Some times I feel like I live in Heaven on Earth. Fresh air fills my lungs, I feel relaxed and at ease with the world. I am engaged with my work, projects line up and I feel like life is one magical moment after another. And each moment is infinity.
Then there are times when I feel stuck in Hell. I'm trapped in my car, stuck in traffic on one of Los Angeles famous freeways. I hate my fellow humans and will not think twice to cut someone off to get to the off-ramp.
I know that I am responsible for both states. In one instant I can flip from being in Heaven to being in Hell with a readjustment of my mindset. When I'm in "Heaven" I try to remember what makes me feel in this state. And when I'm in Hell, I try to remember to do those things that transport me to Heaven. Sometimes it's as simple as taking a full breath of air. Even when I am stuck in traffic, I can enjoy a silent moment of quietude, a deep breath and create my own Heaven on Earth, instead of wallow in the Hell I previous perceived.
Fellow daily mantra contributor, Carmen de Jesus, includes the story of the two wolves on her blog. It goes something like this:
One evening by the campfire an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
The old man said:"My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.
"One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
"The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied:
"The one you feed."
Every moment you have a choice on which wolf to feed. A fleeting pause in the flow of the moment. That reminds me of something Linda wrote about last week. How enlightenment is a daily occurrence. Ordinary and earth-shattering. I guess it all depends on which wolf you feed.
When I was growing up, my mom used to take us to a different church every few years or so: Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Mormon, I visited ‘em all.
No, Mom wasn’t fickle about her faith. Quite the opposite. Born Catholic and baptized Baptist at age 13, my mom grew up with a strong sense of spirituality and morality. So strong, in fact, that it often dwarfed the examples of both she witnessed in houses organized religion.
As she matured, she continued to crave structure and community, and so she kept seeking a church or denomination that could contain and support our small family. But once we started to settle in a place, she’d soon become disillusioned. Maybe it was the Sunday School teacher telling a six-year-old me that if I was bad, I’d go to hell and have forks stuck in my eyes. Or maybe it was the church minister living against the principles of the gospel he spoke, a man like Neale Donald Walsch , whose 1995 book “Conversations with God” has just been made into a movie, and, according to an LA Times article, “readily admits he has been an adulterer and a bad father.”
Here's an interesting story out of Manila. Due to a housing shortage and exploding birth rates, people are left without a place to live, so they've started moving in with dead relatives!
After being forced from their state lot beside the cemetery to make way for a new graveyard, Bernardino and her husband have converted her mother-in-law's mausoleum into a home for their two sons, their wives and children.
I think it's a horrible situation to live in a cemetery and I wonder if Mom (or the other relatives) are able to rest in peace. Read the story.
With the highest cow-to-people ration in the US, it's no wonder Green Mountain College in Vermont is going green using cow manure for fuel.
The program capitalizes on a common byproduct from one of the northeastern state's top industries, with a typical Vermont dairy cow producing around 13 gallons of manure daily, according to Cow Power spokesman Steve Costello.
I've been feeling a bit estranged from my spiritual center lately, thanks in no small part to the fact that I'm living a nomadic, my-home-is-where-my-car-is-parked life. Without a regular neighborhood yogi (I have no neighborhood), shelf of talismen (I have no shelf) or consistent place to get introspective (the only constant these days seems to be the amount of money I'm spending on gas), it's been hard to find the space and the time to connect with the universe.
Or so I reasoned until I came across this article about Orthodox Jews in Venice Beach.
Apparently, members of a synagogue there are lobbying to mark off a part of the beach with fishing line as an eruv, or holy area, so they can celebrate the Sabbath on the sand. The boundary is symbolic, marking the area inside the string as “home” (and therefore a place where people can carry food and push strollers).
As far as Jews go, I’m as reform as reform gets (my Dad used to say we celebrated Christmas because it’s a national holiday), so I’ve never heard of an eruv before. But the idea got me thinking. If you can deem the boardwalk between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey as holy just by stringing up some rope, could you do the same with other areas traditionally out of the bounds of the Sabbath? Say, Trader Joe’s? Spaceland? Jumbo’s Clown Room?
What is enlightement? What is it to be an enlightened being? It's a difficult question to answer -- so complex there's many books and even an entire magazine devoted to that very question.
Could you just walk around, being enlightened all of the time? Wouldn't everything be blowing your mind constantly? How could you function in that rarified state?
The best explanation I've heard compared enlightment to sex: "Sex can be amazing, earth-shattering... but it's also an everyday occurrence."
This is the best analogy I've heard to help me to wrap my brain around the concept of enlightment. Mindblowing but commonplace, and within reach of us all.
Enlightenment may be like sex, but that doen't mean it is sex. Which is too bad. I wish I could take a tantric shortcut to enlightenment, but of course, the world never works that way.
Think Tom Cruise and Madonna have cornered the market on celebrity religion? Think again. A whole slew of A-listers are coming out of the woodwork to proclaim their faith as they sign on to narrate a 70-hour, full-dramatized audio version of the Bible with an all African American cast.
With Robi Reed, who helped cast Antwone Fisher and Malcolm X, at the helm, and stars like Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett and Cuba Gooding Jr., “Inspired By…The Bible Experience” is sure to be a crossover hit.
But what’s interesting isn’t so much that Jackson agreed to be God or Bassett agreed to be Esther (who wouldn’t?), but that the actors all have signed on to the project – for piddly pay – because of their personal religious beliefs.
According to the Princeton Review, neuroscientists discovered that while the rest of us were taking dreaded piano lessons or playing catch in the backyard, Tibetan monks have been training their brains to be...happy.
"Happiness can be conceptualized as a skill, not fundamentally different from learning to play the violin or learning to play golf," University of Wisconsin psychology professor Richard Davidson said, describing his research into whether meditation and other contemplative practices can cultivate positive states of mind.
Examining brain images of subjects during meditative exercises has shown that "even relatively short-term strategies to train the mind in this way can produce beneficial effects that are observed in the brain," Davidson explained. "It seems like certain positive qualities of the mind, like happiness and compassion, may be benefited by training."
Other recent experiments have used brain imaging to examine how meditation affects the brains of Tibetan monks — who have spent years meditating — compared to those of individuals who were recently trained in the technique. Clifford Saron, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, said the monks use a larger portion of their brains when they meditate, just as practiced pianists exhibit greater brain activity than individuals who are simply taught to play a scale.
So, now what? We've been focusing on the wrong things all these years?
Fear not. My suggestion is for all us brain-training slackers to take whatever skill we've already learned and transform it into a meditation, thereby killing two birds with one stone. Besides, the idea of a world full of Mindful Harmonica players and Meditative Barbecuers, and Zen-Like Ping-Pong champions is so much cooler than sitting around all day meditating in some drafty old monastery.
There's a preacher who's making news by telling his congregants that they should -- gulp -- enjoy sex. This is not only contrary to my stereotype of evangelical Christians and sex but also to what many of those who attend Joe Beam's seminars say they have been taught, which just goes to show you that all of my stereotypes are perfectly accurate.
Beam says It's common for female evangelicals to say that they feel like they are sinning when they make love to their husbands. You mean the stuff I've always been taught was dirty is suddenly okay now that I'm married?
Proscriptions on enjoyment of sex obviously aren't unique to conservative Christians. Muslim cultures -- in the same part of the world that brought us belly dancing -- are highly gender segregated and demand supremely modest dress for women. Buddhist texts, fearful of the "spiritually dullling" effects of too much pleasure, denounce overindulgence in sensual pleaures as "lowly and coarse."
But Beam preaches that as long as you're within the bonds of holy matrimony -- and not on the rag or gay -- gettin' down and dirty, even with birth control, is a-okay with the big guy upstairs. And his message is a relief to the couples who say they weren't sure it was okay to do anything beyond the missionary position, and weren't sure it was okay to enjoy it.
Porn is still verboten, so add another tick to the list of reasons why I wouldn't make a good evangelical.
Although Beam uses scripture to back up his views -- the bible never says anything about vibrators -- his message hasn't been received without controversy within the Christian community. When it comes to sex, the world can never seem to agree on anything.
I've noticed a trend in spirituality/health related articles lately. They always tell you something that you already knew, or should have at least suspected, about your health. I found this quote from an article about anger and the effect it has on you, written by Dr. Sonia Davidson, a minister of religious science.
Irritability and hostility are also associated with high levels of a chemical called homocysteine, which increases the risk of heart attacks.
Based on their observations, some researchers now theorise that it's not just getting angry, but the physical stress of being angry for longer periods of time that takes its toll on our health. Remember the biblical admonition: "Do not let the sun go down on your wrath."
Our 'researchers' seem to have come to a conclusion about health that we've apparently known since the Bible was written, which makes it look like the human race is regressing here in regards to common sense.
I'd rather regress in regards to maturity levels myself. Let's make fun of the word 'Homocysteine', shall we? Or the author's reference to Oxytocin-- which is a chemical associated with tenderness and caring and the recreational usage of prescription pain killers.
Ok I might be lying about the last part.
For all you readers out there who are feeling more mature than me tonight, click here for the health artilcle in its entirety.
A group of monks exiled from their homeland in Southern India, are putting on a multi-talented show this weekend at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.
The nine monks, [...] perform what is known as multiphonic singing, a kind of sophisticated chant in which the monks simultaneously intone three notes of one chord.
"The dancing represents the external, internal and subtle elements of enlightenment, with different gestures and movements synchronized to music," said Tsepak Rigzin, translator for the group.
The monks are creating a mandala, a sand painting that symbolizes the transient nature of all things. They'll work on the painting through Sunday.
Yesterday, I was walking through my college campus on the way to class, and I noticed a rather peculiar formation in the fallen leaves at my feet. It resembled a painstakingly formed checkerboard pattern, with a huge cleared space in the middle in a circular shape, taking up an entire section of the lawn. I envisioned bored lawn maintenance men out there with their leaf blowers, having some fun. But I was mistaken. A group of students went out and gathered brightly colored leaves from all around town, and then brought them to this clearing and assembled them perfectly into this mandala-like piece of art.
What struck me was the simplicity of the materials they used and how the often-overlooked elements of daily life can be transformed into something spectacular. We can use almost anything around us to connect with a higher power by using our creative enegies. Or we can just let leaves be leaves.
Our choice.
Question is, what have you done lately in the creative spirit?
Click here for more information on the monk's performance.
Bikram Choudhury Yoga, Inc. pleaded no contest to misdemeanor operating without a fire permit, failing to provide required parking for customers and operating the studio without a certificate of occupancy. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped charges against Choudhury, the city attorney's office said.
My favorite quote from the article is this one
"I created thousands of jobs here, so this town will miss me," Choudhury said in a telephone interview from his Beverly Hills home.
Sounds like Bikram is not only too hot for his studio, but maybe a bit heavy on the ego. Read the story here.
Tired of your job? Ready to try something new, but need that little extra nudge? Look no further, because Career Voodoo Dolls are here!!!
Choose the pink slip voodoo doll if your company is making the yearly rounds and you want to be on that list! For support in getting that job, go for the appropriately named "Get That Job" Voodoo doll.
Picture this...your applications won't disappear into that "black hole". You'll ace those personality and background checks. You'll never be left dangling, waiting for a call or offer. You'll send a cyber message to corporate recruiters -- stop advertising jobs that don't exist; return phone calls! Best of all, you'll confidently negotiate the ideal salary and perks.
Best of all: "Dolls are infused with healing energy and white light for good luck."
Uri Geller, famous spoon bender magician, is staging a reality TV competition to find the heir to his "abilities".
A reality television show being produced in Israel, where Geller grew up, will feature 10 contestants vying for the title of "heir" to the world-famous celebrity psychic.
"This is not a show where people have to prove to me that they are for real," Geller said, adding that he has no plans to retire. "I just want to be amazed."
All of us at one time in our lives have been unable to get someone or something off of our minds. As the saying goes "where our attention goes, energy flows", and we start to lose considerable chunks of our energy towards whatever or whoever we are fixating on.
Did you catch the 'whoever' part of the above sentence? Yes, that's right-- when you fixate on someone, a link is formed between you and them, and everytime you think about them, you are sending them your energy. Angry at your boss, and having mental arguments with him all day long? Whoosh! There goes a huge chunk of your energy.
The girl you like hasn't called you back, so you obsess about her all night? Kiss another piece of your energy goodbye.
Here is a prime example of the energy connectiveness between people...
Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without humanity? As a species we have changed not only our immediate landscape but dramatically impacted the environment of the entire Earth. When Chernobyl happened, in 1986, humans were wiped out in that area. But don't think it's a gaping void filled with burned trees and deserted lands. This area, known as Wolves land due to the explosion in the wolf population, is a silent place where nature has taken back the cities. Elena Filatova aka Kid of Speed documented her motorcycle trips in this area.
In these cities the land has taken the city back. Saplings grow out of pavement and the tops of roofs. Vines cover houses with sagging roofs. Wildlife runs well, wild in the streets. Wolves, boars and deer in habit silent farmland. Don't think for a moment that humans will exist forever. Everything dies, including entire species. Often at the hand of a higher species. Just think of the many plants and animals that lived and breathed 100 years ago, that do no longer. If you want to be inspired, be sure to check out the rediscovered link on this page, which documents the discovery of species that were previously thought extinct.
Extinction could be closer than we think. There have been threats of dirty bombs at 5 major NFL stadiums this weekend. (Homeland security is skeptical anything will actually happen.)
But don't fret. Use this as a reminder that we are transient visitors in a universe that is infinitely vaster than even the most enlightened mind.
If there were any day to focus your thoughts, emotions and vibrations on all the things you WANT for the world, today is the day. Apparently, today the Earth is being bathed in a UV pulse beam from higher dimensions - aiding in the manifestation of matter from your thoughts.
We can, and should, focus our energies, thoughts, words and actions on the details of the life and the world we WANT, not what we don't want, every single day. Though I don't really grasp the entire "Universe 2" and "soul groups" concepts, I'm all for shifting the mass consciousness through the power of concerted thoughtforms.
A cosmic trigger event is occurring on the 17th of October 2006. This is the beginning, one of many trigger events to come between now and 2013. An ultraviolet (UV) pulse beam radiating from higher dimensions in universe-2 will cross paths with the Earth on this day. Earth will remain approximately within this UV beam for 17 hours of your time.
I recently took two classes. The subject material was new to me, although it was similar to some things I know very well. I've taken a lot of classes in my life (especially having gone through the US school system and college) and have had a wide variety of teachers from my academic chemistry teacher to my trapeze instructor who would throw you off the platform.
It's challenging to teach a mixed level class and provide enough basic instruction for the beginners, while adding challenge for the more advanced students. It's a delicate balance that requires self-knowledge, student awareness and technical expertise. My recent classes showed me how difficult it is to find that combination. What do you do when you find a teacher with great expertise and knowledge, but doesn't know his or her students to instruct them well?
Do I suck it up and preserve through their class to learn the knowledge?
David Markland over at blogging.la has an interview with local Los Angeles Ghost Hunter Jeff Dwyer. If you're in the LA area, he gives tips on locations where you can see a ghost yourself.
What's the biggest myth about ghosts that people should know?
I think the biggest myth is that ghosts are responsible for anything we experience that is weird, paranormal, or supernatural. We need to consider the possibility that what we think is ghostly activity may be created by living beings. Apparitions, odors, sounds, movements of objects, etc., may be attributed to living people to who can perform astral projection, split their spirits and travel as a doppelganger, or create environmental disturbances with strong, negatively-charged emotions.
I was pleasantly surprised to crack open the signature purple Vosges chocolate catalogue that came in the mail this month and find a gift box that combines truffles with yoga postures and the seven chakras.
I know...it sounds too good to be true. Vosges to-die-for truffles and spiritual enlightenment all in one box! Thinking it might prove to be a nifty gift idea for the Yoga enthusiast in everyone's life, I promptly ordered it.
The gift box came as advertised, with a catalogue of their chocolates, seven truffles and a booklet describing the Yoga postures with some recipes for energizing each chakra according to Ayurvedic principles.
What I immediately liked about this gift box was the idea of assigning a truffle for each chakra, and incorporating recipes using chocolate and a basic knowledge of Ayurveda. Unfortunately, a cool idea only goes so far when you are paying $39.00 plus shipping and handling for it.
Usually, viral videos make the Internet rounds because they are silly, shocking or disgusting -- not because they are heartwarming. But "Free Hugs" is a bit more thought provoking than the typical YouTube fare. The mini-documentary goes like this: boy goes to crowded outdoor mall with "Free Hugs" sign; boy gets rebuffed; boy gets hugged; boy gets ousted by security; boy gathers petition signatures; boy gets to hug again. All this is set to a swelling chorus that repeats the lyric, "I'll take you for who you are."
It leads one to consider how great and terrifying, and also how complicated, the idea of passing out unconditional love really is. It also leads one to consider the difficult and demanding work that unconditional love represents. Would I hug this guy if saw him in the street? Would I hug a homeless man, reeking of urine, holding the same sign? A horribly disfigured burn victim? A member of the Bush administration?
What if I was holding the sign? Would people interpret it as simply a utopian gesture of love and openness given freely to all takers, as it's presented in the video, or would they take it as a come-on? Although the video and the sentiment underlying it are greatly moving, my fear of sexual misinterpretation and violation of my personal boundaries prevent me from making my own sign and taking to the street.
While feeling unconditional love for every human you encounter may be an exquisitely beautiful way to approach life, expressing unconditional love for every human you encounter is fraught with peril. When unconditional love is proffered, is a request for unconditional sex far behind?
The Resonance Blog poses the question "Will Climate Change Fashion?"
It's an interesting concept. Most of the time fashion (and most industries) don't do environmentally friendly business practices unless there is a financial benefit. That's been slowly changing the past 10 years with the rise of awareness of Global Warming and the environment. Resonance goes on to note:
Previous energy efficiency drives clearly show a link between energy and fashion, at least from political leaders. Take two classic images: President Jimmy Carter donning a cardigan during his national address on energy policy, and more recently Japanese prime minister Koizumi’s Cool Biz campaign, which encouraged beating the heat with informal shirts in formal Japan (no jacket or tie, gasp!).
Although inspirational in message, neither of these leaders transformed the runways. But fashion does have an important environmental role to play, particularly in the choice of fabrics used for our clothes. A focus on how we make our clothes is much more important than exactly how they look.
Take for example, Patagonia’s stylish hemp denim pants that I recently picked up. Compared to cotton, hemp requires about half the petroleum inputs (remember that farming even organic cotton requires the use of heavy machinery). The pants are a very subtle but effective way to fight climate change, super comfy and stylish enough that I wore them to a board meeting last week. No one noticed the pants, which is exactly what you want to happen at a board meeting.
Due to the awareness of the environment and the impact we have on it, fashion has at a minimum started to embrace sustainability. What do you think? Read the full post here.
"That's soooo weird! I was talking about Baader-Meinhof just the other day!"
Ever heard of something for the first time and then heard it mentioned again the very next day? Turns out, this experience has a name-- The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.
I found a damn interesting article today (on DamnInteresting.com of all places) all about this synchronicity and the selectivity of human attention. Which has nothing to do with the historic German urban guerrilla group Baader-Meinhof, but a lot to do with coincindental events and reoccuring themes in our lives.
Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly.
Despite science's cries that a world as complex as ours invites frequent coincidences, observation tells us that such an explanation is inadequate. Observation shows us that Baader-Meinhof strikes with blurring accuracy, and too frequently to be explained away so easily.
To learn more about the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, check out the rest of the article here. Or you could just wait until someone mentions it again randomly during a conversation next week...
They're back! GM might have killed the electric car, but starting today you can purchase a spanking beautiful electric car from LA Electric cars. I personally have my eye on the above pictured OBVIO 012E, which is almost as sexy as the Tesla electric car I wrote about earlier this year, but unfortunately it's not available until 2008.
Not only do electric cars help reduce pollution in the environment they are distinctive and easy on the pocketbook.
Don't Electric Cars cause pollution via power plants?
It's much easier to clean up one large stationary smokestack than millions of tiny mobile ones. In fact, electric power is generated primarily from hydro sources, making EVs 98%-99.9% cleaner than equivalent internal combustion vehicles. Even where power comes primarily from coal, EVs are 55%-92% cleaner. And by the way, if you want a fair comparison to gas cars, you really need to include the pollution from oil refineries, tanker ships, and tanker trucks.
Both models available now (the Xebra and Xebra PK - for pickup) are under $10,000! I almost feel like going out and buying one today!
If you're interested in one yourself, but you're not in the LA Area, you can go ahead and contact LA Electric and they'll try to hook you up with a dealership in your area. For more information, go here.
Apparently Yahoo! thinks so. They're launching a time capsule and calling for submissions via their website.
Yahoo said it would project selected time capsule submissions onto the symbolic site. This content would be broadcast directly onto the 216-foot tall pyramid, viewable via a simultaneous worldwide webcast and sent into space through a light beam.
You can view the current submission to the time capsule here. So far there have been almost 5000 submissions. It's fun to review the breakdown in submissions by country, gender and type of submissions.
Naked Yoga is really something I try not to imagine. I'm not prude about my body, I just don't like to show it off to everyone, nor do I want to see everyone's either. I've known about studios that have naked yoga sessions, but this story is just too much. Apparently Actor Ralph Fiennes used this such type of yoga to convince her to date him.
But after employing such bizarre techniques as putting on shows of naked yoga at her Dublin apartment, Fiennes has finally got his way with the statuesque interior designer.
Can we assume he's both spiritual and flexible? Go here to read more.
According to this world religion newsblog, Maharishi Mahesh the Transcendental Meditation Yogi, has big plans for small town U.S.A.
Altogether, the Maharishi wants to build 2,400 peace palaces in 250 U.S. cities and has opened ones in Houston, Bethesda, Md., Lexington, Ky., and Fairfield, Iowa, where his group also has operated the Maharishi University of Management for three decades.
One city in particular, Smith Center Kansas, wasn't very supportive of the Transcendental take-over of their town.
“It hasn't split the community, but it has caused a lot of tension,” said Mayor Randy Archer. “We're an older community, and new things that come to town are scary for some people.”
According to the Kansas City Star, the Maharishi peace group vowed to sue if the County Commission in Smith tried to use zoning to keep the TMers from building the dozen marble peace palaces they intended to. The threat proved effective and Smith County Commission backed off.
Correct me if I'm wrong...but 'peace palace' and 'vowed to sue' in the same sentence is a rather amusing contrast, no?
Something as small as reading your daily horoscope for entertainment or to get perspective on the week ahead of you is considered unlawful and dangerous in other countries.
Prominent clerics in Saudi Arabia have warned Arab media against publishing "forbidden" horoscopes, which are hugely popular despite a clerical ban. "This is astrology, which is forbidden and is considered as a form of magic," a committee of senior Saudi clerics said in a statement published on state news agency SPA late on Saturday.
Question is, can we imagine living in a culture that doesn't allow the citizens to make a choice on their own about their beliefs? On the other hand, can Saudis imagine living in a culture that exposes them to behaviors that go against their very core the way Americans do?
I am beginning to believe it would take an act of 'magic' to reconcile all the misunderstandings between our two cultures. My first spell would be that we would all wake up in the bodies of people living in Saudi Arabia, and they would wake up in ours. For one week we would live out our lives, until we understood from the inside out what it was truly like to live in a completely different cultural environment. And then Zap! We'd all return back to our normal bodies with a better appreciation of what we have and what we don't have...and hopefully a sense of respect.
I think we can all agree on one thing here-- if I had superhuman powers we'd all be in trouble. Hehe...
A friend passed me this link to a cool blog written by Master Relationship Reader, Krista Goering, who utilizes energy readings and astrology to get unusual perspectives into celebrity romances. The one on Kate Bosworth and Orlando Bloom is especially entertaining.
I believe that in one past life Orlando and Kate were lovers who could not be together, and in another past life they were mortal enemies who vowed to kill each other. In this lifetime I believe they have some unfinished business to deal with.
I'm not sure what Krista is talking about when she says 'unfinished business', but I'd like to imagine it involves daily near-death experiences and a lot of hot make-up sex.
Krista invites her readers to send the names of their favorite celebs for her to write about. Check out her blog here.
"So I took yoga this summer. I took what I call "middle-aged-white-guy yoga." They have some Indian name for that, I don't know what it is. "I'll see a friend of mine who's taking yoga and I'll say, 'How's yoga going?' "And he'll say, 'Oh, it's great and you should see the a** on this woman I'm taking yoga from.' It's really what it's all about!" [Source]
Maybe yoga teaches should start charging men, like a disco.
On the other had, The Rockford Soccer Team has taken up pilates, which has apparently been helping them kick some ass.
Scientists have figured out a way to teleport light and matter over greater distances, according to this CNN news article.
"Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter," Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained. "Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement," he added.
The scientists insist that it will be many years before we'll be able to teleport anything human-sized, a la Star Trek. So, if you're looking for instant gratification-- sorry.
We complained about the distance to the television to change channels and viola'! The remote was born. We complained about the time it takes to heat up our food and Bam! We got microwaves. Now we won't even have to take airplanes to see our family on the holidays. Better yet, you could just teleport them to the far side of the galaxy by accident.
What was that old adage about laziness being the mother of all invention? Oh darn, I just can't seem to remember how it goes.
It's not the first time a tree has been protected because it's considered sacred, but it is the most recent. Indonesian police are protecting a Banyan Tree after an attack on it by a Muslim youth group.
"But later rumors spread that the government was unable to fell the tree because it has supernatural powers and is sacred," the official said, adding that Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso had filed a complaint with police. Jeje Zainudin, chairman of the United Islam Youth, said the group had carried out the attack to counter superstitions surrounding the tree.
Read the full story here. Maybe there will have to be some laws against terrorizing trees, or maybe boys will just be boys. What teenage boys more interested in spirituality than terrorizing their little sister?
Micki over at Mickipedia just finished the 10 day Master Cleanse. Most days she created a video about her experience with the cleanse (which has been mostly good!). Start with her post on pondering the Master Cleanse and follow her adventures to the final assessment. Not too bad!
Found this delightful news tidbit on MSNBC this morning about two priests that stole charity funds to bankroll their extracurricular activities.
The Rev. Francis Guinan, who succeeded Skehan three years ago, has disappeared and was being sought, authorities said. He is alleged to have stolen an unspecified amount of money to take gambling trips to Las Vegas and the Bahamas.
I don't know about you, but I read this quote and let out a dirty little chuckle. Could be the imaginary visual I got of a man in priests robes tearing out of the Venetian in a convertible on the Las Vegas strip with a backseat full of drunk exotic dancers.
I found this extremely interesting channeling guideline on Montalk.net tonight, and it ties in nicely with some research I was already doing on the topic.
Being the skeptic that I am, I always turned my nose up at articles passed on to me by friends containing channeling from elves, guides, aliens and even God. Do you remember the book Conversations With God? Or the ever-popular Seth books? Well, I discarded most of the information in them as bogus or tainted by biases stemming from the person doing the channeling, but not with any real system of categorization to work from. I do admit that I believe channeling is possible, but in line with the opinion of this writer, there are few that attain that level. I think this guideline article is the closest I've found to a working model of approaching information received from channeling sessions.
Sixth Level: veracity without positivity. Here the source can give predictions that eerily come true, reveal facts and personal details about others that later prove to be accurate, or show off their presence with paranormal phenomena—but it uses these confirmations solely to satisfy its authoritarian, hostile, or egotistical agenda. The source is most likely some negative thoughtform, mischievous discarnate being, or lower astral entity looking for easy targets to control, especially those interested left-hand occultism or those quickly awed into obeying an exotic authority. They have limited ability to see the future, read and manipulate the minds of humans, and create artificial synchronicities. That their predictions turn out correct says nothing about their intentions.
It sounds like the writer has a lot of experience with this subject and the rest of the site is just as intense. Definitely worth checking out.
Then there are times when I feel stuck in Hell. I'm trapped in my car, stuck in traffic on one of Los Angeles famous freeways. I hate my fellow humans and will not think twice to cut someone off to get to the off-ramp.
One evening by the campfire an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
Think Tom Cruise and Madonna have cornered the market on celebrity religion? Think again. A whole slew of A-listers are coming out of the woodwork to proclaim their faith as they sign on to narrate a 70-hour, full-dramatized 
Yesterday, I was walking through my college campus on the way to class, and I noticed a rather peculiar formation in the fallen leaves at my feet. It resembled a painstakingly formed checkerboard pattern, with a huge cleared space in the middle in a circular shape, taking up an entire section of the lawn. I envisioned bored lawn maintenance men out there with their leaf blowers, having some fun. But I was mistaken. A group of students went out and gathered brightly colored leaves from all around town, and then brought them to this clearing and assembled them perfectly into this mandala-like piece of art.
Tired of your job? Ready to try something new, but need that little extra nudge? Look no further, because 
David Markland over at 
I was pleasantly surprised to crack open the signature purple Vosges chocolate catalogue that came in the mail this month and find a gift box that combines truffles with yoga postures and the seven chakras. 
"That's soooo weird! I was talking about Baader-Meinhof just the other day!" 
Apparently Yahoo! thinks so. They're launching a time capsule and calling for submissions via their 
It's not the first time a tree has been protected because it's considered sacred, but it is the most recent. Indonesian police are protecting a Banyan Tree after an attack on it by a Muslim youth group.