Energy Interactions

"Energies are constantly transmitted and received in a kind of universal Ping-Pong tournament.  Energy is information and it’s swirling all around us.
Energies intersect and sync up all the time.  One form of energy may be more influential than another but usually when energies collide both are changed in some way.  We know that heart and brain wave patterns as well as magnetic fields sync up among humans and across species.  We can measure this now.  Energy exchanges happen all the time, mostly below the level of your awareness.  Yet they still impact you."

From: http://blackcoffeepoet.com/2013/07/15/op-ed-laughter-and-orgasm-is-mainstream-science-catching-up-to-indigenous-wisdom/

Deep Time .... is Slow

Still ruminating on this Article from Mother Earth News

"...German environmental thinker Wolfgang Sachs <snip> believes that speed is an under-recognized factor fueling environmental problems. As he puts it, “It’s possible to talk about the ecological crisis as a collision between time scales — the fast time scale of modernity crashing up against the slow time scale of nature and the earth.” In his view, genetic engineering, with all its potential for ecological havoc, is an example of how we interfere with natural processes in the name of speeding up evolution."
The geologist in me LOVES this. It is only this view of "deep time" that will save us from ourselves.

Food Inc & Small Moves

Our modern American lifestyle is at complete odds with living in harmony with the Earth and Nature. Living in harmony with the Earth & Nature starts with "awareness" and a willingness to try to change, a willingness to make the small changes that build up. As Streghe, pagan, the spritually eco-aware, we are swimming against the tide. And it's a corporate tide and a powerful one.

Take the time to watch the movie Food Inc.   Become aware of the corporate tide that affects everyone because it affects the very food we eat to survive.  Watch how Monsanto strives against the forces of Nature.  Realize how foolish this is and then with this awareness, begin to make changes in your life.  A new awareness can be overwhelming. How, with a problem that large and complex, can one person make a difference?  The only way to "eat an elephant" is "one bite at a time".

Which brings me to Small Moves. Contact (1997) is one of my favorite movies and "Small Moves" one of my favorite quotes. Yes Nature has "big events": Hurricanes, land slides.... but most of the time Nature is slow and steady and subtle. Evolution. Geologic ages. Human maturation....


So become aware
and then choose your own "Small Moves".

Slow Down... reconnect with Nature

Still reading and ruminating on this Mother Earth New Article

Environmental activist Jeremy Rifkin was one of the first to raise questions about the desirability of speed in his 1987 book Time Wars:
"We have quickened the pace of life only to become less patient. We have become more organized but less spontaneous, less joyful. We are better prepared to act on the future but less able to enjoy the present and reflect on the past.
As the tempo of modern life has continued to accelerate, we have come to feel increasingly out of touch with the biological rhythms of the planet, unable to experience a close connection with the natural environment. The human time world is no longer joined to the incoming and outgoing tides, the rising and setting sun, and the changing seasons. Instead, humanity has created an artificial time environment punctuated by mechanical contrivances and electronic impulses. "

Pagans go out of their way to be attuned to the solar cycle, be that the daily or yearly cycle, or the the cycle of the moon and the wheel of the year. And that is what makes Pagans "Radicals", even if they don't think of themselves in that way.

If Nature is the Great Teacher then how can Streghe not work to stay "in touch with the biological rhythms of the planet"?

This is taken from the Summer Solstice Ritual
in Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi:
“O spirits of the Elemental forces, hear me. And receive our blessings. O spirits of the earth. O powers that be, hear me and receive our blessings. Assist us on this sacred night to maintain the natural balance which keeps vital the essence of the earth. Let there always be clear flowing water, freshness in the air, fertility within the soil and abundant life within the world.”

Can we talk about Global Warming now?

Information below taken from Wired.Com
Click the link for more information
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/01/australia-temperature-map/
"What happens when a changing climate exceeds the operating parameters of the stuff we own? While we in the northern hemisphere make jokes about indestructible snow forts, it is getting hot in Australia. How hot? So hot that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology had to add new colors to its weather map. Now, those unfortunate parts of Australia that achieve temperatures above 122ºF (50ºC) — temperatures that were, until recently, literally off the scale — will be marked in deep purple and terrifying hot pink. It is an interesting moment in data visualization history when climate scientists find themselves in the position of revising the upper bounds of temperatures they ever expected to depict."

And if you think it can't happen here, Listen to this NPR Story.
"A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That's a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998.
Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so."
And read more here.

Slow Down.... pare back...

The long days of Winter are times when our lives should naturally slow down.

The bare days of Winter are time when we should be able to see the structure and bones of our existence and be better able to see what is worth our efforts when the the world warms up and the trees leaf out.

Take your time and read this Article from Mother Earth News.
The italicized quotes below are from the article.

"No matter how fast we go, no matter how many comforts we forgo in order to quicken our pace, there never seems to be enough time."

"Curiously, there has been scant public discussion about this dramatic speed-up of society. People may complain about how busy they are, how overloaded modern life has become, but speed is still viewed as generally positive — something that will help us all enrich our lives. "

This is so much like my day:
"The alarm rings and you hop out of bed. Another day is off and running. A quick shower. Wake the kid<snip>. Down a cup of coffee. <snip> Hurry out to the car, <snip>. Reaching work, <snip>. You take a couple of deep breaths, then remember that the project you didn't finish last night must be <snip>. Meanwhile, you've got five voice-mail messages and seven more e-mail messages, two of them marked urgent."
Until I got to the seven more email messages! Seven! Seven! Only Seven!
And what about Instant Messages? I stopped taking voice mails a long time ago. People ramble and you just have to call them back anyway to figure out what they really want.
And 1 project due! Please. I never have fewer than 7 project going, any 1 of which might need special handling on any given day. And then there are the walk-ins. And the meetings. The meetings you go to only so that either your time is wasted or you end up with more projects.

Americans have become more productive but I'm not sure how much more we can really take.  
“The major cause in the speed-up of life is not technology, but economics,” says Schor. “The nature of work has changed now that bosses are demanding longer hours of work.” Harvard economist Juliet Schor,Author of the 1991 best-seller The Overworked American
I too have found that without concerted effort that it is too easy for anyone "working for corporate america" to end up with a life that just gets faster and faster until it spins out of control. I can speak from experience as I work for a Fortune 500 company.

Then there is Neighborhood Organization stuff which is important and rewarding in that I now have a cadre of amazing friends who care about our city its future... but it's time consuming. Taking photos, posting photos, tracking issues: water leaks, blight (yes we are still recovering from Katrina), potholes, the grinding impracticality of some city services, crime. Tracking successes: Trees planted, streets & sidewalk repairs, Houses renovated and or sold, ....

And then there is my commitment as 3rd degree to the Tradition, the Ways, the spiritual path I walk and an obligation to ensure that it stays alive, is passed on. Which happens to be the primary reason for this blog.

In the Spring of 2012,
after being interviewed and providing documentation for review to someone who was working on his PHD at Oxford (yes the one in England),
I read the draft of his PHD and realized that,
in addition to some very interesting ideas about collaborative government,
this doctoral student had put his finger on my personal issue.
Like many of the other individuals who picked up the neighborhood recovery torch PostKatrina, I was burned out!

Everything I was doing was "Good":
Job=$ to provide for my family and there are days when I really like it,
Neighborhood work = better environment around me, great new friends
Blog = true to my spiritual path
But I couldn't continue the ever quickening pace and ever increasing responsibilities.

"Yet it seems that the faster we go, the farther we fall behind. Not only in the literal sense of not getting done what we set out to do, but at a deeper level, too."

"But it has gotten to the point where my days, crammed with all sorts of activities, feel like an Olympic endurance event: the everyday-athon."

Yes.... I needed a break. Not total abdication but a break.

So I "took a break" in 2012 from some of the responsibilities with which I had burdened myself.

I lightened up on the neighborhood work and either let others take the lead or let go of the need to "participate' as often as requested by city government leaders or non-profits. And as a result some folks stepped up and some things slid by and all in all it all worked out. And I have a better plan for how I encourage others in 2013.

I "took a break" from "StregaNola". I took vacation time with my daughter and visited with my teacher. I set some blog posts up to post intermittently throughout the year and then logged off as StregaNola in March and didn't log back on until 2013. And surprise. It's still hear. Just like I left it.

My pace at work is something I'm still working on ... but everything starts somewhere.

So while we are still in what should be the slow, dark, part of the year, ask yourself:
What can you pare back? What do you want to focus on? What do you value enough to keep and what can you let go?

The 1st step in any Magic, before you ACT, is to meditate on your intent and idea and to listen to the feedback the Universe will give you.  But to really do this you have to slow down. 
And if you are working with the Gratitude Jar and a Yearly Jar of goals take some time to slow down and pare back and before you just start filling that Jar up with things you want to accomplish this year.

Solar Power

Pagans generally want to weave their value system into how we live our lives and we generally see things as more interconnected than non-Pagans. This combined with the recent presidential election and the state of our economy has caused me to chase worldly, but oh so connected, things..... like Solar Panels

By the end of the month of October 2012 (instead of September as orginally planned due to delays related to Hurricane Isaac) my house was generating its our own Solar Power.  The Federal tax credits for this expire in 2016.  If you own your own home, don't wait.  Do it now.  Yes it does take investment dollars from you. BUT you can get ALL of the dollars that will be reimbursed from the Feds (and your state) can be financed for 0% interest for 12 months.  The company I used Solar Universe does all the hard work. They connect you to the lender, complete all the paperwork; all you have to do is file the forms with your taxes.   With the Federal and State rebates we  had to come up with less than 20% of the cost.  With "netmetering" this will annually ZERO out our power bill.  My carbon footprint goes WAY down and I am living more lightly on the earth, woven into the web of life, even if this weave is using technology and involves plugging into our city grid.

Ok so how do you come up with 20%?  Assuming that you have a job/provable income, find a local bank and refinance your house.  That's what I did.  And along with the refinance we got what was needed to put Solar Panels on the house. 
I know. I know.
Not everyone can do this. The economy sucks and some people are upside down on their mortgages. BUT if you can, it perfectly aligns with pagan value system.

Another thing to think about. Our mortgage was with one of the large, national corporations that provide mortgages to most Americans.  And I figured that it would be easy to re-finance. After all they had watched me pay the bills (even through the chaotic aftermath of Katrina) for years. All they did was waste my time. So in July 2012 I ended up working with a local bank and the refi (at not quite 2% less interest than the mortgage I had) went through in a month.  A month! It took almost that long for the big corporation to tell me what they needed from me. And here is the ultimate irony. These days, even if you do the refi work with a local bank, they are going to "sell your mortgage" (Yep!) to one of the large corporations that provide the bulk of mortgage lending in this country.  Weird.  But true.   Yet at the local bank I spoke to a person, who walked me through the paperwork and made sure the timing (I was leaving town for 2 weeks) worked out.

This is only one of the physical, practical, grounded things that I kept me busy in 2012.
But I'm glad I did it because Solar Power fits my Value System.

Remembering the 1st Thanksgiving

"The first Thanksgiving Day did occur in the year 1637, but it
was nothing like our Thanksgiving today. On that day the
Massachusetts Colony Governor, John Winthrop, proclaimed
such a "Thanksgiving" to celebrate the safe return of a band
of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just
returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut
where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians
- men, women and children - all murdered." Richard Greener

Read the Richard Greener 2010 article from the Huffington Post   ( and below).

The idea of the American Thanksgiving feast is a fairly recent fiction. The idyllic partnership of 17th Century European Pilgrims and New England Indians sharing a celebratory meal appears to be less than 120 years-old. And it was only after the First World War that a version of such a Puritan-Indian partnership took hold in elementary schools across the American landscape. We can thank the invention of textbooks and their mass purchase by public schools for embedding this "Thanksgiving" image in our modern minds. It was, of course, a complete invention, a cleverly created slice of cultural propaganda, just another in a long line of inspired nationalistic myths.

The first Thanksgiving Day did occur in the year 1637, but it was nothing like our Thanksgiving today. On that day the Massachusetts Colony Governor, John Winthrop, proclaimed such a "Thanksgiving" to celebrate the safe return of a band of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians - men, women and children - all murdered.

This day is still remembered today, 373 years later. No, it's been long forgotten by white people, by European Christians. But it is still fresh in the mind of many Indians. A group calling themselves the United American Indians of New England meet each year at Plymouth Rock on Cole's Hill for what they say is a Day of Mourning. They gather at the feet of a stature of Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember the long gone Pequot. They do not call it Thanksgiving. There is no football game afterward.

How then did our modern, festive Thanksgiving come to be? It began with the greatest of misunderstandings, a true clash of cultural values and fundamental principles. What are we thankful for if not - being here, living on this land, surviving and prospering? But in our thankfulness might we have overlooked something? Look what happened to the original residents who lived in the area of New York we have come to call Brooklyn. A group of them called Canarsees obligingly, perhaps even eagerly, accepted various pieces of pretty colored junk from the Dutchman Peter Minuet in 1626. These trinkets have long since been estimated to be worth no more than 60 Dutch guilders at the time - $24 dollars in modern American money. In exchange, the Canarsees "gave" Peter Minuet the island of Manhattan. What did they care? They were living in Brooklyn.

Of course, all things - especially commercial transactions - need to be viewed in perspective. The nearly two-dozen tribes of Native Americans living in the New York area in those days had a distinctly non-European concept of territorial rights. They were strangers to the idea of "real property." It was common for one tribe to grant permission to another to hunt and fish nearby themselves on a regular basis. Fences, real and imagined, were not a part of their culture. Naturally, it was polite to ask before setting up operations too close to where others lived, but refusal in matters of this sort was considered rude. As a sign of gratitude, small trinkets were usually offered by the tribe seeking temporary admission and cheerfully accepted by those already there. It was clearly understood to be a sort of short-term rental arrangement. Sad to say, the unfortunate Canarsees apparently had no idea the Dutch meant to settle in. Worse yet for them, it must have been unthinkable that they would also be unwelcome in Manhattan after their deal. One thing we can be sure of. Their equivalent of today's buyer's remorse brought the Canarsees nothing but grief, humiliation and violence.

Many Indians lived on Long Island in those days. Another Dutchman, Adrian Block, was the first European to come upon them in 1619. Block was also eager to introduce European commercialism and the Christian concept of "real estate" to these unfortunate innocents. Without exception, these Indians too came out on the short end in their dealings with the Dutch.

The market savvy unleashed by the Europeans upon the Indians constituted the first land use policies in the New World. In the 17th Century it was not urban but rather rural renewal. The result was of course the same. People of color with no money to speak of got booted out and the neighborhood which was subsequently gentrified and overrun by white people.

Not far from Manhattan, one tribe of about 10,000 Indians lived peacefully in a lovely spot on a peninsula directly along the ocean. There they fished in the open sea and inland bay. They hunted across the pristine shoreline and they were quite happy until they met a man - another Dutchman - named Willem Kieft. He was the Governor of New Netherland in 1639. These poor bastards were called the Rechaweygh (pronounced Rockaway). Soon after meeting Governor Kieft, they became the very first of New York's homeless.

The people of New Netherland had a lot in common with the people of Plymouth Colony. At least it appears so from the way both of these groups of displaced and dissatisfied Europeans interacted with the local Indians. The Pilgrims in Plymouth had a hard time for the first couple of years. While nature was no friend, their troubles were mostly their own doing. Poor planning was their downfall. These mostly city dwelling Europeans failed to include among them persons with the skills needed in settling the North American wilderness. Having reached the forests and fields of Massachusetts they turned out to be pathetic hunters and incompetent butchers. With game everywhere, they went hungry. First, they couldn't catch and kill it. Then they couldn't cut it up, prepare it, preserve it and create a storehouse for those days when fresh supplies would run low. To compensate for their shortage of essential protein they turned to their European ways and their Christian culture. They instituted a series of religious observances. They could not hunt or farm well, but they seemed skilled at praying.

They developed a taste for something both religious and useful. They called it a Day of Fasting. Without food it seemed like a good idea. From necessity, that single Day became multiple Days. As food supplies dwindled the Days of Fasting came in bunches. Each of these episodes was eventually and thankfully followed by a meal. Appropriately enough, the Puritans credited God for this good fortune. They referred to the fact they were allowed to eat again as a "Thanksgiving." And they wrote it down. Thus, the first mention of the word - "Thanksgiving." Let there be no mistake here. On that first Thanksgiving there was no turkey, no corn, no cranberries, no stuffing. And no dessert. Those fortunate Pilgrims were lucky to get a piece of fish and a potato. All things considered, it was a Thanksgiving feast.

Did the Pilgrims share their Thanksgiving meal with the local Indians, the Wampanoag and Pequot? No. That never happened. That is, until its inclusion in the "Thanksgiving Story" in 1890.
Let the Wampanoag be a lesson to us especially in these troubled economic times. These particular Indians, with a bent for colorful jewelry, had their tribal name altered slightly by the Dutch, who then used it as a reference for all Indian payments. Hence, wampum. Contrary to what we've been shown in our Western movies, this word - wampum - and its economic meaning never made it out of New England.
Unlike wampum, Thanksgiving Day has indeed spread across the continent. It would serve us well to remember that it wasn't until the victorious colonial militia returned from their slaughter of the Pequot that the New Americans began their now time-honored and cherished Thanksgiving.

Enjoy your turkey.

Reflections on the Hurricane

Take a look at one New Orleanian's view of living without, electricity.
http://b.rox.com/2012/09/04/revelations-in-blackout/

I'm beginning to think that the next decade is going to be one
where we learn to choose what we do without
by learning to ask ourselves questions like:

• Do I need X? (with the emphasis on need and not want)
• How does X serve me or my "ecosystem"/relationship with the rest of the world?
• Is there another option?
• Is there another way to get what I need (or want) that better serves me and my "ecosystem"/relationship with the rest of the world?

The effects of the Hurricane make it easier to reflect on these questions.

I like the freedom my petroleum provided vehicle provides.
I like my AirConditioning.
I like what "the internet and all it's options" offers me.
That's why I'm putting Solar Panels on my home and acquiring a Solar Generator.
These things allow me to have the benefits of electricity but change how I get it and has already begun encouraging others to think about doing the same.

These choices are not just about going back to the "good ole days"
but about making smarter long term decisions
instead of simply feeding the "consumer beast".

"Thanks Nature"

I'm sure you heard about the recent evidence for the long anticipated "Higgs Boson".
It was of course announced as the "Discovery" of "The God Particle".

To Quote the article referenced in the link above:
"Thanks, nature!" Gianotti said to laughs, giving thanks for the discovery.

Later, she told reporters that "the standard model (of physics) is not complete" but that "the dream is to find an ultimate theory that explains everything -- we are far from that."

And there you have it Nature as the Great Teacher acknowledged by one of the lead physicsts on the team that found evidence of "The God Particle".

"Early" Solstice

Feel the wheel turn.... be aware... so that you can learn from Nature.

http://www.hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com/2012/06/17/a-sooner-solstice/
Information below taken from the Link above:

This Wednesday, June 20, is the Solstice. It happens at 7:09 p.m. What’s so special about it? It’s the earliest summer since 1896: the earliest start of summer that you have ever experienced. Let’s see if the media pick up on this, or even realize it. So far as I know, it has not been published anywhere.
Anyway, summer: great. Bring it on.

Even in normal times, the Solstice is one of the few links between sky and Earth that’s popularly celebrated. Ask friends what happens and they’re likely to get it right, mostly. Longest day: check. Sun highest up: check. Sun moves through the sky along its most curving path: hmm, what? That one’s not widely known.

Still, people do pretty well with the Solstice. Yet most folks fail miserably when it comes to everything else about the sky. Even those with PhDs bomb when asked the stone-simple sky-stuff that every village idiot would have known 200 years ago. Go ahead: Test your friends. As the Sun is setting, does it move straight down, down and to the left, or down to the right? Most get this wrong. A century ago, everyone would have picked the latter choice without a moment’s hesitation.

Perhaps modern people are less observant. More finish college than ever before, but you don’t need a classroom to learn the basics of nature. It stares you in the face. But if you’re not looking, you won’t see it.

We could offer a hundred pages about the Solstice and its fascinating history, mythology and science, but let’s settle on ten goodies:
The word solstice comes from the two Latin words for “Sun” and “stoppage.” Makes sense: The Sun stops moving north that day.
The Solstice Sun hovers straight over the Tropic of Cancer, just south of Key West.
It’s when the Sun reaches its highest of the year, but it’s getting less high over time. That’s because Earth’s tilt is decreasing.
The Solstice is when the Sun is lowest in the sky for those at the Equator.
It arrives earlier as each century wears on. It’ll occur on June 19 in many places by century’s end. It was exclusively June 21 for all of our lives, until now.
In India, the Summer Solstice ends the six-month period when spiritual growth is supposedly easiest. Better hurry up and meditate (yes, that’s a joke): You’ve got less than a week left.
That day, the Sun rises farthest left on the horizon, and sets at its rightmost possible spot.
Sunlight strikes places in rooms that get illuminated at no other time.

In ancient Greece, the solstitial Sun happened in Cancer. But it has been in Gemini since around the time of Christ. In 1989 it shifted into Taurus, where it will remain until the fifth millennium.

But with all these goodies, the nicest fact may simply be that the Sun is now so wonderfully high. It’s 72 degrees up at 1 p.m., and won’t change much the next few weeks. It misses the zenith by a paltry 18 degrees. Look how short your shadow is.
With all that, given the world’s short attention span nowadays, TV announcers merely grant it two seconds: “It’s the start of summer!”

Time and Direction and Circle Casting

We pagans put emphasis on the cardinal directions and meanings associated with directions.
East is where the sun rises and where seasons begun and from where new life and possibilities spring.
West is where the sun sets and where the path to the underworld begins. North is a position of power.
NorthEast an especialy important position for Streghe. This is where we enter our circles and where we interface with the gods.

Time and direction are woven together in our circles and our rituals.  When we set our circle and move through our rituals we are mirroring and influencing and interacting with "Time".

We pagans view the solar year as cyclical year, not quite linear time.The streghe view time as cyclical following the cycles inside of cycles approach. We have both the repeating annual solar cycle, monthly lunar cycle and the Ages which (I think) are stellar. 

A 2010 study looked at time and direction and shows that what we do in our rituals is essentially an innate tendency of humantiy but is also influenced by culture. The Science News article below talks about this study and is interesting in the way is shows different peoples will view time and direction differently. Time and direction are influenced by culture and these days technology. 

To quote from the article below:
For the Pormpuraawans {from a remote community in Australia}
"... time flows from left to right when facing south, from right to left when facing north, toward the body when facing east and away from the body when facing west."

"... studies have indicated that people use their bodies as a reference to lay out time."
Isn't that what we are doing when we lay out a circle?
"In the United States, time is generally thought of as running from left to right. Other populations arrange time from right to left, back to front, or front to back."  

Aboriginal time runs east to west
Sun’s trajectory may channel time’s flow for one remote groupBy Bruce Bower December 4th, 2010; Vol.178 #12 (p. 11)

Time rises in the east and sets in the west in a remote part of Australia. Aborigines living there assume that time moves westward, apparently in accord with the sun’s daily arc across the sky, say Stanford University psychologist Lera Boroditsky and linguist Alice Gaby of the University of California, Berkeley.

Unlike any other group studied to date, these hardy foragers think about the day after tomorrow as two days to the west, the olden days as times far to the east, and the progression of a person’s life from infancy to old age as running from east to west, Boroditsky and Gaby report in an upcoming Psychological Science.

Grounding time in absolute directions makes it imperative for these people, called Pormpuraawans, to know which way they’re facing at all times. For them, time flows from left to right when facing south, from right to left when facing north, toward the body when facing east and away from the body when facing west.

Pormpuraawans rarely use terms for right and left and instead refer to absolute directions, making statements such as “Move your cup over to the north-northwest a little bit.”

Culture powerfully influences how people conceive of time, in Boroditsky’s view. “Pormpuraawans think about time in ways that other groups cannot, because those groups lack the necessary spatial knowledge,” she says.

Previous studies have indicated that people use their bodies as a reference to lay out time. In the United States, time is generally thought of as running from left to right. Other populations arrange time from right to left, back to front, or front to back.

“This new finding is of great significance since cognitive scientists have assumed that time representations must be body-based,” remarks psychologist Asifa Majid of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Cultural differences in thinking about spatial orientation shape time representations, proposes psychologist Daniel Haun, also of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. In 2009, Haun reported that Namibian hunter-gatherers remember dance steps and other body movements according to absolute directions. Time perception has yet to be studied in this group.

Some evidence suggests that an innate tendency to navigate by consulting external landmarks and absolute directions gets transformed into a body-centered viewpoint in certain cultures (SN: 2/10/07, p. 89).

Boroditsky and Gaby studied 14 Pormpuraawans and 14 Stanford students. Each group contained seven men and seven women. Aborigines ranged in age from the late 40s to the mid 70s.

In one task, participants examined six to 12 sets of cards. Each four-card set depicted a progression over time, such as a man at different ages. On each trial, participants received a shuffled deck and were asked to lay the cards out in the correct order.

In a second task, an experimenter placed a marker on the ground and asked volunteers to denote time periods with their own markers. If the experimenter’s stone represented today, volunteers indicated spots for yesterday and tomorrow. In other trials, volunteers arranged markers for morning, noon and evening, and for olden days, nowadays and far in the future.

Halfway through each task, each participant switched his or her sitting position to face in a different direction.

U.S. students always portrayed time as moving from left to right. Most Pormpuraawans depicted time as moving from east to west, so time’s flow systematically shifted course as the direction they faced changed.

The few body-based responses among Aborigines may reflect increasing exposure to television and other facets of Western life, as well as unfamiliarity with arranging objects in sequences, Boroditsky suggests.

Natural Resiliance

Below is an article published in the Times Picayune that talks about a community's resiliance.   If you've read any news in the past 6 years you've probably heard about at least 2 of the disasters that affected the Barataria community: Katrina & the BP Oil Spill.  While the article is short on detail the fact that these communities are made up of individuals who live close to nature and who understand how they are interdependent on nature *and* each other is at the core of their capacity to survive.

It makes a unique kind of South Louisiana sense when you come from an area named after the immeniently adaptable Pirate, Jean Lafitte, when you live in an area named for the Pirate Jean Lafitte  will you get someone saying that the secret to their success is that they are like a Pirate, Jean Laffite.
“They were able to adapt and change in order to continue,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of the lessons from what we can learn from Jean Lafitte.”


Full Article captured for reference below:
Barataria area is model of resiliance.
Allen Powell II - March 11, 2011 - Times Picayune

Most communities couldn’t survive six natural disasters in six consecutive years, particularly if they destroyed hundreds of homes and cost hundreds of people their jobs. But if you ask residents of Lafitte, Barataria and Crown Point, they’ll tell you they aren’t most people, and according to a recent study from the University of New Orleans’ Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology, they’re right.

Researchers found that residents of the fishing enclave are extremely resilient, which is evident in how quickly their communities have rebounded from hurricanes, floods and the BP oil spill, said Kristina Peterson, a senior researcher with CHART. The group studied those communities to determine the root cause of their resiliency in the hope that it might help others.

“They were able to adapt and change in order to continue,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of the lessons from what we can learn from Jean Lafitte.”

Researchers used “participatory action research,” a method that lets residents drive the focus of the study. Peterson said researchers spent four years meeting with residents and developed an oral history of the communities. They discovered the skill sets and practices that made the areas stronger and made residents more willing to reinvest despite the damage caused by hurricanes like Katrina, Rita and Ike.
Peterson said researchers presented their findings to residents several times, and then residents would tell them whether those findings were accurate to provide a complete picture. She said this type of research is more valuable than simple surveys or data mined from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“They told us their story,” Peterson said.
What researchers found was that despite the lack of outstanding public infrastructure, the communities had intense and extensive private bonds that provided a helpful social network. In addition, certain skills that were essential to disaster recovery, like carpentry, were often tied to the livelihoods of many residents. Residents said they had a close relationship with public officials, and that allowed them to minimize or eliminate the red tape that slowed recovery in other areas, she said.
Jean Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner said the study validates what he already knew about the area. Residents in those communities are willing and able to do their part to recover, but they do need a helping hand from politicians to make certain that things are not too difficult.

Lafitte, Barataria and Crown Point, Kerner said, play an important role in the Louisiana economy as well as the nation because of its fishers, and oil and gas workers. He said he hopes the study will stand as testament to the will of those individuals.

“I think what they saw is that the people here bounce back faster and stronger than some other areas,” Kerner said. “If you look, we’ve been through six disasters in six years, and if you drive through Jean Lafitte, Crown Point and Barataria, it doesn’t look like we’ve had one.”
Allen Powell II can be reached at apowell@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3793.

Nature Deficit Disorder

Click the link and read about Richard Louv and how critical it is to connect with Nature.

It makes me glad I have spent time this weekend with my hands in the dirt, planting and weeding.  This always centers and calms me.  

It always seems to come back "Nature is the Great Teacher."

Or as Richard Louv says it:
"Simply put, the Nature Principle maintains that a reconnection with the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being and survival."

Read more in Richard Louv's  "The Nature Principle"

The stars and our connection...

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked in an interview with TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

The Most Astounding Fact from Max Schlickenmeyer on Vimeo.

Because it's beautiful

Nicolas Bernard & Ludevine Furnon from Cirque Du Soleil,

Former Cirque du Soleil Artists and

Silver Medalist in Paris at the 31th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain,

performing at "Benissimo" Live TV show 2010.

 Music composed by Martin Villiger.

But our race is of the stars

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos

The iron from the meteorite and the iron from you blood

has common origin in the core of a star...

It is quite literally true that we are stardust;

in the highest exalted way one can use that phrase.

A Christian gets it and calls it her own

An article by Sallie McFague...  shows that it is possible for Christians to understand what we pagans have always known in our bones, or perhaps never forgotton.  We are all connected.
"... the ecological model claims that housemates must abide by three main rules: take only your share, clean up after yourselves, and keep the house in good repair for future occupants. We don’t own this house; we don’t even rent it. It is loaned to us "free" for our lifetime with the proviso that we obey the above rules so that it can continue to feed, shelter, nurture, and delight others. These rules are not laws that we can circumvent or disobey; they are the conditions of our existence and they are intrinsic to our happiness. If we were to follow these rules we would be living within a different vision of the good life, the abundant life, than is current in our consumer culture and that is destroying the planet."

"... take only your share, clean up after yourselves, and keep the house in good repair for future occupants."

Ah.... yep.... dare I say "Duh?"

She claims there are:
"two worldviews—the neo-classical economic one and the ecological economic view"
Ok... a classic "us" and "them" but Ok.

and that:
"The second model" (ecological) "sees the planet more like an organism or a community, that survives and prospers through the interdependence of all its parts, human and non-human."

and while the description of the ecological/pagan model is correct....

this is not:
"The second model rests on assumptions from postmodern science in its view of human beings as the conscious and radically-dependent part of the planet, and of the world as a community or organism, internally related in all its parts."

The "second" ecological model is NOT postmodern  It is shamanistic, pagan, primal, as old as dirt.  Only from a Judeo-Christian Genesis "have dominion over" viewpoint is it postmodern.

But if other Christians take what she has written and begin to *act* on it, perhaps there is hope.


 

USDA Zone Maps..... duh!

The USDA has decided that it is OK to officially tell us what we already knew; that our environment is changing and that this affects what will grow where and when. Anyone who operates under the tenent that Nature is the Great Teacher.... or who gardens.... has know what the USDA told us this week for at least a decade.

Read the article for yourself. I get our local newspaper and the article below was published in our Times Picayune. But when I "googled" to find the article on the web I found scores of other articles with the same basic Associated Press lead but with local details on local impacts added for scores of locations.

The article below tells us: "Spring is arriving earlier in the year."  Again, Duh!
Take a look at this NASA model and tell me you didn't feel this in your pagan bones.


New USDA Plant Zone map reflects warmer temperatures in south Louisiana and nationwide.
Times Picayune January 25, 2010 - nola.com & January 26, 2012 -  hard copy
Associated Press Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON -- Global warming is hitting not just home, but in the garden. The government's colorful map of planting zones, most often seen on the back of seed packets, is changing, illustrating a hotter 21st century.

View full size

An update of the official guide for 80 million gardeners reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be. So some plants and trees that once seemed too vulnerable to cold can now survive farther north.

It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated the map and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.
South Louisiana, which had been in Zone 8, is now placed in Zone 9. Times-Picayune garden writer Dan Gill, an LSU AgCenter horticulturist, has long advised south shore gardeners to "firmly place themselves in Zone 9."

New Orleans and adjoining parts of Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes are now officially in Zone 9b, which has an average annual extreme minimum temperature of 25 to 30 degrees Farenheit; the surrounding areas are in Zone 9a, with lows of 20 to 25.

The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, also uses better weather data and offers more interactive technology. For the first time it takes into factors such as how cities are hotter than suburbs and rural areas, nearby large bodies of water, prevailing winds, and the slope of land.
"It truly does reflect state of the art," said USDA chief scientist Catherine Woteki.

The new map can be found online at www.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov. Gardeners can register their zip code into the online map and their zone will pop up. It shows the exact average coldest temperature for each zip code. The 26 zones, however, are based on 5-degree increments.

View full sizeUSDA

 

It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated the map and much has changed.

For example, Des Moines, Iowa, used to be in zone 5a, meaning the lowest temperature on average was between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Now it's 5b, which has a coldest temperature of 10 to 15 degrees below zero.

"People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the winter time," said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack. "There's a lot of things you can grow now that you couldn't grow before."
He uses the giant fig tree in his suburban Boston yard as an example.

"People don't think of figs as a crop you can grow in the Boston area. You can do it now," he said.
In the old 1990 map, the USDA mentions 34 different U.S. cities on its key. Eighteen of those, including Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, St. Paul and even Fairbanks, are in newer warmer zones. Agriculture officials said they didn't examine the map to see how much of the map has changed for the hotter. But Mark Kaplan, the New York meteorologist who co-created the 1990 map and a 2003 update that the USDA didn't use, said the latest version clearly shows warmer zones migrating north. Other experts agreed.

The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986; the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation's average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree warmer than for the old time period, according to statistics at the National Climatic Data Center.
USDA spokeswoman Kim Kaplan, who was part of the map team, repeatedly tried to distance the new zones in the map from global warming issues. She said even though much of the country is in warmer zones, the map "is simply not a good instrument" to demonstrate climate change because it is based on just the coldest days of the year.

David W. Wolfe, professor of plant and soil ecology in Cornell University's Department of Horticulture said the USDA is being too cautious and disagrees with Kaplan about whether this reflects warming.
"At a time when the 'normal' climate has become a moving target, this revision of the hardiness zone map gives us a clear picture of the 'new normal,' and will be an essential tool for gardeners, farmers, and natural resource managers as they begin to cope with rapid climate change," Wolfe said in an email.

Another and even more dramatic sign of global warming in the plant world is that spring is arriving earlier in the year, Wolfe said.

The new map is based on temperature records.

An earlier effort to update the planting map caused a bit of an uproar when the USDA in 2003 decided not to use an updated map that reflected warmer weather. Kaplan said the 2003 map wasn't interactive enough.

The Arbor Day Foundation later issued its own hardiness guide that had the toastier climate zones. The new federal map is very similar to the one the private plant group adopted six years ago, said Arbor Day Foundation Vice President Woodrow Nelson.
"We got a lot of comments that the 1990 map wasn't accurate anymore," Nelson said. "I look forward to (the new map). It's been a long time coming."
Nelson, who lives in Lincoln, Neb., where the zone warmed to a 5b. Nelson said he used to "a solid 4" but now he's got Japanese maples and fraser firs in his yard -- trees that shouldn't survive in a zone 4.

In Des Moines, Jerry Holub, a manager for the Earl May Nursery chain, doesn't think the warmer zone will have much of an impact on gardeners. But he said this may mean residents can even try passion flowers.
"Now you can put them in safely, when you couldn't before," he said.
Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, doubts the change in zones will mean much to him, but he said he has seen redbud trees, one of the earliest blooming trees, a little further north in recent years.
"They always said redbuds don't go beyond U.S. Highway 30, but I'm seeing them near Roland," he said, referring to a small Iowa town about 10 miles north of the highway that spans central Iowa.

The Times-Picayune staff contributed to this report.

Obama's Gemini Moon

http://billmoyers.com/content/reviewing-obamas-first-year/

In this election year there are many who are trying to figure out who to vote for and many who are trying to figure out why the person who is president is so different from what they expected.

I think that a hint on why Pres. Obama does what Pres Obama does is......
His Gemini moon.

He *likes* to look at all parts of the issue. So he does. Sometimes for what seems too long. Sometimes to the detriment of what he wants to accomplish. All the more reason for Pres Obama to be surrounded by really good thinkers.

Using data from the birth certificate provided in this article, and Astrolabe's free chart
you can take a look yourself and see what Astrology says about our current President.

President Obama *reads* like the Aquarian change many hoped for BUT his Gemini Moon does not allow him to directly the Leonine energy as well as he could.   Knowledge is power Barack.  Oh and it seems I'm not the only one who thinks Obama's Gemini Moon is less than ideal.

Name: Obama
August 4 1961
7:24 PM Time Zone is AHST
Honolulu, HI

Rising Sign is in 18 Degrees Aquarius
You like new ideas and concepts, but you prefer to discover them by yourself -- it is not easy for others to convert you to anything. You form your own opinions, but once you do form them, you then want to convince everyone else that they are correct. Try to be more tolerant of the opinions of others. You have a deep and abiding interest in science, mathematics, and the great social problems of the day. Very sympathetic toward the downtrodden, equality is your battle cry! You demand that those in authority be fair to all. You are an intellectual -- emotions and emotional people are difficult for you to understand. You are known for being calm, cool, detached and objective.

Sun is in 12 Degrees Leo.
More than a bit of a showoff, you love to be the center of attention! But others do not usually mind because they tend to enjoy your genuine warmth and affection. Very spirited and willful, proud and self-important at times, you demand your own way. You are quite honest, however, and the respect of others is very important to you. You never compromise yourself and you pursue your goals with persistence and dedication. Your regal presence and demeanor draws you to positions of leadership and authority. But beware of being overly hardheaded, domineering, ostentatious or patronizing or you will lose the goodwill and admiration that you enjoy. Very theatrical, you live life on a grand scale wherever and whenever possible. Your strength and energy vitalizes those who come in contact with you.

Moon is in 03 Degrees Gemini.
Restless in the extreme, you are easily bored because of your short attention span. Your emotions change rapidly and you love to talk about your feelings. Generally, you have good judgment -- your intellect controls your emotions and you do not overreact emotionally to things. A good jack-of-all-trades, you have many- sided interests and enjoy reasoning things through. With your mental agility and need for physical mobility, you are attracted to traveling and learning about other peoples and cultures. You have vivid powers of emotional self-expression - - you can be a nonstop talker. You love to share your ideas with anyone who will listen.