Alice. 5600

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good morning Alice

Those pictures are worth a thousand words.

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Good morning, TZ

:)

I should be doing homework....

What are your plans for the day?

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Mourning Plans

after I finish Mourning about the pain and anger that seems ubiquitous in the world today I will try to remember the GREAT WORDS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING.

I have a couple of friends who slipped back into heavy drinking and I am trying to be a stabilizing energy.

I will channel my energies into the guitar

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Memorial Services For Martin



Memorial Services For Martin Luther King Jr. - '69 Washington
Date taken: 1969
Photographer: Charles Phillips

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Casket of assassinated civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being carried through streets on a mule-drawn wagon.
Location: Atlanta, GA, US
Date taken: March 1968
Photographer: Lynn Pelham

Book Review: Richard Bach’s Hypnotizing Maria

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Lucca

What a powerful little book! It’s another one of those books that ‘fell off the shelf’ at the library and I just had to take it home. I’ve been reading Richard Bach since I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the hot new book that was being passed around my grade nine class. He captured my imagination by writing about esoteric subjects in fiction, with enough metaphor to allow the richness that I love in a book that is about to expand my consciousness. Richard comes back over and over to the ways in which we create our own reality. I never seem to tire of it!

Richard was friends with the infamous Jane Roberts and Robert Butts of ‘Seth’ fame. I didn’t know that until long after Jane was dead but it figures. The concepts in his books are not all that different from what I was reading in the ‘Seth’ books. Not that I’m accusing Richard of stealing ideas; I think that great ideas makes sense and can be written about by many people and enjoyed and explored by still many more.

This latest book looks at the idea of how we could be creating our own reality and how we might be able to change how we do it. It was a timely book for me to pick up because my most recent blog was about the changes that I expect to see in the near future. This new decade feels important to me because of the huge potential and imperative we have to make changes that can make our lives more peaceful, bountiful, loving and creative. I don’t really want to live in a world that isn’t like that so I have been giving thought to how I can live my life as close to fulfilling what I see as my life purpose as I possibly can.

I see my purpose as helping individuals and groups to find their own unique power so that they can find expression for their talents and share them in their communities. Hopefully, if as many of us as possible can do that, we will be able to build a bridge to the kind of society that I imagine is possible.

Since I regard my life as a petri dish for my ideas, I am constantly looking for ways in which I can become more self-aware and integrate my philosophies into my life. In the weeks since the new year, I have been reading two books. Hypnotizing Maria is one and Sitting in the Fire by Arnold Mindell is the other. Whenever I read books at the same time, I look for how they might be related and I am incubating some theories about these two.

I invite you to watch my latest vlog to see my review of Hypnotizing Maria and what it brings to mind for me. I explain what he means by hypnotizing. Due to the time constraints on YouTube and the space constraints on my web site, as well as here on WordPress, I will let you go to YouTube to watch it.

Right here, in writing, I can expand and say that I think that I have hypnotized myself around two main areas: 1) how acceptable it is for me to say what I really think about the kind of society we have the potential to create and 2) that I am working hard at redefining what the concept of money means to me, relative to what it means in our global economy. Talk about a big challenge for myself in the coming year!

I’ll have to come back on this topic next time. I hope I have inspired you to make the time to read the book and I look forward to your feedback. Happy reading!

http://longbonyfingeroftheuniverse.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/book-review-...

The World View of William James

JANE ROBERTS wrote a book entitled:

The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James* (1978)
This book presents the world view of the philosopher William James (1842-1910) as he has developed it since he left his body. He comments on the limitations of his outlook when in our reality, analyzes U.S. cultural development in the light of what he has discovered since his "death," and describes the reality in which he is now focused. His account of "God," whom he refers to as the "the knowing light" is deeply moving. This work is one of Jane's productions while in a state of altered consciousness.

So....
Who was William James?
He is considered One of The Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy

I. Introduction

In a paper on "How To Make Your Ideas Clear," contributed to the Popular Science Monthly in 1878, Charles Sanders Pierce first used the word "pragmatism" to designate a principle put forward by him as a rule for guiding the scientist and the mathematician. The principle is that the meaning of any conception in the mind is the practical effect it will have in action. The rule remained unnoticed for twenty years, until it was taken up by Professor William James in the address he delivered at the University of California in 1898.

II. Life and Works

William James (picture), psychologist and philosopher, was born in New York in 1842 and died in 1910. He was the son of philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of novelist Henry James. He studied medicine at Harvard University, and went to Germany to complete his studies in psychology in 1867. After his return to America, he taught at Harvard, and later, for short periods, at Columbia University and at Stanford.

James was the founder of the movement of thought called Pragmatism, which not only spread throughout America, but also over Europe as the fashionable philosophy for more than twenty years. At Harvard, he had been a member of "The Metaphysical Club," an informal group that met to discuss philosophy and included Charles Sanders Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Chauncey Wright, all of whom were to become well known in the pragmatist movement.

James is generally considered not only the most influential of all American philosophers but the very representative of American thought. However, the results of his thinking are by no means confined to his native country, and his background is anything but exclusively American. Very few American families maintained such intimate contact with Europe as did Henry James, Sr., a theologian and philosophical writer, and a great amateur of wide culture, and his sons William and Henry, the great novelist, who, on his part, was more at home in France and England than in the land of his birth.

After receiving his medical degree, James suffered a period of illness, but in 1873 he was able to accept an appointment as instructor in anatomy and physiology at Harvard. Two years later he began teaching psychology, and in 1879, philosophy. James remained at Harvard, with only a few interruptions in his academic career, until his resignation in 1907. The works of Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill were important influences in James's early thinking; Henri Bergson was important both personally and philosophically in his later years, as was John Dewey, who carried on the leadership of the pragmatist movement after James's death.

In his youth, William James desired to become known as a painter. But, while living with art, he learned that he could live without art, and turned to medicine and the natural sciences. However, his early study of painting was no labor lost. On the contrary, James derived from it his pictorial manner of philosophizing, which does not involve picturesqueness of style but rather his talents for conveying the present aspect of a situation, for finding immediate joy in the variety of appearances from which he proceeded to enjoy the various psychic experiences, while being capable of describing them in scientific terms, coined afresh, without much regard to traditional terminology.

Such blending of scientific sagacity with artistic sensibility, such psychological perspicacity, enriched and refined by his previous study of art, and disciplined by scientific training, are characteristics of James's brilliant lectures and writing, and the cause of his great success. His gifts became known to the public in 1890 when his Principles of Psychology appeared, marking a new period in this special branch of science and foreshadowing his turn to philosophy.

It was the latent artist in James that made his treatment of moral, epistemological, and metaphysical problems a revolt of the spirit of immediate concrete experience against the intellectualistic idealism. James's radical empiricism maintains the plurality of the real units of which, according to him, experience consists, against any harmonizing or simplifying monism. Pragmatism, as James defines his empiricism, has become of immense consequence in modern thinking.

His principal philosophical works are: Principles of Psychology; The Will to Believe; The Varieties of Religious Experience; and Pragmatism.

III. The Pragmatic Method

In his famous work The Principles of Psychology (1890), James developed the view, in opposition to the more traditional associationism, that consciousness functions in an active, purposeful way to relate and organize thoughts, giving them a streamlike continuity. In the history of psychology, James's theory of mind is called functionalism. James had established an international reputation in psychology before his main focus turned to philosophy, and many of his philosophical views have their roots in his psychological studies.

James starts from a Positivist viewpoint, that is, from experience, which for him is established by psychological facts. The psychological facts make their appearance as an undifferentiated stream. In this psychic stream the mind makes a distinction between subject and object, sensations and concepts. Concepts arise out of the necessity of organizing the confused facts of experience. Hence their value is not absolute but relative to their utility in practice, i.e., relative to their practical consequences (Pragmatism).

"The pragmatic method," says James, "tries to interpret each notion (concept) by tracing its respective practical consequences." The value of concepts whose practical consequences have not yet been experienced scientifically, depends upon the will. Thus between two hypotheses, neither of which can be tested scientifically, the choice is made by the will on the basis of utility.

For example, the question of the existence of God is reduced to the following: "What would be the practical consequences if we believed that matter produces all things, or if we believed that God exists and that the world is the work of His providence?" In the first hypothesis, James observes, the world would appear deeply enshrouded in the coldness of death; in the second hypothesis the world appears solid, warm,, full of real meaning. Thus our choice must be made in favor of the second hypothesis.

James considered pragmatism to be both a method for analyzing philosophic problems and a theory of truth. He also saw it as an extension of the empiricist attitude in that it turned away from abstract theory and fixed or absolute principles and toward concrete facts, actions, and relative principles. James considered philosophies to be expressions of personal temperament and developed a correlation between "tough-minded" and "tender-minded" temperaments and empiricist and rationalist positions in philosophy. Theories, he felt, are "instruments" that humans use to solve problems and should be judged in terms of their "cash value" or practical consequences for human conduct.

He developed the notion of truth as a "leading" that is useful: it can change as human experience changes. The morality, as well as the truth, of an idea or action should be judged, according to James, in a similar way -- in terms of its outcome in human experience. In The Will to Believe (1897) and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), James examined the problem of belief in cases in which no immediate evidence exists on which to base one's belief. He concluded that in the area of religious commitment, belief can create its own truth through the effects created in the experience of the believer by his "willing nature." Belief in God is thus pragmatically justified if it makes a positive difference in the experience of the believer.

IV. The Negation of Philosophy

In A Pluralistic Universe (1909) and Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912), James developed his metaphysical position: there is no fixed external world to be discovered by one's mind but instead a "humming-buzzing confusion" that one organizes through experience. The universe, as well as one's knowledge of it, is continuously evolving. Never complete, it cannot be reduced to a single underlying substance.

Neither materialistic nor spiritualistic monism satisfied William James. The individual is a mere puppet in the hands of absolute substance, be it universal matter or universal mind. The test of a theory, belief, doctrine, must be its effect upon us, its practical consequences -- the pragmatic test: whatever works is true. The possession of truth is not an in itself but a preliminary means to vital satisfaction. Knowledge is an instrument for the sake of life, existing as practical utility. True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. Truth is, therefore, useful because it is true, it is true because it is useful.

James's empiricism opposes classical rationalism and traditional empiricism. He denies that whatever is rational is real. To reach reality we must take experience as it exists before it has been manipulated by conceptual thinking. Reality is the flux of our sensations coming from what we know not. It is the totality of consciousness, experience permeated with thought. Reality is ever in the making, growing where thinking beings are at work.

James's radical empiricism makes for pluralism, multiplicity, diversity, opposition either in quantity or quality. Pluralism satisfies man's moral nature, recognizes individual perceptions. It is melioristic; if each man will do his best, the universe cannot fail. In such a world man is free to seek his ideal.

CRITICAL NOTE: The only metaphysics consistent with James's theory of knowledge has to be based on a selection from among a multitude of opinions. This eclectic approach is clearly the negation of philosophy, for it does not lead to any absolute or to any certitude. James sought to avoid this difficulty and to reach the absolute and God by having recourse to the unconscious mind.

V. Consciousness and the Subconscious

James's psychology gives foundation to his empiricism. Consciousness is active and a unity. It is selective and teleological. It carves out man's world. The will, by making a strong idea focal to the exclusion of others, fills the mind and prepares for action. The intellect isolates and integrates "things," imputes reality to them, through the emotional and active life, and conceives them pragmatically. The unity of consciousness is thorough connectedness, a flowing stream, "substantive" parts shading into one another through the "transitive" parts, surrounded by a "fringe" or "feeling of tendency."

He acknowledges a stream of experiences but not a stream of conscious experiences. Therewith he denies that in knowledge the relation between the knowing subject and the object to be known is fundamental, which almost all modern philosophers had taken for granted. This denial has induced many contemporary philosophers, though opposed to James's views, to reconsider the bases and starting points of their own thoughts.

James discovered besides, around and beneath the conscious mind, a darkened psychical zone, the zone of the subconscious, in which -- he believed -- the highest spiritual values, such as genius, sanctity and so forth, were formed, and contact was established with the absolute.

CRITICAL NOTES: James's discovery of the subconscious mind was surely a great contribution to psychology and won for James world-wide fame. But we cannot accept James's doctrine that the highest spiritual values originate in the subconscious mind, for the subconscious mind is irrational and therefore the highest spiritual values would be founded on irrationality -- a supposition which is absurd. James may justify in this way his stand as a liberal Protestant; he may be quoted as a father of Modernism; but no one can deny that his religious position is in complete opposition to the basic statement of his pragmatism -- for it does not lead to any solution, to any practical certitude, to any justification of the universe.

If the only road leading to the supreme spiritual reality is to be found in the analysis of psychological emotions, of religious sentiment, objective Christian dogma disappears. It is modified and replaced by the subjective exigencies of each individual, and thus every believer creates his own religion, his own truth. This, of course, is the central position of Modernism. The logical consequence is that even the nature of God will be understood differently according to various religious emotions. In fact the sincere religious tendency of James himself stumbles along and falls into a pluralistic conception of Divinity. God is finite, He exists in time -- a being among many beings, and like us, a creator of His own story.

How can any satisfaction be found in such a religion? Even from the viewpoint of Pragmatism, it cannot work, for in it none of the fundamental aspirations of mankind are fulfilled. There is no certitude, no hope, no absolute. How can such a limited God guarantee the order of the physical and of the human world? What is left of the world of spirits?

Religious Pragmatism is merely a shortsighted, emotional and irrational attempt to replace dogmatic, absolute and universal truth with the personal fancies of the man in the street. It is morally disastrous, for if truth depends upon subjective feeling, any action can be justified by virtue of the satisfaction it procures. Such a philosophy makes man his own judge and leads to total moral anarchy.

* Essay: by William James

Pragmatism

Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their "agreement," as falsity means their disagreement, with "reality." Pragmatists and intellectualists both accept this definition as a matter of course. They begin to quarrel only after the question is raised as to what may precisely be meant by the term "agreement," and what by the term "reality," when reality is taken as something for our ideas to agree with.

In answering these questions the pragmatists are more analytic and painstaking, the intellectualists more offhand and irreflective. The popular notion is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other popular views, this one follows the analogy of the most usual experience. Our true ideas of sensible things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes and think of yonder clock on the wall, and you get just such a true picture or copy of its dial. But your idea of its "works" (unless you are a clockmaker) is much less of a copy, yet it passes muster, for it in no way clashes with the reality. Even though it should shrink to the mere word "works," that word still serves you truly; and when you speak of the "time-keeping function" of the clock, or of its spring's "elasticity," it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can copy.

You perceive that there is a problem here. Where our ideas cannot copy definitely their object, what does agreement with that object mean? Some idealists seem to say that they are true whenever they are what God means that we ought to think about that object. Others hold the copy-view all through, and speak as if our ideas possessed truth just in proportion as they approach to being copies of the Absolute's eternal way of thinking.

These views, you see, invite pragmatistic discussion. But the great assumption of the intellectualists is that truth means essentially an inert static relation. When you've got your true idea of anything, there's an end of the matter. You're in possession; you know; you have fulfilled your thinking destiny. You are where you ought to be mentally; you have obeyed your categorical imperative; and nothing more need follow on that climax of your rational destiny. Epistemologically you are in stable equilibrium.

Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in any one's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?"

The moment pragmatism asks this question, it sees the answer: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we can not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.

This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.

But what do the words verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula -- just such consequences being what we have in mind whenever we say that our ideas "agree" with reality. They lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other parts of experience with which we feel all the while -- such feeling being among our potentialities -- that the original ideas remain in agreement. The connections and transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an idea's verification. Such an account is vague and it sounds at first quite trivial, but it has results which it will take the rest of my hour to explain.

Let me begin by reminding you of the fact that the possession of true thoughts means everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments of action; and that our duty to gain truth, so far from being a blank command from out of the blue, or a "stunt" self-imposed by our intellect, can account for itself by excellent practical reasons.

The importance to human life of having true beliefs about matters of fact is a thing too notorious. We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect count as the true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. The possession of truth, so far from being here an end in itself, is only a preliminary means toward other vital satisfactions. If I am lost in the woods and starved, and find what looks I like a cow path, it is of the utmost importance that I should think of a human habitation at the end of it, for if I do so and follow it, I save myself. The true thought is useful here because the house which is its object is useful. The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily derived from the practical importance of their objects to us. Their objects are, indeed, not important at all times. I may on another occasion have no use for the house; and then my idea of it, however verifiable, will be practically irrelevant, and had better remain latent. Yet since almost any object may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a general stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely possible situations, is obvious. We store such extra truths away in our memories, and with the overflow we our books of reference. Whenever such an extra truth becomes practically relevant to one of our emergencies, it passes from cold storage to do work in the world and our belief in it grows active. You can say of it then either that "it is useful because it is true" or that "it is true because it is useful." Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing, namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and can be verified. True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience. True ideas would never have been singled out as such, would never have acquired a class-name, least of all a name suggesting value, unless they had been useful from the outset in this way.

From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as something essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in our experience may lead us towards other moments which it will be worth while to have been led to. Primarily, and on the common sense level, the truth of a state of mind means this function of a leading that is worth while. When a moment in our experience, of any kind whatever, inspires us with a thought that is true, that means that sooner or later we dip by that thought's guidance into the particulars of experience again and make advantageous connection with them. This is a vague enough statement, but I beg you to retain it, for it is essential.

"The true," to put it briefly, is only the expedient in, the way of our thinking, just as "the right" is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole of course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won't necessarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily. Experience, as we know, has ways of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.

The "absolutely" true, meaning what no farther experience will ever alter, is that ideal vanishing-point towards which we imagine that all our temporary truths will some day converge. It runs on all fours with the perfectly wise man, and with the absolutely complete experience; and, if these ideals are ever realized, they will all be realized together. Meanwhile we have to live to-day by what truth we can get to-day, and be ready to-morrow to call it falsehood. Ptolemaic astronomy, euclidean space, aristotelian logic, scholastic metaphysics, were expedient for centuries, but human experience has boiled over those limits, and we now call these things only relatively true, or true within those borders of experience. "Absolutely" they are false; for we know that those limits were casual, and might have been transcended by past theorists just as they are by present thinkers.

When new experiences lead to retrospective judgments, using the past tense, what these judgments utter was true, even though no past thinker had been led there. We live forwards, a Danish thinker has said, but we understand backwards. The present sheds a backward light on the world's previous processes. They may have been truth-processes for the actors in them. They are not so for one who knows the later revelations of the story.

This regulative notion of a potential better truth to be established later, possibly to be established some day absolutely, and having powers of retroactive legislation, turns its face, like all pragmatist notions, towards concreteness of fact, and towards the future. Like the half-truths, the absolute truth will have to be made, made as a relation incidental to the growth of a mass of verification-experience, to which the half true ideas are all along contributing their quota.

I have already insisted on the fact that truth is made largely out of previous truths. Men's beliefs at any time are so much experience funded. But the beliefs are themselves parts of the sum total of the world's experience, and become matter, therefore, for the next day's funding operations. So far as reality means experienceable reality, both it and the truths men gain about it are everlastingly in process of mutation towards a definite goal -- it may be -- but still mutation.

Mathematicians can solve problems with two variables. On the Newtonian theory, for instance, acceleration varies with distance, but distance also varies with acceleration. In the realm of truth-processes facts come independently and determine our beliefs provisionally. But these beliefs make us act, and as fast as they do so, they bring into sight or into existence new facts which re-determine the beliefs accordingly. So the whole coil and ball of truth, as it rolls up, is the product of a double influence. Truths emerge from facts; but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The "facts" themselves meanwhile are not true. They simple are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them.

The case is like a snowball's growth, due as it is to the distribution of the snow on the one hand, and to the successive pushes of the boys on the other, with these factors co-determining each other incessantly.

Excerpted from Pragmatism, by William James

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley

[snip]


...
Then first, two glittering lights were seen to glide
In circles on the amethystine floor,
Small serpent eyes trailing from side to side,
Like meteors on a river's grassy shore,
They round each other rolled, dilating more
And more--then rose, commingling into one,
One clear and mighty planet hanging o'er
A cloud of deepest shadow, which was thrown
Athwart the glowing steps and the crystalline throne.

The cloud which rested on that cone of flame
Was cloven; beneath the planet sate a Form,
Fairer than tongue can speak or thought may frame,
The radiance of whose limbs rose-like and warm
Flowed forth, and did with softest light inform
The shadowy dome, the sculptures, and the state
Of those assembled shapes--with clinging charm
Sinking upon their hearts and mine. He sate
Majestic, yet most mild--calm, yet compassionate.
...

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4800/pg4800.html



OMFG Alice! I love that lil' chick

up top. :D

Now on my blog.... ;)

I'm not clear how this actually happened...Pierce and I were sitting together after a long afternoon of errands and watching a documentary on netflix about the 9/11 families...at some point I had him stop the movie so I could show him the recent article on global research website by David Ray Griffin about the cell phone calls to the ground from the airplanes. [insert long story about the worm.win32.netsky virus we got in the middle of viewing these two websites]..

Anyway...I glanced over to the far side of where Pierce was sitting and I saw the top of one of our cats appear as he walked in the room. He is a light grey cat, named Bobby. At the same time as I knew it was Bobby approaching, our darker grey cat Blue popped into my mind!! The horror! I said to Pierce "OMG, where's Blue?" His eyebrows went up as mine just had and we realized that our beloved, atomic-uppie giving, blue/grey long haired cat Blue was gone. And not just gone, but after some time we realized we haven't seen him since around the 2nd week in December! The last time we remember seeing him was when Pierce's brother was visiting us for an ebay lesson, Pierce showed him Blue's atomic-uppies trick and we were proud of him for showing off for company for us, I recall. Do you have any idea what's gone on in our lives since then? Neither of us can fathom, and are both truly baffled at how we could forget about one of the star kitties in the house...I mean I notice when any cat is not doing it's normal thing within a few hours....

It came to me that Blue maybe knew how emotional we are about taking care of our brood of felines...When I notice one is gone I stand out front and back like a, pardon me, crazy cat lady, calling their names out each door, walking the property and searching all the ditches and nitches in the house and area. We theorize that he did some sort of cat voo doo on us to cause us to remember too late to do much about his disappearance. I can see him being so considerate, because that's the sort of cat he was. More often than not, the few people I've ever invited to my house here have considered Blue to be the prize winner of the pack.
Anyway...so here we are, once again, mourning a good friend.....



In fact, the following variance of a well-known song came to Pierce's mind as we talked about Blue...We both think he is doing fine and well and has simply moved on...guess he felt it was a good time to give us our memories back...undoo his kitty voo doo...


CAT OF THE ROAD - ROGER MILLER

Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let...fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain't got no cigarettes
Ah, but..two hours of pushin' broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I'm a man of means by no means
Cat of the road.

Third boxcar, midnight train
Destination...Bangor, Maine.
Old worn out suits and shoes,
I don't pay no union dues,
I smoke old stogies I have found
Short, but not too big around
I'm a man of means by no means
Cat of the road.

I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain't locked
When no one's around.

I sing,
Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, fifty cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain't got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin' broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I'm a man of means by no means
Cat of the road.

Me too, gski!

She's way cool!

4 Unusual Ways to Receive Psychic Messages

Monday, January 18, 2010

Psychic Messages – 4 Unusual Ways to Receive Psychic Messages

January 18, 2010
Who else is trying to learn how to receive psychic messages?

Do you feel "plugged" in to your inner intuition? Do you occasionally feel, or sense something happening EVEN though you are nowhere near the source event? If you do…..the simple truth is that you MAY be getting some slight psychic messages your subconscious mind is subtly picking up. Many of us are FAR more psychic and intuitive than we give ourselves credit for….and regardless of what the skeptics may say, the truth is that EVERYONE has at least some degree of psychic sensitivity for certain!

So what are some super simple (but unusual) ways to receive psychic messages?
Automatic Writing and "Channeling"

Did you know that some of the most powerful, life changing and transformative messages have come through a process called automatic writing? It’s true…and entire books, and even philosophies have been extracted thorough this amazingly powerful process, where the sitter "channels" messages from some other place, and codifies them in a written document. The famous "Seth" teachings, for example, are said to be conjured using this process by the author, Jane Roberts.

Much of the law of attraction style teachings that have emanated from Esther and Jerry Hicks, the original teachers of the "Secret" style of thought, are thought to be channeled communications from Abraham…an infinite intelligence who communicates through Esther, to the rest of us. (and as unbelievable as it sounds…..to see them in action is quite a sight!)

Did you know that some of the greatest artists and poets and even philosophers have claimed to have their BIGGEST and best works fully formed "appear" to them before even setting a pen or pencil to paper (or pixel)?

It’s true…and as noted philosopher and spiritual teacher Ken Wilber said after writing his enormous Magnum Opus – the book came to him, fully formed…..and all he had to do was write it down! (his ideas SO powerful that former President Bill Clinton claimed on radio, that the ideas Wilber shared in this book, were so powerful, they could change the face of all human suffering if adopted by the masses)
Remote Viewing

Being able to "see" stuff happen at many miles away, often countries away…using remote viewing techniques has been SUCH an astonishingly accurate exercise, that the US government has invested millions in studying how to do it! Don’t believe me? The famous Operation Stargate (spoofed in the recent movie "Men who Stare at Goats" is actually a TRUE story, and one that while seemingly silly, underlies some AMAZING discoveries in the fine art and science of "psychic spying" that many governments STILL use today!
Regression or Hypnotic Therapy

Did you know that many people, for example get all sorts of psychic messages during a hypnotic regression? It’s true…and many folks have remembered complete past lives, that have later been 100% validated, simply by being regressed BACK beyond their current incarnation! And the messages gleaned from some of these sessions, provide an amazing level of insight into what may happen when this life is over….. and way beyond!

Psychic Readings & Mediums

Speaking of when this life is over……My favorite way to get psychic messages is actually from seeing a skilled psychic intuitive or medium.

Messages that come from the "other side" are often amazingly accurate, informational and simply IMPOSSIBLE to explain away as chance, fraud or good guesses! (even though the skeptics will try to convince you they are!) The truth is, in MY experience, there is NO better "proof" in psychic powers, or that life continues on WELL beyond the confines of this life, than a reading with a psychic medium who blows you away with insight, information and illumination they simply could NOT get from any other means!

(and the truth is….you’ll NEVER believe in the authenticity of psychic messages until you have your OWN reading or experience that PROVES it’s true……no matter how many articles like this one you read!)

http://suddenlypsychic.com/2010/01/18/psychic-messages-4-unusual-ways-to...

anarchopedia.org

Hathor Pineal Gland Dimensional Attunement

Instructions

The purpose of listening to this 5:47 recording is to stimulate an increased awareness of, and to activate energetic potentials within the crystalline structures that reside within the pineal gland.

In this esoteric view, the pineal crystals (that are embedded within the pineal gland) operate like a type of cosmic-antennae that can be tuned to the higher vibrational-realms of light. This is, in fact, the intended purpose for listening to this psychoacoustic catalyst.

It is best to listen to this sound meditation with stereo headphones. Any type of headphones, even ear buds, will work fine.

As you listen to the recording, place the focus of your attention in the center area of your head, where the pineal gland is located. Imagine that the sounds are coming from out of the pineal gland, even though in reality, the sounds are coming in through your ears. This simple shift in perceptual imagination will generate a more powerful mind-altering experience.

You can, if you wish, listen to the recording multiple times in one listening session. However, do note that repeated listening of this track can create a type of psycho-spiritual cleansing reaction. If you experience such a reaction, stop listening. Take a break, and then listen to the sequence just once a day until your energetic system has adjusted to the increased light activation of the pineal.

An Important Note:

Normally in the mastering process of a recording, certain frequencies are toned down so that the recording can be played back on a wide range of different systems. In this case, none of the frequencies have been toned back for obvious reasons. This means that if you play the recording on a low quality system (without headphones), the speakers of your playback system may have a hard time handling all the frequencies. In other words, your system may distort the sounds and/or you may hear a vibration in the speakers. This problem can be completely avoided if you listen to the recording with headphones, which is the best way to listen to it anyway.

https://tomkenyon.box.net/shared/b0xc8la6j5

...Hathor Material...good book as I recall....

http://freespeechforpeople.org

.



by ~joejitti

...



Studio Nude 4 by `MissShyly

- Rumi

Whenever a feeling of aversion comes into the heart of a good soul,it's not without significance.

Consider that intuitive wisdom to be a Divine attribute,
not a vain suspicion: the light of the heart has apprehended
intuitively from the Universal Tablet.

Pineal attunement

There was a great b movie based on a Lovecraft novel called From Beyond that was based on the mutation of the pineal gland from exposure to certain sound frequencies. It was cheesy yet very cool. Highly sexual.

Videodrome and From Beyond were both cult classics well worth watching.

Oooh that sounds good...

thanks for the tip...I'll see if I can netflix it.

What are you up to tonight?

I'm locked out of my class website or I'd be doing my homework...waiting for the IT person to fix it...

And we're snowed in...I had to park away from my house and walk home...

Shoggoth


Light Speed Surpassed?

einstein_crab_on.gif

Astrophysicists studying a distant pulsar have detected radio waves traveling through space at faster-than-light speed.  More rigorous study is needed, but if confirmed, the faster-than-light radio waves emanating from the dead, spinning star call into question some basic tenets of physical law established by Einstein.
Image courtesy of NASA.gov

by Danielle Legros Georges

"Poem for the Poorest Country In the Western Hemisphere"

Oh poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon, and flame,

almond and bougainvillea, garden
and green mountain, villa and hut,

little girl with red ribbons in her hair,
books-under-arm, charmed by the light
of morning,

charcoal seller in black skirt, encircled by dead trees.

You, country, are the businessman
and the eager young man, the grandfather

at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with the light,

with the light.

How to do "The Waitress"

How to Block

(or, how to keep the assholes behind you, you know who you are)

...

(subject)



wedding



A hip check from a hip chick

I remember the rough and tumble rolley derby it came on Tv in NY after
Bruno San Martino and the old school wrestling (broadcast in black and white)

*

**

"

»

/



Hey TZ

our wrestling at that time was called Big Time Wrestling....my great grandma loved it. Today's derby has a lot of older fans who loved it way back when too...like my father in law..he's 85, loves derby now.

.



/



-



A Nude Man Seated & Another Standing with a Woman



Rembrandt van Rijn - circa 1646

=



rsq

"A sudden or intense belief in health can indeed reverse a disease, but in a very practical way it is a reversal in terms of time. New memories are inserted in place of the old ones, as far as cells are concerned under such conditions."

The Nature of Personal Reality
Session 654, Page 280

Where r my pixs? ;)

:)

Sheets and Pages: Readable Book of Hotel Bedcovers

via Dornob. Read more: Sheets and Pages: Readable Book of Hotel Bedcovers | Designs & Ideas on Dornob




Music School, by Stu Meade



Hell....

Text version of a radio interview with VERONICA

FILIPPO: Chow, everyone. I'm Filippo with Life Changes with Filippo. And today our guest is April Crawford/Veronica, and I say "slash Veronica" because on the screen you're seeing April Crawford right now, but she will be channeling Veronica, an entity, in just a few moments...

VERONICA: New place. New energy. And who are you?

FILIPPO: I'm Filippo.

VERONICA: Good day, Filippo. We are Veronica.

FILIPPO: Good day. I'm excited to be here with you.

VERONICA: As we are with you, my dear. How may we help you?

FILIPPO: Well, a lot of people are going to be watching this video that just saw April Crawford, and we had an opportunity to speak with her, and now all of a sudden this entity, as we know you, Veronica, has come through.

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: Can you tell us where are you? Are you physically inside April's body or are you just controlling her...

VERONICA: We have no physicality.

FILIPPO: ...mouth?

VERONICA: We are energy inhabiting the form.

FILIPPO: Okay. And is April...are you feeding her mind? Are you telling her what to say or are you actually...

VERONICA: She is not here. We are speaking using the facilities.

FILIPPO: Very interesting. Why did you choose April?

VERONICA: It was a good match, and we saw the opportunity and realized the potential, so we made an overture.

FILIPPO: So is it an energetic match or is it a match that April was willing or able...

VERONICA: It was an energetic match. The vibratory moment of the energy within the form was a good match for us, and the form was energetically able to sustain the energy, so we took the opportunity.

FILIPPO: Okay. Now, you say "us" and "we." How...

VERONICA: We are many.

FILIPPO: And many is more than a few?

VERONICA: More than you can count.

FILIPPO: Okay. And since you...is it just this one big ball of energy that sometimes separates itself just to get to know itself and comes back as a ball or...or...

VERONICA: No. There are as many individualistic energies as there are individualistic individuals upon your planet, all blended together in a cooperative but also still having their singularity and opportunity to venture outward from here.

FILIPPO: Okay. So parts of you might choose to be channeled through somebody else, for example?

VERONICA: Not at this time.

FILIPPO: Okay. And parts...can you separate into parts and be channeled through Veronica or...I mean through April, or you're always one entity as Veronica?

VERONICA: We always come through full-force through the April Crawford.

FILIPPO: Okay. You understood my question even though I didn't ask it correctly.

VERONICA: Yes, dear. We'll help you through this.

FILIPPO: So is...is there a possibility you're also reading my mind?

VERONICA: Well, we are privy to some things, yes.

FILIPPO: Okay. So where...where are you when you're not here with April and with us?

VERONICA: We can be in many places at the same time. We can create a reality that's not as dense as this one. The physical reality is a rather interesting environment because of the density and complexity of it, but there are many other environments as well that an energy can exist in and participate in without the denseness.

FILIPPO: Is it where we might go after we leave this body and this lifetime?

VERONICA: There are levels to it, and someone who leaves this life, say crosses from the body into the eternal is not necessarily on the same plane as we are, but they can achieve it if they so choose.

FILIPPO: And so it also a level that is much more intelligent?

VERONICA: We would not say intelligence is a part of it. We would say that the vibration of energy is more of a definition.

FILIPPO: Or evolved?

VERONICA: Yes, that would be a good word.

FILIPPO: Okay. So you are...must be benevolent to come down and want to share information then?

VERONICA: We wouldn't say the word is "benevolent." We say we are interested.

FILIPPO: Ummm. And what is the interest?

VERONICA: Where we are at in our development, it is incredibly important to view those who are participating in the physical and offer those who would need a little extra help or clarity the opportunity to have it so that they may advance their energy and evolve more.

FILIPPO: If we wanted to put a word to it, could we say "angels" or "extraterrestrials"? What could we say?

VERONICA: Well, let us define those things for you first.

FILIPPO: Oh.

VERONICA: Angels are a species, similar to human but not what one would call ethereal or an entity. They're...there's a species that is nonphysical.

FILIPPO: Okay. I didn't know that.

VERONICA: Extraterrestrials are dense physical beings similar yours only with a different perspective and a different point of view because they are manifesting in different environments which would make their physicality much different.

FILIPPO: Ummm.

VERONICA: You learned a little bit today.

FILIPPO: I'm learning, absolutely. Well, what else is
there that I don't know? What other beings? I'm thinking archangels must be with the angels...

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: ...and so what...what else is there? There's more. Obviously there's you.

VERONICA: Yes, there are, of course.

FILIPPO: Well, can you expand upon that, please.

VERONICA: There are many different things that...some you don't even know about.

FILIPPO: Okay. We are too young to know about them now?

VERONICA: Some, yes.

FILIPPO: Okay. And what do we call you?

VERONICA: We are an energy...

FILIPPO: An energy.

VERONICA: ...with focus and a grand opportunity to speak in this form.

FILIPPO: So this energy that has evolved to your level can look upon us and say there is an opportunity to help some of us who are willing to listen with certain areas of our lives. What are the...what is the top area that we as humans experiencing our life on this planet in this time need to focus most on?

VERONICA: Being very clear with yourself and not getting caught up in all the linear drama is one of the biggies that we speak about, especially in individualistic way, one on one with someone. We can help them find clarity in this swirl of experience that they are creating for themselves, and most feel lost in that circle of creation. We perhaps can offer them a bit of clarity about why they're circling around or why they feel lost. We can look into their energy and say here's where you made the wrong turn or here's in the intersection of other energy that's prohibiting you from evolving. We can look at them very individualistic and help them in an individualistic way.

FILIPPO: Well, it feels as a civilization, we have made a wrong turn somewhere.

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: And maybe that's not the case and maybe it's exactly what we needed, but...

VERONICA: Well, this is a cleaning-up period.

FILIPPO: Okay.

VERONICA: We call it...we refer to it as someone's house. You have a very dirty house. And the first time you pick up the rug and shake it out, it's a big mess, and you say why did I ever shake this rug, because all of this stuff is coming into the air and all this stuff is happening, and it feels like everything is falling apart. But we counsel that when you first shake the rug out, it's always a bit difficult because then there's more dirt than you thought, and you have to set about to clean it up. And the cleaning-up process, as one well knows when they're cleaning their house, not fun. And you as a species are cleaning your house.

FILIPPO: So this is the not-fun part.

VERONICA: This is the not-fun part, yes, but moving out
of it.

FILIPPO: When we're cleaning our house, usually we are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we know where we're headed.

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: As a civilization we don't always know, as, for example, the left hand might not know what the right hand is doing...

VERONICA: Right.

FILIPPO: ...and so we might feel like sure, we're doing this, but is everybody doing this, are we all moving together as a civilization? Do you see this...

VERONICA: We think you are. We think that the dust is so high at the moment that no one can see anyone else really, not clear enough. Still feels like this very gray area, and you can see a few people but it's the first shake of the rug that needed to be shaken. And the dust is very high. It's starting to settle, but in the interim, you all feel like you're moored on a planet all by yourself, and you can't really trust the person next to you because you don't even know who that is. It will settle.

FILIPPO: In the meantime, it seems like everything is changing so fast; is that part of the dust being in the air?

VERONICA: It's important that everything changes real fast, dear.

FILIPPO: Because?

VERONICA: You were all heading in a rather dismal direction. So the expediency of the change it important.

FILIPPO: Have...are we in time in your opinion?

VERONICA: Yes, we think so.

FILIPPO: Okay. And so you are helping us individually. So individually without getting into specifics about me or this person or that person, is there something general that each one of us needs to focus on?

VERONICA: The connection with your soul and the thought of something beyond your fingertips is incredibly important. To remember who you are as a soul is the most profound thing that any of you can be thinking of at this time. Don't forget who you are and the energy that you come from and how powerful that really is. And what you're doing here is having a dense experience so that you connect even further with that energy.

FILIPPO: So who are we, according to you?

VERONICA: You're all energies similar to ourselves, still having physical experiences to advance your energy.

FILIPPO: And we've chosen this.

VERONICA: Absolutely.

FILIPPO: And we are to learn something from this.

VERONICA: Absolutely.

FILIPPO: Okay. I'm not sure we are learning it.

VERONICA: We'd say some of you are, and we think that you will drag along behind you those who are not quite getting it yet, but we think there's grand hope here. We think that there are enough energies who are realizing the importance of the connection with their energy and soul that even though you feel like isolated and there's no one else around, there is. And we think as a planet, you're doing better work than you have, so we say there's great hope.

FILIPPO: Now, some might say if we chose this planet, then we chose it just as it is with all the problems that it has to have the experience that we hare having. Why come in and ruin the experience for everybody else that wants to come and have a terrible experience?

VERONICA: (Laughs) And perhaps you're leaving out the reincarnational part, perhaps you came in and contributed negatively and you're coming back to fix that.

FILIPPO: Ummm. I hope you don't mean me specifically, but in any event...

VERONICA: Oh, don't be nervous, dear.

FILIPPO: No...

VERONICA: We are merely stating it as a general. We
wouldn't pick on you that way yet.

FILIPPO: Ah. Okay. I have that to look forward to. So
you are saying we came and had the experience perhaps of the planet one way, and we messed it up or played with it a certain way...

VERONICA: And made some grave errors, and now some of you are back to rectify that. So you're not coming back to ruin the negative experience; you're coming back to say oh, last time I was here, didn't do so well, I'm going to focus on this this time and karmically balance my energy so that the planet becomes better. So it's more individualistic than you think, my dear. And you all play a very important part in it. You're not just one little speck. You are part of a grand energy. And most of you have come back in this particular environment to fix it.

FILIPPO: And the process of fixing is connecting with our soul.

VERONICA: Connecting with your soul and participating in a soulful way while being in that physical body and not an ego way in the body. Do you understand that?

FILIPPO: I think you're headed towards oneness.

VERONICA: No, we're not.

FILIPPO: Uh-oh. Okay. Then no, I don't understand.

VERONICA: (Laughs) There's ego energy, which is your
participation as an energy in your physical form. It's very easy to become very engaged with the ego part of Filippo or the ego part of Mark and participate in a whole life participating in the body dimension of Mark and disconnecting from the soul and not coming in to do your karmic attempt but be distracted by the physical dramatic parts of you. Many do that. So there is where the difference lies. Do you understand?

FILIPPO: Uh-huh. Could that person who engages in that in this lifetime say well, this is my lifetime to do this and I'll come back and fix another time?

VERONICA: We think that those who would engage it that way don't have any idea that they can possibly come back and do that again. They're very involved in who they are at the moment, and it's a one-shot deal; most of them think that.

FILIPPO: All right. So you weren't taking us towards oneness. What about oneness?

VERONICA: Oneness is there, but the individuality of all of your energies remains as well. And there's where a lot of religious moments on your planet tend to lead one astray or instill the fear of once you leave this form, your energy will become homogenized in a grand thing and you won't remember who you are. And we say you do. We remember all of ours.

FILIPPO: Do you remember past-life experiences?

VERONICA: Absolutely.

FILIPPO: Does that serve you?

VERONICA: Absolutely. We can draw upon the experience, we can apply it to individuals that we speak to. If we decided to incarnate again, we would at this stage remember all of the lives and remember the mistakes, remember the progress, remember the triumphs and apply it to the life that we would live if we chose to incarnate again. That is the level we are at at this time. Many, like yourself, maybe not remember everything, but we think some of you have hints of remembering things.

FILIPPO: Would it help us if we did remember?

VERONICA: We think so.

FILIPPO: Then why do we not?

VERONICA: Many become very distracted or have belief systems instilled in them at a very young age that that is not an opportunity. And younger souls tend not to remember as well as older souls.

FILIPPO: What...is there something we can do to remember?

VERONICA: Yes, there is. Oh, now you're going to ask me? Well, it's very individualistic, my dear. It's very individualistic. We can't give you across-the-board generalization on that. But just the idea that reincarnation exists, that perhaps you've been here a couple of times, and perhaps maybe you had a life of two that wasn't so great, or maybe you had a really great one, and to apply those experiences to your moment now we think is incredibly important. You have a lot of religious moments that don't allow for that, that say you must behave, and you only have one opportunity, and if you don't behave, it's either below or up. And if you behave, you'll go up; if you don't behave, you'll go down. But that was instilled in a very primitive culture on your planet where there many young souls at the time, and those who were more intellectual had to control them in some way. And the demonstration of burning for those who did not behave was a very vivid opportunity to them to say forever they will do that in hell. And it wasn't a grand display, and people brought their children to make them behave, to watch people be burned to death. It was choreographed.

FILIPPO: So all of these prophets that have come before to share information, do they come much like you are here?

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: And...

VERONICA: Each experience can be a little bit different. Nostradamus was a little bit more conscious and the connection was not quite so clear as this one. But Nostradamus was lucid enough to write it all down but in code so it would not be put back on him and his family, mostly his family, people he cared about. He didn't really care about himself, but in that particular life he cared very deeply about certain members of his family, so he made it so that it could not come back on them.

FILIPPO: So fortunately some of us have listened to some of these prophets, and now we're listening to you, and you are sharing with us that there is time and...to rectify some of the damage that's already been done...

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: ...and we have shaken the carpet or the rug, and the dust is in the air, but it's going to be settling. Within this time that we speak of, is this the time that people are putting a date on being 2012?

VERONICA: Well, you must remember that outside of this environment there is no time, that in the linear it is almost an obsession to mark time, to measure it, to mark it. And there really isn't any marking really. This is all an illusion that you've put together to keep track of your days. 2012 is an indicator that there will be some changes, that there's going to be a shift, not necessarily a negative one. And yes, there will be an end to a lot of negativity, but we will also say that it is a beginning of a golden age where things are going to be much better. So if you are participating in negativity, yes, you should be a little scared. But if you are participating in positiveness, expansiveness, connecting to your soul, living in a kind way towards others, there's nothing to worry about. It is only the naysayers and the evildoers that should be alarmed at this time. And it's not necessarily 2012; it's already started, dear, and it's already evident in your culture, the evildoers coming to the surface and being called upon their activities. And punished and eliminated.

FILIPPO: In that perspective one would say that there is still a lot of evil.

VERONICA: We won't say evil; we'll just say those who make inappropriate choices that are negative. No one is evil. We'd say that they...we call them evildoers because they participate in negative actions towards others, towards the planet, towards existence itself.

FILIPPO: And there's a lot of that.

VERONICA: Yes, there has been.

FILIPPO: And...

VERONICA: And a lot of it has risen to the surface, which is why you see it so much; it's just coming up and coming up and coming up and coming because the rug has been shaken and this is all coming up.

FILIPPO: So those of us who feel that this period is going to end up positive...

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: ...are trying to focus on connecting with our soul, as you say, and stay positive...

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: ...and yet we see some quickening of some of these more negative aspects.

VERONICA: Yes.

FILIPPO: And...

VERONICA: And they are quickening because they know their time is coming.

FILIPPO: Uh-huh.

VERONICA: In an unconscious way they know.

FILIPPO: So we should not fear?

VERONICA: No.

(Continued in Part II...)

http://www.aprilcrawford.com/

Hey Alice

How's life on the - um -- planks?

When I played hockey (like until I was 52), we used to call the arena of play "the ice" - and similarly would skate deftly enough to evade the lurching galoots who didn't quite get that this was supposed to be fun. For everybody on the the ice.

More by and by. Stay tuned.

xo & fond regards to P

Hi ellwort...! Funny you would ask...

I just sent the email copy to the local places, to be followed up by a paper copy.

Press Release
Mountain Derby Girls
2010 Inaugural Roller Derby Season!

Contact: Shelly McFarland (Sweet Alyce 3.14)
Mountain Derby Girls
(209) 588-8161
sweetalyce@gmail.com
www.MountainDerbyGirls.org

Mountain Derby Girls ~ High Country Hellcats ~
vs
Central California Roller Derby ~ Atomic Assault ~

Who: Mountain Derby Girls (http://www.mountainderbygirls.org) and
Fresno’s Central California Roller Derby (http://www.ccaderby.com) roller derby teams.

What: High Country Mountain Derby Girls presents their FIRST HOME BOUT!

When: Saturday February 20, 2010
Doors open and music begins at 6:30. Bout starts 8:00
Tri-tip sandwiches, Beer Garden, and Live Music with Sonora’s own Wreckless (http://www.myspace.com/rockwreckless)

Tickets available at Jamestown Harley-Davidson, Studio C, Sierra Sirens, High Country Sports Arena or purchase them online from Brown Paper Tickets @ the Mountain Derby Girls website - (http://www.mountainderbygirls.org/tickets). Tickets will also available at the door.

Cost: Presale Adult tickets $10
At the door tickets $12
All children's tickets (5-12) $5
Kids 4 and under are free!

Limited VIP tickets are available for $20. Contact us directly for VIP tickets.
All seating, besides VIP seating, is on a first come, first serve basis.

Where: High Country Sports Arena 18960 Waylon Way in Sonora.

Why: To raise funds for High Country Sports Arena and its newest program, Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby. HCSA is a non-profit organization managed by a volunteer board of directors and run by volunteers in our community, and for the community. Proceeds will go towards buying roller derby league equipment.

You received this email because

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter

January 27, 2010

+

http://FreeWillAstrology.com

+

Dear Readers,

I've gathered together all of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you in the past month, and bundled them in one place. Go here to read a compendium of your forecasts for 2010:
http://bit.ly/BigLife

In addition to these, I've created EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES that go even further in exploring your destiny in 2010. Unlike the written freebies, the three-part audio reports cost money. Sign in and access them here:
http://RealAstrology.com

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The revised and expanded version of my book *PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA* is available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia

Below is an excerpt. To read the whole text, go here:
http://bit.ly/MiracleReport

REPORT YOUR MIRACLES

Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, wondrous, and even supernatural events occur every day. And yet most are unreported by the media. The few that are cited are ridiculed. Is there anything we can do about it?

READ the rest of "REPORT YOUR MIRACLES" here:
http://bit.ly/MiracleReport

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm doing an hour-long teleconference call with Reality Sandwich this Wednesday, January 27 at 6 pm PST. For more details, go here:

http://bit.ly/7mkesC

If you'd like to participate, you've got to have a Reality Sandwich Backstage Pass. Details on how to get that are here:

http://bit.ly/4L3vWM

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day. What might you do differently from what you do now?"

- *PRONOIA*

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

PRONOIA SNEAKS UP ON YOU FROM EVERYWHERE Birds on Wires Making Music http://tinyurl.com/yde577f

SOONER OR LATER, THE ABOLITION OF SUFFERING WILL HAPPEN "Abolitionism is a bioethical school and movement which proposes the use of biotechnology to maximize happiness and minimize suffering while working towards the abolition of involuntary suffering."
http://tinyurl.com/yzn6wjr

SMART, COMPASSI0NATE PEOPLE ARE WORKING ON SOLVING PROBLEMS In Mexico, a Plan to Beat Poverty with Health Care and Education http://tinyurl.com/yflv62u

(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They are not advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.)

Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning January 28
Copyright 2010 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the coming week, I predict that you will NOT experience disgusting fascinations, smiling-faced failures, sensationalized accounts of useless developments, or bizarre fantasies in the middle of the night. You may, on the other hand, have encounters with uplifting disappointments, incendiary offers of assistance, mysterious declarations of interdependence, and uproars that provoke your awe and humility in healing ways. In other words, Aquarius, it'll be an uncanny, perhaps controversial time for you -- but always leading in the direction of greater freedom.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Congrats on your growing ability to do more floating and less thrashing as you cascade down the stream of consciousness. I think you're finally understanding that a little bit of chaos isn't a sign that *everything's falling apart forever omigod the entire planet's crashing and evil is in ascension* . . . but rather that a healthy amount of bewildering unpredictability keeps things fresh and clean. My advice is to learn to relax even more as you glide with serene amusement through the bubbling and churning waters of life.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Shakespeare got modest respect while he was alive, but his reputation as a brilliant bard didn't gel right away. It wasn't until almost 50 years after he died that anyone thought his life and work were notable enough to write about. By then, all his colleagues and compatriots were gone, unable to testify. He himself left little information to build a biography around. That's why next to nothing is known about the person who made such a dramatic impact on the English language and literature. I suggest you take this as a metaphorical prod that will inspire you not to be blasé about the greatness that is in your vicinity. Don't take superlative intelligence, talent, or love for granted. Recognize it, bless it, be influenced by it.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You are the lord of all you survey! I swear to God! I'm almost tempted to say that you now have the power to command whirlwinds and alter the course of mighty rivers! At the very least you will be able to mobilize the ambition of everyone you encounter and brighten the future of every group you're part of! Act with confident precision, Taurus! Speak with crisp authority! Your realm waits expectantly for the transformative decisions that will issue from the fresh depths of your emotional intelligence!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): It's time for you to fly away -- to flee the safe pleasures that comfort you as well as the outmoded fixations that haunt you; to escape at least one of the galling compromises that twists your spirit as well as a familiar groove that numbs your intelligence. In my astrological opinion, Gemini, you need to get excited by stimuli that come from outside your known universe. You need fertile surprises that motivate you to resort to unpredictable solutions.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): "I never meet anyone who admits to having had a happy childhood," said writer Jessamyn West. "Everyone appears to think happiness betokens a lack of sensitivity." I agree, and go further.
Many creative people I know actually brag about how messed up their early life was, as if that was a crucial ingredient in turning them into the geniuses they are today. Well, excuse me for breaking the taboo, but I, Rob Brezsny, had a happy childhood, and it did not prevent me from becoming a sensitive artist. In fact, it helped. Now I ask you, my fellow Cancerian, whether you're brave enough to go against the grain and confess that your early years had some wonderful moments? You're in a phase of your cycle when recalling the beauty and joy of the past could be profoundly invigorating.

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EXPLORING THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE

Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures in 2010?

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2010. Each report in the three-part series is about 6-9 minutes long.

Go to http://RealAstrology.com
to sign in and access the EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Usually I overflow with advice about how to access your soul's code. I love to help you express the unique blueprint that sets you apart from everyone else. Every now and then, though, it's a healing balm to take a sabbatical from exploring the intricacies of your core truths. This is one of those times. For the next ten days, I invite you to enjoy the privilege of being absolutely nobody. Revel in the pure emptiness of having no clue about your deep identity. If anyone asks you, "Who are you?", relish the bubbly freedom that comes from cheerfully saying, "I have no freaking idea!"

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): French novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821-
1880) is generally regarded as one of the greats. His book *Madame
Bovary* appears on many lists of the greatest novels of all time. And yet writing didn't come especially easy for him. He worked as hard as a ditch- digger. It wasn't uncommon for him to spend several agonizing days in squeezing out a single page. On some occasions he literally beat his head against a wall, as if trying to dislodge the right words from their hiding place in his brain. He's your role model in the coming week, Virgo. You
*can* create something of value, although it may require hard labor.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My theory is that right now the whole world is in love with you. In some places, this simmering adoration is bordering on infatuation. Creatures great and small are more apt than usual to recognize what's beautiful and original about you. As a result, wonders and marvels are likely to coalesce in your vicinity. Is there anything you can do to ensure that events unfold in ways that will yield maximum benefits for everyone concerned? Yes: Be yourself with as much tender intensity as you can muster.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I hope that you saw the horoscope I wrote for you last week. And I hope that you acted on my advice and refrained from all sweating and striving and struggling. These past seven days were designed by the universe to be a time for you to recharge your psychic battery. Assuming that you took advantage of the opportunity, you should now be ready to shift gears. In this new phase, your assignment is to work extra hard and extra sweet on yourself. By that I mean you should make your way down into your depths and change around everything that isn't functioning with grace and power. Tweak your attitudes. Rearrange your emotional flow. Be an introspective master of self-refinement.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): This horoscope borrows from one of my favorite Sagittarian visionaries, Jonathan Zap. The advice he gives below, which is in accordance with your astrological omens, is designed to help you avoid the fate he warns against. Here it is: "Many of the significant problems in our lives are more about recognizing the obvious rather than discovering the mysterious or hidden. One of the classic ways we deceive and hide from ourselves is by refusing to recognize the obvious, and shrouding what is right before us in rationalization and false complexity.
We often delay and deny necessary transformation by claiming that there is a mysterious answer hidden from us, when actually we know the answers but pretend that we don't." (More at bit.ly/ZapOracle and
Zaporacle.com.)

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): It's a good time to take inventory of all the stories you allow to pour into your beautiful head. Do you absorb a relentless stream of fear-inducing news reports and violent movies and gossipy tales of decline and degeneration? Well, then, guess what: It's the equivalent, for your psyche, of eating rotting bear intestines and crud scraped off a dumpster wall and pitchers full of trans fats from partially hydrogenated oil. But maybe, on the other hand, you tend to expose yourself to comedies that loosen your fixations and poems that stretch your understanding of the human condition and conversations about all the things that are working pretty well. If so, you're taking good care of your precious insides; you're fostering your mental health. Now please drink in this fresh truth from Nigerian writer Ben Okri: "Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world."

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HOMEWORK: Read all your long-term horoscopes here:
http://bit.ly/BigLife. Then write your own long-term horoscope. Share it at Truthrooster@gmail.com.

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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART DONE?

I'm not doing personal charts, but I highly recommend my astrological colleague, RO LOUGHRAN. Her approach closely matches my own. In our many discussions about astrology over the years, we've had a major influence on each other's work.

Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and a high degree of technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation; she is skilled at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your connection with your own inner wisdom.

Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.

Ro's website is at
http://YourSoulJourney.com

She can also be reached at roloughran@comcast.net

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Submissions sent to the Free Will Astrology Weekly Newsletter or in response to "homework assignments" may be published in a variety of formats at Rob Brezsny's discretion, including but not limited to newsletters, books, the Free Will Astrology column, and Free Will Astrology website. We reserve the right to edit such submissions for length, style, and content.
Requests for anonymity will be honored with submissions; otherwise, reader names, screen names, or initials will be used.

Please be sure to note your preference when sending to us. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.

Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2010 Rob Brezsny

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Yeah - But is it "planks" or what?

"Out there" maybe?

Love your Jan 22 posts - from "Woman Leaving the Room" to Rumi

We call it

the rink...or the arena..its floor is made of sport court....is that what you mean?

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