Permanent Influences

I listened to a fascinating program on the radio this week about Beethoven writing the Emperor Concerto in 1809.

He was writing at a time when Austria and Napoleonic France were at war and Napoleon's army was actually shelling Vienna. All the court and dignitaries had fled from the city to safer climes, but Beethoven remained and whilst the battle was going on around him, wrote this most exquisite piece of music.

I found the program so thought provoking from several angles. One was that despite the turmoil of the war at that time, the aspect which still moves people most today is the music itself. Not the history, not even the composer but it is the harmonies and rhythms which have an enduring , almost 'permanent' quality. In fact one of the young men on air talked of the piece as something, which despite the ups and downs of living, this piece of music was something which brought strength and stability for him...something which improved the quality of life and upon which he could depend.

It caused me to wonder what it might be from our times which would endure,centuries later? Would it perhaps be that this was a time of intense change where amidst the turbulence and breakdown of various aspects of society, something new was also appearing ..something which heralded an evolution of consciousness, a real elevation for humanity ?

Finding New Value ...

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Driving to work today, I heard a report from one of the gardeners at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew , speaking of the fear that as many as 20% of all plants are facing extinction, majorly because of human intervention in their habitats.

The person in the interview was obviously passionate about plants and attempting to evoke in us listeners a value for the part plants play in our lives. He went through a number of 'uses' from building to musical instruments to medicines, clothing and so on....and yes, one can only marvel at the multiple uses people have made of the natural worlds.

However, I couldn't help feeling that if we are to find a re-newed value in the world around us, perhaps it needs to start not in what plants do for us but in their own intrinsic special part in the planet's Eco system ..their own inherent beauty, and the laws of nature which underpin their existence.

*Photos copyright of Claire Zeevi

'Solar Maxima'

It's a fascinating feature of life today that there is so much information in the press about what we might expect over the next few years, whilst at the same time very little clarity about the ramifications of the 'predictions'.

A recent example is the news item about expected solar storms ...some solar physicists, like David Hathaway of the National Space Science and Technology Center having predicted them to begin around 2010-11. Others like Mausumi Dikpati of The National Center for Atmospheric Research, in the news this week, predicting 2012 as the most likely time for the major storms. ( 2012..that year again??!!)

Both, however, are agreed that we can expect the most intense 'solar maximum' in fifty years. The next sunspot cycle is likely to be 30-50% stronger than the last one in 1958 which caused disruptions and increased Aurora Borealis sightings. With so much more technology of a sensitive electrical nature today, it's not clear just how disruptive the solar activity might be but it is expected to affect cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other 'modern technologies'...quite what that encompasses is unclear ...and one wonders just how much of an effect it might have on computers systems which play such a central role in every aspect of our society from finance, business, education, defence as well as health and social services.

Few aspects of Western society could run smoothly if we had glitches in the world of computing and technology.

For more details of the 'coming storm', as well as very interesting and readable info about the cycles of the sun check out http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwarning/

Note: diagram above from the Nasa Science article

Reactivity and Sensitivity

Recently, we seem to be more bombarded than ever with visual images of the pain and suffering that is going on around the planet, both human and animal. I had a circular yesterday through the post asking for donations to help mistreated donkeys in the third world, made all the more evocative by visual memories of recent TV ads for the same charity.

On the one hand, you can only say what a good thing that someone is doing something about animal cruelty, wherever it is, but it also occurred to me that in our modern world, there is an unfortunate side effect to the sheer volume of exposure we now have, from ads, to daily newspapers, TV, radio, the net and so on ......

It's a very natural thing to respond and help, when we meet suffering. And as an example, living in the country one simply does not ignore a suffering animal, no more than one would walk past a person in distress.

Yet, when over exposed to information of suffering, and knowing one can't respond to ALL of it, does it begin to shut us down? To cause us to anesthetize ourselves away from the empathetic feeling, because the feeling is too much, and does not lead to alleviating actions?

To boldly go where others have gone before!!

Last night, I read about a fascinating experiment where a control group of non Japanese speakers was given three short passage in Japanese to memorise.



One was a traditional Japanese rhyme learned in Japan over centuries.Another was a newly composed verse.And a third was a random selection of non sequential words.

All looked and sounded fairly similar to non Japanese speakers.

The participants by far found it easiest to learn and memorise the traditional verse.

Now, why might that be? Does a set of words carry with it history, does the fact of other brains having learned the same words for centuries establish a pattern that makes it easier for others to learn it?

Is there some unconscious, unseen communication between brains ? Is there a hidden 'syntax' that is common to all languages, that sits behind the words in individual languages



Whatever the explanation, it's fascinating and yet another of those un-explained connections which don't quite fit in with a purely material view of the world!

"You can't step into the same river twice"

" You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are forever flowing in" Heraclites


I've been revisiting a great book by Deepak Chopra recently...Perfect Health. A real inspiration in healthy thinking.

One of the analogies he used really caught me...we tend to think of our body as a "frozen sculpture" yet he likens it more to a moving river.

Here are some interesting body cell cycles.

Adipose tissue ( fat cells) fill up with fat and empty out constantly..so all of it is exchanged in about three weeks. ( Great aid for weight watchers to know the fat they feel won't be there so soon!!!) We get a new stomach lining every five days. Skin is renewed every five weeks. Our skeleton is entirely renewed every three months.

Every year about 98% of the total number of atoms in the body are replaced, something confirmed by radioisotope studies at the Oak Ridge laboratories in California.

That got me thinking how important it is to give ourselves the freedom to change and improve.....and somehow isn't it encouraging to know our body is in this constant flow of change itself, and that we can work in partnership with it ?

Bee Decline, Cell Phones and Electro-magnetism

Last year, bee population in the UK went down by 17%, and in the US by 30%. Worrying figures indeed.

The reasons for the decline are still unclear....pesticides, parasite mites called varroa and climate change are often cited as major factors.

However there is interesting new research being done at Punjab university in Northern India, which believes that cell phones could also be in part to blame for the decline in bees. They fitted cell phones to the hives and powered them up for two fifteen minute periods each day. Within three months, the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen halved and the size of the hive reduced dramatically.

Another study by Andrew Goldsworthy at UK's Imperial College, London is studying the biological effects of electro-magnetic fields, and also believes it's possible that cell phones may be affecting bees.

There is a pigment in bees ( and other animals) called cryptochrome, which is used for navigation. It is used to sense the earth's magnetic field and thus helps bees find their way back to the hive. The signal from cell phones disturbs the cryptochrome molecules, thus causing bees to get lost and not find their way back to the hive. Indeed Goldsworthy has suggested to UK communications regulators OFCOM that they change the phone frequencies to one which would not have this affect.

At the same time, experts on bees such as the scientific director of the International Bee Research Centre at Sussex University comments that although they appreciate that bees are sensitive to electro magnetism, they are unsure whether bees use the earth's electro magnetic fields in navigation...so even, the bee experts are unsure in this area.


It seems to me that there is an urgent need to understand more about the electro magnetic fields of the planet and how flora, fauna and human life interacts with it.

After all, if this is indeed an important factor in the decline of bees, our major pollinators, then there is no time to lose! Life is indeed an inter-related living eco sytem in which every part affects every other And we are living in a time when our understanding of the significance of being part of this living organism, is expanding all the time.

Yet when it comes to the possibility of losing our bees, it highlights our urgent need to expand our understanding in these areas.