For people who don’t understand how the position of your planets at your birth can affect your personality, tendencies, and actions, I say your astrological signs are like the wave you caught when you were born. It is the environmental influence; the tide of the universe’s various energetic influences. The universe over time is locally in motion. Planets are moving through space (some with us on them!), other planets are coasting around us, all large objects (and small) are bending the energetic fields around them. The moment you were born you were in, and on, one of these time-dependent waves of energy.

Astrologers could have pinpointed any time during your existence to read the alignment of the stars, but time of birth is the easiest and most practical for gathering data.

I think we are so blessed to have the advantage of hundreds of generations worth of data for this science of energy.

I’ve been dwelling on the idea that God dwells in everyone and everything, and that is how "he" experiences himself. In us, God sees the world through the human experience. When you meet someone, sometimes you feel like you have met them before, or that you have known them forever. It is because you have! We are all one energy, experiencing this life through many eyes. Our carnal selves see each other through evolutionary eyes–is this person a good mate? Are they safe? Are they my friend or enemy? Etc.

But our eternal selves are there beneath the carnal selves…Recognizing God in others. The Hindus greet each other with hands in a prayer position, saying "Namaste," literally "The divine in me bows to the divine in you."

Try looking at others in this light and notice how you feel.

I told my roommates my deep thoughts on this yesterday and they said "Yep, without even attending a Unitarian church you are a Unitarian Universalist." It’s like the Swami Satchidananda said, "I am not Hindu, I am Un-do." We are here to Un-do all the misperceptions we collect along the way that have programmed us to believe we are fundamentally seperate or different than each other. In reality, We are ONE!

Our computers are never going to get faster because they keep making the programs that run on our computers larger and larger.

If you want to write a letter to the president, go to:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

“Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to express my perceptions regarding the future of our health care system. I am optimistic about your intentions to reform the system and your commitment to make progress by the end of the year. However, I am concerned that the White House is not giving enough serious consideration to a “single payer” national health care plan. Please think outside the “senator’s health insurance plan” box. We can do better.

The will of our nation’s people is that no one should be left behind when it comes to healthcare, just as public education, police, and firemen are not on a pay-per-visit basis. We want a SIMPLE system of healthcare, paid for by taxes, which ensures that we won’t have to worry about money or insurance plans when we visit a hospital in a time of need and worry.

I used to work a lucrative job which provided good health insurance, so I know how comfortable it is to be covered, and I also know how nonchalant I was toward how broken the system is for many millions of people. However, I am worried that you and your colleagues, the people who are now in a position to change our health care policy, will not have the courage to step away from your comfortable, elitist insurance system and radically reform it so that the word “health insurance” becomes obsolete.

We do not want national health insurance. We want national health care.

I can’t think of a good reason not to alienate the insurance companies, big pharma, and other industries who have profited on the illness of our families and friends. My father, after working long hours in back-breaking construction work for 30 years, has had all of his toes amputated over the past few years due to an infection that he just couldn’t afford to treat early enough. He has built air force hangars, roads, bridges, and homes, and still regularly volunteers to build things in his retirement years for neighbors and the church. My parents spent 20 years working their way out of debt due to a failed business (an arena where I believe failure is more appropriate and acceptable), and were so proud to buy the first home they could afford that was not on wheels. They now have used all the equity in their home to pay his medical bills and prescription costs, and told me the other day they should be able to pay off the house in 20 years. My father is 66 years old!

We need to take out the middleman of “insurance companies.” I realize that right now it is politically unpopular among “covered” people like senators, CEOs, and upper middle class, to do away with a system that appears to work occasionally, but we need a MAJOR overhaul. Do not let ANY insurance company dictate what doctors can and cannot do anymore. We want to take care of each other.

I have personally been blessed with very good health, and I have no problem paying into a tax pool from which an efficient government health care system is run. I do, however, have a problem paying a private insurance company money, especially in these greedy times.

I appreciate whoever has taken the time to read this, and I sincerely hope we stay true to our values, taking the best ideas from all over the country and the world to create a simple new system of healthcare.

Your fellow citizen,

Christina M. McKinstry”

Building on the thoughts below, From George Carlin’s “The Planet Is Fine”:

“It could be the answer to the age-old, ego-centric question “Why are we here?”

“Plastic, Asshole.”

I had a new thought today that everything is a product of Nature. It is interesting to think that if we do find other planets like Earth (see my Delicious link), that they have potentially evolved metal contraptions like cell phones and subway trains. It is cool to think of these things as not separate from Nature, but born OF Nature.
It is mind-blowing to think that life has evolved to create all the different languages, video games, music, etc. All these are a product of the Universe expanding. Wow!
I think sometimes we can get caught up in the thinking that we are somehow aliens on this planet and that our stuff is not natural. Everything is natural!
I heard a radio show where they were explaining how crop "circles" sometimes come out in the shape of the greek letter "pi." How weird is that? But it makes sense when you realize that that symbol is contained within Nature. Nature used humans to write the symbol "pi" over and over again. Perhaps these symbols, letters, numbers that we all use are not really our "inventions," so much as they are "inspirations." The crop circle explanation given was that extreme winds high up in the atmosphere gusted down and bent the crops into patterns.
Even if you aren’t impressed by that hypothesis, you must be humbled by the fact that symbols, words, and inventions like cars, internet, and rocket ships EVOLVED on planet Earth. Yes, our minds, hands, and bodies were involved, but our inventions, these things, in the end, are all just funny-looking children of Nature.

In our cars
On our buses
On oil-drenched roads
In our maze of concrete walls
We feel safe

Because we are safe now
We worry about tomorrow
Or yesterday
The present is gone
Only mindless action remains

In our freezers
On our plastic plates
Our dead food sits
We don’t have to chase our food
So we take what comes easiest

The most expensive factories
Were built to produce
The cheapest food
Colorless
Lifeless
Thoughtless

Gone are the gardens that nourished us
Within our concrete walls

But our minds are gone too
So our stomachs grow
Disease is our new enemy
Because we like our safe life.

In our cars
On our buses
On oil-drenched roads
In our maze of concrete walls
We feel safe

Because we are safe now
We worry about tomorrow
Or yesterday
The present is gone
Only mindless action remains

In our freezers
On our plastic plates
Our dead food sits
We don’t have to chase our food
So we take what comes easiest

The most expensive factories
Were built to produce
The cheapest food
Colorless
Lifeless
Thoughtless

Gone are the gardens that nourished us
Within our concrete walls

But our minds are gone too
So our stomachs grow
Disease is our new enemy
Because we like our safe life.

Sport teaches us to be
Completely in the moment
To focus
Discipline
It gives us a yardstick
By which we measure our
Growth
In points, rebounds, feet, seconds, tackles, catches, home runs
We learn things about our bodies
We never would have noticed on our own
Our thoughts become manifest
Our weaknesses become manifest
Our strengths manifest
In our movements through space and time
We are as good as we believe we can be
Sometimes we feel the power of the gods
Sometimes we feel lower than scum
But sport shines a light
On us
And in that spotlight
Others watch as you choose
Courage over fear
Or fear over courage
And pride is bound to surface
When the light on you feels hot
But we must always remember
We were chosen to perform
And we did not turn on that light.