C-Change Conversations | Making Sense

C-change conversations has a group of volunteers that span the spectrum in terms of political interests:

C-change conversations has a group of volunteers that converse and act on bringing their message about climate change across the country, in a non-partisan and unbiased manner. They are talking to all sorts of groups across the country > specifically garnered for skeptics. People have told them that their presentation opens peoples’ eyes, hearts and minds.

They have a powerful tool to wake people up: it is persuasive, data driven and based on science> open up minds and hearts without stirring up partisan resentment.

I just attended their presentation October 4th, which I found out about through a gentlemen who attends the same french conversation group. I am very impressed with the C-Change conversations group and presentation. They make an effort not to drag politics or anything that may ruffle peoples comfort. It’s thorough, professionally done, and is for climate change skeptics; people who haven’t really understood or known exactly what to think about climate change.

Our C-Change Primer is an educational, non-partisan presentation on the science of climate change. We developed the C-Change Primer in consultation with scientists, business leaders and public policy experts working on climate change. We present the Primer in cities and towns across the United States to community organizations, business and professional associations and at local libraries, etc.

C-Change conversations doesn’t look at climate change as an environmental issue, nor a political issue, but something as something much greater, that will impact what Americans say are most important to them:
> our economy and job security
> our health, well being and personal security
> our exposure to geopolitical instability

Their presentation takes us through 5 questions of how climate change affects us.

c-change conversations 5 questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They claim that their powerful tool to wake people up is persuasive, data driven and based on science. It opens up minds and hearts without stirring up partisan resentment.

Climate change transcends politics, influencing you negatively regardless of your political persuasion and impact you regardless of your personal wealth.

NASA has released new data regarding how temperature change and rainfall patterns by 2100

NASA educational video melting arctic ice

“So it’s kind of a combination of both industry and conservative philanthropies that are funding this process, and what they did was they borrowed a great deal of the strategy and tactics that came out of the tobacco industry’s efforts to prevent action on the health impacts of smoking.”

Citizens Climate Change Primer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C-change conversations deliberately stays very far away from politics, but I don’t.

Smithsonian Nearly a Billion dollars flow into organized climate change counter movement

C-change conversations does not move into the ‘spiritual’, of the need to create a paradigm shift in how we approach our world, but I do. Charles Eisenstein says it in his speech to a group in New Zealand, about once again absolutely loving and valuing all of the natural world, as opposed to viewing it as a commodity to be manipulated and quantified.

Charles Eisenstein’s speech in New Zealand regarding A New Story of Climate Change  in New Zealand

A New Story of Climate Change – Charles Eisenstein at New Frontiers

Addendum to Journey in Space & Time Ignited by Matters of Heart | Epigenetics | HeartMath

John Lennon: Fear and Love
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love.

A few weeks ago, my attention was directed to an article talking about epigenetics. Scientific research reveals that in addition to genetic memory – recorded in the DNA and passed from one generation to the next – experiences of an emotional nature which take place within an individual’s life, can also become imprinted and routed to affect later generations. Not just the next generation, but subsequent offspring exhibit the same response to stimuli, not learned from parents. It appears that a person’s perceived positive or negative experiences affect subsequent generations; the offspring genetically inherit the fallout of that ancestor’s experience.

Though epigenetic information does not alter the genetic (DNA) code itself, it does modify the activation of certain genes. This occurs through chemical processes – such as methyl groups which attach to genes and reside beside and separate from the DNA code – hence the name epigenetic (Greek prefix pi meaning over, outer or above). “The methyl group works like a placeholder in a cookbook, attaching to the DNA within each cell to select only those recipes — i.e. genes — necessary for that particular cell’s proteins.”

Reading this instigated me to look back at a blog I’d written in January of 2010, regarding a hitchabout trip I took while living in Germany. https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/hitch-a-bout-ventures-a-journey-in-space-and-time/ During this journey, the themes of neurology and Native American spirituality recurred repeatedly. It compelled me to write about the experience and theorize about how synchronistic incidences can happen, at all. What is it about our brains in time and space, that could allow for events to take place simultaneously, at large distances? Our current definitions make it impossible.

I recalled the words within a video on this blog “The White Road – Visions of the Indigenous People of the Americas“. “The indigenous people are certain that not only is all past information of the universe stored in our bodies, but that we are constantly provided with new information from the Cosmos.”

I read further along the arduous path of my blog :-o) in which I described that our awareness consists of a simultaneous system of electrical connections, traveling back and forth from nerve endings to synapses firing in different regions of the brain. And that an ‘experience’ or ‘memory’ can not be localized in one specific region of the brain. Neuroplasticity theorizes that the brain is continually making new connections and building new neural networks. Various functions are not located in specific regions of the brain. In the process of formulating new thoughts or tasks, the brain creates convoluted neural networks spanning different lobes, encoded across different regions, depending on the different associations that are being built in the process.

This article by Larry Dossey, MD “Why Consciousness is Not the Brain” states “…if consciousness is indeed identical with the brain – the curtain closes on premonitions. The reason is that the brain is a local phenomenon – i.e., it is localized to the brain and body, and to the present. This prohibits premonitions in principle, because accordingly the brain cannot operate outside the body and the here-and-now. But consciousness can operate beyond the brain, body, and the present, as hundreds of experiments and millions of testimonials affirm. Consciousness cannot, therefore, be identical with the brain.”

I made the analogy that just as thinking is a continuous feedback process within the whole (throughout the body and mind, together with all of the ideas that have intercepted our awareness) that perhaps consciousness itself, is not something localized in one area (the brain), but an integral part of a larger neural connected energetic fabric of all life.

Okay, I said it. But check this out. I interpreted what I read about epigenetics to imply, if I may be so bold, that it is more the emotional nature of an experience that specifically influences a chemical concoction to affect the way the genetic code plays out. Nurture affecting Nature.

Human Heart

In light of this, an additional article rolled into my awareness, “The Effects of Negative Emotions on Our Health” Voila! The author articulates that “Humans experience an array of emotions, anything from happiness to sadness, to extreme joy or depression. Each of these emotional states create different feelings within the body, with our body releasing different chemicals in conjunction with these feelings. Each chemical produces a different environment within the body. The brain releases serotonin, dopamine or oxytocin in association with experiences that elicit happiness and joy and cortisol, for example, in association with stress. The author’s point is that with respect to the mind-body connection, the brain is a very powerful tool indeed, that basically interprets and judges situations to be positive or negative and that your mind can have a profound physical impact on your body. Careful what you think !-) But more than that, careful about how you emotionally respond to any given situation!

Essentially, the plethora of psychologists, therapists, yoga teachers and spiritual guides all have this insight in common: focus on appreciation and gratitude and contentment in the present moment, rather than focusing on what you fear…

A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks, he becomes. Mahatma Gandhi

…Our emotions and experiences are essentially energy that is communicated through chemical and electrical processes, which is stored in the cellular memory of our bodies.

This ‘re minded’ me of the beliefs … “The indigenous people are certain that not only is all past information of the universe stored in our bodies, but that we are constantly provided with new information from the Cosmos.”

Eureka dude! As I was preparing to fuse together this information in an amendment to my earlier blog, https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/hitch-a-bout-ventures-a-journey-in-space-and-time/ these additional puzzle pieces synchronistically kept tumbling in, to fuse and ignite this new insight.

the Psychologist Carl Jung’s term synchronicity describes events occurring with no causal connection

On December 13th, 2014, I ‘synchronistically‘ clicked on this video: “The Heart’s Intuitive Intelligence: A path to personal, social an global coherence

Institute of HeartMath connecting hearts and minds

Doc Childre is the founder of The institute of HeartMath. It’s a measured fact that the strength of the magnetic field projected by the heart is much stronger than that of the brain. This field can expand or contract, correspondingly with love or fear. The heart has a large number of neurons. It’s an intelligent muscle.

Human Heart’s Magnetic Field expands and contracts

Their emphasis is on learning how to activate and sustain a coherence between the heart and brain. This synergy or coherence can be achieved through entraining the breath and attention to the heart, allowing a person to hone in to the heart’s intuitive intelligence. This can expand to entrain one’s heart to others, to achieve a social coherence. “A collective opening of the heart increases the social and subsequently global coherence.” The group has initiated a global coherence monitoring system in which they’re performing a study with 17 magnetic sensors distributed throughout the planet. These large devices are measuring resonances.

Childre mentions that a feedback loop exists within an individual’s mind – body and between humans and all species and the earth’s energetic systems.

feedback loop between humans and earths energetic systems

Global Coherence Initiative

The theory is that not only does earth’s magnetic field affects humans, but humans as a collective, affect the earth’s field.

Doc Childre HeartMath

In this article “7 Amazing facts about the heart’s control of the brain” Dr. Joel K. Kahn describes how the heart communicates to the brain and the body in four ways: 1) nervous system connections, 2) hormones produced in the heart itself, 3) biomechanical information via blood pressure waves, and 4) energetic information from the strong electrical and electromagnetic fields.

Assembling the points I’ve gathered, I conjecture: as below, so above. DNA strands within each cell contain all of the genetic information of the entire body (with some genes activated and others not depending on that particular cell). This reveals a sort of holographic principle, similar to what some physicists theorize about how the universe is structured as well as neurologists regarding how the brain maps information.

The holonomic brain theory, developed by neuroscientist Karl Pribram initially in collaboration with physicist David Bohm, is a model of human cognition that describes the brain as a holographic storage network.

A holographic paradigm in which all information is present in each part (everywhere – at all times) would explain intuition, precognition, psychic awareness, simultaneous scientific discoveries and so forth.

Jeremy Narby is a French Canadian Anthropologist who lived among Indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He wrote a non-fiction book about his research: The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge He discovered ancient symbols depicting the mythology of the Indigenous people he lived among replicating the fundamental structure of life itself, the spiraling deoxyribonucleic acid DNA; something scientists of the developed world have only begun to discern in the last half century. His later book, Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge demonstrates his conclusions. Intelligence is not a hierarchical model in which humans are on the top. This link above reviewing Narby’s book: “Narby’s passion is to rethink the meaning of intelligence as a human property and give up the reductionist/materialist view of Western science. In its place, he adopts the Japanese word “chi-sei”, roughly defined as a knowingness that allows for decision-making at all levels of life.”

He points out in a speech given at a Bioneers conference in 2005 that Homo Sapiens have been around only 200,000 years – 10,000 biological generations – which for a species is next to nothing. The Jaguar and Octopus species have been around way longer than humans; the Octopus for 350,000 Million years!

Numerous studies demonstrate intelligence and abstract thinking throughout not only the animal kingdom, but also among insects and yes, even plants. Molecular genetics of the 1990’s reveal that plants have receptors. Plants can assimilate information and respond on the whole plant level, using electrical signals that involve sensing a wide range of variables and computing complex decisions.

In his book The Cosmic Serpent, Narby takes a serious look at how neurogenetic consciousness informs awareness, knowledge, symbolism and culture. His anthropological study, ayahuasca experience and scientific speculations weave a tale of shamans who bring their consciousness down to molecular levels with sophisticated neurotransmitter potions in order to perceive information contained in the coherent visible light emitted by DNA.

He notes an ayahuasquero Pablo Amaringo saying: “A plant may not talk, but there is a spirit in it that is conscious, that sees everything, which is the soul of the plant, its essence, what makes it alive.”

In their visions, shamans take their consciousness down to the molecular level and gain access to information related to DNA, which they call “animate essences” or “spirits.”

Intelligent design within.

diagram of the DNA molecule in Narby’s the Cosmic Serpent

Each DNA molecule has been packaged into a Mitotic Chromosome that is 50,000 X shorter than its extended length.

Science is now affirming a view long held by Shamans of the indigenous people: that the entire edifice of life from top to bottom is ‘shot through with intelligence’. In fact the evolutionary process itself may be intelligent.

Evolution may be guided by an intelligence within, as opposed to blind chance or an intelligence from above.

Back full circle to the fact that many living systems are structured in the Fibonacci Sequence as I wrote about in an alternative blog https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/holograms-of-meaning-consciousness-frequency-shift/, my theory is that this is the form which allows for the holographic pattern of information to be distributed.

Mathematical diagram of Fibonacci Sequence class of Toni

Perhaps indeed, the pinnacle of intelligence is within the smallest constituents; the motion of energy that manifests as matter.

The HeartMath understanding is that entraining the heart with the brain and with other individuals is a synergistic process, in which the individual parts work together to produce an effect larger than the sum of the parts. Perhaps the import of emotions and the intuitive intelligence of the heart is something that essentially is an energetic phenomenon at the electromagnet level; with this electromagnetic information tuned to a feeling vibration of the heart that permeates the universe through a network of Fibonacci spacetime, in a holographic way; passing through spacetime instantly.

graphic of a wormhole describing a spacial fabric of space

Narby states that “Our predation (human beings as the top predator) is ‘souped up’ through knowledge, ideas and technology. Yet, we need to understand that we are animals among other intelligent species. We truly need to get a grip on our sciences and industries. Intelligent predators do not degrade the world in which they live, but live in harmony with it.

¡This would represent intelligent evolution!

HeartMath and the Global Coherence Initiative state that ultimately, ‘heart-based living’, involves taking responsibility for your own energy; the thoughts, feelings and attitudes that you are feeding into the field every day.

…energy flows where attention goes…

I will attract what I am, not what I want. Wayne Dyer

• Epigenetics – emotional experiences affecting genetic heredity.
• Emotions and experiences stored through chemical and electrical processes at the cellular level.
• Indigenous Americans: All past information of the cosmos is stored in our body, and we are receiving information continually from the cosmos.
• Our heart has a substantially larger electromagnetic field than the brain – 60 times greater in amplitude.
• Joel K. Kahn MD: More information is sent from the heart to the brain on a daily basis, than vice versa.
• Doc Childre: a feedback loop exists within an individual’s mind – body and between humans and all species and the earth’s energetic systems.
• Larry Dossey MD: Consciousness can operate beyond the brain, body and the present, therefore consciousness cannot be localized to the brain.
• Neuroscientist Karl Pribram and Physicist David Bohm: Holonomic brain theory is a model of human cognition describing the brain as a holographic storage network.
• Physicists have mathematically described the universe as a hologram, in which every part of stored information is distributed throughout the entire hologram.
• Each cell within the body, regardless of its form or function, contains a complete set of DNA: the same DNA code (blueprint of life) as is found in every other cell in a person’s body.
• Jeremy Narby: There is conclusive evidence among heralded scientists worldwide, implying the same conclusions that have been a part of the indigenous folklore for millennia; that intelligence permeates all species and basically ALL of the natural world.

Please feel free to donate!

Here’s Carol Keiter the blogger in the crowd (with camera, looking up at the screen) during the Imagine event presented by Yoko Ono at Times Square on 12.21.12 during the Make Music New York Winter Solstice festival.

Carol Keiter the blogger (with camera, looking up at the screen) during the Imagine event created by Yoko Ono at Times Square on 12.21.12 during the Make Music New York Winter Solstice festival

| hitchabout ventures | a journey in space and time |

I’ve done a number of hitchabouts, aligned with the concept of the Aboriginal walkabout. There are always elements of mystery involved, and degrees to which one must maintain one’s awareness and intuition. But in contrast to this right-of-passage, survival journey of young boys venturing into manhood, my hitchabouts are a means of reaching a geographical destination at no cost, with the added benefit of gathering information along the way through the people I meet; whom otherwise I wouldn’t have contact with. This story spiraled however, into a dimension I only began to be aware of during the process of reflecting and exploring. I only began to recognize one after another synchronicity that had happened, after the fact, within hours of my return to my destination. It has evolved into a cross-breeding of neurological concepts regarding the way our central nervous system and brain communicate with one another, and the spiritual concepts of the indigenous North and South American Indians’, who believe that we are constantly involved in a transmission of thought and information, that occurs back-and-forth between individuals and the cosmos.

This hitch-a-bout began a few days following Christmas 2009, departing the southwest of Germany, en route to Berlin. My German boyfriend walked with me the short distance from his parents’ home to the place on the highway where there was space for vehicles to pull over. We had arrived a few minutes earlier to this starting point, as he smoked his cigarette leaning against a rail, trying to remain somewhat concealed a few feet from me. I had just finished commenting “this is a pretty conservative area isn’t it?” thinking that it would be tough to get a ride, to which he nodded and responded “yeah”. Within a minute a car pulled over, and I was running to the passenger door.

By virtue of the fact that I’ve been living in Berlin, Germany for over 5 years, I can converse in the language. This extends my capacity to learn about the people and the area that I’m traversing through, besides making it more interesting for everyone involved. The first ride was a friendly man who teaches Chemistry and Biology locally, where he’s also the Director of the school. He was cordial and sunny. After introducing myself, I mentioned to him that my last name, as well as those of many families and towns in the region I’m from – the State of Pennsylvania in the United States – are of German origin. This prevalence, because the Germans who arrived several 100 years ago discovered a remarkably similar landscape and climate, thus the familiarity breeding an inclination to settle. I perceived this same familiarity traveling across Germany. I also mentioned I had hiked around the Burg (Fortress) in the area where he had picked me up. He pointed out that we were driving in the vicinity of the Schwäbische Alb, a low mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, named after the region of Swabia. These mountains are this areas’ ‘mini Alps’. After a short ride he let me off in the next bigger town, Tübingen, at a place where he assured me the highway continued north towards Stuttgart.

From this point on, the rides started to reveal uncanny synchronicities. The next one was with a man of Slovakian origin, Peter, who was driving to a destination northwest of Stuttgart. He had been living for a large chunk of his life in Germany and spoke the language fluently as well as some English. He talked of how he had been instigated to learn Turkish because of working among some immigrants, and that he had surprised and delighted them with his effort to learn their language. He explained that it was his desire to integrate with them, as well as the fact that the process of learning a language in itself, is one of the most effective mental exercises a person can do, to expand their brains’ neural networks.

He talked non-stop and with a lot of enthusiasm; about life, the interconnectedness of things, of his love and appreciation of nature and of his inclination to not harbor prejudice towards people of any race or color. Triggered by the topic of language, our talk went specifically in the direction of the brain’s capacity for learning and of the magic of the brain’s ability to heal itself. He mentioned that though previously it was assumed that the brain stops growing at around the age of nine – just as various muscle groups and bones stop growing at various ages around puberty – more recent discoveries discern that the brain is continuously developing. The process of learning stimulates neural growth, as new neural connections are being created. His voice laughed with delight as he exclaimed, “the brain WANTS to keep growing”.

http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/weekly/aa121399.htm
http://www.lumosity.com/

I had a book with me which I’d randomly picked off a shelf a few weeks earlier, which was wedged in my pack. Written by a professor of Neuroscience, Antonio Damasio, “Descartes’ Error”. The author talks about the interdependence of emotions, in the reasoning process. I mentioned to him with anticipation that I also had recently been introduced to the concept of neuroplasticity, which theorizes that the brain is continually making new connections and building new neural networks. And that various functions are not merely located in specific regions of the brain, but that in the process of formulating new thoughts or tasks, the brain creates convoluted neural networks spanning different lobes, encoded across different regions, depending on the different associations that are being built in the process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

Peter excitedly described an experiment that had been conducted in which a paralyzed patient who could only move one side of his body, had his functioning arm and hand tied to his body. Within a short period of time, perhaps a matter of weeks, due to the new neural re-wiring the brain was vigorously involved in, in order to compensate for this lack of response and immobility of the previously cooperative side, soon the fingers of the paralyzed hand began to wiggle.

Our dialogue was so reciprocal with our mutual interest in the subjects, that he wound up driving out of his way around the perimeter ‘ring’ highway of Stuttgart, to leave me off at precisely the highway gas station/restaurant which my boyfriend had designated as the best target, to the northeast. Peter had sported sun glasses the entire ride, and I only got a glimpse of his fair blue eyes after we reached the end point, when he handed me a couple of his pre-hand rolled cigarettes ‘for the road’, which he pulled out of a slim sliver case.

I found the theme of our conversation about the brain’s neural networking fascinating, and ironically, the next driver I would soon discover, works in the field of neurology! It was at this highway “” (fueling station for vehicles and bodies) where I waited the longest during the trip – an hour or two. There I met the next driver, with whom I felt an instant rapport. Upon my inquiry for a ride, she took the time to unhurriedly re-open her auto to consult a map, to show me her destination. As I hadn’t found a ride during the time that she and her passenger were in the restaurant, when they returned they warmly greeted me and started reshuffling the baskets of food and gifts laying on the back seat to make room for me. She exuded kindness and compassion, just as the former driver had.

Felicitas and her daughter Sarah were returning from a Christmas gathering among siblings at her parents’ home in the Black Forest, where she was born and raised. The three of us talked without pause about many subjects. Felicitas (her name meaning happiness or bliss), was unperturbed by an incident in which she had taken a wrong exit, and we were spun into this web within the downtown area of a town which we couldn’t seem to extract ourselves from. We kept circling the same area and her daughter kept amusingly pointing out that we were driving by the same ‘Hotel Ibis’, again. The mother remained undaunted and cheerful.

She does rehabilitation therapy with patients who are victims of neurological disorders, through injury or disease. She said that she loves the work and is fascinated about the constant new discoveries happening in the field. At one point in our conversation, she showed me this CD soundtrack in her car called “Der Weisse Weg”/ “The White Road”, and emphatically recommended that I see the video, which documents a gathering of different tribes of Native American Indians, from both North and South America, which took place in 2003.

By the time they dropped me off at a gas station (recommended via cell phone by her boyfriend), it was already dark. I sensed that it was a little far from the autobahn, but I was grateful as we said our good-byes. Half a minute later, they drove up and Felicitas said that she didn’t have a good gut feeling about leaving me there, would I like to join them for the night and start my journey again the next morning? I was in no hurry and was pleased to join.

Within minutes I was helping them to unload their car, then shredding carrots for a salad that would be part of the dinner she prepared; a homemade pasta made by her sister-in-law. We all sat at their kitchen dining table, sharing more conversation and a bottle of red wine. Felicitas and I continued talking enthusiastically after her daughter left; about each of our lives…and we went on talking about life, dreams, pursuits, relationships, fears.

The next morning, I awoke after dreaming about it being “too late” to call my boyfriend before he boarded his international flight. I immediately reached for the phone to look at the time, and saw that I had only a 30 minute time window before I would have been too late. I was leaning out the window, overlooking the street as I talked to him, sensing that the reception wasn’t good, when I saw Felicitas crossing the street towards home, returning from the bakery.

As we ate breakfast together I mentioned to Sarah who likes to draw, that I do as well, particularly portraits. Her mother responded excitedly that she has been wanting to have a portrait of her daughter for years, and would I be inclined to do one? We exchanged emails and I showed the two of them my websites with my drawings and music, to which Felicitas proclaimed with surprise, “ah, you’re an artist!”

http://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/parcel-of-my-portfolio/

http://www.myspace.com/nomadbeatz

and same, same, but different http://www.reverbnation.com/nomadbeatz

Soon a block of water color paper was placed in front of me at the kitchen table, and I proceeded with a blank slate to draw a portrait, which they both were pleased with when I finished 30 minutes or so later. She instructed her daughter about where to get a photocopy and buy a frame, and Sarah mentioned that this was going to be her Christmas gift to her Dad, whom she was going to meet with that afternoon. After I had finished, we got in the car and went to the first rest park place along the highway not far from her home, where she handed me the CD soundtrack “The White Way” as a gift.

This is a video documentary of an event in which various Native American tribes gathered in 2003, in order to spread their knowledge to the rest of mankind about the shift that is taking place as we’re approaching 2012, corresponding to the Mayan Calendar. The indigenous people are certain that not only is all past information of the universe stored in our bodies, but that we are constantly provided with new information from the Cosmos. It flows through us so that we can consciously perceive the information, tune into it and learn to understand it. They perceive that at the present time, doors are opening to different dimensions, and as multi-dimensional beings, it is up to us to now move through them, and leave the prison of our limited consciousness behind. Quite an alternative and non-cataclysmic view (compared to Hollywood’s recent release) of the approach of 2012.

Here’s a trailer of the documentary in English.

The White Road – Visions of the Indigenous People of the Americas.

Concerned that I get a lift before she took off, Felicitas approached a number of people asking if they were headed towards Berlin. After several declines, she walked over to a parked truck. I hadn’t yet made my way towards him, and followed her to then peer up at the driver. Intuitively, he felt safe, and he agreed to give me a ride after his 15 minute break. Feeling confident that she wasn’t leaving me stranded, Felicitas then left after we hugged and said good-bye.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I got into the truck, and quickly realized that the driver, Daniel, was serene and gentle. I noticed immediately a dream catcher dangling in his truck, then another. He said the truck wasn’t his, but of an Italian friend. I knew vaguely of dream catchers, made by Indians, after having lived in Taos, New Mexico; where the Native American Taos Pueblo Indians have lived long before the Spaniards arrived from Spain a few centuries ago, and then artists, new age folks and skiers. Dream catchers are like a web woven of willow in a perfect circle with a hole in the center, through which people can project their dreams and visions. When one has faith in the Great Spirit, the web will catch the good ideas, and let the negative one’s go through the hole.

http://www.realmagick.com/articles/17/117.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_catcher

Daniel was of Romanian, Greek and Russian origin. He talked incessantly, as did each of the former drivers! I guess a lot of people want to tell their stories and are happy to have an audience ;-)) And I have to admit that I tend to ask a lot of questions, which prompt responses! He’d been born in Romania but also lived in Greece, and had been living in Germany for the last several years. He’d seen much of the world while working on ships navigating the world of commerce, then worked at a port in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and now as a trucker based in Germany. His mostly monologue continued as the truck chugged along the countryside, as cars sped by. I brushed off the thought that I was in too slow of a vehicle; and remained content and patient, happy to be moving. When I asked him whether he would ever return to live again in his home country Romania, he responded saying no, that it’s too corrupted as well as difficult to survive with the same living standards that he’s been able to enjoy. I basically listened intently to Daniel’s entire life story, past, present and future plans.

Soon after he pulled up his truck at a highway gas/restaurant stop to sleep for the evening at 6pm or so, I sat to smoke one last cigarette with him, (I was offered to smoke a ridiculous amount of cigarettes in some of these rides which I shared !-) just to chat for once when he wasn’t busy looking ahead, and to thank him for the ride. I have learned that haste to get the next ride is not what the world of hitch-hiking is all about, but settling to trusting the timing of whatever comes up next. The flow that a person is in, is the only thing that one has to attune to.

Many people whom I approached at this gas station had cars filled to capacity. I slowly walked towards the restaurant, holding my Berlin sign, when the second person whom I intercepted was a businessman, returning to his car. It was dark, I mentioned Berlin, he glanced at my sign and hesitated only a fraction of a second as he scanned me, before casually mentioning which subway station in Berlin he could drop me off at. He opened the trunk of his car for me to place my backpack there, which I’m sure is as much a gesture of security for the driver, as it is a way of providing space. He then proceeded to remove papers from the passenger seat.

Andreas was very matter-of-fact. He didn’t exude warmth like the others, but maintained a business-like emphasis. I felt completely relaxed, sensing he was definitively trustworthy. He was to me, an archetypal German; direct, precise, soberly executing his actions, systematically moving towards his aim. This exactness is precisely why there have been so many successfully produced German products over the last decades. He was born and raised in Berlin, and has lived for the last few years in Munich, which he loves. He was going to visit his dad. He bracketed his positive appraisal of Munich with how clean it is, with a list of other qualities in between. Berlin he said, is dirty, falling apart, and muttered something about it being full of Turkish people…

We spoke in German from the start, then switched to English – I thought I’d do him the favor of speaking in English for his own practice, or of saving him from having to endure my German, strewn with syntax and grammatical errors. He had found a sales niche via his wife, who’s friend has an exporting business based in London. Andreas’s part in this partnership is to create and maintain a database of more than 3,600 hospitals in Germany, in order to contact them to acquire and purchase new or used micro-cameras used for internal probes in operations. He approaches the CEO’s of the hospitals as well as directors of the surgical departments, inquiring if they have any endoscopes – first produced by the Japanese camera manufacturer Canon. He then visits the hospitals to inspect and then ship the devices to his partner, whom he said has vast connections internationally. They are subsequently repaired, if necessary, then resold all over the world.

Early into our conversation, I made a comment about German Bureaucracy, to which he went into a lengthy explanation of its origins. He was knowledgeable about the subject and precise in his delivery of information. “This bureaucratic system is specifically a German tradition”, he articulated, “which evolved from the Middle Ages”. People who worked in whatever type of craft, protected their jobs and raised the standards of their work, by enforcing a policy requiring people within the trade, to not only study intensively, but also to systematically do apprenticeships in different parts of the country over a period of several years. At the present time, no one can obtain employment in any trade without having a certificate which demonstrates these years of training. Or, if someone starts a business, they must have someone working for them who has this certificate; thus authorizing them with this stamp of quality. I mentioned, and he concurred, that this isn’t necessary in the USA. Despite the fact that we also have degree programs in higher learning institutions, basically if a person acquires a skill or knowledge of a particular subject, he doesn’t have to plow through so many road-blocks, preventing him from applying these skills and putting them to use; no miles of red tape.

He talked about his experiences having gone to Hong Kong for business, and how different it is dealing with Chinese, where for example if you were to negotiate with a manufacturer and point blankly ask him to produce a product for less money than he quoted, it could result in his losing-face, through feeling dramatically insulted, not to mention it would kill the deal. So what is critically important is the manner in which one words the request, such as; to ask if he could ‘find a way’ to cut specifically this or that cost – with included suggestions – in order to produce the item at ones’ proposed target. Subtle, yet dramatically different.

He went on to talk about the two emerging world economic powers, China and India, by virtue of how enormous their populations are. China is well under way in its industrialization he claimed, whereas India is still in the nascent stages of its information technology boom, mostly due to its poor infrastructure of roads. He mentioned that China is already becoming quite wealthy, and is growing exponentially, because it has a middle class who are able to afford buying and consuming goods, which re-vitalizes their economy. I was quite happy to be the recipient of his experience and expertise and the stimulating conversation. Already ideas about how to apply my Cultural Anthropology studies towards becoming an international business consultant were percolating in my head. He dropped me off at exactly the place he’d mentioned within the first seconds of our meeting, and with no ceremony of extensive good-byes, was off, after he gestured towards the local subway station at the corner.

My recognition of the two themes which recurred – Neurology and Native American Spirituality – emerged in retrospect, only after I started reading this other book upon reaching my home that evening, entitled “Brida” by Paulo Coelho. This book’s subject of the world of magic, probed me into looking into the spiritual beliefs behind Shamanism, and the Dream catcher, The White Way…And the more I investigated, the more I saw another theme that rose above these two: the importance of thought and intent.

It was only after I was well underway documenting my story when, after a bunch of synapses between google and wiki links, that this other concept started to acquire a life of its own. The faint recognition of this similarity in the way the actors in these two systems communicate with each other, in a two-way transmission. And I also honed into the medium that is being transferred, waves of pure thought.

From the neurological point of view, the process of creating thoughts, and the essential nature of the meaning behind a thought, respectively, can not only expand our minds, but also in essence, affect the rest of our body, beneficially or harmfully. So too, is the power of thought acknowledged in the Native American Indian traditions, to be of quintessential importance; as one envisions, one thus shapes and creates ones’ life. Through attracting to oneself what one is able to conceive – life then manifests situations and events and the meeting of individuals or ideas which occur. This all can of course be positive or negative in nature.

I venture to call these experiences that I’m recalling here, synchronistic events. A term devised by the Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, following years of research with his patients, in which incidences of a similar nature happened with frequency. Synchronicity is the simultaneous occurrence of events that have no foreseen cause in the physical world, yet which are related in meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

I have at challenging times in my life – when confronted with major decisions or a realization that I wasn’t making enough progress towards goals that I wanted to achieve – oscillated from conviction in my own beliefs, to letting fears and doubts obscure my focus. Recent experiences had enhanced this awareness. I propose that a thought wave generated from within me, sent impulses – similar in content and meaning – to a wave pattern existing outside of me. And that these, resonant in meaning and intent, intercepted one another. And that this story, came from these outward influences as much as from me. And that my thought, or intention to grow to a healthier, more balanced place, drew these symbolic messages to me, which reverberated in meaning, resulting in giving me information; which if I was prepared to listen, would engage me to learn about the message.

I make the analogy of the nervous systems of human beings to that of a thought precept on the macro scale, in which information is continually being processed and transmitted back and forth between the two poles, or end sources. A nerve ending from any point in the body, continually transmits impulses to the brain; which is a constellation of neural passageways that intertwine and interconnect, sending impulses back to the nerve endings. Similarly, individual brains produce thought waves, which send impulses that form a collective body of interwoven waves of thought, existing in a dimension of our universe of curved space-time; consisting of all thoughts that ever existed throughout time, intertwining and interconnecting en masse, forming this mind sphere, which simultaneously transmits waves of thought back to the source. Just as there’s a continual two-way interaction occurring between neurons firing in the brain back and forth to nerves throughout the body, there is also an ongoing two-way interchange occurring of thought wave impulses, moving back and forth from a mass complex of all of the conscious as well as unconscious thought that ever existed comprising a sort of weak electro-magnetic wave sphere, reciprocally communicating with the thoughts of human beings on the planet.

This would imply that a single thought, is not merely something that arises from within one’s own brain, inside of you. But that it is also coming from outside of you, through this simultaneous two-way communication stream; to and from a ‘sphere of thought’ or ‘mind sphere’ or ‘collective psyche’, outside of you. The degree to which a person can be receptive to these signals, would depend on how many other waves are present to potentially clutter or pollute one’s clarity and perceptiveness. I think that maybe a lot of this is a transmission of symbols, like pure thought, before words.

This would explain phenomena such as psychic abilities, precognition, extrasensory perception, clairvoyance and telepathy, but also the cases of simultaneous or multiple discoveries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery

… as a result of neural waves of the ‘collective thought brain’ ferried back and forth to ‘individual brains’; with impulse waves transferring continuously between the two.

In my search I came upon the concept of a ‘mind sphere’ or ‘sphere of thought’, called the Noosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

Perhaps a thought arrived to me, because of how inextricably connected all life forms are to one another, with thoughts forming a mass of energy that enfolds and encircles the planet. These waves formulating an organism in itself, that innately wants to not only expand, but to evolve towards a healthy state; balancing intent and harmonious affect. Human technology is like a corollary to this precept; an extension of the organic process of human creativity from the individual level, that evolves as the continuous conscious and unconscious transfer of similar a priori constructs, or thoughts, are transmitted from and to our collective psyches. Maybe that’s why technology has been changing at such an exponential rate, further augmenting itself as the information expands.

|| || || || On December 13th, 2014, I ‘synchronistically’ clicked on this video: “The Heart’s Intuitive Intelligence: A path to personal, social an global coherence

Institute of HeartMath connecting hearts and minds

It describes what I was communicating, in my convoluted way above, as a stated scientific fact. I decided to insert this addendum!-)

It talks about a feedback loop existing between all humans and species and the earth’s energetic systems.

feedback loop between humans and earths energetic systems

The concept comes from Doc Childre, who founded the institute of HeartMath. It’s all about the magnetic field strength of the heart, and the process of generating a coherence between the heart and mind. And that one can strive for this in a state of personal coherence, among others to form a social coherence and ultimately, reaching to a global coherence. They state that “a collective opening of the heart increases the social and subsequently global coherence.”

Global Coherence Initiative

Not only does earth’s magnetic field affects humans, but humans as a collective, affect the earth’s field. They are performing a study with 17 magnetic sensors distributed throughout the planet, measuring resonances.

Ultimately, they speak of ‘heart-based living’, which involves takeing responsibility for your own energy, the thoughts, feelings and attitudes that you are feeding into the field every day…

Doc Childre HeartMath

.”

I think I’ll stop this thought here, and let you respond and see if any of you have ideas, comments or suggestions about the subject. Then we can expand on it, via cyberspace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace

“Through its electromagnetic nature, cyberspace integrates a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, controllers) and generates a virtual interactive experience accessed for the purpose of communication and control regardless of a geographic location.”

This interactive nature kept coming up, repeatedly, as well as what it implied, how critical in essence, simply the formation of a thought is! In another tangental google search along the lines of Native American Shamanism, I came onto this interpretation of the “7 Shamanic Principles” which make sense, even if it does have a new agey coating: It speaks of the fact that thought is how you create your world; by projecting and attracting ideas that resonate with each other, which in turn shape your sphere. And basically of the principle that like attracts like, and energy flows where attention goes.

http://www.realmagick.com/articles/18/118.html

I can’t help but end with this quote of Mahatma Ghandi, as it demonstrates the overwhelming importance of recognizing the power of thought:

Keep your thoughts positive, because they become your words.
Keep your words positive, because they become your behavior.
Keep your behavior positive, because it becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive, because they become your values.
Keep your values positive, because they become your destiny.

-.-.-.-.-.-.
11 pages posted on 01.11.10