Labour 3: Gemini (21 May to 20 June).
Gathering The Golden Apples of the Hesperides

The story of Hercules’ labours has been interpreted by Alice Bailey in terms of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Hercules represents the seeker within each of us.

We follow Hercules’ experiences and exploits as he passes through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and gradually we realize that each sign represents a part of Hercules’ character that he now needs to transform so that he can travel further along his path. Each story, if pondered deeply, can give us insight into our own natures, and offers guidance in what we can do to be stronger, clearer, wiser and more powerful creators of our lives and servers of humanity and the planet.

This month is the story of Hercules’ task in the sign of Gemini.

The presiding One had watched the labours of the son of man who is a son of God. He noted how the labourer rose and prepared for his next task.
“ ‘Send out the word to guard the sacred tree. Let Hercules unfold the power to search without discouragement, deception or too great a speed. Let perseverance now be called upon. He has done well so far.’ And thus word went forth.”
***
In the second labour of Taurus (21 April – 20 May), Hercules learned about the potency of desire and the law of attraction.

In this third labour Hercules begins to learn about the duality within him – that of soul and personality, and of soul and spirit. He is the visionary mystic and must now become also the practical idealist by developing an occult knowledge of reality.

“Far in a distant country grew the sacred tree, the tree of wisdom, and on it grew the golden apples of the Hesperides.
Hercules knew of these fruits, and when the world went forth to seek for them he sought the Teacher, asking Him the way to go and find the sacred tree and pick the apples.
‘Show me the quickest way and I will go,’ Hercules told his teacher.

‘Then I give back these apples for those who follow on,’ said Hercules.”1
****
The sign of Gemini signifies Hercules’ third labour – learning about himself by unifying his soul and body. Hercules who represents each of us, must gain the golden apples of wisdom. The mystical visionary must become a person of action in the very physical world of the everyday life. Through the two-way process of experience and learning, we deepen our understanding of the unseen worlds, deepen our contact with them, and learn to manifest those realities in the physical world. So we transmute knowledge into wisdom.

In this labour Hercules must bring together the dualities of soul and personality, so that they become one functioning unity.

The apple in the story represents the mind and knowledge of duality or the pull of the soul and personality. In the garden of Hesperides the apples symbolise synthesis and the many nourished by the one tree of life. Hercules had to search the whole world to find the apples.
First he met Nereus, wise but elusive, taking many forms and never giving a direct answer, only hints. He sent Hercules with a hint to go south which is a symbol of going back into the world away from spirit.

Then he met the serpent who was invincible whilst in touch with earth, its mother. In searching for the apples Hercules had to conquer glamour and illusion, as do all seekers or spiritual warriors. So he had to lift the serpent into the air, away from the ever changing glamour of life in the physical world, into the reality of the soul.

Hercules then passed to his next test in his search, with glamour in another form – Busiris who claimed to be a teacher. Hercules yielded his will and mind to this wily operator who bound Hercules to the altar trying to force him to forget Nereus.

Finally resuming his search he found and released Prometheus from the rock. The liver represents the solar plexus and desire nature and Hercules freed himself from the vultures of desire – he gave up being selfish by serving another.

The most crucial test now presents itself to Hercules. He meets Atlas, carrying the load of the world on his shoulders. Hercules is so concerned by Atlas’ suffering that he tries to carry the weight for him, giving up his search for the apples. He puts the need of another before his own. Once freed from his burden, Atlas goes to the garden of Hesperides and picks the apples without hindrance from the serpent and with the help of the three maidens. He gives them to Hercules who now is free.

Despite his setbacks and deviations due to glamour and illusion, Hercules has achieved, learning to use his will to persist in the task, and so to serve others with love and wisdom.

1. Adapted from Labour 3. For the full story refer The Labours of Hercules, Alice Bailey, Lucis Press, 1974. (p. 54-76).

May 2010

Whenever you find yourself in a situation of pain and suffering like watching a car accident, starving babies in Africa, or your own personal conflicts – just allow the pain to flow in, and breathe it out as love and compassion.

When we hold onto the pain and think about it, we are also feeding it and making it worse both for ourselves and for those whose pain it is.

Buddhist teachings suggest that instead of feeling and intensifying the pain and suffering that’s all around us, we can use our creative imagination to help heal our fellow humans, and the world. How? Simple, just allow the painful feelings to flow through the cleansing, healing energy of our heart.

Christ called it forgiveness. But this is easy because you don’t have to think about forgiving, you just do the exercise and the rest takes
care of itself.

To heal the pain and suffering follow these simple steps:
1. Breathe in and allow the pain to just come in, and focus it into your heart. Feel it there.
2. Change it, transform it, with your thoughts and feelings, into love and compassion. Feel the love, it’s good for you.
3. As you breathe out visualise the love and compassion flowing out to the person, situation and the world as white light.

Project NatureConnect is Dr. Michael Cohen’s initiative to help people recognize that Planet Earth is a living organism – some scientists refer to this as “Gaia.”

Dr Cohen, director of the Akamai University Institute of Applied Ecopsychology, says that we are connected to nature, and to each other, in the same way that our fingers are connected to, and communicate with, our toes.

Author of Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature, Dr Cohen is using Facebook to share his message. “Our Facebook page gives each visitor the opportunity to interlace their psyche with nature’s recycling ways to correct their destructive thoughts and feelings. It helps us connect our mind with the health and wellness powers of nature’s flow, backyard or back country, Cohen said.”

For those interested in formalising their love of nature, the Project offers online UNESCO-approved, training courses to, “empower students to make conscious sensory contact with the life-nurturing energy of the eons. Students learn how to strengthen it in themselves and others while visiting local or remote natural areas”.

Contact Information:
Dr. Michael Cohen
Institute of Global Education
Phone: 360-378-6313
Email: nature@interisland.net

http://www.ecopsych.com/

Humanity’s Team is a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement the belief that we are all one – with God/Source/Energy.

Author Neale Donald Walsch created Humanity’s Team in 2003 in response to the crisis following the events of September 11th, 2001.

The movement has over 35,000 followers from more than 90 countries on six continents.

What Can You Do?

Sign the Oneness Day Petition

What is it?

The ONENESS DAY petition – toward a New Spirituality, a new humanity, a new earth.

Humanity’s Team, based in Boulder, Colorado, is collecting at least 50,000 signatures as part of a campaign to appeal to the United Nations to declare a global Oneness Day.

This will be a day set aside and embraced by individuals, communities and nations each year. It will be a day when people can celebrate, discuss, demonstrate and experience their commonality.

The Team pays tribute to the rainbow colours of our cultural diversity which combine to form our one Humanity.

Oneness Day is an opportunity to acknowledge both our unique individuality, and our shared humanity.

For more information, go to: http://www.humanitysteam.org/sai/oneness-petition/what-is-it

Humanity’s Team is a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement the belief that we are all one – with God/Source/Energy.

Author Neale Donald Walsch created Humanity’s Team in 2003 in response to the crisis following the events of September 11th, 2001.

The movement has over 35,000 followers from more than 90 countries on six continents.

What Can You Do?

Sign the Oneness Day Petition

What is it?

The ONENESS DAY petition – toward a New Spirituality, a new humanity, a new earth.

Humanity’s Team, based in Boulder, Colorado, is collecting at least 50,000 signatures as part of a campaign to appeal to the United Nations to declare a global Oneness Day.

This will be a day set aside and embraced by individuals, communities and nations each year. It will be a day when people can celebrate, discuss, demonstrate and experience their commonality.

The Team pays tribute to the rainbow colours of our cultural diversity which combine to form our one Humanity.

Oneness Day is an opportunity to acknowledge both our unique individuality, and our shared humanity.

For more information, go to: http://www.humanitysteam.org/sai/oneness-petition/what-is-it

According to a recent report by the New Economics Foundation, hospital cleaners in England are worth more to society than City bankers, because many low-paid workers increase the wellbeing of the nation more than the high-flying and much better-paid financial-sector staff.

The report found that those who work as advertising executives, tax advisors destroy value, while hospital cleaners, childcare workers, and staff in the waste-recycling industry gave more to the country than they took out.

The Foundation calculated how much someone would be paid in relation to the value they create by measuring things like conventional economic returns and environmental impacts. The report argues that high pay is often generated by businesses that destroy other parts of the economy or fail to pay the full costs of their activities.

source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/14/new-economics-foundation-social-value as quoted in http://conscious-capitalism.blogspot.com/search/label/Mindful%20economy

What Is Organic Wine?

When you’re next sniffing the woody bouquet and tasting the essence of spice in your favourite drop of wine, consider what else you might be imbibing.

Has it been made using organic or non-organic practices, with or without preservatives? If it is organic, what does that really mean to you – your palette, purse and pleasure?

David and Barbara Bruer are the founders of Temple Bruer winery situated on the ancient flood plain of the Angas and Bremer Rivers in South Australia’s Langhorne Creek. The temperate climate is people-friendly making it a perfect spot to grow grapes and attract tourists.

In 1973 David and Barbara Bruer saw the potential for growing grapes with minimal sprays and purchased 50 acres of flat land with sprawling gums and meandering tributaries.

Then twenty-years later it all changed.

“It was 1993 and the kids were young,” remembers David. “After our house was crop dusted Barbara, told me that if we were going to continue farming we had to do it without chemicals.”

Trained as a chemist Barbara was concerned about the potential hazards from the sprays to their children’s health.

From that day on, David, also a chemist, was on a steep learning curve with a two-fold mission: to utilize his knowledge of chemistry and learn how to grow grapes without chemicals, using his skills as a winemaker, to create wine that won gold medals.
Organic Certification

In 1993 Australia’s wine industry had few organic standards. David was commandeered to lead the charge back to the future.

“Barbara pointed out to me that growing our grapes organically is only doing what farmers had done before World War II,” David says.

“She told me that if we didn’t convert to organic, it would be the end of our days as vignerons. She meant that she wouldn’t support me using chemicals anymore but with hindsight I can see that she also saw the future for the wine industry.”

Theirs was a partnership of equals and David immediately set to work to gather the information needed for the conversion.

He joined the Organic Growers Australia – at that time a fledgling organization – and argued the case for establishing standards that could be followed by anyone wanting to convert their produce to gain organic certification.

These standards state that organic means the products is not just chemical free but also grown and handled in a way that benefits all parts holistically – soil, plants, animals, food, people and the environment.

“We were lucky because our practice had always been to use minimal sprays. We didn’t use pesticides so we only had to find natural alternatives for the chemical fungicides,” says David. “We use a vegetable oil spray on the leaves and grapes and we’d always used plant-based compost made from crops, sawdust, grape seeds and skins, grass and hay – anything that’s not an animal product, so our soil and ecosystem was pretty healthy.”

This ideological dedication has earned Temple Bruer the ‘vegan friendly’ label, popular with an increasing number of wine drinkers. “We developed ways to clarify the wine without using the usual milk, fish or gelatin substances,” says David.

Preservative free?

“The benefits of organic growing are that the wines taste better, and it gives health benefits to humans and the environment,” says David. “We’re increasing our range of preservative-free organic wines which is both challenging and exciting.”

Temple Bruer has won a mantle-piece full of medals, but David’s particularly proud of the gold medal for their 2007 preservative-free Shiraz Malbec.

The preservative in wine is sulphur dioxide and some critics1 claim that it’s impossible to make a sulphur free wine because the sulphur dioxide is produced by yeast during the fermentation stage of winemaking.

“You’ve got to rigorously exclude oxygen at all times and control secondary fermentations, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting,” David claims.

The Future

“If I could wind back the clock I would have started on the road to organic wine growing much sooner,” David says. “But we’re happy with what we’ve achieved and we have a good reputation both at home and overseas.”

About 40 percent of Temple Bruer’s wine production goes to the UK, US, Canada and China. “We’d like to enlarge our market share so that more people can enjoy the benefits of organic wine. Our new range of sparkling reds are just hitting the markets and the white’s soon to follow,” David smiles with satisfaction, but it’s a hard-won prize.

“Barbara died of cancer last year and it knocked the wind out of my sails. We’d always been a team. Now more than ever, I’m committed to the organic practices we started together. It’s like a legacy to Barbara because it was her foresight, wisdom and strength of will that started us on the path to conversion. For that I’m eternally grateful.”

David’s dedication to the science of wine making, coupled with his passion shows in the quality and range of wines produced at Temple Bruer.

As increasing numbers of us are becoming conscious consumers, we’re keen to embrace a more natural life-style, and part of that journey is returning to enjoy and appreciate the age-old benefits of organic wine.

1. http://www.rosnay.com.au/the-wines/sulfur-use-in-organic-wine.html]

The internet has set information free to anyone who desires it. Intellectual property is going to soon become a thing of the past.
I believe the next step for the internet, and to help create a better global society, is for a commerce managing database/search engine to be created where there is no currency and things are traded on the basis of desire.
Jobs are created on the basis of necessity. Everyones’ skills and interests are known by this database, and they will be suggested tasks or jobs based on where there is a necessity for their work.
Until we break away from the controlling and negative power of an arbitrary money system (the people who control money supplies control the world), we will never be free.
This is a direct quote from creativity pool at http://www.creativitypool.com/creativitypool.php?cat=Society

Drs Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, UK, have recently won Harvard’s annual Ig Nobel Prize for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

They showed that the way human’s behave with animals influences the quality of the human-animal relationship. Many scientific studies have demonstrated that cattle’s fear-response to humans affects their productivity, behavior, and welfare. In the scientific literature it is believed that fear of humans is the predominant relationship on dairy farms.

The researchers gathered subjective information from 516 stock managers on how their relationship affected their cows. They found that only 21% of farmers believed that dairy cattle were fearful of humans, although they accepted that humans can have an impact on their cattle’s temperament.

Ninety percent of respondents thought cows had feelings, and 78% thought cows were intelligent. The research found that cows gave 258 litres higher on farms where the farmer/stock manager thought it important to know every individual animal, and where cows were called by name.

Committed climate-change sceptic Gary Warden became a climate-change advocate after reading a Time magazine heading, “Be Worried, Be Very Worried.”

In April 2006 Warden, a senior geologist with BHP Billiton read the article explaining the latest scientific evidence and what was being done about it.

Warden said that before the article he felt that people were being alarmist, “and being pushed by feral greenies.” But overnight he “got educated” and changed his life: quitting his job, selling his Perth house, moving to the hills, reducing his environmental footprint, becoming a climate advocate and running for the Senate in 2007 for the Climate Change Coalition.

Although still supportive of BHP and the need for resources mining, he said he could not see a role there for himself where he would have been able to do enough to help the climate.

Source: The Age 19.7.09