THE BADGER SPRING - SUMMER 2022

THE BADGER The Badger is a fierce animal, very much respected and honored both in Northern American Native traditions and in European Celtic ones.

A badger will not let go and will continue tenaciously to look for another way to tackle his/her goal, just like a good healer will not let go his/her search until the best solution is found for the person in need. Badgers have their homes underground, so that they can go to the roots of things, the good healer does the same and keeps looking until she/he can find the most profound reason for a dis-ease or a psychological issue.

We use the term healer in the very broad sense of somebody who takes care of a another person, be it a MD, a nurse, a psychotherapist, a physiotherapist, a masseuse, a spiritual healer. Whenever there is a person in need and somebody who takes care of her/him, that is a healer.

Sometimes the need is subtler and more profound than a simple medical intervention, the human touch is needed and it really is the Panacea that cures all diseases.

We believe all artistic expressions in their beauty, science for everyday life, spirituality, philosophy, food and the healing arts are beneficial to restoring that balance, health and sense of worth that each and every human being deserves.

We offer you THE BADGER, the persistent healer, all the articles come from experts in different fields, each person has his/her own idea of what a balanced life is, they are here to pass on information, give inspiration, receive your comments, suggestions, contributions.

Each human being holds in his/her hands at least one of the keys, let's continue our quest!

THE BADGER

YEAR 8 VOLUME 1

A new spring and summer volume, a new year to live and fully enjoy, living more than ever in the present with the people we love the most and have chosen in our life.

In these uncertain times, THE BADGER, with all its Authors, keeps publishing articles geared towards light and transformation.

We are very aware of what is happening in the world and, painfully close to our doors, yet the only way out, the only way to safety is working in light so that darkness cannot prevail.

The underlying theme in this volume seems to be: learn from the past and change the future! I wish many discoveries and breakthrough moments during your readings.

Let's take heart and continue in our vision!

Antonella Vicini Director THE BADGER Quarterlty Ltd Cover Photo Valeria Tomasulo, post production A.Vicini Lay out Antonella Vicini

CONTENTS Honk if you love Joseph

F. Rico

Maa-tschlay

G. Rael

Apocalisse Nova

A.Vicini

Amazonian Adventure

A. Brizzi

The Serpent's Mark Poetry Voices from the Stars Being Medicine Quilting Away Fibonacci Gamble

F. Lehrman W.Blake T.Hardy L.Bottagisio D.Kopacz - J.Rael L.Perry C. Murgan

CONTENTS Lathe Biosas

R.Mezzabarba

Cooking

B.Bruce

Chakras

C. Corte

Healing with words

A.Vicini

Witnessing

The Authors

Various Authors

short bios and photos

Thanks

and links to previous volumes

Adverts

products and services we believe in

HONK IF YOU LOVE JOSEPH! Francis Rico

It was bound to happen - I entered the new world this morning.

Taking great liberties with the Biblical report of what Jesus taught his disciples about the location of heaven: The new world surrounds us, but we don’t see it.

Grandfather Joseph Rael would add: “you don’t see it…. until you do!”

And true to Joseph’s visions and teachings, I heard it long before I saw it.

Here’s how it happened: early this morning, standing outside in the fresh air, with a cup of tea, the heavens opened above me –and the curtains to our limited reality were drawn back by the flight of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Canadian Snow Geese flying north.

Flight after flight of groups of hundreds of geese could be heard coming – their huge random flying V’s filling the sky as they passed directly over.

And their beating wings and constant honking made it impossible for me to not notice that they were actually singing their way across the sky.

We have this idea that geese are very democratic creatures who honk encouragement to whoever is the lead bird – the bird that opens the way, the bird that all the other birds shape their flight into the well know V shape –reducing wind drag and all that.

And the lead bird position is rotated fairly often – a model for what human democratic leadership could be.

That’s a wonderful message, but it’s not what these huge flocks of birds were demonstrating!

These geese were singing their way through the sky – their flight equal parts wings, song, and a moment-by-moment spontaneous dance of joy with each other – and that opened the sky and revealed the new world.

Here it was: a direct experience of the Great Harmony of Being – the great vibration that is the ever-new world, emerging moment by moment, each beat of wings, each honk opening the new, again, and again.

They were, in fact, flying sound chambers!

The experience of the great harmony of being that Joseph’s vision of Sound Chambers offers us reshapes the trajectory of our lives –reshaping our understanding and all our relationships.

In a Sound Chamber, something sacred emerges from within us that lets us know that “we don’t exist.”

Again, letting Joseph complete the sentence “We don’t exist…. the way we think!”

We learn that we don’t exist the way we think – like the geese singing the sky open, together we are singing each moment into being – this is “Being & Vibration.”

In fact, Being & Vibration – entering the new world is one of Joseph’s most profound gifts to us – and I’m doing something that I recommend to you: from the first chapter “The New Vision” to chapter 7 “The Mystery of Metaphor” this book opens the new world when you read it out loud.

Like a flying banquet of exactly the encouragement and nourishment we each need in these distressing times, Joseph’s voice comes through like a revelation, like a celebration, like the Grandfather that he is.

And Joseph as a “flying banquet” – OK - there’s a mystery metaphor!!

This encouragement is so necessary right now because we are faced with multiple over-lapping emergencies on our little planet. And as life threatening and distressing as these challenges are, these emergencies are calling us to emerge – to enter the new world where our shared giftedness heals, restores and regenerates life itself here on Earth.

And – you must feel it too – THIS is it!

Yes, of course! Every moment is it – the geese have that right! But in the big turning tides of our cosmos, our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, on Sunday March 20, 2022 at 8:34am PDT, a moment of great harmony will occur – the Vernal Equinox – a moment of transparency where the harmony of heaven and earth, of light and dark, sing their love to each other.

I always suggest ANY excuse to celebrate! And this moment is worth gathering your family and friends together - to tone – to sing encouraging words to each other – to opening to hearing the harmony sung by the Vast Self – and, to celebrate!

THIS is entering the new world!

And to quote Joseph: “When I come from this place, I don’t have an argument with this religion or that religion, this ideology or that ideology. I become an instrument, simply a receiving station of the infinite void in the moment. I become a receiving station because I am completely present in the moment, a moment of living form, that exists only to the degree of my highest effort.”

Joseph continues: These are the ancient mysteries. They were set up this way. In the end, the mystery is the infinite void and the mystery of the void is all of us remembering, because, truly speaking, we do not exist.”

I’ll honk to that!

With love and feral blessings,

Francis Rico Hayhurst

MAA – TSCHLAY Geraldine Rael 2022

2+0+2+2=6

Number 6 is MAA- TSCHLAY (in Tiwa).

I am quoting my Father's book THE WAY OF INSPIRATION 1996: Number 6, maa-tschlay, says we are bringing ancient wisdom into the present. We now have the power of perceiving past, future and present as an orientation.

Another way of saying it is that, beyond linear time, we are creating that which is ancient in the here and now. It just takes a different profile. It looks different than it did a hundred thousand years ago because we have evolved a hundred thousand years from hundred thousand years ago.

Everything is going to look different now, but it's still basically the same design.

The design of inspiration is still the same. But where we are on the evolutionary chain is different because we are in this perceptual reality, which is a state of impermanence, which means that it's always changing to what it has just evolved to.

I am beginning to think that, while we are clocking inspiration by saying it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, in fact we could also treat each one of those steps individually – isolate it.

The decimal system in mathematics is based on 10: tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc.

Some mystics say that the cosmos was created by numbers, letters and words.

This teaching is about the one to ten inspiration.

Letters have to do with the materialization of those ten vibrations, via manifestation – the power to manifest, and the words are sound. We speak the concepts, we turn them into sound.

Step six maa-tschlay, is basically about time.... .... it means to bring old from wherever old is – which is an ancientness – and we bring it forth into the present. So it would seem to me that at number six we have the power to determine what's past. Now we can relate to what's past versus what is in the future. We honor our ancient lineage. We honor memory. We need to do this because we think we are here. We think we are in something called the present and that this is the only time we can relate to.

From Joseph Rael The Way Of Inspiration, 1996, page 78 This makes so much sense, I HAD to share it with the ones of you that have no knowledge of my fathers teachings. Initially, I truly meant to only bring emphasis to what the break down/meaning of the numerals of our New Year, 2022 (6) is, according to my father. He so very CLEARLY explains how he arrives at this teaching.

My Father teachings are always spot on!

Please know that we have left 2021 behind in the past although we have learned many things and experienced much. There has been both, good things and the not so good things, I want you to know that it WILL get better. Eventually, it will level out.

What we need to know and think about is that 2022 is MAA-TSCHLAY, it will bring ancient wisdom into the present. That is a VERY GOOD thing.

In the beginning we were ONE.

A suggestion for your spiritual practice: Please include in your daily prayers and ceremonies - my father’s chant, Wah Ma Chi, let us manifest disease is gone from Mother Earth. That is what these chants are for: to heal ourselves and our Mother Wah - Ma - Chi (means) Breath - Matter - Movement Envision healthy life’s breath, envision ALL lung matter healed, envision covid19, the karmic debt of our ancestors, returned from whence it came from to be regenerated.

Our Elder Ancestors walked in protective guidance.

Yet there were Elder Ancestors that walked with hate, racial divide, greed, jealousy, cruelty, selfishness, etc.

Let the Karmic debt, covid 19, know it is NOW over! Many elders and vulnerable have perished. We will NOW, return to balance ….

When Chanting Wah Ma Chi, we are returning hate, racial divide, greed, jealousy, cruelty, selfishness, etc, to return and to be transmuted into healing universal energy.

Close the ceremony with a pinch of cornmeal & tobacco by gifting to all of the sacred directions. Chanting while gently beating, with your hand with INTENTION, against your heart chakra.

I believe Karmic debt brought by our Elder Ancestors, has been fulfilled.

Aho!

Geraldine Rael Eldest Daughter of Joseph Rael Beautiful Painted Arrow

BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL Antonella Vicini Right at the centre of the devastating fresco, both painted, incarnated and lived by APOCALISSE NOVA and its dancers, there is the secret and eternal conversation between the supreme good and evil!

At the heart of the powerful and incandescent fresco painted by Luca Signorelli in the Orvieto Cathedral there are two eternally paired people deep in a secret conversation that results in what we see all around them.

There is no Redeeming Christ here, but the Antichrist manipulated like a puppet by the devil himsef.

At the beginning, in the middle and at the end of life these two powerful figures stand out in their eternal and earth shattering dialogue.

The 2 perennial principles of good and evil, light and darkness, love and hate, move the strings that create and dissolve the universes of countless lives.

This is a dichotomy, a dual power, never seen nor accepted in the Christian life, where one power is sung as the only hero.

How powerful can a still image be?! It resonates throughout the entire performance.

Is good or evil behind everything else?

Is good moving us or is it evil?

Who is manipulating who?

In an almost unbearably powerful crescendo it seems that evil is devouring everything, good and evil keep shifting in front of our eyes. There is no rest, no respite, like in a circle of Dante’s Inferno: where tortured and torturers keep exchanging places and can never see the end of their mutual punishment. Everybody is damned.

When the final judgment comes, hope begins to loom in the distance, now there is a new goal. Perhaps finding a new balance is possible.

This is the eternal balance of life, after so much darkness, after so much suffering, the good returns, the light will shine again.

The physical fatigue, the insurmountable obstacle of reclaiming a body, abandoned so long ago, makes us feel as the purgatory it often is: a slow and complex ascent of an immense mountain.

Each human being, when he/she finally awakes to this possibility, can walk and climb and conquer this mountain, finding the garden of Eden and the doors of Paradise. There the different degrees of light will brush away all the debris encountered along the path.

Higher up in the heavens, it is time to celebrate, to vibrate in unison with the music of the spheres.

Subtler and subtler the ascension continues until it is time to meet the eternal light and disappear in darkness again, so that another cycle may start, or perhaps the wheel has been stopped and there will be no return this time.

Brrhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad* असतत मम सदमय । तमसत मम जतततररमय । ममततममर अममतत रमय । ॐ शमननन शमननन शमननन ॥

1.3.28

Asatō mā sadgamaya tamasō mā jyōtirgamaya mrrtyōrmā amrrtaṁ gamaya Om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ

From non being lead me to being.

From darkness lead me to light.

From death lead me to immortality.

Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

The dancers put their bodies totally into play: digging, shaping, torturing, laboriously emerging from the mire of life to rush into a frantic race, in a magnificent flight in which they will be able to dissolve all anxieties, past present and future pains in the dazzling light of the truth. Deeply immersed in the mystic trance, during the brief shared time, they open a path, have the courage to walk on it all the way, thus becoming one with their goal.

When Kundalini**, the snake of real knowledge, unwinds its coils at the base of the spine and rises to the top of the head, there is our chance to crown ourselves: we become kings and queens on the throne of hard earned awareness. But even this is a fleeting conquest!

When everything ends and only silence and darkness remain, the stillness is interrupted by our applause that breaks the spell and bring us back to a more humanly acceptable dimension. But both we and the dancers have now shared a long and visceral journey. On their faces there are traces of their mystical asceticism and, I believe, that even in us spectators the passage of sacred time is visible.

Like all the previous parts that have preceded this Italian Premiere, also this event? Show? Ceremony? Sacred Representation? Is necessary, essential, profound and deeply felt by each person involved in it.

Led by an indefatigable, unstoppable, brave man-dancer and coreographer, Alessandro Pintus, the dancers are safe in their divine momentum. So the journey is possible, as is their return.

The magnificent heroes of years of work to get to this moment are: Roland lending his plastic body to demons and angels Hannah crossing hell and heaven with a clear and present gaze Elena who, at the last moment, was unable to dance, but danced with all of them anyway Alessandra G. who seems to be unaware of her beautiful movements and poses Alessandra P. who illuminates her painful path with the glow of her smile Lara carrying the strength and roots of the land of fire Marta who adds subtle grace and beauty to torments and ecstasy Iulia who comes from afar and guides our eyes to look even further Francesco who speaks with the magical expressiveness of his body, he is a plant, an animal, he is damned he is blessed …

Alexander who holds together the strings of the complex and profound design imagined by the choreographer / director.

After years of workshops and explorations, step by step, NON Company, with the help and presence of AS Perfomance in Munich, has created a real mystic event, a moment of deeply felt celebration rich in spiritual gifts for everybody.

Contact with the sublime is truly fundamental for our life, because it is on these foundations that we can build a conscious and luminous life.

Precisely because we have faced and encountered the shadow we can love and recognize the true light, without being dazzled by the spotlight of apparent success.

Isn't this perhaps the highest mission of the theater?

The place where the god, θεός, is present, where we can see, θεάομαι, and be witnesses, μάρτυρες, of immense events in which we take part through the actors, from the Latin verb ago = act, who show us places where we still fear to go.

Just as the ancient Greek tragedy was a collective rite that allowed everyone to know and become aware of ourselves (for Aristotle it produced purification = κάϑαρσις), so Non Company takes us down into our hell, holds our hand in purgatory and pushes us to ascend into paradise and beyond ... ..

THE SECOND SHOW Eons of time seem to have gone by between the performances, not just one day!

The dancers, like real initiates, have unknowingly yet willingly become shrines of their new light.

They may fall in the hands of evil, fury and hatred. They may be tortured and torturers, yet they continue in their slow yet sure progress: nothing could stop them.

The sublime Kṛṣṇa Lila *** comes to mind: the game of existence which we all go through, the god included, yet we can (as much as he is) be untouched by the perils and poisons of life, if we stay focused on our goal, on the luminous horizon that is our true essence.

Liberation then happens daily, not just once in a lifetime.

From the spires and pains of darkness, we rise into the enlightened state of bliss and we let go of that as well.

And so on and on, until we finally dissolve into particles and waves of light.

Deeply touched by this second viewing, I allow my heart to open, my eyes to be filled with tears and a new eye sight, my ears to perceive the new sounds of beyond.

I am a new person, I have truly celebrated a profound ceremony and have met joy in the eyes of the celebrating dancers as well as in mine.

Thank you for your dedication, your courage, the great beauty of your hearts.

Antonella Vicini Photos Valeria Tomasulo

This is a short video in front of the Cathedral of Orvieto, a taste of their art: https://vimeo.com/658871749

NOTES: * The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Sanskrit: बमहदमरणक उपत षद", Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad) is one of the Principal Upanishads and one of the first Upanishadic scriptures of Hinduism.It is estimated to have been composed about 7th-6th century BCE. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a treatise on Ātman (Self), includes passages on metaphysics, ethics and a yearning for knowledge that influenced various Indian religions, ancient and medieval scholars. ** Kundalini In Hinduism (Sanskrit: क#णत% &, romanized: kuṇḍalinī, lit. 'coiled snake') is a form of divine feminine energy (or Shakti) believed to be located at the base of the spine, in the muladhara. It is an important concept in Śhaiva Tantra, where it is believed to be a force or power associated with the divine feminine or the formless aspect of the Goddess.

This energy in the body, when cultivated and awakened through tantric practice, is believed to lead to spiritual liberation. *** Krishna (Sanskrit: कमष, IAST: Kṛṣṇa) is a major deity in Hinduism.

He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities.

Krishna Lila: Krishna's childhood illustrates the Hindu concept of Lila, playing for fun and enjoyment and not for sport or gain. This Lila is a constant theme in the legends of Krishna's childhood and youth. Even when he is battling with a serpent to protect others, he is described in Hindu texts as if he were playing a game. This quality of playfulness in Krishna is celebrated during his many festivals.

AMAZONIAN ADVENTURE with ALDO BRIZZI In 1984 I went to the Amazonian areas of Brazil, it was also my first visit to this country, my first impressions of the country were epic and surprising, since I saw amazing theaters and a powerful nature that needs to be respected and listened to.

During that first unforgettable tour, I saw the Opera theatre of Manaus, a building modelled after the San Carlo Theatre in Naples.

Such was the glory and richness of those cities in the past that, they could afford to build according to European styles and hire singers from the best companies in the world. Somehow both the theatres in Manaus and Belem became legends, like mirages and memories of past glory.

I still remember the powerful experience of walking in the Amazon jungle at night, near Manaus, that moment left a permanent echo in my mind.

This time our tour lead us to Belem, with a theatre modeled after La Scala in Milan, before it was devastated by the bombings during the second world war. This city, like Manaus is built close to immense rivers, so wide that you can hardly see the opposite banks.

We were invited with our Opera Dos Terreiros* in order to open the annual prestigious Belem opera festival that is now in its 21st year.

Besides the beauty of the theatre, enhanced by the perfect acoustics due to the precious Brazilian woods used, we found a very competent and enthusiastic staff. They were ready and eager to start again, after the long pandemic, to open the theatre to its vocation.

We lived our 15 days of rehearsals with great joy and excellent results.

Everybody showed great sensititivity to the topics in the opera, both in the opera house and at local government level, so much so that we had a radio interview with the local cultural minister in order to talk about the great strength present in the message of Opera dos Terreiros.

We found out that, after the initial diffidence for a new opera, some people bought the tickets for all the shows! This tolds us once more about the value and appeal of our common work.

After so many years, as it often happens when we consider time in a circular way, I was back in the Amazon region, although in a different state closer to the ocean, where nature demanded our attention for respect and preservation, and this was the theme for this year Opera Festival!

A wonderful and epic experience indeed.

Aldo Brizzi Story collected, edited and translated by Antonella Vicini *See THE BADGER Autumn-Winter 2020 for our previous article on Opera Dos Terreiros

THE SERPENT'S MARK Fredric Lehrman I. Knowledge began with a question.

It rose hypnotic, Swaying in her mind …The apple the bait, the question the hook…

Caught!

––– and we were yanked from the garden.

Deft serpent!

You, who have no hands, But hold things wrapping Your body around them.

You, twisting to travel straight.

Wise serpent, source of whispers.

We sense you as the core within us, And fear you And say "This is the beginning of wisdom."

II. Cast out, wearing our names, We seek reunion Grasping our own tails in our teeth.

Thus rolling From birth to death, Birth to death, We become the turning wheels of time.

III. Immortality is a game which mortals play, remembering the garden.

Between the curve and dot of the question mark lie the exiled generations.

IV. The Serpent, Letting go its tail, Grows to dragon strength; Lunging forward, Its mouth closes on the pearl.

V. Waking within the Garden Beneath the shimmering Serpent Tree, Shaded by the swaying hood, Strivings melt, uncoil, All now Smoothsliding Long, Undulating, Ecstatic.

Relax the hand; A quick strike, and light rushes in.

Fredric Lehrman

POETRY Spring William Blake Sound the flute!

Now it's mute!

Birds delight, Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky, Merrily, Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy, Full of joy; Little girl, Sweet and small; Cock does crow, So do you; Merry voice, Infant noise; Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb, Here I am; Come and lick My white neck; Let me pull Your soft wool; Let me kiss Your soft face; Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

William Blake Songs of Innocence 1789

I Watched a Blackbird Thomas Hardy I watched a blackbird on a budding sycamore One Easter Day, when sap was stirring twigs to the core; I saw his tongue, and crocus-coloured bill Parting and closing as he turned his trill; Then he flew down seized on a stem of hay, And upped to where his building scheme was under way, As if so sure a nest were never shaped on spray.

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

VOICES FROM THE STARS Mercury Retrograde The New Paradigms Laura Bottagisio The retrograde movement of Mercury is interesting in 2022, this planet goes in retrograde motion four times instead of the usual three that every year show in the three signs of the same element.

If in 2021 it was the quality of the three air signs that was stimulated and transformed, this year the energetic 'mixing' produced by Mercury will modify the combination of the Air / Earth signs.

These are its four retrogradations: January 14 / February 4 - Aquarius / Capricorn May 10 / June 3 - Gemini / Taurus September 10 / October 2 - Libra / Virgo December 29 / January 18 2023 - Capricorn In the first three retrogradations, Mercury 'retraces its steps' after having traveled through part of the element of Air, conforming to its very nature as an informer, messenger, trading planet.

From these retrogradations, new seeds can spring to be planted in concrete reality, from which they will emerge with the aim of decreeing in the Form the birth of new paradigms which, according to the planetary cosmic project, will be proclaimed and recognized by the awakened Humanity starting from 2025 onwards.

So let's let Mercury 'speak', so we can listen to his message.

Since 2012, the year recognized as the springboard to leave the materialistic wave and move towards a more spiritual identification, Humanity has set out on an increasingly technological path without taking into account its celestial origin. The gap between spirit and matter, instead of being resolved, has become increasingly exacerbated. Our mind, disconnected from its most purified, refined and luminous part, has paid the highest price creating false myths and, at the same time, mental cages full of fears.

The New Age of Aquarius which, even without our consent, will become established more and more in the coming decades, requires us to undertake the evolutionary path towards the Consciousness of Unity, unification and overcoming of duality. It forces us to review all those patterns that have kept the old world standing.

We are in a historical moment of great turbulence in every sector of daily life, it is a ferment that reaches even our deepest waters where those ancient memories dwell, now it is time to dismantle and deconstruct them, so that they can release all their light that has been harnessed for millennia.

They are memories with very ancient roots that date back to a time when man's consciousness moved in an indistinct floating etheric sea, from which it drew substance and life. The path towards individualization and self-awareness necessarily created duality, but what is dual must now return to unity. Each opposite needs to bridge the distance between oneself and the other-from-oneself and find its unity. The other is the mirror, or rather, one is the mirror of the other. This is the true meaning of brotherhood and unity of purpose for the common good.

We are at a point of no return, as Uranus transiting in Taurus affirms, it accompanies us in this change of paradigms. The clean break with the past, dictated by the innovative energy of this great planetary Archetype, disrupts habits and barriers that we have structured in the 'placid' model of life in which we have delegated the responsibility for our growth and wellbeing to others.

Over the millennia, the ages have followed one another, now we have reached the great transition from the Age of Pisces to the new Age of Aquarius, a transition that occurs more or less quickly according to the rhythm that human consciousness gives it.

The more numerous we are when our consciousness awakens, the more easily this will happen, and the less pain we will have to endure.

Each of us is a vessel that contains all the experiences we have lived, each experience has within itself the possibility of awakening us from sleep and offers it to us as a gift.

In the earthly incarnation, evolution occurs through suffering or through awareness. Making oneself aware and responsible for one's thoughts and actions through the pain principle is the kind of information we have received and stored in our cells since time immemorial. Well, now it is precisely this information that needs to be transformed, evolving means freeing oneself from the old patterns that find nourishment from the exhausting mental and emotional work.

The first pattern that nails us to the cross states: "redemption is achieved through pain".

Perhaps this axiom was fine for the Age of Pisces, but now with the new advent, this input must be transformed into: "it is through joy that pain is transmuted into conscious light".

What a difference between these two paradigms!

We attract difficult experiences into our lives in order to mirror ourselves and, by living them with the power of the heart and love, we can release their blocked creative potential. That is the life-giving light that makes Matter evolve! Mind and Heart then vibrate in unison and you begin to perceive the sense of union, lost in the very moment of birth with the cut of the umbilical cord, then we felt 'separated'. Learning that separation is an illusion now gives us the necessary push to advance towards the principle of Brotherhood of which Aquarius is the bearer.

Mercury wants to teach us so much during this year with its retrogradations.

First Retrogradation fig. 1 January 14 / February 4 - Aquarius / Capricorn (stop at 10 ° Aquarius and 24 ° Capricorn)

FIGURE 1 The end of the first retrogradation was accompanied by the new moon of Aquarius on February 1, a day that in the Celtic calendar coincides with the feast of Imbolc and in the Christian calendar with Candlemas, both linked to the principle of Purification.

This passage of Mercury also speaks of purification, since it is in the sign of Air most suited to the reception of the subtle world through our etheric 'antennas', the mercurial force has inspired our mind to arrange itself at a more appropriate level to purify low-frequency thoughts, full of hatred and fear, and giving the imaginative power of our mind the freedom to build new forms after taking inspiration from the upper floors.

The pause and resumption of direct motion in Capricorn, the sign of Earth, has given us the desire to announce what we really want to achieve in this incarnation.

Second Retrogradation fig. 2 May 10 / June 3 - Gemini / Taurus (stop at 4 ° Gemini and 26 ° Taurus) The second retrogradation is accompanied by a peculiarity. At the moment when Mercury is returning back to Gemini to plunge back into the previous sign Taurus, it crosses the Sun which at that moment, traveling the zodiac wheel according to its usual rhythm, passes from Taurus to Gemini. On that day, 21 May, the Solar Angel that life has assigned us as guardian wants us to feel his presence as a constant guide: from now on we have the opportunity, if we wish, to contactour angel, because we have learned to enter our heart listening to ourselves.

Third retrogradation fig. 3 10 September / 2 October - Libra / Virgo (8 ° Libra and 24 ° Virgo stop) The same peculiarity also occurs in the third retrogradation. Sun and Mercury cross their path at 0 ° of Libra, on the precise day of the autumn equinox. Mercury, after learning the Lybra art of harmonization, meets the Sun in the moment of maximum balance between light and dark. It returns in Virgo, sign of Earth, in which it makes its contribution to facilitate the process of creating the new structures that will manifest themselves in concrete reality through us. This is what can happen if we have freed ourselves from unconscious fears, which have now become 'empty' because they are individually revisited and understood with the light of the soul.

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3 Fourth Retrogradation fig. 4 29 December / 18 January 2023 - Capricorn (stop at 24 ° Capricorn) 2022 ends with the fourth retrogradation of Mercury that begins and ends in Capricorn, as if to affirm, with the vehemence and fortitude of this powerful Earth sign, that the time has come not to retreat but to direct oneself with will, perseverance and discernment, towards the resolution decided during the first retrograde in January.

FIGURE 4 Mercury begins its retrograde motion on December 29, aligning itself with the planet Venus which activates love, devotion and harmony in us, qualities that resonate in perfect symbiosis with the movements of the soul.

There are many other initiatives that Mercury has in store for us, many gifts, but in order to receive them we must open the doors to the awakening of our conscience and immerse ourselves in the spirit of Universal Brotherhood of the New Era.

Laura Bottagisio Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini

BEING MEDICINE Becoming Who You Are David Kopiecz Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) and I have just published our latest book: Becoming Who You Are: Beautiful Painted Arrow’s Life & Lessons for Children Ages 10-100.

The book began as we were on a road trip, driving West on US Route 40 from Albuquerque to Gallup, New Mexico. At one point, Joseph said to me: We should write a book for children and call it Journey of the Holy Being. It used to be called “journey of the holy man,” but it is open to both boys and girls, so we can call it Journey of the Holy Being…

Around 5th grade, children begin to lose the sense of themselves as holy, sacred beings. In Picuris we were taught from the earliest age that we were Holy Beings and that what we are made of is the same thing that the stars are made of. We were taught that we were Children of the Stars and Children of the Earth. We should have a disclaimer though, “Beware because you will eventually become a Holy Being if you read this book!”

This started us on the idea of writing a book for children and it went through various forms, from Journey of the Holy Being to A Bowl Full of Ideas for Inventive Minds (which we may still publish as a younger children’s book in the future), to the final form of the published book.

Joseph would repeatedly return to the idea of teaching 5 th graders or 7th graders. I think he focused in on this age for the above reason that around this age “children begin to lose the sense of themselves as holy, sacred beings.”

For Joseph, 7th grade was when he was sent away to Santa Fe Indian Boarding School which tried to sever his connection with his own cultural heritage. “Kill the Indian, spare the man,” was the motto of these boarding schools that took Indian children off the reservations, away from their families, their languages, their religions, and forcibly tried to assimilate them into mainstream society in the USA. The abuses of boarding schools are well-known to Native American peoples, but not so well-known by the average person in the US. Recently, boarding schools in Canada have been in the international news, for instance at Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan where over 750 unmarked graves were discovered.

When Joseph arrived at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School, he saw the fences around the site of the Japanese internment camp, where over 4000 men of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned during World War II. Joseph is not a bitter person, he matter-of-factly told me that he realized then that, “Every reservation is a little prison camp. But we are all the same, whether we are red, yellow, white, or black.”

Joseph’s experience at that age was more dramatic than most children’s indoctrination and acculturation into the rules and values of the dominant culture, however all children, of any background, can lose a sense of who they are, that they are sacred beings, as they are trained to be productive members of a materialistic society that values productivity measures in money and objects, rather than valuing reflectivity and spirituality. Joseph spoke of having two schools growing up, the secular education of the state and the spiritual education from the Elders at Picuris Pueblo.

Michael Meade in speaking of cultivating the inner genius of children, also writes of the two schools, the “common school” and the “sanctuary or temple of learning where a person seeks to awaken their inner nobility and true nature,” (Meade, The Genius Myth, 102). Meade’s reading of the ancient stories of the inner genius inherent in all people leads him to similar views to what the Picuris Elders taught Joseph, you are already born sacred.

Seen this way, education does not introduce something completely new and unknown to the student as much as it involves a leading forth of something already present but not fully recognized. True teaching, then, would lead a person to self-knowledge as well as to a love of knowledge and an instinctive sense of self-discipline. With the idea of an innate nature and resident genius comes the sense of an inner life that can shape the pupil from within. Each student already carries an inner dream that tries to awaken and become known, (Meade, 111).

This ancient view of the child already possessing an “inner dream,” an inner “genius” is found in the foundations of Western civilization, but we have forgotten this truth. This is the same truth that the Picuris Elders taught Joseph and Joseph now wants to teach children: We are already born shamans, we just forget that as we grow older.

Being a shaman is being a healer, but it isn’t you who heals, it is Wah-Mah-Chi, Breath, Matter, Movement. The job of a shaman is to learn how to be a “hollow bone.” You are just a hollow bone that Breath, Matter, Movement flows through.

“We are already born shamans.” The work of this spiritual education, then, is more about remembering than in learning something new. It is also about healing the divisions and separations that we all feel within ourselves and that we are increasingly aware of in society. To be a shaman is to recognize an inner genius, an inner wisdom, that is not the same thing as an ego – it is not about being full of yourself, but rather to be empty of one’s self so that Wah-Mah-Chi can flow through.

Everything is split, black and white, men and women, immigrants and us, people think it is normal. If you have a prejudice against any race, you are divided and you are not going to be a shaman. To be a shaman you need to be whole, holistic.

“We need to move beyond our self-imposed limitations” is something that Joseph tells me often. We are not who we think we are, who we really are is who we are already, but because we keep forgetting that, we are in the process of becoming who we are, which really means remembering who we truly are, recalling our inner genius, remembering that we are holy beings.

The thing is, we are all on our way to becoming shamans by virtue of the fact that we are two-leggeds. One of the things we need to do is to work on the distinctions we have created between human beings.

Whenever you create something, there is a down-side. Creating identities of belonging to a city or a country worked for a while, so we could say, “I am from Europe,” or “I am from Africa,” or “I am from the United States of America.” But we need to be able to say, “I am of the Human Race.”

Joseph was born on the Southern Ute Reservation and is enrolled in that Tribe, his mother’s Tribe. However, he spent most of his childhood with his father’s people at Picuris Pueblo.

When he turned 18, the Governor of Picuris told him, “You can stay here, but you’ll never have a job because you are not Picuris.” Joseph couldn’t believe it, he grew up at Picuris, his father was from Picuris, how could he not be Picuris? The Governor told him, “You are Southern Ute, that is your Tribe, you should go and live with your people.”

However, when Joseph went to the Southern Ute Reservation, people told him he didn’t belong there either, because he didn’t grow up there.

So, then he left the reservation and the White people told him he didn’t belong there either, they said, “Go back to the Reservation.” Joseph transformed the experience of belonging nowhere to belonging everywhere. “We are cosmic citizens,” he tells me.

When he was sent to Santa Fe Indian Boarding School, Joseph told me he realized that they were trying to make Indian kids into American kids.

Now, with this book, he wants “to make American kids into Indian kids!”

To be “an Indian kid,” means to be connected to the land, to spirituality, and to recognize that one is already born a shaman.

As Joseph says: Let’s not leave the next generations in so much mystery about the physical and spiritual worlds. Let’s educate them from the beginning about the way of the shaman…Henceforth, all boys and girls who are born on the Earth are born living vibrations as living shamans of the Mother Planet Earth.

A Note About the Writing of the Book This book is really Joseph speaking to our next generations and sharing the ancient, Indigenous wisdom he was taught, and his life and learnings of living this way in contemporary society.

I went back and forth about how best to write the book and whether or not to include my voice as the narrator, or let Joseph speak directly to children.

At first, I started from the place where he told me about the Journey of the Holy Being and then recounted the story as it unfolded between us. That didn’t feel quite right, so then I edited myself out of the story and just let Joseph speak. Some feedback I got on this was that children had a difficult time relating to some of Joseph’s cultural perspectives.

Then I hit on the idea of having my story of working with Joseph serve as a bridge, to talk about how it was challenging for me to understand his different cultural and spiritual perspectives and to mirror back to the young readers that this could be challenging at times. My story and perspective appears as an early chapter and then the rest of the book is Joseph telling his life & lessons directly, without any mediation. I hope that this structure works for children.

Another challenge I had in writing the book was in trying to write it so that it was accessible for children. Joseph’s teaching style is a direct, evocative, and down-to-earth narrative on one level, on another level it is circular, surreal, and magical. Children naturally are born into the latter way of understanding, that is the magic of the childhood imagination.

However, it may be that it is easier for them to accept the fictional magic of Harry Potter than the teachings of a modern shaman who is telling them they are holy beings and that they can learn to be “in two places at once,” for real! In the end, I did the best I could to give a framework, serve as a bridge, and then let Joseph tell his story through me.

I suppose it was training to be “a hollow bone,” to let Joseph’s words flow through me and to all the readers of the book.

In trying to set an age range, I decided on the whimsical “ages 10-100,” and Joseph had a laugh at that as well. We can all use to remember that we are holy beings, that we are already born shamans, and that we must be holistic and heal the separations within ourselves, in our educational systems, and in our society.

It was an honor and privilege to serve as a conduit for Joseph’s life & lessons and it seemed fitting to list him as first author on this book―as it is his life, he is telling the story, and I am just trying to let it pass through me. Aho!

David Kopiecz

QUILTING AWAY Lida Perry “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai in una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita” (Dante, Inferno I canto) (“In the middle of our life journey, I found myself in a dark wood. I had wondered from the straight path...)

The opening verses of the Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, resonate in my core as I revisit the events and the experiences of the past year.

I have a ritual that I perform the first day of every new year. I light a candle, I choose a new Diary and on the first page, after I spend a few minutes to center myself and quiet my mind, I write the goals for the new year. I relish these moments; it is my way to set the focus on the immediate future and it also gives me the chance to revisit the past months.

It is undeniable that all of us have experienced a long period of loss, frustration, and fear, due to the Pandemic. We have entered and inhabited a dark forest in which our certainties and values were no longer supportive and no longer gave meaning to our lives.

The challenge for all of us was to find our way back to “the straight path” and the light. Often this process elicits more questions than answers.

What do I need to learn from this experience, and how can I find its meaning, and again what are the gifts that this situation presents to me?

To find a way out of the dark forest, with all its dangers, calls for a spiritual response, not a pragmatic problem-solving approach.

It pushes us to the edge of what is familiar and reliable, stretching the imagination on how our life works.

It forces us to rely on something beyond our human capabilities. It can open us up to new and mysterious possibilities.

Thomas Moore in his “Dark Nights of the Soul, ( 2004.) writes: “ A society needs a strong catharsis, it has been log-jammed with ideas , that have lost their liveliness. Ideas that turned into prejudices, slogans, or mere opinions. People become conservatives, self-protective, deadened and unthinking.”

He continues by affirming: “We need a serious ritual for renewal, a vision of the divine to enter a period of transformation.”

He seems to suggest that the central theme of the pandemic experience, the “dark forest”, is to see it as a cleansing of perceptions, for the purpose of our increase in spirituality, visionary imagination, spiritual awakening.

Thomas Moore wrote these words more than 20 years ago and they resonate true as if they had been written today.

He describes a deeper perspective when we consider our recent reality.

A challenging way to view the reality in this historical moment ----------How did I handle the shut-down, the solitude, the frustration, my visit to the dark forest?

I made four quilts.

For three of them I chose a traditional pattern. Cutting small squares arranging them in precise geometrical pattern was a repetitive task, mind numbing, the only creative challenge had been to choose the color schemes.

It was a safe way to stay in my bubble in my rarefied world. it gave me a certain comfort doing something familiar that did not involve a big creative effort.

In retrospect these quilts can be seen as perfect metaphors to accurately describe the process that brought me out of my stagnant place.

My microcosm was like the macrocosm that was played out if not in the whole world but in my part of the world.

I had become complacent, lazy in the matter of actively asking myself questions, I was not able to be still so that I could hear the voice of my soul, a voice that had been silenced and unheard by the noise of my thoughts and interior dialogues.

I looked at the finished three quilts, and they were nice, well executed but I felt something was missing, I did not feel the satisfaction and the excitement of having completed something unique and harmonious.

What I realized was that I did not put my heart and soul into them. That’s what happens when I become complacent, smug in what I am doing.

I felt a vague discomfort, dissatisfaction as if something was amiss and I failed some test, I felt confused and disoriented. I decided to stay with these feelings and be still trusting that in time I would know what to do.

“Today it’s a very hot and humid New England’s summer day.

Too humid and too hot to be outside in the garden and going to the beach seems a very complicated and tiring solution. Staying at home feels much better with full blast air-conditioning and something to do.

I feel motivated to reorganize the closet where I keep all my quilting tools and fabrics.

The first box that I pull out is full of magazines and quilting books. I pick one and I begin to browse. It’s a book about making a” crazy quilt”.

I remember making one many years ago and how wonderful it was to put all the pieces together to make the quilt.

As I look at the pictures, I feel a familiar stirring and a quiet excitement.

I keep pulling out the boxes, in the very last corner I found a container full of materials that I bought in my travels in the orient: colorful silks from Viet Nam , brocades from Butan and Nepal, and satin from Italy.

In that moment the stirring, the quite excitement becomes a clear thought and intent, I am going to make another crazy quilt.”

A crazy quilt does not follow a preset pattern. Pieces of material are assembled and are sewn together with varied embroidery stitches which makes it beautiful and rich in nuances. Often lace and beads are used as lavished elements.

“I begin to gather the fabrics and since there is no pattern, I start to cut pieces of silk, satin, brocade. As I work, I lose the sense of time and my hands are guided, they seem to know what piece to choose and where to place it. The creative process continues, as the color of the thread and the stitch are chosen to connect the different pieces in such a way that the colors, the shapes and the stiches create a harmonious whole. I feel a lot of energy and great joy in this phase of the work. I see the quilt coming together.

The fabric makes a beautiful base for the decorations with the beads and the lace, all these elements give texture, light and brilliance to the quilt”.

My work is completed, I feel a deep silence within myself, a fulness and a stillness that is new and gives me a warm sense of comfort.”

The making of this quilt held a deeper meaning.

For me, it was my journey out of my “dark forest”.

Every piece I cut was a part of me that needed to be let go and then put together again in a more harmonious and conscious way.

In the darkness of our comfort zone there is a moment when our soul stimulates the imagination, it allows us to see things in a different light and notice aspects that we would not notice in normal times.

Every stitch, every bead, or lace has been part of the process of transformation of becoming whole, where the soul finds a voice, an image a symbol so it can speak and sing.

Lida Perry

FIBONACCI GAMBLE Claudiu Murgan A thin layer of clouds was spread on the bluish sky in convoluted patterns of abstract artwork. Watching their lazy passage through the tinted windows of my office on the second floor of the main CERN building made me yearn for being outdoors on a grassy hill of Allemogne.

The weather was holding steady at twenty-five degrees Celsius  my kind of weatherfor the next several days, pushing my mind even further into a potential hiking weekend.

‘If only it wasn’t for the darn pressure from the government officials for concrete results for any of the projects that were still functional, life would be quite good,’ I think, and tug at my coat’s lapels to straighten them up.

What used to be a simple request for funding that automatically would fill the institute’s coffers, turned into a nightmarish bureaucracy, a five level of signatures-hell, before even one bitcoin  electronic, invisible currency that, in the end, brought down the illegitimate worldwide financial structure  would materialize into the bank account. My quantum engineers are the best in the world and they still couldn’t generate money out of thin air.

I move my focus to the layer of glass in front of me to check once more my navy-blue and black-striped suit, wrapped around my medium height and stockily built body; a labor of love generated by the many hours spent in the gym.

My common facial features stare back at me: wide nose, high-cheekbones, permanently pale skin no matter how much sun exposure I get, brown eyes with no twinkle that should prove my above-average intelligence, and hair so thin at the top that saying "I don’t know if I should comb my hair to the left or right," would have been hilarious. But no matter how rarefied my hair looked, I won’t shave it. No way! I’ll hang onto it for as long as I can.

I check my watch impatiently. Tuleya, my Guyana-born assistant, should usher in at any moment the heads running projects on the still-active particle colliders.

‘Radical change!’, ‘shifting direction!’, and ‘jump into the unforeseeable!, were slogans that I thought powerful enough to infuse certain energy in my colleagues, whose ideas drainage equated the speed of funding disappearance.

‘Darn economical collapse,’ I think again, and have to pace to the door and back several times to calm myself down. Year twenty-twenty would be remembered in CERN’s history as the year when most of the countries funding the institute and the main experiments run on the Large Hadron Collider withdrew their support due to financial exhaustion triggered by so many internal struggles from paying the retirees’ pensions to cover the insurmountable deficit.

The enlarged picture hanging on the wall with me squished in between the presidents of the USA, Germany and Japan, the only superpowers still willing to trickle bitcoin for cherry-picked projects, is proof that history changed that day.

I decide to take my jacket off, put it on a hanger on the back of the door and sit. A quick glance at the sky confirms the patience the clouds have on their way from here to there, all the time in the world. They have no deadlines or particles to shoot at each other at enormous speeds through mile long tunnels buried deep underground.

A knock on the door and my gatekeeper lets in the three department heads, off-the-chart brainiacs.

“Hi, Brian,” they all say in unison, and drop themselves in the chairs already lined in front of my desk, a narrow piece of opaque glass stuck to curvy aluminum legs.

I nod in response. Suddenly, my mouth is dry. I taste metal, like I just finished chewing on a lead snack. The water I drink from the plastic bottle that leaves a wet mark on the glass barely washes away the awful taste. I lean back on my chair and try to maintain a pose of calm. These guys would be hard to sell on my idea.

“So now we're down to three colliders standing,” I try a joke, but can’t get any emphatic reaction from any of the heavy-set men, all three bearded or wearing a goatee, as if facial hair was an employment requirement.

“These three are the ones that have to run the projects that the big bosses are still willing to fund. Everything else is less important,” I continue my prepared speech.

I look at them, deer frozen in headlights, maybe already thinking that they will be part of the next wave of layoffs. This is a situation when one doesn’t think of the job at hand, but only at his own survival. Pathetic! I take another sip, assessing which one of the middle-aged men to jump on first. I didn’t like any of them in particular; I’m here to manage them not to make friends. This statement is so lame. All CEOs declaim it like is a badge of honor. Bullshit!

“Have you thought of any new angle that could bring some financial life back into this moribund body that is CERN?” I ask them with a smirk on my face, repeating my request from the email I sent to them two weeks ago.

Iurie Ivanciuk, the Ukrainian-born head of SANCTUARY, an Ion Collider Experiment, shuffles his wide ass in the chair, rests his elbows on the armrests, and moves his lips a bit without making any sounds, almost ready to spit out words. At the last moment, he remembers to check left and right with his colleagues and he gets a nod of approval.

‘They’ve come prepared for a potential challenge and they’ve chosen their spokesperson,’ I think.

I like the strategy and I relax a bit, waiting to be awed.

Ivanciuk, an experimental particle physicist, places a piece of paper in front of me, which I pull closer and inspect attentively. The list is short and involved the teams left to take care of SANCTUARY, ENCLAVE and SALVATION. Renaming the old colliders was a condition imposed by the superpower funders. A sign, they thought, of more prosperous times and abundant positive results.

“Interesting,” I reply, and smile, giving them the impression that I’m over the moon with their suggestions, an unexpected cash cow that would materialize the funds to bring back the hundreds of physicists, electrical and quantum engineers, software geniuses, and many more, that had parted with CERN over the last four years.

I stare at the list a moment longer, not reading the words. My mind is already set on the next project that would put us in the black, nevertheless, I still want to give them the impression that I appreciate the effort of compiling potential winners.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of these, so called, new projects are new. More or less they are offshoots of existing ones.”

They look at each other panicky and they are all shuffling in their seats now, perspiration crowning their high foreheads.

“No need for all of you to talk at the same time,” I say sarcastically. Why do I do that? I really don’t know. Maybe to compensate for my own misery at being put in this situation, the youngest CEO in CERN’s history, because no one from the old guard wanted the "glorified" title.

“Huh … somehow you're right, but most of the researchers who could have come up with something groundbreaking have left,” Matthew Chubuian, the head of ENCLAVE, a general-purpose detector, said, his voice tinged with a whisker of hope.

“We still have competent teams, but …,” he left the words hanging, not wanting to dig himself deeper into an empty explanation. His receding hair was gathered in a short ponytail, overgrown sideburns were trying desperately to reach out to his unkempt goatee.

Today, his spotted shirt is more crumpled than the light orange shirt he wore last week. Signs of desperation were plastered all over him.

I place the piece of paper they gave me gently on the desk, then I open the left drawer and pull out three copies of “Seeds for Another Universe” by Mircea Dacian, a Romanian scientist that had a list of accomplishments as long as two or three reputable CERN engineers put together.

‘Small country, great minds’, a thought that runs again through my maze of circumvolutions.

“This is a book that I want you to read ASAP,” I say and push the books in front of them.

“In the nineties, this guy and his team were doing cutting edge research in a mostly communist country. Can you image the conditions they were working in and how imaginative and innovative they had to be in order to overcome their lack of equipment? All that, we take for granted here.”

I stop for a moment to drain the bottle of water. I’m not leaning back on my chair anymore, but I’m right in their faces, explaining what I think is our only solution not to have the colliders, the magnets, the auxiliary equipment, and all the other assets sold for scrap in two years and the miles of underground tunnels turned into artificially-lit shopping malls, fancy condominiums or, in the worst-case scenario, bunkers protecting us from World War III atomic bomb radiation.

“His team took the Golden Number to a different level. They extruded the 2D model into 3D and called it the Golden Volume. All the ratios maintained, the Fibonacci sequence flows through each assigned intersection like a maestro’s fingers on a Stradivarius.”

All of them are browsing the book, stopping at the pages displaying graphics and mathematical formulas. It’s a quick peer review that could potentially find a flaw and shake my confidence, but they remain silent.

The initial test has passed and I continue, even more determined to drill into their skulls that it’s a 'now or never’ type of situation.

“Look at how elegant that Fibonacci curve is in the parallelepiped volume.”

“Okay, I agree, they did something unique. But how can we apply it to what we do, which has a much higher degree of complexity?”

Darren Mitten, a plum bodied, red-haired American running SALVATION, intervened to bring some convincing power to the team, still flipping back and forth through the book.

I couldn’t sit anymore. My movement around the office forced the men to shift in their chairs and their heads to follow me as if they were following the ball on a tennis court.

“There are millennia old geometric shapes that hide more than we can possibly understand: the pyramid, the octahedron and, in my opinion, the rectangular parallelepiped formed by the Golden Number in which Fibonacci curve fits perfectly. It’s the same ratio we find all around us in nature: sunflowers, shells, galaxies, pinecones. It’s just freaking unbelievable!”

My voice was a note too high from excitement. I stop by the window, forcing the men to shift again. I have to spill all the beans now after building on their scientific interest.

“What if we build a Fibonacci-type collider inside a Golden Volume structure? Any forth-grade kid knows that unusual processes, mainly positive ones, take place inside the pyramid and also in the octahedron.

What generates them? No one knows.”

Silence. No more shuffling or fingering of the book. I turn my back on them, pretending to peer at the horizon, instead, I focus on their reflection on the window. I’m giving them a pretense of privacy so that they could whisper to each other the pros and cons about this concept coming from a guy that would never reach their level of scientific knowledge.

“Are you asking us to build a curved collider?”

Chubuian asked incredulously, his hands placed over the book on his knees. It wasn’t a protective gesture, instead a demand for more justification on spending money we didn’t have.

“What do you expect out of it?” he continued.

I dreaded this question and only hoped that I could improvise a vague enough answer that would satisfy them. If not, they would do as I say anyways. They had to choose between working on this last attempt at salvation or a slow decay into the memory lane of the scientific community.

“Expect the unexpected,” I chuckle. “Maybe the particles don’t have to travel at light speed in that geometric shape. Maybe there are internal energies and vibrations that do all the work, energies that can’t be measured, but are present at a more stable level.

It’s like the small eddy currents formed in the blood vessels. In an embryo, the blood is pumped and moved around before the heart is formed. So the notion that the heart’s main purpose is to pump blood throughout our bodies is not completely true. It has help from these eddy currents. We might encounter a similar phenomenon in a Fibonacci-shaped collider,” I said, ending most of my prepared speech.

“And you have no particular goal or thought on the potential outcome?” the head of SANCTUARY, tested me again. He rubs his nose, itchy from the hair coming out of his left nostril, not taking his eyes off me.

I was pushing them around more than usual and they wanted some guidance. I decide to give in and confess. Maybe showing some goodwill on my part would release some of theirs.

“I might have a hint about certain possibilities. I’ve done my bit of research, and I even called Mircea Dacian. He’s willing to join our team and give it a shot if you are also willing.”

I scratch my head and feel the annoying fatty bumps formed under its skin. They were not there before taking on this job. ‘It’s stress related,’ I think for the millionth time.

“Black hole. A miniature, insatiable black hole is what we might get at the end of this exercise.”

I looked at their faces frozen in disbelief.

“Wow!” An unanimous reaction.

I press on.

“My suggestion is to insert the Golden Volume Fibonacci collider right after phase three of the acceleration process. Instead of injecting the split particles into the LHC, release them into the Fibonacci. Build a fair sized collider, wide enough for the vacuum tubes that carry the particles to fit in nicely,” I say, just to ignite their appetite for crazy research.

“You’ll have to do trial-and-error to see which particles are prone for better results, their speed, and all the other spices that make life underground interesting.”

I let them exchange statements that are too encrypted for me to understand.

The positive energy builds inside them like the one in fired up colliders.

“The Fibonacci spiral doesn’t close on itself so we’ll have to build two such structures and unite their ends,” Mitten announces loudly, his hairy hand leaning on the glass, exposing a tattoo in curvy letters; a name of a forgotten girlfriend.

“We need to fire particles using the same process we are using now, but on a twisted trajectory and inside a ratio-perfect geometrical shape,” Mitten explained in his lazy Louisianan accent.

“We’ve done so many tests on the linear colliders with very similar results.

Time is still linear; there is no wrinkle that could open a portal to another dimension,” I add another piece of significant information.

“Gentlemen, let me be very blunt. All those years ago, funding came to us from the remaining funders like an avalanche in the Hautes-Alpes, with a hidden goal: that somehow, the wild physics we're playing with through the collision of protons, neutrons, quarks and the myriad of other particles we keep unraveling would, in the end, rip a gate through the skin of this universe to another one.”

I stop again, open my small fridge loaded with bottles of water, grab one, and I’m about to shut its door when I realize that I should offer some to these parched guys. I decide it’s a humanitarian gesture, especially since I am not done with them yet. They all dry the liquid in seconds.

“Portals to other universes? Are those guys totally insane?” Chubuian cried, his fingers nervously tearing apart the label on the plastic bottle.

“I assure you, they are not. Science-Fiction movies are falling behind the reality around us. Accessing a ‘Stargate’ type of portal is only a matter of time, but it seems that our funders have lost their patience. That’s why I’m not trying to tweak existing processes, but do a quantum leap into the unknown. We have nothing to lose!”

I say, maintaining an even level of enthusiasm in my voice. I’m beyond what I was allowed to offer as being forthcoming, but it’s an executive decision I had to make.

“We are playing with fire,” Ivanciuk offers his two cents worth and crossed his thick arms over his prominent chest. His eyebrows frown, his eyes avoiding mine as if my craziness would infect his mind through his retinas.

“The general assumption is that the black holes could be portals, but they could be anything else too. Any other form of undiscovered energy floating in the adjacent universes. It could be a gargantuan vacuum cleaner that once put in the ON position won’t stop until it sucks in every piece of matter around it.”

I don’t react, just think of a contra argument intelligent enough to put his mind at ease. If he wanted to emphasize the danger by comparing the powerful gravitational phenomena with an inoffensive appliance, he failed.

We all smirked. I decide to ignore his remark and continue my own chain of thought, which was much more optimistic.

“Maybe time bends in a Fibonacci collider. Maybe at impact the particles decide to behave in a way that they trigger a similar excitation in a pair that collide at the same time in a parallel universe, entanglement at its best, and ... bang!”

I hit my palms together, adding sound effects that startled the men,

“… the portal appears. And before you object to what I just said, please remember that even if I’m a scientist with good management skills, I do believe in the Universal Matrix that binds all of us together. No matter how significant we think we are in the big scheme of things, geometry compels energy to flow in a specific way.”

I’m done now. I’ve exhausted the entire ammunition and speck of energy allocated to convince these stubborn-than-a-mule scientists to accept the suggestion of a younger peer. My mental refuge is on the other side of the tinted windows, looking again at the sky that froze the clouds in photo-still positions. It felt like the Creator held His breath for the duration of my passionate verbal outpouring. Behind me, none of them speak, fumbling on the challenge I threw at them. It takes another long moment before I hear Iurie Ivanciuk drawing the conclusion I was waiting for.

“Okay. If there is no other logical path to saving our asses, we’ll go with your strategy. We need about a month to determine, in theory, an optimal size for the two Fibonacci colliders."

“Good luck,” I say and keep staring at the beauty created by the universal invisible energy, while the men, silently exit my office. The door closes behind them and immediately the clouds are swaying again as the spectacle in my office was over. I smile at my reflected image, but there is little satisfaction in this won battle. The war is still waging on all of us. *

*

*

At the end of the fourth day, after deliberating amongst themselves, Ivanciuk conveyed the message that I could make the arrangements for Dacian to come over. They wouldn’t start any significant work until the Romanian joined their ranks so everyone could start fresh on this venture.

The researchers put their pride aside, willing to pick the brain of an outsider. I was not sure if they did it just to prove me wrong or out of fear that they might fail on their own. Regardless of the intention, I couldn't care less. I was running an almost sunken ship, in water up to my chin, left with enough time to say my prayers and salute the crew one more time, tears in my eyes.

Dacian arrived two weeks later. A tall, shiny-headed man, otherwise wellbuilt if it wasn’t for the extra padding around his waist. A jovial fellow, smiling continuously and talking at an amazing speed, his mind like a Cray processor, hence the long list of scientific papers, patents, innovations and unaccountable ideas that still waited to be put into practice or just taken over by research-hungry students. Even if he was humbled by the invitation to such a prestigious international facility, he didn’t seem overwhelmed.

His decades-long experience in theory of chaos, complexity theory, geodynamics and a myriad of other fields that interconnected seamlessly in his mind, made him a perfect fit with the remaining team members.

I was hosting all of them again in my office to hear the latest updates.

“What you are going to use to build the Golden Volume structure?”

I ask, curious to how the team had gelled after one week of working together.

Dacian tugged several times at his unshaved chin, his mind visibly flipping and evaluating several options. “Bamboo”, he said, this time no smiling followed his statement.

No one let out so much as a squeak, waiting for my reaction. I wanted to look smart and scrambled for a question that could contest his selection. It comes out more as a concern than a serious inquiry that should give the Romanian scientist room to doubt himself.

“Would it sustain that much weight?”

This time, he can’t hold back his smile anymore.

“Hong Kong’s sky-scrapers were built using bamboo scaffolding. It’s flexible, resistant and, the most important, non-conductive. Make no mistake, the collider itself doesn’t need any support. Its walls will be rigid enough to follow the Fibonacci curve. We use the bamboo to create the volume around it. Similar to what the pyramid shape does to empty space.

Building the collider without the structure that determines the volume that in turn generates the unique properties, is useless,” Dacian explained, his verbiage becoming increasingly faster.

“We’ve already discussed,” and he points to the three men standing quietly beside him, “that we’ll have to rework the thickness of the walls; the materials they are made of and the type of magnets that would focus the beam. What we’ll build is tiny compared to the twenty-seven kilometer that the LHC has. It’s a proof of concept if you wish,” Dacian concluded, and jogged a couple of times in place, giving the impression that he’s ready to answer another tough question. Then, as an afterthought, he moves towards the white board stuck to the wall on the right side of my desk, grabs a black marker and feverishly starts to draw several circles of various sizes.

He turns toward all of us, his cheeks colored by excitement. He pulls his long sleeves above his elbows, ready to lead me into the deeper scientific discussion they all had prior to arranging the meeting.

“We can’t avoid using phase one where we strip the hydrogen atoms down to protons with a positive charge,” and he checkmarks the smallest circle of his scribbling. “We also cannot bypass phase twothe Booster Colliderwhere we divide the initial pack of protons into four streams subjected to electric fields and electromagnets, or phase threethe proton synchrotron,” and he points to the next two largest circles. “We need all them to prepare the package with the right speed and weight. But,” the Romanian says, and makes a quick sign with his chin at Chubuian to continue the presentation.

The Ukrainian’s facial hair is still in disarray but the entanglement is less pronounced and lacks the food grease that usually gives it a shiny tinkle.

He takes the marker handed to him by Dacian like a baton in an athletic race, and resumes the pitch.

“The next two phases, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and the LHC, have to be eliminated and replaced by the FC,” he says.

“FC?” I ask, as the initials don’t recall anything familiar.

“We named it the Fibonacci Collider. It’s not feasible for us,” he continues, “to build an FC that would match the SPS’s length, seven kilometers. Based on our calculations we can reach the Golden Volume after four iterations, giving us three times the length of the Booster, which is 157 meters.

Only if the results show us similarities to the ones in the LHC, we could then, build a larger one. We know for a fact that the collider’s spiral can’t be kept in the same plan. It has to be built at a slight angle in order for the ends to connect properly.”

Chubuian puts all the details on the board, lines crossing the Fibonacci sequence, angles marked, several formulas that they’d used to reach this conclusion.

I measure up the scientists that are waiting for my approval on going ahead with the plan. They’d been released of any responsibility the moment they’d accepted my change of direction. It was me who earmarked the funds and who, in the end, has to justify it in case of a failure. *

*

*

I’m in the control center surrounded by the entire team, ready to fire up the Fibonacci collider. A year has passed since I agreed with the approach of building the FC. Twelve stressful months during which I become an expert at making bogus excuses for lack of tangible results required in return for the money I kept requesting. To my right, Chubuian takes over the discussion, animated by the fact that I’m on site, eager to witness their accomplishments.

“As we said before, this is a proof of concept for a Golden Volume equivalent to only four iterations so we don’t need additional injection beam equipment to increase the energy along the way. We didn’t go for a higher iteration number because Mircea shared another piece of his team’s research with us and we thought we could monitor that aspect as well,” he says, taking a half-step backwards to give Dacian the floor, then puts his sweaty hands together in a gesture of imminent prayer, so misplaced in this facility, where not even God could have entered without proper security clearance.

“Yes,” the Romanian starts, his voice a little raspy, “we took the Golden Volume and generalized it for the nth dimension. We came to the conclusion that our world is in fact part of a 4th dimensional universe that contains three other 3-Dimensional worlds, a ‘splinter’, if you wish, of a much more complex and invisible volume. Our research highlighted that the space created at the fourth iteration for the 3rd dimension presents an interesting behavior that doesn’t replicate any further, but could interact with the other undetectable worlds. It’s like a cry to the fourth dimension to come in and expand our reality by adding another degree of movement, but not at the physical level. It’s a more discreet plane, intangible, and, we think, has to do with the freedom of our mind through expanded consciousness. It’s just a hint, but the added component is not Time, as we initially thought. Inside the bamboo structure we’ve attached various sensors that feed into an application we’ve written to sense any time-space anomalies.”

Dacian then looks straight at me, potentially expecting me to categorize his idea to a new level of ‘crazy’, above the one about the black hole. I disappoint him by shrugging my shoulders and show my willingness to allow an exception to what we initially agreed upon.

Twenty cameras have been installed around the FC and I glance at the twisted metallic structure, lovingly embraced by bamboo poles. My mind skips back in time to when rollercoasters where still running on shaky wooden frames that would squeak and wail at every passing cart full of screaming guests contemplating tough sensations. I remember that I was one of those fools gratified by cheap entertainment.

The snake of the Fibonacci collider arches inwardly, looking to ingurgitate its own tail, only to find its twin sister firmly attached to its end, and continuing the curvaceous form at an angle slightly different as the researchers mentioned before. It’s a beautiful sight, not to cry for, but still, I’m proud of this team that didn’t give up on my vision. Will it work?

This is the question whose answer would be revealed shortly.

“Are we still injecting protons?” I asked, just to be sure that nothing had changed since our last update two days ago, and that the excitement wouldn’t make them forget any procedural steps and record everything properly.

“Yes,” Chubuian replies quickly. For a positive change, his blue Tshirt is clean, his beard groomed and a broad smile parts his facial hair.

Confidence exudes from everyone crowded around the control board. I switch from one video camera to another, checking each angle. The impromptu space for delivering the latest addition to CERN’s technological wizardry had to be close enough to the proton synchrotron for the two of them to connect and exchange the charged protons. Thick packs of wires sneak into both ends of the collider, pinned down by duct tape and tool carts with opened drawers showing their contents. Leftover metal pipes and tubes were piled in one corner from a mish-mash of a clean-up before the test. Neons hangs from the high ceiling, the light reaching the floor only as a light morning dew.

There is no more sign of Mr. Woo and his son, the specialists that built the bamboo frame. Their job is done and they are now packed and parceled to Hong Kong. This was their weirdest contract by far, he told Dacian, with whom Mr. Woo connected instantly due to a certain happiness and openness that they both lived their lives by.

The four iterations Ivanciuk mentioned, forces my neck to strain the sour muscles from gym-training overexposure when I look up to assess the Golden Volume’s dimensions. I can’t hold back a rictus thinking how inept the situation is: unleashed technology brought most of earth's natural balance to its brink of destruction, nevertheless, nature was still offering us a hand as an ultimate gesture of reconciliation by providing the bamboo.

The men and women making up the limited team fret around me, anxious to punch in the keys that would select the first test case, mixed with euphoria that they all expected to follow a successful and unheard of scientific challenge.

“We’ll kick them at the maximum designed energy: seven TeV ,” Ivanciuk says and immediately clears his throat intentionally to bring my attention to the task at hand.

I gather my strained thoughts and focus on his mouth as words come out slowly like puffs of smoke from the rounded lips of nicotine-addicted people.

“We've run several simulations on how much energy the protons could gain between the release and the point of contact …”

He stopped for a moment and nodded to Mitten who quickly moved the mouse on a black pad marked with CERN’s logo, bringing up on one of the monitors the results of the simulations Iurie Ivanciuk had just mentioned.

“As you can see,” he pointed his index finger at the swirling red, green and blue lines generating havoc between two horizontal lines claimed as safety zone, “we are shooting blanks. Our historical data is all based on linear trajectory that behaves like a well-trained pet; most of the time, you could guess the outcome, but not in this case.”

The Ukrainian still stared at the monitor, hoping, I guess, to notice a hidden code at the precipice of the experiment.

“Are you saying that you can’t train the particles to behave on a twisted trajectory?”

I asked, a bit concerned about the inconclusiveness of the computer models.

There is a deep silence ruffled only by shoe soles rubbing against the carpet.

It’s Dacian’s turn to salvage the team’s pride.

“Look, indeed, we can’t say one hundred percent how these puppies will perform inside the collider, but we’ll treat them gently, just a bit of a touch to be sure that the magnets will keep them in the middle of the vacuum tubes, straight and safe like pearls on a string. What Iurie wanted to say is that speed is something we can control, but the energy they are going to accumulate along the way, we can’t. That’s the worrisome part,” he said, directing his sight to the same results on the monitor.

"As in the LHC, we'll run the protons counterclockwise in the vacuum tubes, but because of the unusual path, we can't predict if some of them would lose speed and 'be late' at impact, generating whatever unpredictable results," Dacian adds, his voice barely carrying any trace of confidence.

I dug my hands into my side pockets while gazing at the monitor image of the bamboo structure weaved in perfect geometry. I’m not having second thoughts about pushing the levers myself if need be, it is just the anguish of this unexpected energy component that makes this research invaluable.

It’s morale damaging to show indecisiveness in front of the team, but my lips are stuck by glue I couldn’t taste, teeth clenched, my back muscles tensed and ready to rip through my Italian-made cotton shirt. Everyone is tired; dark bags hanging below their eyes, cheeks sucked in from sleepless nights and irregular meals, compensated by too-many-to-count coffee mugs. They all want to be done with this, successful or not. I would like to send them home for couple of days, then have them back to run the test, but I know they would revolt and shut me down, no matter I was the boss.

“Let’s do it,” I say and follow with a mental prayer that encompasses all of us. * * * In the void that followed, God’s voice thundered, annoyed.

“Now I have to rebuild this world again. Another demanding six days of creation: humans and the rules they have to live by. But now they are prepared to experience an upgraded cycle, in which science and spirituality have to co-exist. That’s the only way to bring them back to me forever in a higher astral plane safely by inducing a greater state of consciousness.”

END

Claudiu Murgan June 2019

λάθε βιώσας* ROBERTA MEZZABARBA In this time volume I am happy to introduce a creative and irreverent writer, she lives in these beautiful Etruscan hills, her inspiration however is vast and open to the world. I am sure you will enjoy her story.

After the publication of three novels, illustrated books for children, collections of short stories and poems, all brought to the public through publishing houses, Roberta Mezzabarba has decided to open her wings and soar in the sky of solo publishing.

The tireless author, after the staging of her latest novel with the very intense play "Misia: confessions of a concubine”, is releasing on March 24th a new novel (her eleventh publication) entitled IULIA FARNESIA Letters from a soul, imagined, written and produced entirely by her.

Let's read Roberta's way of sharing this new path: Letting go of a publishing house was truly liberating: I no longer feel the traps and snares imposed by publishers. I am free to move, to advertise and to take my paper creations everywhere.

My latest book is about Giulia Farnese, historical figure who lived between 1400 and 1500, known by most for being the lover of Pope Borgia: but in reality Giulia la Bella (the beautiful) was much more.

I love to call her a woman ahead of her times, a woman who respected the orders of her family giving herself, when still a child, to the elderly and lascivious Borgia, yet she managed to keep intact a spark within herself that allowed her to create herself anew.

In the last years of her life Giulia was mistress of her manor in Carbognano (VT) which she was able to manage competently, at a time when no woman could own or look after any property.

The whole story is based on authentic archival documents, on which I then embroidered my novel, making it easy and pleasant to read, at the same time creating an unforgettable character, just as Giulia was.

This is why I dare to say: that this is the TRUE story of Giulia Farnese.

I feel that Giulia was looking for me. One day I was on a boat sailing on Lake Bolsena, where Giulia was born: since then, until I delivered the manuscript to the press, I had the strange feeling of never being alone while writing.

All my books, including my latest one, can be found on my website www.robertamezzabarba.it , the books will reach readers with my signature, people can find them also in all bookstores and online stores.

The story is available in print, ebook, and soon in audiobook.

By the end of 2022 it will be released worldwide, translated into Spanish, English, German, French, Chinese and Romanian.

As always, I have a thousand plus one projects… but I can reveal that I'm writing the screenplay of this novel for a TV series…! Perhaps it will be possible to see it soon.

(A strong woman for a strong writer, I look forward to both reading and seeing the stories of Julia Farnese become known world wide.)

Roberta Mezzabarba Interview collected, edited and translatated by Antonella Vicini

* Epicurus considered friendship the highest good, both materially and spiritually. However friendship can only be cultivated in a small circle, away from the storms of life, therefore the motto: Live in hiding (from the crowd).

Art often hides from the glitter of the media market, the ancient ones recommended to live hidden, if you really wanted to achieve peace of mind and greatness of spirit.

COOKING Bri Bruce

After a winter of root vegetables & hot soups, it’s time to drink something cold & refreshing!

These days, the fruits in my water bloom as bright as the flowers popping up on the cactus-strewn mountains I hike.

Since moving to Arizona 5 years ago — the Southwestern United States — I’ve been steeped in Mexican & Native cultures as different from my hometown in the Southeast U.S. as Japan is from Switzerland.

A favorite find of mine out here, besides real cowboys, is “aguas frescas” = “fresh waters” according to my significant other’s mother who immigrated here from Mexico.

According to history or legend, the Aztecs first began consuming the lightly-flavored non-alcoholic beverages on journeys from their farmlands to what is now Mexico City, then Tenochtitlán. They’d collect fruit along the way & muddle it into their drinking water for a more hydrating beverage.

It’s worth it just for the taste, though!

Like tea without the caffeine — & what Kool-Aid & Coca-Cola wish they could be: a good influence — this natural beverage has so many health benefits that my skin glows brighter & my mood gets sweeter the more I sip, savoring, together with old traditions yet new to me, the real sweetness of life.

Baked Bri’s Aguas Frescas -1 whole pineapple -juice of 1 blood orange/pomegranate -juice of 1/2 - 1 lime -7g dried or 1 bunch fresh spearmint Peel & core the pineapple. Cut into chunks & muddle on the bottom of a pitcher. If using fresh herbs, rinse & muddle them in as well.

Squeeze in the juice of one lime & one blood orange/pomegranate. Add in 7g dried spearmint at the end before ~5 liters of fresh, cold water.

Let soak overnight.

Strain if desired.

Enjoy your Aquas Frescas!

Bri Bruce

CHAKRAS Evolutionary Wheels 3. MANIPURA Chiara Corte The third chakra is a nodal point, it is the bottleneck of the hourglass, it is the forge of our personal power, it is the place where Man, who has fully become a person, is able to act in the world.

Manipura is the jewel city of beauty and social life. The jewel city contains the best of humanity that is capable of coexisting with others retaining its individuality with responsibility.

By analogy with the symbolism of Campanella's "City of the Sun", the jewel city reminds us of an ideal world in which man is capable of acting with balance and responsibility, thus creating beauty.

Keeping this chakra in balance is crucial for our evolution.

Low functioning of this energy center generates helplessness and frustration and a lack of self-esteem.

Excessive functioning generates aggression and abuse.

The third chakra in balance allows the person to wisely govern his/her life as a well-governed city and this generates beauty.

The jewel city shines with industrious beauty.

Therefore, along our healing path, Manipura is very important: we extracted the raw and painful material from the underworld through the work of the first chakra (first article) and we filtered and welcomed it, then we purified and regenerated it in the passage to second chakra (second article) and we have allowed a rebirth through the waters, in the third chakra we face purification through fire.

This passage is a consecration that restores the power of action to the individual.

Acting implies choosing personal ethics. The third chakra is our free will.

Free will without strength generates passivity that leads to victimization, it is essentially a rejection of life, a lack of recognition for the gift received.

Excessive strength leads to anger and violence.

Here we see how important it is to cross the purifying fire of this energy point, in order to let go of the unbalanced aspects of our ego, then our personality can shine with wisdom.

I describe here below a sequence that can help us in getting through the fire.

Partial position of SVAHA goddess of offering through fire (see G. Cella, "The jewel of yoga", Feltrinelli, 1998, p. 73) also known as THE SEAL OF FIRE (fig 1) Standing, legs apart as wide as our pelvis, I bring my hands open on the navel, exhaling I tilt the torso forward until it reaches about 45 degrees, I keep breathing. The elbows detach from the body and remain parallel to the ground.

I open myself to the energy contained in this gesture and let the material I am working on, (that had emerged from the waters of the second chakra) rise to my consciousness until it is felt in the point behind the navel and I stop in position to become fully aware of the Prana pulsating under my hands. I welcome the heat that is generated. If it is excessive, I diffuse it around the navel with a clockwise rotation gesture. I breathe and hold until it becomes pleasant.

I accept the material to be healed, I welcome it into the crucible of the third chakra and with the purification of fire, I make it lighter.

In Manipura matter dances with the spirit as a flame.

Matter, once it is lightened by fire, flies to the heart.

The breath opens in the diaphragm and amplifies the flight with the practice of UDDIJANA BANDHA (The flight of the eagle) From the previous position I go down to the cockerel position by flexing my knees and placing my hands on the thighs with the fingers turned inwards, so as to unload all the weight from the back to the legs.

I exhale deeply and completely, push my chin down on my throat in order to completely close the air passage and then, instead of inhaling, I draw the navel inwards and upwards, the suction of the diaphragm causes the compression of the internal organs and their lifting. This very potent purification Krya is also called the long life gesture.

When holding your breath becomes uncomfortable, release your breath and rest your body in the cockerel position. (Figure 2) I find the vertical position and prepare to continue the journey by practicing the position of SUPARNI which represents the flight of the eagle in its female aspect.

The energy of this position brings lightness to the body and mind in abundance.

Suparni can welcome the new energies purified by the fire of Manipura.

With legs and feet together and arms open at shoulder height, I rise on the tips of my feet, keeping my balance, while I also bend the knees and bring the body onto the thighs. The arms are extended with the palms facing upwards. I stay still breathing calmly until I feel a sensation of lightness. (figure three)

I complete this practice with the position of VAJRA - The lightning bolt With a few conscious movements, I descend into the sitting position on the knees.

I stretch my feet, let the muscles of the legs rest and straighten the back.

From here, I can contemplate the calm that is generated once the passage is made. I contemplate the connection between heaven and earth, now reestablished through the perfectly straight and free spine, and I listen to the now quiet breathing.

Even the fire can now rest. I relax my ankles and legs and listen to the renewed inner peace. (figure four)

Chiara Corte Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini

HEALING WITH WORDS Speechless? No More!

Antonella Vicini During the first few years of THE BADGER, I published some articles with the above title, they were short stories with transformative values.

The idea behind that project was to use stories, like in traditional story telling, to invite people to share their experiences and feel the power of healing coming through their stories.

Some years have gone by and, after this long and not yet completed pandemic, while winds of war seem to be ominously blowing on our planet, many of us researchers and teachers of evolutionary paths have turned inwards, looking for a new start, for a sparkle and maybe a new life project to bridge the difficult darkness of Covid and its consequences on our lives.

I have found a new path that puts together all the different experiences and fields I have had the great fortune of crossing in my life.

I have been a teacher of classics, of breathing and healing techniques, a shamanic practictioner, a trainer focussing on communication skills: out of this gigantic melting pot has emerged

SPEECHLESS? NO MORE! A course in public speaking that people can buy online, in Italian and in English, they can study it at their own pace and apply its lessons both in their personal and professional lives.

Since its publication, in November 2021, I have asked myself what was the goal behind it, why had I chosen such a topic.

I think that now I do have an answer, in fact more than one!

I have taught adults all my life, but the main age range in my work has been adolescents and young people, up to almost 30 years old.

This is an appararently huge age range, but considering how adolescence seems to arrive sooner than in the past and now it lasts much longer than in the past, I have found that the people in this part of their lives seem to present similar issues.

Not being able to answer simple questions in a way that is understandable, let alone efficient is the one area where I can help them!

Oftentimes, people so young do not know what is going on inside them, because they are so much taken by the daily events in their lives, by the deep physical/mental/emotional/spiritual changes happening so fast that they cannot be rooted and mature enough to do any self analysis.

I don't mean to say that they are all unaware, because it would not be true, but I have found countless times that they do have a noticeable difficulty in expressing themselves, sometimes they do not even know if they have anything to say at all!

I have created a path towards unity and awareness of body, mind, emotion and spirit through the conscious use of words.

Whenever we leave the limited circle of our family and closest friends we are already speaking in public, even more so these days when our marketplace is as wide as the world, through social media accessibilty.

Communicating in a way that respects our deepest values and beliefs is best done when there is an awareness of oneself.

So the goal for this course is to share not only the secrets and techniques of public speaking, but also and perhaps more importantly, how to use the time of preparation as a way to get to know ourselves using the breath as our first tool, the body as our physical support and clarity about our positions as a solid platform for our words.

While I was writing and filming the course, I added a subtitle for the first part :

FROM SHY TO SHINING because that had been my personal experience: from being so shy that I could hardly utter a word in front of people without going purple and melting in a puddle of embarassment, to becoming a self assured, assertive, relaxed public speaker in all sorts of situations.

This subtitle was good for the first 5 lessons of the course, but what could I call the second part of the course?

One day I had a sort of epiphany:

THE NATURAL SPEAKER these words sounded right to me, they gave me the feeling and understanding of what the second part of the course would be about: how to learn the techinques and keep our own different personalities.

The Natural Speaker is a person who knows himself/herself very well, who can take a stand and follow his/her intuition, supported by reality.

Little by little, I realized that I was talking about leaders, people who want to take control of their lives in a creative, inclusive and fair way.

So this is what the course is about: being 100% yourself, learning techniques that will make your communication flow freely and efficently, achieve the results you want using your voice and your own words, therefore being original.

Natural Speakers will be the future leaders who will know how to speak their truth in an appropriate, impactful, compassionate and inclusive way.

Patience, Persistence, Perseverance are the keys to our success in life, I would like to also add Commitment that supports our motivation when the going gets tough.

Antonella Vicini https://app.mastermind.com/masterminds/30688

WITNESSING I am pleased to welcome here The Blue Earth Project, an intiative that connects different generations of Reiki Practioners and opens our practice to the well being of our Earth. A. Vicini

The Blue Earth Project This project was conceived by Marta Getty, developed by Chiara Corte, realized by Reiki Home.

How the idea started: The day was very warm, the sun bright and hot….we were in the hills above Genova, Italy. My friend, Chiara and I were taking a walk in the woods in the shade of the tall oaks, listening to the birds and talking.

Occasionally we lapsed into silence just enjoying the company and friendship.

In a particular moment of silence, Chiara asked me what I was thinking about. I had been mulling over a project and wondering how to make it happen….this had come from my students’ requests to do something in addition to our healing Support Line to support the Earth in these strange and troubled times. After talking about this a bit, we wandered off onto other subjects.

A few days later, Chiara took me to the train station to go to Milano where I was leaving to go to the 2016 TRA conference in Germany. As we were saying goodbye at the station, she said to me, “when will you start this project for the Earth? I’d like to participate in it!” I laughed, saying to her “when I find a world small enough to hold in my hands, then I know we’ll start it!”

A few days later at the conference, there was an evening where we held a marketplace. As I wandered around looking at all the things for sale, I saw a dear friend sitting behind a table covered with objects that seemed for all the world, basically garage sale material. Going to chat with her for a few minutes, I looked down at the table and saw a lovely blue marble world on a necklace.

Instantly it was clear to me…. here was a world that could be held in my hands!

She told me the cost of the marble was 5 Euro, and in the end, I went away from the evening holding the world in my hands. There was a smile in my heart at the idea of telling Chiara the project was already making itself known.

Continuing to chat with her, I asked why on Earth was she selling a table full of these objects that seemed a little like a garage sale. “oh, that’s easy” she said. Phyllis Furumoto (Reiki Grand Master at the time) sent me a box of things I could sell that would benefit the Alliance and give a little extra money. “How funny,” I thought. “Here is a world I can hold in my hands, and it was made available to me by Phyllis.”

I had often used the metaphor of having a new world put into my hands when she had initiated me.

On returning to the USA for a break, I tried to find the blue marbles on the Internet and finally found the manufacturer/distributor in Mt. Shasta, in northern California. That is a place considered sacred by many of the first peoples from that area.

I called the company and spoke with the owner, Richard. My first question to him was could I order 50 marbles (thinking this was a reasonable number for the project). Instead of just saying ‘yes’ to me, he instead asked ‘why’ did I want 50 of them. “For a project,” I said. “Ok, but what kind of a project?” “Well to send healing for our planet,” I replied beginning to feel impatient. “What kind of healing?” he asked. “Reiki,of course" was my answer.

He instantly opened up and said, “The price of the marbles is usually $4-5 each but I’ll give them to you for the manufacturing cost at $2.50 each, and I’ll send them to you at my expense. Well that was quite a surprise, and a very sweet thought, but “why” was my question to him.

He told me he had invented these beautiful little worlds for just that reason, thinking of Reiki and other healing techniques, and for those that wished to pray for the planet or to have a focus for thinking positive thoughts for the Earth. I was very touched!

The marbles arrived the next day, and they were beautiful! An even deeper blue than the one I had found at the conference, and so wonderful to hold.

In the next few weeks I began to give them to people as gifts in little net bags with an intention written on paper, and including a small card from the distributor. These were people that had clearly indicated they wished to do ‘something’ toward healing the world.

I simply asked each one to give ten minutes a day focusing on this thought as they held the world in their hands.

“I direct this energy to heal and reconcile our planet and all of her inhabitants!”

(It seemed awful to focus on wars, earthquakes, disasters, etc. and this felt like a positive, clear statement for what is needed now.) Everyone was thrilled to receive this little gift, and grateful for a way to express their desire for a positive change for our world.

This has been a successful project so far, and the marbles are all over the world in different countries. I’ve ordered more of them for my students, and in my thinking, others would want to do this, too. I figured that if you are interested, you can order them and gift them to friends and students with the same objective.

I wish you well in this project, and hope you enjoy the results as much as I have in the last few months! It has been a wonderful, and surprising, connection with how much the world matters to me, and a warm sense of sharing with others our thoughts for a better, more loving future on our planet.

Marta Getty

May 2017

How the idea was developed: And so Marta carried these marbles all over the world and offered one of them to all of us.

She also added the sentence: “I direct this Reiki Energy to heal and reconcile the planet earth and all its inhabitants” And that’s how we can start to heal the whole planet as we so dearly wished.

Some time before passing away Marta gave this project as her legacy to Reiki home directly in Elaine Andres’s hands.

A few months later Reiki home asked for volunteers, and I applyed for it so now here we are.

I started to work on the Blue Earth Project, with Reiki home support and encouragement, now I am offering a series of engaged conversations and meditations right on Marta’s sentence to heal and reconcile the planet earth and all it’s inhabitants.

Chiara Corte

How this project can touch our lives: REIKI HOME PRESENTS : Blue Earth Webcast Series There is an urgency within Planet Earth; it is strong. The planet longs for peace and healing. We creatures, inhabitants of this planet, feel this urgency. Sometimes, we are tempted to give up. The effort is huge and the results seem so little. As we listen to this urgency, we do our best to respond and be responsible.

The Blue Earth Marble project was created by Marta Getty in 2017 to respond in a concrete way to this need for healing the earth and all life forms. It is an answer - a practical, simple way of healing the planet with Reiki practice.

Marta left the Blue Earth Healing Project in the care of Reiki Home with the request that her legacy be continued. Marta created a sentence as a way to send and direct reiki healing to the Earth.

"I direct this energy to heal and reconcile all the inhabitants of Planet Earth."

Join Reiki Home as together we explore the power found within this sentence and practice. The four-month series explores these themes. You are welcome to join the remainder of the discussion groups.

Reconciliation. This small group met February 10 and focused upon the word “reconciliation” and the verb “to reconcile,” we explored the multiple meanings from an ancient word as a way to go deeper into our vision of the world and take personal responsibility.

March 10 – Earth. Earth is our flesh and bones. We come from Earth; we are the same substance of the creation. Questions: What does Earth mean to us? How do we hold and honor Earth in our daily lives?

April 14 – Inhabitants. This word “WE” descends naturally because “WE” is all – not just humankind. It is the flowers, stones, water – all is the WE that lives inside and upon the Earth. What does the phrase “all inhabitants” mean to you? In what ways are you part of Earth? How do we honor ourselves and all life?

May 12 – Healing with Reiki. What is reiki for us? What is the role of healing in life? Reiki leads us to embrace the whole, the entire. Healing works because healing brings us back to the original. When we speak reiki we let the body and energy speak through our ancestors, sensations, images that is native.

Monthly Meditations: You are invited to attend a free monthly Blue Earth Meditation that expands the collective research done in the Engaged Conversation.

Dates for the free meditations are: Mar. 24, Apr 28 and May 26.

Check the website for the link and time.

Presenter: Chiara Corte who is strongly committed to carry forward Marta’s legacy within Reiki Home. Chiara has been a Reiki Practitioner since 2005 and was Marta’s last initiated Reiki Master of Usui Shiki Ryoho system in 2019

Elaine Andres for Reiki Home

NOTE You can find out more information at the below link:

https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MTM3OTMz

AUTHORS

Antonella Vicini http://badgermedicinespirit.wix.com/tirthayatra Writer and editor of THE BADGER, author of Talking with Gods, Sages, Fairies.... (a novel published in 2014). Steeped in classical and indological studies, I have spent all my life learning from people as well as from the ancient texts that keep revealing their immortal, thus contemporary teachings. I am happy when I can share new visions and face new challenges. I am a professional rebirther and trainer (since 1987), Reiki master since 1991, stress management and leadership trainer, writer and visionary. I also lead workshops on shamanic journeying and soul healing. I am deeply grateful to all my teachers and elders. Badger Medicine Spirit

David R. Kopacz, MD https://www.davidkopacz.com/ https://beingfullyhuman.com/ brings creativity, spirituality, and healing together with clients as well as to the larger challenges that face health care and society. He works as a psychiatrist at the Seattle Veterans Affairs Primary Care Clinic in Mental Health Integration, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, and is an Education Champion with the national VA Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation. Dr. Kopacz is board certified in Psychiatry, Integrative Medicine, and Integrative & Holistic Medicine. He is the author of three books – Re-humanizing Medicine: A Holistic Framework for Transforming Your Self, Your Practice, and the Culture of Medicine (2014); and with Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) – Walking the Medicine Wheel: Healing Trauma & PTSD (2016); and Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality (2020).

Fredric Lehrman http://www.nomaduniversity.com/ is one of the original “Wealth Psychologists” who looked deeply into the subconscious habit patterns that may either support or thwart personal financial success. He began teaching these insights in the early 1970’s, and his seminars, articles, and coaching have been the launch point for many of today’s best known experts and authors ever since. Fredric’s personal career has included intensive study with master teachers in many disciplines, and professional success in music, psychology, martial arts, photography, and global entrepreneurship, networking and innovation. He founded Nomad University in 1974 as a way to expand the concept of education as a life-long individual path of self-directed learning. The ideas he articulated then are now starting to appear in new schools all around the internet-connected world of the 21st century.

Laura Bottagisio www.laurabottagisio.com is an astrologer and seeker. She started studying astrology at the beginnings of the 80's with Lisa Morpurgo, she later worked with the Cosmos Institute of Milan, where she learnt about the theory and practice of Vibrational Waters. She has attended seminars with gerard Athias and Jp Brebion on new medicine and bio analogy. She shares her discoveries in her blog. She also creates tableaux with recycled materials, in this way she creates images out of emotions and inner worlds.

Lida Lodi Perry https://www.facebook.com/lidaperry?ref=profile Lida was born in the North East of Italy (Vicenza) after graduating from a teacher Institute she came to the USA, where she continued her education at the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Psychology and later a Master in Social Work. She worked for many years at a drug clinic in the local hospital. In 1984 she went back to Italy to work with abused children as a director of a residential facility. She moved on to work as a supervisor and Psychologist at Milan Cancer Institute where she is still consulting, while having a successful private practice as psychotherapist.

She was also cofounder of the Rebirthing Institute with Antonella Vicini, she became a Reiki Master in 1992, she is still active with the local and international Reiki community.

Geraldine Rael I am a Native American woman of Ute and Peublo descent, I am the oldest daughter of Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow. In the Winter of 2018 my Fathers gifted his Sacred Dances, to me in order to carry his Visions into the future, the way he intended:“After the seeds have been planted, Mother Earth and Father Sun wake them out of their dream time that they may become.” As his eldest daughter of his lineage, I will do my utmost to keep his Visions, as he set them forth: watering the seeds so carefully and lovingly sown through his Dances, his living art and his teachings. Many blessings.

Francis Rico www.shaman.zone Musician, feral shaman, and author Francis Rico combines ancient and modern wisdom assisting clients, students and fellow adventurers in awakening to the gift of their lives. His book, A Shaman's Guide To Deep Beauty, shares stories and lessons from a lifetime of dedication to the shamanic pathways and teachers of indigenous wisdom traditions. As a guide to the world's sacred sites, Francis brings insight, humor, and music along on every journey. His home lies in Northern California, where he shares the beauty of the wild coastal mesas, cliffs, and ocean.

Claudiu Murgan started writing Science Fiction when he was 11-years old. Since then he met remarkable writers that helped him improved his own trade. Claudiu's experience in various industries such as IT, renewable energy, real estate and finance, helped him create complex but real characters that brought forward meaningful messages. Claudiu is one of the co-founders of the Immigrant Writers Association in Toronto, and the Vice President of Authorpedia.org, the world's only encyclopedia for authors. You can hear the radio and TV interview Claudiu gave in the last 12 months on his website www.claudiumurgan.com

THANK YOU! Thank you for reading our magazine, our tribe of committed Badgers is growing steadily Thank you!

I want to thank the new and old authors who have added their voices and experiences to this great adventure, so that we can be better heard and received.

Our next issue will be online in October 2022 If you want to keep in touch with THE BADGER, please send your questions, comments and creative contributions to:

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https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger___year_2_volume_4 https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_june_2016

https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_march_2016 http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_january_2016 http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_october__2015 http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_june_2015

http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_year_1_volume_2 http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_year_1_volume_1_correcte http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_number_0

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THE BADGER PRODUCTIONS present SPEECHLESS? NO MORE! Speak in Public with Joy The Natural Speaker We are all natural speakers, this course will support the rediscovery of your innate skills and your real voice The world needs your clear voice, whatever your occupation or level of study, being able to communicate and be understood in public situation has become the norm at every level of education and in any job.

From shy to shining, from silence to fully express yourself in a confident and professional manner, these are the goals for our beginning course in Public Speaking.

Whether you are still in school or looking for your first job, adding your voice as an asset will make you stand out, because you will be a Natural Speaker.

When I was an adolescent, I was shy and hypersensitive, but when I chose to become a tour leader and I was placed in charge of a tourist group, suddenly I had to find ways to give the best service possible and make sure that they all had a good time, there was no space left for my concerns.

In this course I offer you my solutions and the steps to take in order to pursue this path.

In our 10 online lessons we will discover: the power of stance with our body and breath the scope of our vision with our mind the strength and resilience in our life with our emotions the deepest values that identify us with our spirit.

All these approaches applied to communication techniques will make you a Natural Speaker.

Watch our trailer video:

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QUILTING AWAY Quilting is the art of creating very colorful quilts, using small pieces of fabrics stitched together preferably by hand, in different colorful and amazing patterns.

My Quilts are stitched and quilted by hand to assure a more precise assembly and even thickness.

It takes time to create a quilt: for a single bed at least 3 months are needed.

A quilt can be a very precious gift for a wedding, a special occasion, or for a significant person.

Visit my Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/lidaperry/?fref=ts

BEAUTIFUL PAINTED ARROW VISIONARY ART CARDS

THE PATH OF THE RED ROAD A Powerful Tool for Transformation Through these beautiful and unique cards Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) shows us the Path of the RedRoad. A great wisdom teacher, Joseph Rael, imparts a personal message to each of us in the individual revelations of the cards.

Beautiful Painted Arrow (Joseph Rael) helps us understand through the blending of two languages, two separate realities, that we each come as a gift to life. . . . His use of sound in the practices he offers is very illuminating and special.”

Brooke Medicine Eagle on “Beautiful Painted Arrow”

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