NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day

Temperature Anomalies, Winter 2009-2010 — Northern Hemisphere winter 2009–2010 temperatures were unusually cold across much of the United States, Canada, and Europe compared to previous winters this decade, while Greenland, North Africa, and the Middle East were warmer than usual. (more)

Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder

After a Short Delay, Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder By Adrian Cho

According to quantum mechanics, light can be either a graceful rippling wave or a hail of bulletlike particles, depending on how you look at it. Now, an experiment shows that an observer can make the choice retroactively, after light has entered a measuring apparatus. The result shows that reality is truly in the eye of the beholder.

A single dollop of light, or photon, must be described by a flowing quantum wave that gives the probability of finding it at any particular place and time. At the same time, the photon acts a bit like an indivisible bullet: When observed with a particle detector, it produces a distinct signal, like a pebble pinging off a car door. And things get weirder. The quantum wave can split in two and recombine, like ripples flowing around a stump in a pond, to create striking "interference" effects that determine which way the recombined wave flows. On the other hand, it's simply impossible to split a photon at a fork in the road. If there is no way to eventually put the pieces back together, the photon acts like a particle and goes one way or the other.

Even weirder still, the choice to allow the waves to recombine or not can be made even after the photon passes the fork where it should have split--or not. Famed physicist John Archibald Wheeler realized that nearly 30 years ago and dreamed up an experiment to prove the point. Now Jean-François Roch of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France and colleagues have performed the experiment. The researchers shot photons one by one at a half-silvered mirror, or "beam splitter," to cleave the quantum wave describing each photon. After traveling different distances, the two halves sloshed back together at a second beam splitter 50 meters away, which could recombine them. The experimenters could randomly switch this second beam splitter on and off electronically well after the photon had passed the first one.

If the second splitter was on, interference between the two pieces directed the recombined wave of probability toward one or the other of two detectors, depending on the difference in the path lengths. If the second beam splitter was turned off so the waves couldn't recombine, then the photon took one path or the other with 50-50 probability, and equal numbers of photons reached detectors. The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality.

Others had tried to perform Wheeler's experiment but had lacked the single-photon source and other elements to really do it right, says Arthur Zajonc, an experimenter at Amherst College in Massachusetts. "This is the experiment you wanted to do, but it was too hard," he says. The experiment will likely become a classic cited in textbooks, Zajonc says: "It's going to be seen as a kind of a landmark."

Do Your Only Live Once?

Do Your Only Live Once?  By Robert Lanza MD

We think we die and rot into the ground, and thus must squeeze everything in before it's too late. If life -- yours, mine -- is a just a one-time deal, then we're as likely to be screwed as pampered. But experiments suggest this view of the world may be wrong.

The results of quantum physics confirm that observations can't be predicted absolutely. Instead, there's a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the "many-worlds" interpretation, states that there are an infinite number of universes (the "multiverse"). Everything that can possibly happen occurs in some universe. The old mechanical -- "we're just a bunch of atoms" −- view of life loses its grip in these scenarios.

Biocentrism extends this idea, suggesting that life is a flowering and adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. Although our individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the "me'' feeling is just energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn't go away at death. One of the surest principles of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. When we die, we do so not in the random billiard ball matrix but in the inescapable life matrix. Life has a non-linear dimensionality −- it's like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse.

A series of landmark experiments show that measurements an observer makes can influence events that have already happened in the past. One experiment (Science 315, 966, 2007) confirmed that flipping a switch could retroactively change a result that had happened before the switch was flipped. Regardless of the choice you, the observer, make, it'll be you who will experience the outcomes −- the universes −- that will result.

The implications of this were clear with my sister "Bubbles." The earliest remembrance I have of my childhood was with her, in her play doctor's office. "You're a little unwell," she said, handing me a cup of sand. "It's medicine. Drink this and you'll feel better." This I did; and as I started to drink it, Bubbles cried out "No!" and gave a gasp as if she were swallowing it herself.

The affection that existed between Bubbles and me was a strong one, for being my older sister, she had always felt that it was her job to protect me. I can remember standing at the school bus stop with my little mittens and lunchbox, when one of the older neighborhood boys pushed me to the ground. I was still on the ground and hurt, when I saw Bubbles running up the street. "You touch my little brother ever again," she said, "and I'll punch your face in."

It's difficult to believe that I, and not she, went on to become the doctor. Although she was very bright, by 10th grade she'd dropped out of school and entered on a course of destruction with drugs. The ill done to her at home had little remission. She was beaten, ran away, and punished again. I recall her hiding under the porch, and the terror that hung about the place; I can see the tears running down her face. After moving out of the house I learned she was pregnant. When all the relatives refused to go to her wedding, I told her "It's okay!" and held her hand. The birth of "Little Bubbles" was a happy occasion, an oasis in this life in the desert. How happy she was, and when I sat down by her side, she asked me −- her little brother −- if I'd be the godfather to her child.

But all this was a short event, and stands like a wild flower along an asphalt road. Little by little her mind began to deteriorate. Although I'd seen a lot of medicine by then, it was a matter of some emotion to me to see her child taken away. The deep remembrance I have of her being utterly without hope, restrained and sedated with drugs. As I went away from the hospital that day, I mingled my memories of her with tears.

Bubbles was still a pretty woman, and was found in the park once, quite distressed, her hair hanging in her face and her clothes torn; of which she knew as little as us. A while later she was pregnant, and I can only understand that someone had taken advantage of her again. I remember her looking at me in embarrassment, holding the baby in her arms. He had a cute face, and I thought, didn't look like anyone we knew.

Soon after, my big sister −- a once proud woman −- lost even the remembrance of where she lived.

This tale of Bubbles is one that has a thousand variations, told by many families, of tragedy interspersed with joyous times. But plays of experience, even ones like that of my sister, are never random, nor the end of the story. Rather, they're interludes in a melody so vast and eternal that human ears can't appreciate the tonal range of the symphony.

"Whenever anything in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd or evil," said Spinoza "it is because we have but a partial knowledge of things."

Life has a power that transcends any individual history or universe. The story of my sister is part of a more profound drama, one that I know holds more joyful fortunes as her life unfolds in the multiverse. As in the Science experiment, whether it's flipping a switch or making other choices, she will experience the many outcomes and resulting universes. I only hope -− if she becomes a doctor −- the medicine goes down a lot easier than it did in her play-office so long ago.

Robert Lanza, MD has published extensively in leading scientific journals, and has over two dozen books, including 'Biocentrism' (with astronomer Bob Berman), which lays out the full scientific argument for his theory of everything.

Quantum Quote

 What you love you empower and what you fear you empower - and what you empower you attract. -Author Unknown

Quantum Quotes

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. -Martin Luther King Jr. 

Quantum Quotes

From the Secret
Powerfully intent to attract something small. Starting with something small, like a cup of coffee or parking spaces is an easy way to experience the law of attraction in action. As you experience the power you have to attract, you will move on to creating much bigger things.

Quantum Quotes

From The Secret Daily Teachings
Good is underneath every single thing that appears to be negative. If we can know that good is all there is, including in a negative situation, then we will see a negative situation transform into all good. Most people keep the good away from themselves because they label something as bad, and then, of course, that becomes their reality. But there is no bad in the Universe; it is just our inability to see things clearly from the bigger perspective.
Peace comes from knowing that good is all that exists.

Quantum Quotes

From The Secret Daily Teachings
Whatever feelings you have within you are attracting your tomorrow.
Worry attracts more worry. Anxiety attracts more anxiety. Unhappiness attracts more unhappiness. Dissatisfaction attracts more dissatisfaction.
AND . . .
Joy attracts more joy. Happiness attracts more happiness. Peace attracts more peace. Gratitude attracts more gratitude. Kindness attracts more kindness. Love attracts more love.
Your job is an inside one. To change your world, all you have to do is change the way you feel inside. How easy is that?

Angel of Clarity for March

I use Angel Cards regularly.  You can pick a card online here. Below is March's Newsletter.
Inspirational Message

Clear your perceptions free of confusion. Focus on intent and straightforward expression.

See the world as it is without your projections, judgments and assumptions.

Clarity is a process not a singular event and once reached tends to mark progress not arrival. The love of truth clears the attachments that result in mis-conceptions and false conclusions and makes it possible to align with our essential presence. As we learn to attune ourselves to our true nature, it informs our consciousness of the right attitudes, directions, and actions - free of assumptions and judgments.

So what do we do to encourage clarity to emerge? We engage in dynamic inquiry into ourselves; asking, who I am? Why am I acting this way or that way? What is all this about? We invite our inner being to disclose its richness and mysteries and reveal its possibilities.

The world as we perceive it is made up of our thoughts, images, emotions, and impressions. They are important only as points of orientation, not as conclusive evidence of reality. We need to be willing to allow our dreams, our current self-images, our very identities to completely change in kind and quality. Clear the confusion and preconception that covers your deepest and most cherished inner sensations and be completely yourself. 

May the Angel of Clarity animate your inner being bringing new and fresh ways of viewing yourself and the world throughout the coming month.

Warmly,

Kathy

From Oprah Show 2/16/07

The first time that I heard the Secret teachers was on Oprah back in 2007.  This is the notes that I took that day.

The Secret

• Like putting in an order for dinner. 
• You put in an order and you expect that is will come. It's the same way with life. If you say, "I'll have no friends." Then you placed an order. Or if you say, "I'll never get out of debt." You placed an order. 
• Trying is failing with honor. 
• When you are thankful for someone giving you the experience, it is true forgiveness. 
• You can let good things into your life or more into your life until you're grateful. 
• Harmonic Wealth is Well Being in Five Areas
• Well Being
• Physical
• Relationships
• Spiritual
• Intellectual
• The Law of Polarity
• Write a list of what you don't want and then look at the polar opposite. That is what you want to focus on. 
• For example: I don't want to be broke --> Turn it into I want financial freedom
• Another example: I don't want to be fat --> Turn it into I want health and wholeness. 

Quantum Quotes

The Secret Daily Teachings

Here are four fundamental things to do to manifest money using the law of attraction.

1. Think more thought of abundance in a day, than lack of money.
2. Be happy now, without the money.
3. Be truly grateful for everything you have now.
4. Give the best of yourself to others.

Four easy steps. You can do them if you want it enough. 

Paranormal News

Some interesting ghost related stories in the news lately.
Here is a story from the News and Star with a video of a white cloud or mist that seems to move in and out of a store.  You can watch it for yourself.

Then there is a story from someone who was looking to buy the Gwrych Castle in Wales.  The picture in the story shows a figure in the window.  The man who took the picture says that no one was there when he took the picture but even more spectacular is that the report tells that the floor in that area of the castle had collapsed so there would have been no place for someone to stand at that window.

Finally a story from Salem, Oregon tells of a business that will do Paranormal Inspections before you buy a house.