Because Nature Is Always Smarter

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Add this to the litany of horrors unleashed by Frankenfood giant Monsanto. Genetically modified crops are now besieged by superweeds.

The gospel of high-tech genetically modified (GM) crops is not sounding quite so sweet in the land of the converted. A new pest, the evil pigweed, is hitting headlines and chomping its way across Sun Belt states, threatening to transform cotton and soybean plots into weed battlefields.

In late 2004, “superweeds” that resisted Monsanto’s iconic “Roundup” herbicide, popped up in GM crops in the county of Macon, Georgia. Monsanto, the US multinational biotech corporation, is the world’s leading producer of Roundup, as well as genetically engineered seeds. Company figures show that nine out of 10 US farmers produce Roundup Ready seeds for their soybean crops.

Superweeds have since alarmingly appeared in other parts of Georgia, as well as South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, according to media reports. Roundup contains the active ingredient glyphosate, which is the most used herbicide in the USA.

Yes, just as antibiotics have led to the creation of superbugs, Roundup infused crops are now overrun by herbicide resistant weeds.

In the U.S. alone, glyphosate use jumped by a factor of 15 between 1994 and 2005, CFS claims. And this herbicide gusher has given rise to a host of "superweeds" -- weeds that tolerate heavy doses glyphosate. How do farmers deal with superweeds? By jacking up the dose of glyphosate.

The trend of increased rate of glyphosate use is clear. For soybeans, per-acre applications of Monsanto's herbicide jumped by a factor of 2.5 between 1994 and 2006. Corn farmers didn't really embrace GMOs until 2002; accordingly, between 2002 and 2005, glyphosate use on corn "jumped from 0.71 to 0.96 lbs./acre/year, a hefty 35% increase in just three years."

Farmers of Roundup Ready crops appear to have entered a pesticide treadmill. They have to raise application rates to keep up with resistance; and every time they do, they create hardier and hardier weeds. Monsanto, which expects to rake in $1.4 billion in profit from Roundup sales alone this year, is evidently laughing its way to the bank.

More fun still: They're also producing pesticide resistant bugs. So, we've got that goin' for us. But, Michelle Obama should definitely use pesticides in her organic garden, because not using them makes the nice people at MACA "shudder." Yeah. Nature's scary.

"Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond expression."

~ from "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

William Henry on Stargates

This video series was recently posted to YouTube. It's from his Conscious Media Network interview. The original can be found here. There appears to be a variety of problems with YouTube players, right now. This video series can also be found in my playlist, so one way or another, it should be viewable.

John Anthony West Explains Egypt

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I first learned of John Anthony West when I read Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods, many years ago. West's theories on the real age of the Sphinx figure heavily into Hancock's ideas about an antediluvian civilization from which Egypt and Latin America may have inherited much. West originally put forward his ideas about Egypt in Serpent in the Sky; a book designed to introduce the much earlier work of R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. It is a conception of ancient Egypt very different from the that of most Egyptologists. West has devoted years to exploring a symbolic system he thinks is far deeper and richer than is understood by prevailing interpretations.

West's symbolist interpretation of Egypt is graphically depicted in the television series Magical Egypt. Some industrious soul has uploaded the entire series to YouTube and I've been very much enjoying it. I've broken it down into episode by episode playlists, which are posted on my channel. I cannot recommend these enough, so I'm posting them all.

I should say that West's overall interpretation accords with my own experiential sense of the Egyptian mysteries and the past life memories that I can never seem to escape. One of the most intriguing aspects of the shows is in the introduction. Woven into the opening theme music is something that sounds like a strange, unintelligible whisper. It's a little like the din of conversation one might here at a party, except that it's somehow distorted and diffused; a conversation that you can hear, but can't, even though it's going on right over your head. This is the sound of what I call the "whispering room" of the Egyptian exhibit at the Met. In this room, where a number of the mummies are displayed, this strange, barely audible whisper is ever present. I always find it hard to leave that room to look at the rest of the exhibit. I find it, somehow, comforting. I'm not the only person to have heard it there, and I suspect West has heard it as well; probably in Egypt, itself.

Posted below are all the episodes. DVDs of the entire series are also available for purchase in the bookstore.

Battlestar Galactica: The Conclusion (With Spoilers)

“A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.” ~ Simone Weil

The take-away from the "Battlestar Galactica" finale is that technological advancement, at the expense of spirituality, dooms us to an endless cycle of cataclysm and destruction. In looking through the reviews, I see that some don't know quite what to make of that conclusion.

The finale could have been all about failed hopes, dreams, lives. But Moore chose a much sunnier - and arguably more overtly religious - ending. I found that somewhat surprising even though the religious overtones had always been there. Hell, you don't have something called Resurrection without Biblical overtones, much less references to "gods" and a "one true god." These issues were always in play - and "BSG" always got critical credit for tackling them when most writers wouldn't go near it, other than in some darkly metaphorical way. But to have many of the key final twists and explanations come down to what can best be described as divine intervention was, for me, very much unexpected. Stunning, even.

I, myself, was somewhat surprised at how overt the spiritual message was at the end, but for me, the esoteric elements of the show have been among it's most compelling features. My original post on the spiritual and mythical thrust of the show is here.

In the concluding episodes, we saw the introduction of still more spiritual themes, including references to "angels." The possibility that this ties in to "Galactica 1980" is discussed here, and is probably one of those things that will be discussed and debated by fans, for years to come. But, after the last episode, it's clear that for whatever else Starbuck was, her return from the dead was in angelic form. She, indeed, had a "special destiny" and it was to lead the survivors, human and cylon, to the new earth. But, Starbuck was only one of the players who was "dialed in" to a higher plan. Starting with Laura Roslin, whose use of kamala extract allowed her to pierce the veil and tap into the Pythia prophecies, these glimpses of supernatural intervention underscored the narrative, from the outset.

I should note here, because I failed to do so in my original BG entry, that Kamala is a Hindu name and means lotus. (It is also, it would appear, one of the names for the Goddess Laxmi.) The association of the lotus with spiritual enlightenment, and with the god-head itself, appears in many myths; notably Buddhist, Hindu, and Egyptian. I wrote a bit about my own strange journey with the mythical lotus here.

In the final season, the division between the spiritual and purely analytical came into sharp relief. The show's lone atheist, Cavil, is revealed to be hostile, not only to humans, but to his own humanoid form. Cavil: The name means "to quibble." But, it derives from the Latin calvi, which means "deception," as in "calumny." I would not be surprised if it is this darker aspect that the writers were alluding to, with the name. Dean Stockwell has done some of the finest work of his career in "Battlestar Galactica." Cavil is a perfectly drawn character; his rage cool, measured, and methodical. Only in flickers do we see the petulant, disappointed child, driven by hatred for the mommy who has doomed him to a life he thinks imperfect and foolish. In the brilliant "No Exit," (Season 4, Epicode 15) he confronts Ellen, fifth cylon and progenitor of the seven cylon models with his contempt for her effort to build bridges between humans and machines. In this final season he emerges as a bitter saboteur, whose disdain for the all things human -- emotion, irrationality, spirituality -- is a key motivation.

In the climax of the final episode, we see these two operating principles collide when Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six find themselves in the opera house, and the final five above them, just as they were in the dream they have shared with Laura Roslin and Athena, repeatedly. There, the final battle over Hera plays out on what is actually the CIC of Galactica. Baltar, who the New York Times aptly compares to none other than Joseph Smith, pleads the case for a broader spiritual vision, to a recalcitrant Cavil.

“Whether we want to call that God or Gods or some sublime inspiration or a divine force that we can’t know or understand doesn’t matter,” he says. “God is a force of nature beyond good and evil.”

And so, this mysterious force that has revealed glimpses of its divine workings in sacred scrolls, dreams, visions, hallucinations, and the from-the-gut decisions of inspired leaders, takes them to their conclusion and new beginning. The show leaves us with no question that neither spirituality, nor pragmatic science is enough. The duality represented by cylon and human forms, and merged in their hope for the future, Hera, is the necessary balance to break the cycle of destruction that has typified human history as we know it... and as we may not.

Graham Hancock Discusses Supernatural

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I've put together playlists of several interviews with Graham Hancock about his book Supernatural. All threee interviews are excellent and informative. In them, he shares his experiences with the use of ayahuasca and other psychotropes, under the care of traditional shamans and other healers. He also explains his belief that shamanic, altered consciousness experiences underpin all the world's great religions and advocates that individuals have the freedom and encouragement to experience the boundaries of consciousness and explore the spirit world for ourselves.







The final interview with Conscious Media Network is also available for viewing in their free archive. It's the shortest of the interviews at just under a half hour.

The Great Ennui Continues

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Karen Bishop posted this on Thursday. You'll note, I've only just now gotten 'round to posting any mention. That sums it up fairly well. Yawn. I don't care about anything.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, we are starting over. After enough souls residing in the lower dimensional old world, had been given enough time and opportunity to choose if they would stay behind or move on to their newer and higher vibrating reality of the next step for the whole, many of us then left for the next rung of our very new reality. When we left, we may have felt a great completion, a sense of loss of identity and purpose, and perhaps great feelings of no sense of place. We were done with a very important phase, and because this phase was completed by enough of the whole, we were most certainly done with a very important mission. This was a huge completion. Because we are very done, we are now readying to start over…to experience a grand rebirth, and some very new beginnings.

. . .

Moving into a higher vibrating reality creates common themes that are always present. Some include: A very low tolerance for lower vibrating energies and ways of being, great loneliness, memory loss, a strong feeling of no sense of place, a great dis-connect from much of everything, extreme fatigue and feelings of not wanting to do anything but rest, apathy, sleepiness, mood swings, great joy, peace, a deeper connection to Source and our souls, greater feelings of love, and a very strong awareness of what is around us.

Bishop's last couple of posts have been dead-on accurate for me. All I want to do is rest and I don't feel well rested or relaxed no matter what I do. I feel thoroughly exhausted. (Note to self: I keep meaning to burn to some benzoin, for psychic and emotional exhaustion, but I keep forgetting. Probably because I'm exhausted.) All I want to do is sleep, read, and watch movies. Most of today, you'll find me on the comfy couch with my daughter watching the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family. The commercials will drive me bonkers, but, eh, what are ya gonna do. The remote is way over there.

Oh, here's a thing. Is anyone else having problems with electrical things: power fluctuations, batteries and other power sources becoming erratic, bulbs burning out like mad, electronics breaking or malfunctioning... I am. I'm also having some very strange energy surges in my body, and I don't think the two things are unrelated. Over the past couple of weeks, I keep fluctuating between being exhausted, but unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, and then days when I'm practically narcoleptic.

Battlestar Galactica: Where Are We Headed?

Mike Ragogna is freaking out.

Alright, Battlestar Galactica, I can't take it anymore. So what if you are the best-executed, brightest star of all of televised sci-fi, and smarter than practically every show on television including Heroes, Lost, and 24. I can't deal with another sleepless "OMG, Adama's dead!" night, nor an "is Starbuck a cylon?" thought popping up in the middle of a job interview.

Mostly, like many of us, he's freaking out because the most brilliant show on television -- a show that doesn't even belong in the same paragraph with 24 [ahem] -- is coming to a close. The final episodes we've seen so far have been brilliant and I am optimistic that the show will go out in a manner that fulfills its promise.

Ragogna's blog on this is worth reading, not just because the fan girl in me bows to the fan boy in him, but because he presents a really credible explanation for how the new series may tie directly into the original, all be it, awful show. Not having watched much of the original or Galactica 1980, I can't speak to the accuracy of his recollection. But, as presented, it makes perfect sense. A warning: If you are not up to date on the series, so far, do NOT read this. Massive spoiler alert. But, if you're looking for a very interesting hypothesis about where we're headed, check it out.

A reminder: If you're unfamiliar with my reasons for just drooling over this show, it is all explained here.

Syriac Bible?

A possibly valuable Bible manuscript was retrieved from smugglers in Cyprus. It's age an authenticity remain questionable.

Authorities in northern Cyprus believe they have found an ancient version of the Bible written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus.

. . .

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic - the native language of Jesus - once spoken across much of the Middle East and Central Asia. It is used wherever there are Syrian Christians and still survives in the Syrian Orthodox Church in India.

Aramaic is still used in religious rituals of Maronite Christians in Cyprus.

"One very likely source (of the manuscript) could be the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community," Charlotte Roueche, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London told Reuters.

Well... This Might Explain a Few Things

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The newest Karen Bishop WINGS update is posted and, um... yeah. Actually, the selected text from the email alert nailed it down for me. It comes from The Ascension Companion.

APATHY

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S wrong with me these days. I just don't seem to care about much of anything anymore." "I seem to have lost all interest in becoming involved with the things that I used to." "I don't care what happens." If you have had any of these thoughts or feelings lately, know that they are a regular part of the ascension process and have a perfect and distinct purpose.

At times, we may feel as though we are going along, "acting" our way through our daily lives. We are simply not present, as our lives do not have the meaning that they used to. We don't seem to be in alignment with what we had created in the past. And in addition, becoming exhausted through all the trials and tribulations that ascension can bring, can make one very apathetic. We are just too darned tired to become involved with or care about much of anything. "Let the chips fall where they may," becomes our general course of action (or in-action!). "I no longer have the desire to stay on top of things."

But apathy has a gold nugget within it. Being apathetic actually places us in a higher vibrating space. It supports our continual process of letting go of attachments. When we no longer care about much of anything, we then become unentwined with much. We are then left in a space of "no space, and this is the space of the higher realms. We are then much more in the moment. When we do not care about much, we are not filling our thoughts and emotions with things that are not really "real." And we are much more out of the way.

In the new WINGS posting, she goes on to explain the current phenomenon.

Our current themes? Manifesting what we may have always wanted, finding ourselves feeling as if we have no purpose, desire, or interest in anything, feeling completely alone with absolutely no connections, anger and resentment at the past, stuck in old relationships, being extremely busy wrapping up so we can move forward, setting things up for the new, or feelings of bliss, excitement and having the beginning experiences of new connections and an amazing new beginning of freedom and joy.

What an interesting hodge podge of manifestations, but they all make sense if we know what is transpiring with our evolutionary process.

When we complete important phases of our spiritual evolutionary journey, we go to a new space. Thus, when we are “done,” we find ourselves in a space of re-booting or feeling empty and apathetic about much. Nothing excites us anymore, we may feel useless, lethargic, empty, perhaps assuming we are depressed, and our joyous states of excitement and high energy may be completely gone. This state of being is an indicator that we have completed a very important phase within ourselves and with the planet. It is very common for ascension.

Eclipses Make Me Sleepy

Yesterday was a double whammy of new moon and solar eclipse energy. We will also be having a lunar eclipse in a couple of weeks, and a total of six eclipses this year. We're also currently enjoying the first of 4 Mercury Retrogrades. What fun. You may feeling "change" energy and feeling it intensely. In fact, it may feel like some great, unseen hand just played 52 pickup with your life. My advice: Take a deep breath and wait to see where all the cards land before you jump. It's all a little tumultuous right now.

Ramifications aside, it sure was beautiful. Check out the video for images from various locations. The best view seems to have been Indonesia, where they experienced a full eclipse and an actual ring around the sun.

Tonight: Sage the White House with Kate Clinton

This evening at 6:15, comic Kate Clinton will be gathering with a group at Dupont Circle for a smudging ceremony to clear the White House of Bush. If schedule or geography precludes your attendance, never fear, for time and location are simply constructs of our own great imagining. We can all participate in the collective experience of cleansing the country, and the world, of the energy dynamic that has dominated for the past eight years. Start, as you would with any smudging ceremony, by brushing the smoke of burning sage (and/or sweetgrass, lavender, cedar, frankincense, copal) through your own aura. Be willing to release the anger, resentment, and other toxic residues, that may have accumulated over the past eight years. You might need a lot of sage.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Last Friday, Kate Clinton appeared on Rachel Maddow to discuss the ceremony. The segment includes footage the Mayan shamanic ceremony that was held at Iximche in Guatemala in 2007 to clean up after Bush's visit.

For my original post on the Mayan remove all vestiges of Bush ceremony, see here.