consciousness | Ascension Lifestyle

15 Mar 2024
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What’s Up Universe? Episode 1

I have been pals with the Universe for quite some time now. It wasn’t always that way, but it sure has been over the last 30 years after discovering that all kinds of super intelligence dwelt in the spaces between the stars.

So the Universe and I would like to pass along some greater understanding of what’s happening with the majestic Earth right now. Why? Because there are many views of what’s occurring now on Earth, ranging from climate crisis to healing the Earth to dealing with karma … but none of those match up with the power and beauty of what is actually going on that involves us all.

You see, the Earth and all Life upon it is in the throes of an upgrade, a quantum leap, a burst of becoming the likes of which we may never have seen before.

All of Life has become Source Sentient.

All Life, including the Earth as a sentient Source being, is discovering the unleashing of a new miraculousness. Inside this miraculous unfolding, the Earth is bursting forth in a new kind of Glory. Green is GREENER than ever before. Flowers grow taller and more luxuriant with COLOUR that shouts of wonder unfurling into our senses.

Infinite intelligence is now available to all living beings … and that includes all the life forms here with us. Oceans, forests, mycelium networks, the animal kingdoms … all showing us new possibilities of Life as an intelligent emergence.

And on top of all of that, a reunification has just happened. Every being sent forth from the original Source of Creation has just been called back into unificence, sharing their aeons of journeys, knowledge & wisdom into a new collective intelligence that surprisingly seems to have simultaneously embedded itself into our deep inner cores.

This reunification is about to lead to yet another quantum leap of intelligence, super powers, abilities, genius & connection here on Earth.

For we are no longer products of our pasts, our genetics, our learning and our experiences. We are quantum possibilities unfurling into an ever increasingly wondrous becoming. We are a new quantum future bursting into being!

About the Author

Soleira Green is a visionary author, quantum coach, ALLchemist & future innovator. She has been creating leading edge breakthroughs in consciousness, quantum evolution, transformation, innovation, intelligence and more over the past 25 years, has written and self-published eleven books, and taught courses all over the world on these topics.

14 Mar 2024
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Is There A Magic Formula That Slows Down Aging?

What if there were a magic substance or strategy that would actually slow down aging, allowing us to ease into our later years in generally excellent health? Turns out, there is, and it can help save the planet as well.

It’s not a drug — it’s an amino acid we should avoid — but the discovery of a new antibiotic helped us figure out how the system works.

Rapamycin: The Wonder Anti-Aging Drug?

Back in October of 1975, the Journal of Antibiotics (Vol 28, No 10) published an article titled, “Rapamycin, A New Fungal Antibiotic.” It noted that the compound was the metabolic product of a fungus found in the soil of Easter Island (known in the local language as Rapa Nui), and represented an exciting and newly-discovered streptomycete antibiotic whose “structure is still unknown.”

Rapamycin, it turns out, slows down aging by inhibiting a naturally-occurring enzyme in the human body that is known as mTOR, or the “mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin.”

This enzyme, mTOR, is, as the authors of a 2013 Nature article noted in the title of their piece, “A Key Modulator of Ageing and Age-Related Disease.” The authors noted in their abstract that finding drugs to “slow ageing” was inevitable, and:

“A leading target for such interventions is the nutrient response pathway defined by the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR).”

They noted that when the mTOR enzyme was blocked in various animals, including primates like us, it both “extends lifespan” and “confers protection against a growing list of age-related pathologies.” If only we could take a pill — like the antibiotic Rapamycin — that blocks the mTOR enzyme’s metabolic pathway, the argument goes, we could all live longer and healthier lives.

The problem with taking regular doses of Rapamycin and substances derived from it to inhibit the action of the mTOR enzyme and thus slow ageing, however, is that these compounds are so new that human studies are not yet conclusive.

Rapamycin seems to stop — and, in some ways, even reverse — aging in mice and other animals, and there are multiple human clinical trials underway across the world, including some intended to end up before the FDA.

It’s the hot new drug for life-hackers who are trying to live longer, with concierge and online doctors prescribing 5 mg. of the drug one day every week. (There are message boards and groups across the internet by and for people taking this drug.)

How to Regulate Mtor Without Taking Drugs?

But for the average person, rapamycin isn’t an option, so what other ways can we alter the actions of the mTOR pathway in the human body to slow or reverse aging?

The mTOR pathway drives rapid growth throughout our first twenty to thirty years, but after that it continues to run at full speed, even though after roughly age 30 that process not only doesn’t produce “growth” but, instead, becomes a rapid form of aging.

Why doesn’t mTOR slow down as we age? Scientists believe it’s because throughout most of human evolutionary history, aging beyond the 40s was pretty much non-existent.

But now that modern hygiene and medicine have extended our life spans into an average of the 70 to 80 years range, the holy grail of anti-aging efforts worldwide has been trying to figure out how to inhibit the mTOR enzyme after the first 20-30 or so years of rapid growth and muscle development.

As Mikhail V. Blagosklonny wrote for the journal Cell Cycle:

“[T]he traditional analogy of an aging organism with a rusting (albeit self-repairing) car is misleading. The true analogy is a speeding car that enters a low-speed zone [after age 30] and damages itself because it does not and cannot slow down.”

While there isn’t an FDA-approved drug that we can take today to slow down aging, there is a change we can make to our diet that measurably and reliably slows down the mTOR enzyme’s aging pathway. And that dietary change has an evolutionary history, too.

How Feast And Famine Produces A Prolonged Life

Throughout human history, pretty much wherever humans lived, there were periodic times of — literally — feast and famine. Three researchers from the European Institute of Oncology noted in the title of a 2012 article in Frontiers of Physiology how “caloric restriction” produces “a healthy and prolonged life.”

The opening two sentences of the article summarize its thrust:

“Over the last several years, new evidence has kept pouring in about the remarkable effect of caloric restriction on the conspicuous bedfellows: aging and cancer. Through the use of various animal models, it is now well established that by reducing calorie intake one can not only increase life span but, also, lower the risk of various age-related diseases such as cancer.”

Does that mean that we all need to fast a few days a week, or a few weeks a year, replicating, in part, the world we lived in before the advent of modern agriculture? Or adopt the now-popular 5:2 diet or something similar, where we eat fewer than 500 calories for two days every week, while eating our normal diet the other five?

While those types of caloric restriction certainly have been proven to slow down aging in other mammals, and appear to do so with human populations who’ve been exposed to famine or had anorexic periods in their lives, such a drastic measure may not be necessary to extend both lifespan and quality of life as we age. And it all comes back to the master enzyme pathway of rapid growth and rapid aging: mTOR.

mTOR Is The Master Enzyme Controlling Aging

Nature’s journal Molecular Cell Biology published a remarkable article in January, 2011, titled mTOR: From Growth Signal Integration to Cancer, Diabetes and Aging. In the clinical language of their science, the authors wrote:

“The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) coordinates eukaryotic cell growth and metabolism with environmental inputs, including nutrients and growth factors. Extensive research over the past two decades has established a central role for mTOR in regulating many fundamental cell processes, from protein synthesis to autophagy, and deregulated mTOR signaling is implicated in the progression of cancer and diabetes, as well as the aging process.”

In other words, mTOR is a master enzyme pathway that “coordinates” both how cells metabolize nutrients, and how fast they grow as a result. It regulates everything from the ability of cells to make proteins for other parts of the body to the process of destroying old, diseased, or damaged cells (autophagy) that could otherwise turn cancerous or problematic.

Even more significantly, when mTOR isn’t controlled or runs in a “deregulated” fashion, aging speeds up and people move faster towards cancer and diabetes.

The article also notes that outside of Rapamycin, no individual compound has yet been found to down-regulate or slow down the mTOR pathway, except caloric restriction.

You Don’t Need To Starve: Just Avoid One Particular Type Of Food

So, what is it about caloric restriction that regulates the mTOR pathway so effectively? Turns out, it’s not the simple restriction or reduction of calories, although that works.

But the reason it works is because when people eat fewer calories — they eat less food — they’re also consuming less protein. And protein, it appears, is what’s actually hitting the mTOR pathway and speeding up (via lots of dietary protein) or slowing down (with less dietary protein) aging and the chance of getting cancer and diabetes.

A study published in the journal Aging Cell in October of 2008 noted that while caloric restriction “protects against cancer and slows aging in rodents,” that, prior to the publication of this study, “long-term effects of caloric restriction…in humans are unknown.”

They then report that in protein-restricted humans, who were able to eat all the calories they wanted, the result was a significant reduction of the hormones and metabolic pathways that lead to aging and metabolic diseases like diabetes and cancer.

They ended their abstract with:

“[O]ur data provide evidence that protein intake is a key determinant of circulating IGF-1 levels in humans, and suggest that reduced protein intake may become an important component of anticancer and anti-aging dietary interventions.”

Protein reduction, in fact, not only down-regulates the activity of the mTOR pathway, but it does the same for IGF1, another compound that is associated with aging and metabolic diseases, as an article titled Extending Healthy Life Span—From Yeast to Humans published in Science in 2010 lays out clearly.

So, it turns out it’s not restricting calories that produces an increase in human longevity (although binging on calories regularly isn’t healthy, either), but restricting protein.

But Are There Good And Bad Proteins For Aging?

Taking that to the next step, what if it wasn’t even the protein, but one of the specific amino acids that make up the protein that was producing — when reduced — this aging-slowing outcome?

An article published in the journal Trends in Cell Biology points out that, “Withdrawal of [the amino acid] leucine has been shown to be nearly as effective in down-regulation of mTOR1C signaling as withdrawal of all amino acids.”

Leucine — The Amino Acid That Ages You

Leucine, it turns out, is an amino acid that is found in very low concentrations in edible plants and plant-based products, and in very high concentrations in meats and other food products derived from animals, ranging from mammals (and dairy) to birds (and eggs) to fish.

Researchers in Germany found that feeding human children infant formulas fortified with cow’s milk — which is much higher in leucine than is human mother’s milk — can produce obesity and even diabetes in children as young as two years old. Leucine, they noted, was the key to down-regulating the IGF and mTOR pathways.

“In general,” the authors noted, “lower leucine levels are only reached by restriction of animal proteins.”

“Whey proteins” from cow’s milk, they noted, “…contain the highest amount of leucine (14%), followed by casein (10%), the major protein constituent of cow milk and cheese.” Flesh meats are just slightly lower than dairy products.

Reducing leucine slows down aging and cancer, and the easiest and most painless way to reduce leucine is by eliminating all or most animal products from your diet.

And the differences in leucine levels are huge between animal and plant-based foods:

“Just 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of Gouda cheese contains 2400 milligrams of leucine,” they wrote, whereas hitting that same leucine level with vegetables would require eating “4.2 kg [over 9 pounds) white cabbage or 100 apples.”

They concluded that section noting, “These calculations exemplify the extreme differences in leucine amounts provided by an animal meat/dairy protein-based diet in comparison to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Thus, the increased consumption of meat and dairy proteins provide excessive amounts of leucine for mTORC1 activation.”

This entire long and winding road of science and logic leads to a single inescapable point. Reducing leucine slows down aging and cancer, and the easiest and most painless way to reduce leucine is by eliminating all or most animal products from your diet.

Living Longer Through Leucine Restriction Also Helps Save Our World

The bonus here is that a plant-based diet is better for our planet. Animal-based agriculture is among the top five contributors to climate-changing greenhouse gasses worldwide, because first we have to grow the grains and vegetables that we then feed to the animals we ultimately eat.

The entire process is incredibly inefficient, as you can see in this UN-provided chart:

A single pound of feedlot-produced beef requires the nutrient base of 35 pounds of topsoil (to produce 12 pounds of grain) and about 2500 gallons of water.

While different vegetable, grain, seed, nut, and fruit crops consume or require different amounts of topsoil and water to produce a pound of edible plant-based food, the amounts are radically smaller than what’s necessary to produce a pound of animal flesh, eggs, or dairy.

So, save the world and lengthen your own life: cut back on animal products as much as you can and you’ll become part of the (long-lived) solution rather than the problem.

Original article here

27 Feb 2024
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How to Keep Your Creativity Alive When You Have a Chronic Illness

Whether you’re creative as part of a little hobby, a way of life, or somewhere in between, you probably consider creativity to be a force for good in your life. But when you also live with chronic illness, it’s not always easy to draw, write, cook, knit, build, or participate in whatever expressive outlet you love.

That’s not to say creativity and chronic illness are totally incompatible. Plenty of people see their passions and hobbies as essential to their self-care routine, and others use their condition to inspire their work. At the same time, a lot of the symptoms and practicalities associated with managing an illness don’t exactly vibe with making things. Brain fog, pain flare-ups, mobility issues, fatigue, medication side effects—whatever you deal with, you’re not alone if you find that navigating a mix of mental and physical obstacles can get in the way of your creative efforts.

To help you bring more creativity to your life, I asked people for their best advice for others in similar boats and even tossed in a few tips from my own experience. Since both chronic illnesses and creative practices vary far and wide, not everything will apply to everyone, so take what you like and leave the rest. Whatever’s blocking your flow, here are a few ways to stay inspired.

Follow artists and other sources of inspiration on social media.

“I follow a lot of poets, artists, and crafters via social media, blogs, and newsletters,” Siobhan Moore, 39, tells SELF. “At times it can be hard not to make comparisons about how much they’re doing when I feel useless, but most of the time I’m able to keep a mindset of learning and inspiration when I look at their processes and results.”

Moore also recommends following museums, art centers, and accounts related to architecture, nature, music, and dance. “All art, I believe, is interconnected, and everything can and should be inspiration for your creative mind regardless of the medium,” she says.

Journal through all the feelings.

“I do a lot of journaling that overflows into my work, especially when I have bad flare-ups,” Jana, 27, tells SELF. “When I start working on things, a lot of the inspiration is taken from that.” If the idea of starting a whole ~journaling practice~ just stresses you out more, consider options you may find less physically and mentally taxing. These guided journals are full of prompts to get you going, and plenty of journaling apps and other alternatives let you log voice memos and photos instead of written entries.

And scribble down all the ideas.

Moore recommends lists. Lots and lots of lists. “Even when I can’t make art, I can jot down ideas, I can bookmark websites, poetry, articles to go back to for research later,” she says. “I can try and take a pile of disjointed thoughts jotted down and organize it slowly.”

Get creative (lol) about finding a new creative outlet.

After developing lasting symptoms following a COVID infection two years ago, Emma, 34, realized that concentrating on the intricate work of cross-stitching triggered her fatigue. Around the same time, she got into watching paint-pouring videos and decided to try it for herself—only to find it was a much better match for her needs.

“Trying something new creatively was helpful for me mentally as I dealt with my new normal,” she tells SELF. “I found that I hadn’t lost all avenues to being creative, and I found comfort in that.”

Break activities down into steps you can spread out.

Even after you find the right fit, there will still be instances when you need to scale back. At that point, Emma recommends spreading it out over a few days, like mixing paints one day and pouring the next. “If I was absolutely too tired to even mix paint, I could plan the next painting and think about what colors I wanted to use to keep my creative juices flowing,” she says. “It’s really empowering to make my artwork with my energy levels instead of against them.”

Organize your supplies so they’re easy to access or store.

For me, the activity itself often isn’t the hurdle I need to overcome—it’s the setup and cleanup! I can’t tell you how many times I got out all of my supplies, had a grand ol’ time making things, and then had to suffer the mess for days as I waited for another burst of energy to put it away. On the other hand, I’ve probably had the passing urge to create something, like, a million times, only for it to float away in the wind because I’m too tired to go digging in my closet for what I need.

My solution? Little caddies. I have a few stocked with everything I need for a particular activity, like my writing caddy filled with pens, my go-to journals, notecards, sticky notes, and other goodies, making them easy to grab from my desk or closet when the mood strikes.

Try literal art therapy.

Whether your chronic illness is a mental condition itself or requires managing your mental health in some other way, art therapy can be an awesome method of doubling up on self-care and creative play. “I actually started seeing an art therapist when I was dealing with a lot of frustration around my illness and how it was impacting my writing,” Valeria, 28, tells SELF. “It wound up being good on both fronts. It loosened my creative muscles via a new medium that wasn’t words, and it also gave me an outlet for exploring how I felt about my condition and how it had changed my life.” No need to run out and get an art therapist either (unless you want to)—you can start by trying out some at-home art therapy exercises.

When you don’t have the mental space to be creative, work on mindless tasks that will pay off later.

When Moore is struggling with motivation, she focuses on undemanding jobs on her to-do list. “Sometimes simple things like untangling embroidery thread and organizing it can set me up for my next project, even when I’m struggling with motivation.”

Lean into small acts of everyday creativity.

“Doing something creative every day, like regular joyful movement and getting out to see friends, helps me manage my emotional response to chronic pain and flare-ups, which in turn makes the pain lessen or at least feel more manageable,” Kelsey, 30, tells SELF. “Knowing that I’ll probably feel better if I spend time being creative—because it is a reminder that I am a person with hobbies and interests and talents, not just a body stuck in pain—is a real motivator for me.”

And scale things down when needed.

“Flexibility in how I am creative on a day with a larger pain flare-up is important,” Kelsey says. “Maybe I feel up to drawing and painting for 15 to 30 minutes at home instead of trekking out to paint for a longer session on-site. Or I might feel up to a quick sketch instead of the repetitive movements of cross-stitching.”

Try to worry less about finishing everything or hitting milestones.

I know, easier said than done. But if you find yourself feeling guilty for abandoning work-in-progress projects or beating yourself up about where you think you “should” be in your artistic endeavors, see if reframing your thoughts brings some of the magic back.

“Recently, I have changed my perspective about myself as an artist,” Reni, 33, tells SELF. “I no longer believe that I need to achieve certain milestones or receive professional training to become a ‘true artist.’ I am learning and growing by creating and experimenting on my own—and in doing so I become a better artist.”

Look for something totally immersive so you can tune the world—and your symptoms—out.

A big reason Emma fell in love with paint-pouring? It doubled as a mindfulness activity. “I could forget the frustration of not having the same kind of energy as my friends, or ignore the sadness I have about the energy I once had and not knowing if I’ll ever get it back,” she says. “I wouldn’t say painting helped my symptoms, but it allowed me to have a space where I didn’t have to necessarily think about them.”

Embrace the delightfully shitty craft.

Raise your hand if the annoying voice in your head that’s like “Uhh, you suck at this” has ever interrupted some perfectly lovely creative time. (It’s me. I’m raising my hand.) It’s not always related to chronic illness—sometimes I am too hard on myself and sometimes I really do suck—but it’s hard not to groan when certain symptoms interfere with my usual abilities. At times like that, I reach for things I don’t mind doing badly.

To see if it takes some of the pressure off, you might want to start with some inner-child crafts, courtesy of the author of Shitty Craft Club Sam Reece.

Swap from tech to analog (or vice versa).

At the height of its moment as the newest self-care craze, I was stockpiling adult coloring books like there was no tomorrow. I loved it as a “low-key” way to be artistic—and to this day, each of them probably has a handful of half-finished pages. Luckily, somewhere along the line, I discovered digital coloring book apps, which scratched the same itch with even less work.

On the other hand, maybe moving away from tech is the way to go. “I’m a digital artist, and eye strain from staring at my screen all day was a trigger,” Talia, 24, tells SELF. “It got to the point where I couldn’t work on the computer at all on flare-up days. Eventually it got me back into sketching the old-fashioned way as a way to stay ‘tapped in,’ just so I wouldn’t have to go without my art entirely.”

Track your symptoms to find what supports and hurts your creativity.

Symptom tracking overall—whether via journal or an app like Bearable—is a solid way to identify patterns, triggers, and other clues associated with your chronic illness. But it can also give you lots of useful info for making adjustments and decisions in your creative life. For example, recognizing signs that a flare-up is coming means I can adjust my expectations for the week—or at least remind me to put my collaging caddy near the couch where I know I’ll be parked out for a few days.

All that said, don’t force it.

I know, it sucks when you want to let your artsy fartsy flag fly but you don’t have the physical or mental capacity for it. The good news is, that’s kind of how creativity is in general: ebbing and flowing.

“My advice for people in the same boat is to not pressure yourself or set expectations around your creativity,” says Kelsey. “Some days you will feel up to it and other days you won’t, and learning to live with that is challenging enough without beating yourself up about your ability to be creative on any given day.”

Finally, remember that rest is important.

Not just for reasons related to your illness, but for your creativity too. “There are days when I truly don’t want to be creative and sometimes I give in to that and just let myself rest and recover,” Afsheen Shah, 50, tells SELF. “Whether it’s a sauna, massage, or a little extra sleep, I give my body what it needs. On a subconscious level, it sends my body a signal that I love it and care enough about it to listen. On a conscious level, I know I’m doing what’s best for my body at that time and that always motivates me to come back stronger and even better once I’ve given myself the rest I need.”

Kelsey echoes the sentiment. “I remind myself that I deserve rest, that this pain is a moment in time, and soon I’ll feel up to being creative again.”

Original article here

13 Feb 2024
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The ’20-5-3′ Rule Prescribes How Much Time to Spend Outside

The herd of 400-pound caribou was running 50 miles an hour and directly at me. The 30 animals had been eating lichen in the Arctic tundra in Alaska when something spooked them. I was sitting in their escape route. The ground began to vibrate once they cracked 100 yards. At 50 yards, I could see their hooves smashing the ground and kicking up moss and moisture. Then they were at 40 yards, then 35.

I could hear their breathing, smell their coats, and see all the details of their ornate antlers. Just as I was wondering if the rescue plane would be able to spot my hoof-pocked corpse, one of the caribou noticed me and swerved. The herd followed, shaking the earth as they swept left and summited a hillcrest, their antlers black against a gold sky.

That moment when those caribou shook the earth also shook my soul. It was transcendent, wild as a religious experience. And it’s not even the most intense thing I did in Alaska. I experienced savage weather, crossed raging rivers, and faced a half-ton grizzly. My brain was feeling less hunkered down in its typical foxhole—a state I’d compare to that of a roadrunner on meth, dementedly zooming from one thing to the next. My mind felt more like it belonged to a monk after a month at a meditation retreat. I just felt . . . better. The biologist E. O. Wilson put what I was feeling this way: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.”

When I returned from the wild, my Zen-like buzz hung around for months. To understand what was happening, I met with Rachel Hopman, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Northeastern University. She told me about the nature pyramid. Think of it like the food pyramid, except that instead of recommending you eat this many servings of vegetables and this many of meat, it recommends the amount of time you should spend in nature to reduce stress and be healthier. Learn and live by the 20-5-3 rule.

20 Minutes

That’s the amount of time you should spend outside in nature, like a neighborhood park, three times a week. Hopman led a new study that concluded that something as painless as a 20-minute stroll through a city botanical garden can boost cognition and memory as well as improve feelings of well-being. “But,” she said, “we found that people who used their cell phone on the walk saw none of those benefits.”

Other research discovered that 20 minutes outside three times a week is the dose of nature that had the greatest effect on reducing an urban dweller’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

In nature, our brains enter a mode called “soft fascination.” Hopman described it as a mindfulness-like state that restores and builds the resources you need to think, create, process information, and execute tasks. It’s mindfulness without the meditation. A short daily nature walk—or even a walk down a tree-lined street—is a great option for people who aren’t keen on sitting and focusing on their breath. But turn off your phone—alerts from it can kick you out of soft-fascination mode.

5 Hours

The minimum length of time each month you should spend in semi-wild nature, like a forested state park. “Spending more time in wilder spaces does seem to give you more benefits,” said Hopman.

A 2005 survey conducted in Finland found that city dwellers felt better with at least five hours of nature a month, with benefits increasing at higher exposures. They were also more likely to be happier and less stressed in their everyday lives.

The Finnish government then funded another study in 2014 in which the scientists dumped people in a city center, a city park, and a forested state park. The two parks felt more Zen than the city center. No shocker. Except that those walking in a state park had an edge over the city-park people. They felt even more relaxed and restored. The takeaway: The wilder the nature, the better.

Nature has these effects on the mind and body because it stimulates and soothes us in unusual and unique ways. For instance, in nature you are engulfed in fractals, suggested Hopman. Fractals are complex patterns that repeat over and over in different sizes and scales and make up the design of the universe. Think: trees (big branch to smaller branch to smaller branch and so on), river systems (big river to smaller river to stream and so on), mountain ranges, clouds, seashells. “Cities don’t have fractals,” said Hopman. “Imagine a typical building. It’s usually flat, with right angles. It’s painted some dull color.” Fractals are organized chaos, which our brains apparently dig. In fact, scientists at the University of Oregon discovered that Jackson Pollock’s booze-and-jazz-fueled paintings are made up of fractals. This may explain why they speak to humans at such a core level.

Nature lifts us in other ways, too: Think smells and sounds. The feeling of the sun’s warm rays. Or just the fact that you’re getting out of the stress of your home or office. “It’s probably a mix of a lot of things,” said Hopman. Environments like cities, with their frenetic pace, right angles, loud noises, rotten smells, pinging phones, and to-do lists, don’t offer this.

3 Days

This is the top of the pyramid. Three is the number of days you should spend each year off the grid in nature, camping or renting a cabin (with friends or solo). Think: places characterized by spotty cell reception and wild animals, away from the hustle and bustle.

This dose of the wildest nature is sort of like an extended meditation retreat. Except talking is allowed and there are no gurus. It causes your brain to ride alpha waves, the same waves that increase during meditation or when you lapse into a flow state. They can reset your thinking, boost creativity, tame burnout, and just make you feel better.

This is likely why one study found that three days in the wild boosts creativity and problem-solving abilities and another found that U. S. military vets who spent four days white-water rafting were still buzzing off the wild a week later. Their PTSD symptoms and stress levels were down 29 and 21 percent, respectively. Their relationships, happiness, and general satisfaction with their lives all improved as well.

When I returned from Alaska, my wife and I moved to the edge of the desert in Las Vegas. She wanted a shorter commute, and I wanted more access to nature. I now walk my dogs through red-rock trails for at least 20 minutes daily and on Sunday do a long trail run deep into the canyons to rack up my five-hour quota for the month. This summer, I’m planning a weeklong backcountry fly-fishing trip in Idaho’s Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness Area. Hoping I’ll return less frazzled, fitter, and feeling more alive.

Original article here

05 Feb 2024
Comments: 0

What was it like when the last antimatter disappeared?

Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first 25 microseconds after the start of the hot Big Bang, a number of incredible events have already occurred. The Universe created all the particles and antiparticles — known (as part of the Standard Model) and unknown (including whatever makes up dark matter) — it was ever capable of creating, reaching the highest temperatures it ever attained. Through a still-undetermined process, it created an excess of matter over antimatter: just at the 1-part-in-a-billion level. The electroweak symmetry broke, allowing the Higgs to give mass to the Universe. The heavy, unstable particles decayed away, and the quarks and gluons bound together to form protons and neutrons.

But that only gets us so far. At these early stages, there may be protons and neutrons in the Universe, as well as a high-energy bath of photons and neutrinos-and-antineutrinos, but we’re still a long way from the Universe as we recognize it today. In order to get there, a number of other things must occur. And the first of those, once we have protons and neutrons, is to get rid of the last of our antimatter, which is still incredibly abundant.

You can always make antimatter in the Universe, so long as you have the energy for it. Einstein’s most famous equation, E = mc², works two ways, and it works equally well for both applications.

It can create energy from pure matter (or antimatter), converting mass (m) into energy (E) by reducing the amount of mass present, such as by annihilating equal parts matter with antimatter.
Or it can create new matter from pure energy, so long as it also makes an equivalent amount of the antimatter counterparts for each matter particle it creates.

These annihilation-and-creation processes, so long as there’s enough energy for creation to proceed smoothly, balance out in the early Universe.

Early on, when the Universe was very hot, this process easily allowed us to create all of the particles and antiparticles contained within the Standard Model, as even the most massive particle (or antiparticle) known — the top quark — can be created quite easily: so long as there’s more than ~175 GeV of energy (the rest-mass energy of the top quark and antiquark) available for new particle (or antiparticle) creation with each typical collision that occurs.

So that’s how the hot Big Bang starts off: with this hot particle-antiparticle soup made up of all allowable species. In the earliest stages, it’s the heaviest particle-antiparticle pairs that disappear first. It takes the most energy to create the most massive particles and antiparticles, so as the Universe cools, it gets progressively less and less likely that the quanta of energy that interact can spontaneously create new particle/antiparticle pairs.

By the time the Higgs gives mass to the Universe, this primordial particle/antiparticle soup is too low in energy to create top quarks or W-and-Z bosons. Shortly thereafter, it becomes no longer possible to spontaneously create:

bottom quarks,
tau leptons,
charm quarks,
strange quarks,
or even muons (in that order).

Right around that same time that muons and antimuons annihilate and decay away, quarks-and-gluons bind together into neutrons and protons, while antiquarks bind together into antineutrons and antiprotons.

While there was plenty of energy available to create free up/anti-up and down/anti-down quarks, the onset of what we call “confinement” (or the hadron era) in the Universe means that such interactions are no longer possible; you must create whole protons/antiprotons or neutrons/antineutrons, which are much more massive that the quarks that compose them. The energy available in the Universe is far too low for that to occur, so all the antimatter, in the form of antiprotons and antineutrons, annihilates away with as much matter as it can find.

However, since there is somewhere around 1 extra proton (or neutron) for every 1.4 billion proton/antiproton pairs, we’re left over with a small excess of protons and neutrons.

All of the proton/antiproton and neutron/antineutron annihilations give rise to photons — the purest form of raw energy — along with all the prior annihilations that gave rise to photons as well. Photon-photon interactions are still going strong at this early, energetic stage, and they can spontaneously produce both neutrino-antineutrino pairs and electron-positron pairs. Even after we make protons and neutrons, and even after all the antiprotons and antineutrons have disappeared, the Universe is still rife with antimatter: in the form of antineutrinos and positrons.

It’s important to remember, even at this relatively late stage in the game (tens of microseconds after the start of the hot Big Bang), how hot and dense things still truly are. The Universe has had just a fraction of a second go by since the Big Bang, and particles are packed tighter everywhere than they are, today, within the center of our Sun. The ambient temperatures would have to be measured in the trillions of degrees: more than 100,000 times as great as in the Sun’s core. And perhaps most importantly, there are a slew of interactions constantly occurring that can transform one type of particle into another.

Today, we’re used to the weak nuclear interactions occurring spontaneously in one context alone: that of radioactive decay. Higher-massed particles, like a free neutron or a heavy atomic nucleus, emit daughter particles that are less massive, giving off some energy in accord with that same equation Einstein put forth: E = mc². But at these stages of the Big Bang, even after the electroweak symmetry breaks, the weak interactions continue to play a more important role than simply being responsible for radioactive decays for some time.

In the hot, dense, early Universe, there’s a second role for the weak interaction to play, enabling protons and neutrons to convert into one another. So long as the Universe is energetic enough, here are four extreme reactions that occur spontaneously:

p + e– → n + νe,
n + e+ → p + νe,
n + νe → p + e–,
p + νe → n + e+.

In these equations, p is for proton, n is for neutron, e– is for electron, e+ is for positron (antielectron), while νe is an electron-neutrino and νe is an electron-antineutrino.

You’ll also notice that, when it comes to these four equations, equations #1 and #3 are simply the inverse of one another, while equations #2 and #4 are also the inverse of one another. This is an indication to us that these reactions can proceed either forward (e.g., where protons and electrons interact, resulting in a neutron and neutrino) or backward (e.g., where neutrons and neutrinos interact, resulting in a proton and electron), so long as the weak interactions and the amount of available energy both allow these reactions to proceed.

So long as temperatures and densities are high enough, all of these reactions occur spontaneously and at equal rates. Under these conditions:

the weak interactions are still important,
there’s a strong enough coupling between protons/neutrons and electrons/positrons/neutrinos/antineutrinos,
there’s enough matter and antimatter for these reactions to occur frequently,
and there’s enough energy to create higher-massed neutrons out of lower-massed protons.

While protons/neutrons form and the excess antiprotons/antineutrons are all gone only a few tens of microseconds after the start of the hot Big Bang, the aforementioned conditions are all met for about the first full second after the Big Bang. During this time, everything is in equilibrium, and the Universe interconverts protons-and-neutrons at will, giving us about a 50/50 split between protons and neutrons while this is the case. Each time you convert a proton into a neutron, it’s just as easy to convert a neutron into a proton, and these reactions happen at about the same overall net rate.

But this doesn’t remain the case forever, or even for that long. As the energy inherent to each particle drops, it becomes just a little bit more energetically favorable to produce a proton than a neutron from these interactions. The neutron, remember, is just a little bit more massive than the proton, and is even a little more massive than a proton and an electron combined. As a result, when the temperature of the Universe drops to a value that corresponds to that energy difference, the proton population begins to slightly dominate the neutron population. This occurs right around the time the Universe reaches an age of one second after the Big Bang.

But then, at that moment, two additional things happen in rapid succession, forever altering the course of the Universe.

The first is that the weak interactions freeze out, meaning that the proton-neutron interconversion interactions stop occurring. These interconversions required neutrinos to interact with protons and neutrons at a certain frequency, which they could so long as the Universe was hot and dense enough. When the Universe gets cold and sparse enough, the neutrinos (and antineutrinos) no longer interact, meaning that the neutrinos and antineutrinos we’ve made at this point simply ignore everything else in the Universe. They should still be around at present, with a kinetic energy that corresponds to a temperature (assuming neutrinos are massless, which they aren’t quite) of just 1.95 K above absolute zero.

On the other hand, the Universe is still energetic enough that when two photons collide, they can still spontaneously produce electron-positron pairs, and where electron-positron pairs annihilate into two photons. This continues for just a tiny bit longer: until the Universe is about three seconds old (as opposed to the one second freeze out for neutrinos). This “second additional thing,” occurring just slightly after the weak interactions freeze out, means that all the matter-antimatter energy that was tied up in electrons and positrons goes exclusively into photons, and not into species of neutrinos-and-antineutrinos, when they annihilate.

This annihilation, of electrons and positrons into photons, represents the Universe losing the last of its antimatter. After this event, only antineutrinos, which already stopped interacting with the other particles in the Universe something like ~2 seconds ago, remain and persist up through and including the present day.

This has a big implication for the temperature of the leftover photon background — known today as the Cosmic Microwave Background — that it should be exactly (11/4)1/3 times hotter than the neutrino background: a temperature of 2.73 K instead of 1.95 K. Believe it or not, we’ve already detected both of these backgrounds and measured their temperature (for photons) or temperature-equivalent (for neutrinos/antineutrinos), and they match with these explicit predictions from the Big Bang perfectly.

The Cosmic Microwave Background, although it was first detected in 1964, required a very high precision set of measurements to determine its temperature. Although many efforts and improvements occurred throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the CMB’s temperature was only first measured to this incredible precision back in 1992, with the first data release of NASA’s COBE satellite.

However, the neutrino background imprints itself onto the CMB and in the large-scale structure of the Universe only in a very subtle way, and the evidence for that neutrino background and its properties wasn’t first detected until 2015. When it was finally discovered, the scientists who did the work found a phase shift in the Cosmic Microwave Background’s fluctuations that enabled them to determine, if neutrinos were massless today, how much energy they’d have at this early time.

Their results? The Cosmic Neutrino Background had an equivalent temperature of 1.96 ± 0.02 K, in perfect agreement with the Big Bang’s predictions. Later work, in 2019, found additional evidence for the Cosmic Neutrino Background imprinted in the Universe’s large-scale structure, but with less precision than the CMB method.

You might wonder why it’s worth belaboring such a tiny detail in the early Universe, and the answer is profound. Because of the brief amount of time that:

the weak interactions were important (during the first ~1 second after the hot Big Bang),
and antimatter also persisted (during the first ~3 seconds after the hot Big Bang),

the Universe is not evenly split, 50/50, between protons and neutrons any longer. Rather, the split has shifted substantially: to be more like 85/15, in favor of protons over neutrons. With the neutrinos and antineutrinos completely decoupled from all the other particles in the Universe, they simply move through space freely, at speeds indistinguishable (but slightly lower than) the speed of light. Meanwhile, the positrons (i.e., antielectrons) are all gone, and so are most of the electrons.

When the dust clears, what’s left over are exactly as many electrons as there are protons, keeping the Universe electrically neutral. There are over a billion photons for every proton or neutron, with another background of about 70% as many neutrinos-and-antineutrinos as photons. The Universe is still hot and dense, but it’s cooled tremendously in just the first 3 seconds. Now that all the antimatter is gone, the raw ingredients to begin building the Universe as we know it are finally in place.

Original article here

27 Jan 2024
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Laundry Is A Top Source Of Microplastic Pollution – Here’s How To Clean Your Clothes More Sustainably

Microplastics are turning up everywhere, from remote mountain tops to deep ocean trenches. They also are in many animals, including humans.

The most common microplastics in the environment are microfibers – plastic fragments shaped like tiny threads or filaments. Microfibers come from many sources, including cigarette butts, fishing nets and ropes, but the biggest source is synthetic fabrics, which constantly shed them.

Textiles shed microfibers while they are manufactured, worn and disposed of, but especially when they are washed. A single wash load can release several million microfibers. Many factors affect how many fibers are released, including fabric type, mechanical action, detergents, temperature and the duration of the wash cycle.

My research focuses on coastal ecology and water pollution, including work in New York and New Jersey marshes and estuaries that are heavily affected by human activities. Here are some things to know about reducing microplastic pollution from your washing machine.

From Fabric To Water And Soil

Once garments release microfibers in washing machines, the fibers enter the wastewater stream, which generally goes to a wastewater treatment plant. Advanced treatment plants can remove up to 99% of microfibers from water. But since a single laundry load can produce millions of fibers, treated water discharged from the plant still contains a huge number of them.

Microfibers that are removed during treatment end up in sewage sludge – a mix of solid materials that is processed to remove pathogens. In many cases, treated sewage sludge is applied to soil as a fertilizer. This allows microfibers to enter air and soil, and to be transferred to soil organisms and up the terrestrial food web or taken up by crops.

Microplastics that wash into rivers, lakes and bays can have many harmful effects. They may be consumed by fish and other aquatic animals, affecting their biochemistry, physiology, reproduction, development or behavior. These microplastics contain chemical additives, including substances like phthalates and bisphenol A that can leach out and may have health effects in humans and animals, including effects on the endocrine system.

Textile microfibers also contain additional chemicals that have been shown to be toxic, such as fabric dyes, anti-wrinkle agents and flame retardants. In addition, contaminants that are present in the water, such as metals and pesticides, can stick to microplastic particles, turning them into a veritable cocktail of contaminants that may be transferred into animals that eat them.

Washing More Sustainably

Not all fabrics shed microfibers at the same rate. A loosely woven fabric that feels fluffy or fuzzy, such as fleece, sheds more than a tightly woven one. While garments made of natural fibers, such as cotton and wool, would appear to be a solution, unfortunately they also shed microfibers that can pick up pollutants in the environment.

Some textile scientists and manufacturers are developing fabrics that shed less than existing ones, thanks to features such as longer fibers and coatings to reduce shedding. Meanwhile, here are some ways to reduce microfiber shedding from your laundry:

Do laundry less often. Washing full loads instead of partial loads reduces release of microfibers because garments are exposed to less friction during the wash cycle.
Use cold water, which releases fewer microfibers than hot water.
Use less detergent, which increases microfiber release.
Use a front-loading washing machine, whose tumbling action produces less microfiber release.
Dry laundry on a clothesline. Running clothes in dryers releases additional microfibers into the air from the dryer vent.

Several types of products collect microfibers in the washer before they are released with wastewater. Some are laundry bags made of woven monofilament, a single-polyamide filament that does not disintegrate into fibers. Laundry is washed while enclosed in the bag, which traps microfibers that the garments release. A study of one such product, Guppyfriend, found that it collected about one-third of released microfibers.

Another device, the Cora Ball, is a plastic ball with spines topped with soft plastic discs that capture microfibers. It reduces microfibers by about 25% to 30%, but may not be suitable for loose knits because it can snag on threads and damage clothing.

Filter Your Washwater

Several brands of external filters are available that can be retrofitted onto existing washing machines. External filters can remove up to 90% of microfibers from rinse water. Their average cost is about US$150. Owners need to clean the filters periodically and dispose of the collected microfibers with other solid waste, not down the drain, which would put them back into the wastewater stream.

In a 2021 study, researchers installed washing machine filters in 97 homes in a town in Ontario, Canada, which represented about 10% of the households in the community. They found that this significantly reduced microfibers in treated water from the local treatment plant.

Some companies are now manufacturing washers with built-in microfiber filters. France has enacted a requirement for all new washing machines to be equipped with filters by 2025, and Australia has announced that filters will be required in commercial and residential washers by 2030.

In the U.S., a similar requirement was passed by the California legislature in 2023, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, saying he was concerned about the cost to consumers. An economic study commissioned by Ocean Conservancy found that filters would increase the price of washing machines by only $14 to $20 per machine. Several states are considering regulations that would require filters in washers.

In my view, requiring manufacturers to add filters that can trap microfibers to washing machines is a reasonable and affordable step that could rapidly reduce the enormous quantities of microfibers in wastewater. The eventual solution will be reengineered textiles, which won’t shed, but it will take some time to develop them and move them into clothing supply chains. In the meantime, filters are the most effective way to tackle the problem.

Original story here

13 Jan 2024
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How loneliness changes the way our brains process the world

If there’s one thing we as humans seem to have in common, it’s that most of us have felt lonely at one time or another. But is the pain that comes with feeling socially isolated simply a part of being human? Why does the world seem so different when we’re feeling lonely?

Recent research has begun to provide some answers. And it turns out that loneliness can affect your perception and cognition.

Although no one enjoys the feeling of loneliness, scientists have argued that humans evolved to feel this way for good reason.

Social relationships are crucial, providing safety, resources, opportunities to have children, and so on. The fact that we find the feeling of loneliness so unpleasant often motivates us to reconnect with others, bringing with it all of these benefits.

But it’s not as simple as that. Feeling lonely can also induce social withdrawal and types of negative thinking, which can make it harder to connect with people.

The lonely brain

Studies have identified differences in brain areas associated with loneliness. In lonely young adults, areas of the brain related to social cognition and empathy have less dense white matter (a large network of nerve fibres that allows the exchange of information and communication between different areas of your brain). But in lonely older adults, brain regions important for cognitive processing and emotional regulation are actually smaller in volume.

A recent study found that the brains of lonely people process the world idiosyncratically. The researchers asked participants to watch a series of video clips while inside an fMRI scanner and found that non-lonely people showed very similar neural activity to each other, whereas lonely people showed brain activity that was dissimilar to each other and to the non-lonely participants. So lonely people appear to view the world differently to others.

Finding friends in fiction

This is also evident in how lonely people view fictional characters. Researchers in the US carried out brain scans on fans of the television series Game of Thrones while these fans decided whether various adjectives accurately described characters from the show. The authors of the study were able to identify activity in the brain that distinguished between real and fictional people.

While the difference between these two categories was clear in non-lonely people, the boundary was blurred for lonelier people. These results suggest that feeling lonely may be associated with thinking of fictional characters in a way similar to real-world friends.

However, given the design of the study, it’s unclear whether the findings suggest loneliness causes this way of thinking or if considering fictional characters in this way causes people to feel lonely. And there’s always the possibility that a third factor causes both outcomes.

Another recent study, this time by researchers in Scotland, provided more evidence of how loneliness can affect your cognition. This study focused on inanimate objects. Participants were shown images of products containing pareidolic faces (face-like patterns) and were asked to give several ratings like how eager they were to explore the product and how likely they were to buy it.

The results showed that lonelier participants (compared with those lower in self-reported loneliness) were more likely to attend to, engage with, and purchase products that showed “happy” configurations. These findings may again provide evidence that loneliness is associated with the drive to find connection, even if it’s with objects.

Indeed, this makes sense in the light of previous work showing that lonelier people are more likely to anthropomorphise gadgets or their own pets.

If we look at these studies and what they seem to be telling us, loneliness is not only the perceived absence of others, but also a desire for connection. Whether that’s thinking of fictional characters like real friends or being drawn to happy objects, our brains seem to search for social connections wherever they might find them, especially when we don’t feel like other humans are providing enough of these for us.

Original article here

30 Dec 2023
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I’ve researched time for 15 years – here’s how my perception of it has changed

Time is one of those things that most of us take for granted. We spend our lives portioning it into work-time, family-time and me-time. Rarely do we sit and think about how and why we choreograph our lives through this strange medium. A lot of people only appreciate time when they have an experience that makes them realise how limited it is.

My own interest in time grew from one of those “time is running out” experiences. Eighteen years ago, while at university, I was driving down a country lane when another vehicle strayed onto my side of the road and collided with my car. I can still vividly remember the way in which time slowed down, grinding to a near halt, in the moments before my car impacted with the oncoming vehicle. Time literally seemed to stand still. The elasticity of time and its ability to wax and wane in different situations shone out like never before. From that moment I was hooked.

I have spent the last 15 years trying to answer questions such as: Why does time slow down in near death situations? Does time really pass more quickly as you get older? How do our brains process time?

My attempts to answer these questions often involve putting people into extreme situations to explore how their experience of time is affected. Some of the participants in my experiments have been given electric shocks to induce pain, others have traversed 100-metre-high crumbling bridges (albeit in virtual reality), some have even spent 12 months in isolation on Antarctica. At the heart of this work is an attempt to understand how our interaction with our environment shapes our experience of time.

Thinking time

This research has taught me that time’s flexibility is an inherent part of the way in which we process it. We are not like clocks, which record seconds and minutes with perfect accuracy. Instead, our brain appears to be wired to perceive time in a way that is responsive to the world around us.

The way in which our brain processes time is closely related to the way in which it processes emotion. This is because some of the brain areas involved in the regulation of emotional and physiological arousal are also involved in the processing of time. During heightened emotion, the activation caused by the brain attempts to maintain stability, which alters its ability to process time.

So, when we experience fear, joy, anxiety or sadness, emotional processing and time processing interact. This results in the sensation of time passing more speeding up or slowing down. Time really does fly when you’re having fun and drag when you’re bored.

Changes in our experience of time are most profound during periods of extreme emotion. In near death experiences, like my car crash for example, time slows to the point of stopping. We don’t know why our brains distort sensory information during trauma.

Ancient adaptations

One possibility is that time distortions are an evolutionary survival intervention. Our perception of time may be fundamental to our fight and flight response. This insight into time has taught me that in times of crisis, knee jerk responses are unlikely to be the best ones. Instead, it would seem that slowing down helps me succeed.

Being a time-nerd, I spend a lot of time thinking about time. Before COVID, I would have said that I thought about it more than most. However, this changed during the pandemic.

Think back to those early lockdown days. Time started to slip and slide like never before. Hours sometimes felt like weeks and days merged into one another. Newspaper headlines and social media were awash with the idea that COVID had mangled our sense of time. They were not wrong. COVID time-warps were observed around the world. One study found that 80% of participants felt like time slowed down during the second English lockdown.

We no longer had a choice about how and when we spent our time. Home-time, work-time and me-time were suddenly rolled into one. This loss of control over our schedules made us pay attention to time. People now appear less willing to “waste time” commuting and instead place a greater value on jobs with flexibility over where and when you work. Governments and employers still appear unsure how to grapple with the ever-changing time landscape. What does seem clear however is that COVID permanently altered our relationship with time.

Unfortunately, one downside to having greater awareness of time is greater realisation of just how finite it is. This year I turned 40, my eldest child started high school and my youngest started primary school. What made these events so sobering for me was the fact that in my head, I am still only 23 years old. How can I already be halfway to 80? Is there anyway that I can slow time down?

Knowing that my actions and emotions can have a profound impact on my sense of time opens the tantalising possibility that one day I might be able to control my own experience of time. I often wonder if we may be able to harness the brain’s ability to distort time and somehow re-purpose it so that we can control how we experience it. Then, trips to the dentist could feel like seconds not minutes and holidays would no longer be over in the blink of an eye.

Even though we may be a long way from controlling time, my research has taught me just how precious time is.

Original article here

27 Dec 2023
Comments: 1

Tips for Creating a Brilliant Future in 2024

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26 Dec 2023
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Journey To The Golden Future Of Earth

Earth is a special mystery school. The lessons and understandings offered are unique. You are amazingly blessed to receive the opportunity to be here. Rejoicing in a rainbow, examining a butterfly, stroking a cat, touching a petal, smelling a flower, paddling in a stream or playing with a child are sensations only available on Earth.

When Lady Gaia invites you here, she reminds you that life on Earth is a unique opportunity. Be grateful for it. You are a spiritual being who has volunteered for this expedition.

One of the items of equipment you receive is a physical body, connected to your emotional and mental bodies. Your mind, emotions and physical body are delicate feedback instruments. Everything comes through your spiritual body and filters into your mind. Your thoughts affect your emotions as well as your physical wellbeing. Your emotions are also reflected in your health and body. You are expected to pay attention to this.

You are also equipped with a team of helpers. After all, if you are exploring foreign terrain, even if you have been there several hundred, thousand, million times before, you will need your team to scout ahead, to help you search for food and shelter, and to draw your attention to those things you have come to explore or learn. Remember to ask for help, for they cannot assist you unless you ask, as it would contravene your free will.

An incarnation on Earth is considered to be the Everest of experiences. If you are climbing that particular mountain, you need a good team of sherpas. And it massively enhances and assists your journey if you consult them!

The Golden Future Of Earth

Between 2012 and 2032 Earth is birthing a new fifth dimensional Golden Age, a period during which everything will radiate a golden aura of love and wisdom. If you are reading these words, you have incarnated to help the planet make this transition.

Let’s put the significance of the years between 2012 and 2032 into perspective. The year 2012 marked the end of a 26,000-year cosmic era. It was also the end of a cycle of 10 cosmic eras, so it finalized a 260,000-year epoch for all the universes. For 260,000 years, Earth was part of a fourth-dimensional universe. However, Earth itself was third-dimensional. Of all the planets in this universe, Earth alone descended to the lower frequency. So, why was Earth third dimensional in a fourth dimensional universe?

There are two reasons why our planet was out of step with the rest of our universe. The first is that ages ago a call went out from the Intergalactic Council to all the planets to volunteer to host a unique experiment, that of free will. People could choose whether to act from their divine will or their lower one. Throughout the cosmos, nothing like this had ever been considered, and the concept was regarded with awe, wonder and amazement by every being in the universes.

The Council for Planet Earth volunteered for the experiment. Souls daring to incarnate would go through the Veil of Amnesia, forget that they were divine beings and step into the unknown.

Another agreement of the free-will experiment was that every thought and action would be recorded, and if the balance sheet of a lifetime was in debit, the soul agreed to incarnate again to try to balance their karmic account.

Over the years, beings from all over the universes have been watching in awe and amazement the courageous adventurers who have dared to incarnate as humans on Earth. Anyone who enters this planet is considered exceptionally brave. It is regarded as a jungle where you face many challenges to your soul. If you meet a being out in the cosmos who learns that you have been to Earth, they will look at you with respect and admiration!

No one expected those on Earth to sink into self-centered, selfish behavior, but we did. While the remainder of this universe remained open-hearted and fourth-dimensional, the frequency on Earth fell.

The second reason that Earth fell behind is this: in the third dimension, your solar plexus chakra sends out feelers to watch for danger, and through this psychic center you also absorb the fears of others. Because Earth is the cosmic solar plexus chakra, our planet is absorbing the fears of the entire universe. We have had to transmute these, and this has held us back.

Because we have lagged behind, we are attracting an extraordinary amount of help from the universe during the birth of the new Golden Age. It is as if the baby being birthed has got stuck and needs extra assistance. Great illumined beings, angelic beings and wise ones are focusing their light and energy on Earth now. We can ask them for help to birth the new according to divine timing.

Covid

It is interesting that the pandemic was expected by most of the governments in the world. Plans were put into place, but were not actioned. Spiritually, this was because the world needed Covid as an accelerant to move beyond the old ways. The pandemic created the worldwide chaos and disruption that are accelerating the collapse of the old paradigm. Before it was unleashed, I was wondering how the forecasts for changes in travel, education, government, business, economics, banking, health, farming, etc., could possibly happen by 2032. Then suddenly they were all happening rapidly. It wasn’t just the physical world that was transforming either – human awakening was occurring in front of our eyes.

My friend Tim Whild had a nasty bout of the virus. He told me that his experience caused him to tune in to and talk to the Covid virus entity. He was expecting a dark being to emerge. Instead, a beautiful pink, white and yellow angel appeared. It told him that at a spiritual level, the Delta variant was about clearing the heart chakra. People were literally coughing out old energy. Omicron was often accompanied by splitting headaches that were clearing the mental body. Each time someone says, ‘Omicron,’ they are starting with ‘Om’, calling in source or the universe, then saying, ‘I’ or ‘self ’, followed by ‘cron.’ ‘Cron’ is derived from the old word for the crown, source of divine feminine wisdom. So, each time you think of Omicron, or verbalize it, you call source energy into yourself to enhance your divine feminine wisdom.

Covid has a higher purpose. It is part of the plan to raise the frequency on Earth. The pandemic caused millions of souls to wake up, as well as millions to die. In a final act of service work, nearly all of these souls chose to take some of the stuck energy of the old paradigm with them in order to clear it from the energy fields of Earth.

Not everyone sees it this way, but many years ago my guide Kumeka told me to give no energy to negative conspiracy theories, as they come from a dark base. Currently, disinformation, conspiracy theories, lies and questionable behaviors are widespread. They deflect us all from the true path, which is to focus on the new and wonderful that is soon to be our reality. We now have to trust our intuition.

Visualization To Live In The Golden Future

Take a moment to relax.
Imagine a world where everybody is happy and healthy.
Everyone is contented because they are fulfilled at a soul level.
People everywhere cooperate and look after one another.
There is enough for everyone.
We all respect one another’s race and religion.
The land itself is pure and shining.
Every day we draw in clean energy from Earth and breathe pure air.
This is the new Golden Age into which we are moving.
How does it feel to live like this?

Original article here