Lunar Eclipse Edition: The Shadowlands

"Faceless" image by Lara Fairie

What better way to honor the lunar eclipse than by discussing the significance of dreams:

Interview with Christopher Sowton ND, Homeopath and Jungian Dream Analyst on the benefits of incorporating archetypal messages offered in the dreamtime to facilitate healing, growth and self-awareness.

You can reach Christopher via his website at: http://www.dreamreading.ca/dreamreading/Home.html

The Birth of Nations

Black Rock Desert, Nevada Photographer: Stephen
Oachs

This past week both Canada and the USA celebrated their birthdays. For the most part this is orchestrated on the community level, here in Toronto, through free food and fireworks thanks to local Rotary Clubs and City Hall administration.

While the majority of my neighbours lined up to gorge themselves on BBQ sauce soaked remnants of bovine rib cages and chicken wings, my son and I took a drive down to the lakefront to reflect on what each of us felt being Canadian meant.

Now, my son wins hands down in the citizenship department, as he was born and raised here. I, on the other hand, don't have a patriotic bone in my body and pledge allegiance to no country, largely because I don't believe in boundaries arbitrated by power hungry feudal lords looking to take over territories by pitting its inhabitants against each other, and selling arms to both sides until they annihilate one another, then stepping merrily in after the bloodbath to carve out sections and claim them for their own.

History is rife with these escapades, and I can tell you in all honesty, if ever a war broke out I would take my son as far away as possible, in the event that he might be conscripted to sacrifice his life so that this same usurping of lands and resources be perpetuated in the name of "democracy" and in the so-called defence of a nation's sovereignty.

The fact of the matter is we are all indentured servants, particularly after this last "bailout" in which billions of American and Canadian tax dollars were literally absconded by governments in cahoots with banker robber barons without asking the public, or disclosing to them the final destination of these funds. Thanks to this recent thievery, my great great grandchildren will be paying off a debt they did not choose to incur and saw no benefit from, and that leaves me wondering how the territories will be reconfigured now. My guess is that the US, Canada, and Mexico will be amalgamated after our currencies are each collapsed to make way for a unified cashless society - always for our own good of course.

This is what my son and I pondered as the brief fireworks display fizzled out over our heads ( local government workers have been on strike which disrupted normal citywide festivities ). The smell of the ever increasing mountains of uncollected garbage wafted into our nostrils, and the scurrying of raccoons and rats fighting over scraps is an ominous precursor of things to come. If we don't all wake up, and get our priorities in order, the bones these nocturnal foragers seek out, may well be our own. Not a legacy I want to leave for the generations to come. So the fireworks I feel intensely burning are on the inside - to protect what I hold dear as a citizen of the world, and I hope that this proves to be the birth of a new way living and connecting with nature and each other regardless of the place we live.

Ep 75: The Mind/Body Principle

Looking at a new model for Lifelong Health as delineated in the book: "Sound Mind, Sound Body" by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier.

Published by Simon and Schuster 1994


MUSIC from podsafemusicnetwork.com

"Body and Soul" by Radio Orphans

"Balance of Life" by Todd Lorenz

"Balance" by Deas Vail

The Sound of Passion

Musical training sharpens the ability to sense emotions.
By Patricia Moreau

SOURCE:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sound-of-passion&sc=WR_20090623

Imagine a quiet night like any other. Suddenly, your infant’s cries break the silence. Fully loaded with emotion, the sound triggers an urge to stand up and run to your infant’s room. But, considering that your spouse is a musician and you are not, who will be the first to reach the crib?

According to Dana L. Strait and a team of researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, the musician should win the race. Their latest study showed that years of musical training leave the brains of musicians better attuned to the emotional content, like anger, of vocal sounds. Ten years of cello, say, can make a person more emotionally intelligent, in some sense. So the alarm carried in a baby’s cry make a deeper impression; your spouse wins the race.

The new work is part of an emerging portrait of the broader connections between music, emotion and speech. These studies are finding that musicians are more accurate in detecting emotion -- such as joy, sadness and anger -- in speech samples. The effect has been found even in children as young as 7 years old, with as little as one year of music training. It is a fascinating example of how experience in one domain (music) benefits another (emotion perception). However, it is not until very recently, with the publication of the new study by Strait and her colleagues, that the biological foundation of the effect has been demonstrated.

Strait’s team decided to study the brain’s very first responses to sound, in the brain stem. The brain stem is the most ancient part of the brain, andis the main entry door for all sensory stimuli. Once a sound reaches the nerves in your ears, it travels to the brain stem to be processed in an automatic, unconscious fashion. Both music and speech thus start their journey to the higher brain regions through the brain stem.

To record brain stem responses, the researchers placed electrodes on the heads of 30 people who were either musicians or non-musicians. The electrodes measured the electric currents that send signals through the brain stem, while the participants listened to an infant’s unhappy cry.

The surprising result was that the musicians’ brain showed enhanced responses to the infant’s cries. And the greater the number of years of practice and the earlier the person began training, the stronger the signal.

Nasa to Bomb Moon - Only Women Bleed

Image from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasas-mission-to-bomb-the-moon-2009-06

SOURCE: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/nasa-to-bomb-moon/space-odyssey/

It's exploring the moon the American way: with bombs. Today NASA is expected to launch a mission to bomb a crater near the moon's south pole, Scientific American reports. The aim of the mission is to figure out if there is water below the surface of the moon. Scientists will examine the debris kicked up by the explosion for water ice or vapor. The explosion will kick debris 6 miles into the moon's atmosphere, making it visible from Earth. If, as Scientific American put it, ice is "trapped in crater shadows near the south pole which never receives any sunlight," the resulting water could serve as the basis for a manned moon base.

When I read this I was filled with despair that humankind has understood NOTHING in the number of centuries we have occupied this planet and I'm beginning to believe no progress is possible for the collective if stunts like this are continually funded.

Hedging our bets in the event that we destroy the entire water supply on this planet?

Here's the skinny from my perspective as a druidic shaman :

The oppression of the feminine has been merrily proceeding since the pendulum has swung into patriarchal domination over the last two thousand years and this is a perfect example of an ultimate violation.

The moon represents aspects of the feminine in many cultures and throughout astrological disciplines. Launching a missile at her to see if she bleeds is so typical of this mindset of conquer, dominate, and sublimate and it will be our ruin if we continue to turn a blind eye to this monstrously shortsighted and disrespectful approach to the worlds around us.