“You would need a jeweller’s loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond,” says astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team of researchers that discovered it.

Wow.

Read the whole article at BBC online

I just found out that Masaru Emoto is going to be in St. Petersburg, Florida on September 11 for a workshop on intention, consciousness and water. His work has been an inspiration to me ever since I discovered his research portrayed in the film “What The Bleep Do We Know?” where a subway exhibit illustrates how intention and prayer materially changes the structure of water (as evidenced by crystalline formations upon freezing).

I wrote my own prayer for water a few weeks ago and had intended to post it here. In the midst of wedding planning and knackered from life’s wild ride, I had forgotten. My heart feels heavy, my optimism increasingly difficult to sustain even as I know all the best efforts are being made now. My heart speaks: “This effort of ours is one of them. Words can heal as easily as they can divide. You must choose.”

And now, Emoto’s prayerful words sing in my ears: “Please forgive me. I love  you. Thank you.”

Here is my Prayer for Water, first offered to the Kalamazoo River on 7.27.2010. 

Prayer for Water

I honor your flow,

your swirly beauty,

your fervent spin,

and gentle floating.

I delight in

your cleansing rhythms

and fertile beauty.

I sing to your trout, salamander,

frog, beetle, muskrat,

lily, willow and reed.

Thank you for your perfection.

I rejoice in your power

of comfort and rejuvenation.

I offer you my love and protection.

I honor your flow.

Do you have a poem to share?

Karen

Learn more about Masaru Emoto’s workshop in St Pete at Wings Bookstore.
You can also participate in the workshop via the internet.

The New Scientist article, Echoes of the past: The sites and sounds of prehistory, reviews evidence from the emerging field of acoustical archeology. Do stone circles, dolmens, ancient temples and earthworks amplify sound in ways that are of intentional design and if so, are those amplifications effective or beneficial?

Bruno Fazenda at the University of Salford, UK., studied a concrete reconstruction of the Stonehenge monument at Maryhill, Washington state:

“What Fazenda measured was impressive. “It’s actually like walking into an enclosed space with a lively acoustic,” he says. “It is a really good space for speech because reflections from the stones mean you can be heard everywhere within it, even if you’re hidden behind a stone.” Clap your hands in the space and the sound reverberates around the monument as it reflects from stone to stone. The reverberation takes about 1.2 seconds to die down- typical for an opera house or school hall but astoundingly long for a space with no ceiling.”

Although the original purpose of the site is unclear, the resonating qualities of the megalithic stone circle may have been to assist ceremonial gatherings, perhaps to allow participants to hear easily within the large space. Sound amplification in the space is revealed in this study, yet intentionality or usefulness remain unclear.

Roman engineer Vitruvius suggested placing resonating bronze vases in theaters with the intention of amplifying actors’ voices. In other parts of the ancient world, vases were installed under seats in churches (“lydpotter” in Denmark) to purportedly dampen sound.

“Various scientists have examined vases found in about 200 churches and mosques built between the 11th and 16th centuries in many parts of Europe. Measurements have shown that the vases do very little for the acoustics of the churches: there are usually not enough of them, or they resonate at frequencies different from those needed to support the human voice. Why they were put there remains a mystery (Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol 112, p 2333).”

Current research suggests neither vase placement practice had much of an effect on audible sound. Perhaps another kind of frequency was intended to be manipulated by the vases?

Omphalos comes to mind. In Greece, omphalos were used in divination at Delphi and other oracles in the ancient world. Apollo is shown seated on an omphalos in coins and sculpture. Does the omphalos direct energy of the earth through the human chakra system and into the heavens? (Apollo is, after all, a sun god.) Clues to the process of divination exist in Helena Blavatsky’s esoteric description of a typical Delphi seeress in “Isis Unveiled:”

“A Pythia, upon the authority of Plutarch, Iamblichus, Lamprias, and others, was a nervous sensitive; she was chosen from among the poorest class, young and pure. Attached to the temple, within whose precincts she had a room, secluded from every other, and to which no one but the priest, or seer, had admittance, she had no communications with the outside world, and her life was more strict and ascetic than that of a Catholic nun. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapors, these subterranean exhalations penetrating her whole system produced the prophetic mania. In this abnormal state she delivered oracles. She was sometimes called ventriloqua vates,* the ventriloquist‐prophetess.”

But I digress, we’re taking acoustics here, not metaphysics. My mind glances on Johannes Kepler’s music of the spheres theory, where planets all emit a sound frequency, and a BBC article I read on solar flares a while back:

“Immense coils of hot, electrified gas in the Sun’s atmosphere behave like a musical instrument, scientists say. These “coronal loops” carry acoustic waves in much the same way that sound is carried through a pipe organ. Solar explosions called micro-flares generate sound booms which are then propagated along the coronal loops.

“The effect is much like plucking a guitar string,” Professor Robert von Fay-Siebenbuergen told BBC News at the National Astronomy Meeting in Preston.”

Maybe Kepler was on to something when he wrote Harmonices Mundi in 1619, five books promoting the idea of earthly harmony as a facet of geometry and a reflection of musical harmony. That’s a topic for another day.

~

Afterthought and speculation: What OBEs speak to this these findings? Could amplified sound waves in megalithic stone circles be generated and harnessed for locomotion or energetic healing? Was Stonehenge a facility in the ancient global society that Michael Tellinger proposes and if so, and was sound amplification a key facet of that society?

This video was taken 4 miles to the west of our home, 22 miles downstream from Marshall, Michigan, site of the spill of 800,000+ gallons of crude oil.

The caustic smell is lifting here and was less noticeable downstream in Comstock, Michigan. There’s a dam between Battle Creek and Comstock where Morrow’s Pond sits. They released water there this morning, according to one of the residents we chatted with at Merrill’s Park this afternoon. Will contaminated water linger there? Will it affect the power plant?

Pondering wildlife on the pond. Nature still sparkles in the oily water. Send love.

LOVE!

Karen

And if you want to participate in wildlife rescue along The Kalamazoo, here’s a link to the Battle Creek Enquirer article with information.

Stream at Bridge Park, Kalamazoo River, August, 2009, Battle Creek, Michigan

My views on the oil leak in Marshall, Michigan, less than 20 miles from my home, have morphed from a curious intellectual review of the symbolic nature of this occurrence to irritation at the unsavory smells permeating the air here, now wondering how long this will affect daily life. My heart has gone out to my gulf coast friends over the past few months, but now I have my own example of what it’s like to experience crude oil uncorked in places you wouldn’t expect to find it.

So I look for the best possible way to view this frustrating situation, knowing there is always a solution unfolding. I let my mind wander, pondering Law of Attraction. My calm mind is more likely to see new possibilities…

• The people living in south-central Michigan had an intense focus on the Gulf Oil Spill, attracting a smaller disaster to our own locality for review and response.
• The people living in Michigan had an intense focus on transforming oil dependence on our planet, thereby attracting an event to invoke a powerful response among the populace, fueling innovation, legislation and new solutions to our human energy needs.
• The people living on our planet desire a change in the global dynamics of energy exchange and commerce, and the crises were attracted to our nation because the souls capable of providing innovation to create new solutions to satisfy this desire for change are more easily brought together in this locale.

These ideas place an emphasis on looking forward and finding solutions: Our world, a virtual lab of intention, attraction and realization of goals seeded by thought.

• This situation manifested and it must be accepted. I can see the rivers as beautiful and vibrant, knowing the earth is a self-healing organism. I see earth and all its waterways as whole and healed, willing to see beauty in the crude-ness of it all.
• The situation can strengthen one’s ability to see beauty in sludge. The oil is from the earth, as yet unrefined, and the earth has the capacity to deal with this disaster. Can we accept this as natural and love its earth nature, smelly, goopy, toxic as it is? If we feel responsible, can we forgive ourselves for making this mess?

Crude oil is natural and it’s toxic to flora and fauna. I must accept this. I know resources exist and are ideas are being generated to deal with this situation, as many talented and inspired humans exist to bring new solutions to life.

So how do I feel about this? Mostly, I sense progress is afoot. Yes, I wish it weren’t in my backyard (the smell, the toxins, my well) but I am glad to be near to witness how our region handles this. I am getting goosebumpy… innovation is at hand and we must believe it. Getting our panties in a bunch will not help soothe the nation’s anxiety about oil.

Sometimes she goes, and sometimes she doesn’t go. Yesterday, she didn’t go the way we planned, but she’s going anyway. She’s flowing down the Kalamazoo River past my neighborhood on the way to Lake Michigan and I am sending her love along the way.

UPI Article: Enbridge to cleanup

UPI Article: River moving quickly from storms

Pipelines, current and planned, in North America

Shweeb is a human-powered transportation system designed to elevate an ordinary city’s transport into an uber-cool track weaving through the cityscape like a Habitrail through a ten year old’s bedroom. I’d heard about it from Christina, one of my hip, passionate and earth-loving pals, and it’s so unique I really couldn’t envision it until I saw the pics. Now that I have, I am dreaming of these cool little pods. I hope you have fun dreaming, too.

These ruins are abandoned American theme parks, and I was surprised to see the Prehistoric Forest in Irish Hills, Michigan listed among them. I remember driving by there when I was kid, but I’m not sure we ever went in. Deer Forest in Coloma, now that I remember, delightfully cheesy and still open to this day.

Video of the dilapidated Lincoln Park in Dartmouth, Massachusettes, shows pictures of slender saplings growing up through weathered benches like blades of grass through spring snow.

Abandoned American Theme Parks

Enjoy this list of Michigan oddities around the state

Genie emerging from his lamp along Storybook Lane, Deer Forest, Coloma (image from deerforest.com)

I just knew it. When military jackets and peg leg jeans came back into fashion, I knew it wouldn’t be too long until fanny packs made a way back into our lives. Wendy Williams just ran a montage of celebrity photos on her TV show, including Drew Barrymore and Donna Karan, wearing trendy fanny packs (aka “belt bags”). Rihanna is sporting a double-decker Louis Vuitton bag above.

I love the portability factor. I carry lip balm and mints in my disc golf bag and find they tend to collect dust and moisture, no matter how deep I pack them. Add to that the extra stooping to get into your bag when you’re on the course, well… the belt pack is beginning to sound alright.

If I see one I like, I just may buy one. Just try not to laugh when you see me wearing it.

A computer rendering of Mars from the University of Colorado’s geological sciences department shows a vast ocean covering a third of the surface of the red planet. The imaging, based on surface data from nearly a decade of NASA and ESA orbiting missions, suggests a planet capable of life, an alternate view for what many consider to be a barren, angry planet. (It is, after all, named after the God of War and potentially capable of Martians who might vaporize us with a ray gun. Or eat our brains.)

I like this new view of Mars. The red planet plays a key role in my natal astrology chart: The Sun, Moon and Saturn in Aries (governed by Mars) ignite near the Piscean tip of my watery grand trine like a red hot horseshoe plunged into a barrel of cold water. Fiery me is impatient and unstoppable. Watery me is reclusive and serene. Together they forge balance: composure with impulse and eagerness with reserve. I’m glad to have this new image of Mars to reflect on when I’m feeling burnt (or soaked) from imbalance in my own life.

Science Daily’s article: Ancient Ocean May Have Covered Third of Mars

I’ve been fascinated with vibrational medicine ever since my first stint in grad school when Fritjof Capra’s The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems was required reading. I had already discovered the work of Louise Hay and Joan Borysenko, offering mind-body-spirit approaches to healing and wellness. In Capra’s exposition, I found information which shifted my world view in the direction of my soul’s longing— that of the esoteric, of the seemingly hidden forces of the intangible on the tangible.

I am reminded of John 1:1 in the Bible: “In the beginning, there was the word”— anecdotal evidence of the power of sound to create somethingness (physical) from nothingness (non-physical).

Sound temples are my latest fascination. Michael Tellinger has been researching artifacts, including the phenomenon of stone circles worldwide, hinting at an ancient global society. In one ancient circle, he found stones of a material composition that ring when you strike them. Imagine a megalithic stone structure, activated by striking, that begins to ring and interacts with the other stones around it that also begin to ring, which creates a harmonic in a circular structure, suggested to be a standing wave by Tellinger.

Aerial reconstruction of Woodhenge (UK)

Some of these structures were activated by human voice, possibly in groups, akin to singing in church today. Were these purely ceremonial sites, or are these relics of an aeon’s old technological age? If the latter, what was the energy produced by these sound emanations harnessed for?

Looking to science, I find an article in Archaelogy Today’s online edition: The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Meresamun was a part-time singer and musician in the interior of the Temple of Amun (also known as Amun-Ra) at Karnak, likely from a long lineage of women who entertained in service to the temple, and in Mere’s case, a wealthy family, as the remains of her coffin indicate. In her time— around 800 BC in Thebes, Egypt— women were singers, priestesses or “wives of god,” inside the temple, while men played instruments outside the temple.

Temple of Amun Karnak Floor Plan

I look further and find photos of the Hypostyle Hall in the interior and a floor plan of the temple. The columns are huge and arranged inside a rectangular wall in straight rows unlike the older megalithic stone circles, a four sided enclosure rather than an open, circular perimeter. (Some, like Woodhenge, with interior concentric rings.)

But Meresamun’s life history is a mere three thousand years ago, and Tellinger suggests that the civilization who built the stone circles and other megaliths world wide were perhaps 450,000 years ago in our timeline, back in the Paleozoic Era, itself another fascinating hypothesis.

Tellinger is touring the US early this autumn and you may be able to hear him present his evidence live in a city near you. If not, watch Tellinger discuss his controversial theory on man as a slave species on his website, slavespecies.com. His book is also available on Amazon.com.

Read about Meresamun in the book that accompanied the 2009 exhibit in Chicago’s ARCE (American Research Center in Egypt) and Oriental Institute.