It is clear that flu, colds, bruises, cuts, infections, broken bones or even cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis etc. are disturbances that belong to the physical plane. Serious illnesses are constantly reminding us of the death of our physical body and they are all to be seen as part of what it means to be an embodied living being. But you haven’t thought that these illnesses are just effects, and if you were a shaman you would be interested in the cause.

Suppressing the effects of illness with medications on the physical plane will do no good. Instead, the causes of the illness must be addressed in order for the true healing to occur.

In other words, the ultimate causes of all illness are found within the imaginal realms. Seen from the shaman’s perspective, the causes of illness are not viruses, bacteria or microbes. The true causes are actually the negative internal states that appear within us in response to traumatic or negative life experiences. Thus, three classic causes of spiritual illness can be listed:

1: Disharmony

It’s experienced when life suddenly loses its meaning or in a case when we have lost an important connection to life.

For instance, if a person loses another person with whom he or she shares a deep bond. Let’s say a death of the spousal partner. The survivor may go into crisis because of the unbearable grief and within a short time he or she may face some medical challenge, like cancer. Continue reading →

I have to admit, I love the feeling of scrubbing down with those tiny beads, that open up the pores, exfoliating and really getting down into that tough dirt. Nothing feels better.

But did you know that those tiny beads are usually made of synthetic plastic? and that everyday, millions of these tiny beads are washed down the drain, contributing for a large percent of the plastic contamination in our oceans?

Researchers state that there are 360,000 pieces of plastic for every square mile of the ocean and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic find their way to the ocean every year.

While most of the plastic found in oceans is from waste products such as bottles and food waste wrapping, a study released in the journal of marine pollution bulletin states that micro-beads could result in 80 tons of micro plastic waste, as these tiny beads pass easily through sewage treatment plants. Continue reading →

Mother nature never lets us down, proving time and time again that everything we will always need is right in front of us, if we would only dig a little further.

In a recent media briefing, at the Australian Science and Medical Centre, Dr Justin Chalker from Flinders University announced that they have developed a “A brand new, dirt cheap, non-toxic polymer that literally sucks mercury out of water and soil is set to become a game changer in the battle against one of the world’s most reviled pollutants.”

The material is made from the industrial waste products sulphur and limonene a colorless liquid hydrocarbon extracted from the peel of citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges and is very inexpensive to produce given the amount of global waste. Making it affordable to produce in large-scale environmental clean ups.

Mercury contamination plagues many areas of the world, affecting both food and water supplies and creating a serious need for an efficient and cost-effective method to trap this mercury,” says Dr Chalker.

“Until now, there has been no such method, but the new sulphur-limonene polysulfide addresses this urgent need.”

Japan, known to be one of the countries who are at high risk of this toxic chemical, many contracting Minamata disease a neurological disorder that causes numbness in the hands and feet, muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision and damage to hearing and speech upon severe exposure to mercury.

This toxin has significant implications for human health, whether ingested through eating contaminated fish or contracted through the skin, mercury exposure is proven to damage the central nervous system. Those at risk in particular are pregnant women and children.

As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized in Japan as having Minamata disease (1,784 of whom had died).

“So not only is this new polymer good for solving the problem of mercury pollution, but it also has the added environmental bonus of putting this waste material to good use while converting them into a form that is much easier to store so that once the material is ‘full’ it can easily be removed and replaced.” states Dr. Chalker

Dr. Chalkers polymer has also been found to remove toxic metals from water even in small amounts as the dark red material turns yellow when it absorbs mercury.

by LJ Vanier

Once again science fiction is becoming science faction, as the robot revolution is on the rise. Not only are they taking our jobs and driving our cars, now they can read our minds!

Using a mathematical algorithm that can predict what we are about to do, bio engineers in the US have developed a robot that can calculate our intentions based on prior activity even when an action is interrupted.

So for example, if you are reaching for a cup of coffee on your desk, but your hand collides with an unexpected object that prevents you from taking hold of the coffee, someone else would be able to make a fairly accurate guess of your intended motion, but could a robot?

In order to test this theory, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, experimented with this exact scenario.  Continue reading →

The river water in the farming region of Bujama in Lima, Peru, is so heavily polluted with metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium, that growing vegetables in the area have become heavily contaminated.

Due to this crisis, engineering students at Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) have created a revolutionary invention that sucks the water from the air to grow vegetables. The students have dubbed their invention the “air orchard”.

This ingenious device is fitted with 10 de-humidifiers that filter water from the air into a drip irrigation system connected to an urban farm on the ground below.

One week into operation the Air Orchard produced 2,448 fresh heads of lettuce, that are not only free from pollution, but also the pressures of the country’s current water crisis.

Students will be handing out their crops to the locals in an effort to promote their new sustainable urban farm.

by LJ Vanier, Team Spirit

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30390041

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman, best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.; CEO and largest shareholder of Pixar Animation Studios. Yet what many people may not know is that in 2005 at a commencement speech at Stanford, he gave one of the most inspiring speeches ever. This is where most of Steve’s quotes originate from, and if it wasn’t for that day, we wouldn’t know the depth of this wonderful man.

1. Never Settle in Life

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

2. Do What You Love

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it”

3. It’s Not About Money

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time” Continue reading →