that leads to life is what makes us happy and healthy. Sex creates us, and our lives and motivations are living praise of that creative act; our painful behavior is a contracted, angry refusal to acknowledge our sexual being-ness.
Reich understood culture as a giant sexual expression gagging on tangles of repression. The stored up sexual energy and frustration of a culture becomes oppressive. The Nazis (whom Reich later fled), for example, opposed birth control, abortion, contraception, and homosexuality. They were totally sexually repressed. One of Reich’s revolutionary stances was to support sexual freedom, even if he was against a particular sexual practice. It was a typically Reichian paradox. For instance, he wasn’t thoughtful enough to allow homosexuality to be “healthy,” but he did fight against anti-gay stigmatization and legislation.
The taboo, he knew, was always more dangerous than the act.
Modern-day Reichians have carried on his work to explain how cultures co-create our character armor. Class and gender inequality as well as adverse environmental conditions create a positive feedback loop. Sexual repression occurs as a result of poverty, which creates armored behavior, which creates more repression, and so on. And certain environmental factors echo familial ones. “…the emotional responses of a child to famine and starvation are similar to those stemming from maternal rejection or isolation — rearing factors which are known to have powerful disturbing effects upon later adult behavior,” writes neo-Reichian researcher James Dameo.
Reich was invested in individual responsibility, but was also a true pioneer in pointing out that it’s not you that’s fucked up, it’s culture.
Individuals are not merely selves — they are conglomerates of cultural pulses and counterpulses. Or, as biologist and symbiosis expert Lynn Margulis once put it, “Identity is not an object; it is a process with addresses for all the different directions and dimensions in which it moves…”
How to dissolve the character armor? Sex.
To free up sexual excitation and dissolve character armor, one must be able to immerse him/herself in sex, and to have a liberating orgasm. The orgasm was of primary importance to Reich, and “orgastic potency” was how fully you experienced it. The orgasm was the event of release; all the stored up excitation left the body, resulting in total relaxation and harmony. In essence, orgastic potency measures a person’s ability to surrender, relax, and release neuroses and psychoses.
Before we start shooting our celebratory confetti into the air, Reich was specific about the sorts of orgasm you could have. Not all orgasms were equal. You had to be thoughtful about your total immersion. People who weren’t, as well as people who were merely intelligent about sex without really engaging in deep thought or practice of it, were, for Wilhelm Reich, merely sexually sophisticated rather than sexually liberated. It’s a dichotomy that should haunt every sex-positive person to the core until they come to terms with it. That doesn’t mean accepting Reich’s terms for who is sophisticated versus liberated; take those or leave them. But it’s true that standard cultural sex education and good feelings about sex aren’t what separate the sex radicals from the openly horny. Sexual liberation of ourselves and culture is a deep and unending work.
Reich developed a few methods to release stuck energy and increase orgastic potency. Most prominent was vegetotherapy. A patient lies on a table and breathes deeply and rhythmically to build up excitation and heighten emotion. The Reichian therapist sits close by, speaking gently. Relax, relax, release your muscles. Often, a scream or a flood of tears erupts from the patient.
Many popular forms of alternative medicine, such as the Alexander Technique, bioenergetics, and Rolfing are new versions of vegetotherapy, seeking to thaw frozen histories. But if these techniques are known, their ties to Reich are often secret, severed, or ignored.
Then Reich discovered cosmic energy. And that’s when the feds came.
Reich’s idea of libidinous sexual energy began to morph, through the lens of his theories and studies, into a stranger principle of “orgone” energy. Orgone energy was “a subtle biophysical energy which permeates all living things.” For Reich, orgone was the truth behind what people called God, a scientific principle to explain away mysticism. It was free-flowing and, because it was free, it could be used to help people undo character armor. To this end, he created orgone “accumulators,” which would gather the energy and allow people who sat inside the boxes to absorb the benefits. He also turned his accumulator inside out into a “cloudbuster,” a sort of rainmaking device which helped disperse atmospheric orgone energy knots.
People were sick. Culture was sick. Even the sky was sick. At the center, Wilhelm Reich was trying to heal everyone. In the process, he absorbed their illnesses.
Most of Reich’s later work revolved around orgone energy, and much of it yielded provocative data. But Reich’s theories were too intangible and unintelligible. Orgone energy was never clearly defined enough to communicate his research to many others, and unfortunately, Reich would publicly vent the frustration of being misunderstood again and again, isolating potential allies. When Albert Einstein visited Reich, for example, and stood in an accumulator, he noted that there was a temperature change in the box, but believed it could have been just a run-of-the-mill temperature gradient. Many others had experienced this temperature change (including in boxes other than the ones Reich made and ones manufactured today), and Reich created controls against such normal gradients. But rather than absorb Einstein’s report as data, he repeatedly wrote to Einstein pressuring him to reassess his position. When Einstein didn’t respond, Reich called it a conspiracy and published a book about it.
Reich wanted to help free us from a history of repressions, and by helping us, finally begin civilization. But what gets frozen in a man who tries to unfreeze history, and fails?
We can still take up his lesson: Sex runs through culture like a hidden line of power, and where we don’t release it, where we don’t help each other come to our senses, we hurt ourselves and everyone else.
However we look at the paradoxical figure of Wilhelm Reich, we’re unsettled.
Maybe Reich was so crazy that he created an entire theoretical world out of himself, a world now available to us for to think about, mull over, fear, delight in. Or maybe he was so sane that he showed us we’re all crazy.
Kate Bush’s song, “Cloudbusting,” calls up Reich’s final days, from the viewpoint of his son.
On top of the world
Looking over the edge
You could see them coming
You looked too small
In their big black car
To be a threat to the men in power
Reich was a powerless threat to everyone in power.
He’s still a threat. The more we forget him, the more potent discovering him again becomes.
In order to get in your body, you must stop criticizing your body or judging your body in any way. You must love your body and 
are used to make recipes and drinks. Flowers, leafs and roots of dandelion are used to make food items for medicinal purposes. The act as a cleaning tonic for blood vessels while effectively increasing the functionality of the liver. They balance blood sugar and cholesterol levels. They also prevent gallstones and improve the functioning of the pancreas.
is fodder for livestock for a reason: it’s incredibly rich in minerals and health-promoting nutrients and compounds. With roots that grow 20 to 30 feet deep, alfalfa is considered the “father of all plants”. (It also contains a high amount of protein for a green.) Alfalfa originally grew in the Mediterranean and Middle East but has now spread to most of Europe and the Americans. It can treat morning sickness, nausea, kidney stones, kidney pain and urinary discomfort. It is a powerful diuretic and has a bit of stimulant power, helping to energize after a bout with illness. It’s a liver and bowel cleanser and long-term can help reduce cholesterol. You can purchase seeds and sprouts, but it’s fine to eat the leaves straight from the earth.
