Yesterday I came across an article in the NZZ (New Zurich Newspaper) about the missing co-operation between doctors and building biologist (in English they also use the word Baubiologie, as the word was coined in Germany). Often general practitioners don’t recognize morbid environmental influences and see the causes of unspecific functional pains as psycho-somatic diseases. The people don’t fimd themselves taken seriously and turn to paramedicals or building biologists. There is a whole spectrum of possible influences, from asbestos, radon to electromagnetic pollution, which building biologists take into account. Electromagnetic pollution, from mobiles, computer micro-waves and the like is much disputed and the pro-advocators of mobiles see the symptoms of diseases often just as existing psychiatric diseases.

In Switzerland an association of doctors for environmental protection has just been formed who is trying to sensitize medical practices in the whole of Switzerland for the questions of building biology. If you would like to know more about the spiritual dimension of buildings you might read the issue on “Body and House” (pdf) of Good Will in Action.

Yesterday while surfing in the noon pause I came across a note on the Computerbild-website, a German computer magazine, telling that there will be compatibility problems between older and the new version of Microsoft “Office 2007”, which will be launched probably next February (for enterprises: from end of November 06 on).

Documents produced in the new version of the software are saved in a file format which normally cannot be read by old versions of word, excel or powerpoint. Therefore Microsoft has now published a free “Office Compatibility Pack“. The software can be inserted in “Office 2000”, “Office XP” and “Office 2003”. After the installation loading and saving of Office 2007 documents is possible.

Remembering well the problems I had with the documents of the recent 2003-version, when I still had the older 2000 version, I immediately installed the file (27,1MB) and informed my friends about the problem. I hope that Microsoft doesn’t have more “surprises” for other or older system users hidden in the new Office and Vista versions, with their quasi market monopoly.

Today is Scorpio Full Moon. The full moon time is very auspicious for connecting with more subtle energies through meditational work. Observing the monthly rhythms of the moon and its annual movements through the zodiac gives you a sensation of the changing qualities of time. Here you can see the moon phase, which are now also to be found in the right sidebar of the blog:

(Oh, it caused problems with showing up in the middle column, so I just left a static picture, it works only in the right sidebar.)

If you would like to know a bit more about the inner work with the qualities of time, please see the Lunar Messenger on “Working with the Key of Time” (PDF).

Yesterday I came across the NASA-website of SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which is now observing the sun since 11 years. There you find a page with near realtime images of the state of the sun.

And on the site N3KL you find a solar activity monitor showing the state of the ray eruptions from the sun, as it is at the moment:

Solar X-Rax:

Geomagnetic Field:

It is inspiring to see how our sun is a living, pulsating being, giving us light and life since billions of years.

Yesterday pictures of the fastest moving matter waves ever photographed were presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the division of plasma physics in Philadelphia, USA. The waves have nearly the speed of light, of 1 billion miles per hour. The waves, known as wakefields, are generated in the wake of an ultra-intense laser pulse. They are travelling oscillations in a sea of electons known as a plasma, giving rise to enormous electric fields. The electron “surfs” on the electric-field that accompanies the plasma wave, and accelerates almost instantaneously to near-light-speed.

Researchers from the University of Texas designed a holographic-strobe camera to take the pictures. Their method, called Frequency Domain Holography, sends two additional laser pulses though the plasma along with the ultra-intense pulse. The pulses are sent into a spectrometer where they interfere holographically and are subsequently analyzed to produce images of the wave structure in real-time, revealing theoretically predicted but never-before-seen features.

If you would like to know more about the nature of light and colours from a spiritual view and for the inner work, you might have a look at the Lunar Messenger on Light and Colour.

In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (New Zurich Newspaper) there was yesterday an article on Praise of Silence, a talk of the author Ralf Rothmann, who received the Max-Frisch-Price of the Town of Zurich. In the text there were some interesting statements, one allegedly by Max Frisch: “You have to aspire for the perfect, otherwise you go crazy.” And another by Mahatma Gandhi: “The mission of every man towards the world is to become a saint, not more and not less.” Even if we don’t succeed, our endeavour has to go into this direction. Rothmann adds: “For you cannot exist without the real feeling of unity with all, that is with the cosmos, you become a cripple with body and soul, and nothing helps if you don’t realise it your whole life long. We have to want the perfect, otherwise you go gaga. And even if it cannot be successful, if our thoughts and works will never become perfect – or endeavour can be so.
And about creativity Ralf Rothmann said: “What really wants to come to light, you don’t have to press. It happens, it grows, it flourishes – everyone who writes or paints or composes has this experience. It is really grace, it comes to us – most beautifully when we don’t think of it, when we forget our ideas and concepts for a moment and, for example, peel an apple. It comes to us out of silence, out of quietude, for you have to desist from speech in order that the world speaks again with you. This might seem to be paradox, especially when a writer says this, but we are conditioned up to the most tiniest, we are even still framed if we ‘go overboard’, and our materialistic basic attitude, which doesn’t even spare language, has made us forget that nothing, really nothing has a name, that there is in reality neither inside nor outside and that the body lives in the soul and not the other way round. Only silence teaches us this.”

See also the post on Experiencing Silence.

Yesterday I published the newsletter of the Circle of Good Will for the month of Scorpio, where the topic of the Lunar Messenger is Kundalini. I got several positive feedback mails from readers, among these a mai from a lady proposing a link exchange to her website, telling that since 9 years she has the kundalini fire awakened and thus extaordinary sidhis(supernatural powers) and healing abilities.

When hearing such claims, I always think, whow, and am happy that I’m standing with my two feet on the ground. In the 70ies I had been in a then famous meditation movement purporting awakening of sidhi powers such as flying, walking through walls, clear-audience … I left the movement in the early 80ies, after having realised that this has nothing to do with serious spirituality and leading you into inflating your ego. I experienced this ego-inflation as a danger holding you in illusions and keeping you away from the really important steps of spiritual development.

The lady wanted to publish stories about her experiences on the good-will website, which I politely declined. A link however has been posted in the German section of link exchanges, since she wanted to post one to us on her page…

Yesterday I was at the extraordinary assembly of the Swiss Red Cross associations for writing the minutes. It was a meeting for the kick-off of the new strategy cycle for the years till 2012. For me it was fascinating to see how in such a complex and heterogeneous organisation is managing diversity and trying to ingegrate most diverse interests. Though the basic values are the same for all the members – humanitarian commitment -, their focus is varying. And when you try to steer such a complex organism into a joint direction for future development, there are quite a lot of anxieties and incertitudes to be solved and taken into account.

I had a few interesting talks in the noon pause, one with a member of the central board, about the importance of getting young people integrated in order to keep the contact with the next generation. This handing-over to the next generation of the enthusiasm for the humanitarian cause and for voluntary work of good will is very important to keep the good work going on.

Some days ago I came across the website of Slowfood.com, a world-wide movement “counteracting fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”

Under the title “Terra Madre” they are organising a world meeting on food communities from 26-30 october in Turin, Italy. 1600 food communities from 5 continents and 150 countries, 5000 farmers, breeders, fishermen and traditional food producers, 1000 cooks and 200 universities will meet to share experiences and discuss the development of a new concept of agriculture and good, clean and fair food.

A very good initiative for finding new ways for better qualitative food. You might like to read the text on “Food and Drink“(PDF) from our series “Good Will in Action“.

Yesterday I participated in a workshop of the Swiss federal administration on accessibility and usability for the websites of the Swiss government. Until the end of 2006 all websites of the federal administration have to correspond to accessibility guidelines (see my post on web accessibility – overcoming obstacles).

The workshop was conducted by two persons of the foundation Access for All, one of them being a person who is blind since birth and is a specialist for accessibility testing. He intruduced us into the way handicapped people, especially blind persons, work with the internet as a window to the world. He had a bluetooth Braille keybord and a screenreader software. He gave us several examples of how obstacles for the blind can be overcome by better naming of links or by creating an easy-to-navigate website. He also showed us an extract of a “hearing film” – from a know cinema, where all action was being described, including the scenes. But he also described about the many ways there are created obstructions even by good-meaning people.
Fascinating how with a good will and creative know-how handicapped people can be helped to be partners in the world which is mainly being shaped by the majority having a relatively free command of their senses and bodies. It needs a sensitivity to open up to the world of people with another way of living side by side.