Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A Way Out Of Our Mess - The Place

I have told you what is wrong. I have told you what will make the world right. Now I will tell you more about making the world right again.

(If you need information on dealing with a hurricane I used the word hurricane as a tag for earlier posts on them. They should come up on google with my blog name and hurricane.)

One of the things I am meant to do in this lifetime is to start a different kind of place to live. I know it simply as, "The Place".

It is a sort of city or town, but it does not look like towns and cities that we have now. It is more spread out and you have to look to see it. 

The people in The Place act more like country people than city people. At spring planting time and harvest time, it is country. Everyone helps with spring planting and harvest. Sometimes "important" people are there in their dressy clothes in the fields with everyone else. 

In order to live in The Place you have to belong to it. People who belong to The Place are Members. Not all Members live in The Place, but they come back to it as often as they can, when they don't live there.

Important decisions are done by voting. People gather around a bonfire to talk about these important decisions. Some of them are about how money should be spent. One of these is about a woman who wants a fur coat. She has health problems about getting cold. She is voted to have the fur coat.

Ordinary clothes are not voted on and people own their own. Her fur coat seems to be a special case. If you leave The Place you do not get to take much with you. What you can take depends on what is available that can be spared at the time you leave.

In The Place you do not own your home, but it is effectively yours as long as you need it. People can build their own homes without help, but most don't. There is a waiting list for homes. People live in group housing until their homes are built.

Homes are hard to spot in the landscape. Most are underground and blend in. Mike Oehler's $50 And Up Underground Home, looks a lot like the homes in The Place. Mike's own homes that he built as well as others based on his ideas are on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlo1jFxS6vg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19zzIvVhQls&feature=watch_response

I like the ridgetop home, but don't think it would be built on The Place until after Climate Change is corrected. The horrible weather we are getting from climate change is only getting started. The ridge house has too much glass and is too exposed for climate change weather.

People are not reading my posts about spiritual preparedness, so this one may never be read. I have to try the best I can anyway, so here it is.

I have already dealt with several attempts on my life. I expect they will continue, so I don't know how many more posts I can write here. I sure hope this effort does some good. I'd really rather not put the effort in if it is useless. 

If Gd wants me to stay alive, I don't suppose anything on earth can change that. It will work out the way it is supposed to be. 

I have written posts already for past the time when I will die if the threat is carried out. I am going to see about getting someone to post it if I don't make it. 

The Place won't solve all of our problems, but it is an important part of it. I don't mean to disrespect our esteemed political candidates, but they are not really much to choose from considering the problems we have to deal with. The Place will raise up leaders who are using their spiritual gifts. We need that very badly. 

Every single person on earth has spiritual gifts and most of us are not using them. The world will be an entirely different place when we are using our spiritual gifts. It will be much better even when only a few of us are using them. 

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Consequences Of How We Live

This post is the most difficult one I have written so far. I expect that once I post this, my readership will go away and my written "voice" will be gone.

This will not be the first time I have tried to get this message out. It has never worked very well before. I am going to try again anyway, because it is so important. It is so important that it is worth making this my last written message.

There is no soft way to put this: The United States is under a curse. The people of the United States did this to themselves. It does not come from me, I am only telling you what is already here. It does not come from Gd. It comes from many choices that were made over and over by the people of the USA.

The largest part of the climate change on the earth comes from the choices made by the people of the USA. We, the people of the USA, enjoy the highest standard of living by the largest group of people in the history of the earth. We have maintained this high standard of living by using more than our share of the natural resources of the whole world.

Most of us, (people of the USA), have not paid much attention to what it takes for us to enjoy our luxurious standard of living. We simply demand it of our political leaders. 

Some of what it takes for us to enjoy this luxurious way of life is not pleasant to look at. People die so that we can continue to enjoy our deluxe way of life. We turn our heads away and our lives go on as usual.

Every time we eat a hamburger that takes the resources needed to stay alive in a far away country, we bear the responsibility for those that die as a result. 

Every time we drive 20 miles, for an unimportant errand, and burn precious fuel that is more and more scarce, we are responsible for what happens to the people who have that fuel taken from their countries. 

If you choose to look, you can see terrible costs of the way we live. There are pictures and videos of poor people dying because they try to fill a tin can with fuel leaking from a well or pipeline in their own country. They are not trying to get rich. They are only trying to stay warm or cook.

This happens to keep our prices down at the gas pump. It makes me sad to sit on a bus bench and watch every single car going by with only one person in it, hundreds of cars, almost empty, all using up their cheap gas.

I have heard the objection raised against a cruel Gd, responsible for cursing people who do not worship or believe in him (her). I am not speaking of what happened in the past. I am not dealing with the past. 

I am talking about choices that people made in recent times and are still making now. Our choices make things happen. Our choices bring consequences, those amount to a choice to curse ourselves with those consequences. 

These consequences are regardless of our spirituality, churches or lack of, how we worship, don't worship, or look at the universe. Some of us have tried harder than others to do less harm and lessen the consequences of our lifestyle choices. I don't think any of us have done as much as we could have. We all bear responsibility for the consequences/curse that we bear.

Some of these consequences are easy to see. The easy to see ones are extreme weather due to climate change. We are seeing more hurricanes and bigger ones. We are seeing swarms of tornadoes, hundreds of them, all at once or one after another.We are seeing tsunamis doing more damage than we are used to. We see land being swallowed up by rising oceans.

We see glaciers, sea ice and arctic and antarctic ice disappearing at incredible speed. Drinking water is being ruined by careless behavior with mining, industrial and residence wastes. We are losing water that we need to keep our low food prices.

We turn our heads and refuse to look at the true costs of our cheap food, consumer goods, and fuel. Many of the things that we take for granted as part of our normal lives, have blood on them, whether we choose to see it or not.

We bear responsibility for that blood, whether we choose to see it or not. If you want to start looking at that blood and the true costs of the way we live, I have included some links to get you started:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xu1qfa_us-supreme-court-hears-shell-torture-case_news

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqywex_fuel-anger-protests-rock-nigeria_news

This video offers the clearest and easiest to understand explanation.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrafxq_riz-khan-the-other-oil-spill_tv



This article tells us some important truths, regardless of what we might think of who tells us.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_7886.shtml


This article has a video with it that is short and easy to understand. It tells some of the real costs of cheap hamburgers.
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/08/10/news-group-serves-up-the-hidden-costs-of-hamburgers/

I hope that your reading this will make a change in your life. Doing the same things we have been doing may cost our lives. We have to do better.

I published an extra post about dealing with hurricanes today. I also have older posts about them. They include information and links for before, during and after hurricanes. If your local officials say to evacuate, please do so. It may save your life.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Extra Hurricane Post

Update - CT governor announcement:
http://www.ct-n.com/CTNplayer.asp?odID=8341

This link explains hurricane Sandy in a way that is easy to understand for adults:
http://www.newsday.com/news/weather/as-hurricane-sandy-turns-into-frankenstorm-experts-explain-the-rare-convergence-1.4161214

This is Sesame Street explaining hurricane Sandy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/sesame-street-hurricane-sandy-episode_n_2040697.html


This has already been posted on this blog, but I think it could use being up on top with Sandy trashing the East Coast.

BASIC DISASTER SUPPLIES KIT

A basic emergency 
supply kit could
 include the following 
recommended items:
  • Water, one gallon
  •  of water per person
  • three days, for
  •  drinking and
  •  sanitation
  • Food, at least a three-day supply of
  •  non-perishable food
  • Battery-powered or hand crank
  •  radio and a NOAA Weather Radio
  •  with tone alert and extra batteries 
  • for both
  • Flashlight and extra batteries

  • First aid kit
  • Whistle to signal for help
  • Dust mask to help filter
  •  contaminated air and plastic
  •  sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-
  • place

  • Moist towelettes, garbage bags and
  •  plastic ties for personal sanitation

  • Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
  • Manual can opener for food
  • Local maps
  • Cell phone with chargers, inverter or
  •  solar charger

Here are a couple of links to help you

 with more information about

 preparedness supplies:





 Additional Items to Consider Adding to an Emergency Supply Kit:

q Prescription medications and glasses
Infant formula and diapers
Pet food and extra water for your pet
Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, 
identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
Cash or traveler’s checks and change
Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information 
from www.ready.gov
Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding  
if you live in a cold-weather climate.
Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long 
pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a 
cold-weather climate.
Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water  
to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to  
treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not  
use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
Fire Extinguisher
Matches in a waterproof container 
Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
Paper and pencil
Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children

   Recommended Items to Include in 
                a Basic Emergency Supply Kit:
             
              Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, 
 for drinking and sanitation
Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with
 tone alert and extra batteries for both 
Flashlight and extra batteries
First aid kit
Whistle to signal for help
Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic
sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
Local maps


Contacts


Keep a list of contact information for

 reference.



Local Emergency Management Office




County Law Enforcement

County Public Safety Fire/Rescue

State, County and City/Town

 Government

Local Hospitals

Local Utilities

Local American Red Cross

Local TV Stations

Local Radio Stations

Your Property Insurance Agent









If you evacuate your home, DO NOT

 LEAVE YOUR PETS BEHIND! Pets

most likely cannot survive on their own

 and if by some remote chance they do,

 you may not be able to find them when

 you return.






This is an important message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If you stay in your home through a hurricane, there are things you can do to protect yourself. Monitor the radio or television for weather reports. Stay indoors until the storm is over. Seek shelter in a basement or in an interior room with no windows. Stay away from all windows and exterior doors. Evacuate to a shelter or to a neighbor's home if your home is damaged or if emergency personnel instruct you to do so. To learn more, call the CDC at 1-800-CDC-INFO.

This is an important message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Apply first aid to treat cuts and scrapes and prevent infection. To care for a bleeding cut, put pressure on it until the bleeding has stopped. Clean the wound by gently pouring clean tap or bottled water over it. Next, apply a clean, dry bandage. If you think the cut is infected, get medical help as soon as possible.

This is an important message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. During a power outage, never use generators, grills, or other gasoline-, propane-, or charcoal-burning devices inside your home, garage, or carport or near doors, windows, or vents. They produce carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas that kills more than 500 Americans each year. If your home is damaged, stay with friends or family or in a shelter.

This is an important message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Home fires are a threat after a natural disaster and fire trucks may have trouble getting to your home. If the power is out, use flashlights or other battery-powered lights if possible, instead of candles. If you must use them, place candles in safe holders away from anything that could catch fire. Never leave a burning candle unattended.

My older hurricane posts have a link to maps that show very good detail for people to be able to keep up with conditions in their neighborhood and local areas. You may even be able to see your own home site on it.



Seek The Good And Avoid The Bad

One of my favorite sayings goes, "Seek the good and avoid the bad". I like it because of its simplicity. The advice contained in this simple little sentence is good for everyday living and for preparedness as well.

If something hurts you, you avoid it. If something is good for you, you seek it out. This applies to people as well as things, places, and situations.

It is easy to let your emotions cloud your judgement, especially in the chaos that surrounds a disaster. Once you take a deep breath and calm down you can tell more easily what seeking good will mean for that situation. 

It is not always obvious how to avoid the bad, either. At first glance, a person, place, or thing may seem innocuous or even good. Once you find out more, what once seemed good, turns out to be bad. It is like candy. A beautiful piece of 
candy can look very good, but once you eat it, you get a kind of buzzed out sugar high and then you crash when that is over. It also leads to health risks like diabetes, obesity and heart problems, etc.

Some examples of places are: I would not want to be on top of a skyscraper during an earthquake or New York City during a nuclear attack. Those bad places are not bad all the time, just during some situations.

Preparedness is good when it lets you stay home before a big storm. Everyone else will be risking being trampled to death at the hardware and grocery store. Those are bad places to be when everyone who is not prepared suddenly realizes they are not ready.

During your daily life and during a disaster you want to seek the good and avoid the bad with people. Some people make you feel bad to be around. An example is a friend I had a long time ago. 

She was funny, witty and charming. When she was around a certain group of people, it was different. She would use sarcastic wit to make a friend the butt of a merciless stream of wisecracks to amuse the group. I decided to avoid her after I realized she was not going to change. 

Sometimes you can't avoid people who make you feel bad, but you can spend the minimum necessary time around them. You can also lessen your emotional investment, in people you are forced to be around, who make you feel bad. That will lessen the damage they can do.

It is like taking the remote control for your feelings away from them. It is better for you to keep your remote. That is a way to seek the good and avoid the bad.

You can seek the good and avoid the bad in very ordinary things. That rug or door mat that always trips you - get rid of it or fix it. If you always bump your head on something in your home, put a corner guard or it or do something else to solve the problem. 

Constant annoyances may seem small, but they can have a worse effect than the big ones. Your life will be better when you seek the good and avoid the bad.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Becoming a Spiritual Adult And Being Happy

When you become a spiritual adult, you give yourself the gift of  much greater happiness.

Many religions have ceremonies for, "coming of age", or initiation into adulthood. Most of them coincide approximately with physical adulthood or even with the onset of ability to bear children. 

Unfortunately, none of these actually mean that the person who is considered to have become an adult, really is an adult, except maybe being able to produce offspring.

Adulthood is generally accepted as a time when one takes responsibility for one's actions and one's life. This rarely happens at puberty now.

I do not believe the reason for this problem is due to the adolescents who have reached puberty and their religious adulthood ceremonies. Their communities and their parents are at "fault". 

It is now common for people to attend school long past puberty, or physical adulthood. During this extended period of schooling, the students are usually supported, or at least greatly assisted with their living expenses, by parents or their society.

This continued dependency by students causes a delayed adulthood most of the time. It is such a cliche' in our society that they make a lot of movies about it. 

None of this does anything to promote spiritual adulthood either. I think the majority of humans never reach spiritual adulthood, regardless of participation in a ceremony commemorating it.

You can't become a spiritual adult unless you are actively using your spiritual gifts. I would like for my readers to be as happy as possible. You can't get this without using your spiritual gifts.

I would like for you to read my post about getting started with your spiritual gifts and the one about getting spiritual energy and use them. It will make your life much better and you will become much happier.

I know, we all have too much to read and too much to do. We all have to prioritize and learn to put the most important stuff first. We get caught up in surviving and having fun right now and forget the really important stuff. 

The really important stuff makes us much happier than the short term things that make us feel good right now. It is like eating sugar. It tastes good, but that doesn't last long. When you are a spiritual adult, you get happiness that has some staying power.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Getting More Energy For Spiritual Use

If you already know that you need more spiritual energy, you need to read my post on getting started with spiritual gifts. That one tells you how to receive more spiritual energy 24 hours a day.

There are some things that you can do to get bursts of energy coming in, but to stay spiritually "alive", you need a steady supply.

My posts about music and dance explain one way to get more spiritual energy. I did not mention it in those posts, but improvisational music and dance usually produce greater quantities or intensities of spiritual energy than regular dance or music.

If you want to use music to produce a communal experience of communication, it is much easier to do when improvisational music is being played. I believe this is because people who are improvising music are making full use of their spiritual gift for music. Playing already written music can be done using the spiritual gift of music, but it is like turning down the volume compared to improvisation.

I have not dealt much with improvisational dance for the purpose of helping achieve a transcendent communication experience, but suspect that it would help.

These special communication experiences promote building up life on the earth and help humans to become more organized. When people participate in these experiences, they understand, like, and get along with each other better. This helps to build up and organize the whole world because organization tends to spread.

Everyone who participates in one of these special communication experiences gains spiritual energy. There is a synergistic effect. More energy comes out of the experience than what goes into it. This is not scientific, but science does not cover a lot.

The information below comes from the link given and it is from the "American Heritage Dictionary".
synergy
n., pl., -gies.
  1. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.


Anything else that you do that promotes organization or building up will generate spiritual energy for you. Once you get started using your spiritual gifts more, you will probably start to feel it when you get more spiritual energy coming into you. 

At that point getting more spiritual energy becomes simpler. Just do more of whatever it is that makes you feel that way. Seek the good and avoid the bad, in other words. I believe that you become a spiritual adult once you manage to do this regularly.

The "Celestine Prophecies" fascinated me. I liked it as a book, but it got a lot of things right about using spiritual gifts. It was strange that people only liked it as a story and didn't do much to apply it to their lives. Some of it could be used almost as a textbook for getting more energy for spiritual gifts.

The part about appreciating beauty and other good things to gain energy was true. That works.

When you see something that you like, take it into yourself. Appreciate it and enjoy it and drink it in. This gives you more spiritual energy. My take on this is that Gd likes to have his handiwork appreciated and pays us back by giving us energy for doing so. It isn't necessary for you to agree with me for it to work for you, however.

A word that does a good job of describing this process of appreciation, or taking in something good into yourself and gaining energy from the process, is "grok", or grokking in fullness. The word comes from the book, "Stranger In A Strange Land". It is a very good word to use to describe a process essential to using your spiritual gifts.

The "Kama Sutra" is a famous Hindu book that describes the use of sex to gain spiritual energy. This is called, "tantric sex". It is a synergistic process.

Good deeds or charitable acts bring you more spiritual energy. Oddly enough, when you do these good deeds without the intention or thought of what you will gain from them, they gain you a much greater amount of spiritual energy.

This is not a complete list of ways to gain spiritual energy, it is only to get you started with it. As you develop your spiritual gifts, you will start to seek the good and avoid the bad, and will learn to recognize and discover other ways to get more spiritual energy.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Dance As A Spiritual Gift

Is expect quite a bit of flack from some church people over this post because dance is not widely recognized as a spiritual gift. I say it is so there :-p 

There were people in ancient Jerusalem who had the job of dancing in the temple. King David was criticized by one of his wives for making an idiot of himself by dancing in front of the ark when it was brought back to Jerusalem. He was so happy and full of spirit that he didn't care about his kingly dignity and threw himself into dancing.

Some churches do recognize that dance can have a spiritual aspect during intense worship. They call this, "dancing in the spirit". If you have never seen this in action, look at the Blues Brothers movie. 

A muslim sect called Sufis are somewhat famous for their dance that is a part of their spiritual practices. I believe that the term, "whirling dervish" comes from a description of Sufi dance. They spin rapidly during their dance. 

The spiritual gift of dance does not take place only during worship services. We can see it in action on stage at times. This is like the spiritual gift of music because there is ordinary dance talent and then there is the extraordinary dance that comes from dance as a spiritual gift.

Some cultures regard dance as a way of healing our environment and people. An example of something of this sort that is fairly accepted in today's society is healing arts that are not precisely dance, but if you watch them being done by someone exercising their spiritual gift of dance, it amounts to the same thing.

Tai Chi, Chi Gong and Reiki are the ones that I know by name and have had a small amount of experience with.

Most primitive cultures that have managed to save some of their traditions, practice dance as a part of healing ceremonies.

Music and dance are different than many spiritual gifts, because they can both generate a lot of energy, or grace. I expect that this is the reason for dance being a part of healing in so many primitive cultures. 

Music and dance are similar to each other as spiritual gifts because both can also give energy to an audience or onlookers. If you have ever been to a wonderful dance or music performance and then been unable to sleep afterwards because you were not tired, this is what happened to you. You were probably feeling a lot of spiritual energy stuffed into you.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Spiritual Gifts Of Music

Some churches don't consider music to be a spiritual gift. I can't agree with that at all. Not everyone who sings or plays an instrument, has the spiritual gift version of music. 

Musical talent can be either a regular earthly talent or a spiritual gift. If you ever go to a talent show or recital and listen to different people play, you will notice that some of the musicians and singers have something extra that transcends the ordinary. That is the spiritual gift version of music.

I do not know whether the ordinary musicians, who may be quite talented, simply have not had their spiritual gift for music kick in. That is what I think is happening, most of the time, though.

For those church people who do not accept music as a spiritual gift, it is in the Bible. In the temple in Jerusalem there were singers and musicians who played in relays around the clock. 

The spiritual gift of music is a serious thing, not to be taken lightly. It has practical applications and is not simply for entertainment purposes. It is possible for people to be healed, spiritually, emotionally and physically, by music that comes from the operation of a spiritual gift.

Scientists have discovered that elements have vibrations that are unique. Alternative healers have been aware of this for centuries and have developed their own ways of using this. Toning, or the use of sustained musical notes, is one of these. Another is done by placing crystals or other elements in contact with the person who needs help.

There is one use of the spiritual gift of music that was used in the ancient temple in Jerusalem that I consider the most important use of it. That is the one that was in operation with the relays of musicians and singers in the temple.

The earth and even the universe can sort of need a tuneup at times. When music is being played using a spiritual gift, it has the effect of healing this damage to the earth or universe, as well as to individuals. In order for the earth or universe to stay healthy, there needs to be constant spiritual gift music working.

We need to organize relays of musicians and keep the spiritual gift music going around the clock, day by day, week by week and year by year. It should never be allowed to stop. 

Many ancient religions besides the Hebrews in Jerusalem, were aware of the need for constant spiritual gift music. That was part of the reason for the existence of monasteries and other religious residences. This provided a bank of spiritual gift musical ability to allow constant music.

Many of those musical spiritual gift "banks" are no longer in operation today. The world shows this lack with the sickness of climate change and bad water, to air pollution. People do not do as well without it either.

If reading this post does not set something going inside you that recognizes it as being true, your spiritual gift for music is not working yet, or you don't have that one. Someone who has the spiritual gift of music will be very excited by reading this and you will be ready to line up or get on the list for some kind of endless jam session. I hope you do it, we need you.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Organization Versus Destruction or Chaos

Every time you do something to make the world a better place, you get more spiritual energy coming in. You may already know of this idea as karma. Karma is not exactly the same thing as spiritual energy, but it overlaps a lot.

Karma is more of a balance between forces of chaos that tear down and forces that build up. It works a bit like a bank account. You put good energy into your life when you do good things and you get good energy back. You do something destructive and you lose energy.

The spiritual gift of helps is actually a kind of housekeeping gift for making the universe stay organized. It gives small pushes in that direction. 

Any form of life or any solid object is a form of organization. When something dies, it goes from being organized to disorganized as it disintegrates. When a solid object changes into another state like a liquid or gas, or is broken down into smaller parts, it becomes less organized and tends to disperse or spread out as it becomes less organized.

The universe is in a sort of balance between forces that tear down, or chaos or entropy, and forces that build up or hold together. Your spiritual gifts are a part of what is intended to work to hold things together or build up.

There are vast rivers of energy flowing through the universe and through the earth. This is spiritual energy, or chi or grace or whatever other names you like to give it. Science has not yet caught up with spiritual traditions in understanding this energy, so societies that place a high value on science tend to ignore or discount the very existence of this spiritual energy. This is why science has so far, been mostly destructive to the earth and to life on earth.

Science can split an atom and cause a nuclear explosion or destruction or chaos, but it has not managed to put atoms together with fusion and build up or organize.

Science is still taking things apart to understand them better. It is much like a little child that takes apart a clock to see why it ticks and then leaves the pieces spread all over the place, not ticking any more. 

I think science is on the verge of being able to hold together, organize, or build up. Once science starts to do that it will be a lot more useful. I am not certain that human use of science to make more destruction or chaos will give us the time we need for science to make this important progress.

Climate change is uncontrolled use of science that is causing destruction or chaos. Before climate change our natural systems on the earth were more organized and predictable. 

It takes a very long time to make fossil fuels. The human race ignores this and uses science to make fossil fuels into less organized states like heat or electricity that quickly disperse and become disorganized or chaotic. Some of the consequences or by-products of the process of using fossil fuels are also destructive, like air pollution.

Nuclear energy is an extreme example of this process. We take radioactive material and use it to make power that is very short-lived and then are left with spent fuel and materials used to handle it. These dangerous nuclear energy leftovers must then be dealt with for longer than the human race is capable of keeping track of them. 

No human language has been in use as long as these nuclear leftovers must be tended to. That means that we will have trouble passing on the information to keep people safe from it in the future. This process of making a very temporary benefit for a few people at the expense of uncountable other people, is very destructive and tends to tear down the universe and make the existence of organization, including life, harder to keep going. 

Using nuclear fuel promotes chaos, even if we are not blowing things up with it. Germany has recognized this, and is making a big effort to stop the use of nuclear fuel for energy. By doing this, Germany has become a force for organization versus a force for destruction, or chaos. 

The destructive force of nature that wrecked Japan's Fukushima Daichi, caused chaos in the nuclear power plant there which made a cascade of destruction. We can easily see how that happened. Looking at that process is a way to understand the process that I am trying to explain. That is organization versus destruction.

We humans must use our knowledge, skills, talents, and spiritual gifts to help build up or organize the earth rather than destroy or tear it down. We are dependent on the earth to keep our highly organized bodies that sustain the organized force of life within us. We still need the earth, so we had better take care of it.


Friday, October 19, 2012

What Is The Spiritual Gift of Helps?

Yesterday I said that I would write about the spiritual gift, sometimes called, "helps". Helps is pretty much the same as the meaning of the word help. 

When you are using the spiritual gift of helps, you are unusually sensitive to moments when someone needs help. It may be a great variety of types of help that is needed. 

It can range from showing up with a jack when someone has a flat tire, to reading test questions to someone studying for an important exam, to baking a wedding cake for a couple who can't afford one from a bakery. 

I suspect that this particular spiritual gift involves small bits of other gifts, but in very unobtrusive ways. People with this gift don't require effusive thanks for their help and are usually very quiet about it when they have it operating. 

My youngest brother had this gift and was a little spooky when it was working at times. Most people with this gift are more subtle than he was.

One time my parents were moving across the almost the entire country to the West Coast. My brother already lived on the West Coast. He was living with one of my other brothers at the time. The other brother told me about this.

Henry, the brother with the helps gift, got up in the middle of the night and started getting dressed to go out. He woke up the other brother, who asked what was going on. Henry told him, "The Parents are out on the road with a breakdown in the truck. I'm going to go get them." The other brother had already gotten used to knowing that Henry was prone to doing this sort of thing, so he got dressed and went with him.

Sure enough Henry drove right to our parents' truck and camper by the side of the road. Henry had a gift for mechanical repairs that I always thought was some sort of spiritual gift, as well as his other spiritual gifts. 

Henry got out, repaired the truck in a short while, and had them safely back on the road to their new home. The other brother was a little surprised by this instance of the use of Henry's spiritual gift of helps. Henry did some other things that were just as eerie and surprising. This incident was my favorite, however.

I suppose you might like to know that this happened on a foggy night in tulle fog, where you can't see your own hood ornament. Henry went right to where our parents were broken down, in spite of not being able to see them through the thick fog. 

Helps almost always seems to be linked with the spiritual gift of service, which I have already posted about. I believe it is the gift of service that causes one to use the gift of helps. 

The gift of service gives you a drive or urge to help others when they need it and you can do, or have, what they need. The gift of service gives you a great sense of satisfaction from using your gift of helps. That satisfaction is often the only reward that you need from the the people that you help. That satisfaction makes you feel happy.

Before people have their spiritual gifts kick in and they start using them, they often want to have some of the more flashy spiritual gifts like moving mountains, or communications. 

If you turn out to have the gift of helps as your main spiritual gift, you won't be wanting those other gifts any more. Once you are using your spiritual gift of helps, you will be too happy to want something else. 

Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Way To Get Started With Your Spiritual Gifts

There is a way that I have helped some people to get started using their spiritual gifts. I am sure that my way is not the only way to do this, but it is the way I know. I am ordinarily hesitant to give people this information except a little bit at a time and go through it with them and talk to them a lot about what they think about it and life in general. 

It can be difficult to go through this process without a lot of help and support. As I mentioned in some of my posts, like the ones about spontaneous combustion and about Thomas Merton, it can be quite risky at a certain point to work on your spiritual gifts. 

I have been able to help some people past this dangerous point so that they were safe. 

It is because of the probable threat on my life and maybe having only a short time left to pass on my experience that I am posting this here. I made it through the danger point of my spiritual gift development without human assistance and so have others. I will tell you as much as possible to help you with this also.

Finding, developing and using your spiritual gifts may be necessary to your continued survival and of the human race. If we end the earth in a nuclear holocaust, there may be nothing left except cockroaches and crabgrass. Both of those have survived nuclear bombs. 

I am not fond of either cockroaches or crabgrass, so I hope that you and others will get your spiritual gifts going and use them for the good of mankind and the earth. :-)

In order for your spiritual gifts to even wake up at all you need energy for them to operate on. I call this necessary energy, "grace". I don't try to hide my viewpoint that explains my using the term, "grace". If you object to this word, don't let that stop you. You can call it whatever you like, Chi, Ji, Mana, Juju, Juice, they all pretty much are talking about the same energy.

We all need this energy or grace to operate our spiritual gifts. We even need it to stay alive and have the systems in our bodies work right. The energy that is already in us to run our bodies and stay alive is not enough to use our spiritual gifts. The amount of grace needed to use our spiritual gifts is usually much greater than what is running our bodies.

The amount of grace running our bodies is barely enough to even begin to wake up our spiritual gifts. You need to learn to get more grace to wake up your spiritual gifts. Most of us are so starved for grace that our spiritual gifts don't even stir.

The way that I got more energy for spiritual gifts was through prayer. The prayer does not need to be a formal church type of prayer or even a prayer that bears any resemblance to a religious prayer. This process has even worked for people who claimed to be Atheists or Agnostics.

One of the problems that I have encountered in getting church people started with this process is that they always say, "I already pray every day and nothing happens". This does not work because even enthusiastic praying people  only spend a very small part of their whole day in prayer. That won't generate a lot of grace to use for spiritual gifts.

In order for your spiritual gifts to have enough grace to run on, you need to really ramp up your praying time. (Ignore this if you aren't churched.) The Bible says for you to, "Pray without ceasing." Other Holy Books say essentially the same thing somewhere. 

The reason for this is that it takes so much energy to get spiritual gifts started that you need to figure out a way to pray stronger or longer. 

My way of doing this is to start with a prayer asking that my entire life be dedicated to Gd. This is not a prayer to make lightly, because you may be taken at your word and will never have a normal life again. I feel that it was really worth it, though. This is true for every person I have helped with this process. Even if you are sure that you have already done this, do it again.

If you don't believe in Gd, find your best equivalent to what you do believe in. Some people have said this to the Universe, or the gestalt mind or other creative ways of looking at it. If you are sincere about your prayer or substitute for it, it will still work.

Once you do that, I find that a prayer or your substitute for it, as soon as you wake up, even before you get out of bed, is the next step. The prayer to use goes something like this, "I offer up everything I do for the rest of the day as a prayer", or "Please accept everything I do for this day as a prayer".

When you do this prayer right, it means that even your breathing or your heartbeat or whatever else you do during your sleep becomes a prayer. That effectively makes your prayer run day and night, 24 hours a day.

This will cause you to gain a tremendous boost in the energy or grace that comes into you. After you do this a while, your poor starved spiritual gifts will be like a seed being watered. Your spiritual gifts will begin to wake up and do something so you can have a chance to know they are there.

You need to pay attention to what is happening in and around you once you begin this process to awaken your spiritual gifts. Some spiritual gifts are not that flashy, especially when they are just beginning to wake up. You may even miss them unless you are paying close attention.

Exhortation and Helps are a couple of spiritual gifts that are not that noticeable, but are very important. Exhortation is the ability to say exactly the right thing at the right time. 

When someone is feeling bad, a person with this gift will say the very thing to cheer them up. If someone else is getting cocky because of winning a football game or archery contest, the one with the gift of exhortation will say just the right pithy comment to prick their balloon and bring them back down to earth. 

It is not necessarily sarcasm in the last example, just what the conceited person needs to hear to keep them from being unbearable to live with. Said pithy comment can also help the person it is aimed by keeping them on track for their spiritual development. Egotism can be a sidetrack for spiritual development.

I will write about helps tomorrow because this post is getting so long.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Animal Communication Spiritual Gift

I have been looking forward to a community of people who have identified their spiritual gifts and begun using them as a part of daily life. One of the benefits I have anticipated with this is better sorting out of what the gifts are and what to call them.

So far, I have simply lumped a lot of them under some heading and not really separated what may actually be different gifts and sets of spiritual gifts.

There are a lot of gifts that I lump together under communications (tongues) spiritual gifts. One of these is communicating with non-humans. Ability to communicate with animals is one of these subsets, that may be a different gift. It has a lot of uses. The uses that I have found so far are calming my pets when I take them to the vet, avoiding attacks by animals, requesting volunteers that are injured to be hunted by someone who needs food, learning tricks, etc. 

When I did volunteer work with some government people they wanted me to use animals for destructive purposes. They wanted me to request animals to let bombs be placed on them and direct the animals to a destination where they would be blown up. I refused to do this. I suppose it could be ethical if the animal was informed of what was going to happen and there was a good reason for it, but I didn't see it at the time. I still have a problem with it.

One of the worst things about the aforementioned plan is that animals are very innocent compared to humans. If you can communicate with them, they tend to want to do whatever you ask. 

My gift for communicating with animals is not one of my more developed ones. I can do it, but there are already people who are much better at it than I am. 

You may be one of the people who have this gift and will be better at it than I am once you get started with it. It isn't really my specialty. Some of my other spiritual gifts are my natural ones that I would have even if I didn't have them all for teaching purposes.

I suspect that animal communication has specialties within it similar to people who have the spiritual gift for human communication. There are probably people with animal communication gift who are better senders and others who are better receivers. I am a better sender with humans and animals as well. If you can understand or receive communications from animals, they will make more efforts to let you know what they are trying to tell you, than if you are "deaf" to animal communication.

When you use the gift of animal communication they tend to like you a lot more and want to please you more. This is a very pleasant side effect. I do not know if the intensity of this effect increases with better ability for this spiritual gift. In other words, I wonder if animals will like people who are better at this spiritual gift, more than they do me. If that is so, you will have to be very careful with this gift.

Some people who have this gift of animal communication eat meat. I do not and it is difficult for me to understand how they can do it. If you have this gift you may run across this dilemma. The early stages of this gift can also cause battery draining, but not always. I don't believe this gift requires as much energy as some of the other gifts, so maybe the problem with batteries will be less.

There are different ways to perceive it when you receive animal communication. One way is you just know what the animal is thinking or trying to let you know. Another is that you think somebody spoke to you, but no humans are around. 

The biggest barrier to you finding out that you have this gift is being positively convinced that it is not possible for animal communication to happen. Once you let go of such a conviction, communication will start to happen, if you have this gift.

I hope that you will open up your mind and spirit and let your spiritual gifts have a chance to begin working. You will be much happier once your spiritual gifts start working and become a normal part of you and your life.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Communication Spiritual Gift That Could Save Whales

There is a spiritual gift that I call the Communication Spiritual Gift. I expect it may be the one that some religions call the Gift of Tongues. It does more than one thing and there may be subsets of it that different individuals have without having all of the rest. I have not dealt much with others who have it, so am unclear as to what others have with it.

There are senders and receivers. I believe that everyone can receive to a limited extent. This may be also true for sending.

When people send, the number and selection of who receives varies. I rarely consciously choose who receives when I send. I couldn't say how that goes with other senders.

There are different types of sending. There is the normal kind which means that x group of people will receive what you are sending. My personal experience with sending is that x group of people will know what I am thinking at a given time. X group of people receiving my thoughts do not have to speak or understand my language nor do I need to speak their language.

Location does not seem to be relevant to sending or receiving. Senders and receivers can be close or as far apart as possible. X group of receivers can be close to each other or scattered across the globe. X group of receivers can speak the same language or have any number of different languages. Language differences do not affect reception.

Receivers perceive "broadcasts" in their own language, usually the language of childhood. This usually includes accent and dialect. This happens regardless of how many languages are involved.

There is a specialized type of broadcast that seems to require my conscious choice and is more localized. It permits receivers in a local area to experience receiving between each other as well as from the sender. It results in a transcendent and unifying experience. I prefer to do this during a musical jam session, preferably improvised music.

I am not the only one with this particular use of the sending spiritual gift, but I don't believe others have used this one much, if at all lately.

There are several societies that depend on a more manual version of this experience to remain connected to each other and even maintain their societies.

The two that I am most aware of are Japan and Norway. They use shared eating of whales to achieve this transcendent experience, remain connected to each other and even maintain their societies. This is why these countries persist in whaling in the face of international disapproval and discouragement.

The whaling is not necessary. There are individuals within these societies who are capable of producing the same effect without use of dead whales. For people who have the spiritual gift of this variety of sending, producing the transcendent and connected experience is not difficult to learn or do. I would like to help these individuals get started on this and give the whales a break. The spiritual gift version is a vastly superior experience anyway.

Another advantage of the spiritual gift version is that it is not limited by a finite number of whales. It is possible to have the spiritual version of the connected experience as often as the people involved want and can manage. The logistics seem as if they would be a lot easier to manage as well. It is not necessary to chop up whales, process them and distribute pieces of them. With the spiritual version, no tangible distribution is necessary.

This would be a lot easier than the Greenpeace confrontations with Japanese and Norwegian whaler ships. Once these societies are getting their connected experience, they will have no further interest in whaling.

At present I do not have funds to work on this goal, but would welcome any help with this. I am also lacking know-how. Business acumen is not one of my gifts, techy neither.


Monday, October 15, 2012

Who's Got Your Back?

Most of the people in the world do not care about what happens to the earth or even whether the human race continues to exist. This does not mean that they are deep down evil people, but if you care about the aforementioned, then those who do not care are not on your side.

In order to prepare yourself and your loved ones for emergencies including The End Of The World As We Know It, you need to know who is on your side. This does not matter so much if you are wealthy enough to store enough food and other supplies to take care of anyone who shows up at your door during an emergency with their hand out. If you, like most of us, can barely scrape together enough emergency supplies for yourself and your loved ones, it does matter that you know who you might want to open your door to in an emergency.

The problem with people who do not care what happens to themselves or the world in the future, enough to prepare for emergencies, is that once they get hungry during an emergency they will probably suddenly care. They are likely to care enough to use force to take what they need from you and your loved ones.

People who are not preppers are not good to tell about your preparedness and they are not good people to welcome into your home during an emergency. Unless you have your preparedness supplies well hidden, it is probably not a good idea to let un-prepared people into your home even when there is no emergency.

None of this means that if your friends are not interested in preparedness, that you have to drop them, once you start gathering your preparedness supplies. It does mean that your self preservation could require you to meet at their house or in public.

There is an emotional aspect to having unprepared friends. This could limit your choices for friends more than keeping your own preparedness to yourself. People who are not prepared for emergencies, especially long-term ones are very likely to die. 

If you are around them when this is happening, it will be emotionally difficult for you to be aware of what is happening to your unprepared friends. Your family could be affected more than you are. If these thoughts have entered your mind, that gives you a little emotional preparation. If your loved ones have never thought of anything of this sort, it could hurt them more.

There is an old saying that seems to apply to this situation: "Birds of a feather flock together." The idea of this saying is that people who are alike, are more likely to want to be around each other. Preparedness is a sort of "feather". It may be worth considering whether you can find other preppers to flock with.

My opinions and ways of thinking and behaving are quite a la carte'. I don't fit easily into any pidgeonhole. Most people are a mixture, but I seem to be more so. It is hard for me to find a group of people that I, "fit into". I suspect that such a group probably does not exist. You may have similar problems.

If this is the case, even if you are very different from any preppers that you know, they may be good for you to spend some time with anyway. People who will still be around after an emergency do have a potentially strong bond that could override other differences.

Even if you completely disagree with everything I have written in this blog post, it is probably worthwhile for you to give it a little thought. 

Friday, October 12, 2012

Remedies For Constipation That Comes From Taking Diatomaceous Earth

I am still getting searches about diatomaceous earth for constipation. My blog is rather unusual because I write my own stuff all the time. I may quote other sites and give you links, but what I have to say about it all comes from inside me. If you have searched much using search engines you have to know that one search may give you hundreds of results that are very much the same. This is probably true for sites stealing from my blog. 

I posted an important update on the post about recalled foods. Please read it. The recall is about a very extensive food poisoning recall.

This seems to be inevitable and one has to accept it. If you are going to steal from me at least get it right. Diatomaceous earth usually CAUSES CONSTIPATION!  When you post about diatomaceous earth, you need to make it very clear to your readers that they will most likely become constipated as a result of taking the diatomaceous earth and should have something ready to prevent this before they even start taking the diatomaceous earth.

This is also true when you use diatomaceous earth for your animals. You need to have something ready to prevent constipation before you give them diatomaceous earth. 

The way to work this is to have the anti-constipation remedy ready before taking or giving the diatomaceous earth. 

Next you take the diatomaceous earth.

Wait at least twenty minutes before eating or drinking anything except water. If you want water drink as much as you feel like drinking. Twenty minutes is the minimum.

Then use the anti-constipation remedy. When I need this, I eat prunes most of the time. I don't need it often because I am a vegetarian and eat so much fiber in my diet that constipation is seldom a problem for me. I understand that there are drinks available in drug stores that you just add water to and drink and you are no longer constipated. Metamucil is one that some family members have used. I have never used it myself.

Bran flakes types of cereals are supposed to be good for constipation. I make muffins with this in them. The muffins are called High Energy Muffins. They have lots of protein and fiber in them and fill you up well. I use them in place of a meal sometimes when I am busy.

I have given these muffins to friends who complained about constipation. They usually work. 

Sprouts that you can grow yourself are also good for relieving constipation. I have posts on this blog about how to grow them. These posts are in my blog archive near the earliest posts. I think that would be around January 2012 or so. 

I am going to give you the recipe for High Energy Muffins. 


High Energy Muffins       makes 1 dozen muffins       375f

1 ½ c whole wheat flour               

½ c soy  flour

2 t baking powder                         

¼ c nonfat dry milk
3 T wheat germ

¼ c chopped roasted peanuts

½ c finely chopped dates
              
2 eggs, beaten

¼ c safflower oil 
                          
¾ c milk

½ c grated or finely shredded carrots    

2 T molasses


Preheat oven to 375F. Butter a 12-c 

muffin tin.

Combine whole wheat flour, soy flour,

 baking powder, nonfat dry milk, 2 T 

wheat germ, and peanuts in a medium-

size mixing bowl. Mix well. Add dates 

and mix with your fingers to separate 

pieces.

In a small bowl stir together eggs, oil,

 milk, carrots, and molasses. Pour over

 dry ingredients, and mix with a fork just

 until moistened. Fill prepared muffin tin

wheat germ.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a wooden

 pick inserted into center comes out 

clean. Loosen with a small spatula.

 Remove to a wire rack. Serve warm.


This recipe comes from "Rodale Press 

Basic Natural Foods Cookbook". This

 book is currently out of print, which I

 think is horrible, because it is an 

excellent cookbook.+


There are two main kinds of 

diatomaceous earth. One kind is for

 swimming pool filters and is no good to 

eat. They do bad things to it that make it

 poison. The kind that you want is food

 grade diatomaceous earth. The food

 grade diatomaceous earth is okay to use

 for medical purposes. If you pass this

 blog post on, you need to explain this

 along with the problem of constipation

 that comes from taking diatomaceous 

 earth.              

.