All Posts - Blogs - The City of Shamballa Social Network

Sort by

The Food Movement: Its Power and Possibilities

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:35am

The Food Movement: Its Power and Possibilities--by Frances Moore Lappé , Original StoryFor years I’ve been asked, “Since you wrote Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, have things gotten better or worse?” Hoping I don’t sound glib, my response is always the same: “Both.”As food growers, sellers and eaters, we’re moving in two directions at once.The number of hungry people has soared to nearly 1 billion, despite strong global harvests. And for even more people, sustenance has become a health hazard—with the US diet implicated in four out of our top ten deadly diseases. Power over soil, seeds and food sales is ever more tightly held, and farmland in the global South is being snatched away from indigenous people by speculators set to profit on climbing food prices. Just four companies control at least three-quarters of international grain trade; and in the United States, by 2000, just ten corporations—with boards totaling only 138 people—had come to account for half of US food and beverage sales. Conditions for American farmworkers remain so horrific that seven Florida growers have been convicted of slavery involving more than 1,000 workers. Life expectancy of US farmworkers is forty-nine years.That’s one current. It’s antidemocratic and deadly.There is, however, another current, which is democratizing power and aligning farming with nature’s genius. Many call it simply “the global food movement.” In the United States it’s building on the courage of truth tellers from Upton Sinclair to Rachel Carson, and worldwide it has been gaining energy and breadth for at least four decades.Some Americans see the food movement as “nice” but peripheral—a middle-class preoccupation with farmers’ markets, community gardens and healthy school lunches. But no, I’ll argue here. It is at heart revolutionary, with some of the world’s poorest people in the lead, from Florida farmworkers to Indian villagers. It has the potential to transform not just the way we eat but the way we understand our world, including ourselves. And that vast power is just beginning to erupt.The WorkIn a farmworker camp in Ohio, a young mother sat on her bed. She was dying of cancer, but with no bitterness she asked me a simple question: “We provide people food—why don’t they respect our work?” That was 1984. She had no protection from pesticides, or even the right to safe drinking water in the field.Twenty-five years later, in Immokalee, Florida, I walked through a grungy, sweltering 300-foot trailer, home to eight tomato pickers, but what struck me most was a sense of possibility in the workers themselves.They are among the 4,000 mainly Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, formed in 1993—more than two decades after Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers’ victorious five-year grape strike and national boycott. In the 1990s, CIW’s struggle over five years, including a 230-mile walk and hunger strike, achieved the first industrywide pay increase in twenty years. Still, it only brought real wages back to pre-1980 levels. So in 2001, CIW launched its Campaign for Fair Food. Dogged organizing forced four huge fast-food companies—McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and Subway—to agree to pay a penny more per pound and adhere to a code of conduct protecting workers. Four large food-service providers, including Sodexo, were also brought on board. Beginning this fall, CIW will start implementing these changes at 90 percent of Florida tomato farms—improving the lives of 30,000 tomato pickers. Now the campaign is focused on supermarkets such as Trader Joe’s, Stop & Shop and Giant.The LandIn Brazil, almost 400,000 farmworker families have not only found their voices but gained access to land, joining the roughly half-billion small farms worldwide that produce 70 percent of the world’s food.Elsewhere, calls for more equitable access to land in recent decades have generally gone nowhere—despite evidence that smallholders are typically more productive and better resource guardians than big operators.So what happened in Brazil?With the end of dictatorship in 1984 came the birth of arguably the largest social movement in the hemisphere: the Landless Workers Movement, known by its Portuguese acronym MST. Less than 4 percent of Brazil’s landowners control about half the land, often gained illegally. MST’s goal is land reform, and in 1988 Brazil’s new Constitution gave the movement legal grounding: Article 5 states that “property shall fulfill its social function,” and Article 184 affirms the government’s power to “expropriate…for purposes of agrarian reform, rural property” that fails to meet this requirement.Well-organized occupations of unused land, under the cover of night, had been MST’s early tactic; after 1988 the same approach helped compel the government to uphold the Constitution.Because of the courage of these landless workers, a million people are building new lives on roughly 35 million acres, creating several thousand farming communities with schools serving 150,000 kids, along with hundreds of cooperative and other enterprises.Nevertheless, MST co-founder João Pedro Stédile said early this year that the global financial crisis has led “international capitalists” to try to “protect their funds” by investing in Brazilian “land and energy projects”—driving renewed land concentration.And in the United States? The largest 9 percent of farms produce more than 60 percent of output. But small farmers still control more than half our farmland, and the growing market for healthy fresh food has helped smallholders grow: their numbers went up by 18,467 between 2002 and 2007. To support them, last winter the Community Food Security Coalition held community “listening sessions,” attended by 700 people, to sharpen citizen goals for the 2012 farm bill.

The Seed

Just as dramatic is the struggle for the seed. More than 1,000 independent seed companies were swallowed up by multinationals in the past four decades, so today just three—Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta—control about half the proprietary seed market worldwide.Fueling the consolidation were three Supreme Court rulings since 1980—including one in 2002, with an opinion written by former Monsanto attorney Clarence Thomas—making it possible to patent life forms, including seeds. And in 1992 the Food and Drug Administration released its policy on genetically modified organisms, claiming that “the agency is not aware of any information showing that [GMO] foods…differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”The government’s green light fueled the rapid spread of GMOs and monopolies—so now most US corn and soybeans are GMO, with genes patented largely by one company: Monsanto. The FDA position helped make GMOs’ spread so invisible that most Americans still don’t believe they’ve ever eaten them—even though the grocery industry says they could be in 75 percent of processed food.Even fewer Americans are aware that in 1999 attorney Steven Druker reported that in 40,000 pages of FDA files secured via a lawsuit, he found “memorandum after memorandum contain[ing] warnings about the unique hazards of genetically engineered food,” including the possibility that they could contain “unexpected toxins, carcinogens or allergens.”Yet at the same time, public education campaigns have succeeded in confining almost 80 percent of GMO planting to just three countries: the United States, Brazil and Argentina. In more than two dozen countries and in the European Union they’ve helped pass mandatory GMO labeling. Even China requires it.In Europe, the anti-GMO tipping point came in 1999. Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, expects that the same shift will happen here, as more Americans than ever actively oppose GMOs.This year the “non-GMO” label is the third-fastest-growing new health claim on food packaging. Smith is also encouraged that milk products produced with the genetically modified drug rBGH “have been kicked out of Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Yoplait, Dannon, and most American dairies.”Around the world, millions are saying no to seed patenting as well. In homes and village seed banks, small farmers and gardeners are saving, sharing and protecting tens of thousands of seed varieties.In the United States, the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, estimates that since 1975 members have shared roughly a million samples of rare garden seeds.In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh—known as the pesticide capital of the world—a women-led village movement, the Deccan Development Society, puts seed-saving at the heart of its work. After the crushing failure of GMO cotton and ill health linked to pesticides, the movement has helped 125 villages convert to more nutritious, traditional crop mixes, feeding 50,000 people.On a larger scale, Vandana Shiva’s organization, Navdanya, has helped to free 500,000 farmers from chemical dependency and to save indigenous seeds—the group’s learning and research center protects 3,000 varieties of rice, plus other crops.Agri-Culture In all these ways and more, the global food movement challenges a failing frame: one that defines successful agriculture and the solution to hunger as better technologies increasing yields of specific crops. This is typically called “industrial agriculture,” but a better description might be “productivist,” because it fixates on production, or “reductivist,” because it narrows our focus to a single element.Its near obsession with the yield of a monoculture is anti-ecological. It not only pollutes, diminishes and disrupts nature; it misses ecology’s first lesson: relationships. Productivism isolates agriculture from its relational context—from its culture.In 2008 a singular report helped crack the productivist frame. This report, “The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development” (known simply as IAASTD), explained that solutions to poverty, hunger and the climate crisis require agriculture that promotes producers’ livelihoods, knowledge, resiliency, health and equitable gender relations, while enriching the natural environment and helping to balance the carbon cycle. Painstakingly developed over four years by 400 experts, the report has gained the support of more than fifty-nine governments, and even productivist strongholds like the World Bank.IAASTD furthers an emerging understanding that agriculture can serve life only if it is regarded as a culture of healthy relationships, both in the field—among soil organisms, insects, animals, plants, water, sun—and in the human communities it supports: a vision lived by many indigenous people and captured in 1981 by Wendell Berry in The Gift of Good Land and twenty years later by Jules Pretty in Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature.Across cultures, the global food movement is furthering agri-culture by uniting diverse actors and fostering democratic relationships. A leader is La Via Campesina, founded in 1993 when small farmers and rural laborers gathered from four continents in Belgium. Its goal is “food sovereignty”—a term carefully chosen to situate “those who produce, distribute, and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies, rather than the demands of markets and corporations,” says the declaration closing the group’s 2007 global gathering in Nyeleni, Mali. La Via Campesina connects 150 local and national organizations, and 200 million small farmers, in seventy countries. In 2009 it was included among civil society players on the UN Committee on Food Security.And in the urban North, how is the food movement enhancing agri-culture?For sure, more and more Americans are getting their hands in the dirt—motivated increasingly by a desire to cut “food miles” and greenhouse gases. Roughly a third of American households (41 million) garden, up 14 percent in 2009 alone. As neighbors join neighbors, community gardens are blooming.From only a handful in 1970, there are 18,000 community gardens today. In Britain community gardens are in such demand—with 100,000 Brits on waiting lists for a plot—that the mayor of London promised 2,012 new ones by 2012.And in 2009 the Slow Food movement, with 100,000 members in 153 countries, created 300 “eat-ins”—shared meals in public space—to launch its US “Time for Lunch” campaign, with a goal of delicious healthy school meals for the 31 million kids eating them every day.An Economics of Agri-CultureAgri-culture’s unity of healthy farming ecology and social ecology transforms the market itself: from the anonymous, amoral selling and buying within a market structured to concentrate power to a market shaped by shared human values structured to ensure fairness and co-responsibility.In 1965 British Oxfam created the first fair-trade organization, called Helping-by-Selling, in response to calls from poor countries for “trade, not aid.” Today more than 800 products are fair-trade certified, directly benefiting 6 million people. Last year the US fair-trade market passed $1.5 billion.The Real Food Challenge, launched by young people in 2007, is working to jump-start a US swing to “real food”—defined as that respecting “human dignity and health, animal welfare, social justice and environmental sustainability.” Student teams are mobilizing to persuade campus decision-makers to commit themselves to making a minimum of 20 percent of their college or university food “real” by 2020. With more than 350 schools already on board, the Challenge founders have set an ambitious goal: to shift $1 billion to real food purchases in ten years.Farmers’ markets, the direct exchange between farmer and eater, are also creating a fairer agri-culture. So rare before the mid-’90s that the USDA didn’t even bother to track them, more than 7,000 farmers’ markets dot the country in 2011, a more than fourfold increase in seventeen years.Other democratic economic models are also gaining ground:In 1985 an irrepressible Massachusetts farmer named Robyn Van En helped create the first US Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, in which eaters are no longer just purchasers but partners, helping to shoulder the farmer’s risk by prepaying for a share of the harvest before the planting season. On weekends, “my” CSA—Waltham Fields, near Boston—is alive as families pick and chat, and kids learn how to spot the yummiest strawberries. Now there are 2,500 CSAs across the country, while more than 12,500 farms informally use this prepay, partnership approach.The cooperative model is spreading too, replacing one dollar, one vote—the corporate form—with one person, one vote. In the 1970s, US food cooperatives took off. Today there are 160 nationwide, and co-op veteran Annie Hoy in Ashland, Oregon, sees a new upsurge. Thirty-nine have just opened, or are “on their way right now,” she told me.Funky storefronts of the 1970s, famous for limp organic carrots, have morphed into mouthwatering community hubs. Beginning as a food-buying club of fifteen families in 1953, Seattle’s PCC Natural Markets has nine stores and almost 46,000 members, making it the largest US food cooperative. Its sales more than doubled in a decade.Producer co-ops have also made huge gains. In 1988 a handful of worried farmers, watching profits flow to middlemen, not to them, launched the Organic Valley Family of Farms. Today Organic Valley’s more than 1,600 farmer owners span thirty-two states, generating sales of more than $500 million in 2008.The RulesThe global food system reflects societies’ rules—often uncodified—that determine who eats and how our earth fares. In the United States, rules increasingly reflect our nation’s slide into “privately held government.” But in rule-setting, too, energy is hardly unidirectional.In 1999, on the streets of Seattle, 65,000 environmentalists, labor and other activists made history, blunting the antidemocratic agenda of the World Trade Organization. In 2008 more citizens than ever engaged in shaping the farm bill, resulting in rules encouraging organic production. The movement has also established 100 “food policy councils”—new local-to-state, multi-stakeholder coordinating bodies. And this year, eighty-three plaintiffs joined the Public Patent Foundation in suing Monsanto, challenging its GMO seeds’ “usefulness” (required for patenting) as well as the company’s right to patent seeds to begin with.Even small changes in the rules can create huge possibilities. Consider, for example, the ripples from a 2009 Brazilian law requiring at least 30 percent of school meals to consist of food from local family farms.Rules governing rights are the human community’s foundational guarantees to one another—and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights gave access to food that status. Since then, nearly two dozen nations have planted the right to food in their constitutions. If you wonder whether it matters, note that when Brazil undertook a multifaceted “zero hunger” campaign, framing food as a right, the country slashed its infant death rate by about a third in seven years.Food Power: Only ConnectThis rising global food movement taps universal human sensibilities—expressed in Hindu farmers in India saving seeds, Muslim farmers in Niger turning back the desert and Christian farmers in the United States practicing biblically inspired Creation Care. In these movements lies the revolutionary power of the food movement: its capacity to upend a life-destroying belief system that has brought us power-concentrating corporatism.Corporatism, after all, depends on our belief in the fairy tale that market “magic” (Ronald Reagan’s unforgettable term) works on its own without us.Food can break that spell. For the food movement’s power is that it can shift our sense of self: from passive, disconnected consumers in a magical market to active, richly connected co-producers in societies we are creating—as share owners in a CSA farm or purchasers of fair-trade products or actors in public life shaping the next farm bill.The food movement’s power is connection itself. Corporatism distances us from one another, from the earth—and even from our own bodies, tricking them to crave that which destroys them—while the food movement celebrates our reconnection. Years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, CSA farmer Barb Perkins told me about her most rewarding moments: “Like in town yesterday,” she said, “I saw this little kid, wide-eyed, grab his mom’s arm and point at me. ‘Mommy,’ he said. ‘Look. There’s our farmer!’”At its best, this movement encourages us to “think like an ecosystem,” enabling us to see a place for ourselves connected to all others, for in ecological systems “there are no parts, only participants,” German physicist Hans Peter Duerr reminds us. With an “eco-mind” we can see through the productivist fixation that inexorably concentrates power, generating scarcity for some, no matter how much we produce. We’re freed from the premise of lack and the fear it feeds. Aligning food and farming with nature’s genius, we realize there’s more than enough for all.As the food movement stirs, as well as meets, deep human needs for connection, power and fairness, let’s shed any notion that it’s simply “nice” and seize its true potential to break the spell of our disempowerment.

Ode to the poppy + From poppies to peace: Poem remembers the fallen + Giving birth as bombs fall

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:32am

Ode to the poppy

Article By: Cynthia Ross Cravit

Oct 30, 2011

The poppy has been an international symbol of remembrance since the 19th century Napoleonic Wars, over 110 years before it was adopted by Canada.

In November, Canadians wear scarlet poppies to pay tribute to those who have died in war and military operations. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — the time the Armistice of World War I was signed in 1918 — people across the country are asked to observe two minutes of silence to remember those servicemen and women who have sacrificed their lives.

The poppy has been an international symbol of remembrance since the 19th century Napoleonic Wars, over 110 years before it was adopted by Canada. A record from the time reflects on how the destruction wrought by war transformed bare land into fields of blood-red flowers which grew around the bodies of fallen soldiers.

Scarlet poppies (popaver rhoeas), long known as the corn poppy because it flourished as a weed in grain fields, grew abundantly in the trenches of the war zone. Artillery shells and shrapnel stirred up the earth and exposed the seeds to the light they needed to germinate. While the seeds of the flower can remain dormant for years, they are known to blossom spectacularly once the soil is churned.

The poppy became a lasting memorial o the fallen in Canada and the Commonwealth due largely to Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian Medical Officer during the First World War. During the Battle of Ypres in 1915, Lt.-Col. McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields when he saw poppies growing beside a grave of a close friend who had died in battle.

While the poppy has become a modern symbol of sacrifice, its legend reaches back thousands of years. The flower has been found in Egyptian tombs dating back 3,000 years. Homer mentions poppies in the Iliad when he compares the head of a dying warrior to that of a hanging poppy flower.

And in ancient Greece, poppies were considered sacred to Hypnos, the god of sleep. Ancient imagery depicts Hypnos with poppies in his hands and crowning his head. The doorway to his temple was also decorated with poppy blossoms. Hypnos was thought to bring prophetic dreams and relief to those suffering from grief or emotional pain.

Ancient Greeks thought that poppies were a sign of fertility. Poppy seeds were thought to induce vitality and strength so Greek athletes were given mixtures of poppy seeds, honey, and wine.

The Romans knew the god Hypnos as Somnus, which is echoed in the flower’s Latin name Papaver somniferum — somnus ferre — bringer of sleep. The poppy was also associated with Thanatos, or Hades the Lord of Dead, and of eternal sleep.

Poppies can also be linked to the Mogul leader, Genghis Khan. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Mogul Emperor led his warriors on campaigns south to India, and west to Russia as far as the Black Sea. According to legend, pure white poppies erupted on churned up battlefields drenched with blood.

(And while Oriental poppies contain opium, the corn poppy, does not. And remember when Dorothy fell asleep in a field of flowers in the Wizard of Oz? The flowers were poppies.)

The first artificial poppies as memorial symbols were distributed in Canada in 1921. Today the volunteer donations from the distribution of millions of poppies are an important source of revenue for the Royal Canadian Legion that goes toward various programs helping ex-servicemen and women.
In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, 1915

From poppies to peace: Poem remembers the fallen
Article By: John Macdonald - Aug 05, 2011

Learn the story behind one of Remembrance Day's most famous poems.

Undoubtedly one of the world’s most famous poems, written by a Canadian doctor on a blood-soaked battlefield in war-ravaged Belgium during World War 1, In Flanders Fields has become an international plea for world peace.

Dr. John McCrae had just buried one of his closest friends, killed by a direct hit from a German shell. The friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was buried in a crude grave marked by a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were just beginning to bloom between the crosses marking the many graves.

McCrae had been in the trenches every day for several weeks attending hundreds of wounded and dying soldiers near Ypres, Belgium, in an area traditionally called “Flanders.”

“It was a nightmare,” he wrote his mother. “For 17 days and 17 nights, none of us have had our clothes off… gunfire and rifle fire never ceased.”

McCrae sat in the morning sun on May 3, 1915, outside his makeshift field hospital, listening to the chirping of birds amid the thunder of the guns. He looked over at the nearby cemetery with its rows and rows of crosses amid brightly colored poppies.

Tearing a page out of his dispatcbook, he quickly wrote a short poem of just 15 lines, yet an immortal 15 lines –

In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

It was printed anonymously on Dec. 8, 1915, in Punch, a leading British magazine. The short but moving poem struck a nerve, and struck a chord with soldiers and civilians alike. Within two years, it had been reprinted throughout the British Empire and the United States, playing a major role in attracting public donations for the war effort through the sale of Victory Bonds.

But McCrae never returned home to enjoy the acclaim. He had suffered much in three years of war, including a poison gas attack which seriously aggravated his asthma. Yet throughout his time, he worked with little rest and under horrendous conditions to care for the wounded.

McCrae died on January 8, 1918, of pneumonia and meningitis in the military hospital at Wimereux, just up the coast from Boulogne, France, and was buried the next day with full military honours in the Wimereux cemetery. A hundred nursing sisters in uniform formed a line at the graveside. One later wrote, “All came as we did, because we loved him so.”

Canadians mourned the death of their soldier/doctor/poet with nation-wide tributes, including a stained-glass window at McGill University with the inscription: “Pathologist, Poet, Soldier, Physician, Man Among Men.”

Famed Canadian writer Stephen Leacock wrote in tribute: “John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields will live as long as the memory of the heroic struggle of the Canadians that formed its inspiration.”
Today, while millions know the poem In Flanders Fields, few know anything of the author.

John McCrae was born on Nov. 30, 1872, in Guelph, the second son of a soldier, Lt. Col. David McCrae. Always interested in the military, he joined the Militia field battery in Guelph, commanded by his father. He also attended the University of Toronto and graduated as a medical doctor in 1898 — it was while at university, he developed a flair for writing poetry. McCrae took part in the Boer War, not as a doctor but as an officer in the Guelph contingent of the Canadian Field Artillery.

Following the Boer War, he dropped his military connections and concentrated on medicine, gaining renown for his work in Montreal, lecturing at McGill and other universities, even writing several medical textbooks. When Canada declared war on Germany on Aug. 4, 1914, McCrae was one of the first to join, as brigade-surgeon to the Canadian Forces Artillery with the rank of major.

McRae’s homestead in Guelph, a small stone cottage turned into a museum, sits on a quiet street overlooking the Speed River. In 1966, a group of Guelph citizens purchased the cottage, built in 1857, to honor McCrae’s memory. Today, it’s a small but interesting museum, with several rooms displaying furniture from the year McCrae was born plus historical displays illustrating his life.

This Nov. 30 will be a major event at the homestead as it marks the 125th anniversary of McCrae’s birth.

“November 30 will be a major happening here,” says Val Harrison, program co-ordinator at the Centre. “We’ll be opening a new exhibit on John McCrae’s life and celebrating his birthday with parades and church services. Even a big birthday cake.”

For the past eight years, the Guelph Amateur Radio Club has used the homestead as a base to broadcast during Remembrance Day Week, transmitting messages of peace to thousands of “ham” radio operators around the world. Club members will be sending and receiving messages at the homestead from Nov. 4 to 11. And beside the cottage, a memorial cenotaph and garden of remembrance is the scene of many ceremonies of remembrance by Guelph veterans.

After McCrae’s tragic death in France, Moina Michael, in charge of a New York YWCA hostel, was intrigued by the concept of a poppy as symbol of peace after reading In Flanders Fields and distributed some for people to mark Armistice Day. A friend took her idea back to France and set war widows and orphans to work making artificial poppies to raise funds specifically for war-torn areas.

In 1921, the British Legion picked up the idea and within a year, it had spread to Canada, United States, New Zealand and Australia. And today, that symbol of peace, the poppy, along with McRae’s famous poem, lives on as a reminder of the sacrifices made by armed forces in numerous conflicts throughout the decades.

Giving birth as bombs fall

Article By: Jenny Hetherington
May 13, 2010

An unsung hero: the amazing story of one woman's selfless acts of bravery and compassion.

History is not kind to the humble. Stories celebrating selfless acts of bravery and compassion are often never told because the heroes shy away from praise and attention. My mother, Halina Pisarski, was one of these special people.

Her story begins in May 1940, three days after Germany invaded Belgium. My father was off fighting for the British forces. Nine months pregnant and with 8- and 10-year old sons in tow, she boarded a train hoping to reach the relative safety of France.

It took three days for that train to cover 75 kilometres. During the trek there was nothing to eat or drink. What little food she had brought along was quickly exhausted. Things seemed impossibly desperate – and then she went into labour. The train stopped and she found herself stranded somewhere in southern Belgium, near the city of Tournai. How she protected her children from repeated attacks by low-flying aircraft strafing the train with bombs and machine-gun fire is a story in itself.

Now in full labour, she managed to get to a makeshift hospital where she met a young student nurse who helped deliver the baby. And there, in the middle of a war zone, I was born.

My brothers were told to wait outside. In all the confusion, a team of Red Cross workers collecting orphaned or stranded children picked them up and put them in their vehicle. An hour after I was delivered, the bombing became so intense that the building was evacuated. Clothed in only a short hospital gown and wrapped in a sheet, holding her one-hour-old infant close to her, my mother was put in an ambulance with severely wounded soldiers. The ambulance never had a chance to leave.

An explosion ripped off the roof of the vehicle and killed the driver. My mother somehow got out. She grabbed a coat from a dead soldier and rummaged around other dead bodies for handkerchiefs and anything else useful for herself and her newborn.

She was frantic over her missing sons but with no idea where to look and night falling, she took refuge in a barn with several other stranded women. One was a 17-year-old girl who had also just given birth but was unable to breastfeed. Another was a nurse who was caring for a baby whose mother died during childbirth. She too had no milk to feed the infant, so my mother fed all three newborns, one after the other. At night, the women had to stay awake to chase away rats. My mother remained in that barn for a few days in order to regain her strength. She begged at a nearby German army encampment for food for her as well as the other women.

My mother eventually took to the road and started looking for my brothers. She walked from orphanage to orphanage, asking every person she met if they knew where displaced children might have been taken. During the day, when one diaper was soiled, she would rinse it in a puddle of water and hang it on her back to dry. At one point, she took shelter for the night in the entrance of a chapel only to find out in the morning that there had been a sign outside the gated grounds with the warning: “Beware: Mine Field.”

And on she walked. Another night, she came upon a large deserted house. She found her way to one of the bedrooms and collapsed on a bed, completely exhausted from carrying her baby all day under a hot May sun. She had barely fallen asleep when a German soldier arrived and warned her that the house had been requisitioned as a hospital for German soldiers. However, he took pity on us and told her she could spend the night. He even brought her some hot soup to eat. She finally found my brothers at a nunnery and returned home to Brussels.

At this point, I should mention that my mother was Polish, and that she had dark brown eyes and black hair. Even though she had attended university, the only work she could find was cleaning houses. It was wartime and people were wary of foreigners. She was constantly on her guard on her way to and from work because the Gestapo would frequently pick up anyone who looked remotely Jewish.

In 1943, even though I was barely three, I remember the Gestapo coming to our apartment building to take away the Jewish family who lived downstairs. By a stroke of good fortune, the youngest daughter was not at home that evening. A few days later, my mother was approached and asked to take the little girl to Antwerp where a family would hide the child. My mother accepted the mission without hesitation.

I vividly remember how she recounted that story to me. There was a German officer seated on the train across from my mother and the little girl. He kept glancing back and forth between her and the girl. While he was staring, all she could think about was her three-year-old daughter and her now 11- and 13-year-old boys at home alone. They had been strictly instructed not to leave the apartment. She battled slipping into panic. What would happen to them if anything happened to her?

When she arrived in Antwerp, the arrangement called for my mother to sit on a bench with the girl. A woman would come, sit on the other side of the child and my mother would leave. However, my mother was so traumatized by the ride on the train that her legs were frozen in place and incapable of supporting her. Finally as darkness came, she found the strength to get up and board the train back to Brussels.

These were not her only heroic deeds. She sent parcels to that Jewish family in the German work camp even though she barely earned enough to feed herself and her children. I still have the postcards they sent her asking for food and clothing. I remember how she told me that she had had to work one full day to purchase one egg for me! For three long years after I was born, she pumped her breasts every single day and took the excess milk to the Red Cross to feed preemies and newborns whose mothers had died or couldn’t produce breast milk and who could not properly digest cow’s milk. She was given a booklet where they tracked the number of litres of milk she donated! I still have that precious document in my possession. She only stopped when her teeth literally started to disintegrate from lack of calcium. Any cow’s milk she worked so hard to purchase was for us children; she never drank a drop.

There are only two of us left now, a younger brother and I. Who will remember my mother when we are gone? I do not want her name to pass into oblivion after I am no longer here to cherish and honour her memory and her contributions. I decided to contact Plan Canada, an international development and relief organization, I have long been supporting. They set up an Endowment Fund in my mother’s name to keep her memory alive. It is designed so that all the proceeds go toward Plan Canada’s Children of War Fund. I know my mother would be proud of helping children in conflict zones even after her passing. Through this fund, the legacy of her courage and goodness will live on.

I had the privilege of calling this great woman “Maman.” To others, she was simply Halina Pisarski.
Jenny Hetherington lives in Toronto. For more information on setting up a legacy or endowment fund, please go to Plancanada.ca/waystogive.

The Inner Plane Ascended Masters Want Us to Approach them Coming From A Place of Empowerment

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:31am

The Inner Plane Ascended Masters Want Us to Approach them Coming From A Place of EmpowermentSeptember 28th, 2011The inner plane Ascended Masters want us to approach the coming from a place of personal power and empowerment. They don’t want us to regard ourselves as lowly worms having no self-worth, looking at ourselves as being of lesser value than them. They don’t want us to put them on a pedestal! Not at all!They also don’t want us to wait for them to tell us what to do! They want us to use our own God-given mind and creativity to come up with plans and ideas ourselves! They want to communicate with an equal, with a master!Obviously they are here to help and guide us along the way; however, their main agenda is to help us become masters in our own right so we can step into their footsteps, and so they themselves can step into the footsteps of their own teachers!The Integrated Ascended Master is determined to serve the inner plane Ascended Masters with personal power and vision.So let it be written, So let it be done.© 2011, Dr Joshua David Stone and Gloria Excelsias, www.IAMUniversity.org

Our True Worth and Value Come from Being Created by God

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:31am

Our True Worth and Value Come from Being Created by GodOctober 13th, 2011Unfortunately the greater part of humanity has neither self-love nor self-worth. And those who actually have self-worth mostly base it on their accomplishments or outer success, whereas in truth our worth and value comes from within!Our self-worth does not come from what we do; it comes from who we are! Every human being is infinitely worthy and valuable because everyone in the world is a Son and/or Daughter of God. Can what God created be unworthy? Self-worth is our divine inheritance as a Child of God. It can be neither increased by our successes nor decreased by our mistakes. It is eternally unchangeable.The Integrated Ascended Master realizes his infinite worth and eternal value as a Creation of God and thus has full self-love and self-worth.So let it be written, So let it be done.© 2011, Dr Joshua David Stone and Gloria Excelsias,www.IAMUniversity.org

Seven Tips to Stay Focused on your Spiritual Path, Goals and Aspirations

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:30am

Seven Tips to Stay Focused on your Spiritual Path, Goals and AspirationsOctober 20th, 2011If we are not careful, it is very easy for the temptations of this world to steer us off our path. This is why it is crucial to stay focused on our Spiritual goals.For your enjoyment, here are seven tips to stay focused on your Spiritual path, goals and aspirations:1. Practice attitudinal healing: whenever a negative thought comes up, stop it and replace it with a positive one.2. Monitor and work with your dreams: make regular adjustments based on the feedback you receive from your dreams.3. Make daily adjustments in all areas of your life, as needed: both spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.4. Create Spiritual battle plans: always have a Spiritual battle plan in place – there are always things to improve and polish.5. Write “Dear God” letters: it can be extremely soothing and inspiring to write a letter to God, sharing with Him/Her whatever is in your heart.6. Go over your list of goals: there is no way to stick to your goals of Self and God Realization and realize them unless you review them regularly.7. Go over your to-do-list and adjust it accordingly: do this at least every weekday.The Integrated Ascended Master follows his Spiritual path, goals and aspirations with iron discipline. He leaves nothing to chance but takes initiative every single day to stay attuned to God and mirror God’s Consciousness. It is actually not hard at all for him to discipline himself to do any kind of routine because what keeps him going is his all-consuming, insatiable desire and longing for God and God Realization!© 2011, Dr Joshua David Stone and Gloria Excelsias, www.IAMUniversity.org

Three Things You Can Do to Clear Your Aura of Negative Thought Forms

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:30am

Three Things You Can Do to Clear Your Aura of Negative Thought FormsOctober 26th, 2011Even if one has attained a great degree of self-mastery, just living on this plant with all the negativity in the world, anyone can easily pick up negative thought forms or misqualified energies. All it takes is a moment of not being vigilant and watchful.There are a number of things you can do to clear your aura of such negative thought forms. For your enjoyment, here are three quick tips.1. Visualize a huge violet flame. The violet flame is also known as the Violet Transmuting Flame because it has the power to transmute misqualified energies into pure energies. So visualize a huge violet flame and then step into this flame, and see, feel, and visualize how this flame transmutes all negative energies in your aura.2. Ask to be taken to Djwhal Khul’s Synthesis Ashram and ask him to clear your auric field of all negative elementals, energies and thought forms.3. Call on Melchizedek and ask for a Golden Dome of Protection to be placed around you to both protect you and clear you of any unwanted energies.These are three simple tips that the Integrated Ascended Master uses to maintain the purity and clarity of his energy fields. Give it a try and see for yourself.So let it be written, So let it be done.© 2011, Dr Joshua David Stone and Gloria Excelsias, www.IAMUniversity.org

Why Do People Attack and Criticize Others?

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:29am

Why Do People Attack and Criticize Others?November 2nd, 2011There are many reasons why people attack and criticize others. For your enjoyment, here are listed some.People attack and criticize because:1. They have not been trained how to master and control their mind, emotions and negative ego programming.2. They are run by fear, and fearful people attack.3. They are out of control which causes them to get angry in a vain attempt to get back in control; however, this is illusion for their angry response is showing they are still out of control.4. They are too much run by their emotional body. When you allow your feelings and emotions to run your life, the negative ego becomes the programmer of your feelings and emotions.5. They are jealous. They suffer from low self-esteem and are constantly competing and comparing themselves with others to try to feel good about themselves. They are trapped in that negative ego complex of being better than others or worse than others.6. They are lacking self-love and self-worth. They attack and criticize to try to move to the topside of the negative ego instead of the bottom side of the negative ego. They don’t understand that they are trapped in negative ego duality altogether.The Integrated Ascended Master realizes that the only way to escape this roller coaster ride of the negative ego from self-inflation to self-deflation is to transcend the whole system and see there is another way of thinking, not based on fear and attack nor lower self-esteem and self-aggrandizement.And this other way of thinking is called Spiritual/ Christ/ Buddha/ Krishna/ Moses/ Mohammed/ Mighty I AM Presence thinking. It is a way of thinking that will bring you unconditional love, unconditional self-love and self-worth, unchanging happiness and inner peace at all times without having to ever attack, judge, hurt, compare, compete and be better than or worse than others.So let it be written, So let it be done.© 2011, Dr Joshua David Stone and Gloria Excelsias, www.IAMUniversity.org

My Mother's Funeral

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 4, 2011 at 8:27am

My Mother's FuneralConsumed by my loss, I didn't notice the hardness of the pew where I sat. I was at the funeral of my dearest friend - my mother. She finally had lost her long battle with cancer.The hurt was so intense; I found it hard to breathe at times. Always supportive, Mother clapped loudest at my school plays, held box of tissues while listening to my first heartbreak, comforted me at my father's death, encouraged me in college, and prayed for me my entire life.When mother's illness was diagnosed, my sister had a new baby and my brother had recently married his childhood sweetheart, so it fell on me, the 27-year-old middlechild without entanglements, to take care of her. I counted it an honor. 'What now, Lord?' I asked sitting in church.My life stretched out before me as an empty abyss. My brother sat stoically with his face toward the cross while clutching his wife's hand. My sister sat slumped againsther husband's shoulder, his arms around her as she cradled their child... All so deeply grieving, no one noticed I sat alone.My place had been with our mother, preparing her meals, helping her walk, taking her to the doctor, seeing to her medication, reading the Bible together. Now she was with the Lord. My work was finished, and I was aloneI heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church. Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor. An exasperated young man looked around briefly and thensat next to me. He folded his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes were brimming with tears. He began to sniffle. 'I'm late,' he explained, though no explanationwas necessary.After several eulogies, he leaned over and commented, 'Why do they keep calling Mary by the name of 'Margaret?'' 'Because, that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary,no one called her 'Mary,'' I whispered.I wondered why this person couldn't have sat on the other side of the church. He interrupted my grieving with his tears and fidgeting. Who was this stranger anyway?'No, that isn't correct,' he insisted, as several people glanced over at us hispering, 'Her name is Mary, Mary Peters.' 'That isn't who this is.''Isn't this the Lutheran church?''No, the Lutheran church is across the street.''Oh.''I believe you're at the wrong funeral, Sir.' The solemnness of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man's mistake bubbled up inside me and came out as laughter. I cupped my hands over my face, hoping it would be interpreted as sobs. The creaking pew gave me away. Sharp looks from other mourners only made the situation seem more hilarious.I peeked at the bewildered, misguided man seated beside me. He was laughing; too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit. I imagined Mother laughing.At the final 'Amen,' we darted out a door and into the parking lot. 'I do believe we'll be the talk of the town,' he said, smiling. He said his name was Rick and since he had missed his aunt's funeral, asked me out for a cup of coffee.That afternoon began a lifelong journey for me with this man who attended the wrong funeral, but was in the right place. A year after our meeting, we were married at a country church where he was the assistant pastor.This time we both arrived at the same church, right on time... In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love. This past June, we celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Rick tells them, 'Her mother and my Aunt Mary introduced us, and it's truly a match made in heaven.'If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things he has done for you, send this on to others. REMEMBER, God doesn't make mistakes. He puts uswhere we are to be.

11:11:11 Oracle Vision

Posted by Ina on November 2, 2011 at 12:51pm

http://www.childrenofthesun.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=423%3A11-11-11-oracle-vision&catid=39&Itemid=1&lang=en

November 1, 2011

Blessings Dear Sun Family,

The culminating moment is almost here and we now begin the 11-day countdown to the 11:11:11 first wave ascension spiral!

The excitement is sure building and we are so grateful and blessed with not even the words to adequately express the inner feelings. We sincerely thank you for all of the appreciation mail and donations being made towards our focus of light activity. Our hands are on our hearts in deep gratefulness for your continuing support to the Foundation. Without you, our reunited family, none of this would even be possible.

The following information addresses the many questions coming into the Foundation and shares our highest vision from intuitive impression and direct personal experiences.

11-11-11 Oracle Vision from Children of the Sun

The triple date portal of 11-11-11 is a cosmic trigger that launches all life into a simultaneous raising of vibrational frequency. This carries the potential to catalyze major impacts within the planetary grids, causing a very swift polarity reversal within our consciousness. This keystone activation will launch the ascension process for all choosing humanity, triggering a powerful sequence of portal openings across the globe.

It is not possible to understand exactly how this will outplay because we, ourselves, are creating this event in every NOW moment.

The Stargate is Inside Us

The inner "Stargate" is already activating within each of us, as a whole new holographic reality. It is simply waiting to be acknowledged in order to anchor the created matrix of light into the core of our being as our new strands of DNA are fired through each burst of the greater collective awakening. The First Wave ascensions will catapult our entire Group Body.

When we speak of portals or stargates, we speak of these in context of a transition, from one dimensional perception to the next. This is occurring, first and foremost, within the inner realms of our consciousness. This is an inner event and one that connects the lifestream to the Soul, and more importantly, to the Group Soul. This is the key that unlocks the Seal to Divine Remembrance.

It is not necessary to be in any specific place physically upon the Earth to receive or experience this "passage" through the time portals.

Each person will have their own unique experience depending on where they are in their current understandings and level of purity. Every single person will be affected, especially those who are in group formation. This is a tremendous raising through the group merkabic field.

An Internal Pole Shift

We feel that this energy internalizes an energetic pole shift with potential for the nervous system to be recalibrated to the 5th dimensional frequency of the New Earth harmonic which then enables us to perceive beyond our electromagnetic forms. This eventually integrates a multidimensional consciousness that can traverse both time-space and space-time.

The spin points upholding the energy matrix of free will is dissolved in our entire energetic system, shifting our polarity to the Love and Light of Divine Will, permanently.

The Planetary Sacred Sites are Highly Activated

All Sacred Sites upon the Earth are greatly activated due to the extreme frequencies of Light as a result of this alignment and also as a result of the tremendous numbers of human souls coming together in consciousness on this day. To be physically present at sacred sites and places upon the Earth that hold high levels of crystal energy will greatly amplify our direct experiences.

Sacred Sites are inter-dimensional spaces where we may easily access the expanded dimensions. If we cannot be there, physically, we can travel to these sacred sites in soul consciousness... either way, we can magnetize the releasing codes of light from these places simply through our intention and focused attention.

Stargate Titicaca

The Lake Titicaca Stargate is an etheric portal giving access directly to Venus, as one of its inter-dimensional space-time coordinates.

For a brief period of time, this portal frequency will open to assist in the first wave ascensions; assisted by the magnetic pull from the orbit of Venus. This portal is similar to passing through a birth canal as it is literally filled with key codes to fire the DNA encodement and anchor the remaining axiotonal spin points of our expanded blueprint. This applies to first wave ascenders who have prepared the physical form and who have accepted their mission to make a dimensional consciousness shift at this time.

Our entrance through the Titicaca Stargate is accessed through our consciousness merger with the Golden Sun Disc which we, ourselves, encoded during previous lifetimes in Lemuria, just before its cataclysmic demise. It functions like a crystal skull in that this discal solar helix (likened to a DNA strand) holds the records that we encoded within it prior to the sinking of our beloved Motherland.

As the first wave ascensions take place during the 11-11-11, this encoded information will be unlocked and transmitted to our entire Group Soul due to the coherence of our merkabic field of enegy. This produces subsequent firing of our collective Soul DNA while synchronistically eradicating the duality timeline.

Our very passage through this stargate of consciousness, in tandem as one Group Body, sets up a grand chain reaction throughout the planet to trigger the complete activation of all 12 Golden Solar Discs and the Solar Grid's adherence to the Crystalline Grid, allowing amplified levels of Divine Love to flood to the planet.

All of this is fired through our Group Love.

We are remaining on the Planet

We are all here on Earth with a different mission. Speaking on behalf of Children of the Sun Foundation and its mission as a Group Avatar, we are NOT leaving the planet on 11-11-11... although many of us may need some serious down time to integrate these new frequencies into our physical form.

Regarding our group, we intuitively feel:

1. A small group of first wave of light servers will ascend their frequencies and actually remain in the new dimensional space time coordinates recalibrating completely to the 5th dimension. This ascending process of transfiguration is actually happening now.

2. Another group of light servers will ascend momentarily in the immense 11:11:11 wave in which to receive an immense activation from the acceleration of frequencies. Continued integration will enable the consciousness to traverse multiple realities while continuing to serve humanity from the bridge 'between' dimensional realities.

3. The majority of light servers will experience this greatly expanded state of dimension briefly and then continue purifying/preparing the body and consciousness for final transition during 2012 and the 2012 ascension window of opportunity.

11-11-11 Sequence of Events

The portal energies are arriving now and the greatest window of opportunity for dimensional passage is November 8-14. As Divine Orchestration would have it, we have a full moon on November 10, one day prior to 11-11-11, giving us an additional opportunity to Fire the Grid as a Group Transmission Team.

It is most challenging to specify certain dates and times because all that is occurring is not in any way related to time-space. The outer events, activations, transmissions and such are but 'ceremonies' that acknowledge what is happening and help us to cognize the shift through the form... giving us more direct and tangible experiences.

Arkansas-Titicaca-Sedona
Pivotal Trinity Firing

In ages long past, just prior to the fall of Lemuria and Atlantis, we programmed the main Titicaca Solar Disc (and all of its triggering master crystals) to serve as the initial portal entry which ushers through the first wave of human ascensions.

This primary activation is part of the grand trigger that sets off a chain reaction resulting in the activations of other Solar Discs, ascension gates and portal conduits around the planet to support the subsequent liberation of the human race.

The Stargates are constructed and have been for millennia. What was needed to render them useful was:

The reactivation of the major Atlantean and Lemurian crystals that were planted during those earlier epochs.

The astrological progression of the precession of the equinoxes and subsequent alignment of celestial objects.

The awakened I AM Race (us).

This approaching event is perfectly orchestrated to occur simultaneously as a master capacitor Platinum Crystal from Atlantis activates in the crystal beds of Arkansas. Our fellow light tribe, the Earth-Keepers led by Tyberonn, will be in the field assisting with this grand activation on the 11-11-11.

In combination with the Crysto-Sun-Disc activation taking place at the Arkansas vortex, the energies brought forth there will exponentially amplify and anchor the highly potent platinum frequency upon the Earth during the planetary crystalline transition.

During the Arkansas recoding, we draw a compelling parallel between this experience and that of a primary seal being "unlocked". As the seal is removed through the intensifying cosmic energy and our collective focus, a mass triggering will occur causing a spontaneous combustion to fire through the grids, especially the 144 Crystalline Grid. Highly charged pulsations will channel directly to Lake Titicaca to ignite the Golden Sun Disc into FULL momentous power.

As this regards the Children of the Sun mission, this entire sequence of events is a trinity firing. Once the recoding occurs at Arkansas, igniting the Disc at Lake Titicaca, this stream of energy then triggers into another spontaneous combustion of energy with the highly potent surge channeled directly to Sedona, Arizona which then fires the unlocking of the counter-rotating field of energy that bridges and marries the Titicaca-Sedona vortex fields into one of absolute balance. (The Eagle and the Condor).

The pulsating waves of Divine Love will assist in actualizing the Crystalline City of Light within Sedona into the physical/etheric realms, becoming the blueprint of Light for the actualization of all the Crystalline Cities of Light within and around this earth plane.

11-11-11 Sequence of Events

The reactivation of the major Atlantean and Lemurian crystals that were planted during those earlier epochs.

The astrological progression of the precession of the equinoxes and subsequent alignment of celestial objects.

The awakened I AM Race (us).

"Dealing with Darkness..."

Posted by AMBA on November 2, 2011 at 1:42am

by finding the ancient light
Whether we like to admit it or not, we're all going to have to process our inner darkness at some point on the evolutionary journey - and almost certainly many times - it's an ongoing process. To me, darkness really relates to 'internal mis-representation of reality'. It happens as the soul forms a judgment - get's stuck in an opinion - about whether something is 'good' or 'bad', 'right' or 'wrong'. Every exploration is inspired by an original truth - what some call "ancient light". In helping people through darkness, I've discovered the key is to go fearlessly into the heart of it, not deny it, but let it wash over you, and then, at the height of the inner storm, look for this ancient light within it...

The journey of the soul
When we venture courgeously into the depths of our soul, we ultimately realise its innate character is to explore every attachment we may have in order to initiate self realisation and thereby evolutionary growth. Early on in my journey, I had what (for me) was a very powerful realisation...

"On the journey of the soul,
when a crossroads is reached
where one path leading to 'heaven' and the other to 'hell',
a soul yearning for liberation makes no judgment or distinction
about which one to choose.
Attunement to either path happens due to one 'consideration' only...
What can 'I' learn?"
Openhand

At the time I found this immensely liberating and empowering. It explained why exactly I was experiencing so much darkness when I simply let go. Prior to this, I'd been temporarily caught in a 'spiritual identity' - an idea and opinion about "how spiritual people should be".

Spiritual identities
The opinion seems to be strongly prevalent within spiritual circles that a truly 'spiritual person' should be like this or that, they have certain behaviours and shine the light in particular ways. In this arena, I observe it often causes evolving people to ask..."how can it be right to experience such darkness?"

What can all-too-frequently happen next is denial! As the negative feelings and visions start welling up, the spiritual ego wants to either disown or suppress them. How often do you hear 'spiritual' people on facebook for example openly exploring their darkness? My observation is that there is a tendency to project only what 'wants' to be heard.

Such spiritual identities are strongly limiting - the soul yearns for completeness, but it cannot be that if it has not been forged in the crucible of life - the all of it. So the first key to dealing with darkness is not to deny it, but as the experiences begin to arise, fall fearlessly into the heart of it...

"It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled
and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it."
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Blessings in disguise
All action in the physical plane, whether light or dark, subtle or intense arises from a higher co-creative (and mostly abstract) contemplation. So a group of souls may be drawn together to explore a question. For example: "what is the true meaning of compassion?"...

If the purpose of each soul is to evolve beyond attachment,
and to be truly liberated is to be liberated by all things,
then everything 'I do to you' which causes the exposure and pain of attachment - our suffering,
must ultimately be a blessing.
Openhand

Yes I know this one can be pretty tough! To accept that some of the most horrendous perpetrations against us are actually blessings in disguise. But if in the heart of our suffering, we can keep remembering this one vital truth, then it becomes possible to realise that...

"I must have created it by my very attachment to it.
Otherwise there simply wouldn't be a need for me to experience it."

This is of course the "Law of Attraction" in operation - we draw exactly those circumstances to us through which we need to evolve and grow. Again, I have found this realisation to be immensely liberating whilst dwelling in the heart of darkness.

Looking for the ancient light
So souls come together to explore those areas that limit, contract and hold us back. We're here to expand the boundaries on physical and emotional expression: to walk the blade edge of life by continually realsing we are not the experience itself, we are that which is beyond the experience.

So when darkness begins to happen and wants to draw us in, if we can feel the tightness of our own fear and non acceptance beginning to contract us down, then it's almost certainly a sign that we're being invited to let go and dive into what ever then comes up - however painful it may appear to be.

And when the experiences wash over us, I've observed it's vitally important to keep looking for the ancient light within it... "why is this happening? Why is it having such an effect? What is the outcome I'm either needing or resisting from this?"

"And I found that I can do it if I choose to -
I can stay awake and let the sorrows of the world tear me apart
and then allow the joys to put me back together,
different from before, but whole once again."
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Holding the pain
If we courageously explore our inner darkness in this way, then we will certainly find the reason we're in it in the first place. At some point we'll notice our attachment. Take for example emotional pain. What happens when you're flooded by negative emotion? Are you owned by it? Do you give into it and react from that place? And if you do, does it serve you to do so?

Let's be clear, it is important to honour what wants to come up, but the point is to evolve beyond the attachment that causes such emotion. If we simply wallow in the emotion and let it define us, then it will keep recreating itself.

So in the case of excessive emotional release and external projection for example, it could be about bringing the centre of our attention into the heart and holding the negative energy within our field - as unpleasant as it may be - just holding that energy without immediate release can help us dissolve the attachment to it. In which case, a good part of the denseness may then simply ebb away.

But this is far from a passive and suppressive approach. It takes the fearless application of the inner warrior to hold that energy and to work with it. It's all about feeling it, letting it wash through you, but then also finding a flow of light which is through it all - the original cause of the exploration.

The only effective way out is through
I do observe it is often the case that without such a proactive approach to the darkness, people inadvertently subject themselves only to increased pain and suffering, by either resisting the darkness or getting lost in it and therefore being defined by it.

With a positive exploration however, fearlessly falling into it, looking for the ancient light, honouring our expression yes, but resisting projection onto others by holding the energy within, then the inner alchemy will cause the lost fragments of soul that are identifying with the event to reintegrate and the darkness will then wash away. We'll quickly find ourselves 'bobbing back back up to the surface' once more.

For me then, dealing with darkness is something we'll all be invited to master. The amazing thing is, that when we summon the courage to work with it in this way, we find a natural aptitude for processing it. And ultimately, on the journey of the soul, the only effective way out is through.

For all those in darkness right now, my heart goes out to you.

http://www.openhandweb.org/021111_dealing_darkness

JESHUA ~ Daily Message

Posted by Tara Mary on November 1, 2011 at 9:39pm

Beloved One ~

Your friends watch you. They see you as a human going through challenges

and circumstances, and they watch what your choices are. They see how,

even though you may be in the midst of what they would consider to be a most

challenging situation, you have hope. You live in a space of okayness.

You live in a space where you know everything is in order and you can love

and be gentle with self and with others. They watch you and they see your

Light, and they wonder, " Well, if this one can find Light within himself/herself

going through certain choices, perhaps there's some Light within me.

Perhaps there is hope in me. "

And there is of course, and you are showing them.

jeshuaonline@oakbridge.org

Secret Scrolls #80 - #84

Posted by Melodie Munro on November 1, 2011 at 6:50pm

A Secret Scrolls #80A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda ByrneCreator of The Secret and The PowerFrom The Secret Daily TeachingsWhat is the most powerful thing you can add to the process of creating what you want?Ask for others as you ask for yourself.An easy way to do this is to ask for ALL, which of course includes you. Ask for a good life for all, peace for all, abundance for all, health for all, love for all, and happiness for all.When you ask for others, it comes back to you, so the law has it ALL covered.May the joy be with you,Rhonda ByrneThe Secret... bringing joy to billionsA Secret Scrolls #81A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda ByrneCreator of The Secret and The PowerFrom The Secret Daily TeachingsCriticism can be very subtle in the way it creeps into our thoughts.Here are some examples of criticism to help you become aware of its subtlety, so you can eliminate it from your thoughts:The weather is awful today.The traffic is terrible.The service is really bad.Oh no, look at the line.He/she is always late.How long do we have to wait for our order?That motorist is a lunatic.It's so hot in here.I've been on hold for so long!These are subtle things, but the law of attraction is listening to them all.You have the ability to appreciate something in every single circumstance.There is always something to be grateful for.May the joy be with you,Rhonda ByrneThe Secret... bringing joy to billionsA Secret Scrolls #82A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda ByrneCreator of The Secret and The PowerFrom The Secret Daily TeachingsIs this a thought that you hold?"I have no money to give, but when I have money then I will give." If it is, you will never have money.The fastest way to attract anything is to give it to another, so if it is money you want to attract, then give it.You can give $10 or $5 or $1. It doesn't matter what the amount is, just give it.It doesn't matter how much and it doesn't matter where you give it, just give!May the joy be with you,Rhonda ByrneThe Secret... bringing joy to billionsA Secret Scrolls #83A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda ByrneCreator of The Secret and The PowerFrom The Secret Daily TeachingsIf you want to attract a better job or anything better than what you currently have, it is important to understand how the law of attraction works.You know that to bring in something better you must imagine what that better thing looks like in your mind, and then live in that picture as though it is here now. But you should also know that if you complain about your current job, for example, and continue to focus on all the negative things, you will never bring the better job to you.You must look for the things to be grateful for in your current job. Each thing you find to be grateful for is helping to bring that better job to you.That is really working the law!May the joy be with you,Rhonda ByrneThe Secret... bringing joy to billionsA Secret Scrolls #84A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda ByrneCreator of The Secret and The PowerFrom The Secret Daily TeachingsBe creative and use powerful actions in line with what you want. If you want to attract the perfect partner, then make room in your closet.If you want to attract a new house, then tidy up your current house so it is ready for easy packing. If you want to take a trip then get out your suitcases, surround yourself with pictures of the location, and put yourself in the pictures.Think about what you would do if you had your desire, and then take creative actions that make it clear you are receiving it now.May the joy be with you,Rhonda ByrneThe Secret... bringing joy to billions

Meditation of Joy

Posted by Tara Mary on November 1, 2011 at 6:00am

In order to overcome the sadness, sorrow and affliction of terrestrial life, we must learn

to meditate upon that Spirit which is ever free and eternally blissful; and as our meditation

becomes more and more stabilized, all gloomy thoughts will fade away like the veil of night

before the sun.

Let us remove from our mind and heart all feelings that bar the influx of true happiness.

If by giving up small thoughts, unkind actions and words, we can earn the right to this

happiness, should we not try with all our strength?

As we arise at morn, let us hail the Awakener of day with a joyous heart. Let us hold the

spirit of Truth steadfastly in our thought, that nothing may sadden our spirit.

God is bliss, and as long as we can hold Him/Her in our inner life, in our mind, and in our

soul, there will be no room for sadness and sorrow.

~ HEALING MEDITATIONS

~ SWAMI PARAMANANDA

11-11-11: Source Code Activation

Posted by Melodie Munro on October 31, 2011 at 6:50pm

11-11-11: Source Code ActivationPosted by Lauren on Thursday, October 27, 2011“We would open with this: Congratulations! You are officially on the runway to new earth.”- The Pleiadian High CouncilThe AnticipationSo here we are…on the cusp of the long-awaited completion of the Mayan Calendar, the ancient and accurate “time”-keeper of 16.4 billion years of evolutionary consciousness. There is so much going on all over the planet to support the emergence of a new evolutionary cycle, but the event that is really blowing my mind is the ceremonial pilgrimage of the Mayan Elders who will carry the Thirteen Crystal Skulls from one US coast to the other and culminate in a (highly sacred) Mayan Crystal Skull Ceremony (The journey will begin in Manhattan tomorrow, 10/27/11and will conclude in Los Angeles on 11/11/11) Details HERE.For those unfamiliar with the significance of the Crystal Skulls, Cal Garrison says:“…these ancient relics are said to contain information about the history of our planet and the future of mankind. Carved out of pure quartz crystal, and other crystals such as jade, the Skulls generate an energy field that activates human consciousness in a way that expands our perceptions of reality. Ultimately they are the manifestation of Spirit in a form that is now helping to shift the magnetic frequency of Mother Earth. When the Spirits of the Skulls are ceremonially awakened, ancient wisdom, wisdom that has been preserved in a crystalline matrix for eons, enters the unified field and fills the collective consciousness with all the knowledge of everything that has happened on the planet in the last 26,000 years, and perhaps beyond.”To think that all that sacred energy is coalescing less than 60 miles from me is pretty trippy…so much that if I tune into it, it rattles every cell in my body with a visceral excitement that I can hardly contain. Which is odd considering I barely understand the ramifications of it all.And if you’re wondering what this will mean for us…well, the Pleiadians say it will take about 2 weeks to integrate more clarity about what this means for those way-showers who are about to step fully into their divine roles and purposes in the “active duty” phase…and about a century or seven to digest what this leap in evolution means for the planet as a whole. Overall, the time between now and the 11:11 gateway is alive with potential and our conscious participation with this sacred passageway is very powerful, and can be felt in a very real way thru prayer, meditation, visualization… or really, just by thinking about it.One thing we already know…well, two things: 1) our physical bodies still haven’t caught wind that we need them now to move into position…and 2) the energy of what’s to come is pulsating so vibrantly that we can literally feel our supports about to birth thru the veil. Our new/true lives are so close to us now that it’s tantalizing. If you tune in, it literally feels like Christmas eve…only, it may be that Christmas eve you spent as a kid with the flu : ((We have some idea what our gifts may be, but we don’t REALLY know for sure…and that’s the excitement of it all. We definitely made our wish lists…likely, many times over .. but the unseens say that even our wishes pale in comparison to what’s in store.“We, like you, can feel the pulsing energies of convergence building around your sphere and we are just so delighted at what each of you, the new earth guardians, are about to experience in yourselves, and witness in each other.” -PHCAside from the fact that we are finally climbing out of the deep void we were stuck in for the last several weeks, nothing much has changed on the outside yet…we are still needing to nurture ourselves and to remain centered in our heart-space while we continue to allow the full birth of our multidimensional selves to take form. Those who are ready are priming to become the official new-earth guardians & overseers, the protectors of all of creation and masters of the material world here to lead humanity into the full breadth of love by virtuous example.11/11/11“The moment that each of you have been waiting for, the moment that we have termed “inception” is approaching. This is heralded by the massive energies precipitated by the opening of the 11:11 stargate portal on 11/11/11. What this means for the way-showers is monumental, for it is this group who will be physically laying the template on earth for all other inhabitants to follow.” -PHCLast month, on 9/10/11, our bio-circuitry was apparently rebooted. We had undergone an immense (read: grueling) upgrade during the summer months from that obnoxious triple eclipse sandwich that shook every one of us to the core…and then in September, Mother-Father God pushed the divine-human reset button to start-up our new operating system. Most likely you slept thru this the way we slept thru most of September…actually, now that I think about it, you may not even remember September.Well, whatever… definitely not the first month we’ve slept away… tho prayerfully our last? Either way, now that we have been upgraded & rebooted we are reorienting ourselves aaaagain and that always means the usual cellular changes (read: fatigue), most of which this time relates to our newly downloaded programming that includes the integrated understanding that every cell has intelligence. (more on this coming soon)Our bio-circuitry is adjusting to incorporate and adapt to the new codes we are already receiving from the upcoming 11:11 stargate portal. The emanations sent forth by the great central sun are encoding our biology with new mandates, new directives and the Pleiadian High Council would like for us to know that the new human apparatus is well-equipped to handle these changes, however, it may be of benefit for those of who are experiencing great difficulty to embrace the many modalities available to us to assist in easing the transition on our bods, as well as to give a much-needed boost to our emotional and mental well-being.I am hearing some folks are having trouble assimilating to these new frequencies and for those heavily in the embodiment process, this is just a reminder that we don’t have to suffer thru these changes alone…that help is available should you need it. The PHC say that there are many people here specifically to support us thru these changing times, and that if we don’t utilize these gifts and offerings that we may be robbing ourselves of a great opportunity to not only survive these changes, but to thrive in them. The physical body needs care and nurturing as it is being resurrected into a body of light, but the incoming frequencies do not need to bombard our system in the ways we are accustomed to experiencing them if we open up to the opportunity to be supported.Overall, I am hearing that the 11:11 will bring in some robust energies that, depending on where we are on our journey, will either catapult us to freedom, or bring up a new layer of goo….or both.In all cases it will be the next level of our personal evolutionary development and this means the biological aspects will need to be addressed…whether we are ascending into an angelic-human or not. Experience has taught us that any energy blast or major portal opening will mean more rest, relaxation and downtime is required.No one looks forward to that but at least we are so beat up by now that its nearly impossible to resist any more. I guess we have that going for us…which is nice.On Becoming Self-ContainedThe PHC are talking a lot about our recent release from our final and deepest karmic patterns and that we are already beginning to witness this in the way that we are no longer bound by the emotional strings of attachment to others, to places, or to events that once defined or confined us. We are now able and ready to live our lives according to the principle of the ONE. This means that we have integrated the mental & emotional understanding of what it means to be freed from the repetitive cycles of the karmic wheel and reconnected to our true Source of power within.We are beginning to witness this freedom in ourselves and in our personal relationships where we are refacing old issues, old wounds that once crippled us, but now these same situations feel empowering…empowering in the sense that we are able to see the value in these dynamics, to feel a sense of appreciation for their teachings, and to honor those lessons of growth that are truly ours, while releasing all feelings of responsibility to that which is NOT ours.We are becoming self-contained, self-responsible beings of mastery and those emotional entanglements which have been projected onto us by others are now VERY clear, which means they can be severed. This also means that once we have unhooked ourselves from these remaining cords of attachment, we will begin to live from the space of true independence, self-sustainability, and freedom, which will enable us to know our authentic selves in ways we never have.“This time in your life is one that will astound you…you will find strengths, and gifts, and talents emerge that you never knew existed. In some cases, you will come to know yourself in a way that elicits a sense of self-love and respect that you thought was only possible to see or feel in others. Though in truth, we say this…that those things that you have so respected in others were really only self-reflections of those unintegrated aspects of YOU…until now that is.”-PHCThe unseens bring this information to us so that we can feel the connection to the fact that we are no longer bound by the trappings of untruth, of illusion, or the polar opposite of that which they call, self-aggrandizement….for our new reality will be that we are much, much more than we ever realized, and the gifts of remembering this have been well-earned. They also mention that as we unveil the truth about our true capabilities as masters of the material world, so too do we unveil these truths for others…which is, in part, the purpose of becoming a christed avatar on earth…to share our radiance with all who beckon, to teach by example and to bestow upon others the universal love that flows within our body and cells.“Moreover, we are proud to be part of, and witness to, the unfolding of the most momentous “time” in history. We are representatives of your galactic origin and so we too have much invested in your BEcoming. Through this gateway, you are centering yourselves in universal abundance and grace and this means that each of you who don robes of honor are becoming a universe unto yourselves. We know that this may seem out of reach to you now, but know this: as the sun shines forth on the last day of the last day, a sincerely new day dawns.” – PHCOn Becoming MultidimensionalWe are soon to experience life as multidimensional beings, which the PHC say is one of exquisite undertaking…a way of living life through the perception of simultaneous realization & with the ability to focus through the incorporation of many dimensions of awareness…at once. This is not something that we have context for, so the Pleiadians would like to offer..to the best of their ability…a small frame of reference for those who will be entering this new landscape.“You are the first group of souls who will be utilizing your full human potential and christed-monadic capabilities. This means that those of you who are entering leadership, or earth stewardship roles, are those of you who have undergone a full 12 strand DNA activation and have enabled the extensions of your over-soul to do the same.This is the beginning of the new multidimensional human race, the seeding that will begin the long evolutionary journey home for humanity.” – PHCUnfortunately, my work is always a little ahead of me so I don’t have a complete understanding of what all that means yet, but what I do get is that those who resonate with this truth…that is to say, those who feel this to be true…will embed this reality within the matrix of man, thereby allowing the distortions of our human genetics to be returned to its original design. This, they say, is what biological ascension assures us, the propagation of a new-human race and apparently there are many of us here to exploit this divine opportunity.For those who are called into guardianship, stewardship or leadership roles, the 11-11-11 gateway is offering us the ability to not only anchor into multidimensionality, but to open the doorway to the christed heart within… that which commands usage of the sacred adamantine particle (the base-level particles that create all physical manifestations of LOVE). This opening will prepare us to utilize the laws of magnetic resonance…the universal design for creation in the new earth.A Call to the Order of MelchizedekThe new field matrix that has been set up by the dedicated light-weavers on this planet is pulsing at its portals with unprecedented potential for change, but access to these portals can only be activated by those with the “keys to the universe”. These key codes are embedded in the DNA of the new-human matrix and, by their very existence, unlock the codes required for the next level of our planetary ascension.Those who will be opening these portals are those who have completed their first level missions of service, and are preparing to receive new directives. These directives will be released thru the activation of what the PHC refer to as The Source Code in our DNA, which apparently is T H E entry code required to access and enable our full multidimensional participation with the crystalline grid which includes our new-earth mission or “next level of divine service” on this planet.“What we would like to make clear is the fact that those who are activating to this level of service are those who will employ the missions required to prepare humanity to ascend into multidimensional consciousness. This means that each of you who are encoded with the new-human prototype will be embarking upon a new journey together as a soul group of cosmic initiates thru the Order of Melchizedek.This Order is of the highest… a soul collective here on earth at this time with a mission to awaken the codes within humanity for the resurrection of the christed-template and the template of sacred co-creation. For those who have contracted to serve in this way, it is by the Order of Melchizedek that you will now be called forth and under your new-level directive.” -PHCFor all those who find resonance with this information and/or the Order of Melchizedek, it will be you who seeds humanity with the cosmic intelligence required to make the shift into 2012.“We are in awe of your dedication and resolute ability to stand in personal integrity and honor as human-galactic overseers of this planetary body. Hold your heads high, for you are about to step into the most supreme form of embodied existence. We watch from our headquarters as you take the final steps into greatness, your true galactic heritage and home of the stars.” -PHCSee you on the other side…Happy trails!LaurenThinkWithYourHeart.netDid u enjoy this post? Now U can thank me with a DONATION!Copyright © 2008-11. Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this transmission on the condition that the content remains complete and in tact, full credit is given to the author(s), and that it is distributed freely.

Seven billionth person on earth born today

Posted by Melodie Munro on October 31, 2011 at 6:47pm

Seven billionth person on earth born todayToday, the world's seven billionth person has been born. It is impossible to say exactly where the seven billionth person on the planet has been born or who they are.So the United Nations have chosen several newborn babies across the world to symbolically represent the global population milestone, including two baby girls Nargis and Danica who were born in India and the Philippines, respectively.However, the stark reality is that if a baby girl is born in the developing world, her future is set to be far from rosy.According to a recent report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) there is a widening gap between boys and girls in these regions of the world.While they receive the same care and opportunities during early childhood, as they reach adolescence the anomalies in terms of health or education become marked.“While there is little difference between boys and girls in early childhood with respect to nutrition, health, education and other basic indicators, differences by gender appear increasingly more pronounced during adolescence and young adulthood,” said UNICEF deputy executive director Geeta Rao Gupta.If the seven billionth child born was a girl in the developed world, for instance in Europe, Japan or the United States, once she becomes a teenager she is likely to receive many of the same opportunities as her male peers.Her education, health and career prospects may even exceed those of her male counterparts.But if she is born in a region defined as ‘developing’ she is significantly more likely to be married as a child, less likely to be literate than young men in her country and, shockingly, should she be born in sub-Saharan Africa, is as many as four times more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than boys her age.A World Bank working paper examined the real economic impact of excluding girls from learning or work opportunities.For instance, just one teenage mother in India can lose $100,000 (£62,052) in potential income over her lifetime, while a single girl in Ethiopia who has dropped out of school can expect to lose the equivalent of two months’ average pay per year.The financial impacts on the national economies is bigger still: the cost to India of the 3.8 million girls having children at the ages of 15 to 19 is $7.6 billion a year (£4.7 billion) – enough to fill every single car in the US with a full tank of petrol 100 times.The denial of education to 4.5 million girls in Ethiopia costs the country $582 million (£361 million) a year.So beyond the headlines about the seven billionth birth – which will come 12 years after the six billionth, a baby boy in Sarajevo – UNICEF chiefs are urging developing countries to improve the education prospects of their female citizens.Increasing the availability of good and long-term schooling for girls will have a ‘ripple effect’ and help to break the cycle of poverty in those regions.“Closing gender gaps in all stages of childhood and eliminating gender discrimination – whether against girls or boys – are fundamental to inclusive and sustained progress for countries around the world,” said Rao Gupta.“In addition to the harmful and often tragic effects of gender inequalities on children themselves, the kinds of persistent inequalities that we continue to see… are major barriers to the efforts of many nations to move out of long-term poverty and achieve their development aspirations.”

of 4

Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.