Astrology of 2012 – the End or the Beginning?

This is the event chart for the Winter Solstice on December 21, 2012. The infamous date when the world is supposed to end. As an astrologer, I thought it would be interesting to study the chart at the moment of the Solstice itself – the moment when the Sun transitions to 0 degrees Capricorn.

Since there are so many different time zones on the planet, I used Universal time – the time for Greenwich, England. Astrology references back to Universal time to calculate charts so this seemed like the most appropriate time to use for a planetary event. The first thing that I noticed was that the time 11:11 popped up. Many people, including myself, have had experiences with recurring number patterns. 11:11 and 1:11 are two that are frequently mentioned. When I had my first 11:11 experience, I discovered that it was associated with Angels. This seemed very promising to me for an event chart. Especially when I noticed that Neptune was a 0 degrees Pisces conjunct the Ascendent. Neptune is the planet that rules the unconscious, dreams, the connection to God. A wonderful chance for spiritual growth.

The next thing that struck me was the incredibly strong Yod with Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. Outer planets have powerful energies to manifest major changes. A Yod – also known as the Finger of God – has two planets in crisis with the resolution through the Apex planet – in this case Jupiter. The energies of Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn are fascinating in this case. They suggest secretive organizational structures – institutions, companies, governments. The Apex – Jupiter in Gemini – shows the way out through an expansion of information.

Bottom line – I do not see the end of the world. I do see possibilities.

There will be challenges for organizational structures that have withheld or restricted information flow. The birth of the Internet and the ability to communicate with almost anyone on the planet can either be a part of the solution or another way to further obscure with miscommunication. There is also a wonderful chance for spiritual growth.

It is up to us as individuals to pursue the path that builds a better tomorrow.

Mitochondrial DNA – a new look at the past

I just finished “The Seven Daughters of Eve” by Dr. Bryan Sykes. Dr. Sykes is a Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. Although his book was originally published in 2001, I recently became more interested in archeology and wanted to better understand this amazing new tool. The book provides a good explanation of how the field developed and how Mitochondrial DNA became a recognized option – one that changed many of the original stories of how our planet’s humans evolved. Sykes traced back human migration patterns, discussed the “out of Africa theory”, indicated that Polynesians came from Indonesia instead of Peru, determined the genetic makeup of modern Europe and used mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains of Czar Nicholas II.

Bryan Sykes is an amusing author – and as he described the events that transpired while mtDNA was being validated, I can only imagine what it must have been like for him.  It seems that science moves slow and painfully from one idea to another.

The basic idea of mtDNA is that it is (1) only passed through the maternal line so it remains unchanged from generation to generation (2) has mutations that survive at a fairly well determined rate of about one mutation in 10,000 years and (3) a mini-chromosome of about 16,500 base pairs for easier analysis.

Using mtDNA gives you a view into how humans evolved and populated this planet. Sykes’ view of 7 original source mothers reflects the data that had been collected at the time of publishing. These seven mothers were used to classify of all modern Europeans into seven groups, called mitochondrial haplogroups. Each haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial chromosome, and can be traced along a person’s maternal line to a specific prehistoric woman.

Further research since 2001 has expanded the number of haplogroups throughout the world and added additional sub-types.  But the fundamental mechanism is still providing additional vision into Earth’s past by looking at the human body today.

Richard Gerber – Physician ahead of his time

Dr. Richard M. Gerber received his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit and began his medical practice in 1981. He trained in a variety of alternative therapies as well as conventional Western Medicine. Dr. Gerber was a private practice internist in Warren for 26 years and wrote a pair of best-selling books on vibrational medicine and healing; Vibrational Medicine and A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine.

During a 1988 interview Richard Gerber commented: “Vibrational medicine is a diagnostic and healing approach to illness using energy in various forms and frequencies. As a therapy, vibrational medicine is the application of different types of energy for healing, including approaches as traditional as X-ray and radiation therapy for cancer, the use of electrical nerve stimulation for treating pain, and electromagnetic field stimulators for accelerating the healing of fractured bones. Even full spectrum light is used for treating seasonal affective disorders or the ‘winter blues’. However, vibrational medicine also covers the more subtle forms of treatment such as acupuncture, homeopathy, flower essences, therapeutic touch, and that sort of genre. The latter involve using subtle life-force medicine, but they are energetic therapies nonetheless. This is the spectrum from the more traditional to a range of therapies that stress treatment of the whole person, sometimes referred to as ‘complementary’ medicine.”

In the world of today’s medicine, Dr. Gerber touched areas that few physicians are willing to go. Medical practice is extremely controlled in the US and alternative therapies are discouraged if not banned. Dr. Gerber leads you systematically from conventional medicine into areas that are far more unconventional. Although his books are reference texts in this field, his work epitomizes flying below the radar…

Richard M. Gerber, M.D., died Friday, June 22, 2007, in his home.

All Time and Frequency is One

Such a deceptively simple equation. The technical definition is Frequency (f) is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time (T). It is also referred to as temporal frequency.

I’ve spent most of my adult life working with communications technology and auditory processing issues.  So the concept of frequency as it relates to time fascinates me.  Always loving basic algebra, it occurred to me that you could write this equation a different way…

But what does it mean?

This simple equation relates time and frequency together as one.  Now a physicist would probably have a field day with my explanation, but if you interpret it more loosely, the cosmic all – represented by the “ONE” – is comprised of all time and all frequencies.  All past, present and future come together as one.

One Citizen One Vote

With the upcoming Republican convention in Tampa, I thought it a good time to suggest one of my pet slogans – One Citizen One Vote. Maybe someone will pick up on it. From my previous blog on the Dead Vote I commented on the sloppiness in our current system with keeping voter rolls up to date. That issue extends beyond dead voters. We are wasting more and more time dealing with recounts and legal challenges. It undermines voter confidence in the system.

Why does it have to be so difficult to let each person cast their vote accurately and efficiently? I think part of the issue comes from the independence of states and counties to implement voting. If you look at all the different types of voting systems used – you find differences down to the county level. If you look at the legal rulings, decisions are made at federal, state and county level. So with all these independent entities collecting votes using different systems and different rules – is it any wonder that the results are sloppy?

This doesn’t even touch the issue of voter fraud. Frankly, I’m stunned that people feel someone doesn’t need to show a legal form of identification to vote in this country. Legal ID is necessary to book a hotel room, fly on an airplane, register a car, and cash checks at the bank. In today’s highly technological society, we are all identified before we can do anything. Unless you want to live in the woods, grow your own food and never talk to another person, you’ll need legal identification. End of debate.

My concern is that this is an uncoordinated set of laws and systems that are only really seen at election time. Everyone complains, they struggle to get through the process, and then say “Whew!” done with that … and wait to complain again during the next election. Perhaps this is one of the areas where we can stimulate some job growth. Cleaning up our election system.

Cold Fusion – Dead or Alive?

Cold fusion is a type of nuclear reaction that would occur at relatively low temperatures compared with hot fusion.

In 1989, cold fusion gained media attention after electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced they had built an apparatus which produced excess heat they claimed was created by nuclear processes. Massive rejection by the scientific community, as other scientists were unable to duplicate the process and identified flaws in the initial experiment, sounded the death knoll of cold fusion.  Two chemists dabbling in the area of physics… unthinkable.

However, work has quietly continued on cold fusion since then.  Very much flying below the radar…

During the past few years the cold fusion buzz has increased.  Best known is Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer or “E-Cat” system. The E-Cat is a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) or “cold fusion” device that generates large amounts of heat for a miniscule cost.  Naturally, it is being subjected to intense ridicule while the world waits for a production deployment.  Stay tuned…

Impact of the 2008 Market Crash

U.S. household wealth fell by a record $5.1 trillion from October to December of 2008, almost twice the decrease in the previous quarter, as home values and stock prices plunged, Federal Reserve figures showed.

Net worth for households and non-profit groups decreased to $51.5 trillion, the lowest level in four years, from $56.6 trillion in the third quarter, according to the Fed’s quarterly Flow of Funds report yesterday. Wealth dropped $11.2 trillion in 2008 from the year before, the biggest annual decline since the government began keeping quarterly records in 1952.

What was the impact of the Stock Market crash of 2008?

This was the time when the baby boomers should have finally been moving out of the the job market and freeing up positions for younger workers.   With the market crash, the huge glut of boomers that dominated the job market for decades couldn’t leave.

So we have twenty-somethings with Master’s degrees working as baristas at Starbucks.   Many of the jobs available are part time because employers can’t afford to pay the medical benefits for full time workers – if they hire at all. Many are self-employed or contractors without much in the way of benefits.

The new media spin is that the 50 year experiment with the nuclear family has failed.   And we should all happily accept households that support 3 generations.   Boomers support their parents and their adult children because – with that many people – hopefully someone is drawing a paycheck.

The major question I have with all of this is what will our children inherit?

Lorna Byrne – Talks to Angels

Lorna Byrne is the author of the book “Angels in My Hair”.  She has also published several other books on Angels.

In Lorna’s website she says “I have been seeing and talking  with Angels since I was a baby. This may sound extraordinary, but I’m also just an ordinary person dealing with the challenges and joys of  everyday life, just like you.”

Lorna grew up in a very poor Irish family and was labeled as retarded – although now she says that they understand she is dyslexic. With those challenges, she married, raised four children and cared for an ailing husband who passed a few years ago. Throughout this entire time, Angels interacted with her and helped her write a book about her life and experiences.

Reading this book was an amazing experience for me. Many people say they can communicate with Angels but I haven’t heard or read anything that comes as close as the experiences that Lorna has. This is not “channeling” where a person is apparently taken over by another entity who talks through them.  Lorna sees and talks with Angels like she sees and talks with us.

I have had the opportunity, twice, to see Lorna Byrne while she was touring America for a book signing.  We had a few minutes to talk as she signed the book and blessed me and my family. Lorna sees into a dimension that most of us can barely sense much less interact with. In today’s world where we are so grounded in the physical and the material, it was inspiring to touch a plane of existence through Lorna’s eyes that most of us will never connect with in our life times.  Maybe in Lorna’s case I should say Angels Flying Below the Radar…

The Dead Vote – 1.8 Million still listed as voters in the US

A February 2012 Press Release from the PEW Center on the States  released statistics that showed one in eight voter registrations in the US are invalid.  Almost 2 million of those voters were dead.

• At least 51 million eligible citizens remain unregistered—more than 24 percent of the eligible population.
• More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters.
• Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.
• About 12 million records have incorrect addresses, meaning either the voters moved, or errors in the information make it unlikely any mailings can reach them.

My current state of Florida recently found 53,000 dead people still on the polls as registered voters.  To their credit, they’re trying to clean the records up.

My former state of Maryland has always had rumors flying about the dead vote.  The issue has been a major concern in the larger Maryland counties of Baltimore, Montgomery and Prince George’s as well as Baltimore City.  In one well publicized case, Ellen Saurbrey, the Repubican candidate in the 1994 Maryland gubernatorial elections, claimed the dead vote influenced the results in favor of her opponent.

Neither party wants to admit that inaccurate records can help them win elections.  I wonder if this is part of the reason that the problem has been allowed to go unresolved for so long…

In today’s world of electronic tracking – where your credit card company knows within hours whether you’re in a different part of the country – we should be able to track people and clean up the voting records.  All of this inaccuracy is embarrassing and undermines our country’s credibility.  We make a big deal about having democratic elections in other countries and yet the US, with all our technology and skill, can’t make sure that a living, breathing person is voting at the polls.

Amazing…

Multi-disciplinary approach

I’ve come to the conclusion that good ideas bubble up from unlikely places.  It’s not that the likely places don’t have good ideas, but it seems to me that the visibility that comes from being a likely place doesn’t help.  Too many things blocking the way.  Especially if you challenge the status quo.

“If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting” – We’ve all heard that statement before.  But if you think about it… it sums up part of the problem.  Groups/organizations/corporations/governments all continue to do the same things… and continue to get the same results.  Maybe it’s financially motivated, maybe it’s that an idea is “Not invented here!”, or maybe it’s all about control.  Whatever the reason, someone looking at a problem from a different angle sometimes brings about the breakthrough needed to make a major positive change.

There is a phrase I like – take a multi-disciplinary approach.  It means take ideas/people from diverse areas and throw them together.  And seeing what happens…

A friend of mine was a researcher at a major university.  He told me this story about a professor who worked in the field of audiology who did a sabatical with a group that studied vision.  The professor introduced them to concepts that had never been applied to the field of vision.  The amusing part for the professor was that the papers written on their collaborative efforts were cited more than any of the papers written in his own field of audiology.  Not that his work in audiology wasn’t good.   But he helped the vision group breakout in totally new directions.

So what can we do to bring in new ideas to the same problems we’ve been struggling with?