SPIRIT IN MATTERS: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth
By Dianne Eppler Adams

Vol. 1, No 4 - July 29, 2003

GUIDING PRINCIPLES
...Ours is an interconnected, interdependent, sacred world.
...All relationships--personal, communal, national, global--are equal and best approached with fairness, respect, honesty, and compassion.
...Darkness is overcome, not by avoidance, but through shining the light of awareness on it and choosing otherwise.


FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT...

    Wherever you go, there you are?

I seem to recall these are words, part of a song (anyone know the singer?) that I heard sometime ago. They've been rumbling around in my head recently, causing me to think once again about how much of our external reality is really created by our internal attitudes. It is easy to feel that the people in our lives are "doing it to me" or the circumstances "will be better when we move to" anywhere else.

But the problem is, when we move we have to take ourselves with us! All that we've argued with in our external life here will just be replaced by someone or something else to argue with when we get there, wherever there is.

I have personal experience with this concept having made a major move from New Jersey to Texas in 1978 and from Texas to Virginia in 1986. Each time I was willing to throw my external life into the chaos of a move, because there were issues in my life I wanted to go away. Of course, it is possible, if you really change internally as well as externally, that the new location will prove to present a fresh, new start.

But if you don't change internally too, you'll just find the same problems looking at you with different eyes. Each of my moves, in fact, did nothing to solve the problems I thought I could leave behind. Fortunately, I finally woke up and haven't moved since. That doesn't mean I might not choose to move again in my life, but I know it will not be to run away from where I am now.

It has taken me a while to learn that if I want to change my life, I need to change myself, my beliefs and my behaviors -- then real change happens externally, often by what seems magic.

I once had a boss who was very critical and confrontational. I loved what I did but found the office environment was toxic. I felt drained at night when I went home. Then I was introduced to the idea that I had a part to play in the situation by my own attitude. Upon reflection, I realized I too was very critical of her.

I decided to do an experiment - I went to the park every lunch time and meditated visualizing the two of us having a friendly conversation. In my imagination, I thanked her for her helpful supervisory support and heard her say I was doing a good job. By magic, within a short time, maybe a week, the relationship began to improve.

When I left the job (for other reasons), she was the one who expressed her sadness most.

Wherever you go in your life, remember your own inner attitude and beliefs create your world. Want to change your circumstances? Change your attitude and beliefs. It's much easier than moving cross country only to learn that...oops! There you are!

(Your comments are always welcome to SpiritInMatters@aol.com.)
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"There are two freedoms -- the false, where man is free to do what he
likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought."

Charles Kingsley

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...

[Dianne: Here's an update on the FCC situation I wrote about in the last newsletter. Obviously there will be more to come as pressure from the general public on this issue continues to be strong.]

Status of FCC rule roll back in Congress
From a MoveOn email:

Because of public pressure, the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved an
appropriations bill that blocks one of the FCC's new rules. The bill
prohibits expanding the number of American TV viewers one media
company may reach to 45%. It holds the cap at 35%. This is great
news, but it's not over.

The national TV cap is the least substantive rule change. The rules
relaxing bans on newspaper/broadcast cross ownership and local TV
consolidation (duopolies) are what really hurt media diversity and
independence.


IS THERE A DEEPER CAUSE TO TERRORISM?
Terrorism and Consciousness Explored
Noetic Sciences Magazine
http://www.noetic.org/ions/new.html

James O'Dea, president of IONS said, "In this courageous and insightful article, Mack quotes former Governor Cuomo: 'The only way to solve the terrorist problem is to change the minds of those who practice terrorism.' In order to change their minds and murderous hatred in their hearts, we must demonstrate a greater understanding about how we are perceived by the growing numbers of suicidal terrorists and also better understand the roots of their rage."

Dr. Mack writes that humanity is "at a turning point…a kind of race to the future between the forces of destruction and creation." He concludes that what will be required is no less than a worldwide shift of consciousness that "enable the citizens of the Earth to become a genuine family of people…in which each of us can come to feel a responsibility for the welfare of all."


Pentagon kills "terror futures market"
http://www.msnbc.com/news/945269.asp?0cv=CB10

[Dianne: The same Pentagon office that proposed setting up a huge database of information by spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists proposed this new experiment. Are we such strong believers in "free market gaming" that we would actually depend upon it's accuracy to make major international decisions? Any wonder why this amazingly stupid idea only lasted one day after the news got out?]

The conventional wisdom holds that financial markets combine the collective wisdom of the millions of investors who participate in them. Designers of the program were hoping to use that market force to help predict political upheaval in volatile places like the Middle East.

The project was modeled on “futures” exchanges like the Iowa Electronic Markets, a popular Web-based market that lets political junkies place bets — with real money — on the outcome of political elections.


Crime Without Punishment
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8486

[Dianne: The punch line is in the last paragraph below.]

President Bush's man in charge of the Corporate Fraud Task Force, Larry Thompson, went to the White House on July 22 to let the world know that Bush was cracking down on corporate crime. Thompson, who is the second in command under Attorney General John Ashcroft, told the assembled reporters that in the year since the task force was created, it had obtained over 250 corporate fraud convictions or guilty pleas, including guilty pleas or convictions of at least 25 former CEOs, and that it had charged 354 defendants with some type of corporate fraud in connection with 169 cases.

"We have over 320 investigations pending, involving in excess of 500 individuals and companies as subjects of these investigations," Thompson said. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment for one year.

But forcing corporate criminals and their executives to plead guilty is only half the game. The other half is punishment. What Thompson didn't say is that only one high-level corporate executive has gone to jail in that year.


Mining bacteria's appetite for toxic waste
Researchers try to clean nuclear sites with microbes
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/14/MN103893.DTL
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Monday, July 14, 2003

Scientists are experimenting with some unusual species of bacteria that can thrive by cleaning up radioactive wastes left over from the Cold War when nuclear weapons plants across the country were running full blast. The problem exists wherever uranium has been mined, processed and made into nuclear bombs. Almost 500 billion gallons of groundwater -- enough to supply 1.5 million homes for a year -- remain contaminated with uranium and other toxic chemicals in 36 states, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates.

Another 800 million gallons of waste from uranium mines and weapons plants lie buried in landfills, trenches and unlined tanks. More than 2 billion cubic feet of contaminated sediments remain to be cleaned -- a mountain of radioactive and toxic dirt 2,000 times larger than Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza. For many years, scientists have known about the unusual appetites of some microbes, including the ability of certain strains to consume uranium and other deadly poisons. Now researchers are starting to exploit that ability as a way to clean up nuclear sites, a process called "bioremediation."


From Wheat to Plastic - A Biodegradable Alternative?
http://www.gvnr.com/65/2.htm

UK - A wheat-based biodegradable product could provide an environmentally friendly alternative to that most problematic component of our household waste - plastic. At present over 96% of the 2.5 million tons of household plastic the UK uses every year ends up in landfills where it will lie for decades before it begins to breakdown.

York University's Rukmal Abeysekera says, "Wholly bio-compostable packaging materials made from modified wheat starch have been developed at the university under a three-year research project and could soon meet market demand. Pressure on landfill sites is now revitalising interest in finding new, cost-effective ways of producing materials from cheap, naturally occurring foodstuffs which are also environmentally friendly."

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LEARNING SOFTLY

Now is an hourglass in time.
You are experiencing the last few moments just before the glass is
turned.
Be not rushed into panic or discontent.
The tide is turning and it will come within its own time.
Be with all that calls you into your integrity.
Do not rush because you have fear.
Act because there is a calling.
If each individual is clear and moves within the grace of their own
creations, then is completion come through the small space of
opportunity.
Now is the time for single purpose.
It is to answer your personal calling.
Gratitude is key.

From Grailwritings by Clare Peterson
Vancouver Island, Canada

(You can request to receive the free Grailwritings newsletter by contacting Clare at bcpeter@shaw.ca)

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©2003 Spirit in Matters: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for reproduction or redistribution of the complete e-newsletter issue only, provided this statement is included.

Comments are welcome at SpiritInMatters@aol.com.