By Ethan Indigo Smith

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

I recently left the steadiness of California to embark on a continental book tour. I, like any writer I suppose, have untapped reservoirs of hope rooted in the conviction that I can change the world, so I left the mountains, my friends – everything I’ve known for many years – in a van packed with only the most basic sustenance – food, books and a sweet but demanding canine.

Traveling across the country offers a unique observation point into society’s wells and ills. And from this new liberating perspective, as an outside observer, it soon became apparent that we have essentially become a culture based on ideals and practices of separation.

This enlightenment that you seek so adamantly comes down to your forgetting yourself. You have been a big topic in your life. You have been the all-time topic. You have seen everything through near-sighted eyes, as if all the Sun’s rays were directed at you, or should have been directed at you.

Becoming enlightened means you forget yourself. You forget self-centeredness. No longer is your life about who said what to you and how what they said made you feel. Heavens, no. You gain a broader perspective. You surpass your self-identity. Your self-imposed identity is so precious to you, it holds you back. You are in a cycle you don’t know how to get out from. You feel so low that you make yourself high, and you depend upon others to do this for you. Watch out.

In this new state of consciousness that you so desire, you find more of your Self, not that inky-dinky personality that demands its due. Your present identification with your little self has another name – let’s face it -- it is called ego.

Enlightenment doesn’t mean everything goes your way, for now you have no investment in your way. You have traded your tiny way for My Vision. You have traded your will for Mine. Whatever you may expect enlightenment to be, it doesn’t mean that now you are supreme. Yes, you reached a peak, yet there is further to go.

Christina Sarich, Natural Society
Waking Times

Is big biotech immune to everything?

What’s an intentional mutation? Nothing more than a fancy technological phrase which describes a new way that biotech is getting around regulatory approval for genetically modified crops.

Scientists have already created ‘designer monkeys’ by orchestrating precise genetic mutations. The same technology used to achieve this feat more than ten years ago is now being used by companies like Scott’s (of famed and failed GMO grass) to create genetically modified food without the oversight of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) or of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Jack Storms, an artist out of Los Angeles, creates absolutely stunning glass sculptures using the Fibonacci Ratio. More on that in a moment.

Jack was a student and a scholar growing up in New Hampshire, but he wouldn’t discovery his passion for art until quite a while later. Jack graduated with a BA in Art from Plymouth State University and set to work making these stunning glass sculptures. From the youtube description:

The intense cold-glass process which can take up to 24 weeks for each contemporary glass sculpture to come to life begins at the heart of the design, by creating a core of lead crystal which is cut, polished and laminated creating reflective mirrors...