Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Indestructible Ironmen

The Marvel Comics superhero, Ironman, created a cold, hard suit of iron in order to protect himself while battling a world of evil. His ironclad protection worked wonders at keeping him safe from countless hurts, pains and injuries. Not only was his impenetrable armor capable of keeping hurt out, but it also came equipped to cause a great deal of harm to anyone who got in his way.

In real life, we don’t have indestructible armor suits to hide in. However, we often do quite the same thing by hardening our hearts, minds and emotions to the cold pains of an often cruel world. Just like Ironman, we get hurt a couple of times and go right to work on building our armor plating so sources of pain can never touch our soft interior again.

We often justify our armor as necessary to keep us from getting hurt, and we often us it offensively to tear out the hearts of those that we assume may hurt us before they ever have a chance to make any kind of a move. We take refuge in our armor, feeling secure from the reaches of the outside world. The problem is… living inside the armor is lonely and suffocating.

You see, living like Ironman provides a tough exterior which keeps the hostile world out, but it also keeps out the tender touches, warm embraces and gentle kisses of countless loved ones and acquaintances. Some get good at revealing their true identities to a handful that they trust, removing the armor briefly to share their vulnerability with family and a small circle of friends. However, as soon as the comfort zone is breached… WOOSH! back up goes the armor.

This is especially true when it comes to meeting strangers. For some reason, we humans have this ingrained fear that anyone we do not know is out to cheat, kill and destroy us, so most are quite good at throwing up the armor when new people are around. The problem with living in such a world is that everyone is cold, calculated and on their guard. Very difficult for the love to shine through those dark, iron suits.

Then, while we sit back behind our iron shielding and watch a cruel world killing and destroying itself, we tell ourselves that our armor is needed and should even be strengthened more. Besides, isn’t all that cruelty out there in the world what I am protecting myself from? Aren’t I justified in wearing my ironclad suit? Shouldn’t I turn a cold shoulder of iron to those who would dare try to get close to me? After all, they’re only trying to penetrate my armor so they can hurt me!

The sad fact is, the reason our world is in the shape it’s in is because so many have taken the Ironman attitude. Instead of love, tolerance, trust, compassion and sympathy, we exude a protective mentality that is distrustful of all around us. As genuine attempts to make contacts and friends are continuously met by that cold, iron stare of noninterest and suspicion, it rivets another layer of iron to the shielding.

People in the world aren’t born ruthless and cold. All start out as innocent, vulnerable babies who easily release feelings and emotions. It is a series of ironclad people in each one’s life that causes them to retaliate in kind by building a suit of armor.

Monsters are not born, they are made… and they are made by those with whom they come in contact throughout their lives. Those that have hurt them, taken advantage of them and treated them with Ironman coldness, often hurting first so that they themselves are not hurt. And when these wounded souls reach out for help, oftentimes they are met with more ironman attitudes of judgment and mistrust, all of which drive the person deeper into their suit of unfeeling armor.

I’m not speaking against armor. It is definitely a necessity in certain situations that come at us through life. However, my concern is that many become so comfortable with wearing their armor at all times that it becomes a second skin which cannot be shed. It is at this point that we start to become what it is that we fear; a cold, hard Ironman that seeks to resist feeling and cause pain before it is caused to us.

Love is an armor so much more powerful than iron. Love feels pain deeply, this is true, but it also absorbs the pain, grows stronger by doing so and then loves even deeper. Love reaches out and exudes a peace and trust to all people. Love is also deep in knowledge and reveals to us those who might want to harm us so that painful situations are often avoided.

My hope is that more and more souls would shed the iron armor and allow the love and light to shine to a world that appears to be growing darker… a world that desperately needs to feel such warmth again.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Kisses of God

Everyone likes a warm embrace and a tender kiss from a loved one. It makes us feel wanted, needed, appreciated and loved... that we're not alone. This is an important part of the human experience as we naviate through what can sometimes be a difficult journey.

When it comes to spirituality, most people gauge their experience on the miraculous. We normally pray and desire those big manifestations which give us proof that God exists and is actively involved in our lives. We often think that if God will deliver me from this excruciating pain, debilitating illness, or give me a financial miracle that will alleviate my dire situation then He is real and I have been noticed.

However, we are given gentle manifestations of that love and accompaniment on a regular basis. We often are simply too busy to notice and we ignore them. We get caught up in our helter skelter lifestyles, with a thousand things on our minds and seemingly just as many tasks and errands to achieve. We often invest all of our energy into the journey of life and miss the many energy providing circumstances which occur along our paths.

These regular and common touches from the spirit world are what I like to call the kisses of God. What is a "kiss from God"? It is when you throw out into the cosmos a quick and even insignificant passing thought or desire. Something like, "I would really love to have a banana split". Then, within a very short time, you are out and about, walk into a shop and, while you are routinely buying your quick lunch in order to hurry back to work, the attendant says, "You are our 10,000th customer and receive a free banana split!"

Do you think that such things are unusual? They are not. I could share hundreds of experiences throughout my lifetime of this sort of thing happening. And, the more you pay attention to these kisses of God, the more you will notice that they happen quite regularly in your life. What's more, the more you notice and acknowledge them, the more frequently they will happen.

I have been passionately and consciously following a spiritual journey for over 30 years and I have come to deeply appreciate and cherish these regular "kisses" from the spirit world. Sure, I have experienced what I call miracles, those large, flashy, seemingly impossible manifestations, but they are few and far between. If I were to rely on those experiences to energize my faith, I could easily waver and doubt.

However, if I focus on those tender kisses that occur at regular intervals then I see that companionship often and feel the closeness and support of that which unseen. I've come to view it like this... if a loved one comes to me frequently and offers a supportive hug and a gentle kiss to my cheek and I ignore them, soon they will feel rejected and those comforting visits will grow less and less frequent. Then, when I am in a jam and need help in a "miraculous" way, they will say, "You have ignored me time and time again. Why would I want t help you now!"

It is, therefore, very important to anticipate, notice and joyfully and thankfully accept these kisses of God: important for the relationship, as well as important for strengthening the foundation of our faith. Take the time to notice the next time something "coincidental" happens. Stop for a brief moment and say a heartfelt "thank you".

I challenge you to go out this day, expecting and anticipating a warm and tender kiss from God. Be sure to write and share your experience!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

New Google Caffeine Search Engine Processing

Spirituality, and science that relates to it, is the theme I want to focus on in my blog. However, since I am a writer who researches and writes for various venues, I often come across some interesting subjects which I will occassionally share, which I think my readers will enjoy. This is one of those subjects.

Google has recently released their much anticipated Caffeine search engine and they claim that it will provide the online world 50% fresher and faster search results. A quote from their official blog site heralds, "Caffeine provides 50% fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog, or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before."

The Benficiaries of Google's Warm Favor

The favor of Google's spotlight looks to fall on regularly updated blogs, social bookmarking sites, news sites and active forums. In order to tap into the high energy of Google Caffeine, take note of the site boosters which this revolutionary product offers to those gleaning substance from the World Wide Web.

Regularly Updated Blogs - The helmsmen of Google have always appreciated fresh content and frequent updates which bloggers regularly contribute, but Google Caffeine now gives these masters of the written word special favor by elevating ratings as soon as fresh content is published. Through Caffeine, this content is indexed in seconds to several minutes and remains in Google's database for longer periods, especially if they're connected to social media sites.

So, what does this mean for bloggers? They can earn more from their blog posts if they can produce more comments regarding their posts. This shows a rise in popularity with the content and, as comments are frequently added and answered, new content is being generated. This causes ratings to rise, as well as to remain for longer periods in the search engine database for that particular niche. The more social bookmarking sites are utilized, the greater the chance to grow in popularity, receive interactive comments and obtain higher favor through continuous spider visits that push the ratings higher.

Social Bookmarking Websites and Portals - Social bookmarking sites have soared in popularity over the past several years. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Digg are adored by Google for their real-time user interface and interactive features. People in mass are drawn to them, eager to interact with an ever increasing global social market.

These sites should explode in popularity through the help of Google Caffeine because they are loaded with fresh content and news at a regular and fast pace. Thus, the importance of boggers and site owners linking up to these power houses which cater to millions of active users looking to interact through such online medias.

Forums - Forums are increasingly growing in popularity behind blogs and social sites because they give a voice to people who have a genuine interest in active discussions along specific topics. Forums are flexible in that one can jump into an active discussion, or can open a new, relevant thread, both of which can provide valuable links to a waiting website.

Since forums fall into Google's love of fresh, new content through constantly updated comments and discussions, look for Caffeine to actively index these sites as well. This power shift will cause many forum owners to adjust policies and rules in order to provide the highest quality possible under the scrutinizing eyes of Caffeine's crawlers. Of course, this will pay big dividends to the forum owners, as well as to those who link to active forums and draw attention to their sites, which will boost popularity and ratings in return.

Some Major Changes

Sites which are considered to be static will now need to update regularly to be noticed by Google. If your site doesn't require constant updating then a solution would be to embed an active blog, forum, or news site into your homepage. Caffeine's spiders will pickup on the constant updates from that linked site and will consider your site as active. Adding widgets and social bookmarking buttons will also help as long as visitors utilize them to show activity.

Page loading speed is another big change. Flash sites have become very popular, but with the mass move of mobile phone to internet access, quick loading times are highly favored by Google now. Site owners and designers will need to work out quick page load process solutions through server compression and adjusting CSS files and jave scripts.

Backlinks to social bookmarking sites, news sites, forums and niche industry blogs will also help to draw that coveted Google attention. Such backlinks will assist in securing better search results due to the link's fresh and frequent content additions. This strategy will help SEO and marketing companies and sites, but page relevance, quality and visitor popularity will still play the dominating role in achieving higher rankings.

On-site optimization and meta-tag usage will also play a major role in elevating ranking, as site owners and operators will no longer be able to take an idle attitude toward their sites. Fresh material will need to be provided on a regular basis. Keywords and phrases are also taking a backseat to the new search criteria. Although still important, Google is now more interested in fresh, well written content added consistantly. Those used to operating solely on high keyword usage will find that their sites will struggle with climbing through the rankings if they do not adjust to these new strategies.

The voice of the internet user has been heard and Google is paying attention!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Beyond Our Range of Vision


This photo from the Hubble telescope, entitled Hubble Ultra Deep Field, is one of my favorite photographs of all time. It puts unimaginable unreality into a realm of imaginable reality.

The article accompanying this photo when it was released said that astrophysicists counted over 10,000 galaxies in this one photo. Now, that may not be so impressive, but then it went on to say that this photo is like looking up into space through a drinking straw! When you look at the fact that space wraps around us by 360 degrees then this image becomes mindboggling.

Anyone who refutes other life and life forms existing has a very small mind indeed once this photo is pondered. We earthlings have barely explored our own Milky Way galaxy which contains approximately 200 billion stars, all of which could contain orbiting planets like our sun, and certainly some of which are likely habitable. Then you look at this photo and multiply our galaxy times trillions (certainly by more, but I don't know what comes after trillions! lol) and you can see that unimaginable has now become imaginable. Images of a Star Wars intergalactic bar scene come to mind, complete with all sorts of strange creatures milling together.

Now consider our range of vision. Vision is made possible by the eyes capturing electromagnetic radiation... energy pulses... which are then converted to electric signals and sent to the brain for interpretation. However, the human eye can only detect electromagnetic radiation in a limited range of between 380 to 760 nm (nanometres).

Other frequencies of light are undetectable to the human eye. Radio waves, microwaves, terahertz radiation and infrared radiation all exist on a lower frequency, below our range of vision. Ultraviolet light, x-rays and gamma rays all operate at a higher frequency, above our range of vision. Does this mean that those things do not exist, simply because we can't see them? Of course not. We know they exist because we are able to experience the reality of their exisitence in one form or another.

Now consider spirituality. Is it possible for other beings to exist on other frequency levels (dimensions) below or above what our eyes can detect? I would have to ask, how many reading this have had experiences in their lives that they would consider uncanny coincidence, déjá vu, or even miraculous? Could these possibly be detections of something, or someone, interacting in our lives which emanates another frequency of electromagnetic radiation and therefore is simply undetectable to the naked eye? I would have to say that based on our growing knowledge of what is "out there", this is a possibility at the very least and a probability in reality.

I have studied spirituality AND science for more than 30 years of my life and I have come to a conclusion. Althought it has been often suggested that these are opposites, I totally believe that science helps us to understand spirituality, as well as spirituality helping us to understand science.

Quantum physics suggests that all things are interconnected through webs of energy that do not possess space or time. True spirituality has been expressing that fact for ages. Opening our minds to possibility is the key to piecing together the puzzle of life and, perhaps, learning to use our "third eye" to see and interact with dimensions that lie just beyond our view of "reality".

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Times They Are A Changin'

We live in incredible times! Things are changing worldwide at a rapid pace. Record setting floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornados, etc., continue to wreak havoc on worldwide civilization. Are these signs of things to come? As humanity struggles to cope with life and security threatening events, more and more people ask, “Is this the time of cosmic change?”

What is cosmic change? And how does it affect me?

Cosmic change is what civilizations of old have been prophesying would take place in the “end of times”. It is a time when all things that are known would change into a form that is more advanced and “unknown”, although rising to a new stage of experience and consciousness; higher frequencies, as it were. But what does that mean?

Prophetic voices from the Holy Bible to the I-Ching to Nostradamus to the Mayan Calendar to more recent visions by Edgar Casey, all foretell of a time when the natural forces of the world would cause upheaval and the human forces of the world would react by violence in kind, fighting against the winds of change. Definitely, it is a time of chaos, but it is also a time of hope and rejoicing. Why?

Everything in the cosmos is connected through an energy infrastructure, often referred to in ancient cultures as the “web of life”, or “tree of life”. Even quantum physicists have found that a molecule located at enormous distances from another will respond INSTANTLY to the first molecule's disturbance, despite the overwhelming distance or proximity. This proves through quantum theory that all things experience what other things experience in absolute real time.

And through the Hubble telescope, science has come to learn that life (of stars and planets) is born out of chaos. Why should it be any different for us (the earth), a mere dust molecule within the cosmic scheme of things?

Why Should I care?

As the new age rapidly approaches, those who feel, comprehend and act in line with the cosmic change will ride those waves of change, much like a surfer rides the waves of an ocean to a shoreline. Those who resist could easily find themselves fighting, struggling and drowning against powerful waves of change which will engulf them in oblivion, sending them back to endure past lessons of life, faith, acceptance and love.

Total abandonment of self, of materialism, of constrained mindsets could make the all-important difference of who will ascend and who will be “recycled” through a lower dimension of reality. Again, quantum physics suggests that multiple dimensions exist, much like radio waves in the atmosphere around us. If our senses can only pick up a minute fraction of light, sound, smell, hearing and touch, why is it so hard to believe that these dimensions exist…. just out of reach of our physical senses? Dogs can hear sounds that we do not. Microwaves, radio waves and gamma rays exist on a plain above what we cannot see, feel, or hear. So why is it so difficult to assume that a whole world exists just above what we can fathom from our natural state when we exist in such a limited plane?

Come Explore the Cosmos

These places and planes DO exist! And with the proper techniques, we are able to tap into a whole new world of discovery which is afforded us by the power of progression and expanse… just as reflected in the cosmos surrounding us. Our destiny, as life forms that exist in a gigantic universe of growth and expansion, is to grow and expand WITH it! We are not but mites riding on a speck of dust floating through the universe, but life forms which are destined to come to know the Excellency of the one who created such a process for ascension.

The following blogs will explore the theories, suggestions and roads that lead to a higher calling, and all who choose to venture along these paths will certainly find knowledge to help in their ascension through time and space…. to the next level of consciousness and existence.

Come Explore the Cosmos!!