A friend today sent me this nice parable. Enjoy

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions. After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others. This way they were able to survive.

Moral of the story: The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person’s good qualities.

The real moral of the story……Learn to live with the pricks in your life.

Photos of a baby porcupine from the mailing

From Friday 19th to Sunday 21st August we were at a group meeting in the spirit of synthesis at the seminar centre HPB in Ingolsheim, Alsace, France. A group of 19 persons – members of WTT – from Belgium, Germany and Switzerland assembled for a weekend of meditation, exchanges, and cooperation for further projects.
Beautiful sunshine enlightened the place, and also inwardly there was a lot of light around. We spoke about the present time, where there are intense transformation processes going on globally, and the impact of the energies on our lives and greater fields of Life.

Here are some pics from the place, as a little inspiration.

Master CVV, whose inspiration is beyond the group work

The entrance of the seminar centre

And by night

Ganesha welcoming us in the garden

Yes, there was also plenty of joy

Durga on the lion in an amethyst crystal – symbol of the month of Leo

And a greater amethyst – our friend is trading with crystals

Master EK, who brought the teachings of synthesis to the West – and some of the members present still knew him.

Buddha meditating in the night

And Krishna playing his flute on his birthday, last Sunday

While Quan Yin, the Chinese form of Maitreya, was blessing the meeting from a corner

Huge lingams centring the energy

Light striving upwards

And Buddha in another form also gives his silent blessings

A turtle family – the turtle being a symbol of creation

A beautiful smiling Durga, the guardian of the threshold

Riding on the Lion, the tamed animal nature

A shining labradorite in the colours of the energy of Aquarius

This month’s newsletter of the Aquarian Age Community, New Jersey, gave a quote of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from his remarks at a High-Level Meeting on Youth, 27 July 2011 in New York:

“There is always the power of the individual who can make change, who can make a great difference.
All of you — each and every one of you — can be the power of change….
There is no greater pursuit, no more noble calling, than advancing human well-being and the global common good….
And remember: by helping others to lift themselves, we in turn lift ourselves. We too, are empowered.”

UN recently chose as its theme for the 25th Anniversary of the first International Year of Youth on 12 August to be: “Change Your World.” They have a campaign for collecting ideas on Facebook.

From August 3rd to 26th Mercury is retrograde (see Astrowiki), indicating a time where there might be more obstacles in communication and interaction.

Every month the voluntary translators of the Lunar Messenger strive to be in time for the publication of the new issue around the 7th/8th ascending moon phase. This month I didn’t get in time the Spanish translation which a friend in Miami regularly does since Summer 2001 – for 10 untiring years. So I yesterday asked my Mexican friend who always proof-reads the articles to translate it this time. A few hours later I already had the translation and sent out the Spanish newsletter in the evening, while the other languages had been published a day before.

This morning I got the following e-mail from my friend from Miami, sending his translation and explaining why it came  late:

“I just sent it to you. I had a whole bunch of issues with Mercury retrograde:
• My computer at home (a super nice apple) started turning off without warning
• My computer at school (a top-of-the-line monster) started freezing everything and had to be reinstalled from scratch
• I was finishing the main text yesterday on my way to the airport, but found no sending signal at Miami International Airport until I left
• I am now in Madrid, for a week, and I brought a mini netbook from the school mainly to finish this on time and send it to you, but
• I did not have access to yahoo.com or yahoo.es since I arrived in the morning. It only came through ten minutes ago after I had already sent it to Rosy to forward it to you.
Anyhow, now you have it. Please, confirm reception.
Best of wishes!

I told him that he had really fought hard to get the work done, in spite of the obstacles. I’ll publish his translation as soon as my Mexican friend has proof-read it. In spite of her having translated the text already, which I very much appreciate.

I have respect for the sudden obstacles popping up  at times of Mercury retrograde. I had some computer breakdowns in the past during these times (hopefully not this time….).

An exploding star – firework on 1st of August 11, Swiss national holidy

4th of August is Master CVV‘s 143rd birthday (Indian counting: 144th), being born on Tuesday, 4th of August, 1868 (see here about his birth chart and also at the end of the text, and here the ephemerides of 1868). He is known as The Aquarian Master, who, in 1910, anchored the energy of synthesis on our planet.

In the book “Mystic Mantrams and Master CVV” Master EK writes about Master CVV:

The New Era
Evolution is a gradual expansion of consciousness. This expansion takes place from atom to man. As we look around we find men in different stages of evolution. The differences between saint and sinner, between genius and idiot, are only reconcilable with the conception of the law of evolution. This evolution is the heritage of all men. At the zenith of this evolutionary ladder stand some persons whom we call gurus or Masters. They stand as the torchbearers to the humanity only to shed light on the path to assist its evolution.
The birth of Master C. V. V. marked the beginning of a new era of Hierarchical activities. Contact on the personal level increases on a large scale and the activity of personal transaction establishes the soul link. It results in establishing communion of pure human values on international level.
Master EK, “My Light”, 22-7-1977

Photo of a 3-d picture of M. CVV on a blue background: “Multidimensional Expansion of Consciousness”

The Gayatri mantram is age-old. Its use has become global in the last decennies. Here is a very beautiful rendering of the mantram with sublime pictures – from an unknown source.

Picture from the video

A video from an Arab TV shows the dance of a beautiful transparent eel larva ballerina (leptocephalus larva).

Wikipedia explains, “A leptocephalus (meaning “slim head”) is the flat and transparent larva of the eel,.. Leptocephali (more than one leptocephalus) all have laterally compressed bodies that contain transparent jelly-like substances on the inside of the body and a thin layer of muscle on the outside. Their body organs are small, and this combination of features results in them being very transparent when they are alive.”

Never seen such a creature – such a delicate, rhythmic movement full of of easiness. Enjoy.

Print Screen photo of the video

A friend sent me the link to the Newseum in Washington DC. It is a huge museum about 500 years of news history, with very modern technology to let the visitors experience how and why news is made. Since news shape very much the way we perceive the world – and this is being constructed – it is a very timely initiative.

Most of us won’t go there, but they have a fascinating map of about 800 “Today’s Front Pages” (yesterday, Saturday, July 30, 2011 they had 785 front pages from 81 countries.) where you can just put your mouse on a city, almost anywhere in the world, and the newspaper headlines of the day pop up… Double click and the page gets larger…you can read the entire paper on some if you click on the right place. This site changes every day with the publication of new editions of the paper.

On their site they say: “The front pages are in their original, unedited form, and some may contain material that is deemed objectionable to some visitors. Discretion is advised.” 🙂

You have also a section of a number of European papers. So when you want to have a quick overview of what the world is talking about…

There are also a lot of exhibitions, about such “important” topics like: “First Dogs: Presidential Pets in the White House” (images of dogs belonging to 23 presidents, including the newest addition: Bo, a six-month-old Portuguese water dog), “Pictures of the Year” and “The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office“.

The Newseum, Washington DC, Photo: James P. Blair/Newseum

This afternoon we made a little walk and had a pause in the café of the open air bath at the nearby river. An elderly lady came and sat down at our table, a friend of my wife’s late parents. She immediately spoke about the shock she experienced through the events in Oslo, the horrible terror killing of last Friday. She told us details of what she had read in the Sunday newspapers. We just knew what had been in the Saturday paper.

Later she asked about our family, about what my wife is now doing. Cyrille told her that 1.5 years ago she had stopped teaching piano and that now she is doing a formation as a coach in radical forgiveness. Like others of my wife’s friends the lady felt a bit irritated: For them making music is somehow a dream, for my wife it is something of the past, a thing she had learnt and practised for years but which no longer interests her. The lady wanted to know more about this kind of coaching and it turned out that she is a psychologist and first seemed to be a bit sceptical about the coaching. I mentioned how the work with radical forgiveness had done good to me…

She then started speaking of a journey last year to a place of her childhood and an event that took place in 1945 at the Danube, where Hungarian Nazis had collected all the Jews of the town, led them to the river and killed them there. She wasn’t there, but members of her family had been among the victims. Her father’s side was Jewish, her mother’s side Christian and she grew up as a Christian, but has always been in contact with Jews. She had been again at that place and read the memorial plate with all the names of the persons killed, and there was written the sentence:

“If you are a human, you have to learn to forgive, but not to forget.”

She continued speaking of her father who later went to Israel, whereas she came to Switzerland. She became a psychologist and in spite of her high age she is still working, for victims of mobbing.

There was a magic spell in the air, a feeling of souls touching each other, beyond words. My wife stood a while at the river and looked at the flow, reminding her of the times passing by. On our way home we reflected about the scene, and my wife said: “I didn’t know anything about her before, we only had exchanges on a small-talk level. I felt that she still carries  a heavy load of past experiences and was very grateful to open up and speak a bit about it and to feel that we listened with an open-heart. Just listened, and this opened her feelings. I felt love coming from her side. And there was a flow.”

A Norwegian flag on half-mast in the neighbourhood

My sister just sent me the link to this beautiful video:

On the 2nd of June 2011 strangers gathered at 6:30 pm in Trafalgar Square to share a peaceful half an hour meditating.