Friday, November 5, 2021

“Earth Prayer”

“Earth Prayer”

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you – the two-legged, the four-legged, the wings of the air, and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth to cross each other. You have made me cross the good road and road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in, day out, forevermore, you are the life of things.

    Hey! Lean to hear my feeble voice.
    At the center of the sacred hoop
    You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
    With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
    With running eyes I must say
    The tree has never bloomed.
    Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
    Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.
    It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
    Nourish it then,
    That it may leaf
    And bloom,
    And fill with singing birds!
    Hear me, that the people may once again
    Find the good road
    And the shielding tree.

I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see… It was even then only after the heyoka ceremony, in which I performed my dog vision, that I had the power to practice as a medicine man, curing sick people; and many I cured with the power that came through me. Of course it was not I who cured. It was the power from the outer world, and the visions and ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish…

    Revealing this, they walk.
    A sacred herb – revealing it, they walk.
    Revealing this, they walk.
    The sacred life of bison – revealing it, they walk.
    Revealing this, they walk.
    A sacred eagle feather – revealing it, they walk.
    Revealing this, they walk.
    The eagle and the bison – like relatives they walk.

The Six Grandfathers have placed in this world many things, all of which should be happy. Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.”

- Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"Get Your Stuff Together..."

“We all got problems. But there’s a great book out called “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.” Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin’ about what’s wrong, because everybody’s had a rough time, in one way or another.”
- Quincy Jones

"The Land of Lies"

"The Land of Lies"
by Jeffrey Tucker

"There is so much dislocation, disorientation and overall social, political, cultural and economic crisis all around us. It can be difficult even to glimpse the whole, much less keep up with the chaos. Any single human mind can only comprehend a bit of it at a time. But somehow certain news items boil to the top as perfectly emblematic of the loss of trust in our times.

The top symbol for today is surely that the White House spokesperson Jen Psaki came down with COVID-19 - or I should say at least she tested positive. False positives are common. She says her symptoms are minor “thanks to the vaccine” but there is no way to know that. The striking thing is that her masks, distancing and jabs did not stop infection. Further, her fully vaccinated family is likely the source of the spread.

Why Won’t They Tell Us the Truth? Even at this late date (we are 21 months into this nonsense), the most obvious truths are still being obfuscated by the likes of Psaki, namely that this is a mild sickness for nearly everyone and a severe threat only to those who are approaching the average age of death otherwise or those with comorbidities.

All data bear this out. It has been stable for the entire pandemic and yet you have the presidential spokesperson continue to act as if this virus were an equally mortal threat to the whole population, herself included. She has spent her whole tenure stigmatizing people who get COVID and claiming that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And yet the kabuki dance she has pushed for the better part of a year finally did not protect her against the dreaded fate of contracting COVID. Of course her symptoms will likely be mild, and this is true with or without the vaccine she has personally pushed on the entire population even at the expense of people’s livelihoods.

A more grim symbol of the subterfuge, duplicity and overall fraudulence of the public messaging on this whole thing is harder to imagine.

The Land of Lies: But of course it is only the beginning of the lies that completely enveloped public culture today. Here’s a partial list:

● We’ve got the Fed out there saying that inflation is minor and controllable. False. By every measure, we are already in double digits as bad as in the late 1970s.

● We’ve got the administration claiming that there is no problem paying for trillions in spending, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is at historical highs.


● We’ve got the head of the Treasury suggesting that there is no downside to spying on every bank account in real-time and pillaging billionaires merely for holding assets.

● We’ve got a media that is not even reporting on the massive loss of confidence in the president, who is undergoing a record-breaking slide from tolerance to huge public loathing.

● We have the most striking hatred between the states (red vs. blue) in more than 150 years, with an open war of words happening on a daily basis.

● The U.S. economy is on the verge of another dive into recession following the depression of the last 20 months, further dooming the prospects for the middle class to find their way back to progress.

The public sector is being shaved of 5–10% of its workforce due to the vaccine mandate, which might sound good to libertarians, but these are people who collect trash, process driver’s licenses, put out fires and drive buses and trains.

● So many professionals are being fired - sorry, put on unpaid leave - that it is impossible to keep up. It is hitting academia and technology.

● Pilots around the country are continuing their full-scale revolt, forcing the daily cancelation of flights in the thousands, making it very difficult even to travel around the country. The companies blame the weather.

● Big Tech is doubling and tripling down on censorship. Just two weeks ago, LinkedIn claimed not to be doing it. Now it is routine, while the rest of the big boys have become mouthpieces for the regime.

If only one of these trends had happened in normal times, it would have dominated the headlines. But in times of chaos, it becomes difficult to focus and easier for the elites to sneak around to intensify the pain on the public.

Safety in Numbers: Trying to read the tea leaves on the historical narrative can be a challenge and filled with fallibility. But based on my reading today, I’m confident that we are living through a major shift in the narrative. It’s good and bad but it is real.

I would compare it to World War II, the Great War, the Civil War or the American Revolution. Something dramatic has changed. Our expectations for stability have been shattered. It is a hinge upon which what happens in the coming year will remake the world in unpredictable ways. We are all learning what it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union in its last decades. We know they are lying and they know we know. But it all continues anyway. I’m thinking not just of government spokespeople but also even respectable media.

For example, I’ve read The Wall Street Journal’s report on the flight cancellations by American Airlines. The journalist certainly knew for sure that the reason was an employee strike against the vaccine mandate. But the journalist said NOTHING about this, not even a hint. He only referred to weather problems and staff issues related to the pandemic. Give me a break. In the old days, at least they would bury the truth at the end of articles. Now they erase it completely. The only way to find out what’s going on anymore is to be part of information networks that exist beneath the surface, like this newsletter.

“This Time It Is Different”: How serious is the unraveling going to get? Generations in the U.S. have been spared a serious monetary crisis. This time it is different. The monetary crisis will unfold in ways we’ve not seen before. When the dollar was last under this much challenge, gold served as a refuge, but mostly for the elites. The rest of everyone else got pillaged. This time we also have these new fun tools called cryptocurrencies. There are thousands of them. They are democratized. Everyone can get involved.

They are so attractive now that governments want to monopolize them. Fat chance! It is too late for that. In fact, with global supply chains broken at the same time the dollar is decaying and U.S. debt is facing possible default, it is too late for the order to hold. I imagined six months ago that we could ride out the next year and a half until a new wave of political leaders could make a go of it. I no longer believe that.

But wait, am I being too pessimistic? Is there a new sign that the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way, that Americans are beginning to fight back against the madness? Tune in tomorrow..."

The Daily "Near You?"

Lugoff, South Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Get Ready for Food Rationing and a Cold Winter"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 
"Get Ready for Food Rationing and a Cold Winter"
Related:

“5 Painfully Obvious Truths We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”

“5 Painfully Obvious Truths
We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”
by Angel Chernoff

“This is going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  
We are going to get through this, I promise, 
and we’re going to get through it together. “
- Dr. Jon LaPook

“You know how you can read or hear something dozens of times in dozens of different ways before it finally sinks in? The little truths listed below fall firmly into that category – timeless life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, yet for whatever reason we tend to forget in the heat of the moment. This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all, especially as we collectively cope with the evolving reality of COVID-19…

1. Life is short, and nothing is guaranteed. We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step. You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY! Don’t ignore death – or the imminent dangers of COVID-19 – but don’t be afraid of life either. Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take positive action today. Death is not the greatest loss in life, neither is illness. The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive and well. Even in these difficult times, be bold, be courageous, be a scared to death, and then take the next step anyway. Just change the way you do it.

Invest your heart and soul into whatever you have right in front of you. Bring passion into otherwise ordinary moments. You don’t have to be surrounded by lots of people. You don’t have to be going anyplace new. You can distance yourself from COVID-19, and still passionately engage in each moment.

2. Everything will change again soon. Embrace change and realize in many ways it’s necessary. It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end most forms of change are worthwhile because they force us to grow. So keep yourself in check right now.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow. You never know. Things change, often spontaneously. People and circumstances come and go. Life doesn’t stop for anybody. It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day. It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.
Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth. Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event. And these events are always happening – like the COVID-19 epidemic right now.

So just remember, however good or bad a situation is now, it will change. That’s the one thing you can count on. Accept it. Breathe. Be where you are. You’re where you need to be right now. There’s a time and place for everything, and every hard step is necessary. Just keep doing your best, and don’t force what’s not yet supposed to fit into your life. When it’s meant to be, it will be.

3. Changing your response is what puts you back in control. Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your head and heart. And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard to stay true to your intuition and values. This is your life, and it is governed by your choices. May your actions speak louder than your words. May your daily choices preach louder than your lips. May your inner sense of satisfaction be your noise in the end.

And if your present life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it. Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land – even when there are so many unknowns – be brave enough to stand up and listen to your heart. Remember that the most powerful moments in life happen when you find the courage to let go of what can’t be changed. Because when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself – to grow beyond the unchangeable. And that changes everything! (Marc and I discuss this in more detail in the “Passion and Growth” chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.“)

4. Life’s storms can be a great source of strength. Hard times are like strong storms that blow against you. And it’s not just that these storms hold you back from places you might otherwise go. They also tear away from you all but the essential parts of your ego that cannot be torn, so that afterward you see yourself as you really are, and not merely as you might like to be.

Ultimately, you realize you are here to endure these storms, to sacrifice your time and risk your heart. You are here to be bruised by life. And when it happens that you are hurt, or betrayed, or rejected, let yourself sit quietly with your eyes closed and remember all the good times you had, and all the sweetness you tasted, and everything you learned. Tell yourself how amazing it was to live, and then open your eyes and live some more.

Because to never struggle would be to never grow. You must let go of who you were so you can become who you are. Again, it is within the depths of the strongest and darkest storms that you discover within you an inextinguishable light, and it is this light that illuminates the path forward.

5. You don’t need all the answers right now. Accept the feeling of not knowing exactly where you are going, and train yourself to love and appreciate this sensation of freedom. Because it is only when you are suspended in the air, with no destination in sight, that you force your wings to open fully so you can fly. And as you soar around you still may not know where you’re traveling to. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is the opening of your wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as your wings are spread, the winds will carry you forward.

Truth be told, some of the greatest outcomes that transpire in your life will be the ones you never even knew you wanted. As long as you keep your mind open to new perspectives and yourself moving forward, there really are no wrong turns in life, only paths you didn’t know you were meant to travel. And you never can be certain what’s around the corner.  It could be everything, or it could be nothing. You keep gliding steadily forward, and then one day you realize you’ve come a long way from where you started.

All details aside, someday all the pieces will come together. Unimaginably good outcomes will likely transpire in your life, even if everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way you had anticipated. And you will look back at the hard times that have passed, smile, and ask yourself… “How in the world did I get through all of that?”

"Doubt..."

“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing, for truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure. He that would silence doubt is filled with fear; the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands. But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock. He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the work of his hands shall endure. Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help. It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.”
- Robert T. Weston

"The Old 'Rug Pull' Trick"

"The Old 'Rug Pull' Trick"
by Bill Bonner

"There is growing evidence that this project has rugged.
 Please do your own due diligence and exercise extreme caution."
– CoinMarketCap website, referring to Squid Coin

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – First, just for our own amusement, let’s look at more of the nuttiness caused by the Federal Reserve’s fake money and fake interest rates. Then, we’ll take up the question posed yesterday: Will the Fed bring an end to the madness? It’s this question that is most important to investors. If the answer is “yes,” then it’s time to go into the safe room, with a stock of food, water, and ammunition. If the answer is “no”… then… well… you can hold out a while longer.

Rug Pull: Last week, another new crypto appeared on the metaverse radar. This was not particularly interesting, in itself; there were more than 13,000 of them already. But this one had a very catchy name – the Squid Coin, which sounded for all the world as though it was related to the Netflix hit, Squid Game. It also suggested some kind of game playing, which sounded as though it might be fun… maybe even profitable. Plus, it advertised a glowing recommendation from Elon Musk, who said – according to the Squid Coin website, at least – that he thought this one was going to the moooon.

One other feature is worth mentioning: Squid Coin welcomed buying with open arms… but it treated selling like a visit from a parole officer. Whoever heard of a currency that you couldn’t freely spend or trade? The whole thing was puzzling… and preposterous. Nevertheless, propelled upwards by these booster rockets, Squid Coin quickly launched into space. It rose from pennies to $2,860 per coin in a matter of days… and made the early adopters millions richer. For a moment. On paper.

Vanishing Wealth: None of this would have been very surprising. The crypto world is lousy with goofy coins… and millionaires. But as we described yesterday, when the money goes… everything goes, including all sense of what anything is really worth. And sometimes, they’re not worth anything at all, which is just what the Squid Coin “investors” found out at the start of this week. According to the press reports, the coin’s anonymous creators had done the old “rug pull” scam on them.

One investor lost his entire life savings in the Squid Coin scam. And some investors are blaming the media for fueling the coin’s meteoric rise. But the Squid Coin had no relationship to the popular Squid Game TV show. It had, therefore, no right to use the name and trade off the popularity of the series. Nor had Elon Musk ever heard of Squid Coin… until it appeared bearing his endorsement like a papal seal.

And then, as quickly as the coin and its creators rocketed up into the thin atmosphere of great wealth – they disappeared, apparently absconding with their ill-gotten gains. The coin then plummeted back to Earth. Pity the poor “investors” who expected to buy new houses in Santa Monica with their Squid Coin winnings.

Wacky World: They should have taken a flier on DWAC, instead. Digital World Acquisition Corp. is a SPAC… a special-purpose acquisition company. In this case, its special purpose was buying Donald Trump’s new company – Trump Media & Technology Group. And when word of the purchase got out, DWAC shot up bigly. Shares rose from $10 to $175.

As a general rule (in our rulebook, at least), all SPAC deals are bad deals. But who knows? There was no trace of it in the documents made available to the public, but DWAC might even eventually come up with a way to make money. And in this wacky world, you don’t need to make money to get money. What money do the cryptos make? What money do the NFTs make? What money has Elon Musk made? What money did Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell make? Between the two of them, they gained $105 million in new wealth since 2004. Where did it come from?

Invisible Debt: You either make it or you take it. And the Fed is helping people take it on a scale never before seen in America. In August 2019, the Fed had total assets (a rough measure of how much money it has “printed”) of $3.7 trillion. Now, it has $8.5 trillion. The difference, nearly $5 trillion, was added in just 25 months.

Not a penny of that money was earned… made… or saved. Instead, it is taken from the public… embezzled, in the form of future inflation. And today, think of all the fortunes that depend on it – all the dopey business models… all the SPACs… all the cryptos… all the debt refinancing… all the federales’ boondoggles.

During that same 25-month period, U.S. debt increased about $6 trillion, too. Putting 2 and 2 together, we see that almost every penny of deficit spending by the U.S. government was financed by the Fed’s money-printing. That is why there is so little opposition to today’s $3 trillion deficit – nobody thinks he has to pay for it.

A Great Scam: What a marvelous flim-flam. The gist of the “rug pull” scam is making people think they have something they don’t really have… wealth that doesn’t exist, for example. It’s the game of choice for today’s crypto-grifters… and for the Fed, too. They “print” money – crypto or paper – and pass it out as though it were the real thing. And then the public gets the rug pulled out from under them."

"This Can’t Be Contained"

The Money GPS, "This Can’t Be Contained"
Related:

"I Am An American!"

 

Loza Alexander, "Let's Go Brandon"

"I Know Why You Did It..."

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. ”
- Alan Moore, "V for Vendetta"

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 11/5/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/5/21:
"Collapse: The Economy Continues To Crater Faster, 
Inflation Out Of Control"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/5/21:
"Epic! This Market Is About To Do Something Extraordinary!"

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/5/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/5/21"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Some big off year political elections were held this week, and the biggest newsmaker was the GOP win in Virginia. Remember, Virginia was called for Biden right after the polls closed on Election Night 2020 even though Trump was ahead. The problem was never investigated, but through the magic of what appears to be election fraud, Biden won the state in the wee hours of the morning the next day when votes magically appeared. All that to say, you know the Dems cheated, and they have cheated again in 2021. It’s what they have to do because their policies are hated by everyone including Democrats. It looks like the cheating was overwhelmed by Dem voters switching sides, and that gave the Governor’s office and the state legislature to Glenn Youngkin and the GOP. The big problem for the Dems now is the 2020 election fraud can and will be investigated—no doubt.

Joe Biden and crew are offering up another vax coercion for 84 million workers. OSHA is going to require total submission to unscientific policies and an experimental CV19 vax. If not, there will be endless testing, job losses and fines. There is no appreciation for science or the 100 million people who have natural immunity because they were infected with CV19 and got well. This sounds like a desperate move in pushing this unscientific and coercive policy. Maybe it’s because the narrative continues to unravel in an embarrassing and criminal way for the Biden Administration. Oh, by the way, Press Secretary Jen Psaki just tested positive for Covid even though she was “fully vaxed.”

The Federal Reserve has done a great job enriching the 1%. For the rest of “We the People,” inflation is ravaging families, and it’s just getting started. Great job, Chairman Powell. Responsibilities should be taken away from the feckless Fed. Just the opposite may happen because there is a professor of law, Saule Omarova, nominated for comptroller of the currency. Omarova wants the Fed to have the power over all of us, including turning on and off our bank accounts. Heaven help us if she gets past the Senate confirmation."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/05/21.

"We Can All Be Uber Drivers As Economy Implodes; Working To Survive; People In The Matrix"

Jeremiah Babe PM 11/4/21:
"We Can All Be Uber Drivers As Economy Implodes;
 Working To Survive; People In The Matrix"

"Something Really Strange Is Happening At Hospitals All Over America"

Full screen recommended.
"Something Really Strange Is Happening 
At Hospitals All Over America"
by Epic Economist

"Something really odd is happening at hospitals all over the country, but no one seems to be talking about it. In one of the strangest years we've had in modern times, there's an alarming mystery surrounding the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. Right now, emergency rooms are absolutely crowded, and with each passing day, they continue to overflow with severely ill patients, but no one can actually explain why this is suddenly happening.

Even though the number of new virus cases in the United States is now less than half of what it was just a couple of months ago, hospitals are still completely packed. As opposed to what many people were anticipating, a decline in the number of confirmed virus cases isn't easing the healthcare crisis we've been facing over the past 18 months.

In every corner of the country, ERs are full. In many cases, seriously ill patients are having to be cared for in the hallways because emergency rooms are unavailable due to the staggering number of patients in critical conditions. We're seeing in our hospitals the type of scene we would typically see in third-world countries in times of crisis. The level of chaos going on right now is absolutely shocking. But the weirdest thing about this is that nobody knows why so many people a suddenly falling sick.

In an article entitled “ERs Are Swamped With Seriously Ill Patients, Although Many Don’t Have [The Virus]," health care workers of the emergency department at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, described the crisis they are facing every day. Their staff members are struggling to care for patients showing up much sicker than they’ve ever seen.

The ER’s nursing director, Tiffani Dusang, is experiencing severe anxiety for having to watch patients lying on a long line of stretchers pushed up against the walls of the hospital hallways. “It’s hard to watch,” she says. All of the ER’s 72 rooms are already filled. If the rate of confirmed virus cases was starting to move upwards again, it would make sense for emergency rooms to be so packed. But that's not the case.

The situation is getting so complicated that even people who arrive by ambulance are not guaranteed a room. The head nurse has to run triage and screen those who absolutely need a bed and those who can wait or get treatment on the hospital's hallways. Months of treatment delays have aggravated chronic conditions and exacerbated symptoms. According to the hospital's doctors and nurses, "the severity of illness ranges widely and includes abdominal pain, respiratory problems, blood clots, heart conditions, among other diseases".

Heart conditions are, in fact, one of the most commonly mentioned health diseases in the past few weeks. Several cases involving young healthy people have made the headlines recently. For instance, a report published a couple of days ago told the story of a healthy high school soccer manager, who greatly enjoyed his team’s championship victory Saturday, and later that evening, he faced a sudden and fatal cardiac arrest.

In a nearby city in the same state, a healthy 12-year-old boy's life was taken too soon because of an issue with his coronary artery. He suffered from a congestive heart failure involving his coronary artery, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office. We commonly see heart problems affecting adults and elderly people with other underçying diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels. The fact that this is happening to healthy young people is not only odd but extremely worrying.

Even athletes with perfect health records are suffering from heart attacks these days. Over the weekend, Barcelona striker Sergio Aguero suddenly collapsed on the pitch during a match against Alaves. The Argentinian was examined by medical staff at the stadium and then he was taken to a nearby hospital to undergo further examination. Aguero has been diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia, a condition in which the heart's beats don't work properly, causing the heart to beat too fast, too slow, or irregularly.

Unfortunately, cases of young, healthy people suffering from heart complications are becoming all too common. Icelandic midfielder Emil Pálsson suffered from tachycardia during a match in Norway’s second division. "The 28-year-old Sogndal player suffered the attack as the game against Stjordals-Blink entered the 12th minute," his club said in a statement. So many similar cases are being reported on a daily basis. And yet no one knows the cause behind such tragic incidents. Why are so many young people suddenly having such serious heart problems? Is there something the media isn't telling us? Does anyone out there know what is truly going on? There's something really odd going on, and once again, they are not telling us the whole truth."

Musical Interlude: Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame. 
Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110, are seen closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies."

Chet Raymo, “Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

“Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”
by Chet Raymo

“If there is one word that should not be uttered, it is the name of – no, I will not say it. Any name diminishes. In the face of whatever it is that is most mysterious, most holy, we are properly silent. It is appropriate, I think, to praise the creation, to make a joyful noise of thanksgiving for the sensate world. But praising the Creator is another thing altogether. When we make a big racket on His behalf we are more than likely addressing an idol in our own image. What was it that Pico Iyer said? “Silence is the tribute that we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred place, just as we slip off shoes.” The God of the mystics whispers sweet nothings, as lovers do.

In a diary entry for “M.”, near the end of his too-short life, Thomas Merton wrote: “I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough.” The natural world was for Merton the primary revelation. He listened. He felt a presence in his heart, an awareness of the ineffable Mystery that permeates creation. It was this that drew him to the mystical tradition of Christianity, especially to the Celtic tradition of creation spirituality. It was this that attracted him to Zen.

There come now and then, perhaps more frequently in late life than previously, those moments of being (as Virginia Woolf called them) when creation grabs us by the shoulders and gives us such a shake that it rattles our teeth, when love for the world simply knocks us flat. At those moments everything we have learned about the world – the invaluable and reliable knowledge of science- seems a pale intimation of what is. In Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves”, the elderly Bernard says: “How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn upon half sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

In moments of soul-stirring epiphany, it is reassuring to feel beneath our feet a floor of reliable knowledge, the safe and sure edifice of empirical learning so painstakingly constructed by the likes of Aristarchus, Galileo, Darwin and Schrodinger. But at the same time we are humbled by our ignorance, and more ready than ever to say “I don’t know,” to enter at last the great silence. Erwin Chargaff, who contributed mightily to our understanding of DNA, wrote: “It is the sense of mystery that, in my opinion, drives the true scientist; the same blind force, blindly seeing, deafly hearing, unconsciously remembering, that drives the larva into the butterfly. If the scientist has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist.”

The whole thrust of the mystical tradition, the whole thrust of science, is toward the great silence- an awareness of our ignorance and a willingness to say “I don’t know.” A lifetime of learning brings one at last to the face of mystery. We live in a universe of more than 2 trillion galaxies. Perhaps the number of galaxies is infinite. And the universe is silent. Achingly, terrifyingly silent. Or, rather, the universe speaks a little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, “From the Shore”

“From the Shore"

“A lone gray bird,
Dim-dipping, far-flying,
Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults
Of night and the sea
And the stars and storms.

Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers,
Out into the gloom it swings and batters,
Out into the wind and the rain and the vast,
Out into the pit of a great black world,
Where fogs are at battle, sky-driven, sea-blown,
Love of mist and rapture of flight,
Glories of chance and hazards of death
On its eager and palpitant wings.

Out into the deep of the great dark world,
Beyond the long borders where foam and drift
Of the sundering waves are lost and gone
On the tides that plunge and rear and crumble.”

- Carl Sandburg