People | Ascension Lifestyle

05 Aug 2021
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Over the Speed Limit: How to Drive, Ecstatically Alive, Past 55

The day before I turned 55 I received a notice from my bank. The auxiliary checking account I’d opened for online transactions would shortly be assessed an $8 monthly fee unless I a) maintained a $1000 minimum balance, b) deposited $250/month, or c) used my ATM card at least ten times per month, none of which was feasible for me.

A bit put out by this parsimonious behavior from a bank I’d found very customer-centric until then, I approached the assistant manager. She skimmed the letter and said confidently, “We’ll find a solution.” After a couple of basic usage questions, she asked, “Are you 55?” I exclaimed, “My birthday’s tomorrow!” She said, “Then the account is free,” and scrawled, “55+ FREE” across the notice in red marker.

This was my first encounter with the unexpected perks of my seniority.

Sea Change in Consciousness

Coming of age as a member of the silver tsunami is a sea change from growing older in yesteryear. As the Boomer wave grays the globe, some members of this tribe have concocted playful descriptions: “chronologically gifted” and “over the speed limit” are two of my favorites.

Language matters, because, like the mirror, it reflects how we see ourselves. Cross-cultural anthropologist and author Angeles Arrien once shared how a child stroked her grandmother’s cheek, crooning, “Grandma, you have such pretty designs on your face.” Too young to “know better,” the little girl viewed her grandmother’s facial lines as fine art. Wrinkles can signify ripeness, wisdom, and a life lived by design, indeed.

Yet even as robustly alive as many of today’s elders are, I’m nowhere near ready for “Gran Central Station,” as I refer to the exuberant participants at a nearby senior center. And therein lies the conundrum.

“Forty is the old age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old age,” wrote French novelist Victor Hugo 150 years ago. Hugo lived to be 83, pretty “ripe old” for the 19^thcentury. His observation is daunting to me, because I don’t feel remotely on the cusp of old age.

Marc Freedman agrees. Of the description “young old”, the author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife asks, “Are most people in their 50s and 60s in anything resembling ‘old age’? Are they elderly? Senior citizens? (Why not child old for those in their 40s, infant old for the late-thirties set, and prenatal old for latter twentysomethings?)” Prenatal old. Love it!

This can be a juicy time. Visionary OB/GYN Christiane Northrup, MD, author of The Wisdom of Menopause, says midlife brings potential for regeneration. She cites research showing women in their 60s and 70s enjoy the best sex of their lives. Clean out emotional debris, claim your power — and it’s an erotic feast.

A Place of Passionate Possibility

Just as old age was reimagined as “the Golden Years” and retirement as a destination, Boomers are rapidly reinventing this time as a place of passionate possibility.

In The Big Shift, Freedman chronicles how Granville Stanley Hall publishedSenescence: The Last Half of Lifein 1922,when he was 76. Hall characterized this period as “a precious bud of vast potentialities” and urged older people to step up:

“We rarely come to anything like a masterly grip till the shadows begin to slant eastward, and for a season, which varies greatly with individuals, our powers increase as the shadows lengthen.” True to his teaching, Hall’s greatest creativity and achievement came after age 50.

One of my defining moments arrived while reading Deathing by Anya Foos-Graber, an uncommon guide to creating a spiritually informed dying process. The composite protagonist, Selma, in preparing for a grace-filled departure from this life, shares an inner vision of seeing people on a half-built bridge, “spilling into the sea, drowning in their own ignorance because they had no bridge, no reality construct to cross from this shore to the Other Side, from one reality to another.”

As a voice instructs Selma to “Build them a bridge,” I realized with chills of recognition that my recurring childhood dream of a train on an unfinished track jutting out into space was Spirit dispatching my mission statement: Become a world-bridger, build the bridge between mainstream and metaphysical. I was initially shown my life purpose in a dream at age eight, and only completely understood this early message at 55! I reveled in awe and gratitude for this belated awareness — even though I’ve been living “on purpose” for years.

How can we awaken to the clarion call of who we are, whatever our chronological age? Freedman says that by midlife, life has become a run-on sentence in dire need of punctuation, and he proposes a metaphorical semicolon to capture the sense of renewal and redirection.

Becoming An Elder of Excellence

Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Lifeand Composing a Further Life, calls for establishing “a midlife atrium”: a sabbatical of sorts that functions as an opportunity to let in more light and air — which is precisely how Kathy Bates describes this shift in the film Fried Green Tomatoes. When her perplexed husband asks his quintessentially evolving wife, “What’s changed?” she muses, “Oh, the air and the light.”

Bateson writes, “The doorway to this new stage of life is not filing for Social Security but thinking differently and continuing to learn.”

We all have the choice to become “Elders of Excellence,” a Louise Hay euphonic. (Hay’s classic, You Can Heal Your Life served as a template during my awakening journey.) Even the word “elder” confers an essence of wisdom and respect that seems lacking when we append “ly”, transforming the vibrant, vintage noun into a frail, forgotten adjective.

Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, author of the wise guide, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, says we become elders not by accruing years, but by harvesting our wisdom in service to others — future generations, yes, but also our peers who may be aging fearfully.

Elders, he writes, “have an ongoing responsibility for maintaining society’s well-being…They are pioneers in consciousness who transmit a legacy to future generations. Serving as mentors, they pass on the distilled essence of their life experience to others. The joy of passing on wisdom to younger people not only seeds the future, but crowns an elder’s life with worth and nobility.”

Wonder and Wisdom

Perspective shifts as we do. I learned this profoundly from my lifelong friend Ellie, who lived alone after her husband’s transition until she was nearly 96. At 72 she began writing letters to the editor of her local newspaper, expressing strong opinions about the salient issues of the day. Most of her letters were published, and in 2009 the paper ran a front-page profile lauding Ellie’s 22 years of chirographic activism.

When I interviewed her at age 92, Ellie shared how she was a surrogate mom to “lots of young people.” I was 48 at the time and wondered what she meant, since to me “young people” were in their teens and early twenties. I was amused by her reply: “In their fifties.” By the time you’re 92, fifty is young.

Ellie’s enduring gift has been the joy with which she greeted each morning, her gratitude for “being accepted” by Source for one more day, keen to give it her best and create a little more beauty in the world. The last time I saw her, she scampered down three flights of stairs (yes, at 95) and pressed her nose against the glass prior to opening the door to her apartment building, causing me to giggle.

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,” sang Lee Ann Womack, and she might have been channeling Ellie. Although my friend never learned to drive a car, she lived over the speed limit in every sense of the phrase. As elders-in-training, we can all embrace this teaching: when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, DANCE!

About the Author:

Ascension Lifestyle Managing Editor Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers life crafting, e-courses, business alchemy and content creation to accelerate your evolutionary journey. Learn more at LiveYourLight.com, where you can subscribe to her resource-rich enewsletter, What Shines.

21 Jul 2021
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2021 so far … A strange & wonderful year!

2021 has been a strange year so far. For the first six months it has felt cocoonish, as if we were being remade, cooked up new in the grand cosmic ooze of Earthdom. No wings yet to fly. There’s been this sense of not knowing where to head next or how to express the tiny embryos of new’ness gestating inside.

I felt things shift on June 21^st, as if the cocoon had burst open, but the wings of joy hadn’t dried yet. Ideas of new expression began to emerge for a good number of us at long last. Then last week that joy burst open inside me and I felt that exhilarating excitement for life return in full force again. Some of my buddies have experienced the same. As if a rush of flow has opened up inside and life is ready to soar once again.

I believe that this month, July 2021, the world has tipped at long last into the new’ness we’ve all been working on for years. So many of us live our lives full on in this new reality now. We flood the world with kindness. We see everyone as an awesome creator with genius to pour into the world. We dwell in a kind of buzzing high vibe, expecting and sourcing miracles all around us. And we do that even from our cocoons, even when the joy isn’t running rampant through us. Why? Because living this way is brilliant and fulfilling.

So today I’m off to make more miracles, express more new’ness and burst through more joy. May your day, year and life be filled with all these things always as we spread our glorious new wings and fly.

About the Author:

Soleira Green is passionate about innovating a new future now, bringing genius, connection, greatness and the miraculous into the game for us all.

15 Jul 2021
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The Mechanics of Your Aura: Energy Types in Human Design

I’ve spent over a decade in therapy, four years with a daily meditation practice, and two years in heavy spiritual study. In that time, I discovered much about my shadows, wounds, and potential. I also uncovered wisdom about listening to my intuition and aligning with my flow state.

But it took years of trial and error.

About nine months ago, I stumbled across Human Design and pulled up my “chart,” and what I saw was the knowledge I had learned through years of deep inner exploration written in black and white.

It provided a blueprint for how to “operate” me in a concrete and tangible way — validating issues I’d spent years struggling to understand and pinpointing strengths I have newly uncovered. It’s not that healing and inner work aren’t still absolutely necessary, but Human Design provided a map to the heart of the wounds I’d spent years slowly piecing together.

So, what the hell is Human Design?

Human Design weaves together western astrology with several other divination systems, including the I-Ching, the Kabbalah Tree of Life, and the Hindu Brahman Chakra System, to create a guidebook for understanding and using your astrological influences in your embodied, lived experience.

In his book “Human Design: Discovering the Person You Were Born to Be,” Chetan Parkyn explains it this way: “[Human Design] is a system that takes the torch from astrology and carries it to the next level, providing both an accurate guide for life and a self-assessment device.”

Energy Type

The first thing you learn in Human Design is your Energy Type, because your Energy Type is the element that organizes the rest of your chart. It is the mechanics of your aura; the lens through which all your unique light particles shine.

Once you know your Energy Type, you will also know your “Strategy,” or how you operate most effectively with your unique energetic patterning. Your Strategy gives you information on how you can move through the world and interact with others with the least resistance.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

There are five Energy Types, and each type has a distinct feeling or frequency. It’s not about personality per se. For example, you can have introverts or extroverts of any Type. And people within the same Energy Type can vary vastly in terms of what they enjoy, how they relate, and what they do for work. Instead, Energy Type describes how others feel around you, the way you interface with the world at an energetic level.

Find Your Energy Type

If you haven’t already, you can get a free Human Design chart and find your Energy Type here. After you input your birth data, your “Type” will be listed seven lines down on the page’s left-hand side, right under “Age.” And knowing your Type will make the following description infinitely more interesting.

After you learn your Energy Type, I highly suggest finding out the Energy Types of the people closest to you. It will give you context for understanding this fascinating concept. You will start to see how people of the same Type may have vastly different presentations. Still, they will have a similar frequency or quality to them.

1. Manifestors: The Lit Match

Manifestors are here to initiate. Their purpose is to start shit and get people on board.

If you were starting a fire, Manifestors would be the lit match.

Manifestors are the only Type that can start ventures on their own. They can decide what to do without external input and go about doing it without needing external cues or invitations. However, Manifestors may not realize how this go-it-alone vibe might affect others. Thus, informing the people around them what they are planning to do is an essential skill for a Manifestor to learn.

Manifestors are here to express themselves and launch their inspiration into action. Yet this Energy Type doesn’t have consistent access to life force energy, so they must include others to do the nuts and bolts of building out what they’ve initiated.

People are drawn to Manifestors because they have that spark of initiating power. But they are often confused by this, because they likely feel more inclined to work independently. They usually don’t understand why people should care what they are doing.

Their aura is more closed or opaque than the other Types. That is why part of their necessary Strategy is to inform others, so that other people can feel included in their lives and decisions. Without the skill of telling others what they are doing, the people around them may feel bulldozed or neglected. A Manifestor often needs to develop the awareness that even though the decision seems obvious to them, it is coming from a purely internal place. Hence, it is necessary to tell others of their next move to get them on board. Informing can be challenging for Manifestors, who often worry that others are trying to limit or control them. If they feel boxed in by life or the people around them and cannot initiate what they desire, they can experience deep anger.

These initiators are a relatively rare Energy Type and comprise only about 8% of the population. But for reference, some famous Manifestors include Gloria Steinem, Al Gore, Paul McCartney, and Maya Angelou.

2. Generators: The Firewood

Generators are here to attain mastery in any area of life that they are passionate about. With steady, consistent life force energy, these folks build knowledge, skill, or structure from beginning to end.

In this fire analogy, the Generator would be the thick logs that sustain the fire for hours.

These beings have a warm and enveloping aura or energy field around them. When they are passionate about something, they magnetize others towards them, for Generators are here to respond to others and life. It’s not that they can’t start things. It’s that, unlike Manifestors, they need something outside of them to respond to. They need external cues to direct them towards the things that they start.

Then they need to feel if that idea or task or person is a gut-level, “hell yes” for them. If they commit to things that are not a gut-level, yes, they can become frustrated and burn out. Because once they commit themselves, they have a tough time reversing that commitment and can wear themselves to the ground trying to fulfill obligations that weren’t a gut-yes for them. Just because Generator Types have consistent energy does not mean their power should be spent willy-nilly. Their life force energy should be “spent” on people, projects, and tasks that light them up.

These builders are the bedrock of society and make up about 37% of the population. Generators are powerhouses and can wield massive influence. Famous examples of Generators include Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, The Dalai Lama, Muhammad Ali, and Beyoncé.

3. Manifesting Generators: The Kindling

Manifesting Generators (or MGs) are here to find shortcuts to mastery. These are the only hybrid Type. They are similar to Generators in a lot of ways but with some key Manifestor-like differences.

Like Generators, Manifesting Generators have consistent access to life force energy. They also have a warm, enveloping aura that magnetizes people to them when they live in alignment with what ignites their passion. Because of their similar aura or energy field, they are also here, like the Generator, to respond to life.

But unlike Generators, their pace is not steady. MGs move mostly at warp speed or not at all. They are like the kindling that sparks brightly and ignites quickly, for they are a hybrid type with a bit of the Manifestor in them. Once they respond, they will need to test out whatever they respond to by visualizing it or experiencing it for a short while before getting their final intuitive knowing. If it is a gut-level, “hell yes,” after sampling this experience, they know that they truly have the energy for whatever they are responding to.

Yes, Manifesting Generators move fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they finish first. Because they move so quickly and skip steps, they often have to reevaluate and fix the critical elements they overlooked. And due to this fast pace, it can be challenging for MGs to slow down and wait for something to respond to. They can feel pressure to be a Manifestor and initiate. Or they can jump the gun and say yes to things that don’t light them up or that they don’t have energy for. If they fall into either of these traps, they will experience frustration and anger.

Manifesting Generators are the second most common Type. Thirty-three percent of the population are MGs. And some famous examples of Mani-Gens include Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Mother Teresa, George Lucas, and Angelina Jolie.

4. Projectors: Fanning the Flames

Projectors are here to direct and guide the other Energy Types. They are the newest energy type, here to be our future leaders.

Like Manifestors, Projectors don’t have consistent life force energy. They are not here to be the worker bees. Instead, they are here to show the hive how to create honey most efficiently. These types are like the tool you would use to fan the flames of the campfire you’re building.

Projectors have a penetrating aura, meaning that they see through people’s surface masks easily and quickly get to the heart of the matter. That is why they need to wait to be seen, acknowledged, and then invited into someone’s energy. If they try to provide their wise analysis without being asked, others tend to ignore them. And this dynamic of being chronically overlooked leaves Projectors with a very understandable propensity for bitterness.

Finding out you’re a Projector can be a huge relief. Most Projectors have known that their energy needs are different from others, but not understood why. If you are a Projector, you are the future; you are ushering the rest of us into a new paradigm of work and life. Start to examine the cultural conditioning that says you “should” have the same energy level as Generator Types. You are so valuable, and your wisdom is so needed. We need you to show up as you.

Projectors make up about 21% of the population. You may think it would be hard to find famous Projectors, but they are already making their presence known. Barack Obama, Cardi B, JFK, Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, and Mick Jagger are all Projectors.

5. Reflectors: The Smoke

Reflectors are here to do just that — reflect. With absolutely no centers defined in their chart, they are the ultimate empaths.

This Type feels and absorbs the health and vitality of the people and environment around them. They are the smoke rising from the campfire, revealing the strength of the blaze.

Reflectors are the mirrors, and reveal to others their gifts and challenges just by existing. Because they absorb so much and have no natural life force energy, they need plenty of time to rest. Without the consistency of any defined centers, it is also helpful for this Type to attune to the lunar cycle and wait about 28 days to make any big decisions in their life. When they make decisions in alignment with their energy, they will feel pleasantly surprised, but if pressured or swayed to make decisions not in alignment, they can end up disappointed.

Because of their innate openness, their health is greatly affected by the people, environment, and energy around them. Thus, this Type needs to be incredibly picky about the settings and people they choose to spend time in and with.

Reflectors are the rarest Type and make up only about 1% of the population. Richard Burton, Sandra Bullock, H.G. Wells, and Dostoyevsky are all Reflectors.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember that no Energy Type is “better” or “worse” than another. Each has its challenges and gifts. And each Energy Type is needed to complete the “campfire”. What matters is that you are living as you. Tapping into your natural energy flow expands your personal power and opens you up to a whole new way of life.

There is so much more to learn about your Human Design. Your energy is a complex system, and your aura’s mechanics is only one part of that system. Dive deeper, discover more, and experiment with living your design.

About the Author:

Lisa (she/her) is an intuitive embodiment coach and Human Design guide. She is passionate about helping you reclaim your unique design so that you can live in a way that aligns with your energetic makeup and awaken to the power of being you. Learn more about her work and current offerings at lisaagreene.com.

12 Jul 2021
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Remembering Beauty

Today as I was preparing to go for my almost daily bicycle ride, I stopped to glance over at one of our two rose bushes. They are planted in a small strip of ground between our living room window and the fence, and in previous years they have not been doing so well. Poor weather is usually the culprit here in the British Isles, but forgetting the rose food is also another factor. However, during the past 3-4 weeks, they have not only been producing a prodigious number of blooms, but they’ve grown over 6 feet in height!

As I gazed upon the unique orange blossoms, I thought that how easy it is to become inured to the beauty that is so close by somewhere. For a moment in time, all my personal thoughts faded into the background, and so did all the world’s tumultuous activity. Here it was just my consciousness taking in the beauty in front of me, and I became lost in a serenity that there are no words for.

Seems we take so much for granted these days, and most of us are so preoccupied that we just don’t really take in what is right at hand in our lives. It is one thing to look; it is quite another thing to actually see what it is we’re looking at. A mere thought about the to-do list, or a worry or three, and we are turning away from the miracle in front of us and exchanging it for another task, another obligation, and another round of problem solving. If you are an entrepreneur, most likely you live that experience 24/7, and barely come up for air. Marketing, tech hassles, virtual staff issues, grumpy clients…where does it end? When does the good life begin?

It can begin when we choose to slow down enough to take stock of ourselves, check and see if we’re occupying our body instead of hovering near it, and exercise our sovereignty diligently so we honor our own feelings and space to be as we are. Yes, I know…there are obligations aplenty. Working for a paycheck with a family to support during the upheavals of the past 17 months has been a grab bag of stress. Or perhaps you or someone you know has a health condition, or a psychological one. None of this we are experiencing is easy, and we can be so focused on survival mode that we overlook so much that there is to appreciate.

I have a very good book about spiritual seeking called “Doing Nothing” by Steven Harrison. Its focus is on the modern quest for enlightenment and peace, but many of his perspectives could easily be applied to more mundane matters. The other book which I have not read, but recently ordered, is entitled “How to be Idle” by Tom Hodgkinson. The Puritan work ethic, or the work ethic imposed by a jealous God in the Old Testament (“…by the sweat of thy brow shall you earn your bread…”) set the human race on a high-stress path of exertion with a future promise of reward and comfort. The entire dogma of the Abrahamic religions is centered on a perfect hereafter, if we are all good boys and girls, that is.

What is discouraged more today then ever before is that to be idle, or decide to withdraw from the Rat Race, is to be a reactionary. Someone who is anti-societal, and not to be trusted. In China it’s becoming a “thing” and they call it “lying flat”.

At this New Moon in Cancer take an inventory about your own life. Where do you over-commit? Where do you over-give? How do you cope with low-grade anxiety or moments of high stress? Are you happy and peaceful, or anxious and fearful? Are you in your body, and loving your body, or not?

Here’s something to ponder: when there’s a lot of cortisol pumping through our bodies we are incapable of rational decision making. The cost for this is multidimensional too, and as Dr. Gabor Maté states, trauma or living with trauma is the single biggest cause for disease…period!

Your physical and psychic boundaries are yours to employ and maintain. No one else will do it for you. We are empowered, we are capable, and it is not selfish to be concerned with one’s own harmony and wellbeing. Slow down, breathe and look around. What do you see? There’s beauty within and without to appreciate. Remember it often.

About the Author

Isaac George is an internationally recognized intuitive mentor/coach, evolutionary astrologer, conscious channel, self-published author and musician. After a life-altering spontaneous kundalini awakening in 1994 he explored various healing modalities, including hypnotherapy and Reiki. In 1998 he began spontaneously channeling Archangel Ariel and other dimensional intelligences.

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.

09 Jul 2021
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The Fallacy of Our Carbon Footprint

In 1992, a Canadian ecologist named William Rees coined the term “ecological footprint,” a measurement of how much any entity was impacting the planet’s ecology. A decade later, British Petroleum started promoting a new term: “carbon footprint.” In a splashy ad campaign, the company unveiled the first of its many carbon footprint calculators as a way for individuals to measure how their daily actions—what they eat, where they work, how they heat their home—impact global warming.

BP did not adopt the footprint imagery by accident. In the 30 years prior to the carbon footprint campaign, polluting companies had been using advertising to link pollution and climate change to personal choices. These campaigns, most notably the long-running Keep America Beautiful campaign, imply that individuals, rather than corporations, bear the responsibility for change.

“It was done so intentionally,” says Susan Hassol, director of the nonprofit science outreach group Climate Communication. “It’s a deflection.”

The universal adoption of the term “carbon footprint” hasn’t just changed how we speak about climate change. It’s changed how we think about it. Climate change has become an individual problem, caused by our insatiable appetite for consumption, and therefore a war that must be waged on our dinner plates and gas tanks, a hero’s journey from consumer to conservationist.

The reality is that the future of civilization is being decided at a political and corporate level that no individual can impact.

Yet the reality is that the future of civilization is being decided at a political and corporate level that no individual can impact. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. Fossil fuel giants are funding climate change skepticism while simultaneously lobbying for tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. Big corporate names like Costco and Netflix are loudly committing to reduce emissions but unable to set meaningful targets or put plans in place. The Trump administration rolled back more than 100 environmental rules and regulations.

The same way that you give your child a toy to play with so you can finish your task uninterrupted, everyday citizens are busy changing out lightbulbs and buying electric cars while the true cause of global warming continues uninterrupted: a civilization dependent on fossil fuels. As Mike Tidwell, the executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, wrote in a 2007 op-ed, “every time an activist or politician hectors the public to voluntarily reach for a new bulb or spend extra on a Prius, ExxonMobil heaves a big sigh of relief.” A complete paradigm shift is needed—both in the way we conceptualize our individual climate impact and in the ways we calculate the emission impacts of those ultimately responsible: corporations and governmental systems.

One of the challenges with the carbon footprint measurement is how few of the factors an individual controls. Most of us have limited options for where we live, how far we have to commute to get to work, what kind of energy is available to heat our homes, etc. If we don’t own our home (and more than 30% of Americans don’t), we may not be able to properly insulate or install high-efficiency appliances. One research report from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that roughly one third of a city dweller’s carbon footprint is determined by public transportation options and building infrastructure. “We build our cities this way,” Hassol says. “It’s system change that’s really needed so that people have better choices.”

The inadequacy of our carbon footprint as a driver of change is painfully highlighted when you look at single-use plastics. Much attention has been given to how much plastic Americans consume (35.3 million tons per year, enough to fill the 104 million-cubic-foot AT&T Stadium in Dallas every 16 hours) and how each individual should be changing their behavior to help combat this waste. Everywhere you look, there’s a campaign to recycle more, or use metal straws, or bring your own bag to the grocery store.

In contrast, there are no public campaigns about the fact that packaging, an area where consumer control is limited, is the top driver of plastic production by a significant margin. The emissions impact of plastic manufacturing itself is rarely mentioned, along with the fact that much of our recycling still ends up in landfills. Some of the poorest nations are left to deal with hundreds of thousands of tons of soft drink bottles. The plastics are often just incinerated, creating serious environmental and health consequences. It’s a question as to whose carbon footprint is making a deeper impact on the environment: the family whose lettuce comes sealed in plastic (and who pays, not only for the product, but also for the waste collection and management services), or the company that is continuing to package food products in plastic materials, and then opting out of responsibility for their disposal.

Even if we just wanted to measure individual impact on climate change, the carbon footprint falls painfully short: “The current concept of a carbon footprint is too narrowly drawn,” Hassol explains. “It’s only the things I’m actively using and doing in my personal life and it doesn’t draw on other actions that are perhaps more important in the big picture as far as addressing climate change.”

For example, the average American has a carbon footprint of 16 tons. The average individual footprint globally is 4 tons. But that calculation doesn’t include who you vote for, how you invest your money, who you work for (and how much you travel for work, versus for leisure), or how you talk about climate change and influence others to get involved. “All of that should be part of the way we conceptualize our impact,” Hassol says.

Instead of obsessing over a single metric, Cameron Brick, a social psychologist from the University of Amsterdam, says he urges people to have an ongoing and evolving conversation between themselves and their chosen lifestyle. “It’s not a single number, because anytime you pick a metric, then we will begin to game it,” he says. Instead, a minimal-carbon lifestyle is a process—one that involves community-building and continuing to make improvements over time, he says. “My lifestyle is not perfect either, but probably better each year.”

Hassol points out that one of the most important ways that an individual can impact emissions on a wider scale is also the hardest to calculate: social contagion. “When people do something, it affects others around them and their emissions,” she says.

Studies have shown that energy-related behaviors are heavily influenced by peer groups, even more than cost or convenience. A study in California showed that every time a solar panel was installed within a certain ZIP code, the probability of another installation in that area increased by 0.78%. Similarly, if you know somebody who has given up flying because of climate change, you are 50% more likely to also reduce your own air travel.

“Your individual footprint is not the full measure of your contribution because you’re encouraging other people through your personal actions,” explains Hassol. She recommends that people who want to do more should research community solar options and ways to buy into clean energy in their communities, and then publicize those options among their families, friends and social networks, in order to create that initial momentum for change.

But what could system change look like? For starters, using measurements that actually hold the decision makers responsible for their emissions impacts, for the entire lifecycle of their product or service. That might look like Big Soda being held accountable not only for the manufacturing and transportation of their single-use plastics, but also for each and every bottle that ends up in somebody’s recycling bin (Coca-Cola is the top producer of plastic waste in the world). The shift also might look like emissions information being printed on product labels and unbiased regulatory bodies certifying the accuracy of corporate emissions reports.

On the policy level, interest in a carbon tax is growing. The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act was reintroduced in Congress this year (as Senate bill 984 and House Resolution 2238), and would force a temporary moratorium on virgin plastic production, require minimum recycled content, and ban some single-use plastic food service items. Many states already have some form of a producer responsibility program, where the producer of hard-to-dispose products such as paints, batteries, and other hazardous materials, must finance proper disposal. This creates an incentive to design reusable or less-toxic products.

When we shift the focus from changing consumer behavior to changing producer behavior, we see where true change happens: in corporate boardrooms and among political leaders. The irony of the carbon footprint is that individual action does have the power to change the world, just not on the lightbulb and recycling level.

“This problem is too big to solve voluntarily one person at a time,” Hassol says. “We need to change the system and you have a role in changing that system.”

About the Author

Emma Pattee covers topics related to climate change and feminism. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Cut, WIRED, and others.

Original article here

04 Jul 2021
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Stealth Spirituality

I was talking with a new copywriting client whose principal markets — entertainment and politics — aren’t often predisposed to metaphysics. Since I’ve long advocated “speaking in the language your audience can hear,” we discussed how to slip transformative messaging under the radar, through intent and light (which is in-form-ation, bringing the unknown into form).

This is especially vital now, as momentous cycles conclude and we face the end of life as we know it — not as cataclysm, but as an ascent into greater self-actualization.

The Alien Perspective

A French film from 1996, The Green Beautiful, is amusingly on point in its perspicacity, depicting how humanity appears to a highly evolved extraterrestrial visitor. The storyline:

No one from Mila’s harmonious planet wants to volunteer for the Earth assignment; we’re considered an incorrigible orb. But it’s been 200 years since they’ve sent an emissary, so Mila steps forward.

To prepare, her brain is encoded with telepathic programs that, when activated, will restructure human thinking. This is where the fun begins.

As the film gently chides us by illuminating standard behavior (“Yes, they’re still using the money!”) the wake-up calls become entertainingly engaging: this IS how we are — and how bizarre we might appear through an “alien” lens.

Yet, who is the real “alien” here? I’ve often felt like Mila since my awakening: reactive to the poisons we consume and expel, unsettling people by verbalizing what they barely think about. In The Green Beautiful, as each person is “disconnected” from their mental programming, they begin hugging trees, hugging each other, speaking their truth, and unwittingly creating pandemonium through paradigm-evanescing conduct.

A Confluence of Clues

When we’re paying attention, the synchronicities in our own everyday lives are strong, and point the way to greater awareness. Consider:

As children, my brother and I loved chasing milkweeds carried on the breeze. “Look, a friend!” we’d exclaim. Years later, through a reference in a novel, I experienced a profound ah-ha. The botanical term for milkweed is Asclepias. This chimed in me. I wondered, could my childhood ally be related to Asclepius, the mythological Greek god of medicine who was trained by Chiron (the archetypal “wounded healer”) — which was conjunct my Sun at birth? Yes. What we know, before we know that we know.

Further intrigue: Asclepius was born mortal but given immortality as the constellation Ophiuchus (“serpent bearer”) after his death. Yet Ophiuchus is not recognized as the 13th sign of the zodiac, even though both the celestial equator and the ecliptic pass through it. The number thirteen, like snakes, is a sacred symbol of transformation that has been debased in order to control the collective through fear.

By unmasking deception, we discover a deeper connection.

Melting the Mind

One more example:

In Mindwalk, a visionary 1991 film that I watched prior to my descent, a scientist, politician and poet discuss how Nature is perceived as mechanistic, modeled on the clock — and then I left on the Journey and reconnected with natural time cycles via Mayan cosmology, living in accord with Nature in the middle of a forest — much like the people in The Green Beautiful, who also enjoy “silence concerts”.

Did you know “listen” and “silent” are anagrams? Living the both/and rather than the either/or expands our perception of possibility.

Mindwalk’s passionate discourse invokes our global focus now: whole-systems thinking. Liv Ullman, as the film’s physicist, declares, “The essential nature of matter lies not in objects, but in interconnections. We are pure potentiality, probability patterns; relationships make matter.” Poet John Heard agrees, “Healing the universe is an inside job.”

Whether through stealth spirituality or out in Rumi’s joy-filled field, this is our moment. As the entire planet incubates in the Asclepeion (ancient healing temple), it’s time for an abundance of subtle shifts: from passivity to passion, from collusion to collaboration, from independence to interdependence.

For our relationships. For our countries. For our connection with All-That-Is. The new reality, morphing into being with every breath.

About the Author:

Amara Rose is Managing Editor of Ascension Lifestyle. Her work is widely published in health, business, lifestyle, and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Visit LiveYourLight.com, where you can also subscribe to her monthly e-newsletter, What Shines.

03 Jul 2021
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State of the Planet Update: Freedom

“…so, there’s rigid and compulsive identification to duty, role, and responsibility, rather than the authentic self is a major risk factor for illness” – from Dr. Gabor Maté – When the Body Says No in Psychotherapy

Freedom…what does it mean to you? Does it evoke excitement or fear? What if you could be and do anything you chose? What if you were suddenly free to roam and live any way your heart wanted to? Heady stuff indeed! You might have an argument with yourself (or with others more likely) that you have many obligations and responsibilities. What about keeping society coherent and following the rules? What would happen if you dropped all your masks, and said exactly what you thought, or acted from your authentic self? Maybe freedom to be who you are is absolutely a key part of larger freedoms

I originally had big plans for this blog. I wanted to share about some pertinent astrology stuff, about the USA birth chart, the upcoming Pluto Return for America spanning from February 2022 till roughly January 2024. These are the last acts of Pluto in Capricorn before the main event…Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius on January 21st, 2024, conjunct the Sun. America has been viewed as a beacon of hope and freedom for more than 200 hundred years, especially to peoples around the world with much fewer options or freedom of choice. What will occur over the next 3 years will be seminal for the USA, and by extension, the planet. Well, as John Lennon once quipped “life is what happens when you make other plans”. Sometimes that is the case no matter the scale of experience, and it has been just like that for me this past week. Intensity does not seem to lessen with time, just the complexion of it changes.

A few days ago, I ran across this video of a lecture by Dr. Gabor Maté, and watching it immensely added to my understanding of what the concept of freedom is all about. Since I have Sagittarius rising and Uranus conjunct the Sun, the twin issues of power and freedom have been constant companions for me in this lifetime. My idealized poster child for freedom would sort of look like a rugged pioneer from the American West, or a character like Captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. What eluded me was the one quality that drew me, and probably a smaller part of the global population than I imagine, to the heroes and heroines from our history who struck courageously out on their own, sometimes at the very cost of their lives. The figure of William Wallace (movie- Braveheart) is one example of an individual committed to freedom at all costs.

I am rapidly redefining my concept of freedom to be an experience that can only be realized by grounding into one’s own authentic being self so profoundly, that you essentially are out of control. Control by others or other concepts I mean. Living from that ground of being would free you from the lies you tell yourself, the lies you accepted to keep yourself safe and protected, to afford you feeling accepted and loved by others outside of you. My mother use to lecture me, “go along to get along, don’t rock the boat!” Well, that works only up to a point, and then what? You continue betraying your own nature to please others and please the system? That is telling yourself lies.

Dr. Maté’s analysis of such behaviour is that it inevitably leads to illness of some kind, and if not physically, at least mentally, emotionally, and ultimately, spiritually. The Indian mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti put it this way: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” If we honestly take a deep look at what has been happening around us for the past 16 months, one can easily discern the effects that following the dictates of the herd will do to us in all arenas of our experience.

Learning how to live free in a seemingly unfree world is a discipline and an art. Many never start, and few have the patience to withstand the tide of criticism or ridicule that others will use to dissuade you from the dangerous and heretical pursuit of authentic experience and freedom. If you are grounded well into your being, and in harmony with your own Soul and the Cosmos, it will not matter. You will not hold anything against anyone, for you would only be harming yourself. Nonetheless, you will walk in freedom, sovereignty, and peace, because you will know who you are and never compromise your integrity ever again.

Once embarked on, this is something that will become a lifelong practice. I will have to begin each day by committing to it, and then hopefully it will be the whole of my experience…one full of joy and contentment.

About the Author:

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.

21 Jun 2021
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Becoming Wordless

At this point, I do not know what to say anymore. I am beyond words. Every experience that we go through, every downloaded message, each cosmic astrological event, every solar event or Mayan time portal, and cosmic gateway, it all keeps rising up to yet another inconceivable level in a matrix of spherical directions. Creation is simply unleashed, and we are riding a wild wave that is not controllable or containable as we once were. I feel I know nothing at all. As I feel like leaping out of myself and into the great unknown, I also feel “The Presence” saying “Wait for it … Please wait for it”. So I dance on the edge of wanting to toss it all and make a run for it.

So here I could use a bunch of high vibin’, hypnotic, ungrounded, buzz words to try to convey what I am seeing right now. But at this point, spoken language is just not hitting the mark at all. Looping and nearly meaningless language is happening everywhere in an attempt to describe our current experience. We are going beyond speaking. And being ungrounded, floating about in a sea of already plateaued verbiage, is the last thing we need right now. Remember … being a living, awakened master includes our physical body this time around.

One truth I really disliked learning back in the 90s, (when I was downloaded as I spent the night in a Mayan Sun Temple in Palenque, Mexico) is that we can’t push our awaking or our ascension clock. Believe me, I tried and I tried for a long time. I was clearly and firmly told that this is a divine timing no human could access or use with their will, ever. And of course, I didn’t listen for a long while. So we can’t force ourselves to wake up, to be a living master or ascend, until we face everything else in our lives. This has been and always will be a step by step-by-step process, while living in the present moment and with whatever that moment contains.

There will be an unending number of cogs in the wheel of waking up and ascension. It is not a destination. It is a ceaseless process of life in all eternity. It is a process of being aware, authentic and grounded. And no one is exempt from this process. No one in a human body can escape this process either. And best of all, no one will miss their time! No one! Not even if you already believe you have. It can’t happen.

But back to this moment … Since the last full moon, it has been simply crazy and overwhelming and we feel lost in time itself. In this month, we are living through 5 retrogrades, with Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, in this beyond anything we have experienced to date, solstice energy, (SUMMER SOLSTICE is June 20, 2021 at 11:32 PM EDT) all culminating with one of the most sacred days in the traditional Mayan calendar on June 28th (** More on this Mayan day WAJXAQIB BATZ below). In this collective soup filled with cognitive dissonance that we live in these days, the TRUTH is boldly rising without restraint. It will rise up out of all the noise around us, and a new balance will begin to manifest. I have been told that more “surprises” are to come. This is certainly an incredibly blistering fast time, and it will keep coming with little respite until late October, or later, from what I can see. So we have a good bit of work to do before we plateau again and have a much awaited rest.

All your authentic, humble, grounded efforts will make the best of the new frequencies pouring into you and the Earth right now. So stay calm, be firm and grounded in the present, and be peaceful with your current experiences. Don’t get caught up in the incongruent energies in the collective. Allow yourself a lot of rest, don’t waste energy by trying to push forward and allow the future to unfold. Take care of your body, get real with yourself, be out in nature, and, most of all, be prepared for the opening crack in the door that leads to the new surprise that is coming. You won’t see this coming … so I am told.

So I will leave you with this because I do have words to use here … I had a surprise little vision. I was in Egypt in a temple called Dendara. There were many little men packing up the temple’s sacred objects. I don’t know if they were actually little or I was just big. They were packing up, and they started moving the boxes up an amazing flight of stairs into the light of the sun. I followed behind them. Soon I was in a wormhole tunnel going through to a new place. And that is as far as I was allowed to see. So there you go! Again we can’t push it … But IT IS COMING!

What you believe, you will empower.
What you fight, you will feed.
What you hate will be harmed.
What you love will be blessed.

Blessed Solstice EveryONE!

** WAJXAQIB BATZ June 28th.
This is the first day of the Cholq’ij Calendar; during this day the Ajq’ijab’ (Maya Spiritual Guides) and the Maya community join to celebrate with Fire Ceremonies of gratitude to the Ajaw (Great Father) and to pray for blessings for this new cycle. According to the Maya, the world was created in one Mayan month (twenty days). The process of creation begins on Jun (1) B’atz and ends on the day Wuqub’ (7) Tz’i, completing the first twenty days of the Cholq’ij (Calendar of Life). After this final day of creation, the day Wajxaqib’ (8 B’atz’ arrives, which is considered the Cholq’ij New Year. When Maya people celebrate the Cholq’ij new year, they are celebrating that the creation of the world has been fulfilled, and the beginning of a new cycle of 260 days.

~ Aluna Joy

20 Jun 2021
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Every Moment Counts: 2021 Summer Solstice

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem…”
~ Walt Whitman

Greetings Earthlings,

I feel, therefore I am. This is the mantra for Cancer, the Cardinal sign in the Zodiac for Water. Our bodies made up of 60% or more of water, as is our planet. In a channelling I did ages ago, a source postulated that water is Goddess Consciousness made visible. That is to say, the supernal Light of Consciousness becomes embodied in as water in a 3rd dimensional level. It permeates everything and carries the spark of atomic and biological Life.

The blood flowing through our veins is just another type of water. Water is the main component in the constitution of the atmospheric envelope around this planet, and miraculously this planet is perfectly positioned to the Sun to sustain organic Life. Whenever astrophysicists encounter a planetary body that has even a smidgen of water on it, then it is cause for celebration because it could support LIFE!

On Monday, June 21st, at approximately 3:33am UT (4:33am BST) the position of our Sun will ingress into the sign of Cancer. The Moon will be at 9 degrees of Scorpio, which will add to the intensity of this Solstice moment, technically the longest day of light in the Northern Hemisphere. Everything becomes more visible as it were, and things and situations will stand out more. The very next day at 22:00 UT, Mercury will station direct in Gemini. It will already be at a standstill at the time of the Solstice. What happens next is that the truth will out. About quite a few things. A seminal moment in coming to grips with the Zeitgeist we have been living through for 18 months.

The archetype of Cancer it represents cuddly stuff. Warmth, protection, nurturing, childbearing and child-rearing, fecundity (in a polite sort of way), and Mother. She also is the Goddess aspect of Divine Mother. But you do not want to see Mama upset, cause if Mama is not happy, ain’t nobody happy. The shadow side of Cancer (Capricorn) can be smothering instead of mothering, being told what to do because it is for your own good you know, and passive-aggressive control tendencies.

However, with the Solstice, the strongest intuition is to connect with Consciousness as expressed in bodily form. Spirit AS the Body. No boundaries, no separation, no distinction. God/Goddess as your essence and form.

Our innate body sense is often ignored in favour of the mind, and both end up suffering. We innately KNOW what is right and correct, and if we go against that with our logic, we will not have an incredibly happy time of it. This has recently been brought home to me on a personal level. If we do not listen, and nurture, and harmonize, our bodies will reflect the disjointed or stressed-out state of our mind and emotions.

On a more expansive scale, we can be aware that this is exactly what the planetary biosphere is doing. Nature is telling us something is wrong, and doing so without blame or judgment, but with an urgency that seems to say; “you can no longer ignore these conditions…either within you or without you.”

Nurture is Nature…and is our nature. We ignore this at our peril. To nurture our thoughts towards a more loving way may be found in observing how Nature provides unequivocally for all creatures and living things. Yes, that reflects what Jesus is reported to have said; “behold, the lilies of the field, how they neither spin nor sow…” and other metaphors like that.

During a walk recently I stood at a fence overlooking a meadow that was filled with wild plants and flowers and watched as hundreds of bees of all types were busily moving from flower to flower. In the space of a few minutes, I could telepathically and emotionally feel what was transpiring. Nature was nurturing the bees, and in turn Her plants were benefiting. In short order, I was suddenly part of the natural order. Observing yet participating. To my surprise I discovered that there were tears on my cheeks. I came to realize that what is transpiring in the world of humans has no power as great as what I was briefly part of in this moment. None.

Our species seems to have stepped so far away from the relationship that could so nurture and educate us. The opportunity on Monday is to pause and connect with the twin energies of Sun and Mother Earth. An opportunity to remember, and to embrace this deepest of truths: we are loved, we are looked after (if we permit it), and there is a compassionate order that abides in Nature.

What shall we do with this moment, and the ones to follow? How then shall we live? Please re-read the words of Walt Whitman that this post began with for some inspiration. Examine closely what you value, and where you store up your riches. The key is surrendering into the unknown while following your Nature, by being as real as you can be. Sounds like a tall order. Maybe it is. But that is what the little mind will always tell you. Time to listen to deeper wisdoms and be nurtured from the bosom of the mother.

About the Author

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.

17 Jun 2021
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Innovation … How to pull ideas out of thin air

Innovation does not come from a finely trained mind. The opposite, in fact. Innovation is about pulling ideas and possibilities out of thin air. It’s an invisible art form, you might say. It takes…

• You being willing to brush away all the box load of training you have.
• Opening up wildly to something new pouring through you.
• A willingness to unleash that something deep inside you (let’s call it genius, shall we) and to pour that out into the world.
• A boldness of initiative to call an idea forth for all to see.
• An alignment to great things coming through you now.
• A willingness to play and bask in what I like to call the quantum field of possibility.

It’s here in this field, this ‘cloud’ of the unformed potential of us all, that brilliance awaits us all. Anyone and everyone can access this field, and anyone and everyone can be an innovator in whatever area of expertise calls to them.

When you call a new idea or possibility from the ‘cloud’, sometimes it comes to you fully formed and ready to roll into the world. Sometimes it comes like a drip drip drip, until some time later you discover you’re standing right in the middle of a brilliant idea, a revolutionary solution, a genius new that’s never been before. This is INNOVATION! This is what will reshape our world in the coming years and decades as the human race discovers its ability to engage in the creation of new possibilities with benefit for us all.

About the Author

Soleira Green is passionate about innovating a new future now, bringing genius, connection, greatness and the miraculous into the game for us all.