Listening to Silence

Earlier today, I was asked as to whether the Internet was good or bad – and all I could answer was that it was a matter of perspective and our clear decision as to whether we would use a rather neutral tool in a positive or negative way. Meaning for a good or a bad purpose.

Not always the choice is that easy – and that may cause inner conflict.

Within the loudness of the virtual world … of Social Networks like Twitter, Facebook and so many others with their distinctive Social Media Marketing glitz and glamour… an environment where so much is spoken with so little being said… it’s essential to stop spinning from time to time, realign, anchor oneself and find that inner space where we are still.

Whether we go out into Nature… practise yoga or meditate… we want to reach that level where everything ebbs away… where we start flowing… where we are listening to silence.

Listening to Silence

Ironically, it is this loud and dizzying virtual world that offers us incredible opportunities, bringing us into contact – almost direct contact – with some of the most evolved minds, allowing us to listen, learn and expand our horizon.

Here is one of those rare pearls that gives me something more each time I listen… with so much being expressed between the words. I’m talking of J. Krishnamurti, one of the world’s most influential thinkers and teachers.

The below memorable Interview by famous controversial British journalist and broadcaster – Bernard Levin – took place in Brockwood, UK, on 20th June 1981 – about 30 years ago. Thanks to the Internet, we have the privilege of listening to it today – and nothing has been lost in terms of meaningfulness and quality… it’s incredibly direct, it’s loving and encompassing. In our world today – filled with conflict and going through dramatic change -, Krishnamurti addresses fundamental values, our thoughts and our thinking, the importance of being light and … without conflict.

Love to share it with you.

I will add the next part of the series as time permit. The direct link to YouTube is HERE.

Jim Rohn Went Home

Jim Rohn went home. . . the man who has touched many lives through his eloquent personality and wisdom in speeches, seminars, books, CDs, quotes, articles and more . . . passed away on Saturday, 5th December 2009, encircled by his close family and friends.

Jim Rohn Went Home

Jim Rohn had a big influence on many people who wanted to improve their performance and financial results through personal growth and development. He will be dearly missed by distributors and sales forces of large MLMs like Herbalife and many others.

Having attended several Workshops with this great teacher myself, I remember us both waiting in the tiny airport in Sun City with the afternoon sun glittering through the windows and his eyes sparkling with a sudden happiness to be able to return home where his grand children were awaiting him. I am sure they have many happy memories together and my thoughts go out to his partner and two daughters.

For things to Change, YOU have to Change

Strangely enough, I had one of Jim Rohn’s most famous sayings tinkling in my ears and almost pursuing me over the last few days: “For Things to Change, You have to Change”… and while we may all agree that there are so many things in the world we’d love to change, it definitely starts with us… and there can be a new start at any time. It’s good to go quietly inside for a moment from time to time and reflect on whether or not we are on our purposeful path, fulfilling what we came to do? Of course, we need to first know what that is… our main purpose in life… and here it’s again all about our “Secret Garden” … our honest WHY and WHAT FOR… taught in Ycademy Seminars… the final one in 2009 taking place this coming weekend.

Seen from a higher level, Jim Rohn went for the ultimate Change, passing from his material experience back into his spiritual reality as part of all that is and that some of us call “home”.

Good bye Jim Rohn, we will remember you!

Digital Communication

One thing we can certainly say about our era of explosive and uncontrollable distribution of information and knowledge through modern high-tech communication technologies and channels via the Internet -  is that it’s gone ‘digital’.
And this is only the beginning.

Digital Advertising Online to grow by 8,6%

Not surprisingly, the only real highlight at the renowned Cannes Lions 2009 Advertising Festival in France… besides the significance of China as an emerging market and the promotion of “green” technologies… was without any question Digital Advertising Online.

In a year that is expected to be problematic and financially critical by many experts – with the global advertising market to fall by 6.9 % -, the prognosis for Digital Advertising is brilliant:  a whopping 8.6%  growth… depending to a large extent on developments in China.

YORGOO Booster Ad by Bianca Gubalke

Digital Spending to ‘stay strong’

When questioned about the impact of the recession in the US,  Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he was optimistic for 2010 and that digital spending would stay strong.

If we think that an industry giant like McDonald’s spends on average 7% on digital advertising – and this with a rising tendency – this reflects on the opportunity for online marketers and business entrepreneurs to grab a piece of the advertising market share to earn a living from in the future.

Digital Advertising and Semiomantics

Advertising – offline and online – always had to be ahead of trends if not setting them. Here time and a fine sensor and feeling for what the people, the audience, the potential customer wanted and how they wanted it have always been of the essence – often born from grassroots and original artistic expression, be it in music, movies, dance  or fashion etc.

Watching the Cannes Lions Festival advertising reels was always an exciting and psychologically interesting and instructive journey through the year covered, while casting ahead a shadow of what was to – possibly – come.

As such, Digital Advertising is a process of continued research to find the right pulse of the time, the hot spot where people are reachable and touchable… and most importantly, Ads need to reach their target audience, jumping into their eyes and creating the desired CLICK HERE NOW impulse – before being hijacked by the next distraction and virtual destination.

This means that attractive onlinel ads need to be visible on Google Top 10 positions – and this does not really depend on excellent ads nor on good content – but on other factors, skills, strategies, techniques and. . . an aggressively tuned Script, genre Semiomantics as well as the brand-new and soon to be launched Booster.

Ceguna.com on YORGOO Booster

YCADEMY Online Business Building Seminars

The good news is that while this is no easy path… it can be learned – as the past Ycademy Seminars have shown and “. . . as seen on Google” – in other words the simple yet undisputable proof.

“YORGOO Booster is a Great Tool for generating Income” ~ Ceguna.com, NY, USA

“Now I am able setting up my own shopping mall on the Internet” ~ hannocoetzee.com, South Africa

“YORGOO Booster ist einzigartig ! Es ist alles enthalten was man braucht. SUPER !!!”
uteschaedler.com, Germany

“Great for business, great product, customer satisfaction!” taxmart.com, Alabama, USA

“YORGOO Booster is amazing, astonishing, easy and fun ! TOUS DERRIERE !”
photozcool.com, France

YCADEMY Online Business Building Seminars

The good news is that while this is no easy path… it can be learned – as the past Ycademy Seminars have shown and “. . . as seen on Google” – the proof.

And the other good news is that the Internet has levelled out the playing fields – meaning that in the Google Top 10 challenge the Davids get a chance to win the Formula 1 of the virtual highway… and that’s what the whole game is all about – isn’t it?!

TIME FOR CHANGE. . .

Bianca Gubalke

For an Economy based on Healing instead of … Stealing

It is simply miraculous how the Universe works sending you the information you are thinking about at the right time, just when you are mentally asking the question or when being moved by something inside you… Just as you saw in the past articles I wrote on “Communicating with Dolphins” – which by the way attracted new interesting information that I will be coming back to in due time.

Bianca Communicating with PiuPiu

Intuitive Communication

Fundamentally, my whole life and work rotates around Intuitive Communication in one way or another… be it with ‘Source’, with Nature or with People… and this in various ways and forms of artistic expression.

As like-minded people, we are all inter-connected and the exchange of ideas, knowlege and concepts is happening faster than ever before – open to everybody interested or concerned! What a fantastic time to live in!

Today, some extraordinary text material reached me and I am given the permission by the sender to publish it here for my loyal readers who share the same Love for Life and our human duty to honour, heal, protect and preserve it for generations to come – thought by thought and step by step -  as I do.

The author of this speech somehow rang a bell in connection with Findhorn (Scotland). I looked into the astonishing environmental developments of the Findhorn Ecovillage long ago and I vaguely remember Louis Malle’s award-winning movie “My Dinner with Andre“ that revolved around the fundamental question of whether we should understand ourselves as living in a Dream or the so-called ‘real’ Life… – I am talking about  Paul Hawken.

Who is Paul Hawken?

Paul Hawken (8 February 1946) is being described as “… a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, and most recently, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

I invite you to know more about the author on Wiki, but the following additional description is of relevance for what we are about to read in a moment:

“. . . At age 20, he moved to Boston to study macrobiotic philosophy under Michio and Aveline Kushi. He then dedicated his life to changing the relationship between business and the environment, and between human and living systems in order to create a more just and sustainable world.His work includes starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce upon the environment, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy.

His principle of comprehensive outcome was influential in full cost accounting and the eventual emergence of ecological footprint and triple bottom line standards for sustainability. He lives in Northern California. Although his biography lists no formal education, as of 2009 he has been awarded six honorary doctorates [...].”

Paul Hawken was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University President Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May 2009, when he delivered the following superb, inspiring and motivating speech – that I edited a little for better viewing and special emphasis without changing a single word -, and that I invite you to read and absorb like being personally addressed – yes YOU…

YOU… the Programmers for a new Operating System for Planet Earth!

"Dreaming Life" by Bianca Gubalke

The Unforgettable Commencement Address to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009 By Paul Hawken

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part.

Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation but not one
peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food… but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint.

And here’s the deal:

Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same:

~ If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.

~ But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after
age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people.

No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection.

Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.

Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says, “if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.”

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages.

And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.. And today tens of millions of people do this every day.

It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart.

Life Creates the Conditions that are Conducive to Life

What do we know about life?

In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life.

I can think of no better motto for a future economy.

~ We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes.

~ We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets.

~ Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant.

~ We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it.

You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet.

At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.

An Economy based on Healing

We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.

We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future.

One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering.

"ZOOM TERRE" by Bianca Gubalke

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono.

We are vastly interconnected.

Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells.

In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells.

Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, (a one with twenty-four zeros after it). In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all:

First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end.

Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that, collectively, humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years?

No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God.

Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

"VISION" by Bianca Gubalke

Be a Dreamer

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years.

Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation.

The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence.

Nature beckons you to be on her side.

You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer.
Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful.

This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.”

WOW… now I let you think… and I also thank Erica Linson for your help in making this valuable moment possible and to AR to sending it on to me, to us!

Bianca Gubalke

…

The Ultimate Joy of Being

Communicating with Dolphins II

Communication on a Subconscious Level

On Thursday last week, something very strong inside kept me thinking about what’s always been very close to my heart… and then write an article about it: Communication with Dolphins.

Thursday was a stormy, cold and darkish winter day down here close to the famous ‘Cape of Storms’ at the tip of  South Africa.

But there was something else. It was something I observed in the Atlantic Sea that I can see very well from where I am sitting at my PC, even right now. There was a whole array of abstract waves and splashes towards Kommetjie, slightly different in colour than the rest of the darkgrey waters on that day, often running crosswise against the huge surf rolling towards Noordhoek Beach… and topped by lots of foam.  It did not look normal.

My gaze continuously wandered back… where it was banned to the same weird scenario. I mentioned it when we were preparing the Ycademy May 2009 Seminar. However, explaining something in optical terms – and especially while focusing on the complex matter under discussion -, excludes the extremely weird feeling that definitely went with this… and that compelled me later that day to dive into the spiritual waters where man and dolphins – or whales – merge. . .

Little did I know then of what was lying ahead…

Communication on a Conscious Level

On Saturday, just before our Ycademy May 2009 Seminar was to start,  friends summoned me to help at Kommetjie Beach where – at that time – 40 whales, many of them pregnant females and calves, had beached themselves. They were whales we don’t normally see here, not Southern Right nor Orcas…

First they were falsely identified as Pilot Whales… and finally correctly as false Killer Whales (Pseudorca crassidens), who are one of the larger members of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae). They can become up to 6 metres long and weigh up to 3,5 tonnes. See the picture on Wikipedia to the left here!!!

40!

I was under shock!

This kind of mass beaching has never happened here before and noone was prepared nor equipped for it.
I had often had ‘live contact’ and what never failed to fascinate me was how fast, flexible and powerful these elegant navigators are. So why should they end up throwing themselves on Kommetjie beach?

One Mission

Whatever the reason, there was the Seminar and I could not leave… just connect on another level while seeing part of the beach at a distance and masses of people streaming there – to an extent that the law enforcement division had to close off the area to allow the dedicated South African rescue teams, National Sea Rescue Institute volunteers, veterinarians and marine scientists who came immediately and were united in ONE MISSION: to help these magnificent mammals survive and find their way back into freedom… in this case the rough and ice-cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

A difficult Mission under the circumstances.
We know too little about these giant mammals – why they put themselves into such a predicament, and how we should react to it. An example: to keep them simply alive, they need to be turned from one side to the other every 20 minutes to reduce pressure on their internal organs. And they need to be kept cool – which wasn’t a problem on that cold stormy day… And they need to be kept wet, i.e. hydrated – a task taken on by many dedicated helpers.

“Hundreds of people donned wetsuits and took to the water to encourage the whales back to sea. Some swam far out beyond the breakers with the whales only to watch the rescued creatures turning and riding the waves back to the shore or rocks, where they lay thrashing feebly.

A volunteer swam out with a little calf three times, but then it died. “I put my hand on its chest and could feel its heart beating so hard it felt like it wanted to jump out and then it stopped.”

No Time, Storms and a rough Sea

Lots of good ideas and plans – like taking the whales to a nearby naval base (Simonstown) and transporting them on boats to the deep sea or options including using a helicopter or navy landing craft or using tugs – had to be abandoned as Time and the extremely rough Sea were against them.

The condition of the whales deteriorated rapidly; they were suffocating fast and painfully under their own weight on the beach, their lungs collapsing… Humans kept them wet around the clock and earth-moving equipment was used to get these huge beings carefully back into their element, the sea. While these giant mammals are huge, they are also very delicate. If you get sand down their blowhole it’s like squirting water up your nose.

But that day the Sea was against them too. Despite the desperate and daring human efforts the giant mammals that could be returned back into the sea…  beached themselves  again, they just couldn’t – or wouldn’t – make it and over the day, their number grew to… 55.

And lastly: are we entitled to interfere and get them back into the sea – possibly against Nature?

Darlene Ketten, a neuroethologist and expert on hearing in marine mammals at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass. said in an interview on the matter:
“If you have an animal and it is stranded and you insist on returning it to the sea, are you harming the population? If they are sick or diseased, what are we doing to that population pool? I’m not advocating that we don’t rehabilitate animals, if we can. We should understand causes of stranding, but we also have to accept the fact that strandings may be in many cases natural phenomenon.” [...]

What a tragedy!

I could not be there in person then but meanwhile I have met and spoken to those who were… and it’s easy imagining the drama that took its course with the realization that there was no way out for those peaceful creatures of the seas than a final exit as the most humane option to release them from their extreme pain.

“If you do get the animal to water and try to get it to swim off, and if it returns two or three times, the decision will have to be made that it is not going to survive and a veterinarian must euthanize it. Depending on how big the animal is, you cannot always use drugs in which case shooting is the best option.” [Darlene Ketten on the Kommetjie Stranding]

This is what happened then…

IMAGINE… a dark and storm-swept beach and – around each whale – a human family with many children, talking to each other, touching, communicating and… yes, praying together.

IMAGINE… a dedicated vet who I know well trying to administer a final dosis and realizing that what would kill an elephant “…just doesn’t work”. What a labour of love to take on! And what a terrible realization that there was only one solution… And no silencers… And many people, parents and children, not ready to leave the whales.

It had to be done. There was not much time to manage or organize, the animals were suffering.

IMAGINE… the emotions at the first shot. The chaos, the protest, the pain.

It had to be done. 40+ times. Until there was Peace.

BUT ALSO IMAGINE… these killer whales have a mouth filled with huge sharp teeth… and never within this entire tragic operation was there a bite, a hurt, any form of aggression. Never!

They knew!

Man and Nature met within the “Space of Trust” I so often write about… Clearly, here it was, including everybody involved. It was an experience on a very deep emotional level where Man and Nature are ONE… and once the pain, the anger and the frustration are over, the memory will manifest itself as a gift of Love for all.

The Lesson is the Message

After some research on this phenomena I discovered that mass strandings of dolphins, whales and other marine mammals date back to the time of Aristotle. However, as the drastic pollution of our beautiful planet over the last 50 years has accelerated dramatically, not to speak of the water pollution, the noise of ships and submarines equipped with military sonar… and bearing in mind the extreme sensitivity of these extraordinary creatures that play such an important role within the ecology of our oceans, all this may have led to a rise of such terrible events.

These are assumptions though.

Nobody really knows why these strandings happen and whether it is a sign to worry about something specific besides the fact itself. Without being a specialist in the field, I believe it could have to do with their sophisticated sonar system that leads their path even if the path itself has changed – for instance, a coast line changes as a result of a tectonic shift.

A specialist from the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Unit explained that the stranding “…could have been a miscalculation of navigation or the dominant animal, usually a female, could have been sick”.

Communication HOME

The fact is that like us humans dolphins and whales are social creatures that have a sophisticated communication system. They travel together in groups. It appears that if one goes ashore, the rest follows – which can lead to mass strandings… as in Kommetjie.

Live together. Die together?

Let’s take the Lesson of this experience and … CHANGE!

Yes – we can… We are ONE world… and we want to leave it to our Children as a HOME to LIVE a Life in Joy!

In that sense, I am looking forward to the next movie of one of my favorite French directors, Luc Besson (Le grand Bleu) – called HOME – enjoy the trailer – take the Message, Live it:

If you don’t see the above video, click HERE.

Bianca Gubalke
TouchVisionTalk