We Live in a Brain World

Above are three photos - two are computer circuit boards and one is an arial map of Vatican City.  If you squint, you won't know which is which.  They look strangely similar to one another.  Which leads me to my main point: we humans have ceased to understand the degree to which we manifest our inner world of thoughts and ideas on our environment.  We no longer see how much we impose our brain concepts on our world.  The circuit boards look like arial views of our cities because our cities reflect how we build our environment:  we operate on a human system of connections, energy transfer and storage.  We move information.  The earth is beginning to look like a strangely human fantasy.

I recently flew from Florida to New Jersey.  As usual, I sat by the window, utterly fascinated by the shapes and forms of our cities, towns, and rural areas as seen from the air.  I have watched these areas transform over my lifetime.  Today I see that we are running out of space and we live our American Dream on little postage-sized square plots of land with a house on top.  Millions of little stamp-like properties side by side attached like soldered connections on a circuit board.  It is clear, from the air, that trees are disappearing. There is not enough room on each little property to permit a few trees, let alone woodlands, to flourish.  We think it is not important.  We prefer a big, flat, green lawn in front of our home.  It makes our house look big and requires little maintenance other than lots of precious watering.

Which brings me to my next point.  Since we live in our brains, we no longer understand that we actually share this planet with animals, insects, dirt, germs, and plants.  We think we have the right to permanently exterminate them from our tidy little lives.  After all, in our minds, the environment belongs to us!  We seem to think that plants, like domesticated cattle, should be controlled, groomed and used exclusively for our seasonal pleasure.  The average suburban yard is actually rather like a modest version of the gardens at the Versailles Palace.  Our trees and plants are manicured so that they no longer resemble nature.

We need to step back a moment.  Look at this world we have "created" from our brains.  Ask ourselves if we can surrender control to the natural forms of Nature and permit the plants, animals, and insects to create their own habitats to coincide with and inside ours.  Give up the suburban fantasy dream of a clipped, manicured yard with fences to keep those pesky birds and animals out.  Share the dream with non-humans.

Sinister Games with a "Free Market"

During my lifetime, there have been world events that I never fully understood.  Why were these things happening?  No one ever seemed to have a good explanation.  Some of these "unrelated" events have begun to create a pattern.  Take a look and let me know what you think:

The Sudden Disappearance of the Rain Forest

I never understood why, over the past two or three decades, has the Amazon rainforest, the so-called "Lungs of the Planet Earth" has suddenly been disappearing at an alarming rate.  Did  cattle ranchers suddenly come into alot of cash to clear their lands of trees? Why would South American governments fail to protect their most valuable asset?  Why is this happening so fast despite international outcry?  For example, in only six years (2000-2006) Brazil alone deforested an area of its rainforests the size of the country of Greece!  Since 1970, it has lost 232,000 square miles of forest.  That's like a goddam disappearing act!  What the heck is going on?

Presidents Dying in Airplane Crashes

Isn't it odd how many presidents of countries have died in airplane crashes?  Equadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera (1981), the Panamanian leader Omar Efraín Torrijos (1981), Polish President Lech Kaczinsky (2010), Philipine President Ramón del Fierro Magsaysay  (1957), Rwanda President President Juvenal Habyarimana (1994), Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski (2004), Pakistani president General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1988), Mozambique President Samora Machel (1986), Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif (1966), to name only a few.  I thought air travel was supposed to be the safest method of travel - especially if you are a national leader!

Corporations Have the Rights of "Natural Persons"

As an attorney, I was shocked to read about a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission in 2010.  That decision extended "corporate personhood" into a realm of nightmares.  Corporations now have the rights of real "natural persons" (just like you and me) under the First Amendment of the U.S. Consititution.  As a result, they are now free to lobby and pump as much money as they want into our "democratic" presidential elections!  Last year alone, the Fortune 100 corporations had $13 trillion of combined revenues (roughly equal to the size of our national debt).  Many of them, including oil drilling companies, are controlled by foreign nationals with interests not the same as ours.  We are no longer living in a democracy of "one man, one vote."  We live in a "more money, more votes" democracy now.  Our "national interest" is now a corporate interest.

$5 Million Gift and Estate Tax Exemptions Created

Another bizarre development:  In 2010, Congress passed tax legislation that raised the estate tax exemption to $5 million per person ($10 million per couple) and created a $5 million lifetime gift tax exclusion per person.  They are both much higher than they ever been historically.  Why now?  Aren't we in a recession?  In 2002, the estate tax exemption was only $1 million.  Now the wealthy are entitled to keep even more of their money than ever before in our American history.  Why?  So they can avoid paying taxes on their estates when they die and can gift millions of dollars to others during their lifetime tax-free.  The net effect of this legislation:  the rich get richer and the United States gets poorer.

The Global Collapse Caused by Bankers and Bailed Out by Governments

None of us will soon forget the worldwide financial crisis from 2007-2010. The stock markets around the world collapsed due to the totally strangely unregulated sale of mortgage derivatives; then the U.S. government bailed out banks to the tune of $700 billion in 2008 (more recent estimates suggest it was closer to $1.2 trillion); then we watched in total disbelief as Obama's Administration failed to attach any strings to the use of our money and the recipient banks gleefully showered their employees with more than $14 billion in year-end bonuses; mortgage lenders engaged in shady subprime lending practices resulting in the collapse of the housing market; and investment bankers share a revolving door with our government (see http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html for a shockingly long list of former Goldman Sachs employees making policy decisions in our highest ranking Democratic- and Republican-run administrations).  Former NASDAQ stock market chairman, Bernie Madoff, "made off" with $65 million in private client funds without detection by the SEC.   How is that possible?  Are only the foxes guarding the hen house now?

Corporations Buying Up Water Resources

Our world is running out of water.  Want to see the future?  Soon you will pay corporations, not governments, for bottled water.  Look at the Ukraine. I was told by a highly-successful Ukrainian businessman there is no more free water in the Ukraine. All water must be purchased in bottles.  That is our future also.  The state governments of Utah, Colorado and Washington have now made it illegal for you to collect the rainwater that falls on your own property!  Do you see the handwriting on the wall?  Meanwhile, many major oil companies are now shifting their investments into water resources and ownership of tracts of land containing underground water tables.  Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens has begun his quest to purchase as much land as possible above the huge Ogallala Aquifur, which stretches across 8 states and is one of the world's largest underground water tables, so he can begin deep drilling for water.  In 2006, he gave Texas legislators $1.2 million in campaign contributions and the next year he was able to turn his tract of land into an independent municipality with the power to take over neighboring (water-rich) lands using the governmental power of eminant domain.  Oh!  So, this is how it works...

These little examples may seem kind of disjointed and unrelated to you, but to me they are deeply related.  I recently read a book, first pulished in 2004, entitled "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," written by John Perkins.  It is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read and suddenly the mysterious events of my lifetime began to fall into place and make sense to me.  As Perkins, a former insider, explains it,  the world is being run and organized by a handful of multinational corporations, mostly banking, oil, construction and engineering consortiums, who through their distribution of money control governments (including the U.S.) and the CIA. 

Mega-corporations have forced entire developing nations into forced servitude by convincing them to accept sky-rocketing debt for infrastructure improvements that they cannot possibly pay back.  According to Perkins, corporations obtain "rights" to foreign drilling and resources by bribing a few top officials and making them fabulously wealthy in order to get them to steal land from the poor and give it to these corporations.  If they refuse to be bribed, they are assassinated.  Hmmm ... seems to explain some of those unfortunate airplane accidents and the sudden disappearance of the Amazonian rain forest not to mention all those fantastic tax benefits for the wealthy...

If you think this is just happening in "Third World" countries - think again.  Corporatocracy has arrived to enslave the Developed World as well.  We live in a "free market" society gone wild.  It is no longer "free" - that is an old myth.  We are slaves, even here in the United States.  We are all in danger.  Our environment is being raped.  We have lost our democratic voice in government.  The rich are indeed getting richer because they have implemented, step by step, the tools to keep themselves that way...

Predictions Past & Future: The End of 2011 and the Dawn of 2012

In my December psychic development and mediumship workshop in New York City, I decided I wanted to honor the ending of the year 2011 and the beginning of the year 2012.  Both years were loaded with meaning for most of the planet.  At the beginning of last year, I had asked my students to make predictions about the Year 2011.  They were told to make a prediction about something political/economic, pop culture and the environment.  So, in this month's class, the last month of the Year 2011, I decided to research their predictions - at least those ones that were specific enough - and let my students know how they had done with their forecasting skills.

As I have repeatedly stated, I believe psychic skills are trainable.  Predictions are a form of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyance can be trained, although like any other skill, some people are more talented than others and can acquire the skill more easily. Feedback and confirmation are key to this type of training.  That is why I took the time to match my students' predictions with actual data.  It is very important in this field not to fear being wrong.  This fear of being wrong is the ego speaking.  Once the ego controls the process, psychic ability is lost.  So, my goal here is to show how most of my students were able to make highly accurate and verifiable predictions.  Even when they failed, it was often attributable to vagueness or failure to properly interpret their data.  But failure in prediction is inevitable and should never be feared.

Some of their predictions did not lend themselves to obvious verification, such as a shift in consciousness or attitudes toward healing techniques, increased love and peace, a desire to live simpler lives, a year of emotional crisis, something joyous will happen with the sky above water at the end of August, miracles involving the spiritual dimension.  And yet, many of these "vague" predictions still "feel" right to us.  But other predictions could easily be "matched" to factual data.

Correct Predictions:

1. Rumbles of war, could erupt, new fighting, month of May involves China or Middle East.

(2011 was the year of the "Arab Spring" revolutions)

2. Movement away from movie theatres, some closing.

(Only 1.27 billion movie ticket sales in U.S. in 2011, compared to 1.33 billion in 2010)

3. Key words for 2011 acute awareness and accountability.

(With Tea Party momentum to cut spending and the federal deficit, the $14 billion deficit in August, 2011 put a glaring spot light on the U.S. government's failure to be accountable for its mounting debt)

4. A major breakthrough with the cure of some kind of cancer.

(On August 12, 2011, a new treatment for leukemia was announced using "killer" white blood cells)

5. Snow, hurricane

(While this prediction was vague since it gave no location, it turned out to be highly accurate for the East Coast of the U.S., where the class is located, with a massive hurricane in August and record snow in October, 2011)

6. Sun flare, alot of flooding around the globe

(On June 7, 2011, a solar flare sparked the biggest eruption ever recorded on the sun, and more massive solar flare on November 4, 2011.  In addition, 2011 saw extreme flooding in several countries around the world including the U.S., Colombia, Italy, Pakistan, Thailand, Eastern Africa, and others)

7. Some kind of large major demonstration against the government, like the 1960's.

(The Occupy Wall Street movement, comprised of demonstrations reminescent of the 1960's Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, began on September 17, 2011)

8. "Euro calamity" with the Euro itself or a European entity like France or Germany.

(The French and German governments have been the primary architects of a bailout of EU countries failing to pay back their debt, notably  Greece, Portugal and Italy, this year, and the EU countries are meeting the week of December 5, 2011, to decide the future of the EU currency)

9. There will be something with math and how it is taught to children.

(The national organization Common Core State Standards in Math created new standards in 2010 that were adopted in all but five states in the U.S. in 2011)



10.  There will be a surge of homebuying in the U.S.

(Sales of existing homes increased from 4.3 million in October, 2010, to 4.9 million in October 2011)

11. Civil liberties will be further eroded but people won't care because they will be distracted over a victory with the TSA

(December 6, 2011, Congress is scheduled to vote on the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which has been called the greatest threat to American civil liberties, and three elderly women came forward December 6 to accuse the TSA of strip searching them at the airport)



As you can clearly see from these predictions, many of them were eerily accurate and could not have been easily "guessed" by data existing in December, 2010. 

Incorrect or "Less Correct" Predictions:

1. Mel Gibson will have a major breakdown, suicide or drug overdose

(On December 1, 2011, the judge in Gibson's misdemeanor battery case for attacking his former girlfriend praised Gibson for faithfully following his 12-step program)

2.  The U.S. economy will manifest a positive turnaround and an increase in Obama's popularity.

(There has been no economic turnaroun and only 43% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing in December, 2011, as opposed to 46% who approved in December, 2010)

3.  The Israeli government will change soon.

(Didn't change during 2011 and Prime Minister Netenyahu appears to be trying to solidify his candidacy early with the Likud party, indicated in December, 2011)

4. Market improving in late spring, May-June, with a surge of homebuying.

(The Dow Jones dropped from May 6, 2011 when it was at 12,638 to June 24, 2011 when it was at 11,934)

5. Bill Clinton has a heart attack and survives.

(Nope and he turned vegetarian to improve his chances at not getting a heart attack)

6.  Something will happen in China - explosion?

(Coal mine explosion kills 29 workers on December 6, 2011, gas leak explosion in coal mine kills 19 miners on November 10, 2011, and rock explosion in coal mine kills 4 workers on November 4, 2011 - but China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and thousands of coal miners are killed in such accidents every year in China)

7. Miley Cyrus has big hit this year.

(On November 11, Miley released a remix of "Liberty Walk" dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the only soundtrack released by her in 2011)

Once we were done reviewing the year 2011, I asked my students to make predictions about 2012.  Yet, for all its doomsday implications, not a single one of my students predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan Calendar.  In fact, there was remarkable little focus on that date, other than to predict a Shift in Global Consciousness.  Most frequently predicted: Obama will be re-elected by a small margin and global weather will continue to intensify in its extreme behavior.  There were also some interesting predictions about the emergence of a new US political party, assassination of a Russian politician, a plane crash in Alaska, a religious politician achieving popularity, the extinction of an important species, a cure for herpes and AIDS viruses, the illness or death of a few major Hollywood celebrities, a major mudslide in California, a new genre of music, and many other fascinating predictions.

Send me your predictions for 2012 and I will add them to the analysis at the end of the year.  Stay tuned for 2012!

Writing in the Sand

This month, Google Maps revealed some strange structures and patterns in the surface of China's Gobi Desert (see top photo).  According to some reports, research technicians at the Mars  Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University which operates many of the cameras used on NASA's Mars missions, concluded that these weird squiggly lines in the desert represent a calibration target for Chinese spy satellites used to orient themselves in space. 

The white lines in these zig-zig patterns on the desert are actually 65-feet wide and are not made of reflective metal, according to Jonathon Hill, a mission planner at the the Mars Space Flight Facility.  According to msnbc reports, Hill has been quoted as saying: "[The white lines] have gaps in them where they cross little natural drainage channels and the lines themselves are not perfectly filled in, with lots of little streaks and uneven coverage.  I think it's safe to say these are some kind of paint."  He noted that if they had been mad eof white dust or chalk, the lines would have streaked or rippled as a result of the wind. 

It took me about two seconds to make the instant comparison to the famous Nazca Lines located in the Nazca Desert in Southern Peru.  Those famous geoglyphs were scratched into the surface of this arid and windless desert between roughly 500 BC and 500 AD.  The lines form hundreds of enormous line-drawing figures of living creatures, animals, plants, geometric shapes, and imaginary beings which are so large they can only be viewed from the air.  Some of the more famous ones include: a monkey (see bottom photo), a hummingbird, spider, dog, small lizard, jaguar, fish, condor, llama, orca, and an astronaut. These "drawings" cover an enormous area of 450 square miles.

Interestingly, the lines themselves are wider than the Chinese lines.  The Nazca Lines vary in width from 0.4 to 1.1 kilometers wide.  Thus, the smallest Nazca line width is 1,312 feet wide compared to the Chinese line 65 feet width.  Unlike the Chinese lines, the Nazca Lines were created by removing the top layer of reddish pebbles from the earth revealing the whitish-colored ground underneath.   Apparently the ancient Peruvian Nazca tribe may have appreciated that drawing "white" lined designs in the desert plateau may have been the best way to view something from space.

For years, some researchers have spectulated that the Nazca Lines, first discovered accidentally by a plane flying over the area in 1927, bore some kind of astrological significance or represented ancient deities.  The purpose of these lines has remained, to this day, one of the world's greatest mysteries.  Perhaps the most daring theory advanced has been the suggestion that these lines actually form ancient airstrips and landing fields for aliens arriving in UFOs.  The theory that these aliens would have needed a place to land their craft fits hand in hand with the notion that they also gave humans certain advanced technological capabilities resulting in the ability to build the pyramids with astrological and archeological precision.

Just a thought:  Perhaps the Nazca Lines weren't only UFO airstrips; maybe they were also satellite callibration targets used from outer space.  After all, history repeats itself.

One Spooky Halloween

Photo by Nancy du Tertre of a tree in her town.

This year, we, in New Jersey within the past three months, got hit with a triple whammy:  Earthquake, Hurricane, Snow Storm. 

On August 23,  we experienced the most powerful earthquake to hit the Eastern seaboard in 67 years.  Less than a week later on August 28,  we felt the wrath of Hurricane Irene, the first hurricane to make landfall in New Jersey since 1903, causing massive flooding and damage, and one million homes to lose power.  We lost our power for one entire week and half our backyard was flooded.  Then, on October 29,  just two days before Halloween, a powerful Nor'easter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on northern New Jersey.  This was the first time since weather record-keeping began in 1869 that New Jersey ever even had snow in October! 

What made this particular Nor'easter so devasting was not the fact that it dumped a foot of heavy, wet snow on us, but that the trees still had all their leaves - in fact, most had not even turned into their autumn shades of red, yellow and orange.  The leaves held the snow and caused most trees to snap their branches and trunks under this unusual weight.  We looked like a war zone.  Trees were down everywhere - across streets, sidewalks and homes!  Nothing was spared. We lost power again for one week - only this time, at night, temperatures hovered around 30 degrees.  I tried calling 17 hotels to see if I could get a room, but all of them were 100% booked for five consecutive days straight.  There was no place to go. So I stayed home, slept in my bed with my coat, three sweaters, and four blankets trying to stay warm, and ate out at restaurants for every meal for a week.  My cat was so cold he slept on my neck for the first time.

Halloween was officially postponed in our town because you couldn't go anywhere.  There were trees laying across almost every single small and large roadway.  There were cables, telephone wires and live electrical wires laying on the ground everywhere.  Some were left smoking and causing small fires for days because there simply weren't enough crews to send out.  Even Governor Chris Christie lost power.  Once again, he declared a State of Emergency in New Jersey.

So my October blog is, I believe, excused for being late.  I had no power. 

I do, however, have a Halloween ghost story.  I was invited by an art gallery owner in Northern New Jersey to give a Halloween workshop. I met with her and she brought me to a property owned by the municipality, an historic home, known as the Glenburn Estate  built in 1816 located on a little over five acres with a barn and various other smaller buildings.  She thought I might like to use the barn as the location for my workshop.  I asked about the main house, a beautiful Colonial-style house, to see if it was available instead.  She told me no, it wasn't.  She added that she had been inside once and thought she had heard ghostly noises.  Of course I was intrigued and asked if we could go inside.  My host told me that only the mayor of the town had the keys to get in.  But she knew him personally and he soon showed up, with the manager of the property, and let us walk around inside.

This poor house had only recently been purchased by the town in 2006.  But it had obviously suffered the poor taste of cheesy interior decorations and cheap renovations of previous owners over the past 200 years.  There was no furniture.  There were, however, remnants of shag carpeting, 1960's mod-style bathroom fixtures, and historically inaccurate window treatments which seemed to linger inappropriately.  I walked into the room downstairs where my host had heard the noises.  I felt nothing.

Then I walked up the grand staircase and began to feel extremely dizzy - which, for me, is generally the indiction of spirit activity.  I instinctively turned into the bedroom at the top left of the stairs, and felt what seemed like the presence of a woman who predated the 1930's.  I told the manager that I felt a female presence who, while she seemed fairly benign and not harmful, seemed to be on a mission - as if she needed to resolve an issue with another person who was located in the adjoining bedroom.  I felt her frustration.  The attic, while a bit spooky, didn't seem to be terribly haunted.

After our tour, we wandered over to the car to leave.  The mayor, the manager and my host remained near the front door of the house, and, to my surprise, beckoned for me to come back to the house. The mayor was fiddling with the keys to the front door.  He said he was trying to get back inside, but he couldn't get the door to open.  Normally, this would not seem too surprising - except that he had unlocked the lock!  Sure enough, we tried every possible combination of turning the keys in the lock and the door remained solidly stuck.  It would not even jiggle, not even a millimeter!  It was as if it was vacuum-sealed shut!  No matter how much we pushed, shoved and kicked the door, it would not budge.  The mayor said this was the first time this had ever happened to him in all the years he had ever come to the house.  So, he opened up a basement storm shutter, entered the basement, and then came upstairs.  He opened the front door.  And yes, the door had been unlocked!  It baffled all of us.  I went inside and closed the door to see if it had a propensity to stick, or was warped, or had a bad locking mechanism.  But it opened as smooth as butter.

Once outside again, the mayor then told me a story.  He said a previous owner had once told him that the owner had seen a female ghost in the kitchen and his son had heard her upstairs. Then the mayor told us about plans in the near future to renovate this house.  Apparently, the earmarked funding to renovate this house only permits the town to renovate in the style of the 1940's - which, frankly, I don't understand.  It seemed to me this female ghost, as eternal resident of this house, was making her feelings crystal clear:  Do not renovate a house built in 1816 in the style of the 1940's!!  Sheesh!

A Healer in Greece

A couple of days ago, I returned from a month-long trip to Europe.  We visited eleven countries - a whirlwind voyage which culminated in a week on the island of Mykonos, Greece.  My husband and I were fortunate enough to stay with a dear friend who owns one of the most spectacular homes on the island overlooking the island of Delos, one of the ancient sacred sites of Greece second only to Delphi.  He took us out, almost every day, in glorious sunshine, vivid blue skys, on the windswept Aegean Sea, in his traditional 35' Greek fishing boat to the island of Delos with his international crew of friends from Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, France and Greece.  We didn't go to the tourist spots.  We went only to the most remote beaches and spent the afternoons walking on the strange, rocky, treeless terrain that resembles, in my mind, something closer to Iceland or perhaps the surface of the moon.

I had never been to Greece before.  I had heard about the beautiful islands for years but couldn't begin to tell you where they were geographically located.  I wasn't aware that the islands, at least the Cycladic Islands located south-east of Athens and comprised of 220 islands surrounding the sacred island of Delos, were mostly barren, nothing but dirt and rocks, devoid of vegetation, and, unlike the mainland, very windy.  Delos has been inhabitated by humans at least as far back as the third millenium B.C.!  It means "The Visible" after its name was changed from "Adelos" ("The Invisible") because it was the one place where the Olympian Greek god Zeus' mistress,  Leto, is able to give birth to her twins, Apollo and Artemis, because Zeus' wife, Hera, made sure she was shunned by all other lands.  Since Delos was considered a "floating island" (and therefore not "land"), she was able to deliver her children after Zeus' brother, Poseidon, anchored the island to the bottom of the sea with granite pillars.  The island is today littered, literally, with ancient pillars, pottery fragments, mosaics, stone walls and huts, and ancient temples.  Over the course of its nearly 5,000 year human history, the island became  a major trading hub for Greece, Rome and the Macedonians.  Egyptian Queen Cleopatra was known to have stopped there on her travels.  There are the ruins of healing temples and, on neighboring islands, hospitals and graveyards, since it was forbidden to either give birth or die on Delos - making it impossible to ever be a "citizen" of Delos. 

As we wandered on the beaches of Delos and swam naked in its warm, silky waters, I felt I could almost see the trading boats, the pilgrims to the healing temples, and craftsmen and artisans plying their trades.  It was truly a magical place.  And that was before I understood the history of the island.

As an energy healer and medical intuitive, I have many friends and colleagues who are versed in the arts of sacred healing.  My friend Susan, who I have known since we were both eleven years old, is an energy healer in Rhode Island.  We have "joked" for years about our probable past lives together in Greece.  In fact, Susan once went to visit a psychic who told her that she and I had both been oracles in ancient Greece (Delphi?) and that we had both started separate and very different competing schools of healing! (I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that reading!) 

At any rate, to my great surprise, I met another powerful healer named Barbara, a German woman, who lives on the island of Mykonos.  We quickly became friends and I felt as if I had known her all my life.  We shared healing techniques and she told me stories of taking the powerful psychotropic drug ayahuasca as part of the spiritual ritual among shamans along the Amazon River in Peru.  We connected in a way that was, for me, highly unusual.  By the end of my trip, I inadvertantly found that I had done 5 or 6 healings on various people.  One man, suffering from some kind of debilitating dizziness which occurred when moving his head or body in certain ways, told me the evening following my energy work on him, that the dizziness had, for the first time in years, disappeared!  I was, of course, thrilled for him.

Barbara then asked me to come to her home for a meeting with one of her clients.  I had initially thought it was so I could witness her healing techniques, but as it turned out, Barbara wanted me to work on the woman.  I worked on her for roughly an hour and then, suddenly realizing I was supposed to catch an airplane back to the mainland, told her I had to leave and applogized for my quick departure.  She asked if she could pay me for my work, and I said no.  As I ran out the front door, the client handed me a small pouch and asked me to accept it as her gift to me.  Reluctantly, I did, and then jumped in the car.  I didn't have a chance to look at it until I was in Athens.  When I opened the pouch, I was it was an exceptionally beautiful necklace made of several long strands of enormous white, black and irridescent gray pearls - in a style reminescent of a Greek goddess! 

I was deeply moved by her gift and couldn't get over the feeling I had, all the way home on the plane, that I had worked as a healer in Greece - today and back then.

The Future of Trees

It's difficult for most people to get really excited about trees because our planet seems to have so many of them.  However, recently, I have become more and more upset about the plight of trees and, consequently, the future of human beings.

I don't know if it's a product of living on the East Coast of the United States, but I remember when I was a little girl living in Boston and they used to say that within my lifetime the entire Eastern seaboard would become so urbanized that all of the major cities, Boston, Providence, Hartford, New York City, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington, would soon become merged into one giant mega-city.  Urban sprawl between the cities would eventually overlap and knit together.  Well, that day has arrived.  We have finally arrived at what has been called the "megalopolis."  In 2,000, this part of the country was home to about 17% of the U.S. population living on less than 2% of the nation’s land area.

But my concern is much smaller.  I have noticed that in recent decades, as part of our urbanization, we are all clearing and cutting down trees to make way for parking lots, malls, commercial areas, gas stations, and new homes.  We replace these forests with a few token trees - and they are almost always little, stumpy ornamental trees, like flowering cherry trees, dogwoods or tiny Japanese maples.  We are not replacing our giant shade trees - if and when we replace our trees at all!  These trees might be pretty in the springtime, but they are more like bushes than trees and do not provide shade, shelter or protection from the increasingly violent and hot weather we are experiencing as our planet's heat has been dramatically climbing.  It is like decorating your living room with colorful accent pillows instead of a sofa and chairs!  Pretty, but useless!

We aren't really interested in "ordinary" tall shade trees like oaks, pine, beech, sugar maple, hickory, or black walnut (this last tree used to be abundant in New Jersey, it still is treasured in the wood paneling in some older homes, but is basically extinct in our area now).   We are far more interested in making sure that people can see our store sign from the road, or that we have a big front lawn with no trees so people can see how wealthy we are, or that we spend as little money as possible leveling a flat, tree-less parking lot for the lowest cost.  Perhaps commercial real estate owners don't like the potential liability of a tree branch falling on a car or figure they can get more parking spaces by eliminating trees.

Let me give you a rather shocking statistic.  The average tree lives between 60-80 years old, but the average urban tree today lives only 8 years.  Why?  They are sicker from pollution and we cut them down every time we want to put up a more modern building and replace them with younger trees.  Do you see the problem here?

The bottom line is that we are not interested in trees.  I was quite shocked when I finally realized that all those lovely little pockets of wildlife and forests that I see from the highway are actually, when viewed from the air, nothing but thin, isolated patches of trees between streets and homes.  I know it sounds strange, but here in New Jersey, we are living in the future.  Montana, Alabama, Texas, and the other states may not look anything like New Jersey today - but they will in the near future.  And the future shows me that we are running out of time. 

Consider this:  In the past 10 years alone, human beings have cut down enough trees to forest an area the size of the country of Peru!  In order to reforest what we have cut down in only a decade, every man, woman and child on earth will have to plant and care for 2 trees every year for ten years!  That's to make up for the loss of 14 billion trees.  We are not slowing down our tree-cutting today.  We are cutting them down even faster.  And we are not replanting them at a proportional rate for the reasons I listed above.  We are 1) vain and 2) greedy and 3) trees are "free." 

Planting trees around your home (and I do not mean tiny ornamental flowing trees) increases your property value by between 10-20 percent, and can reduce your air conditioning needs by 30 percent and save up to 50 percent on your home heating bills.  One young tree next to your house is equal to 10 air conditioning units operating 20 hours/day.  One young tree can absorb all the carbon emitting by driving your car 26,000 miles in a year.

So, you do not have to be clairvoyant to understand the future of trees and therefore of human beings.  Plant a tree today.