WITCHES SECRETS AND STORIES...NEWS FROM BEYOND AND BELOW...

topic posted Sun, December 3, 2006 - 9:50 PM by  Serena
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Meteoroids are hitting the Moon more often than anyone expected. That's the tentative conclusion of astronomers who recently saw two Leonids hit the Moon and explode. The full story includes a movie of one of the Leonid impacts.

science.nasa.gov/headlines...leonid.htm
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Serena
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  • FIREBALLS

    Sun, December 3, 2006 - 10:02 PM
    FREQUENT FIREBALLS: Have you ever stepped outside after dinner to walk
    the dog--just in time to see a bright fireball streak across the sky?
    It makes you wonder, how often does that happen? More often than you
    think. A NASA meteor expert has used a computer model of Earth's
    meteoroid environment to calculate how often Earth runs into bits and pieces of
    comets and asteroids big enough to produce fireballs. (A fireball is
    defined to be a meteor brighter than the planet Venus.) Globally, Earth
    experiences more than a hundred fireballs every day, according to the
    calculations.

    spaceweather.com/
    • TRANSIT OF MERCURY PHOTO CONTEST

      Sun, December 3, 2006 - 10:07 PM
      Photos. Paintings. 3D Anaglyphs:
      Hundreds of entries to the Transit of Mercury Photo Contest have been
      judged. And the winners are ... click here:
      spaceweather.com/eclipses/...8nov06.htm

      On Nov 8th, the planet Mercury passed directly in front the Sun. The transit began at 2:12 pm EST (11:12 am PST) and lasted for almost five hours. Good views were seen from the Americas, Hawaii, Australia and all along the Pacific Rim:
      What did it look like? A picture is worth a thousand words:
      science.nasa.gov/headlines...ercury.htm
      • THE SHIFT IS HAPPENING NOW!

        Sun, December 3, 2006 - 10:23 PM
        by Wynn Free & Gregg Braden

        There are many quantifiable scientific indicators proving that the Earth and the Solar System are going through changes which have never previously occurred in recorded human history. Many psychics and channelers say that we have entered the beginning of a dimensional shift which is already deeply affecting all of our lives. And some predict that within the next decade we will enter into an Ascension process fulfilling the prophecies of Jesus.

        Gregg Braden is probably the most recognized person who is evaluating and revealing the scientific phenomena pointing to this shift. He became intrigued with all this when he was working for Phillips Petroleum in the late 1970s and noticed that the magnetics of the earth were at their lowest point in 2000 years and decreasing at a rapid rate.

        Eventually, Braden wrote a book — Awakening to Zero Point — that documented this and other indicators of our rapidly changing planet.

        Wynn: Is it true that the magnetic poles of the earth are in the process of shifting right now?

        Gregg: In May-June-July of 2002, it was very well acknowledged and esteemed scientific journals actually were saying for the first time that we are in the process of a polar reversal.

        Back in the 1960s, geologists were certain that the earth periodically went through a reversal. They could tell from core samples, ice samples, and fossils, as well as magnetized particles that were locked into certain positions in the rock of the earth. Geologists were so certain about this phenomenon that they actually mapped out the last four-and-a-half- million years, and the resulting records suggested that the earth has gone through fourteen of these polar reversals.

        At that time, back in 1961 and 1962, scientists felt that the last pole reversal occurred at about the time of the last Ice Age, ten to twelve thousand years ago. And they were certain it would happen again, but not for thousands of years, so it was nothing to worry about.

        But through the 1990s, geologists continued to refine this kind of information. They had been saying it took thousands of years for this to happen. Then they began to say, "Well, it can happen in hundreds of years." But now, recent evidence from some of the ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica say that it could happen in as little as a decade.

        But now, we know that the poles are actually moving. We're living it right now. We don't know exactly what that means, because even though it's happened fourteen times in the last four and a half million years, it's never happened with six billion people on the earth.

        Wynn: Are you saying that it's common knowledge?

        Gregg: It's common knowledge to people that need to know these things. For example, FAA regulations say that when the poles move beyond five or eight degrees, the runways at the airports have to be renumbered to correlate with the magnetic headings that the pilots are seeing. The first airport in the United States to comply with this mandate was Minneapolis/ St. Paul, where they spent something on the order of eighty-five thousand dollars to go through and renumber the runway headings.

        But what happened in the May-June-July time frame of 2002 is that journals such as Nature, Science, Scientific American, and New Scientist released reports saying that we are definitely in the process of a magnetic reversal, and the AP wires picked it up.

        Scientists have no idea what the impact is going to be to electronic and electromagnetic power grids. But even more, they don't know what it means to human immune systems. Alternative healing modalities have shown a connection between magnetics and the immune system, which also would imply that our immune systems could very well be keyed into the magnetic fields of the earth.

        We know that birds and animals migrate along the lines of these magnetic fields. So there is speculation that the changes taking place in the magnetic field are responsible for the changing migratory patterns in birds that have been recorded in Asia and North America.

        The change in the fields also may explain why whales are beaching themselves. The lines of navigation that the whales have always followed have shifted and now lead them onto a beach. When we take them back out into the water and set them free, they continue to align themselves with the same magnetic lines, and in following them, they end up on the beach again.

        So, yes, it's common knowledge now. The most respected scientific journals say that we're in this shift. And even though we don't know precisely what that means, it's significant that it is being acknowledged in peer-review kinds of literature, and not just in speculative or pseudo-scientific magazines.

        Wynn: When was this magnetic shift first acknowledged?

        Gregg: It would have been in the June/July time frame of 2002. People were sending me emails that they had seen it, and giving me references. I also found references in the magazines myself.

        Wynn: Would we survive a complete pole shift?

        Gregg: Any answer to that question must of necessity lie within the realm of speculation, because in traditional recorded human history it's never happened. On the other hand, there are Native traditions and ancient Hebrew biblical traditions suggesting that a magnetic shift may have happened even more recently than the last Ice Age. That was 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, but these traditions suggest that the last shift may have happened as recently as 3,600 years ago.

        Native legends speak of a day 3,600 years ago when the sun rose from the west as it had always done, hovered in the sky for more than a full day, and set in the east — but the next day, it rose in the east and set in the west, as it does today. Hebrew traditions speak of this event, also, saying that it happened during a battle. The ancient Hebrews took it as a sign that one side was receiving celestial assistance, because it stayed light long enough for the battle to complete in their favor.

        We can't verify this in the rock or fossil records, because 3,600 years is too short a period of time for such an event to be reflected there. All we have to go by are traditions, legends, and myths preserved in oral and written documents.

        What the trandition tells us, however, is that if something like this were to happen, the people of the earth would live through it. It would have to be a really strange day to live through, but if the ancient legends are true, it happened and the people apparently survived. However, we don't know how it affected their lives.

        Wynn: Do you have any idea how this magnetic shift might change consciousness?

        Gregg: The speculation is that there is a correlation between consciousness and magnetics. In order to understand how this connection might work, it is useful to compare it to a computor's memory. The magnetic fields in the memory are held in place through an electrical charge — a trickle charge — within the computer itself. When the batteries in the computer die, the charge is gone, and the memory is lost. We have to reload the operating system.

        Similarly, by researchers and descendents of indigenous peoples believe that when the earth goes through what science sees as a magnetic reversal, it also will be a great shift and cleansing of the earth's consciousness. There will be nothing holding all the magnetic patterns that have been put in place. So when we awaken from this shift, what becomes consciousness will be our truest nature, our truest essence. And the memory of all of the evil or all the bad things or all of the grudges or the ego and we've held against one another as individuals and nations will not be part of that new consciousness, that new grid.

        From that perspective, many traditions predict, sense, or speculate that we are nearing a time of what they call the Great Cleansing, and that this cleansing is happening at a level of core memory of consciousness.

        Wynn: So is it possible to assume that in some way, our memory is connected to this magnetic field?

        Gregg: I think so. I think that because of the strange accounts of the astronauts who left earth and went into space during the Apollo Program. In leaving the earth's atmosphere and circling the planet many miles above the surface, the affects of earth's magnetics were negligible. And the astronauts began to have experiences that they were not prepared or trained for, that were totally unanticipated.

        When they were in space and looked back to earth, they began having insights and feelings, awakenings and awarenesses that they had never had when they were on the earth. It meant something different to each one of them.

        In much the same way, friends of mine who went to Viet Nam were all changed when they came home. It changed everyone. For some, the change was so painful that they could never speak about it, and for others, the change was a catalyst in their lives and they spoke of it incessantly.

        And I believe there was actually a PBS special that documented this same phenomenon with the astronauts, that they were never the same afterward. When they came back, there were some who didn't know what to do with their outer space experience. Some turned to drugs and alcohol. Others channeled the change that occurred within them in very positive, life-affirming projects.

        One of this latter group was Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who founded the Noetic Sciences Organization in an effort to validate the phenomenon of human consciousness. Another astronaut undertook the search for Noah's Ark, and actually found it embedded in the ice on Mt. Ararat, right where the Bible said it would be.[1]

        Wynn: So the implication here is that these astronauts, because they left the magnetic field of the earth, had some kind of spiritual awakening?

        Gregg: They certainly went through a catharsis when they were no longer in the influence of the earth's magnetic field.

        We also see something similar happening when we look at the magnetic fields of the earth. They are not constant over the surface of the earth, and contour maps, available through United States Geologic Survey, show the varying intensities of magnetic fields over the surface of the earth — where magnetic fields have a very high intensity and where the intensity if very low.

        Those fields have shifted over time, and may actually account for why populations of humans have migrated to the places they've migrated to. They might have been following these magnetic contours.

        What happens is that in the places where the magnetics are very low, where their effects are negligible, tremendous change and innovation appear to occur. Where the magnetics are traditionally high, those are the places of stagnation where changes, although they do happen, take a long time and change is very slow in coming.

        If I were coming here from another world and didn't know anything about the people of the earth, and if I were looking for a place where the opportunity of change was the greatest, I would look for the zero contour lines. And if you look at a map of the magnetics on earth today, what you find is that there is a zero contour line that runs along the West Coast of North America — along the California coast and on up off the coast of Alaska. In other words, the magnetics along the West Coast are almost nil!

        When we think of the West Coast, we think about wacky California. Well, the truth is California is a seed, one of several, and it's traditionally been very innovative in technology, science, fashion, finance, and the arts, because there is an opportunity for tremendous change there.

        Within North American, the flip side of that would be an area of highest magnetics, where the magnetic fields are the most dense. And you find this down through some of the Southeastern states — the very states that are traditionally viewed as being conservative. This doesn't mean that change can't happen there. What is says, however, is that change takes a long time there, and people have to see a really good reason before they are going to budge from what they've always done.

        Wynn: So where the magnetic field is less dense, people are more open to the moment?

        Gregg: They're open to change, period. It doesn't mean that the change is good, bad, right, or wrong. It's important to be clear about this. The consciousness of the people will determine how that change comes about.

        I'll give an ironic example. There is a zero contour line that runs right through the Middle East. It actually runs almost directly underneath the area we call the Suez Canal, right up into Israel, right along the coast of the Red Sea. Yes, right in that area is a zero contour line. This means that area is ripe for change. But again, how that change comes about — whether it's peaceful and constructive or angry and destructive — is determined by the consciousness of the people who live there.

        Wynn: So it's not good or bad either way?

        Gregg: Precisely. It simply is an opportunity for change. At the same time, the highest magnetic contour lines noted anywhere on the planet earth have traditionally been in portions of the former Soviet Union, Russia, and Siberia. We know that in that part of the world, there was a system that was in place, and while change came about, it was slow and painful, a long time coming, with a lot of suffering. But when that change happened, there was a cascade effect, and it happened almost overnight.

        So the correlations are very interesting between human consciousness, the opportunities for innovation, change, doing things in a new way, and the magnetics of our world.

        The Earth has many areas of high and low change.

        Wynn: Our readers are going to want to know how they can best face the changes that are coming in our world as a whole.

        Gregg: I'll be as concise as I can. I think that the answer to that is perhaps encapsulated best in the words of those who have come before us, the ancient Essenes, in a text that's more than 2,500 years old. It reminds us of our relationship to the world around us, and says simply that the world around us is nothing more and nothing less than a mirror of what we have become from within.

        So when we see a world that appears angry, cruel, and thoughtless, that produces suffering for our brothers and sisters all over the world — from this perspective, that world is a mirror of what we have become as individuals, families, societies, and nations. It's not right, wrong, good or bad. It's simply a reflection of who we are. The condition of the planet is a feedback mechanism.

        So if we want to see change in our world, we must become that change in our every day lives. If we want to see peace, tolerant understanding, compassion, and forgiveness at the global level, we must become that. At the dinner table. With our families. We must become that with our schools.

        We must demand that we be entertained through peace, compassion, and understanding. It doesn't have to be dull and boring. It can still be very exciting, but it does not have to be ruthless, thoughtless, cruel, or heartless.

        So in our daily lives, every moment of every day, we make a choice that either affirms or denies life in our bodies. Because we are linked through this grid. Our individual choices all pool into the collective answer to our future.

        If we'd like to see a collective change, we must individually become that change.

        Wynn: We have this date of 2012 that many people are saying is this time of global shift or Ascension. What do you think is going to happen?

        Gregg The date 2012 is interesting because it comes up in Mayan traditions, Egyptian traditions, some of the Christian traditions, and even in the Bible Code — which is very controversial unto itself.

        My sense is this date could be any date. If we focus on a date and live our lives preparing for a change on that date, we miss life. From my perspective, if we simply live each day of our lives to its fullest, we reconcile the experiences that cross our paths each day, we reconcile the opportunity to honor life, to honor our relationships with one another.

        If we are honest, truthful, considerate, caring and compassionate, if we live this each day, we have already prepared for whatever could possibly come on 2012 or any other day, any other year, any time in our future.

        I know people who are living their lives hoarding boxcars full of food and ammunition, preparing for the day when our world changes. I understand, and I think it's good to be self sufficient. I understand what they are saying. But also what I've seen is that so much of their lives is dedicated to preparing for that day, they've missed the beauty and the mystery of life that unfolds in every day. And it's in perceiving this beauty and mystery that we prepare for the greatest challenges!

        Wynn: So basically, if one wants to approach this change with the maximum positive outcome for themselves, the key is to live each day with the maximum output of love, compassion, and caring?

        Gregg: Yes, and to do this, we have to live each day consciously. Be aware of the opportunities. Recognize the opportunities that cross our paths. Every day, we're given the opportunity to be tolerant of another belief system, to forgive someone who has hurt or angered us, to reconcile our own judgments about what should or should not be in our world.

        If we can reconcile these things as they cross our paths and consciously deal with them in the moment, then we know we're changing the chemistry of our bodies by changing the way we feel, and are thus preparing ourselves for whatever transitions the earth is going to go through.

        If that makes sense.

        Wynn: Yes, it does to me. Is there anything really important to close with for our readers that I might have missed?

        Gregg: For the first time in our history, the fate of our species, our entire species, rests upon the choices of a single generation. And what we've just done is talked about what some of those choices are all about.

        Footnotes:

        You can see photographs of a ship buried in the ice, right on top of the mountain. The government in Turkey is now refusing to let anyone excavate because of all the religious implications.

        Visit: http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/circle2012 dreams/
        • STONEHENGE - SITE 4 SORE EYES BACK IN 2300 BC

          Sun, December 3, 2006 - 10:28 PM
          By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

          SEE PIX IN PHOTOS

          Stonehenge was the Lourdes of its day, to which diseased and injured ancient Britons flocked seeking cures for their ailments, according to a new theory.
          For most of the 20th century archaeologists have debated what motivated primitive humans to go to the immense effort of transporting giant stones 240 miles from south Wales to erect Britain's most significant prehistoric monument.

          Stonehenge was built in different stages between 3000BC and 1600BC and theories about their meaning and purpose have ranged from the serious to the wacky. The most widely accepted view is that it was to honour their ancestors.
          Now Timothy Darvill, professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University, has breathed new life into the controversy with the publication of a book which proposes that the monument was in fact a centre of healing. Prof Darvill also backs the recent view that modern-day druids and hippies who celebrate the summer solstice at the site in the belief that they are continuing an ancient tradition should in fact carry out their rituals in December.
          In his book Stonehenge: The Biography of a Landscape, Prof Darvill points to evidence that many of the human remains excavated from burial mounds around Stonehenge, dating from around 2300BC, show signs of the individuals having been unwell prior to their death.
          Chemical analysis of their teeth has shown that a good proportion of those buried near the monument were not locals, but in fact came from as far away as Wales, Ireland and the Lake District. A grave uncovered in 2002 three miles from Stonehenge revealed the remains of a man who became known as the Amesbury Archer. He was found to have originated in what is now Switzerland.

          Prof Darvill also points to 14th century folklore in the form of written accounts referring to a magician bringing the stones from the west of the British Isles.
          "It was believed that these particular stones had many healing properties because in Preseli there are many sacred springs that are considered to have health-giving qualities," said Prof Darvill.
          "The water comes out of the rocks used to build Stonehenge and it's well established that as recently as the late 18th century, people went to Stonehenge to break off bits of rock as talismans.
          "In the case of Stonehenge, I suggest that the presiding deity was a prehistoric equivalent of the Greek and Roman god of healing, Apollo.
          "Although his main sanctuary was at Delphi in Greece, it is widely believed that he left Greece in the winter months to reside in the land of the Hyborians — usually taken to be Britain.
          "With the incorporation of the stones from Wales, Stonehenge is a very powerful and positive place of pilgrimage."
          Prof Darvill believes those seeking to tap into the monument's powers should do so in December during the winter solstice when our ancestors believed it was occupied by Apollo.
          • WORLD'S OLDEST RITUAL DISCOVERED

            Mon, December 4, 2006 - 11:19 AM
            Author: The Research Council of Norway
            Published on Nov 30, 2006, 06:41
            **SEE PICTURES IN PHOTOS!

            A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that man's first rituals were carried out over 40,000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.

            Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind's oldest known ritual.

            The archaeologist made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.

            Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world.

            The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the "Mountains of the Gods" and the "Rock that Whispers".

            The python is one of the San's most important animals. According to their creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.

            Sheila Coulson's find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s.

            When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three master's students, it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.

            "You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving".

            They found no evidence that work had recently been done on the rock. In fact, much of the rock's surface was extensively eroded.

            When they saw the many indentations in the rock, the archaeologists wondered about more than when the work had been done. They also began thinking about what the cave had been used for and how long people had been going there. With these questions in mind, they decided to dig a test pit directly in front of the python stone.

            At the bottom of the pit, they found many stones that had been used to make the indentations. Together with these tools, some of which were more than 70,000 years old, they found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during the work.

            In the course of their excavation, they found more than 13,000 artifacts. All of the objects were spearheads and articles that could be connected with ritual use, as well as tools used in carving the stone. They found nothing else.

            As if that were not enough, the stones that the spearheads were made from are not from the Tsodilo region but must have been brought from hundreds of kilometers away.

            The spearheads are better crafted and more colourful than other spearheads from the same time and area. Surprisingly enough, it was only the red spearheads that had been burned.

            "Stone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site. Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed. All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a very special place in the pre-historic landscape." says Sheila Coulson.

            Sheila Coulson also noticed a secret chamber behind the python stone. Some areas of the entrance to this small chamber were worn smooth, indicating that many people had passed through it over the years.

            "The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber. He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect." The shaman could also have "disappeared" from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft.

            While large cave and wall paintings are numerous throughout the Tsodilo Hills, there are only two small paintings in this cave: an elephant and a giraffe. These images were rendered, surprisingly, exactly where water runs down the wall.

            Sheila Coulson thinks that an explanation for this might come from San mythology.

            In one San story, the python falls into a body of water and cannot get out by itself. The python is pulled from the water by a giraffe. The elephant, with its long trunk, is often used as a metaphor for the python.

            "In the cave, we find only the San people's three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe. That is unusual. This would appear to be a very special place. They did not burn the spearheads by chance. They brought them from hundreds of kilometers away and intentionally burned them. So many pieces of the puzzle fit together here. It has to represent a ritual." concludes Sheila Coulson.

            It was a major archaeological find five years ago that made it possible for Sheila Coulson to date the finds in this little cave in Botswana. Up until the turn of the century, archaeologists believed that human civilisation developed in Europe after our ancestors migrated from Africa. This theory was crushed by Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood when he published his find of traces from a Middle Stone Age dwelling in the Blombos Cave in Southern Cape, South Africa.

            © Copyright 2006 YubaNet.com
            • The Science of Reincarnation

              Mon, December 4, 2006 - 11:27 AM
              The Science of Reincarnation

              Salon.com interviews B. Alan Wallace former Buddhist monk and author of "Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge." Wallace sees the technologies of Buddhism as a bridge between science and faith. During the interview Wallace makes the case for the existence of both reincarnation and out-of-body experiences.

              "Well, here's the hypothesis. Your psyche emerged some time while you were in your mother's womb. It's continuing to evolve, and eventually it's going to implode back into the substrate, carry on as a disembodied continuum of consciousness and then reincarnate. There's the theory in a nutshell. Is that one testable? My short answer is yes, I think this is a testable hypothesis, and in principle it really should be able to be repudiated. But we're also looking for positive evidence."

              Wallace turns to two University of Virginia scientists to back up his claims to the (possible) reality of both phenomena, Bruce Greyson who has done work on the near-death experience, and Ian Stevenson, the founder of scientific research on reincarnation. While Greyson hasn't released any results of his studies, Stevenson has published two academic studies of possible proofs of reincarnation.

              "Ian Stevenson is now retired from the psych department. He's not a Buddhist, he wasn't a Hindu, and he didn't believe in reincarnation. Forty years ago he heard anecdotes of children maintaining that this wasn't their first life and giving detailed accounts of their alleged memories of past life experiences. So he started studying it. On a shoestring budget, he and a team of researchers did this for about 40 years...He scanned thousands of accounts of children, throwing out most of them because they were either false or the child could have heard about it from parents, relatives, television and so forth. He then selected 20 cases where the accounts given by the child wound up being true when they were subjected to objective corroboration. He couldn't see any way the child could have known this information. ..And then he did another 20 years of research and wrote another book..It showed the empirical findings of more cases of children giving these very detailed accounts of past life experiences. And usually they were not glorified, like I was Cleopatra or Einstein or somebody spectacular. No, [it was like,] I was a philanderer, and one of the husbands of the wives I had sex with shot me dead because I cuckolded him. So that's not very glamorous, but that was the recollection of one of these children. This is empirical evidence. It should be scrutinized rigorously, but not thrown out dogmatically. "

              Wallace dreams of a well-funded 20-year study on the matter. Though I don't think his only problem would be with the "dogmatic atheists" he worries about. There are plenty of monotheists out there who don't want to hear about proofs of phenomena outside their theology. Wallace also falls into the trap of equating "religion" with "monotheism" in his description of how Buddhism is different.

              "It's not just a religion. It's not theistic. It doesn't posit the existence of God as standing outside of creation, governing it, ruling it, punishing the wicked and rewarding the virtuous. It doesn't have any of that."

              Which is to say *his* Buddhism isn't theistic. Many practitioners of Buddhism (including the Buddha himself) haven't been shy about claiming the existence of gods and spirits. Non-theism in the Eastern mind is a different concept than in the Western (often Christian) mind. For many Buddhists non-theism means there isn't an all-powerful creator who punishes and controls, not that gods don't exist. Many modern Pagans could easily fit into a Buddhist cosmology. What Wallace means to say is that Buddhism isn't like the dominant monotheisms, but I think most of us already knew that. What Wallace calls for is for is a more polytheistic view of truth and the universe, something modern Pagans (and Buddhists) can surely get behind.
              • Transformation and awakening of humanity is the new grid of heart
                energy, pure love.

                This can only be grounded by human beings vibrating within this
                frequency range known as LOVE. We need to change the emotional
                weights we have been carrying and the vibration that makes us not
                want to face our imbalance. We need to come back to reality, this
                will raise our consciousness.

                It is time to remember who we are, not just your job or race
                (black, white, yellow or brown) or your religion. You are a unique
                aspect of evolving consciousness on the verge of a great dream that
                you have been waiting for a long time to achieve.

                It is called the AWAKENING. Don't let life's energy pull you back, it
                is time to be free and to create your own dream. Follow your own
                intuition and allow yourself to be who you are without the fears
                that have bound and imprisoned you.

                It is time to awaken the spirit within.

                May Peace and Harmony be your Guide, Grandfather Yellow Horse Man
                • As I prayed today, I could feel a great sadness coming from all
                  directions where we are allowing life's lessons and experiences to
                  control our spirit walk and our journey on Mother Earth. Of all that
                  is happening in this life, people are choosing to live in our past
                  whether it be from a broken heart from a relationship or one that was
                  filled with hurt or being brought up in a dysfunctional family or
                  even our own choices we have made that has caused hurt and pain to
                  others around us, even causing bodily harm from a decision we made.

                  Yet we know that no matter how hard we try, we can't change what has
                  already taken place. That is an experience of our past. What we can
                  change is how we are living today, going beyond the experience and
                  once again loving who you are. Knowing that this life is not forever
                  here, yet it is so important that we are able to heal our own heart.

                  We are now in the time of the Great Healing, where all over the world
                  people of all faiths are calling for Unconditional Love to spread
                  throughout Mother Earth. In order to bring the peace to all the world
                  we must heal our own hearts for many have allowed their anger to
                  cause themselves illness.

                  Don't be one who would rather die than change.
                  In each healing that takes place their is a new beginning sending out
                  the vibration of Love and Peace for the future. For now is the time
                  of the Great Healing for us all to believe in Great Spirit/Creator.
                  Our future depends upon our Love for ourselves, to be able to heal
                  every spirit is important to Creator. It is time to Feel the Great
                  Creator's Love.

                  "Messages from the Heart" by Grandfather Yellow Horse Man
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    GREETINGS FROM THE SPIRIT OF MA'AT

                    Wed, December 13, 2006 - 7:56 PM
                    Holiday Best Wishes

                    This Month: Prophecy

                    This issue features predictions, from shamans and other channeled
                    sources. It's interesting and fun. But let us ask ourselves, "Why do
                    we want to know?"

                    Articles fall into three categories: channeling the future,
                    spiritual considerations regarding Earth and human ascension, and
                    Russian Transformations.

                    However, one of the primary teachings of Ram Dass is to be aware of
                    your existence here and now, not somewhere else, in your head - "Be
                    Here Now." Be in the now, the only moment that really exists. It is
                    a monumental teaching.

                    www.spiritof maat.com/ archive/jan3/ index.html
    • Re: FIREBALLS

      Tue, December 5, 2006 - 8:36 AM
      Hello Sirene, Hope you are getting better.. I'll like to say a little word on all your posts but it's a lot! so no comments.. only this one for now.
      Thank you for keeping us up to date with Astronomy. It is very important in our daily life and it is more friendly that thru an "astronomy" tribe.
      Yes, I saw once or twice, (because i'm a great night sky watcher,) fireballs, really big, entering my sight and litteraly disappear on the horizon.
      It is really scary when you see this thing from far away getting bigger and bigger. ... did you try my french sauce?
      • SOLAR ACTIVITY IN DECEMBER

        Thu, December 7, 2006 - 10:08 PM
        SOLAR ACTIVITY: Big sunspot 930 continues to be a source of strong
        solar activity. The active region has produced two X-class flares and
        several lesser flares since it appeared only two days ago. Forecasters
        estimate a 50% chance of another X-flare during the next 24 hours.

        Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hurled into space by the blasts of Dec.
        5th and 6th will not hit Earth head-on. Why not? Because the sunspot
        was near the sun's eastern limb and thus not facing Earth at the time
        of the explosions. However, we could experience glancing blows from the
        CMEs, producing high-latitude geomagnetic storms in the nights ahead.
        Northern sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.

        Visit
        spaceweather.com
        to view photographs of the recent
        explosions and to listen to radio sounds from the X6-flare of Dec. 6th.

        REMINDER: Don't forget to set your alarm. Jupiter, Mercury and Mars
        are converging to make a pretty triangle in the dawn sky. The action
        begins on December 8th and climaxes on Dec. 10th when the two brightest
        vertices of the celestial triangle, Jupiter and Mercury, will be less
        than a quarter of a degree apart. Visit
        spaceweather.com
        for observing tips and sky maps.
        • POWERFUL MAGNETIC STORM APPROACHES THE EARTH

          Wed, December 13, 2006 - 8:00 PM
          Huge Electromagnetic Storm Brewing
          Started on December 8th
          We all heard about the solar flare in space affecting the astronauts right?
          Check out the story and Pictures here:
          www.kommersant.com/p728532/...ic_Storm/
          • HEALING WITH A HANDFUL OF DIRT AND A MARLBORO

            Wed, December 13, 2006 - 9:15 PM
            by Freya Ray

            “Hey, we’ve got a healing crisis on our hands!”

            “What kind?”

            “Well, she went into the sweat lodge just fine. When she came out, she started spontaneously expelling a demon, speaking in tongues — that sort of thing. You should hear the spooky growling voice she’s using.”

            “Has she puked yet?”

            “Yup – kinda nasty dribbly stuff. While rocking back and forth on all fours.”

            “Got it. Let’s see … I’ve got a bottle of Evian, a bunch of dirt and twigs and a pack of Marlboros. Yes. We can do this. Let the healing begin.”

            I’m not really kidding. Of course, in the moment I don’t think it’s funny, as I am honestly scrounging around for what I can use to help someone desperately in need of help. Later, though, I can’t seem to resist the urge to find my entire spiritual practice hilarious.

            Kitchen witching, pulling a McGyver, using mundane tools for sacred pagan purposes – whatever you want to call it, it works and sometimes it’s all you’ve got.

            Some Situations Just Require Improvising

            I have a Portable Witch Kit.™ Who doesn’t? It’s full of all the cool things I might want should I find myself in a Situation. A Situation could be any of the following:

            · Sweat lodge, healing circle, or ritual fallout

            · Someone’s living life a little too intensely and is frying on the energy

            · Someone went and got themselves a demon, or a demon-ette (crud, guck, negative energy, that gray spot on their heart chakra)

            · A breakup

            · Psychic attack (see breakup)

            · “Stuff” is up (childhood abuse issues, abandonment stuff, addictive patterns)

            · There’s a sudden opening — a sweet spot, a softening in someone’s armor — that would allow some healing work to be done

            · Past lives are rearing their ugly heads

            · “Look! It’s an implant! Quick, let’s get it!”

            I’d love to say I have my Witch Kit with me at all times, but it’s just not possible. I mean, first of all, it’s sort of unwieldy. It’s a small canvas bag, and an entire fishing tackle box of crystals. And even though the canvas bag by itself is fairly small, it’s not sturdy. It’s a precarious concoction including a glass candle; various bottles of things like Florida Water, Rescue Remedy and magickal massage oil; charcoal pellets; dragon’s blood; and a big honkin’ shell with sage in various stages of burnt in it, wrapped in a dish towel. The shell balances on top of the candle, but not well enough to rattle around in my car all the time. Besides, I like to have the shell out on an altar at home, so the whole bag has a tendency to get half-unpacked and then repacked when I need it.

            Let’s look again at the list above and consider how many of these Situations would allow me to run home, assemble my kit, and come back. Hmm… that’s not an option. Much of the time, healing is like a first kiss. You seize the moment or the chance moves on and you’re “just friends” forever.

            Tools to Consider

            You have the whole world at your disposal. What sorts of things can be turned to your evile witchy purposes?

            Dirt

            When I teach healing with energy work, I ask my students in the tools class, “I can think of six ways off the top of my head to heal someone with dirt. How many can you come up with?” They start throwing out ideas, and it goes on for more than six every class. You can use mud to draw out toxins, make a fetish, hold a handful in your hand and put energy you want to get rid of in it and then throw it away, you can bury things in it, you can put your hands or body on it to ground, etc. It’s almost always available to you (even indoors – I’ve grounded out excess energy into a houseplant’s soil). Same thing with rocks and twigs, should you find yourself outside.

            My favorite grounding ritual: lay face down on the dirt and give it back to Mama. One time a boyfriend and I were fighting, and he told me later, “I was so mad and I was crying and I went out in the yard and laid on the grass, and then I remembered it was you who taught me that and I was even more pissed at you.” Ha! Useful technique trumps current attitude about teacher. Doesn’t get better than that.

            Tobacco

            Of course when working with tobacco we’d all prefer to have a nice pouch of Drum or a fine Cuban cigar rolled on the thighs of virgins. All smoke has powerful smudging properties, and tobacco is unique in its flavor. In the right hands, it’s completely different from sage or sweetgrass or dragon’s blood or Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol or cinnamon or any of the other things you might burn for the smoke.

            However, when you can’t have the best, any old crap-ass menthol will do. Honest. Just don’t inhale. Pull smoke just into your mouth and then puff it out onto the area you want to clear. For yourself, pull it into your mouth and then puff it out into your cupped hand. Use your hand to pull it where you need it – heart and crown chakras being the most common places.

            Water

            Use that bottle of Evian! Water need not come from the Glastonbury Spring nor be buried by Rumi-chanting elves under the light of the Full Moon in order to be sacred. Wave a blessing its direction and put it to good use. Water can be used to help flush stuff out of someone’s system — that’s why massage therapists tell you to drink lots after a massage. You can use it to wash things out of your aura — add cider vinegar, sea salt, or Epsom salts, and it’s even more powerful. Water can be used to anoint, to gently bless. You don’t have sage handy? Throw them in the lake, or the bathtub!

            Throw Something Away

            So one time, at this festival, I had the opportunity to be the recipient of the combined healer energy from a Vicky Noble healing class. She was looking for volunteers for the group to practice on, and I happened to have a very groovy lump growing out of the side of my neck. Turns out the healing circle had zero effect on the lump (that benign cyst required surgery), but it was my ticket to some massive amounts of transformative energy that I desperately needed.

            After this circle, I found myself standing in a doorway. My energy was stirred, shaken, massively bedrock disturbed. I needed to move it, fast, before I imploded. I was dancing at an outdoor performance, barefoot in a dustbowl surrounded by other festivalgoers. It came to me that I had to walk through that doorway naked and alone. Alone was easy — strangers who weren’t paying any attention to me surrounded me. Naked, well, that meant my jewelry.

            I was wearing a little goddess in my ear, with a dangling amethyst crystal. I had on a string of rose quartz beads. There were toe rings. There was a silver fairy pendant, a gift from my sister, around my neck. I was wearing my juju! These things were all doing particular magickal jobs: balancing my energy, invoking the other realities I was learning to dance through, giving me rose quartz teddy bear love, and importantly — advertising to other baby witches that I was a proud new member of the clan. Naked. These things were performing functions, but they were also locking me into my previous energetic matrix. They were holding the vibrations of who I had been before Vicky Noble coordinated the energies of forty healers, all pointed at me. Although now, 10 years later, I can still tell you which pretty things I let go of, I can also tell you it was an easy decision. No deep thought was required at all. I just started stripping things off and hurling them into the woods.

            The best was the rose quartz. I snapped the string and pulled the beads loose. I dropped them into the dirt. Then I danced them into the dust with my bare feet.

            I was free. I walked through the door.

            Should you find yourself in a Situation, look at what else is there with you. Is there some talisman that is holding on to what you seek to release? Can you or the person you’re working with be persuaded to throw or give it away?

            Bring in a Little Sweetness

            A friend brought a friend over to my house, and one thing led to another in the way things do. Next thing you know, I’m deep in energy work with the friend of my friend. After much excitement and an impressive display of our healing talent and her willingness to heal, things were settling into a quiet, wrapping up mood.

            My friend and I settled on either side of our healing victim. I felt so strongly that she needed to know the sweetness of sisterhood. She needed to know, all through her, that she was loved and cherished.

            I fetched the honey. I put a single drop on her tongue, while my friend and I held her and let her know she was loved. The honey communicated this message to her body on a level we couldn’t reach. I know it made an impression — I got several letters from this woman who had been a stranger a few hours before.

            Puking is Your Friend

            Never underestimate the value of puking. Both for you and for the person you’re helping. I mean, sure, there are nice, controlled Reiki types who make it through their entire healing careers without yakking their guts up on behalf of a client. Bless their hearts; I’m sure it must be wonderful.

            I’m a shamanic type, though. I don’t get the luxury of standing off at a distance waving my arms around. I mean, sure, I wave my arms around (and yell and bite and whatever it takes), but I’m also directly involved in the crap coming out of someone. There’s a reason why I don’t do much healing work. I can’t avoid it all the time, though, and puking can be great.

            When removing junk from someone, one technique is to suck it out of them. Now this is like siphoning gas from a car. (Anyone tried this recently as the prices keep going up?) You need to start sucking, and then get your mouth off the tube before you get a mouthful of toxic death. Same exact principle with energetic guck. You do a Clinton Inhale™(or a We’re Already Married Swallow™— pick your metaphor). Suck into your mouth, and then spit it out real quick.

            If you’re a shamanic, full-body sort of healer like me, sometimes stripping stuff off with your hands isn’t enough. You have to suck it out instead. Two problems: Sometimes you don’t spit quickly enough, and sometimes the guck is extra wily and gloms onto you anyway.

            What do you do then? Puke. If you’re lucky, you can do some meaningful dry heaving and call it good. If you’re not, sometimes you just have to use the full physical metaphor to get that crap you just ingested right back out of you.

            If you’re dumb enough to add this sucking technique to your repertoire (or are already stuck with it — it’s not really something you choose), please remember one thing: If you have the urge to gak, don’t fight it. You will really regret it if you work to keep someone else’s demon-nasty slime-trail inside you. The short-term pain of throwing up is a thousand times better than the long-term pain of trying to find another sucker (oops! I mean healer) to get it out of you.

            On the other side of the healer equation, puking can be good for the one being healed, too. If they’ve got the nasty in them and they’re trying to expel it themselves, encourage them to follow their urge. You’ll see them going green around the edges or perhaps retching a bit. Let them know that this can be an effective way to move energy, and they should go with it rather than fight it.

            The body knows. If it can move the energy out with just a little mucous, it will do so. If it needs to go throw up for half an hour, it will do that.

            Other Special Techniques

            All right, I’m finished being disgusting. What else do you have at your disposal besides your digestive tract? Hands, breath, voice, warmth, the rest of your body. When helping someone move energy, I have wrapped myself around them and rocked them, using that instinctive child-like rhythm to help sort things out to where they needed to be. I have used my breath to blow things away or move them around. The voice is wonderful for toning (you and/or the recipient), doing a kung-fu cry to break up stuck guck, or telling a story about the energy leaving (guided visualization).

            The hands are magick. With nothing but your hands, you can pull energy out, put energy in, balance chakras, smooth someone’s brow, or hold their hand. You can fix, heal, support, and love.

            What else could you need?

            • SANTAS WISDOM TO PAGANS

              Wed, December 13, 2006 - 9:20 PM
              Author unknown

              We had a nice, serene kind of Solstice Circle. No jingling bells or faked-out Christmas Carols. Soon after the last coven member left, Jack was ready to pack it in.

              "The baby's nestled all snug in her bed," he said with a yawn, "I think I'll go settle in for a long winter's nap."

              I heaved a martyred sigh. He grinned unrepentantly, kissed me, called me a grinch, and went to bed. I stayed up and puttered around the house, trying to unwind. I sifted through the day's mail, ditched the flyers urging us to purchase all the Seasonal Joy we could afford or charge.

              I opened the card from his parents. Another sermonette: a manger scene and a bible verse, with a handwritten note expressing his mother's fervent hope that God's love and Christmas spirit would fill our hearts in this blessed season. She means well, really. I amused myself by picking out every Pagan element I could find in the card.

              When the mail had been sorted, I got up and started turning our ritual room back into a living room. As if the greeting card had carried a virus, I found myself humming Christmas carols. I turned on the classic rock station, but they were playing that Lennon-Ono Christmas song. I switched stations. The weatherman assured me that there was only a twenty percent chance of snow. Then, by Loki, the deejay let Bruce Springsteen insult my ears crooning, "yah better watch out, yah better not pout." I tried the Oldies station. Elvis lives, and he does Christmas songs. Okay, fine. We'll do classical ~ no, we won't. They're playing Handel's Messiah. Maybe the community radio station would have something secular humanist.

              "Ahora, escucharemos a Jose Feliciano canta `Feliz Navidad'."

              I was getting annoyed. The radio doesn't usually get this saturated with holiday mush until the twenty-fourth.

              "This is too weird." I said to the radio, "Cut that crap out."

              The country station had some Kenny Rogers Christmas tune, the first rock station had gone from John and Yoko's Christmas song to Simon and Garfunkel's "Silent Night," and the other rock station still had Springsteen reliving his childhood. "--I'm tellin' you why. Santa Claus is comin' to town!" he bellowed.

              I was about to pick out a nice secular CD when there was a knock at the door.

              Now, it could have been a coven member who'd forgotten something. It could have been someone with car trouble. It could have been any number of things, but it certainly couldn't have been a stout guy in a red suit--snowy beard, rosy cheeks, and all--backed by eight reindeer and a sleigh. I blinked, wondered crazily where Rudolph was, and blinked again. There were nine reindeer. Our twenty-percent chance of snow had frosted the dead grass and was continuing to float down in fat flakes.

              "Hi, Frannie." he said warmly, "I've missed you."

              "I'm stone cold sober, and you don't exist."

              He looked at me with a mixture of sorrow and compassion and sighed heavily.

              "That's why I miss you, Frannie. Can I come in? We need to talk."

              I couldn't quite bring myself to slam the door on this vision, hallucination, or whatever. So I let him in, because that made more sense then letting all the cold air in while I argued with someone who wasn't there.

              As he stepped in, a thought crossed my mind about various entities needing an invitation to get in houses. He flashed me a smile that would melt the polar caps.

              "Don't you miss Christmas, Frannie?"

              "No." I said flatly, "Apparently you don't see me when I'm sleeping and waking these days. I haven't been Christian for years."

              "Oh, now don't let that stop you. We both know this holiday's older than that. Yule trees and Saturnalia and here-comes-the- sun, doodoodendoodoo. "

              I raised an eyebrow at the Beatles reference, then gave him my standard sermonette on the appropriation and adulteration that made Christmas no longer a Pagan holiday. I had done my homework. I listed centuries, I named names--St.Nicholas among them.

              "In the twentieth century version," I assured him, "Christmas is two parts crass commercialism mixed with one part blind faith in a religion I rejected years ago." I gave him my best lines, the ones that had convinced my coven to abstain from Christmassy clichés. My hallucination sat in Jack's favorite chair, nodding patiently at me.

              "And you," I added nastily,"come here talking about ancient customs when you--in your current form--were invented in the nineteenth century by, um...Clement C. Moore."

              He laughed, a rolling, belly-deep chuckle unlike any department- store Santa I'd ever heard.

              "Of course I change my form now and then to suit fashion. Don't you? And does that stop you from being yourself?" He said, and asked me if I remembered Real Magic, by Isaac Bonewits.

              I gaped at him for a moment, then caught myself. "This is like `Labyrinth', right? I'm having a dream that pretends to be real, but is only made from pieces of things in my memory. You don't look a thing like David Bowie."

              "Bonewits has this Switchboard Theory." Santa went on amiably, "The energy you put into your beliefs influences the real existence of the archetypal-- oh,

              let me put it simpler: "in the beginning, Man created God'. Ian Anderson."

              He lit a long-stemmed pipe. The tobacco had a mild and somehow Christmassy smell, and every puff sent up a wreath of smoke. "I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than Bonewits tells it, but that's close enough for mortals. Are you with me so far?"

              "Oh, sure." I lied as unconvincingly as possible.

              Santa sighed heavily.

              "When's the last time you left out hot tea and cookies for me?"

              "When I figured out my parents were eating them."

              "Frannie, Frannie. Remember pinda balls, from Hinduism?"

              "Rice balls left as offerings for ancestors and gods."

              "Do Hindus really believe that the ancestors and gods eat pinda balls?"

              "All right, y'got me there. They say that spirits consume the spiritual essence, then mortals can have what's left."

              "Mm-hm." Santa smiled at me compassionately through his snowy beard.

              I rallied quickly. "What about the toys? I know for a fact they aren't made by you and a bunch of non-union Elves."

              "Oh, that's quite true. Manufacturing physical objects out of magical energy is terribly expensive and breaks several laws of Nature--She only allows us to do that on special occasions. It certainly couldn't be done globally and annually. Now, the missus and the Elves and I really do have a shop at the North Pole. Not the sort of thing the Air Force would ever find. What we make up there is what makes this time a holiday, no matter what religion it's called."

              "Don't tell me," I said, rolling my eyes, "you make the sun come back."

              "Oh my, no. The solar cycle stuff, the Reason For The Season, isn't my department. My part is making it a holiday. We make a mild, non-addictive psychedelic thing called Christmas spirit. Try some."

              He dipped his fingers in a pocket and tossed red-gold-green- silver glitter at

              me. I could have ducked. I don't know why I didn't.

              It smelled like snow and pine needles, and cedar chips in the fireplace. It smelled like fruitcake, cornbread savory herbal stuffing, like that foamy white stuff you spray on the window with stencils. It felt like a crisp wind, Grandma's hugs, fuzzy new mittens, pine needles scrunching under my slippers. I saw twinkle lights, mistletoe in the doorway, smiling faces from years gone by.

              Several Christmas carols played almost simultaneously in a kind of medley. I fought my way back to my living room and glared sternly at the hallucination in Jack's chair.

              "Fun stuff. Does the DEA know about this?"

              "Oh, Frannie. Why are you such a hard case? I told you it's non-addictive and has no harmful side effects. Would Santa Claus lie to you?"

              I opened my mouth and closed it again. We looked at each other a while.

              "Can I have some more of that glittery stuff?"

              "Mmmm. I think you need something stronger. Try a sugarplum."

              I tasted rum ball. Peppermint. Those hard candies with the picture all the way through. Mama's favorite fudge. A chorus line of Christmas candies danced through my mouth. The Swedish Angel Chimes, run on candle power, say tingatingatingating . Mama, with a funny smile, promised to give Santa my letter.

              Greeting cards taped on the refrigerator door. We rode through the tree farm on a straw-filled trailer pulled by a red and green tractor, looking for a perfect pine. It was so big, Daddy had to cut a bit off so the star wouldn't scrape the ceiling. Lights, ornaments, tinsel. Daddy lifted me up to the mantle to hang my stocking. My dolls stayed up to see Santa Claus, and in the morning they all had new clothes. Grandma carried in platters with the world's biggest Christmas dinner. Joey's Christmas puppy chased my Christmas kitten up the tree and it would have fallen over but Daddy held it while Mama got the kitten out. Daddy said every bad word there was but he kept laughing anyway. I sneaked my favorite plastic horse into the nativity scene, between the camels and the donkey.

              I came back to reality slowly, with a silly smile on my face and a tickly

              feeling behind my eyes like they wanted to cry. The phrase "visions of sugarplums" took on a whole new meaning.

              "How long has it been," Santa asked, "since you played with a nativity set?-"

              "But it symbolizes-- "

              "The winter-born king. The sacred Mother and her sun-child. Got a problem with that? You could redecorate it with pentagrams if you like, they'll look fine. As for the Christianization, I've heard who you invoke at Imbolc."

              "But Bridgid was a Goddess for centuries before the Catholic Church-oh." I crossed my arms and tried to glare at him, but failed. "You're a sneaky old Elf, y'know?"

              "The term is `jolly old Elf.' Care for another sugarplum?"

              I did. I tasted gingerbread. My first nip of soy eggnog the way the grown-ups drink it. Fresh sugar cookies, shaped like trees and decked with colored frosting. Dad had been laid off, but we managed a lot of cheer. They told us Christmas would be "slim pickings." Joey and I smiled bravely when Mama brought home that spindly spruce. We loaded down our "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" with every light and ornament it could hold. Popcorn and cranberry strings for the outdoor trees. Mistletoe in the hall: plastic mistletoe, real kisses. Joey and I snipped and glued and stitched and painted treasures to give as presents.

              We agonized over our "Santa" letters...by now we knew where the goodies came from, and we tried to compromise between what we longed for and they thought they could afford. Every day we hoped the factory would reopen. When Joey's dog ate my mitten, I wasn't brave. I knew that meant I'd get mittens for Christmas, and one less toy. I cried.

              On December twenty-fifth we opened our presents ve-ery slo-wly, drawing out the experience. We made a show of cheer over our socks and shirts and meager haul of toys. I got red mittens. We could tell Mama and Daddy were proud of us for being so brave, because they were grinning like crazy.

              "Go out to the garage for apples." Mama told us, "We'll have apple pancakes."

              I don't remember having the pancakes. There was a dollhouse in the garage. No mass-produced aluminum thing but a homemade plywood dollhouse with wall-papered walls and real curtains and thread-spool chairs. My dolls were inside, with newly sewn clothes. Joey was on his knees in front of a plywood barn with hay in the loft. His old farm implements had new paint. Our plastic animals were corralled in Popsicle stick fences. The garage smelled like apples and hay, the cement was bone-chilling under my slippers, and I was crying.

              My knees were drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped around them. My chest felt tight, like ice cracking in sunshine. Santa offered me a huge white handkerchief. When all the ice in my chest had melted, he cleared his

              throat. He was pretty misty-eyed, too.

              "Want to come sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas?"

              "You've already given it to me." But I sat on his lap anyway, and kissed his rosy cheek until he did his famous laugh.

              "I'd better go now, Frannie. I have other stops to make, and you have work to do."

              "Right. I'd better pop the corn tonight, it strings best when it's stale."

              I let him out the door. The reindeer were pawing impatiently at the

              moon-kissed new-fallen snow. I'd swear Rudolph winked at me.

              "Don't forget the hot tea and cookies."

              "Right. Uh, December twenty-fourth, or Solstice, or what?"

              He shrugged. "Whatever night you expect me, I'll be there. Eh, don't wait up.

              Visits like this are tightly rationed. Laws of Nature, y'know, and She's strict with them."

              "Gotcha. Thanks, Santa." I kissed his cheek again. "Happy Holidays."

              The phrase had a nice, non-denominational ring to it. I thought I'd call my parents and in-laws soon and try it out on them.

              Santa laid his finger aside of his nose and nodded.

              "Blessed be, Frannie."

              The sleigh soared up, and Santa really did exclaim something. It sounded like old German. Smart-aleck Elf.

              When I closed the door, the radio was playing Jethro Tull's "Solstice Bells."
              • Imagining the Tenth Dimension (Short Video) MUST SEE

                Wed, December 13, 2006 - 10:00 PM
                "Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space"
                by Rob Bryanton
                Click here:
                www.tenthdimension.com/
                • BEST METEOR SHOWER OF THE YEAR THURSDAY DECEMBER 14

                  Wed, December 13, 2006 - 10:18 PM
                  "It's the Geminid meteor shower," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama. "Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13th, around 9 p.m. local time," he advises. "The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14th, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute."
                  The best meteor shower of the year peaks this week on Thursday, Dec. 14th.
                  Click here for article and pictures:
                  science.nasa.gov/headlines...minids.htm
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    THE FESTIVAL OF KWANZAA

                    Mon, December 18, 2006 - 11:42 AM
                    Kwanzaa is a 7 day festival celebrating the African American people, their culture and their history. It is a time of celebration, community gathering, and reflection. A time of endings and beginnings. Kwanzaa begins on December 26th, the day after Christmas, and continues until New Years Day, January 1st.

                    Each evening a family member, usually the youngest child, lights candles in a special candleholder and discusses one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. On the sixth day, which falls on New Years Eve, family and friends get together to enjoy a large feast and to celebrate their history, culture, and the upcoming new year.

                    The holiday of Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, during the period of US history in which African Americans were involved in struggles for their civil rights. This was the period of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights movement, and Black Power.

                    Dr. Karenga wanted to create a holiday that would bring African Americans together in celebration of their black culture. He was inspired by the "first fruit" or harvest festivals that were celebrated throughout Africa. In fact the name he gave to the holiday, "Kwanzaa," comes from the Kiswahili phrase for "first fruit" - matunda ya kwanza. (Kiswahili, or Swahili, is the largest spoken language on the African continent and thus the language of Kwanzaa). When Dr. Karenga chose the word "kwanza" for the name of his festival he added the extra "a" at the end to give the word greater significance.

                    Dr. Karenga used these first fruit festivals as his model for Kwanzaa because they shared characteristics which he felt were important. These characteristics were:

                    * The people gathered together to celebrate their crops and harvest
                    * The people would give thanks to their Creator for a good harvest and life.
                    * They would remember and celebrate their ancestors and the past.
                    * They allowed the people to recommit themselves to their community.
                    * They celebrated their history, culture, Creator, and the promise of the next year.

                    It was these characteristics that inspired Dr. Karenga when he developed the Nguzo Saba, or Seven Principles, of Kwanzaa. (Nguzo Saba is Kiswahili for "Seven Principles") These principles are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. These are the foundation of Kwanzaa.
                    The dates of the celebration, December 26 - January 1, were chosen to correspond to the end of the year celebrations in America. Kwanzaa begins the day after Christmas. This to bypass the commercial buying period but to take advantage of the seasonal holiday spirit.

                    The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa

                    The foundation of Kwanzaa are the Seven Principles, or Nguzo Saba. When Dr. Karenga created the celebration of Kwanzaa he wanted to reflect the best qualities and characteristics of the "first fruit" or harvest festivals that were celebrated throughout Africa. It was these qualities that established the Nguzo Saba, or Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. (Nguzo Saba is Kiswahili for Seven Principles)

                    The Seven Principles (Nguzo Saba) of Kwanzaa are:

                    * Umoja (oo-MOH-jah) : Unity
                    Success starts with Unity. Unity of family, community, nation and race.
                    * Kujichagulia (koo-jee-chah- goo-LEE-ah) : Self-Determination
                    To be responsible for ourselves. To create your own destiny.
                    * Ujima (oo-JEE-mah) : Collective work and responsibility
                    To build and maintain your community together. To work together to help one another within your community.
                    * Ujamaa (oo-jah-MAH) : Collective economics
                    To build, maintain, and support our own stores, establishments, and businesses.
                    * Nia (NEE-ah): Purpose
                    To restore African American people to their traditional greatness. To be responsible to Those Who Came Before (our ancestors) and to Those Who Will Follow (our descendants) .
                    * Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) : Creativity
                    Using creativity and imagination to make your communities better than what you inherited.
                    * Imani (ee-MAH-nee) : Faith
                    Believing in our people, our families, our educators, our leaders, and the righteousness of the African American struggle.

                    More on Kwanzaa

                    Kwanzaa: A Season of Celebration,
                    Meditation and Recommitment
                    www.official kwanzaawebsite. org/

                    Kwanzaa Information Center
                    www.melanet. com/kwanzaa/ about_toc. html

                    EVERYTHING ABOUT KWANZAA
                    www.tike. com/celeb- kw.htm

                    DEFINITION OF KWANZAA Kwanzaa is a unique African American celebration with focus on the traditional African values of family, community responsibility, commerce, and self-improvement. Kwanzaa is neither political nor religious and despite some misconceptions, is not a substitute for Christmas. It is simply a time of reaffirming African-American people, their ancestors and culture. Kwanzaa, which means "first fruits of the harvest" in the African language Kiswahili, has gained tremendous acceptance. Since its founding in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa has come to be observed by more than18 million people worldwide, as reported by the New York Times. When establishing Kwanzaa in 1966, Dr. Karenga included an additional "a" to the end of the spelling to reflect the difference between the African American celebration (kwanzaa) and the Motherland spelling (kwanza).

                    "Messages sometimes arrive on our doorstep when least expected. We can ignore them, dispute them or listen to them. Life is a series of choices. Our job is to make the right choices at the right times."
                    • EMPATH~

                      Fri, February 15, 2008 - 8:46 AM
                      What is Empathy?
                      Empathy is the ability to read and understand people and be in-tune
                      with or resonate with others, voluntarily or involuntarily of one's
                      empath capacity.

                      Empaths have the ability to scan another's psyche for thoughts and
                      feelings or for past, present, and future life occurrences. Many
                      empaths are unaware of how this actually works, and have long
                      accepted that they were ìsensitiveî to others.

                      Empathy is a feeling of another's true emotions to a point where an
                      empath can relate to that person by sensing true feelings that run
                      deeper than those portrayed on the surface. People commonly put on a
                      ìshowî of expression. This is a learned trait of hiding authentic
                      expression in an increasingly demanding society.

                      An empath can sense the truth behind the cover and will act
                      compassionately to help that person express him/herself, thus making
                      them feel at ease and not so desperately alone.

                      Empaths experience empathy towards family, children, friends, close
                      associates, complete strangers, pets, plants and inanimate objects.
                      Empathy is not held by time or space. Thus, an empath can feel the
                      emotions of people and things at a distance. Some are empathic
                      towards animals (ie: The Horse Whisperer), to nature, to the
                      planetary system, to mechanical devices or to buildings etc. Others
                      will have a combination of the above.

                      Empaths are highly sensitive. This is the term commonly used in
                      describing one's abilities (sensitivity) to another's emotions and
                      feelings. Empaths have a deep sense of ìknowingî that accompanies
                      empathy and are often compassionate, considerate, and understanding
                      of others.

                      There are also varying levels of strength in empaths which may be
                      related to the individualís awareness of self, understanding of the
                      powers of empathy, and/or the acceptance or non-acceptance of
                      empathy by those associated with them, including family and peers.
                      Generally, those who are empathic grow up with these tendencies and
                      do not learn about them until later in life.

                      Empathy is genetic, inherent in our DNA, and passed from generation
                      to generation. It is studied both by traditional science and
                      alternative healing practitioners.

                      Empathy has both biological/genetic and spiritual aspects.

                      Empaths often possess the ability to sense others on many different
                      levels. From their position in observing what another is saying,
                      feeling and thinking, they come to understand another. They can
                      become very proficient at reading another personís body language
                      and/or study intently the eye movements. While this in itself is not
                      empathy, it is a side-shoot that comes from being observant of
                      others. In a sense, empaths have a complete communication package.

                      While there is much we don't yet understand about how empathy works,
                      we do have some information. Everything has an energetic vibration
                      or frequency and an empath is able to sense these vibrations and
                      recognize even the subtlest changes undetectable to the naked eye or
                      the five senses.

                      From Christel Broederlow
  • oh wow.. so sorry to post a "comment" so late. hehehehe
    After reading a bit down i thought i'd post a basic definition of what a Leonid is.
    A Leonid is a trail left behind by the reoccuring comet, Tempel-Tuttle which was finally discoverd by an astronomer on December 19 1865. The Earth's orbit passes through this trail, as well as many other trails, and it can be seen by humans about every 33 years. The Visual strength is based on the comet's mass, speed, age (age of trail) etc etc ...
    Since this is all happening in Outer Space, These trails can last forever. and many of them are recharged if the comet is reoccurring. In Wikipedia it says: The stream comprises solid particles, known as meteoroids, erected by the comet as its frozen gases evaporate under the heat of the Sun which begins to warm the comet as it comes within the orbit of Jupiter. The Leonid meteor storm of 1833 was truly of superlative strength. One Person estimated over one hundred thousand meteors an hour over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It was marked by the Native Americans, slaves and their owners, and many others. It was, in a word, un-ignorable. Many thought it was the end of the world! Everyone thought this amazing shower disappeared forever at the end of the 19th Century. But, it finally appeared again in 1966, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002.
    Im not sure but i think that eventually other occurrences of activity in space affects these trails and many of the objects are independently moved off course therefore changing much of what we can know of them.

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