FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 30, 2015

One Trick For Higher Intelligence

It’s long been perceived that smarter people process information more quickly; however, such a theory has never been proven. Instead, scientists are now observing that people with higher IQs have the ability to weed out irrelevant data and focus on the key issues. They’re not necessarily thinking faster, just more efficiently.
A team of researchers conducted a simple visual exercise. Volunteers with IQ's from 80-140 were made to watch movies riddled with black and white bars flashing onscreen. The bars appeared in small, medium or large sizes. Onlookers had to quickly assess the bars’ direction. What the psychologist-led team found was that as IQ increased, the subjects tracked the smaller bars, and as IQ decreased, the subjects tended to monitor the larger bars but lose track of the smaller.
This is giving scientists a better explanation and understanding of intelligence. People who are less engaged with details in their visual environment but primarily picking up on the larger, more obvious stimuli will tend to have lower IQs and the appearance of slower processing. It’s only when you can allow larger details to fall into the background that you might home in on the small but crucial elements that make all the difference.
Imagine you’re in a classroom. There are noises and people all around you. On the other side of windows are trees, a sweet breeze fills the room, there are noisy colorful posters on the surrounding walls. Your points of focus need to be the teacher, and a textbook. They make up a much smaller ratio of the “stuff” in your space, but you’ll receive the most information in the class if you can tune out the larger details and tune in to one voice.
Likewise, when you’re at the coffee shop working. You might be missing the bigger activities of coffees being delivered, moms walking in with strollers, people talking, couples making out and the like, while you’re engrossed in the screen of your tiny little iPhone. So it is with strategics. To come up with unique solutions, you may need to put aside the glaring problems and find the tiny seed of opportunity that’ll grow into a fruitful enterprise. Perhaps the reason highly intelligent people can appear peculiar, and think quite differently than the rest, is because they’re literally seeing life and the world around them differently.
Concluding their report, the team wrote, “High-IQ individuals, although quick at perceiving small moving objects, exhibit disproportionately large impairments in perceiving motion as stimulus size increases.” Strangely, the smarter we are, the more impaired we may actually be in detecting what is considered irrelevant. It could be that this explains why so often we are brilliant in one thing, and totally clueless in another subject, which we've deemed unimportant; and why geniuses may be equally confused in one area of life as they are sharp in another. The report continues,” We conjecture that the ability to suppress irrelevant and rapidly process relevant information” finally helps to explain the cognitive differences among smarter folk.
Now the question is, can you expand your capacity to cut out excess and develop a laser sharp vision for the smaller, crucial details? Most experts say yes, absolutely. Practice everywhere you go and in everything you do by looking for the otherwise hidden gems amidst the noise. Doing brainteasers and mental exercises such as the games on Lumosity.com are proven to increase brain function and cognition. Don’t be distracted by the obvious. Go deeper not by seeing more, but by seeing what matters.

See more of our worldwide collective here:
http://www.ravenstarenchantments.com/

WE ARE AMERICAN ROMA!
We are citizens, not your "outsiders.
Dr Raven Dolick M.s.D.
Apr. 29, 2015

In the U.S., we’re scattered: coming from a multitude of countries, speaking many dialects, practicing disparate traditions, and observing various levels of traditionalism. But few Americans realize that there are Roma living in their midst, or that we've been here since the beginning—three Roma are said to have accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. And we Roma count a number of high-profile figures in our ranks. Guitarist Django Reinhardt was Romani, and some theorize such disparate icons as Charlie Chaplin, Michael Caine, Elvis Presley, and even former President Bill Clinton come from Roma roots.

Undocumented by the U.S. Census, We the American Roma may keep our heritage under wraps, but when it does emerge, we faced discrimination from friends, landlords, waiters, classmates, strangers, cops, store clerks, and professors. Many of us were raised with warnings not to tell others of their ethnic identity, and so many of us in America do remain a hidden ingredient in America’s melting pot.

“WE American Roma come from many different sub-groups, so it is hard for us to organize when we may have little culturally in common,”

But in the past decade, a new crop of activists within our populace has emerged, and we’re forming advocacy organizations and school programs to aid our under-served communities, determined to set the record straight on our cultural identity. But each headline-making event or raid can set our work back but only makes us more vigilant as ethnic based Romani warriors for a judicially charged status.

Maria’s story is one of the most modern American hits and especially close to home for to me, she was seven years old when she and all Romani children her age and older were taken from their Brooklyn community by authorities of the State of New York and put into institutions and foster homes. It was 1955 and flooded my Roma community, and her parents--Roma who had escaped the Holocaust in Europe as also my Father--were accused of child abuse because of their itinerant lifestyle. It was a program she likens to the forced assimilation of Native Americans through government-run boarding schools. She lost her native Romani dialect, she says, after it was beaten out of her at Catholic institutions.

In the early 80s, while teaching women’s studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ahern bumped into a woman crossing the street. “I think I’m your mother,” the woman said. She was right.

To fast forward to current, in 1985, Ahern launched her Roma-heritage organization, Lolo Diklo, which is now a roving educational museum based on Vashon, an island off Seattle. Not long after she settled there, a friend proposed she rent the cottage on her property. But the offer was rescinded just before Ahern was due to move in. The friend’s husband refused to “let a dirty gypsy on his property,” Ahern says she was told.

Since then, the islanders have come to know that derogatory remarks won’t fly with the now-retired cousin of mine and now 66-year-old Ahern, who gives anyone who uses the term “gypped” a talking to. “No one says anything insulting to me,” Ahern says. But the Maria incident was a reminder of the pervasive discrimination. “It’s as if people were gleeful finally they could prove gypsies could steal babies, when, in all the centuries of that stereotype, there's not one recorded proof it has happened once,” she says.

“Should you need to have a lighter skinned person vouch for you? Does that have to be the standard?” asks Kristin Raeesi, a 34-year-old Romani activist and grant writer at the University of Alaska. Though Raeesi has a dark complexion, her newborn son, with his blue eyes and light brown hair, and Raeesi’s younger sister, who sports light hair and bright green eyes, are proof of the diversity found in Roma populations and even within families. “The blond angel found must have been snatched by horrible dark people,” Raeesi says scathingly.

Growing up in a Wyoming town of 600 people, Raeesi was instructed to hide her Romani background and claim a more “acceptable,” as she puts it, heritage. This lesson was solidified the only time she ever heard her culture mentioned in school, when a grade school teacher read Shel Silverstein’s poem, “The Gypsies Are Coming” to the class. It begins:

“The gypsies are coming, the old people say,
To buy little children and take them away.”

After that she kept her mouth shut. “When you don’t see yourself represented in the school and you don’t see yourself even in dominant society, TV shows, or movies—maybe one reference here or there and it was always something negative—you hide,” she remembers. Today, she is out of the closet. “I know it sounds corny but I feel like I’m OK with myself—finally—it’s only taken me 30-plus years to get there.”
As this sentiment is now shared widespread in my Chillicothie Familia.

Gypsy Sisters
Nettie, Laura, Mellie and Kayla from the TLC show “Gypsy Sisters.” (TLC)
In college, Raeesi took a Balkan music class at the University of Wyoming and spoke publicly about her heritage for the first time. But shortly into the term, an anthropologist guest lecturer called the Roma a dirty and culture-less people. Raeesi couldn’t contain herself. “Stop talking,” she yelled, standing up in front of the class, near tears, and berating the woman for using her standing to discriminate. “If I hadn't been in the class, people would have said, 'I guess they really are dirty,'” Raeesi says.

The clichés of gold-draped gypsies in caravans reading fortunes and swindling outsiders have dogged Roma since they arrived in Europe as refugees from India in the Middle Ages. Considered heretics for their practice of fortune telling and palm reading, we adopted a nomadic lifestyle to avoid persecution, and practiced trades they could take on the go. A thousand years later, millions of my Familia still live across Europe in shanty towns, often targeted by police, denied social services, and even segregated within schools. Though many no longer practice traditional occupations or travel nomadically, the stereotypes persist.
Although to duly note I still live in a vardo and perform all the traits of our music with belly dance and magic to show as a living museum how we relynon our own skills without government aid to have secure family.

A reputation of thievery and crime brings with it closer monitoring and sometimes direct targeting of Roma communities, even in this great U.S.A., where the profiling is not nearly as harsh as in Europe. The 2001 Police magazine article titled “Gypsies: Kings of Con” asserts that Gypsies “look upon the rest of society simply as their ‘prey’,” and “there is no sin in stealing if you are a Gypsy.” Five years later, a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed a group of 800 or so detectives across the U.S. who call themselves “The National Association of Bunco Investigators” and who specifically patrol neighborhoods for “Gypsy crime,” mainly described as scams and fraud.
Yes Gestapo as it is, this abuse from peace keepers still runs rampant in modern Roma history in America!

Even fast forwarding to more recent indications of white supremacy rule in America, I consider the case against Morgan Ahern.

Morgan Ahern during a demonstration in Vashon, near Seattle, Washington, in the Spring of 2011. (Morgan Ahern/Lolo Diklo)
Activists’ allegations about racial profiling are an issue of semantics, says Dennis Marlock, the designated "special investigator" with the Milwaukee Police Department, who created a stir with his book License To Steal: Traveling Con Artists: Their Games, Their Rules—Your Money.

The crimes are not inherent to Roma as a whole, Marlock says, but the work of a organized criminal group of Roma who call themselves Gypsies. He equates them to the Sicilian Mafia, a criminal group within the population of Sicilians to invoke fear and control. “It’s not law enforcement that created negative connotation. If we’re guilty of bringing that to the public, then I'm guilty,” he says.

He later addresses the Roma activists who have come out against him: “It's not me causing you problems, it’s your criminal element.”

He recalls calling a meeting when “American Gypsies were flooding in by the carload” to Milwaukee. “This is America, if you claim fortune telling as what you do, fine, but if you’re gonna be ripping [people] off ... you’re going to see a lot of me,” he told them, and then asked for volunteers who submitted to being fingerprinted and photographed. I know this personally as a supportive activist for my people their at the time!

Raeesi knows the stereotypes she’s up against each time her heritage comes up as well as I do.

“When you identify yourself, you may not be starting from zero—you’re starting back from zero. First of all, we all don’t live in wagons, we don’t all travel, we don’t all tell fortunes. Some do, but a lot of us have university and college educations.” I even as a Doctor of Metaphysics degree do both successfully because many even outside of Romanies have very developed psychic awareness's but we the Roma get labeled as con's when in true accuracy many "con's" have stolen and bastardized our traditional up bringing's and life styles for their financial gain.These aren't the stories people are used to.

And mainstream media and entertainment depictions offer little diversity. “Americans tend to have a fantasy view of 'Gypsies’ from popular culture that is both romantic and criminal,” says a Dr. Silverman, noting that the depictions have been on the rise since the '70s. Representations of Roma as promiscuous, untrustworthy, and uneducated on shows like TLC’s My Big, Fat American Gypsy Wedding, which has aired for the past two years, followed by Gypsy Sisters, and National Geographic’s American Gypsies in 2012, have infuriated activists as I and hundreds like Romani's.

The issue is the narrow segment chosen for mainstream representation. It’s something that would never fly with another minority group, she points out, noting that for any one negative depiction of others, many successful, educated public figures serve as counterweights. Not so for us Roma's. “For Romani people you have these reputations, but what is the counter?” “What would make people say, ‘They’re not all like that’?” Just like not all cops are killers and all blacks criminals also.

The lack of diversity in pop culture portrayals can have real-world consequences. When TLC’s show first aired, Glenda Bailey-Mershon, a North Carolina Romani writer who tutors young Romani students, says they told her they were widely harassed. “That is a factor in young people not wanting to go to school,” she says. The entertainment industry may say depictions are harmless, but she says, as I agree, they don’t understand what power they hold. “Remembering that American TV is broadcast all over the world—and this show began in Great Britain—in places where our people have more problems, it can be the difference between getting beaten up and even losing your life.”

When 39-year-old author Oksana Marafioti first heard about the upcoming TLC show, she was excited enough about the opportunity to change mainstream perceptions that she auditioned. Meeting producers in Los Angeles, Marafioti, who used to work as a cinematographer in the movie business, told them she and her Romani peers were college educated. “They were like, ‘Yeah, but do you have gypsy weddings or get togethers where people wear traditional clothes or play violins?’”

Growing up California, my sister Marafioti had similar misconceptions about her culture. Her parents had been part of a traveling multi-generational variety show in the Soviet Union, but her father, more inclined to play Jimi Hendrix than traditional Romani music, ended up bringing the family to America and very likened to my Father and his coming to America as a circus performer after the Nazi uprisings settled. My parents didn't want to always be careful—they wanted to forget who they were and live how they wanted. My sister Marafioti's familia arrived in Hollywood when she was 15, and she found that being Gypsy made her cool. Kids would say things like, “I thought you guys all lived in caravans,” and not knowing much about her heritage, she believed it. “I was almost living the stereotype and thinking it was the truth because that’s what I was hearing.”

Negating those stereotypes is why, Marafioti says, she chose being Romani as the subject of her 2012 book, American Gypsy: A Memoir . It was a nerve-wracking undertaking for someone who rarely revealed her ethnicity beforehand, but she hoped to just change one mind into thinking, “Well look, they’re just like everyone else,” Marafioti says. “I want for people to understand behind the word Gypsy there’s an actual human being and there’s a diversity in human life.”

Her effort is apparently contagious. When she recently told her oldest son to be careful about letting people know his Romani roots, the 14-year-old struck back: “He says, ‘No, Mom, this is who I am, this is what I’m going to say.' He’s very convinced that he deserves to be able to be what he wants to be,” she says, bemused and then pauses. “Maybe he’s too young and just doesn't understand.”

Some of Marafioti’s fears came true. In 2012, when she was on tour for her memoir in California, a couple began to follow her. At two or three of her readings, she says, they heckled her. They believed, she says, that she belonged to “a subhuman category” and that “we’re prone to criminal activity, early pregnancy, and a lack of education is due to our inability to learn properly.” Not long after, Marafioti had another follower: a man who sent her threatening notes. “Gypsies must die,” she said he wrote in one.

People in the U.S.A. are actually not thinking of us like we’re human beings, and when you consider someone less than you, you can justify anything. And to be part of a freedom societal government as our's is this is very disturbing as a human race for all. The aggressors and the abused.

And yet again...... At a recent cocktail party, a woman stuck out her hand and asked Glenda Bailey-Mershon if she would read her fortune. For Bailey-Mershon, who grew up in Appalachia as a descendant of Romani slaves brought to America in the 1700s, her light hair and complexion didn't raise many eyebrows. But for anyone curious enough to ask, she cited a mixed Native American ancestry as I too do from my rezervatipn raised Cherokee mother. Today, the 64-year-old writer takes any opportunity to answer questions about the Roma.

Over the past two decades, Roma activism has been on the rise. At the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton designated Roma Heritage Month even but she also provided no evolution to any programs except schooling, but of course political challenges from modern Romani activists as I had her to at the minimal "Take Notice"!

Women especially have been claiming leadership roles. Bailey-Mershon and Raeesi are founding members of the Foundation for Roma Education and Equality (FREE), a new organization that plans to form a free school program, both online and in physical locations, for Romani teens looking to get their GED. It will tie in classes on history and culture, and maybe even a language program. Many Rom's I am elder too in America have never been taught our own history and excited to be a participant in the program. They're also advocating for Roma inclusion in Holocaust remembrance programs, where they're often ignored, even though the Nazis exterminated an estimated half a million European Roma. Yes, again an attack on the Rom's even today as a sub-species on the earth not entitled to truth and recognition.

FREE has completed a three-student test program which began in January 2012, and plans to launch another version next fall in the neighborhood of FREE’s president, Sonya Jasaroska, who lives in a tight-knit community of more than 300 Macedonian Roma in the Bronx that formed in the early '70's.

It wasn't until a 2002 trip back to Macedonia that Jasaroska, now 37, delved into activism for Roma rights. Her family sat down at a restaurant, and though it was completely empty, the waiter refused to serve them. “This table’s reserved,” he told them of every table in the establishment. “I don’t need your Gypsy money,” he said. When Jasaroska put up a fight, he offered to move them into a back room. “I said, fuck you, fuck your restaurant, you can go to hell, I’m not giving you a cent.” After other racist incidents, she decided to stay in the Roma area of town where it felt more comfortable.

Back stepping to 1978 when my Familia's now dismantled traveling circus visit a Denny;s restaurant in Knoxville TN we were told they simply ran out of food and were told to go to McDonald's as we were still in our performing regalia watching the whites glutton down full plates of hot food.

Today Jasaroska, who said she once “hid and hated” her heritage, is eager to tell people about her background if they ask as I do commit also. “I wait for them to make a stereotypical comment and then I school them,” she says. And it rarely fails: “They say, ‘Are you a fortune teller? Are you a musician? Do you steal kids?’” Then she explains the role of discrimination in how these stereotypes came to be. She hopes speaking out will give the kids in her community a sense of pride she never had growing up. “We’re still learning the ropes,” Jasaroska says and as we Rom's take a stronger lead mistakes will be made for the advancement of future minds and unity. “When you’re not educated and don’t know what your options are, you’re going to sit back and be quiet.”

Now the population of educated Roma is bigger than ever, and we’re ready to speak up when cases like Maria’s make the news. It’s time that the TRUE Roma make a fuss and speak for ourselves in truth and education instead of what anthropologist say of us who have no REAL knowledge of our closely guarded lifestyle. “This is the land of the free, home of the brave, where you have equality, and if we keep quiet as Americans and Roma, then shame on us.”

FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 29, 2015

The Cycle of Nature

"In the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat: there is only movement. The winter struggles to reign supreme, but, in the end, is obliged to accept spring’s victory, which brings with it flowers and happiness. The summer would like to make its warm days last forever, because it believes that warmth is good for the earth, but, finally, it has to accept the arrival of autumn, which will allow the earth to rest. The gazelle eats the grass and is devoured by the lion. It isn't a matter of who is the strongest, but God’s way of showing us the cycle of death and resurrection.

And within that cycle there are neither winners nor losers, there are only stages that must be gone through. When the human heart understands this, it is free, able to accept difficult times and not be deceived by moments of glory. Both will pass. One will succeed the other. And the cycle will continue until we liberate ourselves from the flesh and find the Divine Energy.

Therefore, when the fighter is in the ring – whether by his own choice or because unfathomable destiny has placed him there – may his spirit be filled with joy at the prospect of the fight ahead. If he holds on to his dignity and his honor then, even if he loses the fight, he will never be defeated, because his soul will remain intact. And he will blame no one for what is happening to him. Ever since he fell in love for the first time and was rejected, he has known that this did not put "paid" to his ability to love. What is true in love is also true in war.”

There are no separations my dear ones. And all are under the cosmic scheme. No beginning No end. No good No bad. Just the cyclic rhythm of our great mother and her Nature!

FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 28, 2015

The Essence of the Soul is that its true identity is Spirit.

The soul is an articulated extension of the Spirit’s game of creation.

It exists for the purpose of the exponential magnification of energy.

It is thus both “real” and “unreal”.

Soul is relative. Spirit is absolute.

Ultimately soul does not exist. It is only the vehicle of the experience of separation from the Divine.

Soul itself is an illusion, a device for the play of creation.

The awareness of Spirit “falls asleep” in order to create the soul.

Thus the soul can be understood as a dream projection of Spirit.

The soul forgets it true identity as Spirit as it enters the dream.

The soul then takes on the experience of not knowing Spirit from which it is emanated.

The soul takes on the appearance of “evolving” while in fact it is only remembering, or awakening to the knowledge of its true identity.

When a soul has “evolved” to the point of full awakening its consciousness of itself has simply become complete in its awareness of knowing that it has always been Spirit.

It knows who it has always been.

Soul has remembered its truth: that it is energetically identical to Spirit.

When soul returns to Spirit the two merge into the Oneness that they have always been and the energy of creativity that the soul has generated as it played out its illusion of separation is given to Spirit as gift.

The Truth is that the soul was always energetically identical to Spirit.

That is what was forgotten.

The forgetting is what illusion is.

This is why all mystical teachings say we live in illusion.

The Forgetting is this: an impossible split appeared to occur in order to manifest the illusion of separation.

This forgetting is also called ignorance.

Ignorance is not just “not knowing”.

Ignorance is thinking you know when you do not.

Ignorance is ‘knowing’ that which is erroneous, and believing it is truth.

The ego mind is simply the ignorance of the awareness that soul is forever made in the image of the Divine.

Ego mind is the illusion which creates the birth of soul as separate from Spirit, and defines it as “not Spirit”.

By definition of the very nature of creation

Soul must be a perfect reflection of Spirit.

Spirit can only create in the image of itself.

It can only be an illusion, a dream, a state of forgetting, when the soul no longer seems to reflect the perfection of its original creation.

The ego mind takes possession of the soul’s energy like an invading alien.

The ego mind itself is the illusion that blocks the soul from realizing its true identity.

Ego mind is a state of dense contraction of energy, which is necessary to block the soul’s remembering that it is Spirit.

Thus we call “soul “ego when It is the state of forgetting.

Soul as ego is A contraction of energy and is most accurately described as a state of fear. Thus ego mind is always fear mind. Ego and fear are the same.

Separation creates fear, and fear creates the separation.

That which is LIGHT believes itself to be “not light”.

This fear creates contraction and energy falls in on itself.

Light falling in on itself that appears to be a black hole.

It looks as though it is a darkness that consumes everything.

It looks like the antithesis of Light.

This is the origin of duality.

This is the appearance of separation into “light and “dark”.

This is what the ego mind does to the soul:

The ego mind creates a belief of Anti-spirit within the energy field of the soul.

Anti-Spirit seduces the soul through ego mind into the belief that it is alienated from Spirit.

Ego mind convinces the soul that its true identity is the ego mind of fear.

“Not spirit” then becomes the origin of the belief that duality is reality.

Instead of All Good, there becomes the belief in good and evil.

This belief creates the alienation from the Oneness with the Divine.

All polarities then emerge and multiply and are the constraints that create the illusory substance of the dream.

They are limitations and so throw off energy which fuel the continued unfolding of manifest creation.

The souls restrained energy of its total Beingness is used to manufacture time and space.

Time and space then become the “music” through which the dance of illusion can flow.

A soul remembering its true nature as Spirit, and releasing itself from the power of the ego mind that possesses it is what is meant by the term AWAKENING.

It might also be said that a soul again becomes CONSCIOUS.

It reclaims CONSCIOUSNESS of what it has always been.

Soul becomes fully conscious that it is SPIRIT.

All is always held within DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS.

Even the dream of the illusion of separation takes place within the wholeness of Consciousness

CONSCIOUSNESS is the mirror which holds all the images of separation.

The images upon a mirror may change, but the mirror is always intact.

Thus the images of separation flow and change upon that which is constant and changeless.

Those who know they are Lords of the Dance are the Awakened Ones, or the Awakened One, for ultimately there is only One creating the Dance.

The Dance, the energy of the Dance, and the Creator of the Dance are the same.

When a soul is Awakened into its identity as SPIRIT All are seen as One And are known to be the same.

In that knowing the energy is no longer seen as being extended through the continuum of the dance.

Energy exists in a state of wholeness, and all time rests within the energy of Consciousness.

Within the awareness of the wholeness of all things time ceases to exist and the Dance is experienced as an orgasmic explosion of ever present magnificence.

It is no longer a dance though time and space.

It is the infinite present that encompasses all time and space.

Ultimately, we realize that we do not evolve.

The very concept of evolution is part of the illusion of dark and light, of less and more.

That which is created in perfection cannot become “more perfect”.

We only Remember and Awaken.

TO REMEMBER IS TO AWAKEN.

TO AWAKEN IS TO REMEMBER.

FROM RAVENS NEST Apr 27, 2015

The Fifth Element

The legendary Fifth Element holds the key to the answer to one of today’s top mysteries in the worlds of physics and cosmology. Scientists estimate that 84% of the matter in the universe is composed of invisible dark matter, but they have no idea what it is. With a short venture into the world of metaphysics, you are about to find out the answer!

In ancient Greece, all material things were said to be composed of a mixture of the four elements of earth, fire, water and air. There was also said to be a more subtle, fifth element. This was called the quintessence (literally, “fifth element”), implying its very delicate or refined state of existence.
For many centuries, philosophers considered that all matter consisted of combinations of the basic elements in the Greek tradition. In the early 1500s, Philip von Hohenheim boldly renamed himself Paracelsus, meaning “beyond the medical pioneer Celsus” and came out with a counter-proposal. He declared that, instead of the old elements, all things consist of the subtle essences of elements that he called salt, sulfur and mercury. However, this only served to confuse the situation further as both theories did little to identify the basic chemicals that combine to form the enormous variety of compounds that are found in nature.

Next, fast-forward to the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1600s, the early scientist Robert Boyle published The Sceptical Chemist, rejecting both schools of thought in favor of the then-novel idea that materials are composed of a variety of basic chemicals which, unlike compounds, cannot be further reduced by chemical operations. This demystified chemistry, laid the basis for its development as a science, and made possible the development of the table of elements that we use in chemistry today.
As the science of chemistry developed and accumulated physical knowledge, however, it became focused entirely on physical materials and ignored the old idea of anything more subtle.

The fifth element has been given various names in traditional Eastern thought and practices – such as prana, chi, qi, and mana – but it can be better understood by calling it vital life energy or etheric energy. From a physics perspective, the most concise term is etheric energy, which implies a more subtle energy than electric energy.

When electric and magnetic energies combine in complementary motion, they produce physical light as well as the building blocks of physical matter. Your body is composed of electromagnetic energy. Etheric energy is actually more common in the universe than electric energy. Its manifestation, etheric matter, forms most of the matter in the universe. Cosmologists know that it exists, even though they can’t see it (hence the term, dark matter), because of its gravitational effects on physical matter in the cosmos.
“Dark” energy and “dark” matter are roughly five times more prolific than their physical counterparts, so their influence in the cosmos is quite marked. The gravitational effect is a result of the fact that both energies – physical electric energy and the more subtle etheric energy – share a common interaction with magnetic energy. The magnetic energy component is provided by the ever-present fabric of space, which I term the God Field.
By using the term the God field, we can reduce a common form of confusion that exists today. The God field was traditionally called the aether and, although that sounds a lot like etheric energy, the two are quite different.
The God field is the fabric of space. It is a subtle, fluid, magnetic energy which fills all space. It is intensified within and around matter, where its attractive nature produces the force of gravity.

Etheric energy, or vital life energy, is the primary energy of the universe. Electric energy is, by comparison, a secondary, more physical energy. Electric energy interacts with the magnetic fabric of space to form physical light and physical matter. Etheric energy interacts with the magnetic fabric of space to form etheric light and etheric matter.
Etheric energy is a subtle, primary life energy, while electric energy is a physical, secondary energy. Both energies interact with the magnetic fabric of space, producing etheric matter and physical matter.
The great advantage with knowing about etheric energy is that this vital life-giving energy holds the key to vibrant wellness. Vital life energy or etheric energy is present in all effective healing systems. In acupuncture, it is the “qi” energy that is enhanced or balanced in its flow along acupuncture meridians. It is the healing energy transmitted in distant healing. It is the same healing energy that is passed to the recipient in Reiki or Polarity Therapy.

Vital life energy is the essence within sacred healing oils. It is the energy that flows into a person as they practice Qigong. It is the life energy in organic foods, in water exposed to sunlight, and in the oxygen that we breathe.
Without vital life energy, we would not physically exist. With additional vital life energy, miraculous healings can occur.

****See more of my work with the Crystal Children on my home page, and please share with your lovelies:
http://www.ravenstarenchantments.com/raven-dolick-doctor-of…

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FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 26,2015

Effectively Healing Chakra's
Apr 26,2015

Did you know that the chakras are your body's energy system? Each of your chakras is a swirling vortex of energy, and they are tied to the various organs and systems of your body.

When you are experiencing illness or disease, it may be because your chakras are "blocked" or that the energy within them is not flowing or moving well.
Western medicine does not promote or understand energy healing for the most part, but the fact of the matter is that you have the power to heal yourself, which is easier than you think.
Memories are also genetically coded into each chakra, so you can also use the chakras to balance and heal emotional traumas and issues.

Most medical professionals do not acknowledge this kind of self-healing ability, but that doesn't mean it is not valid.

If you were able to sense the energetic movements within each chakra, you would notice that in times of illness or distress, your energy is most likely blocked or not flowing efficiently.
The fact of the matter is that every thought and experience you have ever had is filtered through your chakras, and there are some schools of thought that infer that harmful emotions and emotional traumas can eventually lead to illness and disease.
The truth is that even one single blockage in your energetic body could be causing a myriad of symptoms in your health and in your life.

Let's look at some common health problems that could be helped, if not cured, by unblocking the emotional energy within your chakras.

The chakras resonate, spin and keep your body healthy. They are each associated with an energy system within your body. Clearing and balancing these energies can even help you heal physical symptoms.
The root chakra, which is located at the base of the spine, functions as sort of a pilot light in the body. When your root chakra is blocked in some way, you may feel nervous or anxious, simply because you are not "grounded."
This chakra can also cause constipation, tumors, stomach gas and even pimples! The health of your blood, your immune system, your bones, joints and your spine depend on the healthy flow of energy from this important chakra.
The root chakra is typically red, but it can be any color that seems right to you.

The sacral chakra, which is the second chakra, is located below the belly button, and its color is orange. It is associated with your sexuality and your sexual organs, and it can also cause health problems, such as uterine fibroids and even severe back pain.
The next time you experience back pain or sexual problems, you might be better off balancing your sacral chakra before you try any other healing methods.

The third chakra, which is ruled by the color yellow, is located in your naval area, above the second chakra. It is often called the power chakra or the solar plexus chakra. It is connected to the stomach, the liver, the small intestine, as well as the pancreas.
The adrenal glands and the pancreas, which create important hormones that help the body convert food into energy, are tied to this chakra.
If you suffer from a lack of self-esteem, feel weighed down emotionally and/or physically, have eating disorders or bowel issues, such as Crohn's disease or diverticulosis, you may have a blockage in this important chakra.

How about the all-important heart chakra? The heart chakra lies at the heart, and it is represented most often by the color green.
If you have a blockage in this chakra, you may experience health issues, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, asthma, high cholesterol or even breast cancer.
Clearing the energy in this chakra can work miracles in your health and in your relationships.

The fifth chakra, ruled by the color blue, is located at the throat. This chakra, often called the throat chakra, rules communication.
If you have trouble clearing your throat, trouble swallowing or experience thyroid problems or problems with the jaw or neck, clearing this chakra may be beneficial.

The sixth chakra, called the third-eye or brow chakra, is located above the eyebrows in the center of the forehead. It is represented by the color indigo.
If you have blockages in this chakra, you may experience poor focus or poor intuition. This chakra also rules diseases such as ALS and MS or multiple sclerosis.

Last, but certainly not least, is the crown chakra, located at the top of the head. Its color is white or violet, and it is connected to the pineal gland and the central nervous system.
If you often feel dizzy or depressed, you may benefit from cleansing your crown chakra.

There are many ways to clear the chakras to elicit healing, but the easiest way is to envision each chakra as a spinning vortex of energy. If you imagined a clock face out on your body, you would envision each chakra spinning clockwise.
To clear your chakras, simply picture each chakra spinning freely until the color is clear and bright in your mind. You can also envision a beautiful white light coming down from above like a shower of light, clearing each chakra.
Begin with the root chakra and the color red and then move to the sacral chakra and envision the color orange spinning and turning.
Proceed with the solar plexus chakra until its color, which is yellow, is spinning freely. Continue with the heart chakra imagining a beautiful soft green spinning away any emotional debris.
Proceed up to the throat chakra envisioning the color blue, and then move to the brow chakra envisioning the color indigo.
Finish with the crown chakra imagining the color violet or white cleansing and healing your entire energetic system.

This is just a few of the highlights about the chakra system. The truth is that you can use the energy within your own amazing body to seek optimal health. Something that the medical profession doesn't want you to know. Well, now you know!

FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 16, 2015

 Improving Your Romantic Relationships
 Improving Your Spiritual Health

Most people are unaware that the chakras and the energy flow through your body and mind can have a major impact on the vibration you give out.
Are you one of the many couples that are feeling disconnected from their partners? With divorce becoming a normal everyday situation, there is more need than ever to make your relationship a priority, but it seems like another date night just isn't going to fix things.
Sometimes it takes a little more than an occasional night out to fix a relationship that has gone downhill. Although you love each other, you are having trouble connecting on different levels and can't understand how to make the other person happy.
What if the secret to improving your romantic relationships lies in improving your spiritual health? No, I'm not suggesting that you go on a couples retreat with your church. That's a nice idea, but to really have a great connection with your partner, you need to understand your own beliefs about relationships.

All of us have beliefs about how we should relate to the world and consequently, our partners. We think that we have to behave a certain way in order to get love and positive attention. These spiritual beliefs often color our physical world, and we operate based on them.
However, these same beliefs can also create distance between yourself and those you love. They seem like they are helping us get what we want, but actually they are creating the opposite outcome. Our beliefs cause us to manipulate reality and make it into the enemy.

There are five major belief patterns that most of us can operate through. Each belief intends to seek love and affection but can quickly turn into a "me-against-them" attitude and ends up backfiring on us. When we seek love and approval outside of ourselves, we always miss the mark.
Figuring out which belief is affecting your relationship is key to creating intimacy rather than distance with your partner. Once you realize how you are sabotaging your relationship, you can start making positive changes that will bring you closer.

The Five Relationship Belief Types
* The Resenter
In a relationship, this person is ready to offer up special dinners, back rubs and basically do any favor before even asked. This person loves to give, hoping that he or she will receive love and approval in return.
However, if this person does not get their specific needs met, the Resenter will grow resentful and doubt the relationship.
The Resenter will benefit from giving a little less and receiving a little more. Making sure that he or she asks for what he or she needs, as well as being able to say no to what isn't desired will help the Resenter feel appreciated without feeling taken advantage of.

* The Rejecter
This person chases the illusion of perfection. The Rejecter requires not only him/herself but his or her relationship to be just right.
When life turns messy, the Rejecter is either fixing it, or pushing others away when he or she can't. Letting anyone else see his or her shortcomings is inconceivable, and the Rejecter ends up rejecting others before they can be judged for their faults.
This person must be more relaxed about his or her idea of perfection and know that others will not reject him or her based on superficial details. Allowing things to be "good enough" will allow the Rejecter to open up to others and let them know he or she is loved anyway.

* The Controller
Although this person is extremely capable, the Controller tends to think that everyone else is inadequate. The Controller micromanages and distrusts others to the point that he or she is left holding all the responsibility.
This confirms his or her suspicion that he or she can't depend on anyone else, and the Controller pushes others away in order to avoid disaster.
If this type can just let go of the reigns and trust someone else's capabilities, the Controller will have more support and not feel so alone.
By accepting that there is more than one acceptable way to do things and that he or she can't possibly be in charge all the time, the Controller will allow others to show their admiration and affection for him or her.

* The Escaper
Due to a belief that the real world is dangerous, the Escaper often finds him/herself retreating into a safer, daydream world.
Because the Escaper spends more time checked out than present with his or her partner, the Escaper seems flaky and undependable and ends up isolated.
To cultivate a true relationship, this person needs to realize that he or she can cope with difficulty without retreating within him/herself.
The Escaper will feel safer in this world if he or she can stay present long enough to see that others will support and love him or her in the real world.

* The Taker
Someone who feels that he or she will never get enough frequently asks for too much from others. This person is constantly asking for things like attention, time or emotions but is never really satisfied. People get sucked dry and eventually push the Taker away, leaving him or her more depleted and empty.
It is crucial for this type to be more self-sufficient and less demanding of his or her partner. When the Taker realizes that he or she has an infinite source of love already within, he or she will easily share it through his or her sweet nature, rather than demanding it from others.

In each of these scenarios, there is a desire for love and approval, but the inner beliefs of each type build a defense or barrier that actually produces the opposite effect. They are unintentionally pushing the other person away without realizing it.
When you can objectively see how your beliefs are keeping you disconnected from those around you, you will be able to change them and be more open to a true relationship. Deepen your spiritual connection with yourself, and open up to the love that binds us all.

The amazing thing is that when you start to nourish and heal your chakras once and for all, you can experience more magical moments of bliss, happiness and contentment than ever. It's a wonderful feeling knowing that the power to create the life you want is within your control, and the chakras can help you get there.

FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 12, 2015

HAVING THE COURAGE TO MOVE BEYOND OUR PREVIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM
EVEN WHEN FRIENDS AND FAMILY TRY TO HOLD US BACK

“Those Who Know They Are Asleep Are Actually Already Half Awake.”
There are no sheepal. This my friends is a terminology new to the ascension workers that only shows one is in the deep state of separations!
The problem we have on this planet is most people are not even aware they are living their lives in a state of amnesia. Humanity, in general, has forgotten who they are. We have bought into the heavily distorted belief that we are physical beings with one life, separated from each other, and the Creator Of All That Is. We see everything as SEPARATE. We have forgotten our connection to Source, and we have forgotten our interconnectedness to the whole of creation forgetting that every decision we make directly affects the whole.
Many of us say God is LOVE, but our "BELIEFS" reflect duality....a WAR within our own being which creates fear, fragmentation and separation consciousness. Truth be told, we fear God! If we fear God... we fear the SELF, and we also fear everyone else. IT IS OUR FEAR AND SEPARATION CONSCIOUSNESS THAT CREATES ALL PAIN AND SUFFERING ON THIS PLANET. Fear is of the dark side, and it has led to our lower state of consciousness, and distorted beliefs we have created and continue to sustain on Earth. Look at the state of our world ~ it is lacking LOVE, Unity, Connection, Compassion and Understanding.
We simply cannot change the state of our planet, or our own life, until we change our belief systems and state of consciousness. And that is the problem.....our belief systems are so deeply ingrained in us ~ through the controlling dark forces of fear ~ many beings will find it difficult to pull themselves out of their limiting states of consciousness that keep them enslaved to a life of karmic repercussions, pain, illness, chaos and confusion. BE AWARE! These beings will also make it incredibly difficult for you to break free. Out of their own lack of awareness of who they are, and through their own fear, they will try to control and manipulate you to stay within "their" low vibrational, distorted state of consciousness as well.
They will use FEAR to hold you back! They will tell you ~ "you" are not honoring "their" belief systems which are based on fear, conditional love, control, judgment, suffering, limitation and the illusions of their very own shadow and ego consciousness. These people are not living in reality....they are living in a false world they have created based on their distorted belief systems. Remember, the majority of humanity is not awake. They are living in a state of egoic amnesia bound by extreme levels of fear....and they are very fearful of evolving! People fear change ~ they like to remain within a zone of comfort, and if you start evolving and stepping into "your" truth ~ this will make them very uncomfortable and they will become defensive and perhaps even attack, belittle and shame you for thinking differently than them.
When you begin the journey back to truth ~ YOU WILL BE TESTED! The entire system, here on Earth, has been set up to keep you from attaining your truth so you can step into your empowerment. If you remember who you are, and step into your empowerment then you can not be controlled. It will take great courage for you to rise up from the muddy, murky waters of the mass consciousness so you can blossom and expand into greater awareness attaining more light. Each one of us are submerged in the fertile learning lessons of the Earth. We are like lotus blossoms submerged within heavy mud ~ with the potential to rise and blossom towards the LIGHT so we can reveal our beauty. This is our divine mission ~ to re-member our selves so we can return to our truth and step into greater states of LOVE within us, clearing away the blocks we have created so we can have a "direct experience of God" while in physical body. Many people believe they have to die in order to directly experience God....once again, this is a heavily distorted belief we have bought into which will become our truth.... even though it is based on illusion.
As we journey towards the LIGHT of greater awareness, layer upon layer of distorted beliefs will come up for us to review. It is normal to fall prey to doubts and uncertainty. Fear will arise so it can be released ~ we must move through it! Fear has a lot to teach us, IF we will not allow it to consume us. The spiritual journey is full of road blocks, pot holes, detours, twists and turns. We must be courageous and persistent with our evolution. We must have faith in the SELF and The Creator to usher us forward.
The Creator is a highly CREATIVE being, and we too need to always be creating a new, better version of the SELF for change is the only constant in the Universe. We must always be asking ourselves ~ do we want a life based on conformity or do we want an authentic life? Many people will want us to conform to "their" opinions, beliefs and way of living. This is a fear based life where we give the power of our free will away to others to create our life for us. This goes against God's laws of diversity, and will only lead us into greater states of disconnection, pain and unhappiness because we are not using our creative powers in a way to create the life of our dreams. We will be compromising the integrity of our soul, and live the dreams of the "mass consciousness" which are based on fear and limitation.
The Ascension Of The Soul Requires Us To Examine Our Beliefs. Here Is A List Of Distorted Beliefs To Ponder:
1. Do you believe you are an eternal soul with many lives to evolve in, or do you only have "one" chance to attain the virtues of The Creator?
2. Do you believe YOU are responsible for your choices, which have karmic consequences or do you believe someone else has been crucified, and therefore has taken on ALL the poor choices of humanity so no one has to change their way of being or accept responsibility because Jesus has done all the work for us? Do you believe in karma or the law of cause and effect....is karma punishment or simply energetic balance. Who do you feel is responsible for the pain and suffering on this Earth?
3. Do you believe The Creator Is Unconditionally Loving? If so, there is no judgment, punishment or a need for any kind of sacrifice. The Creator is not complicated ~ the human ego is complicated. The Creator is simple....The Creator is LOVE.
4. Do you believe you are all alone, abandoned ~ that The Creator sent you into this world with no spiritual help?
5. Do you believe in angels, spiritual guides, and ascended masters?
6. Do you believe the word of God could possibly be contained within a human book? Perhaps the word of God, is the internal guidance system that flows through YOU from your soul....but you have blocked the truth from your soul because you bought into the distorted belief systems of this world, and what other people have told you.
7. Do you believe you are ONE with the Creator or do you feel separated? Is God/dess out there or within? Jesus, Buddha and all the great ones have told us the kingdom is within. How could we possibly be alive if the energy of The Creator was not flowing through our body?
8. Do you believe the Earth is alive, a living sentient being? Do you believe the air, water, clouds....even our thoughts, emotions and feelings are living beings?
9. Do you believe the Gifts Of The Holy Spirit are bad? If so, you will block yourself from your divine inheritance. Have you actually taken the time to discern the Bible, and reviewed all the discrepancies in it? One section says "psychics" are evil, but many other chapters talk about the Gifts Of The Spirit ~ visions, prophecy, discerning spirits, wisdom, healing etc....................... 1 Corinthians 12. "Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies"1 Corinthians 14:1. "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you in prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you".... 1 Timothy 4:14
10. Do you believe in other life forms, other dimensions, other planets? Do you believe merely what you see with your eyes? Do you believe the Earth is the only planet in the Universe where the Creator creates and sustains life? Do you believe Earth is separated from the whole, and does not affect other planets and universes?
11. Do you believe you are a physical being or a spiritual being? Perhaps you are an energetic, spiritual being having a temporary human experience. Perhaps your physical ailments are indications of spiritual/energetic imbalances?
12. Do you believe you can only create harm to another being by physically harming them? What about harming them verbally, emotionally or mentally? What about your intense negative thoughts and negative words you project towards them.....do you believe this will not harm them? It will.... and your negative energy will come back tenfold to you as well?
13. Who do you feel is responsible for your life? YOU or someone else? Are you a victim of circumstances or are you the creator of your life experience? Who is in the driver’s seat? Have you given your power away? Are you the person your soul set out to be, or have you allowed the opinions, distorted beliefs and thoughts of others direct your life in a way "they" feel is appropriate for you.
14. What is more important? The Love of SELF or the Love of others? For people cannot give ~ what they do not have. If you do not love yourself, you will not be able to truly give love to others. Likewise, people who do not love themselves will never be able to give you the love you deserve because they have not found it within themselves. The most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself! If you have a loving, authentic, compassionate relationship with the SELF ~ you will have a direct relationship with your God Self because you are one and the same.
Review your current beliefs! Observe other people's beliefs, and what they try to project onto you. Do not accept people's teachings so blindly....be aware that fear filled, dualistic beliefs will create war within our being. If we have war within, it will be reflected in our external environment. If we want peace on earth, we must first discover peace within, and that begins with staying focused on teachings that are based on LOVE, ONENESS and UNITY. Any teaching that uses control, chaos, confusion, judgment or fear is a teaching that is based on the consciousness of the ego, which is the part of us that "Edges God Out". Seek the teachings that teach you the "Kingdom Of God Is Within".

FROM RAVEN'S NEST Apr 11, 2015

The Illusion of Duality and Time

Yes, duality is really an illusion and same goes for time! Seems odd? Well here is how we see it.
Let’s start with Duality. Duality is set equal to opposites, however there is no opposites, but only less or more of! Let’s take the example of Good and Bad, at first you would consider this to be a duality or an opposite. Now, try to look at it more like a scale and in this example we put Good at the top and Bad at the bottom, in the middle we could put something like Ok.
If we start at the top on “Good” and slide down towards “Ok”, it now feels more like there is just less of the “Good. If we continue sliding down and past “Ok”, approaching the “Bad”, there is just less and less of the “Good”. Now, once we reached the “Bad”, in actual fact it’s just less “Good”... we call it “Bad” instead of saying “Less or very little good” or even “no good”!
An added fact to this is that a criminal or insane individual will not deem his actions as “Bad”, in some cases he will even feel he is doing “good”! That again shows us that it's just a definition or better a perception!
There just “is” and it's your personal integrity and honor that measures an action, to then place it on a virtual scale of affinity, your affinity towards something or someone.
This would then apply to anything really when we start thinking about it, tall and short, loud and quiet etc... It just “is” and it's simply your view on it that gives it a definition, but regardless of the definition given. At its origin it’s just more or less of.

“Opposites Do Not Exist”
Time... Well, this is a rather similar topic to be honest.
Here is the principle of time:
Time is basically a conclusion or decision that space and particles will persist. (The rate of their persistence is what we measure with clocks and the motion of our movement.)
Time is actually a consideration but there is the experience of time. There is a distance, there is a velocity of particle travel – and the movement of that particle in relationship to its starting point and in relationship to its ending point, itself, is the consideration of time.
On that note, have you ever noticed how it is the happier you are the less time seems relevant and how when your sad or are waiting or even scared how time seems to just be there with its full long seconds and minutes?
Time also seems to be different from individual to individual. Take the example of the phrase “just a minute”. Did you ever feel like it was too fast or too long when someone said that to you...
Same could work for waking up in the morning. Some take hours on measured time to wake up and some minutes.
All in all, time really seems to be a personal consideration and the happier we are the less we are bound to this consideration so the experience of time changes too!
We consider there to be the Past, the Now and the Future. However, as you are reading this you may feel in the “now” (we wrote this in the past though). Also, per that definition, what you have just read is already in the “past” for you too now and what you have not read is in the “future”. If by chance you now decide to go to the top of the page (the past) you are pulling it into the “now”.
Same works for the future. In other words, it's all in the “NOW,” you may just not be looking at.
A fortune teller or a person who can see or read someone's past or future, will probably tell you something similar, such as;
“I just see it”. They see the individual being or spirit and the spirit is not time bound so it carries the past, the now and the future all at once, It’s all just now and these people can see it as that, NOW.
The experience of time is what we make of it and the more we live in the NOW, the more we can benefit from this magical illusion wink emoticon
Instead of links on this subject Here are some of my favorite quotes on this topic:
“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”
by Albert Einstein
“Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.”
by Alan Lakein
“There is an old illusion - it is called good and evil.”
by Friedrich Nietzsche
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”
by Henry David Thoreau
“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”
by William Shakespeare, Othello, Act II, sc. 3
“This world is deluded; You Yourself have deluded it. Forgetting the One, it has become engrossed in duality.”
by Sri Guru Granth Sahib
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
by Albert Einstein
“When one realizes oneself, one realizes the essential nature of the universe. The existence of duality is only an illusion and when the illusion is undone, the primordial unity of one's own nature and the nature of the universe is realized, or made real.”
by Namkhai Norbu
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour,
and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.”
by Albert Einstein
“Heart knows neither duality nor the limitations of space and time.”
by Sri Sathya Sai Baba