Author: admin@wholeuni

Light Institute – Meditation Center

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Nestled in the magical hills of Galisteo, New Mexico, The Light Institute remains timeless. Founded in 1985 by world renowned and respected Spiritual Teacher, Healer and Author, Chris Griscom, this enchanting center for spiritual healing and multi-incarnational exploration is without equal. Individuals of all ages, from all walks of life, from around the world visit The Light Institute to heal the body, mind, and spirit. What distinguishes the work at The Light Institute is the expertise of the internationally famous and incomparably trained Light Institute Facilitators and the unique method they use. Meditation.

Personally selected and trained by Ms. Griscom, the Facilitators deliver the highest degree of integrity while guiding and protecting you during your spiritual exploration. The method used during this adventure is phenomenally powerful. Ms. Griscom teaches that merely viewing and clearing a lifetime is insufficient to actualize the healing process and develop a repertoire for living in ecstasy. To truly heal and live within divine frequencies, these incarnational memories must be released at the cellular level so that the pure energy is redirected to our lives now. Not only will you be freed of specific and thematic residues as a result of releasing karma from other embodiments, you will also discover the many talents you hold within your multi-dimensional consciousness; you must connect with your Higher Self, the Divine Source. The work you will encounter at The Light Institute will allow you to access your Higher Self.

This is the remarkable, differentiating element of the healing work initiated at The Light Institute: the accessing of and the reconnection to one’s inherent, divine purpose and gifts and the integration of these magnificent forces into the consciousness and daily life. You will indeed Experience the Light in the midst of the serene setting of The Light Institute. You will be able to work one on one with the Facilitator of your choice and begin the spiritual adventure of a lifetime.

THE LIGHT INSTITUTE offers private multi-incarnational sessions and year round group intensives relating to specific themes. The intimate and popular 4-6 day intensives provide a rare opportunity to spend time working directly with Chris Griscom.

Shamrock Holtz – Healer, Energy Worker

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“Breath of Life” Breath and Body Worker, Hatha Yoga Instructor, Transformational Breath and Kundalini Practitioner, Shamrock Holtz combines the power of breath, movement and ancient wisdom to assist in anchoring the spirit back into the body. Believing that breath is the foundation of life and creation, he utilizes various breath techniques as a means of empowering you through offering you the tools to reclaim your authentic self, moving one from a state of reaction to one of witness consciousness where we become aware of our thoughts and can access our experiences from a place of present moment awareness.

After growing up near Portland, Oregon, Shamrock moved to Hawaii where he lived for ten years studying Reiki, Lomi Lomi, psychic healing and an intensive massage therapy school called Spa Luna on the island of Maui. He has done several Vipassana’s, Hoffman Process and many self awareness retreats and workshops. He came to learn the true healing power of integrating conscious breathing into one’s daily life. Later gathering wisdom and healing techniques internationally from his in depth study with the Transformational Breath Foundation in Istanbul, to his Thai Massage training in Chiang Mai, Thailand, South America s influence of shamanism and the Native American teachings of the good red road. Shamrock now carries his extensive study of the healing arts into his sessions and highly inspirational workshops. Shamrock was an assistant in intuitional workshops for 2.5 years and has traveled around the world with this work. Gathering the experiences and teachings he now carries it with him into his works and his facilitation of Breath, Body, Boogie and Beyond workshops throughout Chicago and many other states here in the United States.

Shamrock is generally available in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Please contact him for his current schedule.

Making Your Body Your Temple

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Author: by Susanna Harwood Rubin

Think of your body as the temple in which you do your spiritual practices. So instead of simply rolling out your mat or getting to the studio, make the process a part of it. The walk or drive you take to get there, the organizing of your time in order to make it happen, the delaying of calls and emails so that you can squeeze some asana into your overcrowded day — think of these activities as preparatory. Dressing for the temple, walking toward the temple, entering the temple. It is all a slow move inward.

From the minute you decide to practice asana, decide that that moment is where the practice begins. Even if you have a full day of work to get through or a commute to the studio, when you think, “In four hours I’ll go to class,” let that thought initiate the practice itself. Then everything you do between that initial thought and your body moving on your mat is a gathering up of materials, a bathing, a dressing, a lighting of candles, an integral preparatory part of a greater whole.

Let this shift in thinking infuse your daily activities with intentionality. There is a reason why we set an intention at the beginning of our practice. We want our movement to carry meaning. We want more than simply, “Step your right foot forward for Warrior I.” When movement carries conscious meaning, it becomes far more than simply movement.

I went through a dramatic life shift last year due to unexpected knee surgery that overturned my physical practice as well as necessitating a reconfiguration of my approach to teaching yoga asana. Since my practice was severely limited as I healed, I took the time in which my body was so unusually constrained to refine my verbal instructions so I could just sit while teaching, as I ironically invited people into their bodies through my words. I couldn’t say, as I usually did, “Oh, just do it like this,” then kick out a quick demo.

As a friend of mine observed, for the first time asana was actually difficult for me. I had to pause, plan, and think in a new way. I learned a lot from the experience and have written and taught extensively about it. But its relevance to what I’m writing now is the fact that everything was very slowed down for me, since my days had to be in service to my knee. So parts of my day I had not previously associated with my teaching practice now had to become an integral part of it.
I could no longer dash out the door of my apartment and speed walk down to Virayoga, where I teach weekly classes, giving the studio manager palpitations as I bounced into the studio my usual five minutes before class. I had to leave early and walk slowly and make the getting to the studio a part of my personal ritual. I spent a year learning a lesson about slowness, thoughtfulness, and intentionality.

I regularly ask my students, “Can you think of your practice as prayer?” Think of each asana as a bead on a mala, each an opportunity to touch something you love. Your breath is the thread connecting pose to pose, stringing together the beads of your practice so that you can hold your intention in different ways, in different containers, seeing which form offers the most meaning for you today.

Choose to make every thought, movement, and gesture toward your practice a part of your practice. And here’s a thought: Even if you don’t get to your mat, you are still engaged in your practice. It’s a much more compassionate way of thinking, and that should be part of your process as well. Try it.

Make your body your temple.
Make your asana your ritual.
Let your breath be your prayer.
—
Originally published in Elephant Journal

Drinkable Water Out of Thin Air!

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Finally, a Billboard That Creates Drinkable Water Out of Thin Air

By Matt Peckham @mattpeckham

No really, it’s a billboard that can generate up to 26 gallons of water a day from nothing but air.

I’ve never cared much for billboards. Not in the city, not out of the city — not anywhere, really. It’s like the saying in that old Five Man Electrical Band song. So when the creative director of an ad agency in Peru sent me a picture of what he claimed was the first billboard that produces potable water from air, my initial reaction was: gotta be a hoax, or at best, a gimmick.

Except it’s neither: The billboard pictured here is real, it’s located in Lima, Peru, and it produces around 100 liters of water a day (about 26 gallons) from nothing more than humidity, a basic filtration system and a little gravitational ingenuity.

Let’s talk about Lima for a moment, the largest city in Peru and the fifth largest in all of the Americas, with some 7.6 million people (closer to 9 million when you factor in the surrounding metro area). Because it sits along the southern Pacific Ocean, the humidity in the city averages 83% (it’s actually closer to 100% in the mornings). But Lima is also part of what’s called a coastal desert: It lies at the northern edge of the Atacama, the driest desert in the world, meaning the city sees perhaps half an inch of precipitation annually (Lima is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo). Lima thus depends on drainage from the Andes as well as runoff from glacier melt — both sources on the decline because of climate change.

Enter the University of Engineering and Technology of Peru (UTEC), which was looking for something splashy to kick off its application period for 2013 enrollment. It turned to ad agency Mayo DraftFCB, which struck on the idea of a billboard that would convert Lima’s H2O-saturated air into potable water. And then they actually built one.

It’s not entirely self-sufficient, requiring electricity (it’s not clear how much) to power the five devices that comprise the billboard’s inverse osmosis filtration system, each device responsible for generating up to 20 liters. The water is then transported through small ducts to a central holding tank at the billboard’s base, where you’ll find — what else? — a water faucet. According to Mayo DraftFCB, the billboard has already produced 9,450 liters of water (about 2,500 gallons) in just three months, which it says equals the water consumption of “hundreds of families per month.” Just imagine what dozens, hundreds or even thousands of these things, strategically placed in the city itself or outlying villages, might do. And imagine what you could accomplish in any number of troubled spots around the world that need potable water with a solution like this.

Mayo DraftFCB says it dropped the billboard along the Pan-American Highway at kilometer marker 89.5 when summer started (in December, mind you — Lima’s south of the equator) and that it’s designed to inspire young Peruvians to study engineering at UTEC while simultaneously illustrating how advertising can be more than just an eyesore. (Done and done, I’d say.)
“We wanted future students to see how engineers can also solve social needs in daily basis kinds of situations,” said Alejandro Aponte, creative director at Mayo DraftFCB.

The city’s residents could certainly use the help. According to a 2011 The Independent piece ominously titled “The desert city in serious danger of running dry,” about 1.2 million residents of Lima lack running water entirely, depending on unregulated private-company water trucks to deliver the goods — companies that charge up to 30 soles (US $10) per cubic meter of H2O, or as The Independent notes, 20 times what more well-off residents pay for their tapwater.

See A video Here: http://www.reshareable.tv/never-thought-a-billboard-could-be-used-this-way.html?h=1

Climate Engineering a Good Idea?

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Climate EngineeringClimate Engineering No Longer Pie in the Sky

Scientists backed by the government and Bill Gates are studying schemes such as sunlight-blocking particles

This rendering [to the right] shows a cloud-brightening scheme by scientist John Latham in which a ship sprays salt particles into the air to reflect sunlight and slow global warming. (John MacNeil)

WASHINGTON — As international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions stall, schemes to slow global warming using fantastical technologies once dismissed as a sideshow are getting serious consideration in Washington.

Ships that spew salt into the air to block sunlight. Mirrored satellites designed to bounce solar rays back into space. Massive “reverse” power plants that would suck carbon from the atmosphere. These are among the ideas the National Academy of Sciences has charged a panel of some of the nation’s top climate thinkers to investigate. Several agencies requested the inquiry, including the CIA.  At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, scientists are modeling what such technologies might do to weather patterns. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., a fund created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates — an enthusiast of research into climate engineering — helps bankroll another such effort. “There is a level of seriousness about these strategies that didn’t exist a decade ago, when it was considered just a game,” said Ken Caldeira, a scientist with the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, who sits on the National Academy of Sciences panel. “Attitudes have changed dramatically.”

Even as the research moves forward, many scientists and government officials worry about the risks of massive climate-control contraptions. Some fear the potential for error in tampering with the world’s thermostat. Get it wrong, they say, and the consequences could be disastrous. Many also say the public could develop a false hope that geo-engineering schemes alone could halt climate change. That, they worry, would undermine already tenuous support for efforts to seriously reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to warming the climate. Even so, once-skeptical federal officials and scientists at major research institutions including Stanford, Harvard and Caltech have decided that ignoring these largely untested technologies also poses dangers. “There has been so little movement globally and, particularly, nationally toward mitigation of climate change that we’re in a situation where we need to know what the prospects are for this,” said Marcia McNutt, a former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, who is chairwoman of the National Academy of Sciences panel. “Whether we wind up using these technologies, or someone else does and we suddenly find ourselves in a geo-engineered world, we have to better understand the impacts and the consequences,” she said.

Agencies are struggling to analyze the possibilities of weather control and how it might be policed. In November, the Congressional Research Service advised lawmakers to pay attention to the issue, saying “these new technologies may become available to foreign governments and entities in the private sector to use unilaterally — without authorization from the United States government or an international treaty.” That already happened to a limited extent in mid-2012 when a California businessman, Russ George, dumped 200,000 pounds of iron-rich dust off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, in an effort — many say publicity stunt — aimed at spurring a massive plankton bloom. The theory of ocean fertilization holds that more plankton would increase the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. George’s test did appear to cause more plankton to bloom, but it is unclear whether it had any effect on carbon dioxide levels in the air.

That same year, British scientists canceled plans to test the effect that spraying liquids at high altitude would have on sunlight. The proposed small-scale test involved launching a balloon high above the sea and spraying what would have amounted to a couple of bathtubs of water into the atmosphere. In theory, that would mimic the cooling effect that occurs when ash from a volcanic eruption blocks sunlight. The experiment was grounded amid a heated dispute, which continues today, over whether field tests should be taking place at all in the absence of international rules guiding how to go about them. Some prominent climate experts have argued that the technology the British scientists were testing, were it ever to be used on a large scale, could exacerbate extreme drought and flooding in parts of the world. “We need to consider whether we have the right legal architecture in place to make sure bad things don’t happen,” said Harvard law professor Jody Freeman, a former White House counselor for energy and climate change. “It is important we have some control and society is engaged in the risks.”

The technologies being proposed are numerous, and often odd.

“I have seen all kinds of proposals,” said James Fleming, author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” and a member of the National Academy geo-engineering committee. “There is a crazy new one in my email every week,” he said. “There are a lot of Rube Goldbergs out there, and some Dr. Strangeloves.”  Of the technologies being considered, those that would remove carbon tend to be less controversial. Riley Duren, chief systems engineer for Earth science and technology at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, estimates, for example, that counteracting today’s emissions would require about 30,000 of what he calls reverse power plants: enormous steel structures developed by a start-up in Calgary, Canada, that would use fans to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The bids to redirect sunlight are much more economical and could be deployed more quickly. They also carry much more risk, the congressional research study warns. Proposals in that category include efforts at cloud whitening, in which planes or ships would shoot particles of sea salt into the sky, stimulating the formation of brighter clouds that would reflect sunlight. Other proposals would inject sulfates into the atmosphere to absorb heat, or bounce solar radiation back into space.

In addition to the danger of exacerbating drought, the congressional report warns, if such contraptions malfunctioned or were otherwise shut down, the climate could rapidly warm, “leaving little time for humans or nature to adapt.”

The authors echo the concerns of many scientists that small changes in climate over the history of Earth have been known to have severe consequences. Much of the momentum behind geo-engineering comes from an organization Gates created with Caldeira and Harvard professor David Keith. The two scientists have been getting $1.3 million annually from Gates to fund their research, as well as to distribute to other projects, such as the modeling being done at Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Caldeira said. They also hold cram sessions for the billionaire a few times each year on climate and energy issues, including geo-engineering. Caldeira and Keith hope the National Academy effort will open the way for government-sponsored field tests. But McNutt cautions that may not happen. John Latham won’t be staying idle waiting for the government to resolve that debate. A senior research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., Latham is confident that he and his partners have developed a viable contraption. Their cloud-brightening scheme would involve ships at sea unleashing a spray of salt particles. It would use nozzles designed by Armand Neukermans, a physicist who helped invent the inkjet printer while at Hewlett-Packard. As recently as last year, the group had little hope of securing enough money to test the contraption outside the lab, Latham said. But as the buzz around geo-engineering has intensified, some wealthy individuals have stepped forward with about $1 million needed for a small-scale trial. Latham anticipates that within two or three years he will be conducting a government-sanctioned field test over thousands of acres of ocean. “People are getting more and more desperate about climate change,” he said. “I think it is quite probable we will get the OK to do this.”

[email protected]

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-climate-engineering-20140305,0,3602250.story#ixzz2v9DeDWlU

Art of Wellness

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Years ago, in the mountains of central China, a man carried his young son on his back to the hospital with him, teaching the boy everything he knew about healing. The boy watched his father with rapt attention, knowing that he, like seven generations of his family before him, would one day grow up to be a doctor. But the boy’s apprenticeship and training went far beyond the study of medicine. Every day, hours before sunrise, he rose to practice Qigong and martial arts. For in ancient Chinese philosophy it was held that “”Only one who is healthy and strong himself can heal. After years of training at his father’s side, the boy left his hometown for the city, where he attended a prestigious medical school and deepened his Qigong and Tai Chi practice with several masters of great renown. At the university, he met a girl who shared his passion for Traditional Chinese Medicine as well as Qigong and martial arts.

The girl’s father was a self-taught herbalist who doctored the family and the people of their town. When she was a child, he would take her with him into the forest or along the riverbank in search of the right plant, grass or root to cure a sick person’s ailment. This folk wisdom, spirit of service and concern for others inspired her to become a doctor and instilled in her a deep appreciation for the power of traditional medicine. The girl grew up during a time of political chaos in China, a turbulent period when the culture’s ancient wisdom and traditions were scorned. Despite this, her parents taught their daughter about traditional Chinese philosophy and culture and took her on secret pilgrimages to sacred Buddhist and Taoist temples and shrines. These ideas and values influenced her decision as an adult to study Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

Throughout their years of medical schooling, the pair found strength and calm in the midst of their rigorous studies by sparring and practicing martial arts together. Each won medals: he earned a gold medal, and she a silver in national martial arts competitions among students from Traditional Chinese Medical schools across China. When they completed their studies, both had obtained medical degrees not only in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but also received the same training that a Western doctor would obtain from an American medical school. After years of practicing medicine and teaching at prestigious university hospitals in China, the young man who had grown up watching his father heal patients moved to America with his wife and daughters, where for more than 10 years, they have shared their deep knowledge of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Dr. Qineng Tan – LAc. Ph.D. OMD (China)

A CLASSICAL TRAINING IN CHINA’S MEDICAL & MARTIAL ARTS TRADITIONS

Dr. Tan comes from a long line of doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine. An eighth-generation acupuncturist, Dr. Tan’s training started at age five, when he began studying martial arts and Qigong, practices that awaken one’s inner chi or subtle energy. Throughout the many thousand year history of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it has been believed that only a doctor with inner cultivation is truly able to heal patients. Dr. Tan’s rare background combines a mastery of China’s ancient healing and martial arts along with in-depth training in modern Western medicine. A gold medal winner in martial arts competitions among students from TCM schools across China, Dr. Tan is a Kung Fu master known for his compassionate care and exceptional skills.

MEETING THE HIGHEST STANDARDS OF HIS PROFESSION

Dr. Tan earned his medical degree at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, one of China’s top-ranked Chinese medical schools.
A commitment to offer the highest quality of care led Dr. Tan to also study Western medicine. He completed advanced training as an orthopedic surgeon at People’s Hospital of Sichuan Province. Dr. Tan worked as a full-time associate professor and senior orthopedic surgeon for 10 years at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is known for its pioneering work integrating Eastern and Western medicine, and as director and chief physician at a major orthopedic center in the city of Dachuan. His writings and academic papers were used as textbooks in Traditional Chinese Medical schools in China. Dr. Tan’s publications address Traditional Chinese Medicine for the treatment of various conditions, from pain management to neurological, internal, adrenal, and immunological disorders, cancer patient support, men and women’s health, anti-aging as well as wellbeing. During his more than 25 years of practice, Dr. Tan has trained hundreds of doctors of TCM. He is a member of the American Academy of Pain Management and a fellow of the American Society of Acupuncturists.

AN EXCEPTIONAL COMMITMENT TO HIS PATIENTS

Dr. Tan was invited to the U.S. to teach and practice the philosophy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1996. He has been practicing as a licensed acupuncturist in Santa Monica, where he has enriched the lives of thousands of patients. Dr. Tan has a holistic approach to wellness and a unique ability to advise and treat patients, drawing upon the merits of both Eastern and Western medicine.

Dr. Xiaomei Cai – LAc. Ph.D. OMD (China) A STRONG AND UNIQUE BACKGROUND

In ancient China, it was said only a doctor with the highest personal cultivation had the chi, or awakened subtle energy, to cure a patient. Dr. Cai felt there was merit to such ideas, and her medical training in Traditional Chinese Medicine included the study and mastery of the ancient Chinese martial arts, including Qigong. Dr. Cai believes deeply in preventative medicine and the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle. One of Dr. Cai’s passions is her interest and study of women’s health issues and gynecology, the field of her post graduate training. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Cai practiced and taught at Chengdu University’s TCM Hospital, a major teaching hospital specializing in integrating Eastern and Western medicine in China. Dr. Cai first worked there as a gynecologist and then as a senior and chief physician overseeing new residents. During a two-year period of specialty training, she had the opportunity to study and work with some of China’s foremost experts in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 1997, Dr. Cai moved to Santa Monica where her strong medical background in China helps inform her acupuncture practice. Her knowledge of both Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine gives her a unique ability to understand and educate her patients and help them to make informed medical decisions. This diverse expertise allows Dr. Cai to recommend, when necessary, a mixture of medical modalities, and allows her to advise whatever course of treatment is most beneficial for her patients.

MEETING THE HIGHEST STANDARDS OF HER PROFESSION

Dr. Xiaomei Cai has more than 25 years medical experience of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Dr. Cai has conducted extensive medical research and published numerous academic papers and books in the field of TCM. One of the herbal remedies that she researched with a former colleague is now a popular remedy used for treating uterine fibroid tumors in Chinese hospitals.
Dr. Cai is an active member of the Pacific Coast Fertility Society, the World Alternative Medicine Organization, and the American Society of Acupuncturists.

USING HER KNOWLEDGE TO TEACH OTHERS

Dr. Cai has taught hundreds of medical students, interns, residents and physicians for their advanced training in TCM. She has lectured on acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine at Chengdu University of TCM, as well as at various conferences, such as the Resolve Fertility Conference on Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
She has extensive experience working in the fields of infertility, women’s health, immunologic, adrenal and endocrine disorders, cancer patient support, emotional disorders, children’s health, internal and skin conditions, and pain management, as well as general well-being.

Bahá’í Faith – The Oneness of Religion

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The principle of the unity of religion is at the center of Baha’i teachings. Bahá’u’lláh states that humanity is engaged in a collective growth process quite similar to the growth process of an individual: just as a person begins life as a helpless infant and attains maturity in successive stages, so humankind began its collective social life in a primitive state, gradually attaining maturity. In the case of the individual, it is clear that his or her development takes place as a result of the education he or she receives from parents, teachers, and society in general.

But what is the motive force in humankind’s collective evolution? The answer the Bahá’í Faith provides to this question is “revealed religion.” In one of His major works, the Kitab-i-Iqan (the Book of Certitude), Bahá’u’lláh explained that God, the Creator, has intervened and will continue to intervene in human history by means of chosen Messengers. These Messengers, Whom Bahá’u’lláh called “Manifestations of God ,” are principally the Founders of the major revealed religions, such as Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad, and so forth. It is the spirit released by the coming of these Manifestations, together with the influence of Their teachings and the social systems established by Their laws and precepts, that enable humankind to progress in its collective evolution. Simply put: the Manifestations of God are the chief educators of humanity. Thus the principle of the unity of religion means that all of the great religious Founders—the Manifestations—have come from God, and that all of the religious systems established by Them are part of a single divine plan directed by God.

In reality, there is only one religion, the religion of God. This one religion is continually evolving, and each particular religious system represents a stage in the evolution of the whole.

For more information:

“The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh, the followers of His Faith firmly believe, is that Religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the non-essential aspects of their doctrines and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.” — Shoghi Effendi