Enlightenment Can Be a Tricky Process

Enlightenment can be a tricky process. You make some progress forward and you slip back a bit, then go forward again, then maybe sideways some.

Several years ago, voters in Colorado decided that legalizing marijuana for medical use was a good thing.

So then lots of people invested time and money and went to work and started growing, some put their savings together to open shops where marijuana products would be legally sold.

New jobs were created in towns all over the state. Green jobs. Local jobs. Sales taxes were generated.

Then some towns decided that they didn't want any of those businesses in their town. Last night, Longmont became one of them. Conservative city council members decided that if people need to go to dispensaries, "they can just drive over to Boulder."

Some people got relief from health problems jobs were created, taxes were paid, local people were employed and yet, the council members just decided that they didn't want these kinds of businesses here.

Win some battles, lose some battles. I predict that eventually the laws will change and we will just have legal marijuana period, not just medical.

It is just foolish that it has taken this long. The experiment with banning beer and liquor didn't last for 80 years. After about 10 years, they admitted it was a mistake and repealed the law, let businesses open legally again and then taxed them.

I think that some people know that the enlightened approach would be to just do it that way, it's just that they have been stuck in their anti-drug position for so long that they choke on the idea of saying "oops, we made a mistake, so let's correct it."

But one of these days, the tide of public opinion and votes will sweep them aside. Too bad we wasted so much time haggling over it, and they will finally come out and admit that they know it is a beneficial plant and people want it, so let's just go ahead and sell it and tax it.

It will be like the day when naysayers in the field of green energy finally get up and say "yes, let's just go ahead and build more solar, wind and geothermal energy generators and run more power lines to them so that we are not so dependent on fossil fuels. It takes time for stubborn people to come around, but one of these days you will see the turn of the tide.

They will get up and say "yes, it will work. Let's do it." I am hoping this agreement comes sooner than later. I keep holding that thought.

Blue Healing

The blues has a way of lifting your spirits by taking you down to the bottom and letting you bounce up. I love the blues. Something about the urgency of the music, the gut level feel of it has the power to energize and move. It's also kind of sexy, seductive and playful.

Wonder where you get that feeling when you are hearing the blues? Considering that blues inspired some creative soul to draw eerie, edgy sounds of out a guitar using a beer bottle neck, the earthy vocals fit nicely alongside it. That primal feel is what grabs your attention when the singer not only sings sweetly but mixes it with a range of sounds, growls, shots, and sensuous moans mixed in. And if at some point you don't find yourself laughing or smiling over some of the lyrics, you haven't been listening.

And some nights, that's exactly what I want to hear. The visceral feel, going straight for the emotions, and kicking it into gear with those rhythms that just call you up to dance. Dance, and let it stoke the fire of seduction. Let it bounce in those playful ways you like to do. I see that sparkle that comes with that smile. Funny that works, isn't it?

On those days and nights when you feel like you need some medicine to lift your spirits, bathe yourself in some blues. You might be having a drink while feeling funky about the way things have been going. But after you soak in that music for a little while and feel it moving you to dance, you will be feeling better.

Blues can heal. What sweet medicine.

Paying Attention

Paying attention is key to enjoying life. Of course, enjoying life includes getting what we want.

Examples. If a person is not paying attention to the music, all of a sudden a beautiful dance turns into a chaotic mess.

If a person is driving a car and not paying attention, accidents happen.

If a small business owner does not pay attention to excellent performance or making use of every opportunity that comes their way, they fall short of their goals, or worse, lose it all.

If a person does not pay attention to their physical well being, they can create consequences that make their own physical comfort decrease.

What makes one person a better lover than another? Paying attention.

What makes one person more creative than another? Paying attention.

Malidoma Some, an African shaman, says that "A person who has a problem learning to drum is a person who has a problem with listening."

Carry that thought out to those things which are important to us. We can never become excellent at anyting without paying attention.

If we pay attention to the things we say are important to us, success has got to come to us, in larger or smaller amounts.

Paying attention is the true cost of success.

Body Magic

I am liking the energy of renewing my dedication to getting more exercise. I like the feel of the energy that the basketball players and volleyball players are stirring up as I do my workouts.

I look around and see other people who are also exerting the effort to strengthen their bodies by shedding the extra weight as I am, or rebuilding after various injuries that may make them limp as they gather the courage to keep moving around the track, swim or use the various machines. Yes, of course there are also those who are already fit, perhaps working on being superfit.

The energy of the whole place is kinetic and inspiring.

At first it takes an act of will to get up and go. And the more often we do it, the better we feel. Yes, sometimes I would rather stay in my comfortable chair and watch a movie or read a book, but I make myself get up and go anyway.

That act of will is our necessary way to break out of lethargy and make magic with our bodies.

Magic is defined as change according to will, and we are working magic on ourselves as we express our will. Then the more we do it, the more resistance to this change fades away.

Not everyone looks glamorous as they work their magic on their bodies, but all of them are showing a lot of heart. Gratitude for survival, the intention of health and healing, desire for creating a better life. All are visible.

Amazing things happen when we do magic with our bodies. Change according to will.

Soothing the Throat

This evening my throat was feeling a little raw, so I knew that I needed to do few things to address it. First was the old standby, gargling with warm salt water. Then there were cough drops, cough syrup and then a few mugs of hot tea.

A hot bath with Epsom salts, eucalyptus oil and hyssop oil really felt good as well. Then I felt like something a bit more gentle for the spirit would help as well, so I chose a biography of the author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton to watch, and kept getting these little surprises throughout when they featured comments by Buddhist monks he had dialogue with, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

There was also a sequence that made me smile when Merton's publishers said that they were not sure that his books would sell, and they were amazed at how well they sold. That shows a difference in the way commercial publishing works these days. Then, if the publisher thought that the author had something worthwhile to say, they would publish it even if they were not sure it would be popular. Today, the trend in publishing is to try and only print what is popular. But that does not always prove to be a winner either, because the public's taste can be fickle and ephemeral.

It was also interesting that some people who knew Merton commented that people were not always happy with what he wrote when he spoke out about subjects like peace. He had the clarity of mind to point out that his church had no problem taking a hard line stance on abortion, because they see it as the death of a person, yet they took no stand against using nuclear weapons which could kill millions of people at a time.

There, of course, were also people who had to stretch themselves to understand how or why a Christian monk could find such common ground with Buddhist monks.

In some way, the peaceful spirit emanating from this story helped calm my throat as well. I finished off the evening with some classical music which was very soothing, and then it started to rain, which is always a healing sound for me.

There are a lot of ways to help soothe physical discomforts, using resources from within and without. Healing often works in mysterious ways.

It is important to do more treatments of this sort tomorrow as well, since I will be talking a lot Friday, Saturday and Sunday, doing readings and giving a talk. My voice is important in my work.

So this is a time of charging up the batteries for a large amount of activity, so that I am ready when I need to be.

What Is Worth Knowing?

You know how it is some days when you log on to the Internet and there are stories everywhere about some over-hyped event or non-event or celebrity thing? Just think how much better off we would be if the media would simply focus on something else. I feel that media attention is often so ephemeral and geared toward short attention spans that it draws our attention away from things that really would benefit from more attention. Something or someone who seemed to take on proportions of incredible importance just a couple of weeks ago will not even be a footnote by the end of the year. And we see this cycle repeated over and over again.

Years ago, in one of his books Dr. Andrew Weil suggested as one of his steps to optimum health not only changing what you eat and getting regular exercise, but also fasting from the news. He did not advocate the news fast for forever, but for a period of time. The purpose of such a suggestion would be to allow a person to focus on being more conscious of what they are doing and also to reduce stress.

Knowledge can be first hand or second hand. First hand means that you actually know something to be true because you have experience with it. Second hand knowledge is when you know something is true because lots of other reliable sources agree on something and it agrees with other second hand knowledge, like knowing someone else who has been there and done that.

Most people develop a strong preference for first hand knowledge as they continue on down their path. Information that has been tempered by experience becomes far more valuable as we go on. It is one way of keeping your head on when you sometimes feel that you are drowning in a sea of information, most of it irrelevant.

Back to the Andrew Weil example. If we are paying attention to what we do, if we are changing our eating, exercise or peace of mind habits and we are noticing changes in our body, that is real knowledge that is coming to us.

If we are interested in learning more about a subject and we study or practice in that area every day, we are again acquiring first hand knowledge, experiencing breakthroughs, weaving that knowledge into our life.

If we are busy trying new ways to build our business, we are acquiring first hand knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

Acquiring knowledge is part of living. We all do it. As we follow our path and heed that which calls to us, that which makes our heart sing, discerning which knowledge is worth acquiring becomes more important. Do you find yourself increasingly aware of that? I know I do.

Where the Fires Were

Today I took a ride up into Sunshine Canyon to see what it looked like now that the fires were out. There were whole mountainsides that looked like charcoal.

Then there were the places where the earth was scorched but some trees still stood and some even still had pine needles, although the needles were brown instead of green.

Two weeks ago you could see the night sky tinted orange above the mountains and in the daytime, smoke obscured the ridgelines, obliterating the usual profile against the sky.

It is funny the way the fire works. There was one house on top of a charred ridge that was made of wood, and it was not burned or even marred by smudge. Yet, just around the bend, there was just the remnants of a brick wall where another house once stood. There were odd contrasts like this all over, where the house on one side of the road was not burned and on the other side of the road, maybe a washer and drier and maybe a piece of the roof by the chimney was still there.

Was it that some guardian energy protected those that did not get burned? Was it prayer that saved some, not others? Was it a sudden shift in the wind that made the fire burn all the way up to a house, but not take the house? Was it luck?

Or was it simply that there was some invisible grid line in nature that said to the fire "You can burn up to here, but do not cross this line."

The fire crossed stone and water and consumed whole large areas of earth, grasses, shrubs and trees, but then there were stands of trees that are still standing, still green.

The forces of nature can work in mysterious ways. It was fascinating to see where the fires were.

The Unnamed

Among our spirit guides are those ancestors so far back that we do not know their names. Yet, I feel that these people, as well as relatives or friends we knew in this lifetime who have crossed over, are looking out for our best interests. These people figured out how to survive on this planet, and since we are their offspring, they would like to see us succeed too. They prompt us through our gut instinct.

They may have had different ideas about family and tribe than we do, but they certainly did master the art of getting food and shelter. Today, we always use the phrase of necessities as food, shelter clothing and medical care. Clothing for sure was a different concept. In the early days, they used furs or skins to protect their bodies from the weather, and if the weather was pleasant enough, no clothing was necessary.

Medical care and healing were more like a subset of food. Discovering that certain plants could help alleviate pain, make symptoms of illness go away, or induce states of euphoria, calmness, aphrodisiacs, dreams and visions, these were certainly intertwined with their search for plants that were good to eat.

Yet, our illiterate ancestors, relying on their gut instincts and observations of nature, figured out what they needed to know. It is this power, this ability of knowing how to know that we are tapping into when we develop our psychic and intuitive abilities. That knowing, and our connection to the unnamed continues to this day.

Rest

Like most other people, I use my computer all the time. Email, my blog, my website, different sites that I am on, like Facebook, some smaller listings and sites that I check into once in a while. Using all these things to try and promote my business, research information, connect with people, look for leads. These are things I do for my self, to develop my own business, my reading and healing business.

Then at my day job, I am always on the computer doing the company's work. Plus in various assignments over the years, on the phone at the same time.

This past weekend, I decided to rest. Unplug as much as possible and rest.

Checked the email a couple times, checked my lottery tickets, went to the farmers market, cooked, walked. Read a book. And slept.

By the time it was Monday morning again, I was more rested than I had been in a while. It felt really good.

There is so much we need to do, especially if we are growing our own business. That feeling that we always need to be on top of things, doing this that and the other or else we might miss something.

Some people have recommended that I start Twittering and doing a few other things online, but I just have not got around to it yet.

Being unplugged was really restful. I keep a pretty strong pace most of the time, working the day job Monday through Friday and working fairs and festivals on weekends.

Right now I am making my schedule more simple, more efficient. I am pruning the less productive events from my schedule and instead concentrating on booking more private appointments.

Unplugging and resting are very rejuvenating. My plan includes having more of that in my schedule too. It feels very good. Well rested helps a person be ready for what has to be done next.

Sometimes we fall into that trap of thinking that if we are not always busy, we will miss something. But it all comes back to love and fear. If we love what we do and stay focused on our vision, taking some quiet time becomes a plus, not a minus. Being constantly busy may be rooted in fear. It always comes down to love or fear doesn't it? Choose love.

Pizza and Peanut Butter

I saw a post from someone asking if they knew of a place that had gluten free, lactose free, vegetarian pizzas. I thought to myself, wouldn't it just be easier to order something else? I mean what is a pizza without the bread dough, meat and cheese? Then again, I am the kind of guy who will opt for a glass of ice water if the only kind of beer you are serving is something called lite or light. No matter which way you spell it, it can't pass for a beer around me.

Oh, I know, the poor people with allergies still want to eat something that looks like their favorite food. And some people just want to be seen drinking something that looks sort of like a beer.

All this leads me to wonder though. Is this some sort of evolution or aberration going on? From the time I was a kid eating peanut butter sandwiches until about ten years ago or so, I never heard of people who were allergic to peanuts or wheat.

Is it that these were in existence all this time, but everybody thought it was something else? Or is it that so many additives have been added to all kinds of foods that this stimulated new allergies?

I don't know. I think it is just another one of those weird things that is happening in our world. Curious how something like peanut allergies or gluten allergies just all of a sudden pop up on the radar. Curious to see how that happened or how it will evolve.

Soft Summer Solstice

It felt appropriate to spend part of my Summer Solstice planting in the garden, then taking a relaxing bath.

The herbs are growing nicely and it is wonderful time to stop and give thanks for all of the wonderful healing energy they bring us and all the ways they add flavor and health to our lives.

The longest day of sunlight is also a time for gratitude for all that we have received. A time for gratitude for the people in our lives. A time for gratitude for health, love and abundance.

A time to light a candle and relax with a glass of wine and reflect on the polarity between this and the shortest day of the year.

In Shakespeare's play, this would be the magical night of the Midsummer Night's Dream. In Europe, May 1 is the first day of summer. Here they call the Solstice the first day of summer. Most years that seems too late, but this year, with snow until May, it feels like we just started summer.

In the fullness of life, there is much to be grateful for now. The wheel is turning.

What Would Pfizer Do?

Another peculiar twist in the new medical marijuana law in Colorado is that it specifies that caregivers must sell their product at cost, although they are allowed to charge a fee for their caregiving service.

So that prompted me to think of how that fits into the world of medicines. What would Pfizer and the other pharmaceutical companies do if a law was passed ordering them to sell their products at cost? No, we and they believe that they have a right to make a profit on their products.

Obviously, then Colorado HB 1284 was not modeled after any other health care legislation.

It's more similar to liquor laws, in that it allows that cities or counties can opt out and declare themselves a dry county or dry town.

But it differs significantly from the liquor model in that it allows one person to own a chain of stores, where the liquor law says a person can only own one store at a time.

Given the new rules laid out in this law, a person would have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to open up each dispensary. To own a chain would take millions.

So say goodbye to entrepreneurs becoming small business owners. The green dynamo that was busy creating new jobs here is now grinding to a halt.

By the way, I am not writing this because I am a grower, caregiver or dispensary owner. I am none of these. I am simply an observer of the changes we are going through.

Laws are too frequently fashioned with the help of lobbyists and friends with vested interests.

Too Much Efficiency

Being efficient is a good thing, but there can be such a thing as too much efficiency. As we observe some of the changes in our world, going for too much efficiency can backfire on us.

One example is the latest development relative to farming. After years of using their marketing muscle to sell farmers on the idea of using Roundup Ready seeds so that they can saturate their fields with greater quantities of Roundup, their patented weed killer without killing the corn, cotton and soybean crops, mother nature did her usual thing and responded by developing bigger, tougher weeds that are immune to Roundup. So now new poisons are needed.

One of the reasons for such a strategy is so that ever fewer people can farm ever larger tracts of land.

So the observant person will be even more encouraged to support local farmers and organic farmers who grows their crops in healthier ways, and these will probably be relatively smaller farms. Now that the farmers market season is about to begin again, there will be plenty of opportunities to choose healthier foods and support small farmers and ranchers.

The oil spill on the gulf coast is another example. Those people who argue that we should stick with depending on fossil fuels rather than renewable energy sources do not include in their calculations that the dirty byproducts of fossil fuels. Not just the oil spill and how it is spoiling the fisheries and the beaches. Mining coal causes miners to get black lung. And in places where lots of coal is burned to fuel development, more people have emphysema and other diseases of the lung. The amount of oil we burn produces clouds of smog over all our cities. Perhaps it is true that one big oil well or one big coal mine can produce more energy than a bunch of solar panels or windmills. My answer would simply be to build more solar panels and windmills.

Solar, wind and other renewable sources have no such deleterious effects. People don't get sick just from building windmills and solar panels. Nor do they make our air and water dirty. Nor does the building of them ever cause catastrophic accidents.

Another negative aspect of being too efficient is the multitasking that many employers insist on. Creating situations where people are making phone calls and trying to do emails while driving, while eating their meals, while they are vacationing or spending personal time with family and friends is all about trying to get one person to do more than one person's job. Workloads of this type diminish the quality of life in many respects. Keeping a person on an electronic tether just burns them out faster, decreases their ability to focus, intrudes on and interferes with personal relationships.

Our quality of life is often better when we are operating a smaller scale, rather than a bigger one.

Bottled Water

Yes, drinking water is a healthier choice than drinking soda, but even though I have bought bottled water at times, I have always felt it was a frivolous industry. After all, more than half the bottled water sold is not mineral water or spring water, but simply filtered tap water bottled by the big soft drink manufacturers. For them, it was simply a way to expand their product line, so they used their marketing and advertising to get us to buy something which we could already get for free.

Well, OK, we do pay for the water that comes out of the tap at home, but compared to everything else we buy, it is very reasonably priced, and we figure it into our cost of housing, since virtually every residence in this country has running water.

The answer to getting good quality drinking water is not found in buying bottled water. If we really feel like the quality of our tap water needs to be better, we need to see to it that our cities and towns do a good job of providing that service to us.

Now people are also noticing that although plastic water bottles are recyclable, they are not really recycled that much. So in order to get drinking water, we throw away tons of plastic bottles every day that are made from oil, thus in another way, increasing our demand for oil and expanding our dependency on it.

The alternative is very easy. Get bottles that are good quality metal or glass and refill them. I drink tap water all the time. I also cook with it, make coffee and tea with it, drink whisky with it. Oh yes, I also bathe in it, straight from the tap. I don't insist on anything special. And it works just fine.

It's kind of funny how something that is marketed as good for us really is not really much improved over our tap water, while it creates more garbage and uses more oil. Another victory of marketing over substance.

Curious, isn't it? Just another one of the ironies of modern life.

Smoking Hot Over Proposed New Law

You've got to ask yourself why it would be good for the people of Colorado who are users of medical marijuana to have a law in place which is designed to put most small dispensaries out of business, setting up a situation where only the biggest dispensaries will survive, which will most certainly drive up the price of the product.

This week the Colorado House passed HB 1284, which will be voted on by the Colorado Senate within 2 weeks, which would do exactly that. This law is a product of the big operators who have deep pockets who hired lobbyists to help create this HB 1284.

Many small entrepreneurs have sprung up to supply the demand for medical marijuana after the state passed a law making medical marijuana legal.

All those who favor a free market support the efforts of entrepreneurs who are creating new businesses.

Unfortunately, this bill is simply another example of the power of lobbyists to create legislation for clients. It is no different from the big bankers and brokerages getting together to change the laws so that they could all merge. We have seen how well that turned out for all of us. We have also seen what happens when the lobbyists for the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies influence health care legislation.

Those of us who care about medical marijuana should voice our opinions to our representative in the Colorado Senate.

There is nothing good about a bill that is created with the intention of putting all of the small businesses out of business so that the playing field is only open to the largest operators.

Would we allow this to happen in any other category of business? Would we be happy if the auto repair chains got together and passed laws that forced the smaller and independent auto repair shops to close?

Yes, franchising and big business are coming to the medical marijuana industry if this bill is allowed to become the law in Colorado. Real capitalism would allow whoever wants to try their hand in this business to enter it, and let the market decide who succeeds and who fails. Real capitalism does not pass laws to put their competition out of business.

All this law proves is that the people who have the deepest pockets to open the biggest stores and hire the most lawyers are going to try to control the business, and ultimately, this will mean higher prices to consumers than if there were more competition.

The forces behind this power play are no different than the forces who changed the laws so that we could end up having just a few corporations control most of the banking industry, or just a few media conglomerates to control most of our news organizations. It was not the customer who decided that it would be wonderful if a few of corporations owned thousands of radio stations. The same group of lawyers and media spin masters who made these things a reality are doing their best to see to it that consumers of medical marijuana will only have a few big stores where they can buy their product.

Letting this happen is not in the consumers best interest. If you are one of the people who voted in favor of medical marijuana in the state of Colorado, contact your state senator and let them know that you oppose this bill.

If you are a person who is believes that small businesses and competition are good for our economy, contact your state senator and let them know that you oppose this bill.

Oil and Water

Some people say that we need to continue to depend on gas, oil and coal because solar, wind and other sources do not produce more than a small percentage of our energy use. Yes, that is true so far, but we have to have the will to change that equation. The technology is already here.

Example. If every new home and most older homes were outfitted with solar panels, how much of a percentage of our energy would that produce? If the panels were manufactured in America, and obviously installed by workers in this country, how many jobs would that create?

Here's another little example that could produce big results. Hot water heaters. Systems have been on the market for a while now that can provide hot water without a hot water tank. It simply heats the cold water as it runs through the pipes where the heating element is.

Benefits? You not only never run out of hot water, you also never have to deal with replacing a hot water heater. Most of us have had that experience a few times in our lives, haven't we? You go to take a shower one day and there is no hot water. Then you notice that the carpet is all soggy. You never seem to get a warning when this happens.

A friend of mine was looking at a new house and the agent was telling him how great it was that there was a hot water heater in the upstairs next to the master bathroom as well one downstairs. My friend said "Great. So when the hot water tank breaks, which they all do eventually, I can have a ceiling problem as well as a floor problem."

So he bought the house, but removed the hot water heaters and put in a tankless system. They cost more to install, but you will never have to worry about replacing a broken tank.

Energy wise, think of this. How much natural gas do we burn every year to keep a flame under every hot water heater in every home? So let's just say that a great portion of the hot water heaters were replaced with tankless systems, how much less natural gas would we need?

Once again, if more buildings were fitted with this technology, how many people would this employ? How many people would be employed manufacturing these systems?

Just a thought. We could save materials by using tankless systems. And we could save energy using tankless systems. And for the homeowner or property owner, over time, not replacing tanks and not keeping a flame lit under it 365 days a year will balance out the cost of installing the new system. So why not do this?

We have made transitions like this before. There was a time when everyone bought black and white TVs, but over time, everyone bought color TVs. Why? It was better, so people bought the better product. Now everybody wants big flat screens, and they are getting rid of their old sets.

Perhaps more people are not aware that such things exist. If the technology is already developed, then it is simply a matter of will to go ahead with it.

This is just one example. How many other examples are there? We could decrease the need to drill more wells while still enjoying the same standard of creature comforts. Actually, a higher standard if you consider that you never run out of hot water when you have guests, and never again have to deal with a broken hot water heater and you don't have to have a gas bill just to keep it warm.

While the invention I am mainly referring to here uses gas, not oil, there are other inventions that would also decrease the need for oil. Part of our vision has to take us from getting our energy from below the ground to getting more energy from above the ground.

Just back in the 90s when cell phones were as big as a suitcase, only some people wanted to lug them around. When they got to be pocket sized, almost every one got one, to the point where a lot of us no longer bother having a land line. How many of us now use laptop computers with wireless connections rather than big desktop setups?

If we were to take a look at how to use technology to achieve energy savings, there are many inventions that could improve the quality of our life while using clean, renewable energy.

Since more efficient technologies already exist, why not use them to live a greener life? If we can see a better future, why not use our will to act on that vision?

Another Plus for Alternative Energy

I don't think that the oil spill in the Gulf is a decisive sign that we should not drill for oil any more, nor would I jump to any conclusion that it was anything other than an accident.

Here is one simple perspective to consider. The risk factor.

When was the last time that we heard about some tragic consequence from using solar panels or windmills? Why not build state of the art furnaces to burn our garbage to generate electricity?

We will probably need to keep some oil in the mix since we have so many different mechanisms that use it, so I think that it is impossible to get away from, but we can replace it with other means of generating power.

The question about nuclear power is the same one that has existed since the beginning. What do you do with all that radioactive waste? I don't think that many people really believe that just burying it somewhere is really a solution.

Yes, my suggestion is simple. But if we simply ask ourselves the question about what are the risks of using any of these technologies, then the alternatives certainly are more positive in nature.

Alternative energy is simply more sensible.

Nature Takes Five

Notice how many things were brought to a halt by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland. More in Europe than here, although we had some ripple effects. Yes, some people are going to great lengths taking cabs from Norway to Britain or from Germany to Spain and whatever. What would I do? I would kick back and stay another week wherever I was, have a glass of wine and watch the spectacular sunsets.

A few years ago when we had bigger than average snowstorms and the city had not plowed all the streets, I just took a few days off. Other people got frantic and were out there shoveling like mad, but I just welcomed the break. Why strain your back and risk dangerous driving conditions?

The one thing I wish we had more of in Colorado is rainstorms. Heavy rainstorms with dark skies, thunder and lightning. Days when it rains, I leave the windows open, leave the stereo off and just enjoy the sound of the raindrops.

Last year, a friend and I took a little break and went out to the hot springs for a weekend. I did not bring my computer and did not turn on my cell phone during that weekend. I just took a couple of books to read. We enjoyed soaking in the mineral water and steam baths, got massages, went out for leisurely meals, did a little sightseeing, walked.

There are some people who cannot tolerate that much peace. On my day job, it is normal to get calls from the corporate type A people who are all nervous and jerky because their computer is not working right and they are going on vacation today. Or they are at some resort and you can hear from the background noise that they are in a lounge and are frustrated because they cannot get a good connection to the company servers. Or maybe they are going home for the holidays to visit their family, and they are having a problem checking their company email. Of course, you have to wonder how it could possibly be a vacation if you are tethered to the office.

It is not natural to be working all the time. Nature sometimes has to give us a big take 5. We all need times when we are vibrant and outgoing and active. And we also need those other times when we are quiet and relaxed and let a little peaceful time do its refreshing, healing, magic on us.

Nature takes five, and that's our clue to do the same. Just like the energy exercise I suggested yesterday. There is a time to be on and a time to be off. Take five.

Green Fire

in talking about green energy, most attention goes to solar and wind. Denmark, for example has highly efficient plants that turn waste into electricity and heat, and have filters that catch harmful substances like mercury and dioxin. Today's incinerators are much cleaner than earlier versions, capable of filtering out, scrubbing or trapping hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, dioxins, and heavy metals — as well as small particulates. And some of the by products of the process, extracted metals, gypsum and acids, can be sold to construction and manufacturing companies. Quite green, isn't it?


Burning waste also decreases the need for landfills, both preserving nature and cleaning up waste at the same time. The fact that big cities like New York export garbage to landfills in other states is a good indicator of how incinerators can solve two problems at once. By converting garbage into fuel, they change a smelly unsightly mess into a valuable resource and decrease their dependence on oil.

Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are also using this technology and they like it so much that they are building more plants. In Germany they only burn materials that cannot be recycled. After all, we don't want to have to keep cutting down trees just to make paper, do we? In the big picture of using renewable resources, there are other solutions on the horizon.

As people become increasingly aware of the fact that industrial hemp is different than marijuana, we can once again have a renewable source of material for making paper without decimating our forests. We used to do this all the time, making paper, rope, oil and fabric out of hemp. Farmers all over the US were growing it. then when the anti-marijuana mania hit, industrial hemp was lumped in with marijuana, its psychoactive cousin. You cannot get a buzz smoking industrial hemp.

Hauling garbage to an incinerator saves the burning of the fuel needed to haul it to distant landfills, and instead of just dumping it and letting it rot, it is turned into electricity.

In Denmark, between recycling and the trash to energy incinerators, very little of their waste goes into landfills. Once again, if we would get busy building such plants, people would be employed in construction and maintenance, our environment would be cleaner and we would be less dependent on coal and oil. All good results.

Fire is a great way to purify. When my time here is up, I want to be cremated. Makes a lot more sense to me than being buried in a box and continuing to set aside endless acres of land to keep burying people in boxes. I will gladly return to ashes and leave the rest of the world have the room it needs to work and play.

See, our alternative energy choices are not just limited to wind and solar. There are more options. We still have time to clean up our act. Fire can help green our world.

Magic Mushroom Medicine

Chemist Albert Hofmann discovered LSD in 1938 but didn't take his first trip until he accidentally took a taste of it five years later, in 1943, opening a whole new era of drug research.

It should be noted that shamans all around the world had been using various hallucinogenic plants for healing purposes for millennia. But the discovery of LSD opened a new chapter on clinical research into hallucinogens. One of the first uses of it was to treat various forms of mental illness, including alcoholism. Then when the military and CIA discovered it, they tried using it in various covert experiments, which may or may not have been combined with psychic experiments, known as the MK Ultra Program. Whether or not one set of experiments led directly to another or whether they were tangential, there were subsequent experimental programs, including what is known today as Remote Viewing. Although the world had heard of Hofmann's research, the military experiments were not known to the public at that time. The linkage between hallucinogenic drugs and the expansion of the psyche have long been linked.

And then came another group of people who became very excited about the possibilities of hallucinogens. The exuberance of people some of those early researchers like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later to become Ram Dass)was scorned by various regulators and by other people in academia. In this same time period came the books of Carlos Castaneda, who gave much of the American reading public their first exposure to the subject of shamanism and the use of various "plant allies." Hallucinogens became the recreational drugs of choice for a generation of young people, and given that, serious further research came to a halt for decades.

40 years later, things look different again. Today, researchers are excited about the possible uses of hallucinogens in treating depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder. Johns Hopkins Medical School, University of Arizona, Harvard, New York University, the University of California, Los Angeles among others are now researching the usefulness of psilocybin, which is found in certain types of mushrooms, in treating these disorders.

These schools are using money from private non-profit foundations to fund the research. During the last 40 years the growth of hospice movement, the broad acceptance of meditation practices, and perhaps the growing success of the medical marijuana movement are all contributing to a more receptive environment to this type of research now.

How many times have we seen this pattern in history, when the first people to advocate a new concept are ridiculed, then later validated.

Several years ago, I was listening to an interview with another advocate for hallucinogens, Terence McKenna, who had gone in a bit different direction than Leary. In fact, you might say he sort of extended the early work, as one of the people who also championed traditional shamanic substances, such as ayahuasca, which has also become quite well known in the last couple of decades.

McKenna, who was a serious student of the subject, but also quite witty, answered the interviewer's question about the value of hallucinogens. I am paraphrasing from memory here. McKenna said, "We can talk about enlightenment for the next hundred years. We can put it on cereal boxes and milk cartons. But the only thing I know of that can make a person's consciousness stop and turn on a dime is a psilocybin mushroom."

Like marijuana, we appear to be approaching a time when hallucinogens will be seen not only as a recreational drug or a spiritual sacrament, but also as a powerful healing agent.