Jan 27, 2010 I have seen 360 degree shots before, but nothing like this.
Look all the way up and all the way down and you don’t get
any decrease in the shot.
You can’t even see where the camera equipment is, it’s like
it’s not even there. Use your mouse to move around.
It takes practice. ENJOY ! ! !
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Jul 17, 2009
The book is written in the first person, and the main character is never named. He has died and finds himself in a gray place that is sparsely populated, but he sees several people getting on a bus, so he joins them. Several people decide at the last minute to not get on. In short, the bus it taking him to a place that is just outside of Heaven. I don’t remember it being named, so I’ll call it “the plain”. The world in this story is referred to as “deep hell”; the gray place is “hell” if one remains in it, but if they go on they call it “purgatory”. Every one, it seems, initially lands in the gray hell, which is rather like a better dream of separation from God. One can have anything they want there just by wanting it. They also can get on the bus at any time to go to Heaven. It’s their choice. Most in this gray hell, however, have moved far away from the bus station, which is why the area around it seems deserted.
Upon reaching the plain, they are eventually met by Spirits, who are initially called “solid people” because those arriving from hell are ghost-like in this place. The Spirits are the ghosts’ guides to Heaven, if the ghosts are willing. And it is here that the protagonist overhears the various obstacles to God that are represented by the ghost’s stories. Reading this book, I recognized all of the forms of resistance to God that I have had myself, and that I see over and over again in others. (My life partner, Courtney, who is Christian, and who read this book before me a few weeks ago, says it has “changed her life” and brought her closer to God). This book is fantastic at pointing out the subtle forms that resisting God can take, and the many ways that we delude ourselves that we are close to God when we are really going in the other direction. I was particularly fond of the story of the clergyman who refused to accept that God is Fact because he enjoyed the “mystery” of God so much more! Hard as it is to fathom now, I can remember preferring the seeking to the finding for a long time myself.
I would say that we students of the Course live on the plain just outside of Heaven; our Guide is the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, when we feel particularly ornery, we get on the bus and return to hell and try to convince ourselves that it’s good enough because it’s better than the deep hell we were in before. But then we accept that hell is hell, and we get back on the bus and come up to the plain again. Eventually, we stay on the plain, and let the Holy Spirit help us remove our obstacles to God, and lift us Home.
This allegory is not perfectly in line with the Course; there are whiffs of traditional Christianity’s love of sacrifice, and it is never made clear that upon reaching God, individuality ceases to exist. But these are minor details. The book is great at sorting out Truth and illusion, and at making it clear that hell and Heaven are your choice, not something imposed on you. God is Pure Love, and the Spirits are Pure Joy, always laughing at the forms of resistance they encounter. They never take it seriously because they know the Truth!
Jul 16, 2009 The collaborative user-edited Web site gets its name from blending the words “wiki” and “encyclopedia.” “Wiki” is a recent edition to the English lexicon, and made its way into the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary in 2007. “Wiki-wiki” is actually a Hawaiian word, meaning “quick” or “fast.” A wiki is a Web site that uses a certain type of software (the software is also called “wiki” software) that enables users to quickly and easily edit the Web site, create content, and interlink various Web pages. A wiki is easy to edit because it uses a standard mark-up language, which is a series of notes and tags that describe the layout format of the Web site. Often the mark-up language is HTML, which stands for “hypertext markup language.”
In the mid-1990s, a computer programmer was developing this type of software to make Internet Web site collaboration fast and easy. He went on a vacation to Hawaii, and at the Honolulu airport, he needed to get quickly from one terminal to another. He asked an airport employee about the best way, and she told him to take the “Wiki Wiki Shuttle” — it’s the shuttle that links the airport terminals there, the quickest and easiest way to get between terminals. The computer programmer, Ward Cunningham, adopted the name of the Honolulu airport terminal bus to describe his software, which was meant to be quick, straightforward, easy to use, and to interlink things, because he liked the alliterative sound of “wiki” when used with the word “Web.”
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales launched Wikipedia, the collaborative user-edited encyclopedia, in January 2001; it’s now the largest wiki on the Web. To publicize their new creation, they simply sent out an announcement to an e-mail listserve. The new collaborative encyclopedia was to have no process of formal peer-review, which made it very different from any other encyclopedia, including online encyclopedias. At first, Wikipedia was only in English, and there were almost no rules except that articles were to present information in a neutral, non-biased point of view.
By the end of its first year, Wikipedia had grown to about 20,000 articles in 18 languages. Today, less than a decade from its inception, there are more than 13 million articles in more than 260 languages on Wikipedia. It’s the largest encyclopedia in the history of mankind; in 2007, it surpassed the encyclopedia that had held that distinction for 600 years, the Yongle Encyclopedia, commissioned by the emperor of China’s Ming Dynasty and completed in the early 1400s.
Nearly 3 million of Wikipedia’s articles are in English. There are about 75,000 people who actively contribute to Wikipedia, creating articles or making edits to existing articles. It’s the most popular reference work on the Internet and one of the 10 most visited Web sites in the world.
The slogan of Wikipedia is “The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Because there aren’t any requirements for expertise, the reliability of Wikipedia’s articles are often called into question. Wikipedia is constantly coming up with new rules for user-editors, to try to ensure the encyclopedia’s reliability and credibility. These rules are often explained under such subheadings as: “Wikipedia is not a soapbox,” “Wikipedia is not a crystal ball,” and “Wikipedia is not a democracy” nor “a bureaucracy” nor “a battleground” nor “an anarchy” nor “your Web host.”
But there’s also an overriding rule, known as “Ignore All Rules,” which is, “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.” In addition to a committee of watchful editors, there are also a bunch of automated software programs to detect and delete problematic edits and correct misspellings and formatting errors. Articles that are prone to “vandalism” are sometimes locked, including the profiles of political candidates during elections.
~Garrison Keillor – The Writer’s Almanac
Jun 30, 2009 The Matrix was one of the most popular and thought-provoking movies of all time. Viewers all over the world were captivated by the film’s primary message: People get into deep trouble when they mistake what they perceive for reality.
What most viewers do not realize is that prior to the release of this groundbreaking film, western intelligence agencies were already using the term “the Matrix” to describe today’s world. This was in contrast to their work with remote viewers, who would “escape the matrix” to gather intelligence. Art truly does imitate life.
In the movie, the Matrix is an elaborate Artificial Intelligence computer simulation that’s so captivating that people mistake it for reality. People perceive they are walking about and interacting with others, but their physical bodies are actually submerged in fluid-filled pods, “plugged into” the Matrix, while their vital life force is harnessed to power the Matrix.
After Neo (Keanu Reaves) learns the truth, with the help of Morpheus’s (Lawrence Fishburne) training, he is able to overcome his misconception that the Matrix is reality. Neo rebels against the machines that create his false reality and, eventually, he escapes the limitations of the Matrix. To others, he has developed superhuman abilities, but, “in reality,” he has merely recognized the truth.
Escaping the Matrix is a metaphor for the mystic path to enlightenment.
The Matrix can be defined as the world that we perceive, which includes the physical world, as well as higher planes of emotions and thoughts, which also affect us.
Within the Matrix are countless fear-based thoughts and emotions that condition us to accept limitations. We are taught that we have little power, and what little power we do have, we are advised to delegate to authority figures and experts. Swimming in a sea of negative thoughts, we are prompted to use our creative ability to imagine even more negative thoughts. Without introspection, the Matrix gets darker and more dense.
Anyone who blindly accepts these prevalent, negative thoughts will have his or her life path dictated by the Matrix.
But those who recognize that it is our collective thoughts and beliefs that power the Matrix will recognize the way out.
When we incarnate on earth, we temporarily forget the higher truth of who we are. Our life mission is to remember, to connect with our innermost self, so that we may transcend the Matrix.
The reality we perceive with our senses is not the true reality, but merely a small portion of reality, masquerading as the whole. But, unlike the “alternate reality” that Neo must extricate himself from, in our “reality,” there is no need to rebel. Rather, our goal should be to transcend. We want to “be in this world, but not of it.”
The outer world is a reflection of our inner thoughts and beliefs, whether individual or collective, which have been conditioned by our experience in the Matrix. Consequently, the Matrix is a learning environment, where we get feedback on how our thoughts manifest. Thankfully, our negative thoughts do not (typically) manifest instantaneously. Otherwise, we would risk the spontaneous destruction of our world by thinking negative thoughts.
Using Meditation to Escape the Matrix
Clearing yourself of negative energies through daily meditation can provide a direct link to the “ultimate reality,” i.e., the pure consciousness residing within each of us. As your negative beliefs are purified through regular contact with the “light” of your divine nature, unhealthy emotions, such as fear and anger, will naturally begin to diminish, and you’ll be free to transcend to higher states of consciousness. You will “download” more of your own true self, while simultaneously and automatically attracting others of similar vibration.
Your world will become more synchronistic. You will repel angry, fearful people, and those who stick around will become calmer and more centered. You will radiate love. By simply being in higher consciousness, you will have a greater effect on the world than the most gifted orators and political leaders.
The higher your consciousness and energy are vibrating, the faster your thoughts will manifest. When you align with your innermost self, you are aligned more closely with the Source of all creation. At the apex of your individual consciousness, you are connected with The One. You then have at your disposal the entire universe to help you manifest the highest good for all.
In actuality, we are single points of awareness in the Oneness that is Reality. What we interpret as the physical world is the projection of this awareness, which is taking place in the Mind of God. We are, as Shakespeare pointed out, merely “actors” in a divine play.
When we wake up to this knowledge, the play does not stop. We are free to act or interact, in bliss and peace, unattached to the Matrix. We have within us the power to create “heaven on earth.”
In my new program I teach various methods you can use to release fear, eliminate anger, dis-identify with your emotions, take back your power, listen to your inner master, and be yourself. The goal of all of these exercises is the same: to help you escape the Matrix.
~Edwin Spina
Jun 11, 2009 On our travels throughout the heartland weve visited small farms, big farms, and really big farms. But there are some that, in size anyway, simply defy classification.
Category: Science & Technology
May 25, 2009 Path to Freedom presents ‘A Homegrown Revolution’ A collaboration of selective media clips which feature their urban homestead and farm which focus on the need of radical action — growing food in the city.
This self produced, short music video was shown at Peter Seller’s Cultural Art’s class at UCLA followed by a short presentation by urban farmer, Jules Dervaes founder of Path to Freedom. The class focus was on the art of slow food and among other guests invited were Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and Eric Schlosser.
Like Victory Gardens of yesteryear, start your own homegrown revolution, grow your own food in your back or front yard — for more information visit the urban homesteaders at http://www.PathtoFreedom.com
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