More info at: www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com

Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today, as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive. Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?

Blue Gold: World Water Wars is a 2008 documentary film by Sam Bozzo, based on the book Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke.
Initial release: April 26, 2009
Director: Sam Bozzo
Running time: 89 minutes
Initial DVD release: April 7, 2009

Have you ever felt tortured by your own mind? You sit down to meditate only to see the same patterns repeating themselves; the same negative voices or emotional roller coasters swooping in again and again? Do you feel  a long, long way from the blissful, peaceful states so often spoken of in spiritual texts and by spiritual masters? Do you find it hard to find a distance or space amongst all the noise and confusion that seems to be going on in your head?

Well, help is at hand. Neuroscience and eastern wisdom are beginning to converge revealing how we can change these patterns and become happier, more productive and, for those who are drawn to the spiritual path, walk it more surely.

The mind and the brain

Let’s start by defining the terminology. Imagine the brain is electrical wiring and the mind is the electrical pattern that plays through and around the wiring. If you change your mind, this will be reflected in the wiring. This is the essence of “neuroplasticity”. Also, if  you change the wiring, for instance if you have an accident that injures a part of your brain, that will affect the patterns that are possible in the mind. So the two are interrelated, but not the same.

Brain plasticity

Neuroscience and spirituality

Discoveries about the brain have enabled us to find out so much more about how we function on the physical level, and this has challenged many assumptions about what it is to be human. For example, only a decade ago it was believed that, once you’d reached the age of around 21, your brain was pretty much set for the rest of your life, and neurons began to die off through adult life and more quickly in older age. Now it is known that the structure of our brains can change quite radically through our lives. There are not only neurons in our brains but also in our hearts and gut (so trusting your gut instinct is not an old wives tale after all) and there are many things we can positively do, including travel, complex forms of exercise such as running and yoga, learning new things and travelling, that can keep our brains and minds healthy, flexible and changing right into later life.

Meditators have also been studied extensively by neuroscientists, because they can show a far higher degree of control over their minds than the average person. Scientists have been able to demonstrate and measure these differences and document the potential of the human mind. They have also shown how once a brain is balanced and functioning well, spiritual emergence tends to happen of its own accord. Yes, you did read that correctly, experiencing spiritual states has little to do with what we want or what we think, and lot to do with how well our mind and brain are functioning.

So what does this mean for me?

Well, these days you can train your mind to work differently by working directly with the brain. The most direct and effective way to do this is through neurofeedback, where sensors are put on your head to measure your brainwaves so you can see what your typical patterns are. This correlates to the kinds of experiences you have when you meditate. Then, using technology that feels a lot like your subconscious playing a computer game, you can gradually reward your brain each time it shifts its pattern towards a place of better balance.

You can also do this is other ways, as the Eastern traditions such as yoga and meditation have been saying for generations. But if you know a little bit about what is happening in your brain it can help enormously in understanding the best practice to bring your brain into balance. This is rewarding work because bliss and peace comes more easily as we learn to control our minds and isn’t that what many of us want?

How to read your own mind

In our brain we have different frequencies. Here is a very brief summary.

Delta Wave -1Hz_1

Delta waves are slow, low frequency waves like a drumbeat. They are found during deep sleep, when healing and regeneration take place, and are the strongest, loudest waves in the brain, which is why it is so difficult to concentrate when we are tired.

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Theta Wave -5Hz_1

Theta waves are still slow frequency, quite dreamy, connected with the subconscious and looking within. There is a lack of being present, being in the real world as these are usually only found fleetingly as we enter or leave sleep, but are associated with imagery, intuition and repressed or remembered emotion.

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Alpha waves are mid-range and present during quietly flowing thoughts, similar to the early stages of meditation. This is where our brain will borrow from when we want to consciously move into different states, so being able to access present moment awareness is key to bringing flexibility to our mind.

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Beta Wave -20Hz_1

Beta waves are a higher frequency wave and faster than the previous ones. They dominate our normal waking state, and is typified by forward planning, calculating, cognitive tasks and the outside world. Beta states take a high degree of energy to maintain over long periods.

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Gamma waves are very quiet, high frequency waves that are hard to hear. Gamma modulates perception and consciousness, disappearing under anaesthesia. Gamma gives access to spiritual states if not drowned out by all the other noise going on!

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So next time you sit quietly and watch your mind, notice the patterns arising. See if you tend to get stuck in Beta, or drift into Theta, or if you are able to sit comfortably in Alpha. And it can also be really helpful to know that these patterns are not set in stone, and by doing simple exercises, as simple as sitting quietly and watching your breath (cultivating Alpha), visualising something (cultivating Theta) or building a positive feeling within you (cultivating Gamma) you can change the way your mind and brain works.

This has benefits not only for the individual, who begins to know themselves better, but once we begin to see how our mind, which so many of us identify with as our identity, is something  in a constant state of change, it begins to open us up to the bigger question at the heart of all spiritual seeking, of what and who we really are. Instead of further identifying with our past stories, personality traits and the patterns of our mind, by beginning to see, directly and for ourselves, how our mind works we can go beyond our individual attachment (ego) to begin to experience the interconnectivity of what lies beyond it all.

Where east and west meet

This is where neuroscience and eastern traditions point towards the same conclusion: we are not our psychological patterns, nor our thoughts, nor indeed our brain (nor the other neurons in the body) which are always changing. We discover our true nature (which some might call divine consciences, oneness or love… but which of is always much more than words can express).

We are the space between all these patterns. In those moments when the mind and brain are quiet and balanced,  when the natural peace and bliss present within each of us can be heard and felt; we can know ourselves as we really are – boundless. This is an experience that each of us can discover for ourselves. It is out of this space that the wisdom, energy and deep compassion to truly be of service to others emerges. Then the mind, instead of torturing us, becomes a tool to help us live full, productive and useful lives.

By Kate Hewett
Coaching, facilitation and yoga
Kate Taylor Hewett has been interested in the mind since she realised hers was running her life (and not in a good way!). After leaving corporate life, she has explored and has taught yoga and other spiritual practices for fifteen years, and works as a leadership coach and mentor with professionals and entrepreneurs  leading positive change in the world.

Transformational Retreats
Bendy Kate
Live your values

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations.

Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

Directors: Franklin Lopez
Language English
Studio: Mvd Visual
Release Date: 25 Jan 2011
Run Time: 75 minutes

More info here

This film features an interview with Peter Joseph, the hugely successful director of the internet film phenomenon Zeitgeist: The Movie which has had millions of online views. We also speak to Jacque Fresco the architect of the Venus Project.

The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) is a worldwide grassroots organization that serves as the communication and activist arm of The Venus Project, founded by industrial designer and social engineer Jacque Fresco.

It describes itself as a “sustainability advocacy organization” and is focused on raising awareness for a global social change, by transitioning society from a Monetary-Based Economy to a new, sustainable social design called a “Resource-Based Economy”. The Zeitgeist Movement was inspired by the social response to Peter Joseph’s films Zeitgeist: The Movie and Zeitgeist: Addendum. (It was Zeitgeist Addendum which first introduced The Venus Project.)

Positive TV

EMERGENCY CALL FROM IBIZA

The deep blue waters around Ibiza and its neighbouring islands can truly be called a natural paradise. They are home to whales, dolphins and thousands of species of fish. But this unique oasis could vanish forever – if we don’t offer resistance together.

Right in the waters of the Spanish archipelago the oil industry wants to search for oil, using unimaginably loud air guns. This extreme noise can cause marine animals to panic, to beach or to die on open sea. Even marine protected areas would be affected!

Protest now

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We have to stop the ruthless oil companies immediately. We have only 3 weeks left. But we’ve got a plan how to avert catastrophe. To do so, we now need your support.

On August 4^th an OceanCare expert delegation will be going to Spain to directly negotiate with the government. We will struggle as hard as we can to stop the projected oil exploration. But we need additional pressure by the public – by people like you. Only then our call will gain the necessary weight to be successful.

Please help by sending a letter of protest against the planned oil exploration to the Spanish government. Protest now: http://www.silentoceans.com

Together we can protect marine animals from deadly noise.

PS: Please share our protest on facebook or via e-mail. The more people are joining, the more powerful our voice for marine animal protection will be. Thank you!

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“What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakeable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents.
Don’t waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary.” – Jay Griffiths

An erotic encounter was not something I expected as I climbed into the beckoning branches of an old avocado tree, 5 years or so ago, whilst woofing in New Zealand.

I had been working in various organic farms, my delicate city princess feet toughened by weeks of walking barefoot, hands stained dark with soil from the daily picking of tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, corn and a variety of other sumptuous delights the world around me generously proffered.

With no audible noise from traffic, no stimulation from a computer, stereo or TV, my mind had considerably quietened, and I began to notice subtle but distinct changes in the sensitivity of my perception. I was sensing things I had never sensed before – specifically, an ability to feel plant energies or auras – enjoying how each plant ‘felt’, almost as though I could tap into their qualities or personalities, which would all evoke different responses within me.

I could tell a tree was diseased without looking at it, just by being in its presence. And I noticed that whilst walking through enchanting groves of avocado trees (so many avocadoes! Oh what I would give now to have a garden full of avocado trees!), I would silently greet trees and swore I could feel them ‘greeting’ me back.

But climbing into the branches of this particular tree, I experienced an unmistakable giant whoosh of energy, deliciously tingling in my pelvis and dancing it’s way up my spine, as though – and dear reader, I know this sounds odd – but as though the tree and I were engaged energetically in something of an erotic frolic. Surrendering to the waves of bliss, feeling energetically penetrated by pushing and probing roots & tendrils, I had my first orgasm, perched in a tree.

This was the first of many experiences since then, which have prompted me to reconsider the entire framework within which I viewed both sexuality and more widely, the nature of life.

Jay Griffith writes “wilderness and wild nature are sexual…the grinding of shoots thrusting up into the light, the hungry torsion as snake squeezes snake, birds flightily dipping as they twang an orgasm between a wing beats, the delicate incipience of young sexuality in bud and blossom…”

How differently would we teach our children about sex, if we understood that there is no difference between the life force that permeates all living things, and the erotic desire to create? That life is erotic: each moment, a continual creative impulse to come into existence.

Photo credit – Arno: http://www.arno-image.com/

How differently would we think about our relationship to our partners and the world around us, if we stopped thinking of sex as something that only happens behind closed doors between people, involving genitals? As D. H. Lawrence famously lamented, “Oh what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox!”

But my erotic tree escapade and subsequent experiences were more than sensual revelling in the world around me. My felt experience was very much that of the tree as a sentient being, both responsive to me and capable of initiating contact. This of course, going against everything I had ever been taught by mainstream culture, which tells me as a human I am superior in intelligence to everything else, and the lowly world of flora, incapable of perception or consciousness.

What a wonderful thought to remember that for over 90% of our time as human beings on our planet (estimated at 200,000 years), before the birth of agriculture and modern culture, we were intimately connected and in deep relationship to earth. What’s so fascinating about this, is that it’s not just that we had more information about the earth (how animals behave so we can hunt them better, which fruits are edible), or even that our perception was more finely attuned and sensitive, but that our reality, based on our direct, felt experience of our connection to earth, was radically different. We lived in a totally different paradigm.

If we can infer how we used to exist for the majority of our time on our planet, by observing indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that have managed (against all odds) to prevail today, we see that we experienced life all around us – whether rock or lake, flower or beast – as sentient, with equal rights and status.

Humans didn’t just ‘believe’ in the interconnectedness and sacredness of all, this was our tangible, sensory experience, our reality. So of course, we would ask for permission from the spirit of the animal we were hunting before killing, why no part of an animal would ever be wasted, why a rock would not be moved without reason, and land could not be ‘owned’. This is why an Apache Indian cannot tell a story without including where on the land it happened – for being alive is so intimately connected to the earth – that everything that takes place, is in relationship to it. A relationship that is so paramount in our experience of being alive, that words and concepts such as ‘past’ and ‘future’ did not exist as they do now.

How would life on our planet be different if we quietened our busy minds for a moment, listened and felt how the pulsing of life through our veins is the same that pulses through the unfurling of a fern, uniting us all in the web of life? If we could feel our actions being witnessed, even judged, by sentient trees?

We can all see the destruction and suffering that our current paradigm of separation and superiority over life, has created. The most powerful change that can take place will not be top down from governments and institutions, but must come from a collective movement into a new shared experience of life.

It’s up to you and me to rekindle those hidden memories that lie buried deep in our bones, of what it is to live in reverence and with respect for life. So stop. Listen. Climb a tree. You never know just what might happen…

Ruby Luna May

www.alchemy-eros.com

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Ruby May is an edge-dwelling, truth-seeking creative visionary, whose passion lies in combining the fields of sexuality, transpersonal psychology and spiritual ecology and creating playful, transformative & magical spaces where we can learn to live ‘beyond our imagination’.