- Truth
The Contentment Habit
By Leo Babauta | Zen Habits
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I’ll admit I do it as much as anyone else: see the cool things that others are doing and wish I were doing something cool like that too.
You see great travel photos on Instagram and other social media — people living amazing lives, creating cool things, going on adventures. And instantly, there’s the thought that you should...
By Steve Nobel
Our ego mind prefers safety, routine, and the status quo. It does not want us to step too far out of the front door into anything too new or different. On the other hand, our essential self wants us to stretch, grow, shed what is unnecessary or heavy, and explore this life more fully.
A transition begins with an impulse from the soul to see new terrains and new horizons. We grow, become lighter, and see the world afresh by taking a step into the scary unknown. In a smooth transition, the desire to experience the adventure eventually outweighs the resistance, and thus the adventure begins. We leave behind an old life and move towards something new: we resign from the job to travel the world; we leave a long-standing stuck relationship and let our hair down and explore being on our own again; we move out of the city and experience living somewhere remote and different; we give up the 9 to 5 rat race and start our own business.
It is yours, it has always been yours and it will always be yours. Unconditional love cannot be taken, only turned away. ~ Creator
Ida Lawrence, Contributor
Waking Times
Peaceful, wholly contained moments: sometimes they come to us while in nature, sometimes when family is in ‘sync’, sometimes within an embrace. It’s as if a blessing descends, we’re in our body, and the body knows that everything is perfect: we feel uplifted and at home in an expanded, balanced center. “I am here, my heart is happy, this is real, love is here, and it’s eternal.”
As you might guess, we’re starting out with the ‘perfect moment’ because I recently enjoyed one. My six-year-old granddaughter was visiting, and for about an hour, daddy and a bunch of uncles were helping her play with some new, funny ‘sticky’ blocks. When the clowning around was over, I left the room for a bit, and returned to see an entirely different picture: she was engrossed in music with one of the uncles. I watched as they listened to the Japanese drums, then the didgeridoo, then the African drums.
15-year-old Angelo Casimiro, from the Philippines, has recently made international news with a new invention that generates electricity in a very new and interesting way. The invention is a shoe insole that harnesses electricity every time that the person wearing the shoe takes a step. Angelo constructed his device using piezoelectric materials, which actually generate an alternating current voltage every time they are squeezed.
According to a blog post made by the teenager, “Piezoelectricity was present ever since mid-18th century. Piezoelectricity is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials (such as crystals, certain ceramics in response to applied mechanical stress.”
An oil pipeline in Montana has burst, spilling more than 50,000 gallons of oil directly into the Yellowstone River, which prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency. In nearby cities, residents were told not to drink the tap water. Some locals said the water smelled like diesel.
The oil spill happened when a 12 inch pipeline ruptured about 5 miles up from the city of Glendive, says Montana’s Department of Environmental quality. The Bridger Pipeline company shut down the pipeline, but not before dumping as much as 50,400 gallons of oil into the river.
Glendive City Council member Gerald Reichert was among the residents who noted the terrible odor coming from the tap water.
Native American activists along with the Oglala Lakota have made a vow to die before they allow the Keystone XL Pipeline through their land, saying they’ll either be dead or in prison before it does.
The Oglala Lakota Nation is scrambling to organize a protest movement to oppose the construction of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would be 1,700 miles long and move an incredible 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day from Canada through their land in South Dakota on toward the Texas coast. Pipelines like this one have a long history of terrible leaks and explosions.
The current path for the pipeline has it crossing at two points with a pipeline that is the main water source for the people of Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation as well as Sicangu Rosebud reservation. A spill would place in jeopardy the safety of their drinking water.
Resistance is a sure way to continue what you do not want. Appreciation is a sure way to continue what you do want. It really is quite simple. Do you see? Both are amplified focus, and your amplified focus is your agreement with a situation. Simply choose what you feel deserves your attention and continuation in your life, and grow it with gratitude. ~Archangel Gabriel
Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness
The goal of enlightenment, beyond reaching a higher state of consciousness, is to be able to live in peace and hold no resistance to any person or idea. Enlightenment isn’t easy by any means, but by the end of the process, we’ll have refined our consciousness and taught ourselves how to flow with life with no restrictions.
Plenty of teachers have told us that enlightenment will result in an experience of bliss that’s unlike anything we’ve yet felt, but the process can be difficult because it urges us to look at everything about ourselves that’s out of alignment with the personal changes we strive to make.
Most people would love to feel the bliss that comes with enlightenment, but doing the work to get there isn’t so desirable. It’s understandable that we wouldn’t want to shine our light on everything about ourselves, including the darkest aspects of our consciousness that need exposed and healed, but this is what’s required if we want to find enlightenment.
Among the many mysteries of human biology is why complex diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and psychiatric disorders are so difficult to predict and, often, to treat. An equally perplexing puzzle is why one individual gets a disease like cancer or depression, while an identical twin remains perfectly healthy.
Now scientists have discovered a vital clue to unraveling these riddles. The human genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as “junk” but that turn out to play critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave. The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health because many complex diseases appear to be caused by tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.
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