Today a friend sent me a beautiful powerpoint presentation (not the sound…) about the Giant Crystal Cave in the Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico. It is said that these are the largest natural crystals on Earth. The pictures are awe-inspiring, very impressive. You can read more about the crystal cave here or find more information and links at Wikipedia.

An addition: A friend sent me a comment on the giant crystals from an intellectual colleague:
“You do know this is bullshit. Yes they are ‘actual’, but they are not verídicas (please excuse the bit of show-off pedantry). A clever but still fairly obvious cut-and-paste hoax. Pay careful attention to light angles and shadows, also different levels of focus. And, like all other similar fakes, if they are real why haven’t we already seen them in National Geographic? Still, interesting bullshit.”

It seems that this colleague didn’t read his “National Geographic” bible well enough, for they posted an article on the caves on April 6th, 2006, also with a photo.

This crystal isn’t from the mine, it is in the house of a friend.

The pictures of the Crystal Cave remind me of the famous painting of Nicholas Roerich “Most Sacred – Treasure of the Mountain” of 1933. He is combining in his pictures sublime spirituality with extraordinary beauty.

Courtesy Roerich-Museum, New York

Yesterday a friend from Canada sent me a powerpoint presentation about the extraordinary story of Shelley Yates and her son. I found it very inspiring. Since the presentation was in French, I inserted the English text from her website. You can download it here, or, as a PDF without music.

Shelley Yates and her son had an aquaplaning accident and drowned in a flooded marsh. She and her son were “dead” for fifteen minutes. During that time she was told by beings of light how to save herself and her 4 years old son. And she was given a message on how to heal the Earth.

On the suggestion of the beings of light she is making a appeal for a global healing meditation on July 17, 2007, at 11.11 Greenwich Mean Time, to come together to be as One and heal the planet just as her son had been brought back to life.

She says about this excellent initiative:

“The time has been set for July 17, 2007 at 11:11 Greenwich Mean Time. I have been given no indication about why this date and time have been chosen, but this date has been told to me over and over again. I have been asked to bring together as many humans as possible, throughout the world from every corner of the globe, to simply sit and pray or meditate for one hour during that time. Hopefully, with your help, we will amass a union of humans, such as the world has never seen. Loving humans with one intention – to heal our planet and awaken our souls to our true propose to become one with our Source of Light.

The light beings use the term “fire the grid” when they speak of the energizing of humanity with divine power, on July 17, 2007. They say firing the grid will accomplish two things. First, it will pulse healing energy into the center of the earth and second, regenerate the core, or the heart of the planet. This planned sitting of the people of earth will demonstrate the love and faith we feel for the goodness of our world and her inhabitants. We are the catalyst to the healing of earth. A true believer has the power of ten fold, so if you only think you may believe, know that the faith of the others will boost your own faith and the power will be intensified.”

You can also read the story and more on her website, which has been translated into many languages. Or you can see some videos with her telling her experiences on YouTube.

Some artists contributed beautiful meditation music (MP3) for free, and there are many groups world-wide who will join.

How big an initiative might be – the spiritual work of inner transformation is an ongoing effort and not limited to a unique occasion. A special occasion, however,� might give us inspiration for further aspiration and growth.

There just was a festival in New York City dedicated to the new movement using digital games for social change. “Games for Change” is a community of practice for those interested in making digital games about the most pressing issues of our day, from poverty to race and the environment. They belong to the Serious Games Initiative, which is focused on the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy. (See also our previous blogpost on Computer Games against Disasters.)

There is quite a lot of activity going on in mobilizing good-will ideas in the masses with the help of video-games. A series of games is trying to address health questions, like Nanoswarm – Invasion from Inner Space, a videogame adventure in healthy eating and exercise, as an effort against childhood obesity (to be released in 2008. There is a game on 3rd World Farming, one about a World Without Oil or a Peace Maker Game, aimed at conflict resolution and understanding. In the game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you can choose to play as either the prime minister of Israel or as the Palestinian president.

An interesting game on social change is the Redistricting Game, designed by the University of Southern California to educate and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting. State legislators draw the lines of voting districts thus giving way to a wide range of abuses and manipulations: “As a mapmaker I can have more of an impact on an election than a candidate, a campaign or voters”, said an election consultant. And the poitologist Jonathan Aronson said about this game in the Washinton Post, why to manipulate election machines, when you can manipulate the whole election process by mapping. The game teaches how a more collaborative and innovative system can be set up.

Or you like to play Karma Tycoon, where players can pick some type of nonprofit organization they would like to administer and establish it in one of 12 major U.S. cities. The game by DoSomething.org aims to entertain teens while also giving them an appreciation for the business side of charitable works. In an Interview in USA Today a child said: “Why not create a game that maximizes karma in order to make the world a better place?” The game is developed with the help of the JP Morgan Chase Bank: “This is one example of many where we will collaborate with an organization to bring change. Social investing is core to the business strategy and the culture of JP Morgan Chase.”

(c) Karmatycoon

Yesterday a friend from Barcelona sent me a note about a film called The Secret. For personal use it is also available for free on YouTube in a series of 10 parts ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), of about 20 min. each. There is also a version with Spanish subtitles available.

I had a look through the first part – and it tasted quite “American”: for my taste too much of marketing an idea, which is basically correct. The story goes: “One spring day towards the end of 2004, Rhonda Byrne discovered a secret – the secret laws and principles of the universe. Almost immediately her life was transformed, as she began to put into practice what she had learned. It seemed to Rhonda that almost no-one knew the things that she had discovered, even though the concepts could be found in almost every religion and field of human endeavour throughout history. And in that moment her greatest wish, and mission, was to share this knowledge with the world…”

The “miraculous” idea for the missionary zeal is, with statements from the film:
Every thought has an energy, which an even be measured. Thoughts are sending out magnetic signals and attracting things. So thoughts become things. People attract what you think of, when they think negative, it attracts the bad things. And when you think of things you don’t want, you also attract what you don’t want. The law of attraction is always working, if you want it or not. Mind is shaping the thing it perceives. It is working in an ongoing manner.

They are ballyhooing: “A New Era for Humanity – For the first time in history, the world’s leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it… Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein. Now YOU will know The Secret. And it could change your life forever.” And as clever businessmen they are trying to create a community, so they� have added blogs, newsletters, shop articles…

Everything has its value for those on a certain level. So also this film reveals as something totally new an aspect of the timeless wisdom teachings which in less sensational words can be found in many teachings. What seems to be totally new for one might be known since long by others. However, transformations by “magic want” generally don’t work in the long run, you need to transform your character by regular training and� sticking to the� regulations of the path. You might have a look to the Lunar Messenger on Awareness and Thought.

The power of thought is compared in the film to Aladin’s Magic Lamp:

Today a friend sent me a link to a video with a unique morphing and blending of expressions of women portrayed in paintings and drawings over 500 years, condensed in a three minute video. You can regard the morphing images as the multiple faces of the female principle, the expression of the veiling nature of the Mother of the World.

Last week my eldest son (16) had to write a paper in high school about computer gaming addiction. For this he made an interview with a social education worker, a friend of my wife. They talked about different forms of addiction and from when on you cross the point of gaming for joy to gaming out of an addiction.
For him it was important to see that he himself doesn’t fall into the category of computer addicts – though he is gaming quite a lot in the multi-player online game Guild Wars and this since about 1.5 years. With the fighters of his clan he is running for hours through countries of digital magical imagination – forgetting dinner or anything around. But he is still having other interests in the “real” world as well, and school is also demanding its tribute.

There is such a pull of the pictures and action into these digital fantasy worlds, where the entire inner imagination is captured by the spell. It is like a more physical effigy of the worlds you enter through drugs. Also in meditation you come about strata of subtle imagination where you can lose yourself in esoteric fancies.

The awakening in life towards responsibility and commitment to some purposeful activity often takes a long time. Some people seem to evolve only parts of their inner flower of life, and petals remain closed till later years or never open. In my life the process of discovering the thread took quite long and was partly painful. But the pain pushed forward to change: “Change cannot happen, unless one yearns to change.” (K.P. Kumar: On Change)

I just got a from a Californian friend a link to a fascinating videotape with� Portuguese subtitles of a child eloquently appealing to adults, delegates of the United Nations Environmental Conference to act upon what we teach children in kindergarten: to share, to clean up our mess, to care about others. My friend wrote:

“Three 12/13 year old children have dared to form an environmental children’s organization to be the change they hope to see in the world. Looking into children’s eyes and seeing 7 generations hence we can re-examine our values today, and change our habits. As Marshall Rosenberg observed, things we do habitually are not necessarily natural. We sometimes assume that and confuse the two.”

“Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market.”

A friend sent me a video yesterday of a monkey teasing two little tiger cubs. The video is posted on several platforms, here you find one. It is named “Monkey with a death wish”, but somehow the monkey seems to be clearly calculating the risk and balancing it against the fun of winning. For each time the monkey somehow succeeds in cheekily escaping the tigers – cleverness gains over power. Enjoy.

A friend from Belgium sent me today a beautiful powerpoint presentation entitled “Woman“, with colored images and verses of women, for women, and men, throughout the world. There is a quote of former UN president B. Boutros Ghali: “Now, more than ever, the cause of women is the cause of mankind.” Here you can see it as pdf, but without music.

I found it also on the website of WUNRN, Women’s UN Report Program & Network, an NGO dedicated to women’s rights. For a spiritual perspective ou might also like to read the Lunar Messenger on Woman and Man.

I just came across a fascinating YouTube-video on the permaculture project “Greening the Desert” (you can also see the video in a better quality from here). In this story, Geoff Lawton talks about re-greening the deserts of Jordan. By applying the principles of permaculture, the Jordanians managed to salvage a heavily salted environment and turn it into a green oasis. Geoff Lawton lives and teaches permaculture at his farm near The Channon, a small community in Australia.

See also our blogpost “From Wasteland to Paradise“.