When you focus on being normal, you exclude the possibility of being extraordinary.

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it is not the same river,
and he is not the same man.
-Heraclitus

I'm not big on woo woo. When practitioners choose modalities simply because they "resonate" with them, I am skeptical. But when science backs up the use of something that has long been thought of as energy medicine, I am happy to recommend it. Of course people will tell you something is backed by science when it isn't, so you have to go look at the science for yourself, or find sources like me that you know are science-minded and skeptical to help filter the claims for you.

Here's a case of energy medicine turning out to be something real. Scientists have found that acupuncture points are detectable by CT (computed tomography, fancy medical imaging). All those points have a certain size of larger blood vessels, and also thick mats of fine blood vessels that have lots of forks (birfucations) in them. Piercing the tissues at these points is probably affecting the nervous system associated with those blood vessels. This supports my belief that energy medicine (that actually works) has a anatomical and physiological basis. Acupuncture is well proven to be effective for pain, short term at least. To treat pain longterm one must take the naturopathic approach and find the reason for the pain, and change that.

Worldwide 4-H has over 6.8 million members in 80 countries. Now Monsanto is funding 4-H--I would suspect in exchange for the chance to mold young minds. So far they have provided the children with pro-GMO booklets about the "benefits" of genetically modified organisms. If Monsanto can get inside the heads of youth, they can change attitudes about GMO's society-wide. It will work if there is not an equal and opposite force educating the children about the hazards of genetic modification of our food supply. You can be part of that force. The last thing we need is an entire planet beholden to an evil empire which makes seeds infertile.

SOURCE
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/31/monsanto-4-h-programs.aspx

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
-- T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets". It appears in the second poem called "East Coker"

People demand freedom of speech
as a compensation for
the freedom of thought
which they seldom use.
-Kirkegaard

The relief of suffering and the cure of disease must be seen as twin obligations of a medical profession that is truly dedicated to the care of the sick. Physicians' failure to understand the nature of suffering can result in medical intervention that (though technically adequate) not only fails to relieve suffering but becomes a source of suffering itself.
--Eric J. Cassell

( notesCollapse )

http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/523782-memo-to-the-occupied-movement-a

His point: we need a new paradigm, because the era of oil-fueled expansion, growth and "progress" is OVER. The new paradigm must involve a sustainable economic model which will be more local.