Find your calm - Facing Extinction

Facing Extinction by Catherine Ingram

Because the subject is so tragic and because it can scare or anger people, this is not an essay I ever wanted to write; it is one I would have wanted to read along the way. But the words on these pages are meant only for those who are ready for them. I offer no hope or solutions for our continuation, only companionship and empathy to you, the reader, who either knows or suspects that there is no hope or solution to be found. What we now need to find is courage.

Facing Extinction

Find your calm. In addition to wisely directing your attention, include also whatever daily activities induce greater calm in your life–walking in nature, a slow meal with loved ones or on your own, reading or listening to music, dancing, swimming–whatever your thing is, give priority to it every day. Your relaxation and calm is not an indulgence but rather a tune up for your mental and physical wellbeing, which leads to a more awake and responsive intelligence. My podcast channel called “In the Deep with Catherine Ingram” (taken directly from the public sessions I lead) regularly encourages ways to foster courage, acceptance, and calm.

Release dark visions of the future, and pace your intake of climate news. Although frightening pictures about what is to come in the future may arise in your imagination, it is best not to entertain them. It is also helpful to pace yourself in reading or watching news of climate chaos. There is a tendency, once climate catastrophe grabs the attention, to keep staring at fresh news of it as though transfixed by a plane crash in real time. Resist being constantly immersed in the increasing data of the chaos. Have a fast from the news as needed, and rest your weary mind. One of my friends periodically unplugs and walks in mountains; another unplugs and works for hours in his garden. They are both keenly aware of unfolding climate realities, with the inevitable sadness that comes with that awareness. Yet both have learned to manage and enjoy the precious time that is left, living by a Navaho ethos: “May you walk in beauty.”

Be of service. Know that whatever is to be in the future, it will feel good to be of service in whatever ways your gifts can be used and on any scale that feels right and true, whether in your personal life of family and friends or in a larger community. There is no need to keep accounts of whether your actions will someday pay off. Being of service feels good for its own sake and gives your life meaning, a sense that you are being well used, like good compost in the field of life.

Be grateful. Longevity was never a guarantee for anyone at any time of history. Whatever time is left to us, we are the lucky ones. We got to experience life, despite the overwhelming odds of that not being the case, as biologist Richard Dawkins often points out. When we think of all the times our ancestors had to thread the needle of survival and live long enough to procreate, every single lifetime, it puts into perspective how precious is this experience we are having. Gratitude for life itself becomes the appropriate response. Direct your awareness many times throughout the day to all the little things for which you are grateful. It is an open secret for inducing a calmer mind.

Give up the fight with evolution. It wins. The story about a human misstep in history, the imaginary point at which we could have taken a different route, is a pointless mental exercise. Our evolution is based on quintillions of earth motions, incremental biological adaptations, survival necessities, and human desires. We are right where we were headed all along.

Despite our having caused so much destruction, it is important to also consider the wide spectrum of possibilities that make up a human life. Yes, on one end of that spectrum is greed, cruelty, and ignorance; on the other end is kindness, compassion, and wisdom. We are imbued with great creativity, brilliant communication, and extraordinary appreciation of and talent for music and other forms of art. We cry in tenderness when we are touched by love, beauty, or loss. We cry in empathy for others’ pain. Some of us even sacrifice our lives for strangers. There is no other known creature whose spectrum of consciousness is as wide and varied as our own.

You likely know well the spectrum of human consciousness within yourself. Perhaps you have had many moments when greed or hatred overtook your mind. But it is likely you have also had many moments when you knew that love was all that ever really mattered. And in your final breaths it is likely to be all that is left of you, a cosmic story whispered only once.

As Leonard said, “It is in love that we are made; in love we disappear."

How we can rethink our leadership structures and muster the courage to look within so we are able to change the modern western narrative...

Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in the Arctic

Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in the Arctic -- Earth Changes

Even in the Arctic, microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky with snow, a study has found.

The scientists said they were shocked by the sheer number of particles they found: more than 10,000 of them per litre in the Arctic.

It means that even there, people are likely to be breathing in microplastics from the air - though the health implications remain unclear.

The region is often seen as one of the world's last pristine environments.

Mushrooms as Medicine with Paul Stamets

Lion population has declined by 50% in 25 years - only 25,000 left in Africa

Lion population has declined by 50% in 25 years - only 25,000 left in Africa -- Earth Changes

There are half as many African lions than there were 25 years ago. Conservation programs aim to protect the disappearing species by promoting human-lion cohabitation across the African savanna.

For every lion in the wild, there are 14 African elephants, and there are 15 Western lowland gorillas. There are more rhinos than lions, too.

The iconic species has disappeared from 94 percent of its historic range, which once included almost the entire African continent but is now limited to less than 1.71 million square kilometres. With fewer than an estimated 25,000 in Africa, lions are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which determines the conservation status of species.

How Deforestation Looks From Space

Youth Strike Movement For Climate Change is an Immensely Deceptive Globalist Propaganda Campaign

Youth Strike Movement For Climate Change is an Immensely Deceptive Globalist Propaganda Campaign

Sadly, while Greta and her global army of child protesters, have acted from nothing but the very best of intentions, they have been ruthlessly exploited to advance the globalist ambitions of multinational corporations. It isn't their fault.

The same cannot be said for the adults who blindly accept everything they are told, without any critical thought. Propelling the children, and the rest of us, into a dystopian control grid.

Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten global collapse of nature' -- Earth Changes

Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten global collapse of nature'

The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems", according to the first global scientific review.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

Paul Stamets' epiphany that mushrooms could help save the world's bees

Paul Stamets' epiphany that mushrooms could help save the world's bees -- Science:

Years ago, in 1984, Stamets had noticed a "continuous convoy of bees" traveling from a patch of mushrooms he was growing and his beehives. The bees actually moved wood chips to access his mushroom's mycelium, the branching fibers of fungus that look like cobwebs.

"I could see them sipping on the droplets oozing from the mycelium," he said. They were after its sugar, he thought.

Decades later, he and a friend began a conversation about bee colony collapse that left Stamets, the owner of a mushroom mercantile, puzzling over a problem. Bees across the world have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Parasites like mites, fast-spreading viruses, agricultural chemicals and lack of forage area have stressed and threatened wild and commercial bees alike.

Waking up one morning, "I connected the dots," he said. "Mycelium have sugars and antiviral properties," he said. What if it wasn't just sugar that was useful to those mushroom-suckling bees so long ago?

https://www.sott.net/article/402378-Paul-Stamets-epiphany-that-mushrooms-could-help-save-the-worlds-bees

Secrets Behind U.N. AGENDA 21 & Global Sustainability

'Sad surprise': Amazon fish contaminated by plastic particles

Scientists in Brazil find first evidence of plastic pollution in Amazon basin freshwater fish

Scientists have found the first evidence of plastic contamination in freshwater fish in the Amazon, highlighting the extent to which bags, bottles and other waste dumped in rivers is affecting the world’s wildlife.

Tests on the stomach contents of fish in Brazil’s Xingu River, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon, revealed plastic particles in more than 80% of the species examined, including the omnivorous parrot pacu, herbivorous redhook silver dollar, and meat-eating red-bellied piranha.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/sad-surprise-amazon-fish-contaminated-by-plastic-particles

How Big Oil Conquered the World

There are plastics and then the chemicals that are added to them

Environmental epidemiologist: We are guinea pigs in a worldwide experiment on microplastics

Microplastics, microplastics everywhere

One of the main problems with plastics is that although we may only need them fleetingly - seconds in the case of microbeads in personal care products, or minutes as in plastic grocery bags - they stick around for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, much of this plastic ends up as environmental pollution.

As for human exposure, no direct studies have been conducted but microplastics have been found in virtually all bodies of water on the planet, and on agricultural lands. They have been found in shellfish, sea salt, honey, beer, tap water, bottled water, and even air. Thus, ingestion and inhalation of microplastics are of concern as routes of exposure.

Approaching spiritual doom?

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The plastic inside us

What does plastic in tap water mean for human health, how did it get there, and what can people do about it? We went looking for answers in a ten-month investigation across six continents.

orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics

It is everywhere: the most enduring, insidious, and intimate product in the world.

Forget McDonald's - Farmed salmon is the new toxic 'junk food'

Forget McDonald's - Farmed salmon is the new toxic 'junk food'

If you're aware of the health benefits of animal-based omega-3 fats and the fact that salmon is a great source, you may be shocked to discover that farmed salmon has more in common with junk food than health food. This is the grim reality revealed in Nicolas Daniel's documentary "Fillet-Oh-Fish," which includes exclusive footage from fish farms and factories across the globe.

Among the experts featured is Kurt Oddekalv, a respected Norwegian environmental activist who claims salmon farming is an unmitigated disaster, both from an environmental and human health perspective. Below the salmon farms dotted across the Norwegian fjords is a layer of waste some 15 meters (49.2 feet) deep, teeming with bacteria, drugs and toxic pesticides, and since the farms are located in open water, this pollution is in no way contained.

Farmed salmon also pose a more direct toxic threat to your health. Fish has always been considered a health food, but food testing reveals that today's farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods in the world. As noted by the producers of the film, "through intensive farming and global pollution, the flesh of the fish we eat has turned into a deadly chemical cocktail."

Future of the Sea report: Ocean plastic projected to triple within seven years -- Earth Changes

Future of the Sea report: Ocean plastic projected to triple within seven years -- Earth Changes

If we don't act now, plastic pollution in the world's oceans is projected to increase three-fold within seven years, according to a startling new report.

The Future of the Sea report, released Wednesday for the UK government, found that human beings across the globe produce more than 300 million metric tons of plastic per year. Unfortunately, a lot of that material ends up in our waters, with the total amount of plastic debris in the sea predicted to increase from 50 million metric tons in 2015 to 150 million metric tons by 2025.

Roughly 70 percent of all marine litter is plastic, and the effect of this non-biodegradable waste can be devastating for marine biodiversity.

"There is extensive evidence that entanglement in, or ingestion of, plastics can cause injury and death to a wide range of marine organisms, including commercially important fish and shellfish," the report says.

The report also warns about the prevalence of microplastics and other tiny plastic debris in the ocean. "Plastic does not decompose, instead breaking down into ever smaller pieces," it states. "The full effects are not understood, but there is growing evidence of plastic harming sea creatures and restricting their movement, as well as polluting beaches."

Study reveals worrying levels of microplastics in Atlantic deep sea fish

Study reveals worrying levels of microplastics in Atlantic deep sea fish -- Earth Changes

A new Irish study has found that the rate of ingestion of microplastics by deepwater fish in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean is among the highest in the world.

It's necessary to put things in context, I mean, we're assaulted by apocalypses all the time.

global population is being forced into an unnatural process of decline with dire consequences on human health and irreversible damage to the intellectual and genetic endowment of humanity