Tuesday, December 27, 2022

New Seed-sharing Library opens at the Corvallis Public Library!

The public book library of Corvallis (the closest city to where we live) is starting a seed-sharing library. Volunteers will also share basic gardening knowledge as well.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE

We hope this becomes a model for other libraries to follow!

Monday, December 19, 2022

Does Mint Oil Actually Repel Mice?

 

This video falls in the category of "natural methods of pest control that actually work"! Watch and be inspired!



Thursday, December 8, 2022

The Generosity of the Stone Soup Kitchen in Corvallis

Here at the Sharing Gardens, we've been growing fruits and vegetables organically since 2009 and, with the exception of a few years when we ran a CSA to cover expenses (subscription-based weekly food boxes) we have given everything away for free (on average, 6,000 pounds/year). 

In recent years there's been an up-welling of other groups making donations to Food charities in our area. These have come from other small-scale gardeners (besides us), surplus from Farmer's Markets, Gleaner groups, and contracts between the Pantries and farmers to grow staples such as potatoes and cabbage. There haven been many times in the last couple of years where there was so much produce donated to the main Food Pantry we serve that it was hard to find room on the tables for our offerings!

Not wanting our donations to go to waste, we have sought out other food charities who are still in need of our services. In 2022, the majority of our surplus - that which didn't go to feed the incredible volunteers who help make our unique model of community-garden a success - went to the Stone Soup Kitchen in Corvallis. We love sending them our food because they cook it into delicious meals that they provide free-of-charge to anyone in need...hundreds of meals a week! Here is an article that outlines their project. (Originally published in the Oregonian newspaper)

Soup kitchen battles rising food insecurity in Corvallis 

A man standing at the counter of a soup kitchen, silhouetted in the light of a window.

Rob Kirby, 51, prepares for Stone Soup’s annual picnic at First Christian Church on Aug. 2, 2022. Housed and unhoused neighbors, firefighters and police officers are invited, but mostly Stone Soup’s unhoused diners typically show up, Kirby said.Terah Bennett/High School Journalism Institute


After Rob Kirby, 51, prepares a record-breaking 180 meals at Stone Soup Corvallis, a soup kitchen, he says he feels accomplishment, but also an acute sense of despair.

“Why are the numbers so high?” he said. “Does the larger community of Corvallis know how pressing this need is and that it’s just growing?”

Stone Soup, the volunteer-run nonprofit where Kirby is a lead cook, has experienced a nearly 40% increase in demand this year compared to this time last year. The soup kitchen, which operates three locations out of church kitchens and one drive thru, served a record 42,000 meals in 2021.

By the end of July 2022, the organization had served over 8,000 meals more than it had by that time last year.

Sara Ingle, president of Stone Soup’s board of directors, attributed increasing demand for meals to income inequality and high housing costs in Corvallis, both of which she said were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over a quarter of Corvallis residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 estimates. Data from the city show Corvallis is also Oregon’s most severely rent-burdened community, with about 37% of residents spending over half their income on rent.

Ingle, 75, joined Stone Soup six years ago and became its board president in 2019.

“It hasn’t been at all what I expected, or anybody expected,” she said. “I’ve changed a lot. Stone Soup has changed a lot. The world is different.”

A person is seen cutting fruit in a kitchen. Outside, a menu is posted.

Stone Soup volunteer Rob Kirby, 51, prepares food at the First Christian Church kitchen for the soup kitchen's annual picnic Aug. 2, 2022.Terah Bennett/High School Journalism Institute

Stone Soup, which is turning 40 this year, provides free meals to anyone at its four meal sites. Each meal includes an entree, soup, a serving of vegetables and fruit, and a dessert, along with a vegetarian option. Ingredients for meals are provided by the Linn-Benton County Food Share, as well as donations and purchases.

Over 300 volunteers were sent home in February 2020 as kitchens closed due to COVID-19. Stone Soup offered catered to-go meals until reopening after Thanksgiving that year.

Stone Soup resumed serving their own diners and also began preparing meals for the county to distribute to homeless encampments where inhabitants were still quarantining. The organization continued serving a higher number of meals as the pandemic progressed and opened a temporary drive-thru site on Northwest Third Street. The drive-thru will close Aug. 27 after running out of funding.

Meal demand has surged while pandemic relief efforts have dissolved. Ingle said she is concerned that the Third Street location closure will further strain the organization, while the city clears homeless encampments without providing “facilities and service they need to live with dignity.”

“There is no plan or intention on the part of the city, that I am aware of, to improve life for those who are unsheltered,” Ingle said.

A metal shelf overflowing with cans of beans, corn and baked beans.

Stone Soup’s bulk goods, including beans and mashed potatoes, stored inside the St. Mary’s Catholic Church pantry on Aug. 3, 2022.Suzan Nuri/High School Journalism Institute

Benton County took steps to address homelessness in 2021, including converting a former motel into a shelter and providing emergency housing vouchers. A Corvallis spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ingle hopes to open a standalone location for Stone Soup, something the organization attempted in 2018 but failed to accomplish due to community opposition. She attributed the pushback to neighbors not wanting homeless services near their own homes.

Ingle said community opposition and increasing meal demand will not deter Stone Soup from feeding people.

“We have flexed and bent and done everything we could during the pandemic and we will continue to do that,” she said.

Kirby agreed, but said he wasn’t sure how the organization would meet increasing demand.

Stone Soup is so popular because of its “low-barrier” services, where no one gets turned away, regardless of their behavior or circumstances, Kirby said. Diners include college students, elderly residents and recipients of federal food benefits. Most, however, are people experiencing homelessness.

Volunteer Marjorie McClellan, 65, said even with federal and local aid, homelessness and food insecurity in Corvallis have worsened. McClellan said she used to prepare 40 to 60 meals per shift with leftovers. She now serves 120 meals per shift and consistently runs out of food.

Kirby said Stone Soup will find a way to continue meeting the rising demand, but more is required from the city, county and neighbors to address underlying issues.

“Together as a community, are we willing to do the hard work of addressing the needs that are leading people to be hungry?” Kirby said. “These diners aren’t some outside source, they aren’t people unlike any of the rest of us. They’re just people who have a circumstance that has put them in hungry situations.”

-- Terah Bennett, St. Mary’s Academy

-- Suzan Nuri, Beaverton Early College High School

This story was produced by student reporters as part of the High School Journalism Institute, an annual collaboration among The Oregonian/OregonLive, Oregon State University and other Oregon media organizations. For more information or to support the program, go to oregonlive.com/hsji.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Nipun Mehta: A Deeper Thanksgiving

Nipun Mehta is one of my heroes. He is a living example of the power of generosity. Here is his latest podcast on the topic of "A Deeper Thanksgiving". Enjoy, and be inspired! 

As a small sampling of the conversation’s many gems, they touch on the blessings that occur when we replace transactions with relationships. Nipun advocates for a personal experimentation with generosity, knowing that if we listen closely, we may discover wonderful changes happening within ourselves. He explains how gratitude can be regenerative, and reminded us that it emerges from the recognition that we are nestled in so many gifts that we can never reciprocate. This knowledge invites us to pay forward what we can never pay back.


Listen to the interview here. LINK { read more }

What gives me hope is that life unfailingly responds to the advances of love.
- Nipun Mehta -

Nipun Mehta: A Deeper Thanksgiving


 

 

Friday, November 25, 2022

She Just Loves Cleaning and Now Helps Women in Need By Scrubbing Homes for Free While Traveling the World

I just love everything about this post from the Good News Network. Here is a woman who, in her time off, volunteers to help women, overwhelmed in their lives, by cleaning their homes for free. She also blogs about her experiences and shares tips on how to clean without using toxic chemicals. Her spirit of service, without initially seeking financial reward landed her a sponsorship from a company that makes cleaning products she approves of and she's now able to travel the world doing what she loves (yes, she loves cleaning) and inspiring others to follow in her path. Awesome!

Here's the whole article:

She Just Loves Cleaning and Now Helps Women in Need By Scrubbing Homes for Free While Traveling the World 


 

Monday, October 31, 2022

Waste to Taste - Feeding Lane County

An excellent article about a food charity called Waste to Taste, in Eugene, Oregon (about 25 minutes from where we live) that collects and redistributes food "waste" to those in need. 

According to the article, "Nearly 46,000 tons, or 31% of Lane County’s total solid landfill waste, is made up of food waste, according to reporting done by the Register Guard this year. Jesselyn Perkins, project coordinator for the Waste to Taste program, says that Waste to Taste receives tens of thousands of pounds of recycled food."

It's uplifting to hear of a volunteer-run program that is making such a positive difference in the community.

Read the full article HERE:  Feeding Lane County


Sunday, October 30, 2022

Heart of Surrender

  "In the heart of surrender, treating people far better than they treat you becomes an acceptable way to live, especially because their inability to treat you well has nothing to do with you, but reflects the kind of relationship they have with themselves.

This allows you to forget how to be a victim, when the unconscious actions of another clearly reveal a heart in need and a lost child in pain."

Matt Kahn
All for Love

Friday, October 21, 2022

What Would Happen If the World Suddenly Went Vegetarian?

This is an excellent, balanced article about the pros and cons of a world of vegetarians or vegans. Though the benefits to personal and planetary health would be unequivocal if people in "developed" countries adopted these lifestyle choices, there would be challenges to people who make a living from the current style of raising meat for mass consumption. There would need to be a transition to shift to other livelihoods. For indigenous cultures, and those cultures dependent on shepherding, nomadic lifestyles, the change would probably lead to worse health outcomes in the short-run and a tragic loss of culture so a shift of this manner would take much more time and coordination. In the long-run though, this shift would also create much benefit for bio-diversity and even personal health.

 

To read the full article CLICK HERE.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

the only way to live an abundant life

Here is a fantastic, short video about the connection between generosity and abundance. We couldn't say it better ourselves!



Friday, May 6, 2022

My Garden of a Thousand Bees

My Mom sent us this link to an episode of Nature entitled "My Garden of a Thousand Bees". It is an absolute delight!

Image credit: Bumble bee with flower

A nature photographer during Lockdown films a full spring and summer season of native bees in his unruly backyard garden in London. The photography is amazing; the bees come to have individual personalities and the photographer is funny and humble as he explores this micro-world. CLICK HERE to watch

Related article:  ‘No Mow May’ Gives You a Reason to NOT Mow the Lawn: Leave the Weeds to Feed the Bees

Monday, February 14, 2022

Rundown apartments reborn as food-forest co-living Agritopia - Kirsten Dirksen

This video depicts an exciting urban sustainable-living project in Portland, Oregon created by converting apartment buildings and the weedy lawns and parking areas that surrounded them into a thriving Eco-village. Anyone interested in solutions to the many ecological problems we are facing, or preparing for what seems like an inevitable collapse will find many practical designs and design-principles to inform ones own action steps. This video gave me a feeling of hope!

In 2007, Ole and Maitri Ersson bought a rundown apartment complex in the city and immediately began to de-pave parking lots to make room for what today is a huge permaculture co-living space and urban food forest.

Today, the Kailash Ecovillage has 55 residents who all help farm where there was once pavement, grass, a swimming pool, and an overgrown weed patch.

The community is well-prepared for systems collapse; they have extensive rainwater collection and storage, plenty of produce and they process their own sewage. Their permitted sanitation project complies with international building codes for compost toilet and urine diversion systems and turns their pee and poop into nitrogen and compost.

Here, nearly everything is shared. There are two community electric cars – donated by the Erssons who no longer have a private car-, shared bicycles (and bike trailers), an extensive fruit orchard, berry and grape patches, and a considerable community garden space. Photovoltaics provide about two-thirds of the energy consumed by the complex.

Neil Robinson is the community’s full-time farmer who has sold thousands of dollars of Kailash produce at farmers markets. He moved in as a way to prepare for systemic collapse. “I wanted to learn to grow food and then have a system that could step in. We have water, we have food.”

Ole explains, “We’re in this zone where it’s not a question of if, but when, we’re going to get a Richter 9 earthquake… that’s going to break all kinds of grids, the power grid is likely going to go down, the sewer grid almost undoubtedly and it’s probably going to take months, if not years, to get the sewer system going again.” Their sanitation project can absorb 60 adults for months.

Rents here are lower than the Portland average because the Erssons want Kailash to be accessible to all income levels. There’s a 300-person waitlist, but Ole hopes others will follow their example.

“If you look at it from an economic perspective no business would want a complex landscape like this because it’s way too much maintenance, but what you have to do is turn the maintenance over to the residents, and then they do it: they get joy; it’s an antidepressant; it’s a way of creating food; it’s a way of creating community; so you have to do it in a certain way, but it’s definitely a lot more work than the typical grass and shrub landscape for sure.”

Reposted from Fair Companies

Sunday, February 6, 2022

Bee Bricks That Help Thousands of Solitary Bees Are Now a Requirement for New Buildings in Brighton

 By Andy Corbley

 

Since 250 of the 270 bee species in Britain are solitary buzzers, the city of Brighton and Hove is establishing mandates to use “bee bricks” in construction of all buildings above 5 meters to help encourage these solitary species to nest in them.

Bee bricks are what appear to be blocks of Swiss cheese but which are actually a normal building bricks created with small cavities into which bees typically nest. Old brick buildings and crumbing walls have been observed as excellent habitat for bees, and so Brighton and Hove are trying to deploy this simple invention to offer more room on the metaphorical bed for the pollinating insects.

FULL article, CLICK HERE

 

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Jerusalema Challenge - Elephants, Giraffes and People in Joy!


I dream of a world where all our relations with the natural world around us inspire this sort of feeling of spontaneous joy as expressed HERE.

God’s Great Reset Will Soon Begin - Shunyamurti Teaching


I've always been intrigued with philosophies that speak of our human incarnation as a "simulation". This is a viewpoint that seems to bring unity between the world of quantum physics and spirituality. In this world-view, ones beliefs have more effect on your experince than actual reality does!

How do we make sense of these chaotic, challenging times we're in? Many faith traditions are saying that there are signs we are in the "end times" these days but the ones I appreciate most are those that say these end-times are the precursor to a time of re-birth and integration.  Shunyamurti, in this talk, offers this sort of hopeful message.

Though I'm often "turned off" by those who adopt the Guru-role, especially if they didn't grow up within its culture (in this case, Hindu), I found myself resonating with this teacher's message.  Shunyamurti gave this talk early-on in the Covid lock-downs and encouraged people to use the loss of physical freedom to go more deeply within.



 

 


Friday, February 4, 2022

A Message of Hope and Science - Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.


"Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want."

Bruce Lipton PhD is one of my heroes! With a strong background in cell biology (see short Bio below) he does an amazing job tying together Quantum Physics and the biology of Genetics to build the case for how our beliefs have a lot more to say about our gene's expression than most of us were led to believe. He has been a voice of sanity throughout the pandemic with his urging to "dial back the fear, and dial up the love"! - LINK

Here, in his latest video he builds on one of his key themes: our power to profoundly effect our experienced reality with our thoughts. In this hopeful and inspiring message he councils us not to fear the breakdown of society as we know it because it has been our modern Western society that has led us to this current Sixth Mass Extinction. If you've been feeling despair at the state of the world, this video will give you a new way to frame our World situation.  

Good News! A Message of Hope and Science - LINK

  "A miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden, rather than fight over the turf." ~ Bruce H. Lipton

Bio: Bruce H. Lipton, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. Stem cell biologist, bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace Award, he has been a guest speaker on hundreds of TV and radio shows, as well as keynote presenter for national and international conferences.

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Principles of True Economy - Jeff Vander Clute

by Jeff Vander Clute

1 April 2020 (Rev. 27 March 2021)

The last time I was inspired to write about money and economy (See: Money Is Alive and Well) was two weeks before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic. Now that much of the world has shut down economically, with serious consequences for millions of people, the concept of humanity’s Great Transition has suddenly become very real. At the same time I have been receiving visions in meditation with a new level of clarity, and I have a sense that these “downloads” offer clues that can help us to navigate through this turbulent moment in history.

Here are two of the powerful questions that I have been meditating on:

  • What is a true economy, and what are its principles?
  • What is money, and how does it support a true economy?

Humanity’s answers to these questions, and our often-unconscious beliefs about money and economy, greatly influence how we relate to one another, to other life forms, and to life itself. Now that the world economy appears to be faltering, a window has opened up during which we can reconsider our foundational assumptions, definitions, and beliefs about value and how society is organized. This is a golden opportunity to source different answers to the above questions by listening to the wisdom that exists within us. The responses we receive can provide a roadmap for thriving in the post-Coronavirus world. As we listen deeply and upgrade our notions of money and economy, we will co-create new economic and governance models that are better suited for life in the 21st century and beyond.

What follows is a set of interconnected understandings that came when I went still and invited the most awakened version of humanity to be revealed through the lens of economy and money.

What Is a True Economy?

The most successful economy will be an awakened economy, in which businesses and individuals interact with unprecedented levels of consciousness and love. When I asked the question “What is an optimal name for such an economic system?”, the phrase that came to me was “true economy.” Then, as I contemplated the nature of a true economy, I could see and feel that it has certain characteristics:

  • Activities that benefit all and harm none are naturally supported.
  • People and communities have immense freedom to develop their creativity.
  • Human communities and ecosystems are uplifted by economic activity.
  • Businesses prosper without compromising the web of life.
  • People are supported in realizing their true nature.

In addition, I received a set of 11 principles for co-creating such an economy.

11 Principles of True Economy

1. Anchor Assets: The foundation of economy for each community, and each bioregion, is the health of its ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems attract and sustain life.

2. Leveling Out: A true economy keeps value flowing, eliminates unhealthy inequalities, and ensures that everyone’s basic needs are met ongoingly.

3. Generosity: The participants in a true economy always give more of themselves than the minimum because it feels good to do so. This quality of interacting increases the well-being of all.

4. Value Yourself: When you appreciate your own immense value within the web of life, you can more easily appreciate the value of others and their contributions.

5. Do What You Love: In a healthy ecosystem, there is abundant energy available to create everything you need by doing what you love to do and sharing the results.

6. Life = Value = Life: Life is the source of value and life experiences are what people value. There are countless forms of value, and they all contribute to increasing the quality of life. (What does not increase the quality of life has no value.)

7. Measure Health: By continually measuring, tracking, and improving the health of nature, people, and communities, it is possible to incentivize human activities that increase true wealth.

8. Money Spirals: The circulation of money through webs of reciprocity and beneficial interaction stimulates people’s creativity, adds life energy to the economy, and lifts everyone with each iteration.

9. Cultivate Wealth (in a deep sense): Grow and nurture assets, intentionally, that rise in worth as the well-being of people and nature increases. Harvest the wealth, consciously, distribute it fairly, and continue the cycle.

10. Protect People and Ecosystems: Conserve, enhance, and celebrate the upward spiral of healthy interactions amongst the natural environment, the built environment, and humans.

11. Mutually Assured Thriving: The structures of a true economy strongly favor activities and interactions that benefit all and harm no one. The thriving of one requires the thriving of all, and a healthy whole requires healthy individuals.

What Is Money, and How Does It Support a True Economy?

In a future article, we will explore a multi-part answer that came in response to the question “What is money, and how does it support a true economy?” Here are the key points that emerged from the inquiry:

  1. A true money system is an expression of our ultimate interrelatedness.
  2. Money is an agreement to care for one another and life.
  3. The nature of money is unenclosable. Money finds ways around borders and other limitations.
  4. Money channels unlimited creative energy into manifestation.
  5. Money is the relational consciousness of the planetary superorganism, under the supervision of life.

Acknowledgement

The articulation of the 11 principles has been greatly inspired by LOVE TO, a leading-edge incubator and funder of regenerative businesses and business clusters. The LOVE TO group of companies is quietly pioneering the implementation of the new economy with partners who have understood these principles for a long time. Special thanks to Tim Bennett, founder of LOVE TO, for his co-creative assistance.

Sunday, January 9, 2022

England's farmers to be paid to 'rewild' land

Water vole
The water vole is one of the rare species to be helped by the schemes. Photograph: Mark Smith/Alamy
Farmers in England will be given taxpayers’ cash to rewild their land, under plans for large-scale nature recovery projects announced by the government. These will lead to vast tracts of land being newly managed to conserve species, provide habitats for wildlife and restore health to rivers and streams.
 
George Eustice, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said the aim was for wildlife and nature protection to run alongside food production as a matter of course for most farmers. He is expected to tell farmers at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday: 

 "We want to see profitable farm businesses producing nutritious food and underpinning a growing rural economy, where nature is recovering and people have better access to it. Through our new schemes, we are going to work with farmers and land managers to halt the decline in species, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, increase woodland, improve water and air quality and create more space for nature." 

To read the full article, CLICK HERE

By Fiona Harvey
The Guardian
Thu, 06 Jan 2022 07:00 UTC 

Friday, January 7, 2022

After the Coronavirus: A Vision

By Jeff Vander Clute, 17 March 2020

 Your species will live a very long time by sharing and prioritizing the well-being of all. 

This channeled piece offers a way to view the Coronavirus experience through positive, hopeful eyes. Let us keep asking ourselves, "How can this collective experience we are going through open the doors to an experience of humanity's higher purpose here on the planet?".

A few days after “A Message from the Coronavirus” began circulating, I (Jeffrey) read the following headline: “No one knows what the post-coronavirus reality will be like.” This motivated me to ask life itself for its perspective on where the world is heading. I figured that if life could speak – and it did! – it would have much to say about what is on the other side of the present global crisis. Once again I was heartened by the wisdom that came through in response. Breathe deeply and allow your entire system to be bathed by Love.

Humanity will survive and be stronger than before. You have a glorious future ahead of you. Seize this opportunity to evolve your ways of being together. Learn to be better stewards of the planet. Take time to meditate or rest in stillness. Your societies will restructure around different principles after this experience. Trust that the process has its wisdom, that life is here for you and is always supporting your highest good. To those who wonder whether the universe is friendly or not, I answer that it is a friendly place – the friendliest possible. That can be your experience on the other side of this moment of burning away and annealing. It is friendly to teach. It is friendly to strengthen. It is friendly to awaken the sleeping ones. I do this as gently as I can, out of love. The time has come for you to know a much more glorious reality.

1. The coronavirus situation is a healing crisis that marks the beginning of a new epoch of human development characterized by operating beyond the ego.1

Humans have reached an inflection point where you are shifting away from operating defensively out of fear of what might happen to acting in alignment with a growing sense of what is good for the whole of life. Naturally, the whole of life includes all humans and all of nature. So you are included. Do not be afraid. A growing number of you are realizing that what is truly beneficial, and that which truly works for the long term, is simultaneously good for the totality of life as well as for the individuals. It is rigorously true that there can be no trade-off between individual thriving and the thriving of communities and the natural world. The way that you can evaluate what will best serve the whole of life is through practicing methods of intuitive discernment. The transition from analysis (which separates) and individualistic behaviors to holistic perception and wise action (which arises from wholeness) is not an easy one; however, this is the transition that your species is now required to make, and you have all the support you need.

2. Peace will become a true priority.2

It follows from the principle that all must benefit and none may be excluded that peaceful co-existence is the true state of being within collectivity. Any other state is a fearful illusion. You have perhaps not sufficiently considered the extent to which this is a radical proposition. Your entire economy, and almost all of your interactions, are predicated upon the notion that there are separate “parties” that must negotiate very well in order to achieve outcomes that satisfy their own interest and desire to win at the expense of others. These are childish ways. You do not need to prove your worth by winning. Realize instead that the shared objective of all who engage in any form of interaction, not just financial exchange, is equitable participation and the fair distribution of life experiences. Your species will live a very long time by sharing and prioritizing the well-being of all. You will live with greater health and enjoy life more when your energies are directed toward the fulfillment of communal aspiration. In this way you discover the peace that always is. You would do well to enshrine peace as a design objective in your societies, and in your inner being. It is a compass heading that can be relied upon.

3. Through empathy, humans will arrive at the Remembrance of who they are.

Have you noticed that the experience of oneness replaces all prior ideas of yourself as a separate being who has to compete for your bread and butter? The state of peace enables you to more easily recognize the underlying unity that is at the heart of all human interactions. It is in your heart that you remember who you are from the standpoint of soul and the light that radiates through your individual body and mind. The Remembrance, with a capital R, is a relaxation into the certainty that you are held by life because you are life, despite all appearances to the contrary. You can relax because everything that you thought you needed to do to carve out an existence is moot. You exist, you belong, you are a shining human embodiment of the One, which you are now in the process of remembering. The empathy that so many of you are now feeling on account of the suffering of others is helping you to make the connection energetically with your heart, which, again, is where the awakening is already happening. Love one another, love yourself, grieve when loss happens, and also know that no one is ever lost. This stage of forgetfulness will soon be past, the threshold crossed, the new day begun.

4. Humanity will become a conscious superorganism.3

You are all my children. We are a family. This family has its own consciousness, its own destiny, and its own path of fulfillment. Because you are realizing oneness, you have growing access to the perceptions and agency of the human family as a whole. Imagine that you and your siblings can all see what I see, which begins with how beautiful you are. Imagine that you can focus the eyes of the world and see the distant shores of creation, and instantly perceive what is happening anywhere on the planet. From the individual perspective, and with your current world-view, this may seem improbable. When you experience this elevated beingness, however, you will not think to ask for proof. The analogy of your hands may be helpful here. Touch one fingertip to the keyboard and that is like the experience of a single human being. Place all of your fingertips on the keyboard and you feel the collective experience of many individuals. Practice typing and you will know the feeling of the orchestrated wholeness that easily produces great works of writing. Now know that there is a part of you that sails above what you thought was you. Allow yourself to rise to this perspective and see that all humans are like “fingers” typing on the “keyboard” of life. Or, if you prefer a musical simile, you are all playing the keyboard of the grandest piano. You are all music to my ears. The time has come to hear yourselves as I hear you.

5. Virtual interactions will facilitate connectivity on subtler levels of being.

It is a pleasure to share with you that the advent of virtual communication technologies is actually an evolutionary leap, even though it may feel like a retreat from real interactions. For you to sense and come to perceive the oneness of being directly, it is necessary to de-emphasize that which confirms your feelings of separation. When you engage with one another through a screen, additional capacities and senses are activated to compensate for the reduced input from the accustomed physical senses. Your new capacities and senses will serve you truly in the coming times, and will enable you to coordinate rapidly with the rest of the body, mind, and soul dimensions of humanity. Now, properly understood, your body is infinite. Finitude is an illusion, and as such there is only one body. This is why you will have no trouble with the superorganism. And when you know this, embodied experience will bring the bliss that flows eternally from the state of immortality, and you will find that physical death is a minor event. For the time being, the cessation of so much to-ing and fro-ing is bringing respite to Earth’s biosystems, and the trend of virtualizing your activities is healing you – yes – by enabling the conditions for you to experience a refined wholeness through newly activated senses. You will get your body back, and more!

Thank You

This has been quite a journey. If you will make a practice of connecting with me and asking how you can serve the whole of creation whenever you are uncertain, I can assure you that the quest that you are on together will get easier. There has never been a more auspicious time for you to awaken as a species. The circumstances of your world have rendered it all but impossible to remain asleep to the vaster implications of your being. Wake up now, dear ones, to the knowledge that we inhabit one indivisible field of aliveness. We are life. You are life. This is the new life that you have until now dreamt in secret. The fulfillment of this initial recognition is the healed world. Thank you for the service you are providing to me.

Additional Resources

1 Jeff Vander Clute: “Navigating the Death and Transfiguration of the Ego
2 Elisabet Sahtouris: The Secret to Human Co-Existing
3 Bruce Lipton: Humanity as Superorganism: Our Hopeful Future

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Gregg Braden: Inspiration and Excitement for the World's Healing

"The sooner we can all agree that humanity, and Life as a whole, comes from a common, divine Creator, the sooner we can find ways to honor and live in balance with this sacred Life-force." 
Occasionally I'll come across a video that lights me up with inspiration and excitement for the world's healing. The following video is just that sort! Here is a compelling interview of Gregg Braden, "scientist, researcher and explorer" by George Noory, founder of one of the longest-running and most listened to radio shows exploring the paranormal.

Gregg Braden is a unique thought-leader. His roots are firmly in empirical science yet he couples these with a deep respect for the sacred and spiritual. his life-work has been a synthesis of the two. Trained in geology, he actually worked in the military-defense industry at the tail-end of the cold war between the USA and U.S.S.R.. Concerned that his work might be contributing more to the world's problems than to solutions he began a decades-long quest to seek out the wisdom-keepers of ancient spiritual texts in Egypt, Peru and Tibet to find knowledge for how to heal the many ills of modern society.

He has a highly attuned sense for pattern recognition and has used this ability in researching one of his latest books, The God Code, which brings together these disparate passions of his by exploring the corollaries between ancient spiritual texts and modern genetics. The message of this video will give you new hope that humanity can finally unite under the banner of our common origins and what it means if, as his research suggests, we are the result of some sort of divine consciousness' intentional creative act.

If you are a hard-core scientist/atheist, please don't be deterred by the spiritual, anti-orthodox nature of this video. There's something here for everyone!


Video's Title: This DNA Discovery Is Completely Beyond Imagination | Gregg Braden