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.

Population Growth

I've been re-reading some charts on the rate of population growth recently, and really it strikes me this is one huge 'elephant in the room' about which we must all surely be concerned....and particularly world leaders who are monitoring the global trends

Here are some figures taken from an article on Wikipedia
In 1500, estimated population was half a billion
In 1804, the world population reached about 1 billion
By 1927, it had doubled to 2 billion
By 1960, we were up to 3 billion
4 billion by 1974, 5 billion in 1987 and 6 in 1999

In 2009, the United Nations estimated would reach 7 billion by 2011-2012 .....( and the US census rates us currently about 6,858,200,000 so the 7 billion estimate is not far off ) On current growth rates the projection is to reach about 9 billion by the middle of this century.

One has to ask how on earth our planet can support these kind of numbers ?

Crop Circles

One of the really fascinating aspects about Crop Circles is you almost never see them in the news!!!

It's hard to know quite what to think about them...but as they had come up in a conversation recently, I thought I'd do a bit of a google about them...and was absolutely amazed to see the number of 'photographs' on the net. Literally hundreds of them from as recently as this week..loads of them in Wiltshire, UK. That seems to be a very popular place for such events.

Now, many people dismiss them as hoaxes, and I'm sure some of them are ....but really, they are becoming so elaborate, one wonders how on earth they could be created so beautifully and in such short spaces of time. And if they are all hoaxes, why has the whole concept not been completely discredited? Attached here are a couple of photos of one in Southern Holland from last summer which is particularly stunning and evocative.

Question remains however, if they are not all man made hoaxes, what on earth are they.

'Faxes' from another intelligence ??!!!

Effect of Thought on Genetics

I read an article on the web yesterday about recent research in Russia into the effects of thought and language on our genes

Absolutely fascinating ! Though not so surprising really as they are now confirming scientifically what has been understood in many circles for thousands of years.

That prayer, meditation and repetitive thought patterns have a definite effect on our very genes. Positive thinking can not only inhibit some unfortunate sequences of deterioration in our genetics ( think we call it healing!!) but perhaps even more intriguing, can also unlock sequences in what is called 'junk DNA'

Actually called 'junk' that because scientists can't yet work out what it's for!!!

In fact, it is estimated that 90% of our DNA is 'junk' ....that really got me to wondering just what that 90% could be for? Perhaps some of it is now redundant, but wouldn't it make equal sense that some of it is not yet activated ?

Doesn't that just remind you of similar figures that are estimated re the amount of our brain we currently use???!!!!

And it's fascinating too that the word E-Volution means literally to roll out..perhaps it's some of our latent DNA sequences which, when unlocked, open up the next stage on our long evolutionary journey.

Wonder what thoughts, what energy might be the triggers?