Who Wants War?

Dr. Ron PaulIf anyone still doubted that this administration's foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week's debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The President's stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating war amount to little more than recycling all the false reasons we began the conflict. It is so discouraging to see this coming from our new leadership, when the people were hoping for peace. New polls show that 49 percent of the people favor minding our own business on the world stage, up from 30 percent in 2002. Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.
One has to ask, if the people who elected these leaders so obviously do not want these wars, who does? Eisenhower warned of the increasing power and influence of the military industrial complex and it seems his worst fears have come true. He believed in a strong national defense, as do I, but warned that the building up of permanent military and weapons industries could prove dangerous if their influence got out of hand. After all, if you make your money on war, peace does you no good. With trillions of dollars at stake, there is tremendous incentive to keep the decision makers fearful of every threat in the world, real or imagined, present or future, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched. The Bush Doctrine demonstrates how very successful the war lobby was philosophically with the last administration. And they are succeeding just as well with this one, in spite of having the so-called "peace candidate" in office.
We now find ourselves in another foreign policy quagmire with little hope of victory, and not even a definition of victory. Eisenhower said that only an alert and informed electorate could keep these war racketeering pressures at bay. He was right, and the key is for the people to ensure that their elected leaders follow the Constitution. The Constitution requires a declaration of war by Congress in order to legitimately go to war. Bypassing this critical step makes it far too easy to waste resources on nebulous and never-ending conflicts. Without clear goals, the conflicts last forever and drain the country of blood and treasure. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war precisely because they feared allowing the executive unfettered discretion in military affairs. They understood that making it easy for leaders to wage foreign wars would threaten domestic liberties.
Responses to attacks on our soil should be swift and brief. Wars we fight should always be defensive, clearly defined and Constitutional. The Bush Doctrine of targeting potential enemies before they do anything to us is dangerously vague and easily abused. There is nothing left to win in Afghanistan and everything to lose. Today's military actions are yet another futile exercise in nation building and have nothing to do with our nation's security, or with 9/11. Most experts agree that Bin Laden and anyone remotely connected to 9/11 left Afghanistan long ago, but our troops remain. The pressures of the war racketeers need to be put in check before we are brought to our knees by them. Unfortunately, it will require a mighty effort by the people to get the leadership to finally listen.
Editor's Note: The Daily Bell is pleased to provide its viewers with editorials from a selection of free-market thinkers. These may have been reprinted elsewhere and are NOT necessarily representative of Daily Bell editorial policy. The Bell itself is unapologetically free-market and its perspective tends toward absolute privatization of all money functions and unconstrained capitalism so long as the capitalistic enterprise is not in any way advantaged by government.

http://www.thedailybell.com/index.asp

I am not a body. I am free

"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
"I call upon God's Name and on my own."
I call upon God's Name and on my own" is another way of reminding me that I am not a body. If my name is the same as God's Name, then I must share the same characteristics as God. God is not a body so I must not be a body. God is innocent and wholly loving, so I must be innocent and wholly loving.

To call upon God's Name is to remind me of my Source and What I am. God has no fear, so fear must be alien to me as well. God does not condemn and so I must not condemn. Any image I believe about myself that is different from this is a false image that limits me and blinds me to the truth about myself.

To call upon God's Name is to open my mind to receive the truth of What I am. That is what I truly desire at the core of my being. I truly want to remember What I am. This Self that God created is where I find comfort and peace. It is the part of me that remembers God's Name is my own, along with all my brothers. It is the part of me that sees only unity and therefore is perfectly safe always.

Holy Spirit, help me see with the vision of my Self. Help me see the loving innocence of my brother so that I may recognize it in myself. Today I would receive Your meaning for everything I would look upon. Help me to be the Love I was created to be and see It everywhere. Help me to answer every call for Love with Love and thereby teach myself that only Love is real.


God is universal. God is the truth of all that is real. When I forget God, I am forgetting my Source, my true Identity. When I forget my Source, I am dreaming a dream of being separate from What I truly am. The way out of this is to return to letting God back into my awareness. The way out of this is to be willing to wake up from the dream of separation.

Anything other than God is a dream. That is why remembering God is my deliverance. "I call upon God's Name and on my own" helps me remember the truth. There is nothing other than God. That truth is my safety and my joy. Remembering that truth is my salvation.

I would remind myself of the truth frequently today. I would let my mind be healed of belief that anything other than God is real. This is how I rest in God today. This is how I wake up from the dream.

Mainstream media ignores climategate 14 days after news broke

Getty ImagesFor the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this? Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets. Perhaps the broadcast networks only trust their fellow liberal press outlets, like the New York Times. Perhaps they don't realize the Times exhibited journalistic diligence on ClimateGate, with a front page story the day the story broke. In the event that ABC News, NBC News and CBS News missed the news, the Media Research Center (MRC) is today rushing each of them a copy of the Times story, in the hopes that armed with this new information, they will finally report a story that has been roiling nearly everywhere else for a fortnight. So as not to offend the networks' pro-global warming sensibilities, MRC President Brent Bozell is looking to have the stories delivered by bicycle messenger. - MRC
Dominant Social Theme: Don't look now! ...

Free-Market Analysis: Wow, we didn't realize this was the case. We don't watch that much TV, especially American television, because we just can't stand it anymore. But sometimes you miss things, and this was one of them. We didn't realize that there hadn't been any formal reports on the Climategate controversy on American TV. Now, perhaps there have been reports on various talkshows, etc., but MRC claims that the major networks have not formally gone about covering the story. Incredible!
We have pointed out in the past that a major way of killing true reporting is to ignore it. This is much different than heavy-handed USSR tactics of "making up" news. The Western way has always been more subtle, at least in the 20th century. Not so sure about the 21st because of the Internet. But we watched how the powers-that-be carefully controlled news in the 20th century.
First, reporting was made into a graduate school degree. Second, the major media tended to hire from the graduate schools, and this was exceptionally effective when it came to larger issues of finance and politics. Those who graduated from these schools, especially with high marks, were already entirely conditioned. If you were a major media player with a specific conversational gambit, you didn't have to worry. Just like buying a car from a major producer - you kind of knew what you were getting.
But this wasn't enough, we saw. In the late 20th century, especially in America, which has always pioneered reporting as a good many other things, there was an effort to do away with sourcing. Lawyer Steven Brill, with shadowy funding (from our point of view), attempted to set up a quarterly magazine discussing journalistic "ethics" in general. One of Brill's big issues was that reporters not use "unnamed" sources. It went on for several years, article after article, reporter after reporter beating his or her breast about the sin and mortification of using unnamed sources, and Brill pontificating about the morality involved and how using unnamed sources should be grounds for dismissal.
Fortunately Brill went bankrupt - as regards the magazine anyway - and the movement to report without using the only kind of good source there is (an anonymous one) gradually faded away. (We're sure it will return sooner or later.) More pernicious and still attracting adherents is the whole idea that journalism should be "detached" and even-handed.
We've run several analyses on this issue, showing that journalism was always polemical, both in Britain and America, until well after the Civil War when a number of social standards shifted. We don't believe these changes were for the good, certainly they weren't sensible and in many cases we think they were inspired by determined manipulations that were intended to make news less incisive, less focused and generally less reliable.
Conclusion: And what do we have today, after more than a century of news "improvement?" After 100 years of turning news gathering into a profession, of setting the "highest standards," of ensuring as much as humanly possible that all forms of bias were excommunicated from the news rooms? ... Why we have America's major networks NOT COVERING THE SCIENTIFIC STORY OF THE DECADE FOR A FULL TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST REPORTS. Kind of makes you wonder where all the improvement's gone, huh? Unless it's on purpose ... Ya think?
http://www.thedailybell.com/638/Big-3-TV-Ignores-Climategate.html

Internet Marketing Is Necessary To Successful Web Sites

Internet marketing
is essential to the success of web sites. You can have a professional looking website but what good can it do if internet users are not able to find it when they need your products and services? That is where an internet marketing campaign comes into play.

"Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services."

Internet marketing is similar to designing websites- it does not require much experience to do a good job, just good knowledge and a keen eye for details. It is fundamentally important for a good internet marketer to constantly update himself weekly, if not monthly, of online markets. There are many ways to market your website .

-- Find A Competent and Reliable Internet Marketer --

Justify the costs of hiring an Internet Marketer - First of all, getting an internet marketer is not essential for every website. If your website is a business website or a website which you want to generate revenue from, it is good to seek a competent internet marketer to work on your website. For more details visit to www.ultimate-internet-marketing-tricks.com.The costs spent on your website for internet marketing has to be justified and often, they are justified by having more revenue and traffic to your web site.

Potential customers have to know that there are no guarrantees in SEO. Since everything is fundamentally based on search engines, SEO work is at the mercy of major search engines like Google. Many SEO companies tried to secure customers with guarrantees that they cannot fulfil, resulting in lawsuits or customers getting burned for hiring their SEO services.

-- What an Internet Marketer can offer --

In short, an Internet Marketer oversees that your website is built properly for visibility and promoted with the best dollar spent on your internet marketing campaign. It is no good having a website and not appearing in internet searches. Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services. Internet Marketers deploy search engine optimisation techniques to make your website visible and targeted to internet users.

Internet marketing requires research and analysis effort for individual website, followed by optimisation of website .For more details go to www.perpetual-traffic-generator.com .
Hundreds of hours may be spent on each website, depending on the size of your targetted market. You are essentially paying for the amount of effort involved, effectiveness of your internet marketer and daily sales tracking of your website.

How to choose an Internet Marketer- Internet marketing requires constant updating of skills and knowledge. One crude way to test if your internet marketer is a genuine or fake- Ask your internet marketer about recent events that happened in his field. If he cannot answer that, he must have a genuinely good reason to back himself as a good internet marketer! At times, it is easy to fall prey into the hands of bad internet marketing companies as happened in US and other parts of the world.

It is also important for you to feel comfortable with the amount of money you are spending on getting your site popular before committing yourself to an internet marketing campaign. Internet marketing campaigns typically last a few months and requires monthly tune-ups to your website. Include the costs of an internet marketing campaign when doing your company's advertising budget.

Hunger Crisis Worsens in East Africa as Boreholes, Funds Dry Up

By Jason Gale
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Eastern Africa is threatened with famine after drought parched crops and the financial crisis sapped funds for food relief, aid groups said.
About 20 million people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda will need life-saving assistance until at least December, Save the Children said in a statement yesterday. The Westport, Connecticut-based organization said millions of children face malnutrition, disease and death.
“We’ve not seen a food crisis of this magnitude and severity in many years, and it is children who will suffer the most if the world fails to respond quickly,” Ned Olney, Save the Children’s vice president for global humanitarian response, said in the statement.
The World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, said last week it needs $3 billion to plug a budget shortfall. Without extra funding, the Rome-based United Nations agency said it will have to halve the number of people it’s supporting in Kenya and halve rations in Somalia.
“There are more hungry people in the world and less food aid than ever before,” WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a Sept. 16 statement. “The double whammy of the financial crisis and the still record high food prices around the world is delivering a devastating blow. Throw in a storm, a drought and a conflict and you have a recipe for disaster.”
This year, the number of chronically hungry people worldwide is predicted to reach a record high of 1.02 billion, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years, with about half the population, or 3.6 million people, in need of emergency assistance, the FAO said in a Sept. 21 statement.
Conflict, Displacement
In sub-Saharan Africa 80 percent to 90 percent of all cereal prices monitored by the FAO in 27 countries are more than 25 percent higher than before food prices began soaring two years ago, according to the Rome-based FAO. Below-average rainfall, combined with conflict and displacement are aggravating serious food shortages in the region, it said.
In parts of central Kenya, 50 percent of shallow wells, boreholes and other water sources have dried up. People walk as many as 30 kilometers (19 miles) in search of water in the country where 3.8 million are suffering the impact of drought, the WFP said in Sept. 16 report.
The El Nino weather pattern, which usually brings heavy rains toward the end of the year, may exacerbate the problem by causing floods and mudslides, destroying crops both in the field and in stores, increasing livestock losses and damaging infrastructure and housing, the FAO said this week.
Health officials are battling an outbreak of acute watery diarrhea in Ethiopia, where 1,354 new cases and three deaths were reported in one week this month, Save the Children said. The government estimates that 6.2 million people, half of them children, will need emergency food aid in the next few months.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net.

First “Green Home” on Native American Reservation

Two months later is the first update from the Humanitarian Fields in the US
“We just completed the first home of it’s kind built on any Native American reservation in the history of this country. It is a Natural home that the family who will live in it has helped us to build. This is the poorest place in this country. The cost of a new home on the reservation can be up to $50,000. We have done this Green for FREE with the support of people who care!
We also received a WIND TURBINE donated to the project and it is on the way! We have two more domes (homes) to complete in the week of September and with the help of the HUB community, our goal will be complete!
As the Head of HUB Faculty, Dr. Michael Beckwith, says, ‘We are history makers!’
My heart is so RICH with gratitude and love for LIFE AND ALL OF ITS CHILDREN.”
Charlie Gay, CEO of HUB continues “We recognize the importance of USA based impact programs, and following on from last Novembers historic largest food and personal care drive in US history with Miracle on Mainstreet, HUB is so proud of the brilliance within its community for us to implement the first “Green Home” development in one of the poorest areas of this country”
Temba Spirit, founder of www.NaturesCompassion.com and host to HUBbies September 10th to 14th on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation, has been hard at work serving the homeless, the incarcerated, and now the Native American community.
If you would like to be a history maker on the Pine Ridge Reservation, please join us September 10th to 14th by emailing sprytel@hubhub.org,
and if you can not be with HUB here please consider making a donation directly to www.NaturesCompassion.com today!
Join us at a HUB event to help make a Future Worth Choosing. Visit HUB’s Live Event section
HUB – Where We Connect to Change Our World
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Written by HUB administration.

One Fifth of the world lives on less than $1.00 a day

Traditional means of credit and financial support are not aiding those in need.
Microloans are used to help people living in extreme poverty start or expand a range of tiny businesses such as weaving and tailoring, husking rice, tea and coffee production, and delivering cell phone services to remote villages.

Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) follows the vision of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank which is collectively owned by 6.5 million women, and Micro Credit Summit and Results founder Sam Daley Harris to see micro loans and financial training available to everyone. The Women of Koch live in one of the most violent slums in the world. In Korogocho, generations of HIV infected women are starving and without hope. HUB initiated micro loan programs and within seven weeks the same women grouped together, self proclaimed as “no longer sick but empowered”, and resourced by local HUB organizations, were beading bracelets with sales guaranteed through HUB’s Global Market Place. http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

We know the old models of non-profit are failing; non-profits are on a constant fundraising treadmill and it gets tougher for them every year to receive consistent funding as more non-profits emerge. We see this all the time, where large donations are made for two or three years, but as soon as that funding runs out, there is a scramble for more funds and more often than not great programs now must fold due to lack of resources.

We know that Americans donate just over 4% of their income, and barely 2% tithe. Even though we hear of the large Bill Gates and Warren Buffet donations, the reality is that most great non-profits are extremely underfunded. A donor’s dollar spent will never come back to be reused and there are so many wonderful non-profits all competing for the donor dollar, and as a result, they are isolated in the work they do.

When the United Nations World Food Programs stated they had a 70% funding shortfall, we witnessed 250,000 people in immediate famine. Non-profits by nature are road mapped to go out of business. Over $2 Trillion dollars has been pumped into Africa in the last 30 years, most of which left no sustainable benefits for the people or communities. A dollar comes in and is used, never to be seen again. What we’re interested in is creating a recycling of dollars and helping people move from survival, through self-empowerment, to sustainability.

“Aid alone won’t make poverty history. We’ve got to teach fishermen to fish”
– Nelson Mandela

Within HUB, together we are creating a breakthrough economic engine that will drive a comprehensive global sustainability plan in the places it is most needed. HUB's mission is to move all people of the world from survival to self-sustainability. This movement is committed to returning dignity back to nations. "We don't just give a man a bag of grain; we teach him how to grow the grain himself in the future." http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

We are a global family of entrepreneurs committed to excellence. We act as a catalyst for personal and financial freedom and the actualization of bold dreams. Our collective vision is to positively influence the lives of people on a scale so massive that we virtually change the world.
If you ever wanted to directly help people who are struggling to feed themselves, have clean water, and become truly sustainable, then you can do that through HUB. If you are looking for a way to financially sustain yourself, while doing something that is in total alignment with your spiritual heart, and serve the planet all at the same time HUB is for you.

Our mission is to move all people of the world from survival to self-sustainability. This movement is committed to returning dignity back to nations.

Humanity Unites Brilliance is a model for the future in humanitarian aid and philanthropy as a whole. Be a part of a new shift in consciousness. http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

Zachery Robert Davis

http://www.freedom2live.hubhub.org/

Humanity Unites Brilliance

nufaith13@gmail.com

Empowering Women in dire need

Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) Global Marketplace is dedicated to cultural awareness, preservation, and global outreach through the selling of fair-trade products. We believe that each and every one of us has the opportunity to make a positive impact in the world and through recognizing the power of our purchases we are helping to eradicate global poverty and create a more just and sustainable planet. The purchasing of products on this site impacts the lives of farmers, small cooperative groups, and recipients of HUB sponsored microloans.

http://freedom2live.hubhub.org/globalmarketplace/

The sales of the DO Ubuntu Orphan Bracelet over the last few months went directly to help women in South Africa living with HIV/AIDS, and orphanages throughout Africa who would otherwise have little or no funding. Just recently we received an email from HUB member Louise Hogarth, the founder of the DO Ubuntu project, who is now visiting her craft groups in South Africa. She was so excited to report that this project now supports around 80 women in the Eastern Cape with each woman supporting between 5-7 children. Due to the continual support of HUB, Louise will be making direct donations to orphanages in the Durban region this month, and creating jobs for women in an area where there is 90% unemployment.

Here is an eyewitness account of the inhumane conditions millions of women and children live in everyday and how we can help them move from poverty to self sustainment and abundance.
“Walking into her home I feel as though I am entering a dark cave, a cave harboring emotions of fear, grief, and longing for a better life. The only light comes from the cracks in the mud walls, and I can barely make out her face in the darkness; but I can feel her sadness. Angela is 55 years old and a mother of 6. She is HIV positive along with her mother, daughter, and grandson. Her face is like stone having no expression, but her eyes tell us all. Her eyes speak of the suffering she has endured throughout her life; her eyes speak of the murder of her 15-year-old daughter, and the pain of raising her children in the slums of Korogocho. She tells us that she is unable to sleep because worry fills her mind, and her inability to care for her children haunts her at night. Her HIV medication is no longer working because she has no food and her body cannot absorb the medicine. This was the Angela I met on my first trip to Kenya; on return only 6 weeks later I met someone new. I could hardly recognize her, her face was no longer stone it had softened and now wore the most beautiful smile. Within those six weeks Angela had now become a part of a HUB sponsored microloan group called the Self Empowered Women of Korogocho. This group sponsors 10 women, providing them financial literary, product development training, a means of creating an income, and in January HUB impact partner Feed The Children started providing food for all the women and their children. Angela and I begin to talk and she tells me that she dances for God each day now, and has a reason to wake up each morning. No longer does she contemplate suicide for she now has confidence in her ability, and no longer fears death for she knows her children will be taken care of. Know that Angela smiles now because she feels part of something greater, and because you said yes to being a part of something greater; remember this story when you ever doubt that you can change this world.”

http://tinyurl.com/GlobalEmpowerment

Please support Angela and the women of Korogocho through the purchase of a Korogocho beaded bracelet. Wear a bracelet and know that you are changing the lives of these women, bringing back dignity, and creating a voice for these courageous spirits.

Zachery Robert Davis

http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

Humanity Unites Brilliance

http://www.freedom2live.hubhub.org/

nufaith13@gmail.com

One out of every five children currently do not have primary schooling

One out of every five children currently does not have primary schooling in the world. Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) impact partners are delivering primary education to refugees, orphans and slum children. Equally imperative is to expand secondary education. Something that is currently only available to one in five children who DO have primary education. Collaborating with impact partner Youth Action International, HUB supports young African girls and former child-soldiers with empowerment programs. The ENABLED project offers vocational training for physically and mentally handicapped post-conflict refugees.
http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

HUB seeks to link classrooms throughout the United States and the world so that children and adults can share the inspiration and creativity of educational initiatives being carried out in remote corners of the world. In addition, HUB supports heightening awareness of our environmental challenges and needs through the work of the Pachamama Alliance in the Amazon Rain Forest and the “Awakening the Dreamer” Symposium tour.

Humanity Unites Brilliance is the central uniting place for people and organizations to come together and move our world from survival, to self-sustainability, to abundance and self-empowerment. If you ever wanted to directly help people who are struggling to feed themselves, have clean water, and become truly sustainable, then you can do that through HUB. If you have ever wanted to be part of an inspired community that you could learn with and grow with and share with, then come and take a look at HUB. If you are looking for a way to financially sustain yourself, while doing something that is in total alignment with your spiritual heart, and serve the planet all at the same time, take a look at HUB!
A new powerful source of change is here. http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

Zachery Robert Davis
www.freedom2live.hubhub.org
Humanity Unites Brilliance
nufaith13@gmail.com

How Can You Eradicate World Hunger?

Only $19 billion a year could eradicate hunger, Last year the world consumed $47 billion in ice cream.

With the support of out impact partner Feed the Children, Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) delivers food to places in need. For example in Kenya, HUB feeds children in a Nairobi school system, as well as provides nourishment to women in micro-loan circles.The largest slum in Nairobi is Kibera, with over 1 million people living there. The Olympic Primary School serves the children of that area. With our “Food-4-Education” program, HUB serves up two meals a day to children who attend the school. HUB helps attendance increase, which in turn helps grades go up. In addition, the children take a portion of their food back to their mothers and siblings in the slums, enhancing the feeding effort.
http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

HUB connects aid organizations and volunteers together to handle the growing needs on our streets for those in economic crisis. In 2008, Feed the Children, the Salvation Army, Feed 333, the National Basketball Association and an army of compassionate companies and volunteers joined together to carry out, Miracle on Main Street, the single largest food drop in USA history. Feeding tens of thousands of families.

Humanity Unites Brilliance Provides You with:
• Empowerment training from some of the world’s greatest leaders and teachers.
• Weekly Education Curriculum in three areas:
- Business Growth
- Personal Development
- Humanitarian Impact
• Connection to like-minded people around the globe.
• Opportunities to participate in humanitarian programs throughout the world.
feeding up to 3 children, educating up to 3 children, providing clean drinking
water for up to 10 people, and environmental sustainability training for up to
16 people, every month! HUB is constantly working to provide you with the field
reports about the individual children and women you are supporting in each
compassion community.

Be a part of a new source of change in the world. http://tinyurl.com/EflyerVideo

Zachery Robert Davis
www.freedom2live.hubhub.org
Humanity Unites Brilliance
nufaith13@gmail.com

Bend when the winds of life blow your way.

A few days ago I was meandering through the forest with my son and baby girl, who was strapped to my chest and fast asleep. I was walking on the beaten path, of which I am always ready to step off. I heard two Owls hooting at each other so I slowly deviated off course to investigate. My six year old son was busy “chopping down the forest” with his play sword so I had some time to myself. As I walked I came upon a tall and majestic yet dead deciduous tree. It stood about 40 feet tall with about 100 thick branches reaching for the sky all about 10 to 20 feet long. As I stood there gazing at them looming over me, I began to look through the branches and discovered the younger, but much taller, pine trees swaying in front of the beautiful blue sky and wispy clouds. The wind was slightly robust which urged the pliable young pines to wave dramatically. This made me realize that like these trees we too are meant to sway and bend when the winds of life blow against our bows. I then pondered the question: what happens when the winds are actually too strong and the once strong but flexible pine does break and fall to the ground? The answer came to me immediately; Life never actually ends, it simply continues to change form. A tree falls over a brook and turns into a bridge for a father and son to walk over. Another tree falls on the ground and begins to become an enormous luxury housing development for hundreds and thousands of creatures big and small. As time goes on it becomes a smorgasbord of food for even more creatures. As this process it taking place all sorts of gasses are produced that help create the air we breathe and heat is also produced that contributes to the climate that we enjoy. Finally the tree is broken down and becomes the soil that forever feeds and nourishes the surrounding trees and vegetation.

So how does this relate to us? Well when our body dies there are at least two ways in which we continue to live on. The lives that we lead this go around no matter how glamorous or unimportant we think they may be leave an enormous impact on the world around us. Just think of how many people we come in contact with since we were small children. The number would have to be in the high thousands. A good portion of these were most likely casual encounters, some close friends and other not so close friends and of course family members. The point is that we are much more powerful than we’d like to think. We have made impacts on all of the lives we have been in contact with, and those people impacted the people in their lives a bit differently because of the influence we had on them. A simple smile, the opening of a door or simply the understanding and compassion of enabling someone to be their self can influence someone immensely. When we die the things we had done are usually embraced and remembered by those who miss us. So by passing on we actually reiterate the life we have led to those who knew us which in turn changes them and the things they do.

And finally, the way I understand it, we transcend the body we inhabited and start again in a different form. Whether you believe that our souls ascend into heaven or that we are reincarnated the point is that nothing ends; Life moves on. God is here with us. God simply is. What does that mean? It means that everything, no matter how big or small, is not only created by God but is God. It took me a long time to realize this. Throughout my life I have had many beliefs and ideals instilled into me that never felt right, mostly because they weren’t mine. I believed them for years because I was told to and because everyone else did. When I was ready to open my eyes and see the truth for myself it finally felt right. Of course I don’t pretend to know all of the details and logistics of how it all works but I remain awake and ready to take it in as it comes. The law of attraction, which is a newly popular phenomenon, has much to do with how our world looks today, but that is an entirely different conversation.

In closing, I would like to say: bend when the winds of life blow your way. It is here to bless you with new lessons and experiences that are meant to expand your life and your understanding of it. No matter what you do the wind is going to keep on blowing so you might as well go with it.

Namaste
Zachery Robert Davis

What If?

What if?
What if your contribution to the world and the fulfillment of your own happiness is not dependent upon discovering a better method of prayer or technique of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book or attending the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply appreciating yourself and the world as they are right now?How would this affect your search for spiritual development? "Author Unknown"

Wow! This hit me hard the first time I read it. For the last 5 to 10 years of my life I have been in search of the "wisdom" that would set me free. Although I feel that I needed all that I read and experienced in my life, I now see that it is less and less these “things” in and of themselves. Information comes to us and is absorbed in all different forms and ways. It has been said that God speaks to us in a plethora of mediums and this is a very evident and valuable truth. I suppose that until we are able to access and trust our inner guidance system we rely upon outside sources. I don't think this is necessarily a "bad" thing. Another saying I have heard quite often is "It takes what it takes" which infers that we all learn in diverse ways in various time periods.

I still love to read many diverse forms of mental, emotional and spiritual literature. As time passes, the reason for investigating evolves. More frequently I am searching within for guidance and searching without for the purpose of investigation and education. The most beneficial tool I have learned so far is to appreciate and look at my life and the things in it with the eyes of gratitude. The more I am able to look at life this way the less I have the feeling of need or lack which in turn diminishes my need to search for any answerers.
Namaste