Modern relationships differ from “older” ones in the way that nowadays people can be more open about their preferences and expectations. Females enjoy more freedom in most western societies and this has an important influence on their self-consciousness and ego. The “romantic ideal” of life-time relationships is – slowly but steadily – transformed into a more pragmatic attitude towards partnerships. Discovery of one self within a fixed relationship and redefinition of expectations and loyalty becomes an important topic to youngsters and older partners. The search about the (new) basics of life is also guided by components of the far-eastern culture. Respect, openness and friendship seem to be the driving forces in modern relationships.

It took nature 4 billion years to come to an almost well-balanced equilibrium between all living organisms and their environment. More, all living organisms have been developed and thrive by the influence their environment is putting upon them. All living creatures – and in fact also non-living matter like minerals, etc – always have been and still will be influenced by chemicals from the environment. This interaction is the most fundamental and inevitable element in daily life and in the evolution of all – living creatures and non-living matter. Except cataclysmic events, all creatures – present and past – are the result of this slow-moving interaction that started some 4 billion years ago: Evolution by slow but steady interaction.
Only in the last 3 generations of human presence we succeeded to develop and proliferate tens of thousands of new chemicals into our environment that unavoidably will be absorbed by all living organisms, humans included.

The mind or ego, in its conscious or unconscious state, is a genial development of nature. It has helped all living species to take care of themselves and to survive most daily threats, over millions of years. Evolution as we know it is unthinkable without the assistance of mind, regardless what state.
However, modern mankind in general is the first creature on this planet that has the possibility of not having to stand up to life-threatening situations everyday. Even more, modern mankind is the first creature on this planet that has the luxury to relax over a longer period of time without suffering negative consequences.

A relationship is not always a rose garden, nor should it be a constant warzone. However, living together creates conflicts. There are many reasons for this such as genetics, hormones and external elements. People do evaluate and interpret events in a different way and they do act accordingly different. Hidden behind any conflict are wishes, expectations and habits that were known by you before or that were hidden in your subconscious mind. You got to know them for sure only when exposed during a conflict.

Some time ago during this year, I was overlooking the most significant events of the last couple of months and wondered what would be the meaning of them. Would they just be randomly produced as components of a mathematical probability, or would they be "organised" as part of a "higher plan" in order to invite us to re-think about and re-act on our "proven" concepts?  With "higher plan" I do not necessarily mean the standard idea of a Higher Force, but merely the creation of situations by our actual behaviour that make those events almost unavoidable.

The name “Denominación de origen Queso Majorero” is protected by the Spanish State in 16-05-1996 and by the European Union since 20-02-1999 and applies to the types of cheese that are made of goat milk and in a specified artisan way. The “Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen Protegida Queso Majorero”, part of the “Gobierno de Canarias” is constantly monitoring the quality of the listed products.

As already mentioned in short in the Welcome section of this magazine, the recent dramatic events for sure have put many people in shock and have set them in a mental conditioning of self-examination: why did it hit us so badly, where were we wrong?

We never will be able to predict major earthquakes sufficiently well or even control or avoid most of their effects, but we can try to limit those devastating consequences that we have witnessed recently.

When relationships are difficult or when they are hitting a bottom, many people ask themselves what is wrong with them… or with their partner. With the exception of a minority who really have to cope with deep problems concerning emotional and communicative issues, nothing is wrong with us. However, be aware that every one of us is a product of three major elements: genetic disposition, education by environment and adjustment through auto-feedback.

Is Love enough in a relationship? Well, compare with this:

Imagine your car being in a corrosive marine area.

If you regularly do maintenance on your car and with love, you will encounter little rust,

If you love your car but cut on the maintenance, you will get more rust,

If you don’t love your car and neglect it, you will get a lot of rust,

A relationship is not different.

Love alone is not enough to keep things running, regular maintenance is important too.

Eliminating rust with love alone won’t work, a hands-on approach is needed sometimes.

Michel

Anxiety is a result of a biological and a psychological condition but also of education and social environment. When we grow up from our childhood to adults, we discover fear due to experiences that harmed us – physically, mentally, emotionally, or a combination of these. A proper education teaches us to cope with these fears and to put them in a balanced perspective. An improper or even abusive education will result in the amplification of fears to such an extend that they could run your entire life. Fear will then cause internal and constant pain.

Many of us – and I have to admit I am no exception to it – tend to use only our brain in our daily communication with others. For the majority of topics that we have to deal with, there is nothing wrong about that. But when it comes to our communication with friends or beloved ones, we could allow the heart – and thus our soul – to speak more freely. This statement may sound trivial and “déjá vu”, but it isn’t.

{jcomments on}Lady W. (50) tells me whilst covered in tears: “My husband left me 4 years ago for a 10 year younger woman. As a result of that I started the divorce. But since then my life became without meaning, I cry a lot, I have no energy, I feel bad. I consult doctors because of my sleep disorders, I eat too much and I have regular headaches. I don’t know how to continue my life, I have no fun anymore in my work and I started taking pills to cope with this world. At occasions I take to the bottle. What’s wrong with me?”

In our previous article “The Real Material World” we invited the reader to get rid of “the conditioned consciousness” in order to be able to explore new ways to experience life. In this article, we will try to provide the reader some refreshing insights about our own body, its functioning and how to get in harmony with it.

Till now our understanding of the material world and our body, as we see and experience it, was based on a “belief”. Namely the belief about “Materialism”, that stipulates that “Reality” is what we experience through our senses.

Of course, our sound mind tells us that this can’t be true. From where I stand I can experience that the world is flat, which isn’t. I experience that I stay on stable ground, which isn’t as I move at a speed of several thousands of miles per hour around the sun. My senses tell me that the sun rises in the East and moves across the sky, which isn’t, as we know now.

In the following article, we try to demonstrate how and why our mind and its conditioning are affecting our general health and wellbeing. And how we can escape from its eventual negative influences.

A couple of years ago a scientist called Herbet Specter from the National Institute of Health carried out the following experiment: one population of mice was administered a chemical Poly-A-c, that strengthens their immune system. At the same time he exposed the mice to the smell of Camphor, another chemical. After a while, the mice were stimulating their immune system when they smelled Camphor. Another population of mice was administered the chemical Cyclophosphamide, that destroys the immune system. At the same time he exposed these mice to the smell of Camphor. After a while these mice started to destroy their immune system when they smelled camphor. He now had 2 groups of mice: one group smells camphor and stimulates their immune system and the other group smell camphor and destroys their immune system.

In previous editions, we have treated several “established truths” and we have tried to show you that these truths are in fact our individual interpretations of the environment in which we live and think and that these interpretations can have a significant influence on ourselves and on the quality of our life.

The Canadian scientist Wilder Penfield, Neurologist and Nobel Prize winner eliminates brain tumours by surgery. When he opened the brain of his patients, he examined the functioning of their brain by stimulating certain areas of it by administering very low voltage electricity. The aim was to find the control centre of the brain.

We all know that light – the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum – is crucial and indispensable to life; it is generated by the sun and supplies our earth with plenty of energy. The rest of the electromagnetic spectrum reaches our planet in the form of radio waves, heat, UV, X- and gamma-rays. All living organisms receive, collect and transform these waves in one or the other form.

But what about emission of light by living organisms? And I do not mean the glow worms, -flies or other luminescent creatures like from the deep sea. I mean the emission of minute amounts of light by common cells like the ones that you have in your body or from the vegetables in your garden.

In the last edition of Spirit, we wrote about the evolution of mankind’s consciousness from the level of our ancestors – the humanoids –, towards ours today – Homo Sapiens. And we raised the question if the actual level of our consciousness would be the highest one that could be reached. And the answer was “no”.