Mighty!

And the Politicians Throwin' Stones

So the kids they dance

And shake their bones,

And the politicians throwin' stones,

Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Ashes, ashes, all fall down. Heartless powers try to tell us

What to think.

If the spirit's sleeping,

Then the flesh is ink

History's page will thus be carved in stone.

And we are here, and we are on our own

On our own.On our own.On our own.

(John Perry Barlow and Bob Weir)

US Scientists Reject Interference

This article was published by The BBC December 14, 2006

By Jonathan Amos

Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco

There have been claims of political interference on climate issues Some 10,000 US researchers have signed a statement protesting about political interference in the scientific process. The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy. According to the American Union of Concerned Scientists, data is being misrepresented for political reasons. It claims scientists working for federal agencies have been asked to change data to fit policy initiatives. The Union has released an "A to Z" guide that it says documents dozens of recent allegations involving censorship and political interference in federal science, covering issues ranging from global warming to sex education. Campaigners say that in recent years the White House has been able to censor the work of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration because a Republican congress has been loath to stand up for scientific integrity. "It's very difficult to make good public policy without good science, and it's even harder to make good public policy with bad science," said Dr Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. "In the last several years, we've seen an increase in both the misuse of science and I would say an increase of bad science in a number of very important issues; for example, in global climate change, international peace and security, and water resources." The statement was released at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting. It is an annual gathering of Earth scientists. Last year, it triggered a major row when a discussion here resulted in the renowned US space agency climate scientist Dr James Hansen later claiming he had come under pressure not to talk to the media on global warming issues. Michael Halpern from the UCS said the statement of objection to political interference had been supported by researchers regardless of their political views. "This science statement that has now been signed by the 10,000 scientists is signed by science advisers to both Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to President Eisenhower, stating that this is not business as usual and calling for this practice to stop," he told BBC News. The Union said is was hopeful that the new Congress taking office in January would show a greater commitment to protecting the integrity of the scientific process. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

If Not For You

If not for you,Babe,

I couldn't find the door, Couldn't even see the floor, I'd be sad and blue,If not for you. If not for you,Babe, I'd lay awake all night, Wait for the mornin' light To shine in through, But it would not be new, If not for you.If not for you My sky would fall,Rain would gather too. Without your love I'd be nowhere at all, I'd be lost if not for you, And you know it's true. If not for youMy sky would fall, Rain would gather too. Without your love I'd be nowhere at all, Oh! What would I do If not for you.If not for you, Winter would have no spring, Couldn't hear the robin sing, I just wouldn't have a clue, Anyway it wouldn't ring true,If not for you. Bob Dylan

"Weather Report Suite: Part II (Let It Grow)"

photo by wildflowerworl words by John Barlow music Grateful Dead

"What shall we say, shall we call it by a name

As well to count the angels dancing on a pin

Water bright as the sky from which it came

And the name is on the earth that takes it in

We will not speak but stand inside the rain

And listen to the

thunder shout

I am, I am, I am, I am

So it goes, we make what we made since the world began

Nothing more, the love of the women, work of men

Seasons round,

creatures great and small, up and down, as we rise and fall"

"Weather Report Suite: Part II (Let It Grow)"

Morning comes, she follows the path to the river shore

Lightly sung, her song is the latch on the morning's door.

See the sun sparkle in the reeds; silver beads pass into the sea

She comes from a town where they call her the woodcutter's daughter

She's brown as the bank where she kneels down to gather her water.

And she bears it away with a love that the river has taught her.

Let it flow, greatly flow, wide and clear.

Round and round, the cut of the plow in the furrowed field

Seasons round, the bushels of corn and the barley meal.

Broken ground, open and beckoning to the spring; black dirt live again.

The plowman is broad as the back of the land he is sowing.

As he dances the circular track of the plow ever knowing.

That the work of his day measures more than the planting and growing.

Let it grow, let it grow, greatly yield.

"What shall we say, shall we call it by a name

As well to count the angels dancing on a pin

Water bright as the sky from which it came

And the name is on the earth that takes it in

We will not speak but stand inside the rain And listen to the

thunder shout I am, I am, I am, I am

So it goes, we make what we made since the world began

Nothing more, the love of the women, work of men Seasons round,

creatures great and small, up and down, as we rise and fall"

Prayer Flags

photo by xiaobai60 Thirty spokes are joined

together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that allows the wheel to function. We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with the substantial but the emptiness is what we use. Lao Tzu

 

WAKAN, MANITOU... "Home Transcends All Physical Dwellings..."

photo by xiaobai60

WAKAN, MANITOU...MANIDO

"In every Native American language, there is a word which refers to the mysterious, unknowable power of the universe: a power which, even when it manifests itself in ways that affect human beings, still remains a great mystery. Among the Lakota, that word is wakan, while among Algonquin-speakers, such as my own Abenaki people, it is manitou or manido. When great and powerful things occur which are beyond ordinary human power or understanding, when there are miracles such as the coming of the White Buffalo Woman, they are wakan."

(from: WITH VISIBLE BREATH: Miracles in Native American Traditions by Joseph Bruchac)

"With every breath I walk,

Toward the nation I walk,

With visible breath I walk,

Something holy, something

ancient

Something red I bring...

~ The Song of the

White Buffalo Calf Woman

At Home In The World

By Tracy Cochoran

The Christmas Eve after 9/11 I went with my family to a candlelight service at our local Episcopal church. I listened to the story of the Nativity. How right it seemed that God would appear in a humble setting and not in a cocktail party on the Upper East side of Manhattan. The sanctuary was made dark and the first candles were lit. People sang "Silent Night." As one candle tipped into another, I felt like I was watching the unveiling of a greath truth ~ that God does stand for Love and Peace and all qualities in us that seem too soft for this world. I thought of the cross, of the way the horizontal temporal intersects with the vertical and eternal. As the sanctuary filled with light, I realized that the presence of the highest in the lowest places wasn't a solitary event never to happen again. It was always happening.

I looked over At Alex. She was staring straight ahead. I wondered what she was experiencing. I loved her so much that I started to despair. But then I thought of Gandhi, who once said, "When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won." All through the horizontal pull that on its own takes us outside of ourselves, the vertical is an ever-present possibility. We can always come home to ourselves, come into alignment ~ body, heart, and mind. "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony," said Gandhi.

Since the attacks, I'd come to see that our true individuality does not consist in anything that seperates us from others but in our ability to open up and respond to life without fear or self consciousness.. In those moments when we are completely integrated and grounded, we can become a gateway for the divine. In the months after 9/11, I had taken to cooking, to lighting candles. Instinctively, I was returning to a role that woman have filled since the dawn of time, keeping the home fires burning. Intuitively, I knew that sharing meals is eternal and enduring, and that the softest things ~ love, the smell of banana bread ~ overcome the hardest. Now I realized that by these ordinary acts of nurturance, of connection, we can become a channel for the hightest vertical and horizontal in balance. I thought back to the day I took Alex to see a former president. I'd had the feeling I was taking her to the inner ring of the tribal fire, to see sombeody who I imagined had been transformed by his extraordinary experience to become a channel that could transmit to the rest of us a sense of greater possibility. I'd wanted her to make her home in the big world. Now I realized that every time we're fully present and respond to life fully, without thought or reservation, when we are at home in ourselves, baking banana bread, acting out all the ordinary little acts of our horizontal lives, we come home to our true selves, a channel for the higher.

"Home is where the Heart is..."

it's just me cb

The Brain Is Wider Than the Sky

The Brain—is wider than the Sky— For—put them side by side— The one the other will contain with ease —and You—beside—Emily Dickinson

Please visit www.Cosmotions.com

The work you will see on these web pages will inspire you...Thad V'Soske has done an amazing job of showing us how lovely the world is...please tell your friends to visit www.Cosmotions.com Thad's inspiration and patience in showing us the mystery of the known and unknown will amaze you. You will be able to see and understand just what a wonderful job he has done in sharing Lovelight and SoulShine. It's all good But this is better!

Free Hugs ~ My Arms Are Wide Open

Carter Heyward: Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies.

Elie Wiesel: The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.