Mellen Thomas Benedict has some wonderful insights on after-death communications with departed loved ones through dreams and synchronicity.

I remember waking up one morning at home about 4:30 am, and I just knew that this was it. This was the day I was going to die. So I called a few friends and said goodbye. I woke up my hospice caretaker and told her. I had a private agreement with her that she would leave my dead body alone for six hours, since I had read that all kinds of interesting things happen when you die. I went back to sleep. The next thing I remember is the beginning of a typical near-death experience. Suddenly I was fully aware and I was standing up, but my body was in the bed. There was this darkness around me. Being out of my body was even more vivid than ordinary experience. It was so vivid that I could see every room in the house, I could see the top of the house, I could see around the house, I could see under the house.

There was this light shining. I turned toward the light. The light was very similar to what many other people have described in their near-death experiences. It was so magnificent. It is tangible; you can feel it. It is alluring; you want to go to it like you would want to go to your ideal mother's or father's arms.

As I began to move toward the light, I knew intuitively that if I went to the light, I would be dead.

So as I was moving toward the light I said, "Please wait a minute, just hold on a second here. I want to think about this; I would like to talk to you before I go." [Read More »]

Since losing my sister Robin last week, we've been discussing dreams from loved ones on the other side. Our favorite cousin Ray had a very strange, vivid and fun dream of Robin at the exact same time she crossed over. He's never had anything like that happen to him before and has been extremely moved by it. I said he should feel honored. It's a privilege to receive a 'visit'.

The first book I read about NDE (near-death experiences) was Betty J Eadie's Embraced By The Light. Extremely powerful and poignant.

(website via Clifford Pickover's 'don't miss' Godlorica)

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Invitation to a Night of Nakedness

"Compadres," the e-mail states, "join us in refusing to comply with a culture that tells us to hide our body, to be ashamed of its scents, secretions, curves, and hair, to conceal those parts that have been dealt sexual connotations. We're gonna f-- this bondage we call clothing and party like the savages we really are."

Following in the footsteps of their exhibitionist peers at Brown and Yale, Columbia undergraduates are staging parties with one basic ground rule - all guests must part with their clothes upon arrival. The invitation circulating around Morningside Heights bans three additional items: cameras, masks, and "spikey things."

"Join us for a night of champagne, martinis, witchcraft, psychedelia, syncopated rhythms, thin bass lines, and body paint," reads the invitation, which was obtained by The New York Sun.

Like naked smart mobs. I love it!

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Happy Birthday Emmett Grogan?

Some say today is Emmett Grogan's birthday. Some say there never was an Emmett Grogan and that it's a compilation of characters.

OR...
The word 'Emmett' means 'tourist' in 20th century Cornish. Grogan means 'hairy' in Gaelic. So Emmett Grogan means 'hairy tourist'. Is this the belief you subscribe to?

OR...
The multiple-use name Emmett Grogan was used by San Francisco Diggers in the 1960s. The book Ringolevio is a biography of several members of the diggers merged together as the autobiography of one 'person', Emmett Grogan.

OR...
Dylan backup singer?

Anyway, today I say Happy Birthday to the spirit of Emmett Grogan.

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Asheville's a "Cool City" – officially

When President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement to curb global warming by reducing fossil-fuel emissions, a grassroots movement sprung up in municipalities across the country to commit cities to the international agreement's pollution-reduction goals.

Asheville NC's outgoing mayor, Charles Worley, became the 188th city leader to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection agreement on Nov. 16.

Is your city a Cool City?

Link

Bush didn't think the Kyoto treaty was a priority? He may chop it off at the federal level knees, but concerned people are finding a way around it by taking it to the streets. Well, to the cities and states. So... can't we find a way to do that with a presidential election and leap-frog the sheeple's choice?

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My beautiful sister, Robin, lost her brave fight with cancer Thanksgiving morning @ 6:00am. Her funeral is tomorrow.

There are so many loving memories I'll always hold dear, but for now my heart is simply broken. Life is just too short. I believe in telling everyone you're close to that you love them. Don't just assume they know how you feel. I'm glad Robin and I always made our loving feelings known.

One of her favorite quotes she was recently signing off her emails with is this one...

Life's journey is not about arriving at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "whee....what a ride!"

Indeed...

**Edited to add: I'm still in Tennessee with my Mother. Thank you so much for your beautiful sentiments. I take them to the center of my heart. (Nov 28 @ 8:22am)**

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