Most people say they LOVE Italy, not necessarily the Italians themselves, but all the tourist who see the beautiful sides of the country.
Today I will post some photos for you which I took in the last few weeks, touring through Umbria in bicycle or in car, as a resident in Italy for 30 years.
Calvi dell’Umbria on Sunday Morning
Today I don’t want to talk about the many things which DON’T work in this country – and those are truly many many. Today I focus on what is still keeping me here, despite all.
View from Otricoli in the Tiber Valley
who doesn’t like CAPPUCCINO?
Or have a Pizza on the streets of Bolsena
Roman Theatre Ferento near Viterbo
One of those little shops with locally prepared food in Calvi dell’Umbria
Eremitage di Saint Francis “Lo Speco” near Narni
An old castle falling into pieces in Graffignano
A beautiful ancient church in Lugnano in TEVERINA
The beach at the lake of Bolsena
And finally, good night, the work day is over for today. Have a nice weekend!
What I will see tomorrow morning!
This post was originally published on branded.me in September 2016
Snow in the Alps in July and less than 20° in middle Italy. There are still people who negate the sheer possibility that we humans have any connection with things like that. Or it is God who sends us everything – and easy perspective for believers – or it just happens, has always happened etc. or your thermometer is simply wrong and it is normally hot, too bad you cannot feel it. So there is something wrong with you, not our collective unconscious behavior.
River Tiber in July
No matter to what camp you belong. Fact is that German summers seem to enter into the Mediterranean area, so that UK people, used to permanent rain, found the same thing in June in Toscana and now our German guests enjoy a cool day which resembles a lot to those because of which they drove 18 hours to be here.
This part of the post was originally published on branded.me in July 2016 which, then, I used as a sort of journal for my thoughts.
Now it is January 2017 and another round of climate-changed situations have come forth.
It was unusually warm until Christmas, temperatures over 15°C and everlasting sunshine (where you could literally be in the sun like in autumn). We had 15°C in December before, but accompanied with “Scirocco”, the warm wind from Africa, which brings rainy warm weather. No rain for weeks, always sun – which is wonderful if you can forget the implications and just live here as a tourist who doesn’t care).
Ice on the ground
The the bitter cold came, freezing temperature,. under -6°C at night and some days hardly over 0°C – while all the time the sun is shining.
The polar winds, colder and more violent than the normal “Tramontana”, they tell the story of the disturbed current around the North Pole, where the extreme cold can now escape the closed circuit and the warmth can invade it. What is bed about that? Well, the ice melts quicker, the polar animals loose their habitat and soon countries like the Netherlands will be erased from the map – as well as all the beach recreation places where we, still, enjoy our holidays and spare time.
Where will the water go?
How long will it take? 10 year? 20 years? Where will new dikes be build Netherlands, north of Germany) and where not (Bangladesh, I suppose), and how long can these dikes avoid the flooding?
I wish you a happy 2017 – and some thoughts about what YOU could do to send the rumbling train to a different binary!
Published first in August 2016 – read also my update from January 2017 at the end.
I grew up with the strong belief that science is aiming to reveal the truth, that scientists use their rational mind in their research of data and their interpretations of the data.
Science is not what it should be
Well, it is heartbreaking to understand that science is NOT what it should be: detect the truth. Rupert Sheldrake has written a whole book about that, where he shows that main-stream science today is dogmatic, more a form of religion (=strong belief in unexamined ideas) than a means to discover the truth. You can read his valuable arguments in “The Science Delusion” or in his conversations on Youtube
TODAY I WANT TO ADD MY OWN LITTLE EXPERIENCE OF THE UN-TRUSTWORTHYNESS OF (some – or many?) SCIENTISTS WHO SPREAD THEIR MANUFACTURED RESULTS.
Since the earthquake last week here in Italy I am following a livestream on youtube by Dutchsinse who is observing the whole world on earthquakes and makes predictions where to watch out for the near future. He had predicted the eartquake here in Italy, where about 300 people died.
He regularly complaints about certain people, responsible for the earthquake-news in USA, who don’t report those earthquakes which were predicted by Dutchsinse, or they level them down.
Why would the do that? I thought. I didn’t want to believe, I thought this live-stream guy might be just somebody enjoying victimhood. Why would the scientists not only not admit that the predictions were right, but hide the facts all together?
Well, the Geologist’s BELIEF -SYSTEM says: Earthquakes cannot be predicted. And if somebody can predict them, over and over again, then their card-house of assumptions and beliefs would crumble and they would have to change their ideas about their subject. Ego doesn’t allow to admit that you are wrong – many people die because of strong egos among scientists of today.
To conclude:
I SAW IT WITH MY OWN EYES YESTERDAY MORNING.
An earthquake of 4.3 in central Italy was reported on the “world” section of an Italian website. I saw it about 10 min. after it happened. It was not reported on the Italian section yet, nothing was reported there for the last hour. I thought, well, they need some time to update……
In the evening I went back to this website. On the Italian page an earthquake was reported, about 10 minutes after the one I saw in the morning and the quote was under 4 (that means: not so dangerous). And on the international page the 4.3 of the morning had disappeared down to something like 3.7.
I don’t know if they just deleted the strong earthquake or downsized it. But, obviously, somebody has had his hands in there. Only a day before Dutchsinse had said that Italy had to watch out for more strong earthquakes, not as strong as the previous ones, but….. And 4.3 is in the range of being considered strong.
“Guarda caso” – say the Italians. Means something like “here we are again”. And I begin to believe that we cannot trust anymore what we hear reported by well known scientist who are leading important institutions. Power corrupts, everywhere. (And who knows who pays them? The Fracking Industry, I guess)
PS: This post was first published in branded.me in August 2016 after the first big earthquake in Italy where 300 people died.
In the meantime there have been other 3 noteworthy earthquakes here, one even of magnitude 7.2 on October 30th 2016.
I had the chance to observe how the manipulation of the magnitudes happened from moment to moment: down to 6.1, up to 6.6 and then left at 6.5. It definitely was more, it felt quite different than the 6.5 in August – which then was downgraded to 6.1 I believe.
Certainly, the earthquake forecasting is in its beginning, not allways right, but often enough to take it serieously. When rain is forecasted and instead we get sun, nobody is much upset with the forecaster, right?
Well, with the earthquakes there is another clima: doubt and the willingness to attack, deny, and suppress. If they, instead, would give the money and the opportunity to study the phenomena more in depth – what a single person by himself cannot really accomplish, but a group of dedicated people is needed -, then it can come out if there is truth in it and to what degree. Maybe it will never be exact – or onla as exact as weather forecastin. But it would help anyway to warn people and take the constant fear away of THE BIG ONE – which will NEVER happen without preannouncement.
We are living in a bubble of beliefs which allows us to feel secure and not bothered by unexpected events like an earthquake. We simply negate that they could happen. This is a good thing for our psyche because we cannot live in a permanent state of fear and anxiety without damaging our psyche and our soul. There are events in life which push us right back into this precarious way of living, horrible times like wars which leave permanent marks in people going through this long term thread – and smaller events, but nevertheless devastating, like earthquakes, which remind us that nothing is really safe and secure in life.
I wrote the following post the day after the first big earthquake here in Italy which killed 300 people. We had more of that in the meantime, here i n Italy and in other places of the world. I will publish further considerations in time. Here already a blogpost I wrote in my website-community.
This is my oribinal post of the DAY AFTER:
Last night I woke up because my bed trembled. Earthquake. I jumped up and ran to the door (you always should try to go outside or to the door-spaces), but it was already over.
Nothing happened to me, and also nothing in the 2 next quakes, But this morning I understood that, about 40km direct distance, the earthquake has destructed yet another town. Houses tumbled, people under the stones of their previous houses, helpers coming, but cannot arrive because the street is blocked by the landslide.
20 years ago when a huge earthquake destructed parts of the famous San Francis church in Assisi I was directly there, safe, outside the house on solid ground. When you are not fearful, an earthquake can be the most astounding experience of your life. Imagine the force of a starting airplane which you can feel in your stomach. An earthquake is 500 times that, or even more.
The infinite power of our planet. We often forget that when we think we could dominate nature. Good to get the reminder sometimes.
Then the people, that is another story.
2 years ago we visited Nocera Umbra, the epicenter of the earthquake of 20 years ago. It was still not finished, still some houses and public places to repair – and nobody living there. A ghost town. Who would come back after 20 years?
This is the real drama of earthquakes, here in Italy, but probably in many countries in the world. The money collected from helpful people disappears somewhere, the re-building process is incredibly slow. The people get some housing somewhere, far from their previous neighborhood, from their work place – if they were lucky enough not to have their workshop or restaurant or whatever under the ruins. Then what to live of, from now on?
It is like your roots being torn out of your soil. Yes, most people survive the earthquake physically, but the inner earthquake and the social condition they are forced into, will completely change their life. If you want to help, the best thing is to go there, directly, and support private initiatives.
Women often respond quickly to the necessities and create self-help groups which, at a certain point, become truly political, as it happened in Aquila, the town destructed by an earthquake about 10 years ago. Women organized the connection of the people, the upbringing of the young and all sorts of services, while the men were still making plans – which, today, have still to be fully realized.
Go and help those people, don’t trust in big organisations. The money will not – or only partially – get there where it is needed. This is a long and painful experience in our countries.
This post was first published on Branded.me on August 26th 2016
The article was written on August 25th, 2016 – the day after the 1st devastating earthquake in Italy.
(In the meantime others have happened and the censoring is going on, more than ever.)
At the moment it’s the OTHERS who die, not the ones who earn by fracking, pulling out with violence what is hosted inside of Mother Earth, but their turn will come before they even understand what they are doing.
I just saw a map of fracking activities all over the place, and yes, also in Italy. And a guy is monitoring for years that earthquakes arise exactly there and build up to bigger ones, even across continents.
Yes, I know,earthquakes have always happened, but what we are doing now is accelerating their appearance and increase their power – until we might see old volcanos fire again as a result of the pressure which is created and certainly significantly increased by human actions.
Why are we doing all this? Someone earns a lot of money – and we pay it because we want to drive cars and go by airplanes. But we wouldn’t need the OIL for enjoying the luxury of our present life, we KNOW THAT FOR A LONG TIME – ENERGY CAN BE PRODUCED WITHOUT OIL EXTRACTION. Some people dedicate their lives to explore alternative ways – and our societies are still sleeping or half-heartedly doing just a little bit.
Nobody wants to take on the confrontation with the current economic powers. And it is THEM we need to attribute the cost of the devastation of our Earth, our landscapes and soils, even our houses and the air we breathe.
A huge part of what is happening is man-made – for the greed of a few who are not even aware of the damage they are creating, also because it is rarely them who pay for it, but the small people who, as in the case of an earthquake, are pushed into poverty and life- changing upheaval.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JTRgs4l740. It shows that the earthquake was predicted to happen in that very zone in those days. But official science still denies that they can be predictable at all. If it had been communicated sufficiently, people living in that zone would have had the choice to spend a few nights with friends or family in a different zone of Italy, or even sleep in their cars where they couldn’t be hit by tumbling walls.
SO MANY PEOPLE COULD STILL BE ALIVE – if the information wouldn’t be suppressed and ignored. Is this the world YOU want to live in? REALLY?
So what will YOU do to change this?
PS: I am following the earthquake forecasts since that day and was alert of the others which came to Italy at the end of October.
“Don’t be scared, be prepared”– that’s all we need to save our individual lives, here and now. But the dangers created by the unethical use of technology is mainly unknown to the people. It’s not only fracking, many more highly destructive procedures which sooner (not later) will destruct the earth. We are already eating up 1.5 of our planet. Visit Dr.Robin Wood’s websitethriveability.zone/ and the conversation with him at the Wisdom Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq0qK1KUeV4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLKZlXum-sg
The big change in worldview can change the world itself
some thoughts and considerations by Heidi Hornlein
We thought the Universe, the world and ourselves were machines for the last few centuries. This helped us a lot to understand from an outside point of view how things “really” work. As long as we were fused with life and our ways of living we couldn’t see from inside what a more “objective” view can discover. Discernment can happen only on an higher level, as you can see the dimension of a forest easily when looking down from an airplane,
So with the rise of natural science, human curiosity digging deep and dissecting into what seemed to be a given unit found single pieces, working together and forming the whole in a describable process. Wow! We have discovered the nature of the Universe: a wonderfully working mechanical machine!
Can you see the beauty of this worldview, of this discovery which gave so much explanation and sense to the long unanswered question about the origin of our world. Well, the creation, the super opus created by a man with a long beard, sitting on a cloud, this could calm the curiosity for some time before, but humans have the habit to think and get better and better in it. So the God- explanation didn’t satisfy any more a mind which is searching for sense in observable facts. No one has ever met the guy on the cloud creating a tree, a horse, not even the weather.
Seen from that perspective the idea of the Universe being a machine was a huge step ahead – and actually it has led us to the huge technological progress which has enabled us to live in ways which not even kings and queens were able before. We have heated houses, warm water and bathtubs behind the next door, cars, busses, trains, airplanes – nobody needs to walk for days to reach his destination. We live the miracle of the dreams of so many generations before us.
So why aren’t we happy? What’s wrong with all that? Nothing is WRONG, actually. Evolution takes it’s time and occurs in cycles, or better it jumps from one seemingly stable and “eternal” level to the next. And we are asked to jump again these days.
The universe as a gigantic machine was a good model to explain things for a long time. But now we know more – and better – and also this new knowledge one day might be obsolete and replaced by new and more comprehensive knowledge and wisdom which creates new and more “right” models.
Now we are asked to make the jump from seeing the Universe and everything in it as pieces of material to compounds of energy. That doesn’t mean that we need to doubt our senses which say “solid thing” when we touch a table. Knowing that it is composed by mainly empty space, the particles running around somewhere and these energy units together building the table, doesn’t mean that it is not there, immaterial. We need to not mix up the “levels” of reality in everyday life. It is like in Geometry: when we measure the ground floor of a building we still use the ancient Pythagorean geometry although we know for quite a time that on a bigger scale, it is slightly incorrect. It is a question of usefulness and adequacy that we still work with parallel lines – or with solid tables and chairs. They all are “real” in the given context.
The limits of the mechanistic worldview can best be seen and experienced by EVERYBODY when it comes to health issues. When we have a headache and take a drug to make it disappear – and then we have stomach ache because of the side effects of the drug – and then the headache comes back after some time, we consider our body as a somehow random collection of pieces which shouldn’t be connected – in the case of the side effects. So instead of considering that the headache might not be caused by a local issue – except when you have banged your head against the wall, which we are constantly doing, at least figuratively – we could begin to search for the systemic connections between body parts, but also between our different levels of reality, like feelings, thoughts, beliefs, habits etc.
Some individuals have known about the connections inside a human being and its interaction with external circumstances for a long time. In the last century they were not persecuted any more by church authorities for offending religious dogma, but they ran risks to be fought by the “newer” authority, the money gods. Nonetheless, thanks to many courageous people who listened to their consciousness and to their ethical feeling of what is right these new ideas popped up more often, were re enforced and are now on the tipping point to seriously affect mainstream knowledge and ideology. Again, the beard of old dogma is being cut, we will have huge gains in understanding and in practical benefits like increased health, longer lives, good lives for everybody, and many things we might even not be able to imagine yet.
This will be the truth for some time – until something truer and “better” will arrive at the horizon and replace also this. Evolution is on it’s way, step by step – and don’t get stuck on one floor if you want to reach the next!
On this website here you find content related to our personal interests and discussions – always informed by our integral worldview, but often not directly related to integral theory.
We will publish here our blogposts and articles which we collected in the past – or we will create in the future.
