Conscious CT

Going With The Flow - Literally

Over the past six months I’ve developed and launched a new website and e-newsletter that is similar in structure to Conscious CT, but with a very different theme. From a spiritual perspective I don’t know why I did this as it took time away from holistic projects; but it felt right and events kept prodding me in that direction. So I went with the flow.

The flow in this case is literally a river, which is located across the street from where I live and passes through Vernon parallel to I-84. The river is only 5 miles long but 4 of the 5 miles are protected land with many hiking trails and parks. The river valley includes the southern half of Vernon plus a bit of Tolland, Bolton and Manchester. The river is the Tankerhoosen and in its early days was dammed in many places to provide power for early mills. Thus it is rich in history as well as nature and recreation.

Last year a local businessman attempted to put an outdoor summer concert venue in the center of our residential area; the sound stage would have been a quarter mile from where I live. Profits would have come from alcohol sales resulting in noise, litter and traffic problems for the area. Another concern was the possibility of harming the Tankerhoosen River. Neighbors came together in a flash community to fight the project and over a three month period we were able to defeat it. I was drawn into the effort and built a website and produced an e newsletter to keep people informed and provide a place to make information available.

Over the nearly 50 years I’ve lived in town I’ve largely avoided getting drawn into politics or local battles. As I was drawn into this one it felt that for me it was not just about the concerts, but that this was about something else. There was something else seeking my attention.

Hereafter

Stephen Spielberg has done more to bring metaphysical concepts into the consciousness of the public than anyone else. I don’t know if this is his intention, but it certainly seems like his higher purpose. He has been associated as a writer, director or producer with Star Wars, ET, Artificial Intelligence, The Lovely Bones, Always, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Minority Report, and Vanilla Sky - all of which include ideas about consciousness and of what might be possible. He is one of the most successful and wealthiest people in the movie industry and by associating his name with a project he greatly improves the chances of its success.

Hereafter is currently in theaters and brings to the public’s attention, in story form, phenomena that are part of our holistic, spiritual reality; but not yet fully accepted by the general public. This movie includes near death experiences, how this experience alters lives, psychic-mediums, psychic connections, synchronicity, manifestation and the isolation we can feel when not understood by others. You probably know people who have had one or more of these experiences.

Hereafter is directed by Clint Eastwood, who has emerged in later life as one of our best movie directors and he tells this story in a measured deliberate way. It’s not a thriller nor a scary film. Just a tale of three lives that only merge at the end of the film.

The lead actor is Matt Damon, who plays a reluctant psychic-medium. Think of the Matt Damon of Good Will Hunting, not the Matt Damon of the Bourne series. The rest of the cast are mostly unknowns, but all do a fine job in their roles.

I won’t spoil the story, but I don’t think you will be disappointed. I was impressed with the way metaphysical ideas were presented, quite close to how those who have experienced these phenomena describe them. There are some adaptions to help the audience understand what is happening on screen, as when Damon establishes a psychic connection with someone. It’s a challenge to show visually what is happening internally.

One of the things I questioned was why the characters weren’t aware of something as common as a near death experience or mediumship. These have been written and talked about now for some time and I thought should be generally known. Maybe its just the world I live in and the rest of the world is truly unenlightened on these phenomena, or just don’t take them seriously.

Which is one of the benefits of a movie like this. Spielberg gives us the opportunity to talk about these concepts with our friends and family. Encourage them to see the movie with you and then talk about people you know or of books that you have read that provide more information. It will help them anchor these empowering ideas into their consciousness and may just change a life or two. That’s Spielberg’s gift to all of us.

Earthing

Dr. Stephen Sinatra is a Manchester holistic cardiologist. For years he has been an advocate of fewer surgeries and less medication for heart conditions, emphasizing prevention, nutrition and supplements to maintain health and remedy conditions. He publishes a newsletter, ‘Heart, Health & Nutrition’ making him perhaps the best known East of the River practitioner on a national level. In his newsletter he also addresses a wide range of conditions other than cardiology.

Yet he may not be known to you as he rarely speaks locally. This blog entry is let you know that we have a well respected holistic medical doctor practicing East of the River and also to introduce you to a new favorite practice of his - Earthing.

Dr. Sinatra calls it “the most important health breakthrough in my 30-plus years as a doctor,” yet its practiced by most children and comes naturally to many of us who love the outdoors or gardening. Earthing is just a new term for grounding, as in walking outdoors barefoot and reconnecting to the Earth. Most of us interested in holistic medicine and the environment already know the benefits of connecting to the Earth - physically, energetically and spiritually. So what’s new about Earthing? What’s new is that there is now medical research and a physiological explanation for the benefits we have always known about intuitively and from our experience.

Where's ECHN?

I received ECHN’s quarterly booklet recently and as I read through it was again reminded how far our local hospitals lag behind their competition in embracing Integrative Medicine. Where Hartford, Saint Francis and Windham Hospitals have first experimented and then integrated complementary practices, ECHN’s Rockville General and Manchester Memorial  have done their best to ignore it. Now they are a good ten years behind their rivals and should they wake up will have to run to catch up.

Hospitals today are more than their core facilities. Both Hartford and Saint Francis have centers in surrounding towns that provide multiple purposes all aimed at spreading their reach well beyond the core city they are located in. By providing services and education in outlying towns they not only create additional profit centers, but create a relationship with clients who are more likely to choose their core hospital when more serious care is required.

First Hartford and then Saint Francis Hospitals recognized in the late 1990's that Integrative Medicine was becoming popular with an increasing segment of the population. They each started small departments to explore the possibilities and aggressively marketed the fact that this showed they cared. In truth the departments were small and underfunded but they endured and proved their value. If you read through the quarterly booklets that these hospitals distribute you’ll find them heavily promoting workshops and talks on Integrative Medicine and even offering holistic services at their extended facilities. In our East of the River community Saint Francis has the largest presence with centers facilities in Glastonbury, Enfield and coming soon to Ellington.

Things That Changed Our Lives In The Past Decade

Jocelyn Noveck of the Associated Press wrote an article titled “50 Things That Changed Our Lives In The Past Decade” that was printed in most newspapers. You may have seen it. Although many of the items relate to technology changes, what caught my eye were those that relate to the holistic area. Day by day we don’t see it, but over the course of 10 years we’ve made good progress. Here are six trends of interest, the parenthesis are my comments:

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: From acupuncture to herbal supplements to alternative ways of treating cancer, alternative medicine became more mainstream than ever. (We prefer to call it  Integrative rather than Alternative Medicine, but yes there is a lot more interest.)

FAT: This was the decade that fat became the enemy of the state. New York City banned trans fats, and Alabama — second in national obesity rankings — introduced a tax on overweight state workers. (There has been more emphasis on good nutrition and an understanding that what we eat affects us on so many levels.)

GOING GREEN: From the kind of light bulbs we use to the kind of shopping bags we carry to the cars we drive, "going green" took hold this decade. Now, it's not strange to hear a school kid tell a parent to use a cloth grocery bag. (We’ve been talking about this for a long time, but with Obama’s election last year there was a real shift.)

How Far We’ve Come

In the past month I had the opportunity to connect with the work of J. B. RHINE and ERVIN LASZLO, two great men in the field of consciousness research and theory; and it gave me pause to reflect on how far we have progressed over the last century.
 
While on vacation last month I stopped at Duke University in Durham, NC to visit the Rhine Research Center, founded by J. B. RHINE (1895-1980). Rhine is the father of scientific research of psi phenomena, a parapsychologist who coined the term extra sensory perception or more commonly known as ESP. He started his work at Duke in 1927 after listening to a lecture on spiritualism by Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the center’s small museum are the early machines and tools used to test telekinesis and copies of the publications that reported on his ground breaking work. You’ll also find the Zenar cards he developed and  used to test precognition. Zenar cards are  the five card set of star, circle, wave, square and cross you may have experimented with yourself.  Rhine founded the institutions necessary for parapsychology's continuing professionalization in the U.S., including the establishment of the Journal of Parapsychology and the formation of the Parapsychological Association. He took psi from seance parlor to laboratory, establishing it as a branch of experimental psychology. Rhine showed the phenomena was real, but he could only speculate on how it happened.

Last weekend I attended a lecture by ERVIN LASZLO in Milford, CT sponsored by The Graduate Institute. Laszlo is not a household name either, but has become for me one of the most important people in the field. Laszlo,  now 77, has written over 80 books and was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His current work focuses on bringing attention to the sustainablility crisis and the need to shift if we want to survive for another generation. His arguments come from science more than spirituality, but with all the focus on 2012 it’s a convenient focal point for urging people and governments to take action now.

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown’s long awaited follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code” was published recently. What drew me to run out and buy a copy of “The Lost Symbol” was Lynne McTaggart’s blog detailing how the book referenced her work and included some detail on what Brown calls the ‘noetic sciences.’ Lynne McTaggart is the author of “The Field” and “The Intention Experiment,” which delve into the research and researchers in the field of consciousness. The science side of spirituality is a subject I’m very interested in and to see it woven into popular fiction is exciting.

If you liked “The DaVinci Code” you’ll probably like “The Lost Symbol” too as it has the same basic plot outline, pacing and similar characters. The Masons replace the Templars and the action takes place in Washington, DC instead of Europe. This time they are searching for a lost pyramid that leads to the secret of the Ancient Mysteries, which gives power to whoever has it. Not as esoteric and controversial as a continuation of the bloodline of Jesus, but still a fun read. Lots of descriptive information about Masonic history, ritual and symbolism and how ancient wisdom was encoded in Washington’s layout and architecture.

One of the main characters is a noetic researcher providing the opportunity to introduce research that is actually being done today. In her blog McTaggart notes and verifies specific points made in the Brown’s book.

Then And Now

I was recently a guest on RAY GENOVESE'S The Four Seasons radio show in Northampton, MA. When you do this type of interview the host usually asks for some talking points or questions that gives the guest the opportunity to include anything they might like to discuss, and helps the host guide the conversation.

Rather than just tell my story I thought it would be more interesting for listeners if I wove in the evolution of spirituality and holistic health in Connecticut over the past 30 years. In that period we grew from a small underground movement to become nearly mainstream and widely accepted. Holistic health has moved from small practices in the home to substantial centers and into the hospital.

Being Virgo I wrote up a pretty detailed outline for the radio show. It was a nice history review for me and gave the journey real perspective. Organizations were born, grew, declined and vanished to be replaced by something new. The flow was organic and ever shifting, but always moving towards greater light and awareness. To hold onto structure and not recognize when a group had fulfilled its purpose and let it go could be a mistake; change often came quickly; from small churches to stores to organizations to schools to centers to the Internet and back again.  Reminiscing its been quite a ride. Perhaps one day I’ll find the time to write up the history of new age and holistic Connecticut.

For now you can get a taste by listening to the radio show. It naturally jumped around and didn’t follow the outline and we would have needed another two hours to cover everything, but pieces of it are there. Click for a recording of the September 26 show.

My Orb Shoot

I had the opportunity this summer to go on two Orb Shoots.

Orbs are circular artifacts that show up in photographs, particularly those taken with digital cameras using flash. Skeptics insist they are back scatter from dust, pollen or water droplets. Believers are convinced they are something else -- perhaps invisible spirits, auras, angels, ghosts, energy fields, psychoenergetic artifacts, energy balls, etc.

I’d seen some very convincing photos, but the engineer in me was a little skeptical. GENE ANG invited me to some evening sessions with the objective of photographing them. I brought my trusty camera to see if it would work for me.

The first session was on a cool evening in June in a backyard in Manchester. At an Orb Shoot you take a lot of pictures, one right after another. Gene often takes 500 in the course of an evening. You’ll shoot, shoot, shoot getting nothing and then they begin to appear. As Gene's accompanying photos show you may see a few at first and then get an orb shower. Same direction, same angle, same light -- first nothing, then orbs.

That first night wasn’t too successful. When I reviewed my shots only in one did I find something I was fairly convinced was an orb. Some of the others were more successful.

Childhood's End

When I was a teen I got hooked on science fiction and read everything I could find in local stores. After college I searched for all the books written by the old masters - Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and others. They were prolific writers, had very creative minds and many had a strong background in science. What attracted me most was that the genre allowed them to explore “what if’s,” both with advancements in science and changes in history and culture.

As I’ve been exploring the Mystery of 2012 one of the themes that comes up often is the spiritual evolution of mankind in a time of crisis. It brought to mind a book I read long ago called “Childhood’s End” by Arthur C. Clarke  that explored the idea that we would evolve into a higher level of being in a very short time. The book was published in 1953, over half a century ago, and 15 years before his more famous “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which also explores evolution.

In “Childhood’s End” Clarke introduces an alien race who first impose peace on the planet to ensure that we survive long enough to evolve. He notes that there may be forms of intelligence completely foreign to us and that advanced science would be far beyond our current capacity to understand. Clarke does not seem to be a fan of the paranormal, probably because he prefers to play with ideas that are more scientific, yet uses and attempts to explain some paranormal activity as a key plot device.