Our Body's New Needs

As I was watching a documentary on global dimming, I began to recall information given to me by my intuitive "teacher" several years ago. I was told at that time that the earth had entered what they referred to as a "comic event" as there were no other appropriate words to describe what we were experiencing. They said that the earth was entering the edge of the event, but that it was moving through our entire solar system over time, though I was not given the duration.

It was described as being a rust colored energy field that would create a great deal of pressure on all living beings and systems on earth as well as the sun. The pressure would create disturbances of a geological type and would also effect the magnetic fields of the planet. They went on to explain that our brains would not be functioning as efficiently in the case of many people and that magnetic and other types of support would be needed. The conclusion was that it was "known by all" [from other galaxies, etc.] for a very long time that earth and our solar system would be experiencing this profound, and challengin, period. One could say that this is part of the other streams of information regarding earth changes and such. It likely is.

That was about 5-6 years ago. While watching the Dimming video and contemplating the overlapping of so many events, I suddenly became overwhelmed with the urge to go into a deep meditation.This often happens when there is something specific for me to be made aware of. The following is what I was shown and I took notes the entire time.

Notes on the meditation:

The energies that once prevailed allowed for any number of metabolizations of elements found upon the earth. This was dramaticlly changed when humans began interfering with the chemical structure of the food supplies.  This does not end there. There is an additional factor. This has to do with the environment itself. If you do not have the same ethers surrounding the body as you once had, you do not have the same metabolic support for your synthesis of nutrients. Imagine if you did not have oxygen as an example. This would change dramatically how you would metabolize the fuels the body needs for survival. In this sense, but to a lesser, degree, this has occured on earth. The [food supplies] that are supported at this time are of a different nature than what was once supported. The best for the human body now are the vegetables and the fruits of the earth, though many have been contaminated. The reason for this is that the bodies of the other animals are struggling to the same extent as the humans due to this environmental and atmospheric change. The bodies of these animals have been compromised by the same forces we speak of. 

The body has adapted to the atmospheric conditions that have supported metabolic functions, but the conditions have changed and the body must now adapt to the synthesis of different matter [food] that is more compatible with the new atmospheric support. The heavier proteins are being more damaged by the day. It is best that you limit intake of these and rely more on the lighter supplies of food such as the vegetables and juices that are properly raised [organic]. They are adapting more quickly to the changed atmospheric conditions and remain more intact with their compatibility with the needs of the human body. You must also understand that you will need to take in more fluids of a green nature....they [leaves and herbs] are the most adapted now to the needs of the new physical body that is in it's progression. 

And I Gave Them Away...

Today was the agreed upon day to return to the Co-Op (see blog below) and do a holiday give-away of my cookbooks to anyone who desired one. I'm doing it because it feels good.

The store manager came up to greet and welcome me, happy that I still wanted to gift his customers with free cookbooks after the sourness of the previous attempt.

Scott said to the manager, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" As Scott does not ordinarily go to the Co-op, we all just shrugged with that funny feeling that we were missing something. A few minutes later, as I walked with the manager, Dan, I learned that he had also returned to the Sacramento area after living in Sedona. We further discovered that we have several mutual friends in Sedona, and made arrangements to do a catch up when Scott and I return from a Sedona holiday to visit our soul family of friends in a couple of weeks.

After parting company with Dan, I walked toward the produce aisle assuming there might be a cook or two there as a good portion of the vegetables need some kind of cooking to become edible. I approached a woman in her 60's named Mary. I offered her a book. She looked at me somewhat suspiciously, not willing to buy into what I was putting out there. When I explained further it was just a gift, she stared at me in the eyes and turned quite serious."Why would you do this?" she asked. I told her I enjoyed it. She asked if she could give me a donation to which I politely refused saying "Seriously, it's a gift, I don't want payment." She continued looking into my eyes for something that would betray my true intentions, then slowly held her hand out to take a book. I wished her Happy Holidays, just in case she was Jewish (though my orientation was somewhat obvious as I was wearing a Santa hat) and she returned the greeting saying "Merry Christmas" with an easing, but not eradicated, air of disbelief, still looking into my eyes.  After about 10 minutes she sweetly and shyly came up to me and said "I feel so honored at receiving this gift, would you mind signing the book for me?"

I was so taken back that such a simple offering was apparently such an unfamiliar occurance for this woman. What shapes our sense of mistrust and our sense of worthiness to make a simple act so profound?

Soon after, I approached a rolly-polly African-American woman. As she began to understand what I was offering she asked if she could hug me.  I said I would be delighted because I could tell she would be a magnificent hugger - which she was. She said, "I want to thank you for interrupting my thoughts as I was walking along, it makes my heart feel good that you did that. I was in another world entirely. Now I'm here talking with you!"

Shortly after this, a young woman nearly cried telling me her she was a student with no money and that her mother grew vegetables and loved to cook them. But, she said, she had no money for a Christmas gift and had resorted to  cleaning friend's homes for sustenance. Now, she said, she had a gift for her mother! I started getting teared up along with her.

Scott and I gave away nearly 50 books, and he too felt an incredible sense of connection with everyone we encountered. Endorphins were flowing all around.

My "take away" was that opportunities to connect with strangers in a meaningful way are as precious as diamonds, and sometimes we have to persist past our own egos and agendas to create the opportunity. I'm glad I revisited the Manic Holiday Give Away!

Can't Give It Away!

I love the holidays. The neural re-enforcement from childhood is of cinnamon, hot chocolate, giving gifts, pine needles, why wouldn't my brain go into auto-bliss at the sound of the first Christmas carol? A brain does not care about political correctness, religious sensitivities or even social consequences when faced with a flood of norepenephrine and boosted alpha states as a Pavlovian response to these delicious stimuli.

With this in mind, I snap into Santa's helper mode. I like to give things away - homemade mandarin marmalade, oranges, cookies, books and cookbooks. For those who don't know about my career path, I have written two cookbooks and have a personal inventory with which I can do as I choose. So, in the spirit of the season of giving, I dropped a box of my vegetarian cookbooks in the back of my car this chilly Sunday morning, put the dogs in the back seat and headed for the farmer's market with the intention of gifting passersby with cookbooks. Scott was working on the site and couldn't join me.

The market was bustling with people buying vegetables, persimmons and citrus for their holiday meals and normal weekly fare. I chose a spot, pulled a book out and began offering the shoppers "Free Cookbooks!" The first thing I noticed is that people are wary of anyone giving something away. A quick glance out of the corner of the eye, "No thanks" and a quick shuffle away. There's an obvious fear of either having to engage, or becoming obligated to some auxilliary thing, the freebie being the "hook". But I continued, and a couple of people stopped. They were suspicious, but they stopped. A big smile spread on their face when they realized this was an actual gift, and, no, I didn't want to carry on a deeper conversation or sell them anything. Huge smiles now.

Within 2 -3 minutes, however, the organizer of the Farmers Markets came by and informed me that I could not give the books away in a public place. "Why?" I asked. "Because it could hurt those who are paying for a vending space and selling their books" he said. "But there are no booksellers here" said I. "It doesn't matter" said he.

Not one to leave it alone, I asked if I could perhaps give my books away over next to the Jews Against Zionism table on the outskirts of the market. Nice people, I knew they wouldn't mind having a little company since they catch a lot of flack themselves.  But the Market Boss said, "No, only political action groups are allowed to give free information away in public places." I see. I could hand out some version of politically divisive, even hateful, political propaganda to vegetable shoppers, but not a good soup recipe. Makes sense.

So I decided to try again at our local Natural Foods Co-Op. It's a grassroots organization, owned by it's members, surely they would love the idea of a free vegetarian cookbook give-away during the holidays.

The first encounter was with a customer service rep. "Actually, you would need to have permission from the marketing department and I don't know if she's working today."

"But I'm not marketing anything, I just want to give away some books for people to enjoy." He kindly said in his 'I won't tell on you' voice, "Well, go outside and do it then."

I put my box of books on the ground next to me in the parking lot near the front entrance, again informing passerbys that I was giving away free cookbooks. Within a couple of minutes a security guard came up and told me to cease. He said that I would need a couple of permits from the Co-op since this was private property.

I considered pushing it a bit and telling him that these people were all my friends and one can certainly give gifts to friends on private property, right? I see people giving birthday gifts to each other here, at other restaurants and in public parks all the time. Instead, I picked my books up and left, but my heart actually hurt.

Generosity and goodwill constitute the backbone to the holiday season, be it Christmas, Hanukkah or Hajj. Arguably it should be all year round. While I know I set myself up for this in terms of my manic holiday hard-wiring, I find it depressing that we can't express a little giving among our human brothers and sisters without an attorney at our side.

Epilogue: The next morning

The Co-op manager called this morning and said they would be happy to let me give away my books and I did not need to go through any procedure or red tape. He  said it was wrong that I was turned away, especially since they used to sell that very same book in the store.

Big smiles, I'll give them away on Wednesday, just in time for Christmas Mania!

Gratitude on Thanksiving

I have the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the television in the background while I finish making an incredibly indulgent sweet potato dish. I'm listening to the commentary, the huckstering of the products and promoting of television's rising stars and all the rest that the parade is designed to promote.

I'm especially hearing a tonal quality that is retro in nature. Going back to simpler times when life looked glossy and happy in the United States. The comfort, color and cheerful messages give us the feeling that dreams really can come true. I'm just waiting for a rainbow to holographically manifest over a giant inflatable Disney character to finish the procession. I'm both captivated by the cotton candy effect of the production and warily aware of what it covers up. Still....

As the NBC crew broke to commercials, my attention was drawn to a Folgers Coffee ad. I have no idea why. It was about as sentimental as one could imagine - a young man returning home from some duty in West Africa, his sister waiting up all night and brewing him a cup of joe upon his walking through the front door at sunrise. Mom running downstairs into his arms with dad in tow. And I started crying. Sentimental tears against a background both of how beautiful mankind truly is, and how we are starting to find a bit of our humanity again because of suffering that has finally hit our own behemoth landmass. People are having to do without in large numbers now. And, their community members are supporting those without in many ways. Here's one example:

Along with the parade are break-ins to local programming in which our closest city, Sacramento, Ca., has helicopters hovering above a beautiful spectacle. I saw the images before I heard the commentary and I thought what I was seeing was in NYC as an adjunct to the parade. No, our middle-class city had 30,000 people suited up in running gear at 8:00 a.m. ready to put shoes to the road to fill the local foodbanks. As of airtime they had raised over $800,000 to feed those without food for the holiday or any other day. This is meaningful as our food bank here in our small rural town outside of Sacramento is empty as are many others. The site made me cry again. People are trying. We may be a bit self indulgent and slow on the uptake sometimes, but most of us do care what happens to those suffering.

I am constantly perplexed and in awe at us humans. We can be so switched off and self absorbed one moment and, once our attention is drawn to something or someone in need, we jump in to do our part to help. So many beautiful and generous hearts.

Thank all of you whose heart still responds to your fellow human being. Even if it takes a holiday dedicated to gratitude, I can feel that our hearts ARE still open. It wasn't the Folgers Coffe ad that made me cry, it was all of us - you, me, us.

Remote Viewing of Goats and Carousels

I just returned from the film Men Who Stare At Goats because I was curious to see how Hollywood portrayed the subject of military remote viewing.

The film started with the statement "More of this is true than you would believe".  After sitting through the zany, albeit fun, plot filled with psychopathic and wacky characters, however, a viewer would be left with the impression that the subject of remote viewing was indeed a work of fiction. As Scott and I were driving home, my mind wandered back to the early 80's, which was the time in which the movie was set.

As a young news anchor I talked my long suffering news director into allowing me to do a week long series on the subject of psychic phenomena and it's applications. This was not a topic covered on the news at the time - anywhere. I featured psychics who work with police and detectives to find missing people (The Medium) as well as paranormal experiments conducted with Professor Charles Tart at UC Davis.  I had also come across a book titled Mind Wars by Ron McCrae. In it he wrote of the Pentagon's funding of an estimated 30-40 psychic research projects. One of them was apparently much like the fictionalized program in Men Who Stare at Goats according to a contact of ours. Intrigued, I followed the thread to SRI, Stanford Research Institute. I had heard that it was an elite facility for the exploration of the potentials of remote viewing and other psychic phenomena. I finally reached Dr. Russell Targ, the co-founder of the project. In hindsight I have no idea why he agreed to speak with me.

The year was 1985 as I recall. Dr. Targ gave me an interview on the nature of remote viewing, which was to air on our nightly news program. It was a ratings month and I wanted to do something I found to be really juicy and universally intriguing. Dr. Targ informed me that he was leaving the next day for the Soviet Union with his daughter Elizabeth and Keith Harary to be part of a remote viewing experiment. He agreed to give me a copy of the film upon his return to include on my psychic news special. At the time I had no idea whatsoever the magnitude of what I was involved in, nor that this was a CIA backed project.

Two weeks later, I was intrigued beyond belief that I had the video from Russia in my hands and excitedly viewed the experiment. The experinet featured a woman who was a reknowned psychic healer had once attended to the gravely ill Soviet Premier Brezhnev. Her name was Djuna Davitashvili and her remote viewing was being witnessed by a roomful of people including the two Targs, Harary, members of the Soveit Academy of Sciences and likely some members of the KGB. This can rattle even the best psychic to have such potential "interference" in the room. But not Djuna.

She was asked to state what she began tuning in to and to draw the images on a piece of paper. First she saw a pier, jutting out into the sea. Then she saw little shops and signs in "hieroglyphics" as she did not understand the western signage. Next she saw a cupola with a concentric circle around it. Finally she saw animals with glass eyes.

Meanwhile, in California the other end of the experiment was also being controlled. A random computer generated image was to be selected at an agreed upon time. The image revealed was of the carousel at the end of Pier 39 in San Francisco surrounded by little shops. Thus the pier, cupola, little shops with signs and animals with glass eyes. The mind blower of the experiment, however, was that the image was not selected until 4 hours after she had viewed the scene. Dr. Targ later explained to me that experiments out of Duke University had shown that remote viewing into the future produced cleaner results than trying to view in the present.

I interviewed Russel Targ again a couple of years ago, some 22 years later, and reminded him of our first encounter, of which, of course, he had no recollection. Those days were past now. He was still in deep grief at losing his beloved daughter Elizabeth to a brain tumor and had quit the spy business. None the less he did speak of the days in which he would sit in a darkened room training spies to see with new eyes. Why they conducted the experiments during the Cold War with the Soviets, I don't know. The Soviets were supposedly using their psychic spies to spy on the U.S. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have learned that the Cold War was not as chilly as the media would have us believe. There were many covert, as well as black ops, projects being jointly developed between the two nations while the nightly news kept the citizenry of both nations terrified of one another.

Let Hollywood take us through a fun little romp with Men Who Stare At Goats. But, while the funding for SRI and some of the other projects dried up a decade or so ago, military psy ops continue to this day.

If you want to do a little research of your own, here's a simple place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

For a little extra background on Djuna, her's a link to an obscure document you may find interesting as another account of the events of the day: http://books.google.com/books?id=Xc1CqsQu3lQC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=soviet+psychic+djuna+davitashvili&source=bl&ots=Fd4cHXc4mF&sig=O_AywtjPvTeKU-aRpqxCns2aeQI Go to page 30 to see information about Djuna.

The Next Generation

You may have noticed a young man named Stuart Campbell on the right side of our homepage. You might also be wondering how he got this gig for CMN. Simple. He's my son. And he's really smart.

To give you a little background on Stuart. As he grew up alongside me, I shared with him everything I was learning along the way. This, of course, was tempered by his age and ability to comprehend. Still, little was off-base in terms of our exploring concepts together. This was augmented with a Waldorf education in which creativity and self expression were part of his curriculum.

At a very young age he was having lucid dreams in which he was the hero, one who led the way. If the "bad guy" was about to attack him or his friends, Stuart would stand up to him on behalf of everyone, taking the blow. Because he was a lucid dreamer, he always found these interactions more interesting than disturbing as he was aware he was in a dream.

As he reached his teenage years, we discussed the complex issues I was pondering at the time so it did not surprise me when he chose philosophy as his major in college. In spite of being severely dyslexic, he waded through volumes of classic philosophy, logic, and the rest while attending Socrates Club meetings. No longer resonating with what he called the dry premises of western philosophy, he started an alternative philosophy club in Tempe, AZ where he was attending Arizona State University. While the disciplines gained in college were relevant, the philosophical discourses of the past were not answering the need of his generation - a generation that has a great need for connectivity and straight answers.

After graduation he began writing for an Arts and News paper as well as a local news blog covering topics that he felt are relevant for he and his peers on subjects such as the social effects of gossip, intuition, and finding purpose in life.

Anyone who knows Stuart will tell you that he has an uncommon type of grace and wisdom for a person of his years. He has chosen to use the media as an outlet to discover the deeper answers to the questions of he and his peers. An entrepreuner by day, waiter by night and philosopher in the making, I trust my son to help forge the way into the collective psyche of the Next Generation. He will be offering his conversations with contemporary artists on a monthly basis through CMN.

When Cash is No Longer King

While half of those watching the world of finance is waiting for the other shoe to drop and the other half celebrating the mainstream news that the economy is bouncing back, I have been looking at new paradigms in creating an economically sustainable future. Whether it all comes unraveled by mid-November, as some of our insiders have been telling us, or not, we have a frighteningly bloated and decaying beast we’ve been feasting on in the west - a credit based (debt based) economy. And it’s beginning to decompose to the extent that there is barely any flesh left on it’s bones.

Three days ago I heard an NPR business report that mentioned Harley Davidson’s profits were down 83% in the third quarter. In response, the luxury motorcycle manufacturer was quickly developing new markets, including major cities in the Middle East. The reporter interviewed an Arab woman who says she is excited to be on the back of her husband’s bike. It evoked some interesting, though likely inaccurate, visuals in my mind. But soon my logic took over. No more Harleys for middle aged white lawyers and dentists meant that they could no longer secure credit. Oops. If these guys aren’t being given credit, what’s happening to the rest of us? Yes, I know, that’s a rhetorical question.

This set me on a different line of inquiry. I have a very distinct Utopian side to my belief system, in so much as I believe a more Utopian society is possible. These flames were fanned over the last two days as I attended the Praxis Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.

Among the issues I was intrigued with were Cashless Exchange and Time Banking - both of which I feel we need to seriously consider within our own communities. As I was interviewing Tom Greco, an author on cashless systems, I referred to his book as End of Money: Beginning of Civilization. He laughed and said “I like that, maybe that is what I should have called the book! It’s fair to say that what we have been doing is anything BUT civilized!” In truth, the name of his book was End of Money: Future of Civilization, but the profundity of my mistake was not lost on either of us.

The stark truth is that the one factor that keeps most human beings at the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a scarcity of money in our lives. This lack keeps us in fear and working simply for our survival. This is not what it means to be human. We are innately creative beings with a need to express beauty, kindness, generosity and love, only we’re too tired to do it most of the time. But what happens if money goes away, at least money as we know it?

The brilliant and brave people lecturing at this conference have put forth that we have a choice in this matter. We simply have to commit some of our time and creativity and we can begin building the foundations of peaceful and abundant communities in which every one of us who is capable can use our talents, skills and passions to contribute to the whole in such a way that we rebuild sustainable communities rich in diversity of self expression and activities. After all, since when have most of us directly supported the work of poets, artists, bards and philosophers? Yet, how much richer would their work make the community if it were equally honored alongside the grocer, doctor and dentist?

The issue of reclaiming our humanity, creativity and civility is of great importance at a time when we are attempting to reach into finer vibrational realms as a species. Because of this, we (CMN) are going to be focusing on alternatives to this credit/debt based nightmare economy that has reduced billions of earth’s people to rats on a treadmill. For the next several months we will be featuring pioneers in the world of sustainable and Local Living Economies. You will find great comfort, inspiration and energy in their experiences, which may well lead each of us to engage in our own community economies in a new and peaceful way.

After all, Ghandi was about non-cooperation. We don’t have to buy cheap imports. We don’t have to eat toxic food. We don’t have to watch, read nor listen to bad media. We don’t have to use credit, nor bank with entites who care nothing about us. We ARE going to have to get off our butts and start making clear choices as to how we want to experience our future.

Wouldn’t you prefer to be doing the things you love and working only a few hours a week, as Mr. Greco suggests is a very real potential scenario, in a balanced and sustainable economy where Cash is no longer king?