Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Interglobal, Science

What ZEITGEIST?

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A friend recommended to me that I watch the movie “Zeitgeist” – and that’s why I feel the need to write about it. Just to let you know right away: as useful as it might be in some people’s eyes, – and maybe 10 years ago it was somewhat useful – it is a perfect  expression of the “green meme”, attempting to spread information but not noticing its own strong bias in doing so. (Note: My article is based on the evolution of consciousness as outlined by Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics)

So let’s go through the chapters:

The dismissal of Christianity

The first part of the movie is a rant on religion, on CHRISTIANITY alone and in the common “Green” way of thinking: everything in ancient times was right and better. This is the first fundamental error of the authors of the film, and the second one reveals their total ignorance about the nature and purpose of religions. At length we hear that Christianity has “copied and pasted” the stories from previous civilizations. So what? YES, the underlying archetypes from the very beginning onward have developed according to the human experience on earth – and there is not much difference anywhere in the world. The outer expression might be different, but the inner experience is very much the same for all humans: fear, love, anger, all emotions which lead to specific behaviors like caring for children or murdering someone who doesn’t belong to the group.

Thank God, the power of somewhat institutionalized religions was able to tame the brutal force and power of individuals and thus allowed the survival of the species “homo sapiens”. This was the task of religions at a certain level of our development. It still would be a useful resource albeit in a positively transformed way for our advanced civilizations, while in its traditional form it would be very necessary in all those regions of the world which are still dominated by tribalism and egocentric violence. Christianity is the only religion which talks about love and service to others, so it would be the right sort of religion in our violent world.

In case you are caught within the idea that all religion is rubbish and Christianity especially: I can understand that, I was there too, when I exchanged Christianity for the “belief” in Science which, unfortunately, more often than not is just a disguised form of religion which has thrown out the window the ethical-moral component, and history altogether, to the detriment of the world. (If you want to learn about the wisdom of the archetypal stories transmitted in the Bible, do watch the “Biblical Story Series” by Dr. Jordan Peterson).

The achievements of Christianity for the world

So much for the statement of the movie that all evil comes from Christianity. No, it doesn’t! All good comes from there, it has allowed the Good, the True and the Beautiful to develop into what the Western world has become. Do you really expect that reality can be reduced to ONLY GOOD?  In a world based in duality you cannot have the one without the other, the good without the bad. And when you throw the baby out with the bathwater only because not everything was good during the times when Christianity was dominant in our world, then you are part of the destructive forces which pursue the idea of perfectionism and demolish everything which is not perfect. That, inevitably, leads to total destruction of what evolution has created in such a long time and with such a tremendous effort in going ahead and finding a practical way.

Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem! And the movie, unfortunately, is part of the problem and doesn’t offer a pathway to solutions.

The second part of the movie:

The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Also here: what is intended as “good” by debunking the official story ends up by increasing the confusion and manipulation of beliefs. Too bad.

The movie makers doubt that a fire caused by airplane fuel can bring down these huge buildings. Right. We use Kerosene for heating our houses and we are glad that the Kerosene (which is used by airplane engines) doesn’t melt our furnace. So the story of the fires bringing down thousands of tons of iron and steel is just incredibly stupid and everyone would understand that it is not possible if they hadn’t been indoctrinated to NOT seeing what was really going on.

And here the legitimacy of the movie ends:

Further down the road it is bringing up ideas, suggesting connections and causes. It assumes that certain things happened or did not happen, but they don’t offer any trustworthy evidence. The authors accuse the state officials of manipulation and of hiding the real stories, yes, I agree. But the filmmakers themselves use the same means: manipulation and persuasion of those who watch. The audience is  pressed into believing an unfounded conspiracy theory. Without solid proof for what you state you only increase the confusion – and actually the fear of the people who, in consequence, can see now all sorts of mean forces around them. Is this the real reason for the film? To help manipulate the “advanced” people into being fearful sheep when they find the movie in search of different explanations? I hope not, but the way the movie is made actually allows this suspicion to arise.

Steven Jones and Cold Fusion.

The film shows a short clip with Steven Jones, who became famous for his “proof” of “controlled demolition” of the World Trade Center. He obviously is one of the most manipulative and evil forces in the whole story – and not only here.

How many of you know that he forced a decision-making panel of scientist to break the neck of honest scientists (Fleischman and Pons) who had discovered what was called “cold fusion”? They were not only ridiculed, but…. Like many other people working in the field of “Free Energy” they were menaced and their careers destroyed. They were fortunate enough to not be killed like many other lesser known pioneers in the field.

Only 20 years later finally “Cold Fusion” was admitted to be REAL – and even has an entry in Wikipedia, Oh wonder! But still this is not a topic which is allowed to be publicly discussed or researched. I just heard that a scientist in Naples, Italy, who had discovered cold fusion with his team had to disappear from the world and his traces are lost. ( I cannot prove this, but I wouldn’t be surprised that the suppression of people who know how to create free energy is a worldwide phenomena.)

Steven Jones knew perfectly well that the World Trade Center was not tumbled down to earth by thermite but pulverised into dust – by the abuse of what is called COLD FUSION (or a similar free energy phenomenon), the existence of which he had so eagerly fought against with unethical means. And this person is presented as an expert in the movie! This makes me doubt the legitimacy of the other sources brought forth.

Where Did The Towers Go?

In the same year as the movie, a comprehensive scientific study about 9/11 came out which thoroughly contradicts all the given stories, including those stated in the movie, by pure scientific research on what really happened – or better on what did NOT happen. The book by Dr.Judy Wood: “Where Did The Towers Go?”  shows the impossibility of what is told in the stories by watching closely and drawing logical conclusions, not just unfounded ideas like everywhere else. How come that nobody knows about that book and the talks Dr. Wood has given? How come that only few institutions invite her to talk? Why do people prefer to jump on the train of easy stories and blaming without knowing the facts?

That’s why I think that the movie is really not helpful in bringing the truth to the world, but it is another means to obscure the facts and fill people with fake news and fears.

The third part of the movie: Money and Bankers

This last part of the film is about the money system, the corruption and greed and all of that. I don’t want to go deeply into that, I am for sure not an expert in economics. But I do believe that much of what is said is true.

But again:

Why do you show that with all the vehemence of accusation so extensively in the video? To totally destroy people’s trust in their countries, in their lives, in their possibilities to lead a meaningful life? This is definitely not a good idea.

This movie is promoting victimism.

“THEY” are doing all the bad things to “US” who are poor and have no power. This is not a helpful message at all!

Show ideas and pathways that people can do in their private life and in their communities to create a better world!

Big silence about that in the movie – which increases my suspicion that its intent is to collaborate with those forces they seemingly are blaming, that they are contributing to the problem instead of becoming a part of the solution.

Conclusion:

Movies which try to bring more truth and facts to the broad public are needed and helpful. If a movie really contributes to find solutions to the problem or if it is just increasing the negative state of mind of the audience depends on the knowledge, wisdom and integrity of the originators and producers. Still, in the “Zeitgeist” of our present time, you can make more money with negative excitement and fear than with truth and facts. No wonder that this film is using the old methods under a new and seemingly righteous banner. Too bad.

So what is the solution? – Maybe the only solution?

  • Each of us has to check in with ourselves and discover our tendency to avoid, to press the easy button, to believe sensational news and to not dig deeper to find out what is really going on.
  • We have the responsibility, everyone of us, to grow out of our limited patterns of thought and behavior and to stand up for the truth as we perceive it by deep introspection.
  • We might be wrong sometimes. Then we need the courage to course-correct and, again, not to hide behind a facade and lose our integrity.

It is NOT the bad society or the bad bankers or whoever does evil to us. We ourselves are part of the evil and promote it when we haven’t seen inside ourselves our own proclivity for evil – alongside with all the beautiful traits. Society is built by people like you and me. And every society is a reflection of single people forming it.

DON’T EXPECT SOCIETY TO CHANGE! Change yourself and you will change your society! Clean up your own “house” before you break down the one which “others” have spoiled!

PS: The featured image was taken as a screenshot of a moment in the youtube video  of a presentation by Dr. Judy Wood

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Me too? – a Consideration about Patriarchy

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“Me too”, the movement of this year which opens the world’s consciousness about the abuse of the power of men towards women in our “patriarchy” (which is a NoNo word, a symbol of oppression !?). This is a good thing, for sure. I hear men saying that they, only now, can really feel for themselves how it must be for women to suffer from sexual aggression. Before, they just “knew” it, now it becomes embodied. Hurrah! This would be a very good outcome of the accusation series, if it opened men’s ideas and compassion to what it means to live in a female body.

But then STOP here!

First of all the whole campaign happens in the Western world where women, for many decades, have all the possibilities to lead a self-directed and autonomous life. We don’t have any religion which forces us to succumb to men, as it is still the case in many countries of the world or their immigrant population in the Western world. Who talks about those women? Nobody. And they cannot stand up and blame the men in their society without undergoing severe danger. So why is all the blame and accusation directed to powerful men in the Western world alone as if sexual aggression was the norm here and only here?

Only women?

There is hardly any adult woman who hasn’t experienced a situation of sexual harassment or even violence in their lives. What about boys? Maybe not all of them have experienced sexual harassment, but harassment or violence of all other sorts for sure. What makes the sexual violence so different from all the other forms?

Is it because generally women have less physical strength than men and therefore are less able to defend themselves? To say that is certainly not politically correct as there are University Professors who claim in public television that “there are no biological differences between men and women”, coming from an equality/equity movement which seems to ignore even their own personal experience, let alone scientific facts.

Who cares about really oppressed women in this world?

Woman carrying water and child
Truly disadvantaged women

In many countries of the world women are not allowed to go out into the public without a male accompaniment – to protect the woman. Maybe. From what? From aggressive males in the society, from violating the social codes and bring dishonour on the family? From living their own ideas about life? Who in the western World complains about PATRIARCHY where it is really at home? I don’t hear any outcry and solidarity with women who really have no rights for an autonomous and self determined life. But alone the poor Western women are the victims of this bad thing called Patriarchy. Come on!

Yes, there was a time when, also in the Western world, women couldn‘t freely decide about their own life and what to do or not to do and they sought out marriage as a safe haven to survive in exchange for giving up certain personal freedoms. But now?

We have all the freedoms we need. It is up to us if we use them or not – and also HOW to use them.

Women are choosing – believe it or not

A couple walking through applauding people
Marriage, status and social approval

It is an old story that women from a lower social rank try to “marry up” and men regularly “marry down”. Many stories are told about the nurse who succeeds to marry the doctor. But a female doctor marrying a male nurse or a truck driver? That doesn’t seem to be the case very often and is somehow not acceptable socially. Why?

Women still are the ones to have children and it is a biological and evolutionary necessity that women try to get the “best” fathers for their offsprings – whatever is valued as “the best” in a given society. If you, woman, had the choice to have a child from a super intelligent and wise man or from a vagabond or criminal: what would you chose? You make a choice according to your values and there is a hierarchy of values if you are aware of it or not. And don’t tell me that, because you reject hierarchies, you consciously would chose to have a sperm injection from a convicted mass murderer instead of from a Nobel Prize winner! There is a clear hierarchy operating in a woman’s mind when choosing a mate!

Patriarchy is hierarchy and status – so what?

And here we come to the reason why, today, so many people hate patriarchy: because it is organised in a hierarchical manner. There are people who have better jobs, live in better places, are smarter or otherwise privileged over others and that is considered BAD. But, honestly, if you woman have the choice between two lovers and future father of your children: wouldn’t you aim for the one who has more status and more money and all of that? Don’t pretend that you would prefer the one who leads a miserable life in a slum with no food and no hygiene. So you are perfectly aware that your actions are guided by hierarchical values – while you complain about their existence at the same time. Think a little more about that before you open your mouth again in wild accusations.

So back to sexual harassment by powerful men.

As I said before, this was a normal thing in previous stages of societal development in the Western World and it is still the case in many other countries of the world. It definitely happens that some men abuse their power for their sexual or psychological self-esteem. But

WHAT IF MEN DIDN’T FIND A WOMAN TO BE HARASSED?

How do women ALLOW men to harass them?

people touching each other
people touching each other

Women accuse men and hide in the victim role. But what did THEY do to allow the harassment happen? When did they give away their genuine feminine power? And when, if not most of the time, they indulged in exercising the very ancient expression of female power? What do they think that would happen in a man when they show up with super short pants, hardly covered breasts and seductive ways of moving? He probably responds like the animal part in humans responds: with being sexually attracted. HAHA! Now he is caught in the web of his biology and things proceed as they proceed.

At any moment both, the man AND the women, have the CHOICE to say STOP in one way or the other. If you are an actress and you really want to get the big role than the “normal” way has always been to get the attention of the producer or whoever in charge and you both traded the issue. Women traded – and still do – sexuality in one form or other much more frequently than the feminist warriors want to admit – or any woman who now cries out about the perpetrator men who have made them suffer.

Be honest, woman: you will find at least one episode in your life where you got advantage for the fact that you are a woman which was granted to you by a man whom you manipulated into that.

  It is so deeply ingrained in women’s history that most of the women don’t even notice when their behavior is manipulative towards men, in the same way that men often have no idea how their behavior can be understood as violence.

Power and Empowerment

Life is about empowerment and power. To say that we need to make some very important distinctions: Today the word “POWER” has become a synonym of “abuse” and “morally unacceptable”.  This doesn’t justify the dismissal of power all together. “POWER OVER” is completely different than “POWER FOR”. People, men and women alike, can exercise power over others by reducing them to a sort of slaves. Thankfully this use of power is stigmatised and hopefully will be overcome soon with new structures of co-creation and communication – if people grow up sufficiently to be able to live in this different way.

What we certainly need is PERSONAL POWER to be and do what is right for us to do. Without our personal power we are transforming ourselves into the slaves where others can dominate us. There is no abuser if there is nothing or nobody to abuse. When we are embracing our personal power – which fundamentally consists in saying NO or YES in the right moment and really meaning it – we cannot be abused in the way of the present accusations. Somewhere along the line all those women who claim to have been sexually abused by men with whom they had a personal social contact have given up their personal power and chosen to be the victim, probably for good reasons. Even if the man is “guilty” 95% in a specific situation, but there is no woman who couldn’t detect these 5% or more of her own contribution to what she declares “abuse”. Being the victim and abdication of personal responsibility seems to be the easier way: all guilt and shame to the other. But at the long run those women have missed the chance to be truly free from their own conditionings and somewhere inside they perfectly know their own complicity in the ancient game between humans especially of different sex.

The evolution of Patriarchy

Colored Spiral: The Levels of Development
The Levels of Development

So “Patriarchy” is a name for a period in human history which is evolving like everything else. It is not to be blamed for all our personal shortcomings in the evolution of our personal self and of our societies – which are formed by people like you and me and not by some malevolent entity. If you and I discover shortcomings than it is our duty to bring them forth in the most possible unbiased way and to collaborate without shaming and blaming to create a better future for ALL of us.

 

Culture, Interglobal, Life on earth, Science

The reason why our air is still polluted and the climate is changing

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I invited people to a movie which gives the answers to why our air is still polluted and why our climate is changing. It is shocking and some people in the audience didn’t want to believe what they saw. But others were excited to learn more about the reality of our world, the technological possibilities – and the way they are kept secret for greed and fear. There is no big money in adopting what is called “free energy” – so why would our economic system adopt it? In fact, it doesn’t and the leading forces do everything they can to keep the secrecy and even kill people who know too much about it.

This is the letter I wrote to my local friends to join the movie and have a discussion about it afterwards. I will write below about the amazing variety of insights we collected after the movie.

The invitation:

Did you know that we could live in a clean and healthy environment, that the world wouldn’t know poverty anymore and everyone could have all the energy they need for free?

Did you know that the technology to accomplish all this emerged already 100 years ago and since the 50’s has been fully developed?

Dirty Air
Living inside a veil

So why do we still burn fossil fuels, poison our air and use the oceans as dustbin for plastic and the litter of our life?

Did you ever ask yourself that question? And if so, did you think: well, that’s how our economy works and probably it is not true that we all could be off the grid.

That means that you have bought into the official story which those who hold the power are busy telling us. They were the ones who made sure that all your doubts would be called “conspiracy theory” and ridiculed as products of immature minds.

So what do you need to change your mind? EVIDENCE and not simply vague ideas!

Will you dare to look into the evidence and become aware of what really is going on in the world, behind the scenes and out of normal people’s imagination?

Isn’t it better to KNOW instead of GUESSING?

My personal experience:

Since I really know these things, paradoxically, I feel much quieter and more confident. It is better to know what we encounter instead of panicking when something unexpected happens which we could have instead foreseen. That’s me. Only 2 years ago I would have believed what most of you still believe. But the evidence has opened my eyes and mind and I also have gained a certain idea of what I –  better we – can do in the face of reality which is hidden under huge veils of secrecy.

We invite you to watch the movie “Unacknowledged” by Steven Greer

The movie, on the surface, talks about Extraterrestrials and their existence on Earth.

But this is not the real topic.

The underlying question is: Why is the presence of beings from other planets or galaxies so ridiculed and suppressed? Why is there the highest grade of secrecy applied to this topic in ways that even the US presidents are denied access to the information?

The answer is astonishingly simple: The existence of what can be summarized as “FREE ENERGY ”, which has been detected by scientists from the early 20th century on and what has also been found in the so called UFOs which have crashed on earth and which have been eagerly studied by the military to re-engineer their energy system.

The end of pollution and poverty in the world

If the Government released the documentation people would know that free energy is available and would ask why they don’t get it and why they are forced to breathe dangerous air and drink polluted water and helplessly watch the effects of climate change. Our economic system would collapse when we have free energy available for all of us. And there are certainly many people who don’t want that but prefer to destroy the planet.

The evidence is undeniable . It has awakened me from a dream of “somehow we will go on” and “people try to do their best, they are not evil in their hearts”. Well, some are and they are enough to destroy life on our planet if we don’t wake up, all of us, and present our demand for life-fostering technology and stop the destruction.

BTW. I am not astonished that there is resistance to release all documentation around the death of J.F. Kennedy. He is said to have tried to get the information about the UFOs and the connected technology and bring it to the public. A coincidence?

After the movie

About 20 people remained after the movie to discuss the subject. We separated into 3 groups, mainly connected by language. Every group had the assignment to have all members talk about their experience, their insights and what has struck them most by viewing the film. Notes were taken and at the end presented to everyone. The variety of contributions was astonishing, from absolute agreement to what they saw and heard to severe doubt and the attempt to explain things away.

Topic UFOs and Extraterrestrials

One possible shape of an UFO
One possible shape of an UFO

Do UFOs and extraterrestrials really exist? Most people had no problems with that. But those who do try to explain the appearance of strangely moving lights in the sky or even the testimonials of people who have seen saucer shaped object themselves as “natural” phenomena. Well, yes, we see what we allow to pass our perceptive filters (see my article on that HERE).

Secrecy and Manipulation

Top Secret
The status of the information

Then it comes to the secrecy about the subject, the manipulation of the public media and the existence of the “Deep State”, a power holding entity in the US which is not controlled by any democratic institution in the country but operates totally hidden and exercises secrecy without mercy. Here we could notice a difference between “native” Americans in the audience and Europeans. We Europeans are inclined to believe that this sort of absolute power exists in the US. But we are not so sure about Europe because we don’t have extensive interests in space programs like the US.

Americans had a hard time to even imagine that the Deep State could be true. This applies also to the testimony about the corruption of the free press which just cannot speak about certain topics or is forced to delay or distort the content. The counter argument was: “if the media would have been infiltrated, we would have heard about it”. Really?

In my opinion Americans fear losing their faith in their country – and that is really a huge challenge and it holds much more at stake regarding their identity than it does for us Europeans.

Where is the Free Energy?

Tesla Experiment flashes
Tesla Experiment

The film ends with the statement of the “Lost Century”, where fossil fuels have caused huge damage to our planet and to the people while in secrecy there are already technologies discovered for clean energy, the so called “Free energy”. It was discovered more than 100 years ago by Tesla – and was suppressed almost immediately for economic reasons. You cannot make people pay for something you cannot attach a meter to!

Free energy and anti-gravity propulsion systems have been studied by the special access programs of the US military in depth, mainly by re-engineering crashed extraterrestrial spacecrafts.

Only very few people in the discussion groups were interested in this part of the film. Some had never heard about Tesla and their difficulty was obvious in even imagining energy which doesn’t need electric lines or batteries. But there were also people who knew about cold fusion and mentioned that it had been discovered also here in an Italian research Center in Naples – whose leading scientist has disappeared. So the merciless suppression of groundbreaking technologies is not only happening in USA!

Where to find trustworthy information?

If you have read until here then you are seriously interested in the topic. Great! There is a lot of trustworthy information on the internet – and also a lot of crap. You need to decide whom you want to give credence to. We, ourselves, trust in those sources which offer evidence, scientific evidence or the testimonials of trustworthy people whose words can tell if they speak the truth. We don’t follow those who merely offer personal opinions without being able to back them up. When we listen to what people say we critically look for incongruencies and then decide if we can accept their words. We have listened to many people and we are especially fascinated by those witnesses whom Steven Greer has interviewed on camera and whose long testimonials are available on Youtube, some of them mind blowing and heart breaking. You can start with these.

 

Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Why judgement is inevitable and important.

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The present hypersensitivity towards others

“Judgement” has become a no-no word. People feel offended if they feel “judged” by them-  They may even take a judgement as an attack. It could be, but more often than not it isn’t. Why?

3 girls
Do you feel offended by what others say or think about you?

Before I enter deeply into the necessity of judgement I want to say a word about the hypersensitivity of people. The PC code tries to impose on all of us what we can say and what not – or even what we HAVE to say.  What absurdity!  Because someone could feel hurt by our words? Please remember that the feelings belong to the person who feels them and have nothing to do with anything another person does. If you feel hurt by what others say your feelings are triggered by the memory you have from previous experiences. Other people, with the same trigger can feel completely differently than you do. Therefore your experience is not a justification to control other people’s words. If you want to do that on a larger scale (that means when there is no clearly “negative” expression in their words like open shaming, accusation etc.), then it is only a sign for your conscious or unconscious attempt to hold power over others.

Judging is a bad thing?

Having said that, let’s talk about judging and judgement. There is a pervasive confusion when it comes to judging. Somebody who feels judged feels treated badly and accuses the other of exercising power. Unconditional love, no judgement and similar jargons pervade our super sensitive society, especially when raised by those who feel at the bottom of whatever hierarchy.

So then, judgment is connected with hierarchy and “all hierarchies are bad and need to be destroyed”. Yes, we know these slogans and unfortunately they are adopted blindly by many people who chose to be victims to the forces of life, the universe, other people, everything.

As we said above, it is all about FEELINGS….and not about REALITY.  And RATIONALITY has little chance to interfere here. Nonetheless, I want to provide some rational viewpoints which might reach some of those who are not yet completely addicted to victimism.

Judgement is inevitable and absolutely necessary for life.

Judgement is the very basis of life, human and animal alike. In every millisecond our organism screens what is going on and judges if it encounters a threat or not. This starts biologically with our cells and goes up to our mental processes. When we see or hear something unusual we immediately check and judge the situation in order to decide if we can stay or had better flee. A misjudgement can lead to disaster. That’s why during evolution we all have learned to fine-tune our judgement without which we would be lost.

optical illusion
what do you see here?

This judgement starts before we even perceive anything. Our perceptual filters which allow us to perceive certain things but others not, are systems of permanent and automated judgements which are operating often completely out of our awareness. Therefore, whatever you perceive and whatever you think about it (for instance about what I am writing here), has already undergone your judgement, if you are aware of it or not. You are automatically biased with whatever you perceive and your personal bias can be diametrically different to that of other people. You literally live in a different world than other people so before you ask them to adapt to your world, why not try to adapt to theirs first and see what happens?

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

I said that the term “judgement” underlies a huge confusion, which actually is the case with other terms like “power” or “hierarchy”. In their oversimplifying way some people want to eliminate everything which they in their personal experience have perceived as negative. Poor grades at school, an accident on the sidewalk, some kid molested on the way to school, whatever. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater there are no grades at school – everybody is equally able or unable?  Kids have to be taken to school by their parents reinforced  by law.  When do they ever have a minute of freedom? The list could continue endlessly. Because someone happened to crash their car against a tree all trees get cut, etc. I am sure you can add to the list.

The shortsightedness of triggered feelings creates hardly the intended positive outcome, but most likely a negative one: Kids completely dominated by what their parents ask them to do or not to do, suppression of gifts and intelligence because nobody is allowed to be better in certain skills, discontent and dissatisfaction which leads inevitably to violence or numbness, two sides of the same coin. And then you expect people to understand what is going on, to take responsibility for the future by doing constructive things or at least by voting for the right sort of politicians (if there are any available)?

Safe spaces and control keep people in prolonged childhood

woman with umbrella
Stuck and immobile by overprotection?

You cannot expect these adult behaviors from people who have never been encouraged to grow up into emotional and ethical adulthood. They are still exhibiting behaviors and beliefs they were fed years earlier by overprotective parents, schools, or by ideological indoctrination. They need to come out of their narrow little safety net and take on responsibility for their own lives, their community, their country and the world. And that means that they need to learn to JUDGE, themselves, others and what is going on. They need to widen the basis upon which their judgement can be valid and right and constantly check it for a broader perspective and if it is still appropriate or not.

Every decision is based on  conscious or unconscious judgement. A way to grow up!

We need to judge and discern how and with whom we want to spend our time, what we want to do in life, what and whom we want to serve. We cannot blame anybody for our own judgements, let alone for the negation of adopting them. It is up to everyone of us how we face the difficulties of our lives. Blaming others for our own failures and incapacities  is certainly not the way to happiness and peace.

Culture, Interglobal, Life on earth, Science

What you need to know when you desire clean air, food and resources.

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Did you know that we could live in a clean and healthy environment, that the world wouldn’t know poverty anymore and everyone could have all f the energy they need for free?

Did you know that the technology to accomplish all this emerged already 100 years ago and since the 50’s is fully developed?

So why do we still burn fossil fuels, poison our air and use the oceans as dustbin for plastic and the litter of our doing?

Did you ever ask yourself that question? And if so, did you think: well, that’s how our economy works and probably it is not true that we all could be off the grid.

Wind wheel
A former method for free energy

That means that you have bought into the official story which those who hold the power are busy telling us. They were the ones who made sure that all your doubts would be called “conspiracy theory” and ridiculed as products of  immature minds.

So what do you need to change your mind?

EVIDENCE and not simply vague ideas.

Will you dare to look into the evidence and become aware of what really is going on in the world, behind the scenes and out of normal people’s imagination?

Isn’t it better to KNOW instead of GUESSING?

My personal experience:

Words: Truth/Lie
The truth erases the lies and sets us free

Since I really know these things, paradoxically, I feel much quieter and more confident. It is better to know what we encounter instead of panicking when something unexpected happens which, instead, we could have foreseen. That’s me. Only 2 years ago I would have believed what most of you still believe. But the evidence has opened my eyes and mind and I also have gained a certain idea what I – or better we – can do in the face of reality which is hidden under huge veils of secrecy.

An Invitation

We invite you to watch the movie “Unacknowledged” by Steven Greer  (and from there many other videos with testimonial interviews and presentations, if you like). The movie, on the surface, talks about Extraterrestrials and their existence on Earth.

But extraterrestrials are not the real topic.

The underlying question is: Why is the presence of beings from other planets or galaxies so ridiculed and suppressed? Why is there the highest grade of secrecy applied to this topic in ways that even the US presidents are denied access to the information?

The answer is astonishingly simple: The existence of what can be summarized as “FREE ENERGY”, which has been detected by scientists from the early 20th century on and what has also been found in the so called UFOs which have crashed on earth and which have been eagerly studied by the military to re-engineer their energy system.

The end of pollution and poverty in the world

If the Government released the documentation people would know that free energy is available and would ask why they don’t get it and why they are forced to breath dangerous air and drink polluted water and helplessly watch the effects of climate change. Our economic system would collapse when we have free energy available for all of us. And there are certainly many people who don’t want that but prefer to destroy the planet.

The evidence is undeniable. It has woken me up from a dream of “somehow we will go on” and “people try to do their best, they are not evil in their hearts”. Well, some are and they are enough to destroy life on our planet if we don’t wake up, all of us, and present our request for life-fostering technology and stop the destruction.

BTW. I am not astonished that there is resistance to release all documentation around the death of J.F.Kennedy. He is said to have tried to get the information and bring it to the public, about the UFOs and the connected technology. A coincidence?

 

If you live in Central Italy, Umbria, Lazio o Tuscany, you can watch the movie on Sunday, Nov.26th at 10.30 am at Cinema Mario Moricelli in Narni. After the vision we will have a snack/lunch and time to discuss the subject. Please let us know if you come so we can prepare sufficient food.

Organized by the Non-Profit Associazione Culturale “Il Paradiso Integrale” Otricoli  www.paradisointegrale.com

 

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Culture, Life on earth, Photos and videos, Psychology and Spirituality

Going Down the Rabbit Hole – The Santa Rosa Fires

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Some days ago a friend told us that his house in Santa Rosa was completely destroyed by the “wildfires”. When we saw the pics of the devastated residential area we became curious: how can that be? We have learned that we cannot trust official information and so we went to dig for what other people had to say about what happened.
 
We went on Youtube to get information from watchmen and firefighters. Immediately we found the message: that is not normal, there is something else going on here.

 

Discovering the Power of the Red Queen
 
We were really shocked about what we learned, and the term “conspiracy theory” is really not applicable to most of it. The fires which destroyed the house of our friend certainly are not yet researched enough but a lot of hints go into a certain direction.
 
I will give you the info we found and which, if you feel ready, you can absorb or not. You might become  angry, but in my experience the truth sets free, even if it is a VERY uncomfortable one.
 
We first watched:
At about min 5 there is an excerpt of a talk by Dr.Judy Wood about “weird fires” which were observed at 9/11

 

Going deeper – a disconcerting shock: Why did we not see this?
 
This made us curious and we looked up that women – which brought us to another conference where she delivers all evidence that the twin towers were brought down, neither by airplanes, nor by terrorists, but by a new technology which, when used properly, would have freed up already 50 years ago from fossile fuel.

 

Back to Santa Rosa
 
This gives some shocking “coincidences” of the Santa Rosa Fires
Is this another testing ground for the murderous technologies?
 
Why would people attack and destroy their own people?

 

Here the psychological background info to what is in human nature: a talk by Dr.Jordan Peterson who is a professor in psychology and clinical psychotherapist who has studied profoundly the deep black corners of the human soul.
 
In need to save Democracy – a call for all of us
If you have read so far and if you have watched this info: What will you do with it?  I think, we as “integral” or “conscious” people need to stand up against what is happening in the world where people discuss about the question of who is the next or the present President – which is totally irrelevant in the face what is really happening and of what the president has no idea or information.

 

This is what everyone needs to know:

 

The real power is in the deep government which is completely out of control of any democratic institution. They run the show. And for that there is a ton of absolutely credible evidence. Steven Greer is working on it for 20 years to undisclose the secrecy, having run the risk of being killed himself as were some of his collaborators. His latest documentary “Unacknowledged” shows you the evidence in form of classified documents and testimony interviews. The movie is to be paid at the moment but you can view many interviews on Youtube for free which were used in the movie
 
There are many people directly involved – why don’t they all speak up?
As a last video a presentation of an involved man who asked that the video would be published only after his death (Otherwise he would have had serious problems, as is noted in many other cases of people who dared to tell what they know about the malignant intentions behind the scenes). He tells you in what atrocious manner his technology was stolen and abused. “1984” is nothing against present reality! And we believe in the power of positive thinking while ignoring the evil intentions of those who really have the power – not the politicians, for sure.
WE ALL NEED TO WAKE UP AND SEE REALITY AS IT UNFOLDS IN FRONT OF OUR BLIND EYES!
Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Why Racism Doesn’t Exist

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The Postmodern predicament

Racism, Political Correctness, Freedom of Speech (or it’s negation) and even “anti-bias training” are the key-words of post modern society. But they are grounded in error which I will explain using the topic RACSIM. Racism, as we see it today, has two origins. One is the biologically innate fear of “The Other”, the second is a confusion of certain attributes of people, like skin color, with their value systems which is shaping their behavior.

In the following I want to give you a short introduction about why it is not racism when people fight against all sorts of “others”, like immigrants or blacks or whites or whomever. Then I will share two videos. One explains the human drive to violence and the other the value systems of humans and how they develop.

 

The innate fear of the OTHER

4 figures, tribal context
living in a tribe

From the beginning of time humans’ main concern in life, besides looking for food, was the desire for safety. Most creatures are less safe alone than when they form groups for mutual protection. Humans built tribes as the first form of living together more than 10000 years ago. In the Tribal Stage humans felt safe inside the group and they radically fought everyone who appeared at their “doorstep” who definitely was “the Other”, which was the same as “the Enemy”, an entity which needed to be killed. Tribes provided safety for the members but they prevented individuality. Everybody was confined to the habits and requirements of their specific tribe.

Hero kills the dragon
The Hero kills the dragon

Later on, new ideas emerged: the hero appeared who leaves home to become a successful individual – or to fail and perish. This is the Egocentric Stage where the own individuality emerges and is expressed in the world, often in quite violent ways.

Then the necessity arose to contain the egocentric manifestation of men who oppressed their people with tyranny. They fought bloody wars in the pursuit of their personal power with those who were guided by some other tyrant – which was the Enemy. When this way of being in the world became intolerable, rules of living together were established in specific groups of individuals, and then the members of those groups cared for each other by following the rules and recognising a higher purpose in human life which was not anymore confined to survival or power. This was the conformist stage. Safety was found, again, in the group which then was an ethnic community or even a nation. Enemies are all those who don’t belong to the specific ethnicity or nation.

Many countries in the world are still arrested in the first 4 stages of development, while many western societies have climbed up two more steps.

Please watch the video below which explains “Spiral Dynamics Integral”, the research on the evolution of societies and the development of individuals which is connected to the evolution of values and worldviews.

Introduction to SDi 1

 

What we call RACISM today has nothing to do with RACE

From the very short outline which I gave you above you can see that in different stages of human development safety is found in different ways and the definition of “the ENEMY” varies accordingly. While in early times the enemy belonged to another tribe, in the egocentric stage the enemy is EVERYBODY WHO THREATENS MY POWER. In the conformist stage the enemy is EVERYBODY WHO DOESN’T BELONG TO MY NATION or ethnic group.

The present USA was formed by many immigrants from Europe starting from the 1500’s. During the centuries they amalgamated to a rather homogeneous population. Their differences in culture and development were small from the beginning; they could reach a common understanding quite easily and grew together to the next stages. The egocentric behaviours of the first times were tamed and a sufficiently united nation arose.

Tribalism meets conformists

Then the slaves came to America. Yes, they were black, but first of all they came from a purely tribal background into a country which already had grown out of tribalism for some time. The differences in behavior and worldview were clearly visible – and they were also the reason why the “white Americans” were able to exploit the black slaves in the way they did. Belonging is the main need for tribal people, not fighting against power. So they accepted their role as slaves belonging to some master, naturally.

Slowly the consciousness arose that dominating others is not morally right and the slaves were freed – not always to their immediate advantage as they were not used to stand up for themselves as mature individuals, due to their tribal identity. As a response to the changed life conditions black people in America grew into the egocentric stage, also called the “warrior stage” and in time single individuals had the chance to grow into higher levels of development when they met the right conditions in their life, as for instance individual help in education or living in a surrounding which encourages growth and development.

Racism in USA – a clash of value systems

Racism against blacks or Mexicans actually has not much to do with the skin color of people or even of the geographical provenance. As outlined above, many blacks in America belong to the warrior stage or below – and so do Mexicans, Africans or other third world populations. Missing differentiation creates the appearance that the problem is “the Blacks” or “the Mexicans”, but it is their OTHERNESS which creates the refusal to recognize them as peers. They are not peers because they live within another worldview, within a different value system which the Americans refuse to recognize as still valid. They in their majority have gone through that period already. They are also rather dismissive of the subgroup of their own population which is still caught in the egocentric stage – which finds expression often in criminal activity. So criminality is easily equated to Blacks or any other ethnic or social group from “outside”.

You don’t need to have different skin color or to be born in a different nation: A new form of racism against home born Americans is coming through these days by the stigmatisation of “white males” as the oppressors of minorities like “black women” or LGBT’s. It is brought forth by postmodern activists who – instead of embracing the positive values of post-modernism – fall back into previous developmental stages and fight for their own power on the backs of those who they pretend to fight for. They ignore the rules of society and intend to destroy the structures which they believe to be oppressive and totally arbitrary and without intrinsic meaning. And doing so they throw the baby out with the bathwater and celebrate their fall back into previous stages of development with the credo of a stage, the post-modern “green” stage (in terms of “Spiral Dynamics”), on their lips which actually would be the most advanced stage in our western societies if it had been reached in a healthy way.

Violence – a biological ingrained trait in humans

If humanity had indulged in violence as expressed in the egocentric stage of development we probably wouldn’t be here today to talk about the situation in the world. We would have annihilated our species with much probability if we hadn’t found a way to tame the destructive emotions of the individuals. Religious beliefs emerged and with them a guidance of how to live our lives properly. Rules were established on how to treat each other and those who didn’t obey the rules were marginalised, imprisoned or killed – mainly the same mechanisms which we still find today.

The emergence of this stage in our development, the conformist stage, made it possible for humanity to stay alive and avoid self-extinction.

 

Are we able to handle our challenges today?

Today we are again at a similar moment where self extinction is a possibility, due to the same egocentric drive among individuals in “leadership” positions. But actually it is more complicated than that as we have to deal with two more levels of development in action, modernism and post-modernism which both add their pathologies to the mix and make it even more explosive and dangerous than medieval killings with sticks, knives and swords.

Listen to the explanations of Dr. Jordan Peterson about the history of violence and you will get some important insights why the new-age ideas of mere positive thinking as a remedy for everything is just not enough – and even dangerous when we adopt those thoughts as our idea of existence. We are naive when we ignore the deeper reality – and we are easy prey to malevolence and evil.

A History of Violence:  an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson

 

Conclusion

Conflicts arise all the time when humans live together. Whether people can handle conflicts and even transform them into growth and development depends on their personal growth, their level of resilience and, at least partly, on their level of development. Lower levels, especially the warrior stage, encourage confrontation and destruction, while higher levels, the “green” stage, encourages love and compassion in the case of interpersonal problems. Unfortunately, even the green level has not yet all the means to really step out of the treadmill and see the bigger picture where all conflict is seen as an expression and clash of worldviews whose members believe they possess the one and only truth and all the others are wrong. Such a position cannot lead to understanding and peace by its very assumptions: “only WE are right”.

Humanity must grow as a whole and leave behind the first 6 stages of development before they really will be able to create peace on earth.

At least a certain percentage needs to be there and those individuals need to learn a language with which they can reach those on lower levels of development and gently – or not so gently, depending on whom they are dealing with – bring them to a new and better understanding about what really matters in life.

Culture, development, Psychology and Spirituality

Why can people become unreasonable, rebellious and destructive?

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Rebellion is part of growing up

2 girls protesting for free energy
The “normal” form of protest

It is normal that in our youth we rebel against the the structures which have been imposed on us by our parents and our immediate environment. It is part of the developmental process and it is necessary to begin our own personal journey of individuation. If this rebellion persists and reaches levels of real violence as opposed to the “normal” teenage hassles, we need to ask ourselves what the reasons are for it, especially when property and people are wilfully damaged.

The “fashion” of “fighting” against the “establishment” began in the late 60ies, at least in Germany, where I grew up. The demonstrations in Berlin ended in shootings, providing to the political left some hero for further use in their ideological war against the state and all people who were suspected of holding power. The radicals pretended to be cool and tough by shouting slogans, burning flags, sometimes cars, and by fighting with the police. But, then and now, are they really what they pretend to be?

 

The Story of my Ex – Fighting Against (what?)

In the early 70ies I was newly married to a young man who was lucky enough to already earn good money as an architect. But his head was still full of these strange ideas and beliefs which he had picked up in University: the need to “fight against the establishment” and for the “proletariat”. Being the son of medical doctors, he himself actually was part of the “establishment” that he pretended to be fighting against by – stealing! Stealing from the office, from restaurants and hotels and in bookshops – where he finally was caught by the police. You should have seen this “righteous” man when he came home and confessed what had happened. No hero anymore fighting for the oppressed, but trembling with fear of being punished and of his future career being impacted by being sentenced.

bookshop
The temptation to act out the erroneous beliefs

Nobody was really damaged greatly by his deeds, it was first of all the ethical component in his thoughts and behavior. My warnings had been dismissed for years that stealing was just not right, even when a bookshop has an owner who earns some money by selling books, or even when a boss gets more money than a young employee. His black-and-white thoughts created his arguments to justify his own misbehavior and he extracted a strange “right” out of the income-difference – and “Class difference”, of course, – to damage others. It even seemed to be his duty to do so, in order to “help the lower classes”, the same shallow arguments which we hear today, again.  Well, no, these were only rationalisations for a game which he should have played in earlier times, as a boy at home, but not as an adult in society.

 

Why do people adhere to fascinating, but wrong ideas?

So what makes people believe such weird things and act with extreme radicalism against property and people without any sign of recognition that what they are doing is WRONG, unless they are caught and convicted, and maybe not even then? They are not at all interested in helping the people which they pretend to fight for. They are acting out – dangerously – what they have missed in their own childhood and youth.

 

Very interesting in this regard is the conversation of Stefan Molyneux with an ex-Antifa fighter who openly talks about his story, his upbringing, his attraction to the radical left. He describes the culture and the actions there and his long journey to arrive to the understanding that they were, by no means, justified and “right” as he had been willing to believe before, and for so many years.

 

Boys Need Fathers

Boys need the guidance of men when they grow up. Boys coming from families without fathers or with dysfunctional fathers are much more likely to become extremist “heroes” than those who had fathers to teach them to be men.

a men swinging a boy in the air
Fathers and their sons

The liberation of women – which I really appreciate – and the subsidies of the state for single moms have created a situation where many women prefer to raise their children without their fathers. And that is a bad idea, at least as regards the psychological health of the children, males and females alike. I don’t say that a woman needs to stick with the father of her children no matter what, as it was for such a long time. What I DO say is that – understandably – women in their new freedom exaggerate in egocentrism and don’t properly consider the psychological needs of their children. They actually continue adhering to the very traditional belief that only the material needs are important to be met in a child’s life – while they are thinking to be very progressive and evolved. Not reall

 

The Fatherless Generations

3 soldiers with hands up
After the war how to live now?

Coming back to my ex-husband. He was born in the first years of WWII, no fathers around and the mothers busy finding ways to survive. His father came home from war, but probably, as all people of that generation, unable to elaborate his own tragic experience. So the physical presence of a father in the house was not a guarantee for the children to have a “father” who would play the role they needed for their healthy development. A whole generation grew up fatherless and so they didn’t learn what is “right and wrong” in life, the classical role of fathers. Children need to know where the boundaries are. When they haven’t learned that when young they have a lot of problems in adult life which we could roughly describe as either depression or aggressivity and violence.

 

What Steve Reports About Antifa

That’s what connects the stealing of my ex-husband with the Antifa terrorists and the Social Justice Warriors: they have never learned to find their rightful place in society and they are full of illusions about themselves, the world and their power to do whatever they want to do.

Colored Spiral: The Levels of Development
The Levels of Development

In terms of “Integral Theory” or “Spiral Dynamics”: they are stuck in the “red” egocentric warrior stage. They haven’t learned to adapt to society – which is a necessary stage in the growing-up process – and so they never could transcend it and grow out of it into a person who has integrated the rules, without being any longer totally conditioned by them. In other words: they never have grown into a true rational stage where they would be able to properly decide what to do and what not. Instead they use rational language to justify their irrational behavior. This phenomenon is called “rationalization”. It means roughly that: you find a string of arguments after the fact to make your actions appear “right”, but you didn’t think your behavior thoroughly through before you acted it out.

 

Missing or unhealthy stages in personal development: the reason for disaster.

If it is the ultra right or the ultra left or any other group ready to use violence against objects, animals and people, they basically are children in their psychological development and their belonging to the group gives them what they lacked otherwise. They do everything to belong and to be valued in that group, hence the absurd violence in speech and action of the individuals. Their behavior is the response to what they didn’t get in childhood: belonging and recognition as a human being. It is as easy as that to understand, but surely not to handle and heal.

 

True Rationality Allows Freedom of Choice

a scale
The possibility to chose: seeing both sides clearly and the weight and impact they have for the future

For those who actually have succeeded in arriving at the rational stage of their personal development, like the guy named Steve in the above interview, it is possible to understand what is going wrong in the group and to find a way out. This certainly is very difficult and often dangerous because fundamentalist radicals don’t joke and bully and damage those whom they label “traitors°. History is full of evidence of that.

Congrats to Steve that he managed to get out of the group prison and to spread the word and inspire others to follow his steps – for their own personal good and for that of our society which has enough trouble with many other things apart from crazy dangerous never grown up children.

PS.In a future post I will try to outline the difference between men and women in their path to radicalism. The lack of the father seems to be more important in the boy’s socialisation, while women have still other dragons to slay.

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Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Do we realise how precious LIFE is?

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Life is precious, right?

How would our world look like if we really knew how precious LIFE is?

We are so much used to take life for granted, only

a seedling
Life is manifesting itself

when a baby is born we get excited about the miracle which coming into life represents; or, maybe, we get excited when we observe seeds sprouting and growing into huge plants. The enormous potential which enfolds in front of our eyes; yes, we might still have a sense of awe and wonder.

 

dry leaves on green gras
Autumn – the metaphor for death and rebirth

Then there is the other side, the end of life, and we don’t want to go there too often. We try to avoid thinking about death and dying and only when we are directly confronted with it do we give it some attention, the minimum possible. For fear of being “pulled down” we neglect our human duties towards people at the end of their lives. We don’t go to visit them, we deny them the comfort of not being alone in this difficult transition time because we do not want to be reminded of our own inevitable end. By not thinking about it we imagine that the “problem” will disappear magically, that somehow we won’t die, anyway…

How we pass our life time

As a consequence we have little chance to become aware to what extent our life is precious. We live it, daily, dealing with all sorts of distractions, often disguised as “important”, we are wondering how the next day will unfold: will it be as hot as today? Will it finally rain and end the severe drought? Will the President finally become a reasonable person? Will the terrorists attack again? Will I be safe? – Never ending questions which keep our thoughts and emotions occupied. We put our attention mainly on what doesn’t work, what should be better – and often we have a naive and sometimes also a can-do idea of how we can create a better world for ourselves.

 

So most of our time we are occupied – and preoccupied. And most of our time we don’t really LIVE our lives in the sense of being fully present to ourselves and our experience. We try to get out of the “experience” as soon as possible, especially when it is a bad one, and then we have something to tell to others.

By telling our stories we, again, most of the time are not present to ourselves and our precious lives. We bridge the waiting for the horrible hours, days, months or years to end – by finding something which replaces the direct confrontation with LIVING.

 

two people on two nearby benches
Waiting Alone Together

I wrote about the many ways of WAITING which seems to be the main occupation of living creatures as soon as they have some sense of time. (Read it here). Then there are some moments when the stream of waiting is interrupted: a sudden smell of roses,

a rose fence
Passing by a rose fence re-evokes pleasant past times

a flashing image of a happy moment in the past, a short and meaningful eye contact with somebody,  a musical line filling you with joy, the awkward attempts of a baby or young animal to walk: many snapshots which can wake us up from the dull routine of the passing hours until tonight, tomorrow, next year, some distant day from which we expect salvation.

Becoming more present – but not too much, please!

Yes, we can learn to be more present to ourselves and what our experience is, but it actually is a necessity that for the most part of our days we are acting on autopilot. We couldn’t live otherwise.

a desihn of a person walking, falling, getting up again
Walking, falling, getting up again

Imagine if you needed to pay attention to every movement of your body, to every step while you walk. When you try to do that, just for fun, with intense attention, you end up stumbling over your own feet. It makes a lot of sense that we automate much of our behaviors, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to be attentive to what is going on around us. And even there: we are continuously making choices regarding what we notice and what not, what is important enough to pass through our perceptual filters and what we can ignore – which actually is most of what surrounds us. Not being able to ignore irrelevant things, like not being able to forget, is a curse to humans which makes their lives miserable by the overload of endless input into their sensorial system.

 

So let’s be grateful that we are not always aware of everything.

 

This doesn’t mean, though, to push away those things which are important to be included in our awareness. And maybe the biggest one is the recognition of the preciousness of life and the gratitude we need to nurture for being alive, still alive and able to enjoy and to suffer, to give and to receive, to be a full human being.

That’s what inspired me to write this post:

A badger lying on the road
The badger on the road

The reason for this post was a brief experience of the past few days. Last Sunday we went on a bike ride. There was a badger lying on the road. I hate when cars run over animals when lying dead on the road. This one was at the side but we wanted to put it into the nearby field and give it the due respect by this mini-ritual of a burial. Coming nearer we realized that it was not dead. It’s breath moved his chest, up and down, it seemed to sleep peacefully. But it was hurt, obviously, and destined to die.

What is the RIGHT thing to do here?

What to do? From an ethical point of view, but also from a practical one? The mind says: the best thing is to end its suffering. But how? Would you be able to roll over it with your car? Yes, I know, at the moment it is fashion among the terrorist to run over people with their trucks. How can they do THAT? And could you do it, even if it is “only” an animal? Well, we didn’t have that choice while traveling on bike. What else? Hitting it with a stick? I once tried to kill a badly injured duck, and I did it so unskilfully that it haunted me for months because of the extra suffering I had created for the animal, despite my intention to help.

 

An opossum showing its teeth
Better not get bitten by teeth like that!

We didn’t even dare to lift the badger up to carry it away, to a shady place, to die without being burnt by the hot summer sun. We feared that it could come to life again and we would become the target of its defense. Would you risk the bite of a strong wild animal? Obviously, we decided to let it be there, breathing quietly lying on the shoulder of the road in the hot sun – and I felt a wave of compassion for this creature and the impossibility of helping.

 

person in armchair, depressed
Sometimes we need to let go

It is not easy, at least for me, to have to tolerate the idea that there is nothing I can do and that I need to let other creatures, whether animals or humans, go through their destiny path, no matter if self-created or not. It is not easy to watch people run into their misfortune which you, from the outside, can see as not inevitable. But how can you tell them, or help them, to change, to come out of it, to embrace life again by transforming their habits and belief systems? I tried it once, desperately, with an ex-husband, until I finally understood that there was nothing I could do to change his life. The only thing I could do was to change my own life which had become quite miserable while I lived within that relationship. I had to let go of the sense of duty, the idea that I am responsible for the other person (a trait which many women cultivate) and that the best thing for both of us was a total separation with no regrets.

 

Butterfly on pink flower
A butterfly – the symbol of transformation into something alive and beautiful

Easily said, not so easily done. But fortunately I had many experiences with animals here on my farm,  similar to that one with the badger, and so I knew I could do it. I have chosen LIFE over a covert death while still alive. And I have also understood how the fear of our physical death brings us into situations where we do not live our lives, where we are caught in tragedy and distraction which keeps us away from the really important things in life: compassion, love and presence to our experience.

 

Culture, Life on earth, Photos and videos, Science

Survived, yes? – And now?

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Facing a disaster – what can you do?

What can you do when your house has crumbled down and your work and income were bound to the place where you live? I guess it hasn’t happened to you, but there are folks which are truly left alone with that problem.

 

Today we decided to drive into the area where many villages and towns were heavily compromised by strong earthquakes from August 2016 on. We live about 50km as the crow flies from the epicenters of these earthquakes. I felt them strongly, nothing happened here to my house, but o boy, it did destroy more than I had feared.

Driving to the earthquake area – a real shock!

It is only for 2 weeks (after 10 months of inaccessibility), that one road has been opened into the area, from Norcia to Castelluccio on the high plateau of the Sibillini mountains. Some parts of the road were completely renewed, others limited to one track and you see the outer part of the road hanging down, and heaps of rocks, as you would expect. Then the view opened up to the plateau – and WOW. A huge crack runs over the mountain chain now, the rock has broken open over many kilometers. I remained in awe considering how much power had been released to split the mountain.

The high plateau of Castelluccio with the huge crack in the mountain chain
The high plateau of Castelluccio with the huge crack in the mountain chain

 

Finally in Castelluccio, the village of the famous lentils: I had been there many, many times. Only a few years ago the last of the previously abandoned houses had been rebuilt and tourists came to visit the village or even buy a tiny house, especially people passionate about Hang Gliding, as a school had been founded in this place.  

Castelluccio destroyed by the earthquake
Castelluccio destroyed by the earthquake

See here what is left of the village. I took this photo from the spot where during my last visit two years ago I had sat on the porch of a bar and specialty shop, enjoying the delicious local food.

Ex-bar in Castelluccio
Ex-bar in Castelluccio
Bar and shop in the trailer in Castelluccio
Bar and shop in the trailer in Castelluccio

The building of the bar has collapsed, the shop and bar-service are now offered from a trailer – and it is only for these last few weeks that a handful of people show up again and buy their stuff. And the 10 months in between?

 

What the people tell us

Talking with the owner I mentioned that they are very unfortunate because they are left alone in their misfortune. WE ARE LUCKY BECAUSE WE ARE STILL ALIVE – was his answer. Wow again!

He told me a little about the event and what happened later. From last August on, when the first earthquake hit about 25km to the south – when 300 people were killed – everybody living in that area was on high alert. And when 2 strong earthquakes hit 4 days before the big one, everybody went to sleep in campers or tents – and that’s why they survived. A witness reported that during the strokes he wanted to leave his camper but the surface of the street came up, right into his face, the waves were incredibly high. He still lives – or lives again – in his camper near the mobile bar and right next to the container-station of the military – who don’t seem to be active or even interested in fixing anything, just wandering around, in 5 or 6, while the village is doomed in its state of total destruction.

 

People who once lived there are not allowed to enter their houses, and the bar keeper himself had to fight to be allowed to come back and open his little activity in front of his destroyed property. “Maybe in 30 years”, he said, “our shop will be in our house again”, With that, he expressed clearly the little hope for help which the people have in Italy to come back into a normal life. This is the common experience here. The historic city Nocera Umbra to the north of Assisi was totally destroyed in 1997. Now, in 2017, it is finally rebuilt, but with almost nobody living in the historic center anymore. After 20 years everybody has found some other place to live and to earn their money, not by choice, but by necessity.

How long would you wait to come back home?

How long would you be able to wait for coming back into your property? Two years? Three, maybe five? But 20 years is a long time.

Our bar keeper is “fortunate” compared to those people from Nocera Umbra because he will be able to make a living, sooner or later, again, from a camper, a tent or a house, as he can offer what people need who come and visit this place: drinks and food. And we started to help him by buying some of his marvelous salami and by having a morning snack

The 2nd "shop" in Castelluccio
The 2nd “shop” in Castelluccio

in his place. We also bought salami and cheese from his competitor on the other side of the Piazza who has opened a tent-shop in front of the open space which once was his house and shop…

 

The official lies about reality

You cannot imagine what an earthquake of this magnitude can do. Officially – for many unscientific reasons (see my previous blog posts here and here)-  it ended up with a magnitude of 6.6 in the records. Cutting a mountain in half needs a little more. The bar keeper said it was 8.0 and this comes nearer to the truth. It could have been 7.6 to 7.9, but certainly not only 6.6. The quake has moved the whole mountain. A hang glider told me that he could see from above that, in addition to the crack we can see from the plateau, there is another one right behind the mountain top which literally has cut it into two parts.

Another unpredictable result of the event: the fountains in the whole area have dried out, the water veins have been blocked and the water has found a different way. It is now pouring out of the mountain near Norcia, in thousands of liters per second. This will change everything and, hopefully, the farmers find a way to continue to plant their famous lentils despite the lack of water.

“I Love  Italy” – and how it is abandoned

Hold on, I still need to tell you about Norcia, the city which was so proud to have resisted the first earthquake in August last year. Norcia is now an incredible mix of “life as usual” and huge amounts of debris.

Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Norcia
Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Norcia

The inviting restaurant on the square in front of the theatre – the colorful life as usual.

"Our" Bar with view on scrambled church
“Our” Bar with view on scrambled church

And 50 m from there in a side street: we have an ice cream in a bar – and a clear view on one of the two crumbled churches in the small Piazza

Crumbled church and some lonely workers far back, the only ones we saw in the city
Immediate reconstruction à la Italiana – some lonely workers far back, the only ones we saw in the city

and two or three workers slowly beginning to erect some scaffolding: not to fix anything, no, but to just keep in place what has not yet fallen down.

The bank-building in perfect shape
The bank-building in perfect shape

A bank in the main street neatly restored and the shop in the same building open, while right next to it abandoned shops and small announcements that they are still working, somewhere, outside the city.

Photos of the destroyed shop behind the "curtain" and indication of where to contact the owner
Photos of the destroyed shop behind the “curtain” and indication of where to contact the owner
Where you can find the coffee shop...
Where you can find the coffee shop…

Whoever goes there and buys their goods? The tourists come and see the historic center and buy something there; they don’t drive to the industrial area to buy something which they couldn’t even desire without seeing it exposed while strolling by.

So how do they make their living if they are not among the fortunate ones who are allowed to open their shops again in the center?

A working shop in Norcia
A working shop in Norcia

( I guess about 80% of the commercial activities are closed).

Commercial activities in Norcia - closed
Commercial activities in Norcia – closed

And even those who are open again do not really have many clients. I have never seen so few people in Norcia in the past 30 years and my 20+ visits there. 

The empty streets of Norcia
The empty streets of Norcia

The main attractions are either completely destroyed, like the 4 main churches,

Santa Maria Argentea in Norcia - what is left...
Santa Maria Argentea in Norcia – what is left…

or are inaccessible like the town hall which seems as if still contemplating if it is better to tumble down, too, for giving a consistent appearance to the main piazza, where only the medieval castle sits perfectly in place like a flat rock.

The town hall and the front facade of the Basilica di San Benedetto - the rest of it ist crumbled down.
The town hall and the front facade of the Basilica di San Benedetto – the rest of it has crumbled down.

How interesting is a disaster in the long run?

Yes, some people are interested to come and visit these places, the “earthquake tourists”. But most people come to visit Italy and the Italian cities for admiring something beautiful and not for getting sad and thoughtful about the uncertainty of life which is expressed so clearly in the natural destruction of what has been created with so much effort.

The following thought is almost unavoidable: Imagine how places look like after a war, after intentional destruction. That’s where we don’t really like to go, and alas, who knows how many steps we are away from such a scenario?

As if a bomb has hit... A scene in Norcia
As if a bomb has hit… A scene in Norcia

 

What can WE do? – What can I do in the face of disaster?

I am an optimist and I believe that we are all called to engage in activities and with people who passionately work for a better world. I am speaking of people like Jordan Peterson who has opened my eyes and helped me to recognize my “new-age” illusions about the “goodness of everything”, to see my naïveté regarding my irrational hopes and folly acts of trust in people who don’t merit it. I came to understand that there is true malevolence in this world and that we need to learn to recognize it and to stand up against it – as does Steven Greer by disclosing the secrecy with which we mercilessly are misguided.  View previous posts on this blog here and here and here)

 

And here is a big “Thank You” to Ken Wilber who taught me to see the bigger picture and to appreciate the efforts which people do in one or more quadrants of reality. My attempt is now to bring together all these seemingly disconnected aspects and to realize their value and transmit what they bring to the table in service of a truly better world – and to help to diminish, or even end, the influence of the malevolent forces in power.

 

Will you join me? And in case your house crumbles with the next earthquake, be sure to knock on my door!