"The Earth Path" by Starhawk

"Phantom Parks: The Struggle to Save Canada's National Parks" by Rick Searle

Interesting Links:
Utne Reader
David Suzuki Foundation
New Scientist
Discover Magazine
The Medical Post Online
Ad Busters!
New Internationalist
Mother Jones.com
Salon.com
NOVA On-line
The Book of Zines
Killing the Buddha
London Review of Books
American Council on Exercise
Runner's World
The Great Illusion


Recent reads:
"A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge

"Celtic Folklore Cooking" by Joanne Asala

"Power Spellcraft for Life" by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

"Reinventing Medicine" by Larry Dossey

"Wicca: A Year and a Day" by Timothy Roderick

"The Science of the Craft" by William H Keith

"50 Years of Wicca" by Frederic Lamond

"The Magical Life" by Vivianne Crowley

"Which Witch is Which?" by Patricia Telesco

"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville

"Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet" by Douglas E. Cowan

"An Ye Harm None: Magical Morality and Modern Ethics" by Shelley Rabinovitch

"Crystal Ball" by Sibyll Fergusen, revised and expanded by Witch Bree

"Gaia Eros: Reconnecting to the Magic and Sprit of Nature" by Jesse Wolf Hardin

"A Century of Spells" by Draja Mickaharic

"Evolutionary Witchcraft" by T. Thorn Coyle

"Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America" by Sabina Magliocco

"Kundalini for Beginners" by Ravindra Kumar

"Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India" by Roberto Calasso

"Magical Tattwa Cards" by Dr. John Mumford

"WitchCraft Today (Expanded edition)" by Gerald B. Gardner

"Self-Initiation for the Solitary Witch" by Shanddaramon

"The Second Circle: Tools for the Advancing Pagan" by Vanecia Rauls

"Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard" by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

"Black Magick Woman: The Sinister Side of the Song of Solomon" by Janet Tyson

"Everyday Moon Magic" by Dorothy Morrisson

"Advanced Witchcraft" by Edain McCoy"

"Handfasting and Wedding Rituals" by Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwartzstein

"Joing Hearts and Hands: Interfaith, Intercultural Wedding Celebrations" by Rev Susanna Stefanachi Macomb

"Handfasted and Heartjoined" by Lady Maeve Rhea

"Handfasting: A practical Guide" bu Mary Neasham

" Goddess in the Grass: Sperpentine Mythology and the great Goddess" by Linda Fourbister

"Theories of the Chakras: Bridges to Higher Conciousness" by Hiroshi Motoyama

"The Knife Thrower" by Steven Millhauser

"Schizophrenia: A Very Short Introduction" by Christopher Finn and Eve Johnstone

"Schizophrenia: The Facts" by Ming T. Tsuang and Stephen V. Faraone

"A Community of Witches" by Helen Berger and Colleagues

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman"

"Scherzo" by Jim Williams"

"Goddess in the Grass: Serpentine Mythology and the Great Goddess" by Linda Fourbister

"The Forest of Souls" by Rachel Pollack

"Wiccan Roots" by Philip Heselton

"A User's Guide to the Brain" by John J Ratey, MD

"A Goddess Arrives" by Gerald Gardner

"A Community of Witches" by Helen Berger

"Nature Spirits" Selected lectures by Rudolf Steiner

"Fatal Majesty" by Reay Tannahill

"Myths to Live By" by Joseph Campbell

"The Secret Life of Germs" by Philip M Tierno Jr, PhD

"Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" by Elaine Pagels

"Whiteout: Melt" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Lieber

"Whiteout" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Lieber

"Queen and Country-Operation: Crystal Ball" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Leandro Fernandez

"Tunnel in the Sky" by Robert Heinlein

"The Sex Chronicles" by Zane

"The Black Man's Guide to Good Health" by Reed, Schulman and Shucker

"The Withdrawing Room" by Charlotte MacLoed

"Queen and Country-Operation: Morningstar" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Brian Hurtt

"The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2000" edited by David Quammen

"The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum

"Gerald Gardner: Witch" by J.L. Bracelin

"Queen and Country-Operation: Broken Ground" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Rolston

"The Ferryman Will Be There" by Rosemary Aubert

"Philosophy of Wicca" by Amber Laine Fisher

"Wilderness Tips" by Margaret Atwood

"Origins of Modern Witchcraft" by Anne Moura

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Perception: Eliminative or Productive?

Yikes! More deep thoughts for so early in the morning.

The French philosopher and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson argued that intuition is deeper than the intellect, and that mind exists on two levels: The first can be termed the deeper self and is home to creative become and free will; the second is merely the external projection of the first. Access to the deeper self can only be made through deep introspection, and that the distinction between the two is one of degree and not of kind.

The Cambridge philosopher C.D. Broad summed up the philosophies Henri Bergson as follows: “…the function of brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is capable of remembering all that has happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and the nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of large of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.”

According to such a philosophy, we are each have infinite access to knowledge and experience, but only a small portion is accessible to us at a given moment. How much we access the "All," "Mind at Large," "Collective Unconscious," or "Akashic Record"—all different names from different philosophies or cultures for essentially the same concept—is limited by only our own selves and how we train we our mind to 'filter' this knowledge.

Amanda 9:23 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

I am Centre. I am God.

In the 12th century monograph called The Book of Twenty-Four Philosophers, we are told that "God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere." From where I stand that means that I can be at the centre, and therefore I am god. WoooHooo! God is within us as well as everywhere around us. Sound familiar?

Amanda 9:08 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Friday, May 16, 2003

Top Veggie Cities

PETA just realeased their list of top ten U.S. and top six Canadian vegetarian-friendly cities. Unsurprisingly, Montreal doesn't even make it on to the radar... although Calgary, in the heartland of cattle country, makes it into the top six. For the complete lists, check out the results of the survey on the PETA web site.

Amanda 9:24 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

What’s your plant?

To raise awareness about their threatened environment, Australian children may be given a native species at birth. The idea is to get children to identify with their particular animal, insect or plant in the same way as people identify with their horoscope sign. Teachers could also draw upon their students biodiversity to create classroom ecosystems to help children become more aware and caring of the local flora and fauna. Children would be expected to learn about their animal or plant identity and be discouraged from hunting or uprooting their environmental soul-mate. (New Scientist; 2361:8)

Amanda 2:13 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Bigger really is better…

If you’re a woman that is. It seems that women with larger G-spots may experience vaginal orgasm more readily than women with smaller spots. Makes sense I guess, more surface are to work with. But from a physiological perspective it also means that a larger G-spot produces more of the enzymes and hormones that help an orgasm along, essentially meaning that if you have a small G-spot you chance of experiencing a vaginal orgasm is pretty much anatomically impossible.

The G-spot is located a few centimetres up on the inside on the vagina on the wall closet to the stomach, and is the home of the female equivalent of the male prostate glands, Skene’s glands. The tissue surrounding these glands swell up during sexual arousal and enables vaginal orgasm. Fortunately, vaginal orgasms are completely different from orgasms produced by clitoral stimulation, so all is not lost in the pleasure department for women with small G-spots.

Amanda 2:09 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

On a greener note….

All is not as it appears. We have all seen the devastating images of famine and drought in Africa propagated by international aid agencies. And it’s common knowledge that Africa’s deserts are growing through poor farming practices, global warming, and overpopulation… right?

Reality check. Contrary to popular myth, Africa’s Sahara desert is actually shrinking as the arid northern edge of the desert blooms with vegetation, and the dunes of the Sahel region retreat across its southern edge. This gradual greening of the Sahara is a trend that has been going on for the past twenty years, and one that is clearly visible when satellite photographs of the 1970 and ‘80s are compared to those of today.

Families that left the edges of the desert over two decades ago due to declining crop yields and increased droughts, are now returning to their homelands and in some areas sustainable crop production is up as much as 70 percent.

In a beautiful example of learning from past ways, farmers returning to the area are practicing sounder farming techniques, and experimenting with innovative new ones individualised to the land and climate. Lines of stones now lay along the contours of slopes to stop rainfall washing away the soil, and to keep waterfall on the land where it is needed most. Water tables are rising, trees now grow where there was nothing 15 years ago, and cattle can be seen grazing.

Amanda 2:08 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Another Reason to Quit

Most of already know that the nicotine found in cigarettes is highly addictive, but researchers now suspect that it may make cancers more aggressive by stimulating the part of the cell-signalling system that tells tumour cells to grow and divide. The trouble-maker is acetylcholine, a protein previously thought to only act as a neurotransmitter in the brain and nerves, but that now appears to play a role as a growth factor outside the nervous system. (Life Sciences;72:2159)

Amanda 11:52 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Born to Binge

Many people would like to find the gene or disease-cause of being fat. It is sometimes so much more palatable to blame a medical condition rather than an individual's eating habits or will power when it comes to packing on the pounds. Well, it seems science may have actually found an undelying physiological cause that really might play a part in human obesity, and specifically binge eating.

A team of researchers led by Stephen O'Rahilly at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in Britain has found that a significant proportion of people who became obese early in life had a mutation in a gene (MC4R) that ultimately tells us when to stop eating. Children whose MC4R receptors didn't function at all, chose to eat threetimes as much breakfast as people with a normal copy of the gene. Children with partially functioning receptors fell somewhere in between. (NEJM;348:1085)

Another study highlighting this gene found that all 24 severely obese people with MC4R mutations participating in the study were regular binge eaters, while only 14% of the obese people without the mutation ate in this way. (NEJM;348:1096)

The MC4R gene codes for the melanocortin 4 receptor found in the hypothalamus. This receptor picks up signals from leptin, a hormone that tells the body when to stop eating. In a propely functioning system, appetite-supression signals are relayed by the MC4R receptors by the hypothalamus to parts of the brain that control appetite. Without the proper relay, the person just keeps eating.

Leptin, some of you might recall, was the darling of obesity research about a decade ago when researchers discovered that mice who did not produce leptin quickly became obese. Leptin is a hormone secreted by fat cells, and the prevailing thought at the time was that obese people simply don't produce enough leptin and somehow this lead to faulty weight/eating control. Much research time and business dollars were poured into elucidating the role leptin played in obesity, and the possibilty of manufacturing and distributing a magic leptin 'bullet' to the world's obese. The bubble burst however (and many well known pharmaceutical and biotech ginats lost millions of dollars) when it became clear that leptin wasn't the mystical solution, and in fact obese people had considerably higher than average levels of leptin circulatin in their blood. We now know that leptin not only controls food intake but also many other aspects of physiology that are affected by energy balance, such as reproduction and growth. We also know that obese people respond poorly to leptin, suggesting a condition of leptin resistance among these individuals in a way similar to insulin resistance. (Obesity seems to through a whole whack of hormonal signals into disarray.)

All this to say that while the discovery of MC4R looks promising on the surface, nothing in nature and phsyiology is a simple as we would like it to be. Gene-therapy might be possible to help people carrying mutations in the MC4R gene, or give rise to specific treatments and eating plans, but it then again in may not. And the fact of the matter is, on many levels we are already well-equipped to deal with the obesity epidemic. It's quite obvious: Eat less, exercise more. But in a society where food is cheap and plentiful, exercise is optional, and we expect a quick-fix for everything, perhaps the obvious is not what many of us are willing to invest in.

Amanda 11:41 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Water Ramblings

Revitalising, refreshing, cleansing, powerful, flowing, sacred, healing. As North Americans it is a resource we commonly take for granted. Turn on a tap, and out pours the clear, crystalline liquid. Many of us can’t conceive of travelling daily to fetch murky water from a nearby lake, stream or the village well and the life-sustaining importance of this task on the livelihood of the community, crops and animals.

Water is increasing gaining public attention as a resource that needs to be preserved. And rightly so. Global water consumption almost doubles every 20 years, and fresh water is becoming increasing less available as water supply around the world is generally dwindling or polluted.

It is probably not surprising then that water is also increasingly being seen by multinational get-rich merchants as a commodity that can be sold. And with few regulations in place to control or even monitor what is going on the idea is pretty worrying.

Proponents of selling water say that this is the best way to make sure water gets to those who need it most. Sort of a ‘Robin Hood’ approach: Take water from countries like Canada who have lots of it and distribute it to Africa, China and South America. However, given big business’ propensity for profit, it is more likely that the water will flow to where the money is, leaving those who really need it high and dry while water-intensive industries benefit from the export. Then there is the question of who really owns a country’s water. Does a private company have the right to take and sell water from the Great Lakes? Shouldn’t the residents of the country have a say in the sale? And what about NAFTA and similar organizations. Once a country starts to export a product they must continue to do so or else be in violation of the trade agreements and risk huge economic penalties. They must also not discriminate about who they sell to, for example, they can not offer a better deal to developing countries for water export than they do to big profitable businesses. So in the end who wins?

For more information about the sale of water, take a look at the Council of Canadians website and click on “Water Campaigns."

Another even less often talked about and very neglected facet of water management is groundwater. In large parts of the world, underground water supplies supply much more of the demand that rivers and streams. And while above ground water can be relatively easily replenished through weather cycles, refilling groundwater is a very slow process and in some cases impossible. Once depleted, many sources of groundwater will potentially be gone forever, including some of the oldest and greatest reserves, like those beneath the Sahara desert, the north China plain, the Ganges basin and American high plains.

The scary thing is that groundwater use is not a hot topic among environmentalists and environmental agencies, and little attention is paid to groundwater consumption. As a result these hidden resources are being mined much, much faster than they are being replenished. In addition, in some areas, pesticides and other industrial pollutants are contaminating many sources of underground water, threatening the health of local inhabitants who rely on the wells for their water needs. Or threatening the usefulness of the water even for agricultural and commercial purposes, like the issues found in southern California.

Amanda 11:01 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com