Where Do We Find Hope When A Peacemaking President Is Assassinated?

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

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Confronting the John F. Kennedy Assassination

Where Do We Find Hope When A Peacemaking President Is Assassinated?

By James W. Douglass, author of acclaimed book JFK and the Unspeakable
I believe this experiment we are doing into the dark truth of Dallas (and of Washington, D.C.) can be the most hopeful experience of our lives. But, it does require patience and tenacity to confront the unspeakable. We, first of all, need to take the time to recognize the sources in our history for what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Continue reading Where Do We Find Hope When A Peacemaking President Is Assassinated?

Inconvenient evidence from Brazil

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

You have to love real science — that explores, considers, tentatively explains, and keeps exploring. (This, as opposed to the zealots who think of themselves as crusaders for rationality — actually, usually in effect technology-worshipers, who adhere to any established theory as long as it is established. They then turn on a dime to support whatever new theory is proposed, as long as it is proposed in the name of “science” and conforms to their own accepted  rules.)

When I was in college in the 1960s i nearly failed a course in ancient history, because something within me KNEW that the story we were being given couldn’t be right. I haven’t been keeping track, but it seems to me that every one of the stories fed to us so confidently has been overthrown in the past 50 years. I don’t expect that the process will slow down. More likely, it will accelerate.

This article is from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/09/30000-year-old-brazilian-artifacts-throw-wrench-in-theory-humans-first-arrived-in-americas-12000-years-ago/ but I discovered it via SchwartzReport.

30,000 year old Brazilian artifacts throw wrench in theory

humans first arrived in Americas 12,000 years ago

By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, October 9, 2013 7:16 EDT
Image provided by the Museum of the American Man Foundation shows cave art in a cavern at Serra da Capivara National Park in Brazil
Topics: ♦

It’s no secret humans have been having sex for millennia — but recently discovered cave art suggests they were doing it in the Americas much earlier than many archeologists believed.

A new exhibit in Brazil showcases artifacts dating as far back as 30,000 years ago — throwing a wrench in the commonly held theory humans first crossed to the Americas from Asia a mere 12,000 years ago.

The 100 items on display in Brasilia, including cave paintings and ceramic art, depict animals, ceremonies, hunting expeditions — and even scenes from the sex lives of this ancient group of early Americans.

The artifacts come from the Serra da Capivara national park in Brazil’s northeastern Piaui state, on the border of the Amazon and Atlantic Forests, which attracted the hunter-gatherer civilization that left behind this hoard of local art.

Since the 1970s, Franco-Brazilian archaeologist Niede Guidon has headed a mission to carry out large-scale excavation of Piaui’s interior.

“It’s difficult to think there exists a site anywhere with a higher concentration of cave art,” the 80-year-old Guidon told AFP.

Many paths led to Americas

Other traces of the civilization include charcoal remains of structured fires, explained Guidon, who hails from Sao Paulo.

“To date, these are the oldest traces” of human existence in the Americas, she emphasized.

The widely held theory has suggested human beings only reached the Americas some 12,000 years ago from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait to reach Alaska.

Some archeologists contend flaked pebbles at the Brazilian sites are not evidence of a crude, human-made fire hearth made some 40 millennia ago, but are rather geofacts — a natural stone formation, not a man-made one.

But Guidon said she believes the Serra dwellers may have come originally from Africa, and she said the cave art provides compelling evidence of early human activity.

The paintings are estimated to date back some 29,000 years, she said, noting: “When it began in Europe and Africa, it did here too.”

Other sites, including Valsequillo in Mexico and Monte Verde in Chile, also indicate the presence of communities tens of thousands of years ago.

These sites have led archeologists to speculate that peoples traveled various routes to reach the Americas and at different stages, archeologist Gisele Daltrini Felice told AFP.

In search of tourists

UNESCO conferred World Heritage status on the Serra da Capivara in 1991, but tourists remain thin on the ground, which frustrates Guidon.

“After putting in a great amount of effort (to promote the site) we are up to 20,000 visitors a year,” the archeologist said.

But “World Heritage sites get millions, and we are prepared to receive millions,” she added.

The interior of the Piaui region is marked by widespread poverty, which has much to gain from tourism, Guidon stressed.

But resources are lacking to promote the attractions in a remote corner of the giant nation, she said. The nearest city is the modest town of Sao Raimundo Nonato, which has spent years trying to have an airport built.

The EU is promoting both the new exhibit as well as a swath of conferences on the area under the auspices of UNESCO, Brazil’s Institute of Parks and the country’s Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage.

“The idea is to promote cultural, historic and nature-based tourism in order to aid the development of areas adjoining Brazil’s major parks — and especially the Serra da Capivara, which has the most modern infrastructure,” with 172 sites to visit, said Jerome Poussielgue, European Union cooperation and development officer for Brazil.

And the foundation behind research into the park is backing development projects — including a ceramics factory that reproduces images of the cave art, a program aimed at giving local women work experience.

“We would like to help in the development of a region where women suffer hugely from violence,” says Guidon.

Rupert Sheldrake: Wikipedia Under Threat

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Wikipedia Under Threat

by Rupert Sheldrake

Wikipedia is a wonderful invention. But precisely because it’s so trusted and convenient, people with their own agendas keep trying to take it over. Editing wars are common. According to researchers at Oxford University, the most controversial subjects worldwide include Israel and God.

This is not surprising. Everyone knows that there are opposing views on politics and religion, and many people recognize a biased account when they see it. But in the realm of science, things are different. Most people have no scientific expertise and believe that science is objective. Their trust is now being abused systematically by a highly motivated group of activists called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia.

Continue reading Rupert Sheldrake: Wikipedia Under Threat

Michael Ventura on his friend’s last quest, part two

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

MICHAEL VENTURA

LETTERS AT 3AM –

HE TOOK THE CAT TO TEXAS: Part 2

Austin Chronicle – Oct. 4, 2013

“It is my very strong feeling that real pacifism, real positive political change, cannot be effectively motivated by guilt, but must come instead from a joyful reverence for life, from a fervent desire to make our own lives more glorious and more ecstatic, and from the very selfish desire to share that joy with all the people and all the living things of the universe.”

Mayer Vishner wrote that when he was young, and, a lifelong activist, he lived those words, or attempted to, for real. Not in an ivory tower or a commune, but on the street.

Continue reading Michael Ventura on his friend’s last quest, part two

Light from within

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I have come across a most remarkable book, And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, Blind Hero of the French Resistance (originally published 1963), that I highly recommend. One of the heroes of the French Resistance in World War II was a teenager who had been blind from age seven yet who discovered within himself that blindness is not necessarily what it is thought to be. His story — particularly the story of his months as prisoner of the Germans and his survival (by the skin of his teeth) remind me in some ways of George Ritchie’s story of the Polish prisoner the liberating Americans called Wild Bill Cody, as told in My Life After Dying.

A couple of germane quotations (for this book is not really about the war or the camps so much as about the human spirit as a reality). First this:

And there were the poets, those unbelievable people so different from other men, who told anyone who would listen that a wish is more important than a fortune, and that a dream can weigh more than iron or steel. What nerve they had, these poets, but how right they were! Everything, they said, comes from inside us, passes through things outside and then goes back in. And that to them is the meaning of life, feeling, understanding, love.  (p. 71)

And this:

And now, in conclusion, why has this Frenchman from France written his book in the United States to present it to his American friends today? Because today he is America’s guest. Loving the country and wanting to show his gratitude, he could find no better way of expressing it than in these two truths, intimately known to him and reaching beyond all boundaries.

The first of these is that joy does not come from outside, for whatever happens to us it is within. The second truth is that light does not come to us from without. Light is in us, even if we have no eyes. (p. 311- 312)

 

Independence for Carol

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

For all my friends who joined with those of the greater Monroe Institute community in sending prayers, healing energy and loving support to TMI Executive Director Carol de la Herran:

TMI announced today that Carol made her transition to the other side at noon today.

As I said when I first asked people to assist as best they could, “healing” doesn’t always mean “return to the physical life”; sometimes it means, moving on to the next phase of existence. This is a lesson all healers have to learn, whether their medium is conventional medicine, energy work, prayer, or some combination of the three.

It is no exaggeration to say that Carol burned out doing her best to save TMI from financial and other disaster, and did not burn out until she had accomplished that task. Her very last week before she was taken to the hospital saw her doing a trade show in Washington, D.C, then immediately driving with a friend to a conference in Detroit, Michigan, and then returning to TMI thinking that she would take a week-long course, which in the event proved to be impossible. She was in harness to the last moment.

When I think of Carol, I associate her not only with TMI, but with my first experiences of her, both of which involved healing and energy work.

In 1998, she was one of the teachers of a Reiki I course I attended. Her attunement, as it is called, moved me deeply. It felt like what I had expected the Sacraments to feel like, when I was a boy. Indeed, I sometimes said it was my first experience of a Sacrament.

Then a few years later, Carol and I were among a dozen or so participants at our mutual friend Nancy Dorman’s. For many years, Nancy held what she called an “energy exchange” once a month, and people paired up to do whatever healing modality they preferred. I well remember lying on my back on the massage table with my eyes closed, and feeling, without any uncertainty, Carol’s hands a foot and a half above my body, balancing chakras. (I opened an eye to be sure her hands were where I was feeling them, and they were.) Never experienced that before or after.

Neither experience should be surprising, in light of the fact that she ran a Reiki Center in Spain for decades, among all her other activities.

And now, on this , Independence Day, she has freed herself from the limitations of life on earth, and moves on to other things. Join me in raising a virtual glass and wishing her bon voyage.

 

TMI’s statement:

Dear TMI Family,

It is with deep sadness that we are writing to let you know – Carol de la Herran made her final transition today at noon Eastern Standard Time. Her loving family was with her when she passed.

Carol’s unconditional commitment to, and love of, The Monroe Institute was expressed daily through her actions as leader, administrator, colleague, educator, trainer, innovator, and family member. She will be dearly missed by her TMI family.

 

Plans for a memorial are in process. As details become available we will share them with you.
Meanwhile, please know that your well wishes, prayers, and positive energy make a difference. Thank you for supporting Carol and TMI through this time.

With love and gratitude,

The Monroe Institute

 

Romans versus catholics

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I have just finished re-reading How the Irish Saved Civilization, a book that raises in me alternations of admiration, exasperation, irritation and, ultimately,  profound gratitude. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising in a book written by an Irishman! 🙂

His final paragraph rises to brilliant, prophetic insight:

Perhaps history is always divided into Romans and Catholics – or, better, catholics.  The Romans are the rich and powerful who run things their way and must always accrue more because they instinctively believe that there will never be enough to go around; the catholics, as their name implies, are universalists who instinctively believe that all humanity makes one family, that every human being is an equal child of God, and that God will provide. The twenty-first century, prophesied Malraux,  will be spiritual or it will not be. If our civilization is to be saved – forget about our civilization, which, as Patrick would say, may pass “in a moment like a cloud or smoke that is scattered by the wind” – if we are to be saved, it will not be by Romans but by saints.

How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill, pp 217-218