Ancient Egypt was one of the most advanced and lasting of the ancient civilization. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC according to conventional wisdom. Their civilization has captivated the minds and imaginations of children and scholars alike, and for good reason. But there are some pretty uncommon facts about Egypt that many don’t know.

1. Both men and women wore makeup.

Makeup is seen by many today as something women use exclusively, but to the ancient Egyptians, makeup was for men and women alike.

They often wore large amounts of makeup because they believed it gave them special godly protection. Women often stained their cheeks with red paint and both sexes wore perfumes.

2. Egyptians domesticated numerous animals.

Everyone knows that Egyptians kept cats as household pets, revering them as god-like creatures, but they also had a reverence for hawks, dogs, lions, ibises, and baboons. These animals were frequently kept in Egyptian homes and were often mummified and buried with their dead owners.

3. King Tutankhamen may have been killed by a hippo.

There isn’t much known about the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen, but some historians now think that King Tut may have died from being crushed by a hippo. His embalmed body lacked his heart or his chest wall, which was unusual. He also had wounds that were likely bites from a hippo. Continue reading →

We’ve all heard that milk is good for you. It has vitamin D and calcium – both ingredients for strong bones and good health, right?

Today, some new data is casting some doubt on the claims. It turns out, scientists aren’t totally clear on how much milk actually helps your bones. Exercise and other sources of vitamin D may actually do a lot more for overall bone strength, as is demonstrated in societies that don’t drink milk. In milk-heavy communities, the rate of bone fractures is actually higher. Is milk to blame? Potentially.

Not only is milk not necessarily good for strong bones, a new study has found that there’s some real unhealthy stuff in milk.

The study, conducted in 2013 by CoBank, found fat content, flavorings, and added sugars contribute to childhood obesity, which has reached pandemic proportions in the U.S. and other western countries.

Milk, among other dairy products, is a major part of America’s obesity problem. Milk is one of the largest sources of saturated fats and has been linked to diseases like prostate cancer and diabetes. Continue reading →

An old soul is a special person – one who lives life a little bit differently. To put it simply, an old soul is one that has reincarnated many times, as opposed to a younger, fresher soul that may be walking this Earth for the first time ever.

Old souls tend to have different attitudes, habits, temperaments and frankly, they’re just old at heart. Because of this, old souls tend to have pretty universal problems in life.

Old souls love spending time alone.

Old souls tend to be more introverted than their younger counterparts. They find strength in solitude and are often very comfortable with themselves.

As a result, they may not enjoy doing things like hitting the bars or going clubbing. This is one area where old souls seem “boring” to younger ones, but they don’t feel boring.

Old souls attract people.

Old souls often attract people to them for their wisdom and good humor, but often times, the consequence of that is that their energies are drained. Old souls tend to be extremely empathic people, meaning lots of attention and interaction tends to drain them.

Old souls tend to be loners.

Old souls like developing meaningful relationships with people.

As a result, you won’t likely see them going to a rager of a party.

Instead, they prefer one on one interactions or small groups of friends together.

They prefer to spend their energy building a tight knit circle. Continue reading →

It’s true that loneliness affects some more than others. However, to traditional medicine, it is not always clear why some are more susceptible than others.

Whatever the case, it is clear that some people desire romantic relationships yet continue to stay single. It could be that some of them are empaths who have the tendency to feel overwhelmed and fatigued in their close relationships to others.

Empathetic people are a unique subset of humans. Those who can easily intuit and even take on the energetic themes of others can very easily become overloaded and exhausted when encountering the intimacy of a close relationship.

They can feel taken over when not given the personal time to decompress, which is why they may both want close relationships while at the same time fear for their own safety.

Obviously, traditional coupling will not work for many empaths who feel this way. In order to succeed in love, empathetic people must assert their need for personal space much more than is common.

While with a mate it is not as extreme as the necessary physical space in public situations or with strangers, there may be times when the partner is confused by the feeling that intimacy is desired but the need for space must be granted. Continue reading →

Sioux Chiefs, 1905

Edward Sheriff Curtis was born on a Wisconsin farm in 1868, and ended up a commercial photographer in Seattle. He is famous for photographing Princess Angeline, the daughter of the Duwamish chief Seattle, for whom the city was named.

That experience kindled a fascination with Native American culture within him that would remain for the rest of his life. He photographed tribal people during expeditions to Alaska and Montana, and was also approached by J.P. Morgan about funding a documentary project of American indigenous people. The result was a 20-volume series called The North American Indian.

Backed by Morgan, Curtis spent over 20 years traveling North America, capturing more than 40,000 pictures of over 80 different tribes. In addition, he made thousands of recordings of native songs and language, and wrote down their histories, legends, and biographies of their great people.

In an effort to capture what he saw as a swiftly disappearing tribal culture, Curtis at times posed his subjects in settings that more resembled their pre-Western settlement existences rather than their actual present lives. All stereotypes aside, Curtis’ exhaustive body of work is an impressive historical record of Native life at the beginning of the 20th century.

Navajo traveling through Canyon de Chelly, AZ, 1904

Apsaroke mother and child, 1908

Continue reading →

Sometimes curiosity gets the better of us. More often than not, though, our curiosity leads us to fascinating places we’ve never been that will change us for the better.

Thankfully, there are plenty of books out there that will satisfy our natural inquisitiveness. At times, we come across works that change our lives in profound ways. For example, we are brought up to see one reality (this world), one way of thinking to discover things (science), and one spirituality (our cultural religions). At some point, we are bound to come across alternative interpretations like multiverse theory, the philosophy of science, and different spirituality.

Below we’ve chosen five groundbreaking books for you that can help you on your journey toward a different knowledge than perhaps the one with which you were brought up. We hope they inspire you too!

The Secret of the Soul, by William Buhlman

The jury is out as to what the nature of reality actually is. It is an ancient question that has been asked by philosophers for all of written history. Perhaps you have been on this journey to look deeper than what you can see superficially and come across groundbreaking concepts such as the law of attraction, psychic abilities or out of body experiences.

If you have, then you certainly are aware of how our society at large feels about such things. It can be difficult to reach our own potential when it seems like everywhere there are skeptics. Continue reading →