EarthSong Forums

Chapter 2

the seeker — Sun, 20 May 2012 21:37:58 GMT

Over the last few years, I am constantly amazed and newly appalled by the numerous ways we humans have discovered to inflict harm and take life with little to no thought. But the more I learn about Monsanto�s ever reaching arms, the scarier and scarier it is to eat anything�even growing things yourself is no longer any guarantee your end results will be any less contaminated or modified. I remember my dad talking about hybrid plants; he explained that while the changes may be good in one area, the plant might also undergo changes in another area that weren�t so good. He, my maternal grandfather and uncle were talking about some new tomato varieties and saying how bland they tasted compared to the ones my grandmother grew in her garden. How nice if taste were the only change our food had undergone, huh?

My brother and I have noticed an increase in vegetable garden insects but it was interesting to read the statistic of 20% at the time this book was published (2004). His methods are to use chemicals, something we locked horns over every year and since it was his land, it was his way. So, I helped work the garden but rarely ate anything out of it and would not use the squash or beans I had grown for dog food, purchasing organic at the grocery store and pretending I believed it absolutely was organic.

Chemical weapons at RAF Kinloss

Floux — Sun, 20 May 2012 15:28:19 GMT

Chemical weapons are in a landfill at RAF Kinloss. They include sulphur mustard (Mustard Gas) buried in the area including the glow in the dark material used during WWII.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...tland-18136765

Makes you wonder what else we have in the ground.

Awesome Resource!

diriel — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:32:03 GMT

Hello everyone! I stumbled across ESF while doing some google research for a book project. This is truly an awesome site! Oddly enough, for many years now I have felt a calling to get in touch with my inner self and expand my horizons. On the one hand "the maimed one" comes to mind when I try to touch my inner self, so i shy away. Then again when I least expect it, some days I slip into deeper place for a short while until I try to "grasp" it, it slips away. Some nice reading and resources on this site. Thank you! Diriel

How many focus beads should we all share on the ESF Community Sacred Strand?

Fabienne S. Morgana — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:44:55 GMT

Following on from these threads:

Here's the links to the other threads if you need a refresher.

The original Mission Statement thread:

http://www.earthsongforums.com/forum...917#post275917

The Individual Vs Community thread from the Philosophy Forum, which I believe can be of interest to this project:

http://www.earthsongforums.com/forum...620#post275620

David's terrific Science Discovers the Benefits of Meditation Thread:

http://www.earthsongforums.com/forum...t=Prayer+Beads

Winter's Prayer Bead thread - which is what kicked this project off:

http://www.earthsongforums.com/forum...t=Prayer+Beads

The next step in this process is to make a communal decision on how many focus beads we should have.

Whatever the number, we then need to condense down the essence of ESF to those focus beads.

From there, everyone creates their own strand, and may choose to add more of what they see as important - however, these focus statements that we all share, are an act of co-creation: as such, the most democratic manner I can manage on this virtual platform is a vote, and then we'll take from there.

If needs be, we can do more than one poll if it is very close between one or two numbers.

The arrest of Captain Paul Watson

Seawitch Artist — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:45:02 GMT

I find the arrest of Captain Paul Watson by German authorities very suspicious.
An issue ten years ago that anyone can see is based on blatant lies?
There's a lot of coincidences surrounding this. Costa Rican president in Berlin about now, Japan wanting to go whaling again, China desperate to keep the Shark fin supply coming for that damn soup...whats really going on and who is the German government really bowing to..Costa Rica? I don't believe it!

Christian atheism

green aventurine — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:57:52 GMT

Just stumbled across this (which I thought was a bit weird when I first heard the name) and was curious what people thought about it.

Quote:

Thomas Ogletree, Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies at Yale Divinity School, lists these four common beliefs:

The assertion of the unreality of God for our age, including the understandings of God which have been a part of traditional Christian theology
The insistence upon coming to grips with contemporary culture as a necessary feature of responsible theological work
Varying degrees and forms of alienation from the church as it is now constituted
Recognition of the centrality of the person of Jesus in theological reflection[1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

where do pantheists fit?

oonagh sidhe — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:50:55 GMT

we are not of the major religions and i'm lead to believe that we don't make a nice fit within the pagan community.

so, where *do* pantheists fit if anywhere?

Inspiration

oonagh sidhe — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:27:01 GMT

as a pantheist, what did you hear, read, taste, experience (you get the idea) today that has inspired you?

RIP Donna Summer

Cassie — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:15:14 GMT

From what I have heard on the news the last 12 hours she seems to have been a very nice woman, highly respected by her peers. Of course she has left us too soon but she has left a legacy. She and Giorgio Moroda changed the sound and popularity of dance music forever.

I Feel Love was released before I was born yet it still sounds current and futuristic, and I have probably danced to it more than virtually any other song at various discos and clubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7weusloU8Xc&feature=related

Why the paleo diet pisses me off.

Fethenwen — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:22:50 GMT

I really need to rant, I will try to not get too emotional about this.

Ok first off, I think that it's wrong to follow a diet and call it ethical, while at the same time following it for mainly selfish reasons.

My picture of paleo people are a bunch of speciesists who are living with a romanticized view of creating the perfect paleolithic human, with excellent health, producing big and strong offspring.
Like this sort of an ideology of back to nature, back to when humans were REAL hunters and on top of the food chain.

Cause eating grains will surely produce offspring that are weak, short statured and have tooth decay...

I have heard the argument that when people started to eat grains, humans grew shorter.

But I don't think it's really that simple. And I have yet to see some proof of that argument.
But if it was true, then what other changes happened during a civilization that started to produce grains like wheat over huge areas of land? My guess is that there are other indicators involved than just grains.
And who said length is a good indicator of health anyway?

No matter, my biggest problem is that paleo dieting is extremly elitist. First off organic grass fed beef is something only the richer can afford.

And second, how would the world look like if all people went paleo? We would surely need a few more planets in order to fit in more gracing animals. Already our planet is bulging out from an excess of meat production and all the environmental impacts it is having.

And to say that we should eat more hunted meats is just ridiculous. Yes, it might be quite optimal to eat game, but what would happen if more people would start doing that? It would not take very long before our forests would get depleted from wild animals. Especially if one takes even just a tiny look at the statistics on how much animals people actually consume today.

Oh and all the scare mongering about soy, phytonutrients, phytoestrogens and all kinds of anti-nutrients makes me tired. Really, most people have no idea on what they are talking about.

And the total abcence of animal ethics in the paleo discussions is also quite off putting to say the least.

The amazing superman vitamin X-factor K2 is by the way found very high in both sauerkraut and fermented soy products :rolleyes:

Ugh, and paleo people have this weird idea that a vegan diet is something that is high in processed foods and is like this sort of franken diet that's just full of sugars and very unnatural and that one would need to eat like 20 different supplements in order to stay alive.

Oh and that the only type of idyllic gardening and perma-culture involves having domestic animals gracing around. I get so tired of this, have no one ever heard of vegan perma-culture? Permanent living off the land, close to the land in a closed cycle environment anyone?

I'm just...

if we are going to survive as a human race through these times, wouldn't it be smarter to focus on saving the planet instead of just optimizing diet?

:smash: Seriously.

Anyone Taking this course?

kaosxmage — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:14:50 GMT

Hello all!

I was just browsing on tarot forums, and I stumbled on a promotional course by Tarot Professionals, associated with Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin's new book Around the Tarot in 78 Days.

Here is the link to the forum post I found: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=173108

What do you all think?

I'm just getting my feet wet in Tarot. Not sure where the best sources are just yet.

I'm using a RW deck, and Mary Greer's Tarot For Yourself as my stepping stone thus far.

--Kaos

Hi!

LunaVeg87 — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:08:06 GMT

Funny story about me: I actually joined two years ago, but haven't made a single post yet. But now, I hope to be able to spend some time here to get to know you all and hopefully learn. So, hi everyone!:D

The Dark Moon Full

Seawitch Artist — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:59:03 GMT

I've illustrated a poem I wrote by putting it on youtube

YouTube

Difficulty with imagery based meditation/vision questing/astral travel

LadyOfTheTrees — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:08:54 GMT

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased The Avalon Meditations by Mara Freeman and I've been having some difficulty with it.

I've been practicing meditation for a long time - eastern meditation. I'm very used to and experienced with the general types of transcendental meditation, yogic meditation - using the breath, identifying complete awareness of all the senses and achieving the mental realization of the current time of now, that the past and future technically don't exist, etc. etc.

I'd been using Phillip Carr-Gomm's Wild Wisdom Meditations with a track for each of the four elements and he uses the same type of guided meditation style that you get with eastern transcendental meditation or "light-body" as it's often called in the western world. (Which I absolutely love).

A week ago, I decided to try Mara Freeman's Avalon Meditations and I found it to be something entirely different and I find it very difficult to tune into. Rather than working to relax the body through the breath one bit at a time, it goes right straight into heavy visual descriptions. I'm not a very image based person - brain wise, and so I have a hard time following along. At the end of the tracks, I feel drained. I have successfully done vision questing and astral travel before under guided circumstances. With Mara's CD I feel like there is no introduction in order to relax the body. Going straight into the visuals doesn't feel like it's actually taking me there.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the CD of course, and Mara Freeman is a great teacher. Her style of visionary meditation is just not clicking for me though, however I would like it to. Oh how I yearn to be able to experience astral travel to the Isle of The Blessed! I had thought about doing a light-body meditation first, alas, I'll then have to sit up and hit play, however sometimes I can retain the dreamy state well enough to listen to several CDs all in a row whilst getting up between each of them and changing them in the CD player. It would be nice to have a remote for it though.

Does anyone have any advice or tips for someone who's going through the process of transitioning from traditional eastern meditation to this more contemporary style of visionary meditation?

Thank you, in prior, to anyone who take the time to respond to this with whatever feedback or advice you all have :)

Minor rant:

PrincessKLS — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:18:07 GMT

Okay, I'm taking summer classes and I was under the impression that I had enough financial aid to go here and all the sudden I get a message from my financial office saying that I owe them and have less than a day to pay up :( This is the second semester that they've tried to screw me up on it. Why? I am low income, an independent, older student, financially I should given priority. But no, it's screwed, I've tried getting money from VA's DRS program (for disabled students), but they claimed that my major was too broad, and my career plans had to clearer, I have changed my major but I don't have one specific job goal, I have many and I don't think it's fair that especially as a disabled person who's gone through a lot in the job market rejections to be told that no one will pay for my schooling because I don't have everything mapped out to a tee. Especially since there's so many "normal" students who go to college without an idea or even leaving college still confused. And a handful of them get financial aid. I even had a minor panic attack over the news this evening and had to have a campus cop and paramedics come see me on campus over it!