Matthew Stelzner I woke up yesterday to the season of Mars. Due to the massive fires in California and Oregon, a very rare meteorological phenomenon brought ashes and smoke into the currents of the high atmosphere and blocked out the light of the Sun, leaving an eerie orange/red sky. The birds were silent and the city lights were tricked into thinking it was nighttime, and the sky looked the way the movies portray the skies of Mars. A few hours after I recorded this, Mars went retrograde and began seeming to go backwards from our perspective against the backdrop of the constellations. This occurs every couple of years when the Earth moves into its closest proximity to the red planet, and when we send out our probes and rovers on rockets, as we have been doing in recent months. As a planet we are making a Mars flyby, and receiving the Martian frequencies right to our core. Not only are we at our closest point of contact with Mars, but Mars is also in the sign Aries for the rest of this year. Mars is the ruler of Aries, and this makes things even hotter, even more red. Add to this the fact that Mars is also in an extremely rare 90 degree square alignment with this year’s epic Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto conjunction (also for the rest of the year and into January), you can understand why it is a time to bow to Mars and pray for guidance in how to navigate these fires, how to fight the good fight. It’s one of the strongest possible seasons of Mars we’ve seen in a very long time. It’s time to find our inner warrior for the push up the field. Here is a brief Captain’s Log from my expedition out under these San Francisco red skies, sharing my thoughts about it all, along with some general thoughts about the coming months and how the energies will shift early in 2021. Check me out on Instagram where you will find unique content that is not shared here: @tarot_and_lola To explore more of my work and get information about my intuitive readings: Visit my website at stelz.biz If you sign up for my mailing list you will receive my newsletter and special promotions. Check out my series of forecast videos for 2020 at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

The Jimmy Dore Show Become a Premium Member: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/join Go to a Live Show: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/tour Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jimmydorecomedy/yt… LIVESTREAM & LIVE SHOW ANNOUNCEMENTS: Email: https://mailchi.mp/jimmydorecomedy/yt… Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimmy_dore Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimmyDoreShow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejimmydor… WATCH / LISTEN FREE: Videos: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/watch Podcasts: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/podcasts (Also available on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast player.) ACCESS TO FULL REPLAYABLE LIVESTREAMS: Become a Premium Member: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/join SUPPORT THE JIMMY DORE SHOW: Make a Donation: https://jimmydorecomedy.com/donate Buy Official Merch (Tees, Sweatshirts, Hats, Bags): https://jimmydorecomedy.com/store DOWNLOAD OUR MOBILE APP: App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jimmy-d… Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de… Jimmy Dore on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jimmy_Dore Marianne Williamson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/marwilliamson Stef Zamorano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/miserablelib Edited by Koki Miyazaki About The Jimmy Dore Show: #TheJimmyDoreShow is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster. With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country.

By Suzanne Deakins, H.W., M.

Billowing clouds of smoke
Rolling over trees
Trees grey weeping and bending
No relief
No clean air
No breath

Red sun
No movement
Birds sitting still
Bunnies laying down
No air
No breath

Billowing clouds of smoke
Unending covering all life
Fires unceasing
No air
No breath

Eyes burning
Lungs crying
I can’t breathe
No Air
Life standing still
Waiting for breath

Billowing clouds of smoke
Raging fire storm
Endless winds
No Air
No Breath

Suzanne Deakins, Ph.D., H.W.M.

suzannedeak@gmail.com
503-954-0012

Blog at www.onespiritpress.com

Swami Vivekananda explains the spiritual meaning of the gopis’ divine love for Krishna, which is:

too holy to be attempted without giving up everything, too sacred to be understood until the soul has become perfectly pure. Even the Gita, the great philosophy itself, does not compare with that madness, for in the Gita the disciple is taught slowly how to walk towards the goal, but here is the madness of enjoyment, the drunkenness of love, where disciples and teachers and teachings and books . . . everything has been thrown away. What remains is the madness of love. It is forgetfulness of everything and the lover sees nothing in the world except that Krishna, and Krishna alone.

–Mary Fisher, Living Religions

“The yogi knows that the Absolute performs all actions, and all actions are gifts to the Absolute.”

–Mary Fisher, Living Religions

By Wendy Mandy (September 9, 2020)

Hello Everyone In the last newsletters I have asked people to question the narrative put out in mainstream press and gently resist the control over your lives by educating yourselves by reading the links that I send.  But overall my newsletters are to hopefully remind you how to keep positive in these times.   Also, inspiration comes from unexpected places.  When I was pondering on this, a client of mine sent me this; Give love and it will always come back like the waves on a shore, but not necessarily from where you put it in.  Love gives you what you need when you least expect it and when you most need it. We are being told to stay indoors away from each other.  We may not be able to go to clubs or festivals or to the theatre, but we can dance together wherever we are in small groups. You can sing together or alone, in the car, in the bath or in nature!  When you are alone, meditate and be still.  Or you could try listening to inspiring stories, or play charades together!  I am not saying you always have to be positive.  Life is about touching that edge of difficulty and going beyond it.  To do that we need to be dynamic.  We can be still in the present in a dynamic way, meditating and allowing our mind to enter into a quieter place via the breath. Depression and anxiety cannot live in dynamic places of painting, writing, dancing, singing or running, and it cannot live in true love ( that has no desire for reward ). Pure anger, grief, sadness, passion, compassion and fear are dynamic and express themselves and then leave allowing us to be free.  If we develop a daily practise of some of the above, we will have tools to move through these “locked down “ times individually and collectively.  It takes effort to create a daily practise!  Keep at it, tune in to yourself beyond your own mind, and you will be rewarded! Remember that we are (and this is quantum physics) a frequency from all that is (love) having a human experience, not a human trying to feel you have a soul.   Love is the absence of fear. Unfortunately fear is all around us at the moment, but it has no place when you are singing, dancing and meditating.  The more of us who wake up to Love and the power of true health, the quicker we will free ourselves from all that is around us keeping us separated. Let me share some more Bruce Lipton with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ0B0PMizGg Freedom awaits us!  Love Wendy

Copyright © 2020 Wendy Mandy UK, All rights reserved. You can contact me at: www.wendymandy.uk

April 28, 2020 11.12am EDT (theconversation.com)

Authors

1. Evanson Z SambalaResearch Fellow, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand
2. Lenore MandersonVisiting Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies, Brown University, USA, and Distinguished Professor, Public Health and Medical Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand
3. Sara CooperSenior Scientist in Cochrane South Africa at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and Honorary researcher in the Division of Social & Behavioural Sciences in the School of Public Health, UCT, South African Medical Research Council

Disclosure statement

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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African communities, within South Africa and beyond, are diverse and complex, informed by different rules, values and beliefs. But public health emergencies demand that governments take decisive action which affect communities and individuals. In doing so, it’s easy to override civil rights and liberties, and to suspend community consultations, engagement and shared governance in favour of quick decisions. This can have negative impacts as experience from the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa showed. For example, failure to sufficiently interact with communities regarding initial protocols designed to make burials “safer” resulted in locally offensive policies that made little headway in transforming practices.

In an article published earlier this year, we argued that it might be useful in public health to draw on local philosophies that value the exchange of benefits and sharing of responsibilities. In particular, we suggest using the philosophy of Ubuntu to promote the idea that public health is more important than individual wellbeing. Through its emphasis on humanity, compassion and social responsibility, Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) has the potential to reduce conflicts between individual rights and public health, and might help governments gain community support for actions in emergencies.

We grounded our article in the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009, as experienced in Malawi and Ghana. The article highlighted how Ubuntu and related notions of humanity might guide people’s thinking about how individuals are responsible for the welfare of the wider society during a health crisis, and vice versa.

Lessons from the H1N1 pandemic

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in Malawi, people were forcibly vaccinated with conflicting results. The vaccinations were delivered late, few cases of H1N1 had actually been reported and there was little community engagement prior to the programme. Furthermore people were forced to agree to a technology that might not benefit them personally, although it would benefit the community at large. People were unwilling to cooperate. With limited community support and contention about infection and prevention, only 10% of the population was vaccinated.

Our work on Ubuntu and related philosophies to support adherence to public health measures during pandemics in a way that is acceptable both to society and to individuals, emerged from the shortfall of this campaign, and the challenges of establishing community support. This did not happen in the case of Malawi.

To achieve this requires advanced preparations, such as having Ubuntu as a decision-making framework to guide policymakers.

Public health measures that limit people’s liberty, such as quarantine or restriction of movement, can create ethical problems. People may resist cooperating if interventions are considered unfair and unacceptable. They may retaliate with violence against health workers and police. The challenge is to balance individual and public health goals.

Lockdowns and “social distancing” have been introduced in most countries to contain the spread of COVID-19. They have been reasonably well observed in much of the world. In South Africa, however, police brutality, violence and resistance were reported in the first days of the lockdown and have continued. This reflects the militarised approach of the country’s police minister, Bheki Cele:

This war we find ourselves in … is not a war against any citizen of this country, but is a war against a common enemy, the coronavirus. Whoever breaks the law and chooses to join the enemy against the citizens will face the full might of the law and police will decisively make sure that we defend the people of South Africa.

Military and police interventions may flatten the COVID-19 epidemiological curve. But the approach adopted may be unacceptable and still may have limited effect. It raises ethical concerns, tarnishes the reputation of law enforcement officers, and damages public trust in the police, military and health officials. In the longer term, lawmakers and law enforcers may do better to make legal systems worthy of respect than to try to instil fear of punishment.

People obey the law primarily because they respect legitimate authority. Accounts of enforced action to control Ebola and H1N1 suggest that a sense of emergency may override attention to other issues. These include communication with different groups of people, mitigation for economic fallout, massive unemployment, potential escalation of crime for survival, and the harsh effects of lockdown on the poorest people.

Better decision-making in emergencies

Social solidarity seems a useful way for governments to think about pro-poor policies and interventions. At the core of Ubuntu philosophy is the notion of collective solidarity. It means the self is perceived primarily in relation to others. The emphasis is on interdependence.

Ubuntu’s solution to social problems is to understand that people cannot survive by simply obeying laws created or imposed by the state. Its solution to social order rests upon individual acceptance of common community norms and goals.

Extending the concept of Ubuntu beyond sentimentality isn’t easy. Some may argue that it is too demanding on the individual and, in reality, does little to reconcile individual and community interests.

Ubuntu was used effectively by Nelson Mandela to encourage community cohesion, although notably not in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This contrasts with the use of ubuntu in state communication to mitigate the transmission of HIV in Uganda, as we described in our recent article.

Further, in South Africa, despite its value in communicating leadership goals, its use to policy appears to have declined in recent years. To be sure, migration, shifting consumer values, trade and globalisation have had an impact on local value systems. “Traditional African” principles of what is right and wrong have been diluted by Western norms and practices, by neoliberalism and models of growth that centre on consumption. Now is perhaps the time to revisit our priorities and values, and to reconsider how government and communities might work together.

There are debates about what constitutes Ubuntu. But it does provide a language for people to use when taking action to prevent disasters, even if this involves practices such as lockdowns. Ubuntu asks simply that people regard others and do good. I am because we are.

Beth Daley

Editor and General Manager

September 9, 2020 (theonion.com)

THE HEAVENS—Upon sending forth a chorus of angels to officially extend the offers of divine apprenticeship, the Lord God Almighty confirmed Wednesday that He had selected a new class of interns for the fall. “We’ve got a great crop of go-getters this year, and we can’t wait to see what they bring to the table of My heavenly banquet,” said God, the Eternal Kingdom’s ruler, heralding the “distinguished group of diverse young professionals” who will be expected to perform administrative tasks for the prophets and assist with His miracles on an as-needed basis. “It’s not all fetching manna for the seraphim or polishing the streets of gold. Interns are vital to the day-to-day operation of Heaven and receive valuable on-the-job training in an authentic everlasting paradise. A lot of people don’t realize our own blessed Gabriel worked his way up from summer intern to Archangel and Divine Messenger over the course of just a few millennia.” God added that while the internship itself was unpaid, participants may be eligible to receive course credit at one of the many unaccredited Bible colleges across the United States.

(Courtesy of Political Bob)

The Rational National West coast wildfires, stemming from the climate crisis, have turned the sky in California and Oregon orange and red. === Support the show at http://TheRationalNational.com/Join Donate Directly at http://PayPal.me/daviddoel Tip at https://streamlabs.com/therationalnat… ‘Join’ on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9o… Follow David Doel at http://twitter.com/DavidDoel Follow The Rational National at http://twitter.com/TRNshow Follow on Twitch at http://twitch.tv/TheRationalNational === Sources: https://bit.ly/2Zl0qXq (clip 1) https://bit.ly/3bHnjJr (map of smoke) https://bit.ly/3mhjjV0 (heat map) https://bit.ly/3bGMjAu (image 1) https://n.pr/3hg4YV9 (NPR report) https://bit.ly/337s232 (four images) https://bit.ly/35s9b5T (red sky video) https://bit.ly/3kfpaZd (fire video) https://bit.ly/338RTry (climate change role) https://cnn.it/3m6bu4m (CNN report) https://bit.ly/3bGyKRH (Bill McKibben)