Denise Truscello / WireImage / DeniseTruscello.net

Holly Madison rides the High Roller on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, at the LinqPromenade.

By Robin Leach (contact)

Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 12:01 a.m.

We all know that you shouldnt or cant judge a book by its cover. But when it comes to your handwriting, thats a different story. There are experts who can read you fully by what you write, how you sign your name and how you scribble.

Chaplain Grace Thompson is a regular Vegas Deluxe reader, and her website ATransitionalJourney.com. details how she use spiritual graphology to look into peoples lives.

Grace says: Everyone, no matter who you are, where you are, where you come from or what you are going through right now, is on a journey. And every journey is a transition of some sort, a transition to some degree.

Whether you are planning to walk down the aisle in marriage, mourning the loss of a loved one, or trying to find your true meaning, purpose and direction in life, you are on a transitional journey.

The journey never ends, it may take you over some bumps, some wrong turns or through some stormy weather, but it never ends. You should find solace in the fact that your journey never ends, you should rejoice that so much more joy and many more blessings are ahead of you.

If your current position in your journey isnt as positive as you would like it to be, dont worry. Its OK because its your journey, and you can change it. And only you can change it if you want to no one else can, so its really up to you.

More:

Handwriting analyses of Celine Dion, Holly Madison, Criss Angel, Carrot Top and Rick Harrison

Spiritual Enlightenment Brain Recordings
http://tinyurl.com/myuxph7 Free Samples Unexplainable offers audio sessions which are designed to tune your mind to specific frequencies and brainwave ranges...

By: Auina Mazimo

Read more from the original source:

Spiritual Enlightenment Brain Recordings - Video

Hope White, newcomer to Sarasota. February 7, 2015; Herald Tribune/Carla Varisco photo

In the two years after her mother moved to San Diego when she was a child, Hope White attended a half-dozen schools. She remembers the day she came home from a new third-grade class and said to her mother, But Mom, that was so easy!

It was only much later, when she was pursuing a graduate degree in education at UCLA, that White realized she must have been placed into a lower-level class because of the color of her skin.

I knew it was race, says White, who has been searching for a position in her chosen field of education administration since arriving in Sarasota five months ago. It made me think about how a teachers perceptions can cause a student to succeed or fail.

Race wasnt something White, 34, was conscious of as a child. She grew up in a spiritual tradition known as Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, a practice noted for its belief that all people are inherently capable of attaining enlightenment. Chanting, playing instruments and putting on performances within the communitys accepting atmosphere remain a fond part of her childhood memories.

We believe everyone has the opportunity to bring out their potential, says White, who immediately joined a local Nichiren group after moving here. Racism is alive and well and always will be, but I dont have to be influenced by it. I want to embrace as many people as possible. Thats what humanism is all about.

In the predominantly white area where she grew up, hers was the only African-American family on the block. But both her family and the sole Latino and Filipino families in the neighborhood were made to feel welcome.

When we all got together it was like a little United Nations, she remembers.

Though she wasnt forced into her spiritual practice, from the start Nicherin Buddhisms non-violent, inclusive philosophy appealed to her. But at her mothers insistence that it would be a resume builder, she enrolled in the military after high school. Stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as a member of the airborne division, she says it took every ounce I had not to go AWOL.

I couldnt deal with training my body and mind to harm other people. I thought, if were going to have a military, lets make it a humanistic one that does construction, education. Creating value instead of destroying it.

Follow this link:

Sunday profile: Eager to bring humanism to the classroom

ORLANDO -- Carolina Begglo looked like a sleeping princess as she lay on her back, her long, dark hair billowing around her while 10 inches of water cradled her body and 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts kept her from sinking.

Begglo, 31, is a new convert to an old form of rest and pain relief that has arrived in Orlando: the flotation tank.

"Everything happens so fast: your life, your work, constant stress," said Begglo, a massage therapist. "It's always nice to find someplace to relax."

That's what Laurie Samulonis Bowers and her husband, Mark Bowers, thought when they opened East Coast Floats in Baldwin Park, Fla., in August. Since then, more than 800 people have climbed into one of their three sleek, white pods that look as if they belong in a sci-fi movie.

Begglo, whose hands and back get tired from work, said the water, darkness and silence ease her discomfort and soothe her mind. The sensation is similar to dreaming, she said.

"It's very calm. It's very quiet. It's just you and yourself," Begglo said, adding it "totally relaxes you until the point that you forget even your name."

Proponents say the focus and freedom from distractions they get in a flotation tank -- sometimes known as a sensory-deprivation tank -- are conduits to spiritual enlightenment, anxiety relief, improved creativity and physical restoration. Some tout the tank as a remedy for conditions including fibromyalgia, arthritis, whiplash, jet lag, migraines, insomnia, premenstrual tension, back discomfort and depression.

Claims of miracle cures haven't been proved, said Tom Fine, who studied flotation for 20 years and is on the board of the Flotation Tank Association. But research and anecdotal evidence have shown that floating can relieve pain and tension.

"It's an easy way for people to experience a very deep relaxation experience that then they can transfer and continue to experience with a technique like meditation," said Fine, a mental-health counselor and associate professor in the psychiatry department at the University of Toledo College of Medicine.

The process works like this: A client enters a soundproof private room, disrobes, showers and lies supine in 150 gallons of skin-temperature water. Earplugs and inflatable neck collars are also available.

Excerpt from:

Using flotation tanks to wash away stress

BuzzVine content is brought to you by BuzzVine Community writers and is each author's own work. The opinions expressed in BuzzVine are for your enjoyment only and do not reflect CP's editorial policy or stance on any issue or persons in any way.

By Peter Myers

February 26, 2015|4:50 pm

Well, everyone deserves to have some fun when it comes to a snow day, even monks! Although monks are known for giving up worldly pleasures in favor of spiritual enlightenment, it doesn't mean they can't enjoy themselves.

This video is a perfect example of that. These monks from Jerusalem took advantage of the snowfall they got with an old-fashioned snowball fight! Everyone deserves to have some fun when it snows.

This is a must-see video!

See original here:

Franciscan Monks Decide to Have a Snowball Fight in Jerusalem -- This Is Hilarious!

Interview: Conrad Raw 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part1 / 2
http://www.GreaterHumanPotential.com Interview with Conrad Raw about the 8 steps for spiritual growth and enlightenment. Discover the training during the chakra and kundalini activation retreat...

By: GreaterHumanPotential

Excerpt from:

Interview: Conrad Raw 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part1 / 2 - Video

Interview With Conrad Raw: 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part I of IV
http://www.GreaterHumanPotential.com Interview with Conrad Raw about the 8 steps for spiritual growth and enlightenment. Discover the training during the chakra and kundalini activation retreat...

By: GreaterHumanPotential

Continue reading here:

Interview With Conrad Raw: 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part I of IV - Video

The Buddhist tradition is full of visual representations and sculptures of the religion's titular deity. But a statue hundreds of years old, recently analyzed in Europe, is a rarity: A full mummy of a meditating monk resides inside of it.

Researchers at Norway's Meander Medical Center found the preserved body of a Buddhist master who likely died around the year 1100, believed to be named Liuquan, in a statue that had been exhibited last year at the Drents Museum in Netherlands.

Scientists had known the statue contained a mummy, but even so, the CT scans of the statue reveal unprecedented information about an extreme form of meditation.

Drents Museum

PHOTO: A mummy was discovered inside a statue of Buddha.

Its display at the Drents Museum marked the first time the statue had been outside of China, reported Discover Magazine, and following the close of the exhibit the statue was taken to the Meander Medical Center in Amersfoort, Netherlands for CT scans.

The practice might sound like a grim effort to take one's life, but that wasn't its intent: Self-mummification was only for the most devoted of religious monks, and the practice was seen as a path to enlightenment or an advanced spiritual state.

The imaging confirmed the existence of Liquan's mummy. The monk, believed to be a member of the Chinese Meditation School, had practiced self-mummification, considered by certain Buddhists to be the highest form of religious enlightenment.

The process involved first a rigorous, year-long diet of water nuts, berries and other similar foods, abstaining completely from grains and more substantial food, reports c|net. Afterward, the monk would be sealed inside the statue, fed a tea made from a toxic lacquer tree, given a tube used for food and air, and a bell to indicate that the monk was still alive.

When the bell stopped ringing, the monk would be sealed in a tomb for three more years, and when reopened, a deceased monk found intact would be said to have reached true enlightenment; those who decomposed would have been considered to fall short of their goal, though their attempts were still honored. Some successful "living Buddhas" would have shrines built in their honor, according to a study of the practice by iO9.

The rest is here:

Why This Buddhist Monk Mummified Himself Centuries Ago

(Courtesy: Drents Museum)

Its not surprising that Southeast Asia is home to countless ancient Buddha statues, but when one of those statues contains a mummified monk, that is certainly a surprise.

A mummified monk is exactly what researchers at Norways Meander Medical Center found when they placed a 1,000-year-old Chinese Buddha statue inside a CT scanner. Researchers believe the statue contains the body of a Buddhist master named Liuquan, who may have practiced the tradition of self-mummification to reach his final resting place.

Researchers werent completely surprised by what the scans revealed. They knew there was a mummified body within the statue, but they didnt know much else about it.

Buddha statues containing mummified monks are quite rare and this was the first time this particular statue was released beyond the borders of China. The statue had been displayed in a mummy exhibit last year at the Drents Museum in Netherlands, which yielded the perfect opportunity to examine it in more detail.

(Courtesy: Meander Medical Centre)

Scientists and medical staff performed the CT scan that revealed Liuquans mediating body in full detail. They also used an endoscope to examine the abdominal cavity of the mummy inside, and they discovered that the organs had been removed and replaced with paper scraps that were printed with ancient Chinese characters. It isnt clear what specifically was written on those paper scraps.

If you were a monk that wanted to achieve enlightenment and be revered as a living Buddha, self-mummification was your brutal option. Monks on this spiritual path would starve themselves for almost a decade, subsisting on water, seeds and nuts. Then, theyd be sealed inside the statue and ingest roots, pine bark and a toxic, tree sap-based tea for another 1,000 days eating and breathing through a small tube. Eventually death would come, and monks mummified in this manner were said to have reached enlightenment.

According to the Drents Museum, this Buddha sarcophagus is an example of self-mummification. However, the fact that his organs were removed and replaced with paper suggests that may not be true.

Regardless, lets hope sealing yourself inside a statue while surviving on toxic tea isnt the only path to true enlightenment.

View post:

X-Rays of Buddhist Statue Reveal Mummified Monk

A Chinese statue of the Buddha dating back to around 1100 AD is more than just a statue -- it's the final resting place of a Buddhist master.

Drents Museum

It seems Mexico isn't the only place in the world where you can find human body parts incorporated into religious statuary: a Chinese statue of the Buddha has been discovered to contain the entire mummified body of a monk, folded into the same position.

The Buddha, exhibited at the Drents Museum in The Netherlands last year, was taken to the Meander Medical Centre in Amersfoort, where it was subjected to a full CT scan and had samples taken with an endoscope, under the supervision of Buddhist art expert Erik Brujin.

The mummy inside the statue -- the only one of its kind ever found -- is believed to be a Buddhist master named Liuquan of the Chinese Meditation School, who died around 1100 AD.

The CT scan and endoscopy revealed more than just the mummified remains of Liuquan. Samples of a material that has yet to be identified were taken from the thoracic and abdominal cavities, and something else extraordinary was discovered: in the spaces once occupied by organs, the team found scraps of paper scribed with ancient Chinese characters.

The team believes the mummy may be an example of self-mummification in order to become a "living Buddha", a gruelling process that involved a life of extreme austerity. It was believed by some that mummification was not death, but a highly advanced spiritual state, and by others as a state of higher enlightenment.

Meander Medical Centre

In Japan, monks seeking self-mummification would begin a 1,000-day diet of water, seeds and nuts, followed by a 1,000-day diet of roots, pine bark and a special tea made from the sap of the Chinese lacquer tree -- a toxic substance usually used to lacquer bowls and plates, used by the monks to repel maggots and bacteria. Then they would be sealed in a stone tomb to await death.

A further 1,000 days after the monk's death, the tomb would be unsealed; those monks who had achieved mummification would be venerated in temples, while those who had not would remain entombed, respected for their attempt.

See the article here:

CT scan finds mummified monk inside 1,000-year-old Buddha

By a stroke of fortune at least for all VW enthusiasts the SGP 62 appeares to have been kept in storage in the West country for 30 years, where it remained in good condition before being discovered in 1992. It has since being lovingly restored to the original specifications, with a new 'Devon interior modelled on its original 1950s period design.

Nick Whale, of Silverstone auctions, which sold the SGP 62, said: This is a beautiful and rare samba- Microbus, and it is historically important in terms of VWs legacy in the UK. These vehicles are hugely popular."

Peter Colborne-Barber, 71, who took over his fathers dealership until he sold it in 2001, remembers the enthusiasm with which his father greeted new models such as the SGP 62.

This particular model had front opening windows, which were traditionally made for warmer climes, so goodness knows how it ended up in Britain, he said. Its a lovely example of a VW camper van and looks even better following its restoration.

It was Mr Colborne-Barber Snr who set up the first dealership in Britain to specialising in VW cars when, in 1949, he bought one of the first VW Beetles to be manufactured in Germany under the reconstruction programme supervised by the Allied forces at the end of the war.

The 1947 Beetle had been brought across by former Army officer George LaHaye who part exchanged it with Mr Colborne-Barber Snr for a Wolseley 6/80.

Mr Colborne-Barber Snrs son bought the car back into family ownership in the 1980s when, by chance, its then owner drove it onto his garage forecourt for repairs.

It then remained at the family dealership even after it changed owners, as a historic memento of VWs origins in Britain.

My father loved that car, said Mr Colborne-Barber Jnr. They were robust and reliable and could take you to Scotland without any problems. He knew straight away they would be popular with the British motoring public. And they obviously still are."

Read more from the original source:

Unique VW camper van sells for 67,500

Cult Night; 3Ho Psyche Out
After 6 attempts to get this uploaded I #39;m tired of rewriting the description.. i cover 3HO and their worst contribution to society, khundalini yoga the charm...

By: Shadow Heathen

See the original post:

Cult Night; 3Ho & Psyche Out - Video

Feature Article of Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Columnist: Sarfo, Samuel Adjei

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo

Attorney and Counselor at Law Most of the problems that we encounter as a nation could be attributed to our spiritual vulnerabilities. And when I speak of this, I am making no reference to our understanding of God and our communication with him (We cannot understand God, let alone communicate with him). I am talking about the original Hellenistic meaning of psyche which refers to the center of our thinking and how we apply this in the solution of our socio-cultural and political problems. If viewed in this term, we will understand that on any ordinary day, Ghanaians are too vulnerable and spiritually weak: we are ready to believe in so many things without thinking too hard about them. Like our children, we are acculturated not to ask too many questions. Rather, we are trained to define our logic and reasoning by dint of our partisan posture, religious orientation and or ethnic origin. Thus what is right or proper is defined in terms of these constructs, not in terms of some ultimate truths. Our version of the ultimate truth is the truth within our faiths, within our party or within our ethnic origin: the truth that has been construed for us by others we are trained to accept as the godfathers of our mores and ethos. Our educational system has not enabled us to develop the kind of analytical methods that will make us question old-age assumptions and faiths and beliefs and ethnic insecurities. For this reason, the state of mind that will enable us to be original and creative appears lost to us. We appropriate as our own all partisan ideologies without questioning their deeper-level wisdom and use for our circumstances. But if one begins with an ideological construct, ones capacity to think will be distorted toward justifying mere ideological goals, and our intellectual processes will evolve only for the purposes of whole-sale acceptance of the ideological aims, and we will become nothing more than the vessel for the permanent propagation of these ideological goals. Thinking in partisan or ideological terms therefore becomes an obstacle for original and practical ideations. What is more, it shackles up the brain and makes it unable to adapt and advance to resolve novel situations. Our ideological proclivities and partisan predilections also underlie our vulnerability in believing the religious lies that are daily peddled to take from us our money, time and resources. We have been made to cultivate our wholesale faith in a book that was written thousands of years ago by people who were neither our kin nor kith, and whose relationship with their god initially proscribed our ancestors who were then deemed as gentiles or infidels or savages or bondsmen. So in this case, we are one place removed from the origins of the faith, and are hand-me down followers of the creed of our salvation. And in accepting and advancing what has been handed down to us as our faith, we are not required to ask any questions. We are to cede the grounds of any vigorous intellectual debate to a higher power, which is wielded on Gods behalf by his so-called deputies, whose messages from the divine are simply self-serving and self-centered, and glibly articulated to meet their selfish interests. And in our acceptance of these messages from these deputies of God, we are two-places removed from the source of the faith. And so we have become mere chalices for the ingestion and imbibition of a faith which openly spurns and obnubilates our own thinking and creative capacities. Finally, we have not been able to get our psyche away from our ethnicity and skin color. These have come to take a pride of place in how we reason and also accept reasoning from other sources. I have encountered many self-abnegating comments that have consistently traduced the status of a Blacks to the level of a beasts while extolling Whites and ascribing the best of human qualities and inventions to them. Likewise, educated minds have often ascribed sinister motives and interpreted views according to a persons ethnic or language group origins. Often, we do not pause to evaluate the prima facie merits of the propounded views from our adversaries. Rather, our posture has been to impose a generic albeit intellectually ethnic coloration to all ideas and views advanced by a person from the outside. Thus our thinking and worldviews are shaped and circumscribed by our partisan, religious and ethnic origins, but not by any independent and objective inquiries into the ultimate truth. In other words, truth is what has been parceled out to us by the perceptively superior thinkers within our partisan or religious or ethnic factions. That is why the essences of practical education and scholarship are lost upon our minds. We are a people still operating with a medieval herd mentality while living within a time of great enlightenment and radical interrogation of old assumptions. And to us, the greatest threat posed to the society is from a person thinking differently, from the person who dares to disagree with the generally approved facts and conclusions. That is why we are not able to cross the boundaries of the older systems of thinking in order to develop our own original viewpoints. We are captives of settled ideologies, religious philosophies and ethnic propensities that do not originate from our own independent reasoning but that have been parceled and handed down to us to be parceled and handed down to our children and our childrens children. Sometimes we call this ideology, sometimes we call this faith and sometimes we call this our ethnic superiority or peculiarities. But they all operate in the same intellectual plane of utter bankruptcy. And unfortunately, they are the only things that unite us and inform the platform of our thinking. And these also explain our inability as a people to develop original philosophies and create new things or initiate new views. Thus, we are in an ideological, religious and ethnic life imprisonment, where original truths are of no value to us, and where whatever we regard as valuable and exceptional are those things the forebears repeated to us, and which we have kept in our mental caves since time immemorial. But such mental bondage is far more egregious than physical bondage, because mental slaves are oblivious of their conditions and will do nothing about them. But with physical slavery, even a beast will fight it and overcome it if possible. What we have going for us as a people is nothing like physical slavery. It is mental enslavement of gargantuan proportions bequeathed to us by those we have come to regard as right and righteous for all time, for all places, and for all actions. Plato spoke of a group of people who were born chained to a cave and gazing at distorted shadows spread across a wall all their livesuntil one of them broke loose and escaped to the outside world. When he returned to debunk the illusions his fellows were accepting, the rest of the group regarded him as insane. This is the posture of our own people who are trapped by these ideological, religious and ethnic assumptions that have long been rejected by those who know better. They have only contempt for the outsiders views. And this posture accounts for why our people have found little use for our educated scholars and so-called scientists and engineers. These are all chained to those old and archaic assumptions they came to meet, and nothing of the new revelations will enable them to free themselves from their mental caves. This then is the daunting challenge of our times, and the fact that the task appears impossible does not mean that we should not attempt to accomplish it. In the coming future, our task belongs to the struggle to gain psychological/spiritual freedom for the intellectually entombed, and what we do and write must be guided to supplant these age-old vulnerabilities, and to impose on posterity a mind that is free from all austerities a kind of generative tabular rasa upon which will be inscribed the original thinking and the creative propositions that will help tackle all challenges of this new era.

Samuel Adjei Sarfo, JD, MA, BA, etc. is an Attorney and Counselor at Law, a Teacher of Lore, Certified High School English Educator, Researcher and Scholar. He can be reached at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com

Read more here:

Mental Freedom for the Ordinary Ghanaian. Part I.

HUMOR by Michael Breger | Feb 19 2015 | 15 hours ago

Do you seek a free flowing state of mind, spiritual harmony and karmic balance but cant fit it in your busy schedule? Having trouble cultivating your identity in relation to the vast cosmic nothingness? Concerned about crafting an inner reality untrammeled by the limitations and judgments of those around you? Need to supplement the recent acquisition of your yoga pants with a sense of profound tranquility? Look no further.

No longer must you be a careful and thoughtful reader of classical Buddhist texts to achieve profound serenity and insight. Thanks to the joint efforts of Starbucks and the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia, you can now use your hard earned dollars (plus dollars also accepted) to achieve enlightenment at any participating Starbucks location.

Lets be real this is the 21st century, and nobody has the time to reach a sense of serenity that can be sustained effortlessly for hours on end. No longer do you need to spend a lifetime of quiet reflective meditation and mindful compassion to achieve the potentiality of your being. All you need to do is ask your certified barista/spirit guide for a piping hot cup full of spiritual awakening.

Our baristas will serve up a venti dose of artisanal no self, the fundamental Buddhist tenet that mental and physical things including our own conception of self do not exist as permanent, single, substantial entities. Finally! A pragmatic solution for the multidimensional spiritual being of the modern age!

With each mindful sip you will experience waves of inner peace and tranquility wash over your body and essence, cleansing your scattered thoughts and leaving you feeling confident and beautiful. Experience breathtaking vistas of universal emptiness, with luminous visions of webs of Buddhas extending from complex cosmological visions of purelands and galaxies, to inner Buddha natures within life. Use these revelations to impress that cute alternative girl/guy in your hot yoga class. With your newfound infinite wisdom, your liberal arts degree will be filled with meaning and practicality.

Step aside, Kaplan. The mental clarity and focus gained from enlightenment will culminate in attention that can be sustained effortlessly for hours on end. This will boost your ability to use reason and analysis in conjunction with calm and visions of the fractal truths that lie hidden to the nonbelievers. Now you can brag to mom about your ~transcendent~ LSAT score.

The world is full of suffering, but now you can bypass all that troublesome business and focus on the important stuff like sorting your Gmail inbox and living amongst the eternal now. Order yours with wheatgrass, chia or an extra pump of void-awareness. Nirvana is now gluten-free. No need to worry about misspelt names on cups once you realize your name is merely an abstraction of your spiritual essence!

Melt away your false perceptions of reality (and your hangover) with a refreshing cup of enlightenment. Only 100 calories! If you want to save even more time, download the Instanirvana app, where you can spend your meditation credits to pay with your phone, bypass those pesky lines, play wacky games and download all kinds of helpful DLC. Instead of eyeing that chocolate chip scone, check out our new man buns, a clip on hairpiece for the aspiring urban guru in you! Also be sure to look out for our upcoming seasonal items including summer passionfruit prisms and pumpkin spice healing crystals.

(Side effects may include increased mindfulness of the body, sensations, consciousness and mental phenomena. Some customers have reported disconnection with temporal reality and reaching states of non-existence.)

Continued here:

Fair trade enlightenment: now at participating Starbucks locations

(PRWEB) February 16, 2015

Sharing both her struggles and her joys, author Petra Valica opens up about her life in her new book, While Sipping Green Tea: One Womans Reflections on Awakening (published by AuthorHouse), the first book in a planned series.

After years of climbing the corporate ladder, getting over a failed marriage and struggling to find the answers to her purpose in life, a unique dare from a friend changes everything. As a result of taking a step out of the ordinary, Petra came into contact with a spiritual guide, Ethan, who helped her to pursue lessons in enlightenment. Through boxing lessons and while sipping green tea, Ethan shows Petra a new way of seeing which gives unexpected insights into her own life and spiritual path. The wisdom from these encounters are shared in each chapter as lessons to awakening.

The chapters include themes such as sadness, struggle, celibacy, Tantra and selflessness. Each chapter contains a lesson that readers can actively practice in their own lives. Through her own story, Petra hopes that her readers will find their own inspiration within their personal path towards awakening.

An excerpt from While Sipping Green Tea:

Id been caught in a sort of eternal hangover, with my true consciousness covered snugly under the warm security blanket of my ego. Sitting under the Bodhi tree cross-legged with closed eyes and smiling blissfully, was just a nice story. It was all far too advanced for an ordinary soul like me. Or so I thought.

The book speaks to living with a higher level of consciousness and how we can achieve that in our lives, Petra says. It helps others to see what they already know to be true inside.

While Sipping Green Tea By Petra Valica Softcover | 5 x 8 in | 344 pages | ISBN 9781496948199 E-Book | 344 pages | ISBN 9781496948205 Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author Petra Valica is a Canadian woman currently living and working in Prague in IT and as a freelance writer. She is currently working on her second book Cappuccino Foam and the Many Roads to Rome.

AuthorHouse, an Author Solutions, LLC self-publishing imprint, is a leading provider of book publishing, marketing, and bookselling services for authors around the globe and offers the industrys only suite of Hollywood book-to-film services. Committed to providing the highest level of customer service, AuthorHouse assigns each author personal publishing and marketing consultants who provide guidance throughout the process. For more information or to publish a book, visit authorhouse.com or call 1-888-519-5121. For the latest, follow @authorhouse on Twitter.

View post:

Petra Valica Shares Life Lessons Learned While Sipping Green Tea

I'm a queer cis lady in love with a trans man. We may look straight, but we're not and neither of us is interested in seeming that way.

My boyfriend is trans.

Thats right, he was assigned "girl" at birth. If you met him today, and you didnt know that, wow, gee whiz, this is the guy Cait is writing about, youd have absolutely no clue. This is a problem and a gift.

Lets start with the positive. Jae is my soul mate. I know that is perhaps the corniest thing that youve read thus far today. Go with it. When we met, I was in the process of emerging from a crappy breakup and, as I often did, sleeping around to get some distance from my pain. Ive been in good relationships and Ive been in bad ones, and Ive done some deep digging. For years, I had been waiting to meet the person who I could get down with for the adventure called life.

Jae is that person. Sweet! Win! In addition to our mutual love of the outdoors, long conversations about spiritual enlightenment, yoga, hot chocolate, and vegan, hippie-ass pizza, Jae and I connect on queerness.

Yes, queerness even though we look like a hetero couple.

Backreel the tape. Ive been attracted to both boys and girls as long as I can remember. When I was 5, my best friend Hannah and I kissed on the bus. She proceeded to deny the event to a group of our friends, and I distinctly remember the differentness of how I felt, the crushed shock. I came out as gay when I was 18, and two out of my three major relationships were with women. Here was the problem; I was and am very much attracted to men. I dated men. I slept with men. Men are great. But this attraction has caveats. For me, there are two issues at play, the first of which is that many cis men have deeply inquired into my sex life with women and my identity as queer in a way that feels voyeuristic and creepy.

But the second, bigger issue is the people in my life who have clearly (or passive- aggressively, take your pick) wished that I would just pick a nice boy. No, no one ever said that. But the implication, the feeling was there; it felt like dating women was a phase that I would outgrow. Unlike that of my fantastic and fabulously gay sister, who was unquestionably and only attracted to women since she hit puberty, my queerness was more elusive. I am a feminine lady who really likes the color pink and mascara as a concept. I also have hairy armpits. In my grad school class cohort, which is overwhelmingly straight, I feel like my queerness sticks out like a sore thumb. It is subtle but present and a big deal in my life. It is not going away.

So when I met Jae, a man who appreciates and understands my queerness in the best of ways, it was pretty fucking thrilling. And then it set in: we look hella straight. We do. Here we are, the queer kids on the block, this T-injecting, vagina/manvag thats the word we use for one of his parts loving couple, looking straight. Yo, whats up.

But were not straight. Im not straight. Its important to me that you know.

More:

Op-ed: For Us, Being 'Out' About My Boyfriend's Trans Status Is Love

Interview Conrad Raw 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part I
http://www.GreaterHumanPotential.com Interview with Conrad Raw about the 8 steps for spiritual growth and enlightenment. Discover the training during the chakra and kundalini activation retreat...

By: GreaterHumanPotential

Excerpt from:

Interview Conrad Raw 8 Steps For Spiritual Growth And Enlightenment Part I - Video

We all have fears; they can take many different forms but we all have them. They can range in intensity from a mild phobia right up to a paralysing dread, and can be as simple as handling a spider or as complex as facing death.

In the Bible, (Isaiah 8: 13-14), the writer talks about fearing God. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and he will be a sanctuary.

In context, when we look around us we see, for example, the terrors on the news, and atrocities happening throughout the world.

Our daily lives can also have many troubles of their own. Scripture says we are not to fear these things but rather to look to God, fear his authority, and then he will be our sanctuary.

The word sanctuary can mean various things to each of us. For some it is a place of safe keeping, a holy consecrated ground; for others it is a place of spiritual enlightenment, a place we go to for spiritual exercise or rest.

Perhaps you may consider what a sanctuary means to you. For me, the meaning, in the context of this passage, is an invitation to experience the immeasurable power of Jesus Christ, who is able to keep you in his sanctuary, the place of rest, peace and spiritual safety.

A reverential fear of God allows us to start to know his peace and protection. Why look elsewhere?

Rachael Davison

Windermere Community Church

Continue reading here:

CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: What does sanctuary mean to you?

Spiritual Enlightenment - The Most SHOCKING Truth You #39;ll Ever Hear
Spiritual Enlightenment - A profound psychological secret that no one has ever explained to you clearly. All spirituality boils down to this. http://www.actu...

By: Actualized.org

Read the original:

Spiritual Enlightenment - The Most SHOCKING Truth You'll Ever Hear - Video

Overwatch ~ Zenyatta HD
Zenyatta is an omnic monk who wanders the world in search of spiritual enlightenment. It is said that those who cross his path are never the same again. Years ago, following the Omnic Crisis,...

By: Blizzard Highlights

See original here:

Overwatch ~ Zenyatta HD - Video