From Time.com Health & Family
By Laura Blue

Most doctors say meditation can’t hurt you, but now there’s reassuring evidence that it may help you as well when it comes to warding off disease.

Previous studies have linked better health outcomes among heart patients who practiced meditation compared to those who did not, but none of those trials could definitively credit the brain-focusing program with the better health results. In the latest trial to address those limitations, however, meditation does appear to have an effect on reducing heart attack, stroke and even early death from heart disease, at least among African-Americans.

“The main finding [of our research] is that, added on top of usual medical care, intervention with a mind-body technique — transcendental meditation — can have a major effect on cardiovascular events,” says Robert Schneider, lead author on the study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes and a professor at the Maharishi University of Management, an institution in Iowa that was founded by the creator of transcendental meditation.

He and his colleagues followed 201 African American men and women, who are at higher risk of heart disease than whites, but who also had an additional reason to worry about heart attacks and strokes since they were also diagnosed with coronary heart disease. The participants were randomly assigned to participate in either a health education class about heart-friendly diet and exercise, or to attend a transcendental meditation program. Transcendental meditation involves shutting out the outside world and focusing thoughts inward, or resting while remaining alert. All of the participants continued to receive their normal medical care as well, including appropriate medication.

After roughly five years of follow-up, the researchers found a 48% reduction in the overall risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from any cause among members of the meditation group compared to those from the health education group. The meditating group enjoyed an average drop of 4.9 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure compared to the control group and also reported less stress and less anger. “It’s like discovering a whole new class of medications,” Schneider says of the power of meditation in improving the patients’ health.

But while the magnitude of those results is remarkable, the study involved a relatively small number of participants, and did not reveal how meditation may be lowering heart disease risk. On the surface, it’s intuitively obvious that stress management can affect heart health for the better; anxiety and stress cause blood pressure to shoot up and leave us on edge, triggering spikes in heart-harming stress hormones like cortisol.

But many experts are skeptical of the alleged benefits of techniques such as transcendental meditation that claim to reduce stress by a substantial amount.... In the past, these benefits have been hard to test scientifically, largely because study participants who volunteered for meditation programs may have been biased to see them succeed. Practitioners have also made strong and essentially unsubstantiated claims about the powers of meditation, leading heart experts and scientists to be especially skeptical. In fact, in 2005, more than 500 brain researchers signed a petition (albeit an unsuccessful one) to protest a scheduled lecture on the neuroscience of meditation by the Buddhist spiritual icon, the Dalai Lama, at a major conference organized by the Society for Neuroscience.

The great lengths to which the researchers of the Circulation study went to make their trial scientifically rigorous, however, should reinforce the results in the eyes of some skeptics. The scientists adjusted for the effects of weight, smoking behavior, and diet, all of which can influence heart attack, stroke and early heart death rates. And while the participants in both groups exercised more and cut back on alcohol during the study, they did so at similar rates, making these changes unlikely to be responsible for the differences in health outcomes either.

While the findings aren’t likely to resolve questions over whether meditation should become a standard part of heart disease care, the results should give more doctors confidence in discussing the practice with their patients and giving them some scientifically based information that’s an improvement over the advice that “it can’t hurt to try.”

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From the Website of the Global Consciousness Project:

Coherent consciousness creates order in the world.

Subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth.

When human consciousness becomes coherent and synchronized, the behavior of random systems may change. Quantum event based random number generators (RNGs) produce completely unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people, our network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. The probability is less than one in a billion that the effect is due to chance. The evidence suggests an emerging noosphere, or the unifying field of consciousness described by sages in all cultures.

Definition of NOOSPHERE [Merriam-Webster Dictionary]:
the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution

The Global Consciousness Project is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists and engineers. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 70 host sites around the world. The data are transmitted to a central archive which now contains more than 12 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second.

Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We hypothesize that there will be structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. The data overall show a highly significant departure from expectation, confirming this prediction. Go to the Main Menu on the left to learn how the science is done. For some philosophical and interpretive perspectives, look to the Aesthetics menu.

Subtle but real effects of consciousness are important scientifically, but their real power is more direct. They encourage us to make essential, healthy changes in the great systems that dominate our world. Large scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. Knowing this, we can intentionally work toward a brighter, more conscious future.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences provides a logistical home for the GCP. It is directed by Roger Nelson from his home office in Princeton, but is not a project of Princeton University.

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Explore the Global Consciousness Website here...

Filmmaker and consciousness explorer Martin Taylor turns the camera on himself, resolutely documenting his personal journey "home." Beginning with the Gateway Voyage program at TMI in Virginia, through the fire of dissolution, and emerging to take the next leap - Guidelines - in Australia, Martin is committed to telling his authentic story.

His video below, “Five Years to Find Home,” picks up five years after his Gateway program as he prepares to attend Guidelines. To begin at the beginning, check out Martin's “The Rest of Reality at The Monroe Institute.”

Along the way, Martin created Gift Notes, eloquent and deeply stirring two-minute film vignettes from anonymous TMI participants who were moved to share their own profoundly life-changing moments.

From Martin's blog, The Rest of Reality,

Well this has been a long time coming. A short break from daily life, this video, my next big adventure.

Over five years ago, I had an experience that solidified my past and changed my future. This short captures what happened since that pivotal point in 2008, and sets the stage for what’s to come.

This morning I’m driving ten hours North here in Australia, to attend Guidelines. Five days of listening to Hemi-Sync® technology; sounds that shift your consciousness away from waking reality and into expanded territory. These are areas of vast stillness, where the strange and the impossible are the norm.

I’m armed with the love and support of my wife, a sense of adventure, an award winning cinematographer, and a deep sense of gratitude.

More videos to come of what lays ahead. See you on the other side…

View the video on YouTube...

From TakePart.org
By David Kirby

Can dolphins detect cancer in people? To some scientists, it’s not even a legitimate hypothesis; and to many animal-rights activists, “swim-with-the-dolphin” cancer diagnostic centers would be no less objectionable than any other form of captivity.

But what if the rather far-fetched idea were true? What if we tested dolphins and discovered they can detect tiny tumors and abnormal growths in humans, perhaps even those missed by state-of-the-art technology? Instead of X-rays, MRIs and CAT scans, will patients one day be clamoring for cetacean-grams?

Probably not. But I, for one, believe the hypothesis is plausible. Others are positively convinced it is fact, including Patricia Stoops of Panama City, Florida, who claims that a captive dolphin named Keppler saved her life after a chance meeting at a swim-with program in the Caribbean.

Stoops was on a Carnival cruise in the British Virgin Islands when she eagerly signed up for the “dolphin excursion” on the island of Tortola.

She and about 15 others entered the water as a group of captive dolphins approached them and began interacting as normal. But one dolphin, Keppler, took a keen interest in Stoops and refused to leave her alone.

“He did a flip in front of me,” she told WJHG-TV news in Panama City. “He kept running into me and I explained to the trainer that the dolphin had hit me. He said, ‘Oh, that’s unusual.’ The dolphin trainer said the dolphin detected something wrong with me.”

Stoops was taken aback by what the trainer’s said next: He asked if her trip was sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, to fulfill a final wish of swimming with dolphins.

“He asked if I’d ever had cancer. I said, ‘no way!’ ” she said. In fact, she had never been healthier in her life. But, she would soon discover, that was not true.

A week after returning home, Stoops noticed some pain in her chest. Thinking it had something to do with the dolphin encounter, she went to the doctor, who discovered a spot on her lung and diagnosed her with lung cancer. Now cancer free, she hopes to visit the animal in the fall.

“Thank God to this little dolphin, Keppler. He saved my life,” Stoops says.

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The ability of whales and dolphins to emit and receive high-frequency sounds, called echolocation, has long baffled and awed scientists. Even today, we do not fully understand the remarkable process, which literally lies outside our own brains’ ability to perform.

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Of course, the chain-of-events are likely coincidental, even though eerily similar, unverified accounts are posted online. Michael T. Hyson, Ph.D., research director at the Hawaii-based Sirius Institute, which advocates captive dolphins as therapy for people with autism and other disorders, writes about a dolphin named Dreamer possessed with seemingly miraculous abilities to heal and diagnose humans.

“A woman swimming with Dreamer thought she had been rammed,” Hyson writes. “The woman was taken to hospital for examination. The woman had a large bruise. X-ray revealed that under the ribs, near the center of the bruised area, there was a small tumor. It is my feeling that Dreamer likely ‘zapped’ the tumor with a powerful sound pulse, perhaps to heal it, and the high intensity sound left bruising from hydrostatic shock. At the least, the bruising called medical attention to the tumor.”

Meanwhile, “Dolphins have been known to detect certain types of cancer and pregnancy in some people,” WJHG reports, “But experts say there is no clinical research to back up those behaviors.

There has been no research in this regard, though it would be fairly simple. Dolphins could be put in the water with people with various stages of cancer and healthy controls. You could have, say, 15 controls and one patient. If a dolphin displayed unusual behaviors around that person, it’s possible the animal detected something.

Most experts I asked didn’t really know how to answer the question, “Is this possible?”...

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The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.

‘Overview’ is a short film [19 minutes] that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.

From OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective.

CAST
• EDGAR MITCHELL – Apollo 14 astronaut and founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences
• RON GARAN – ISS astronaut and founder of humanitarian organization Fragile Oasis
• NICOLE STOTT – Shuttle and ISS astronaut and member of Fragile Oasis
• JEFF HOFFMAN – Shuttle astronaut and senior lecturer at MIT
• SHANE KIMBROUGH – Shuttle/ISS astronaut and Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army
• FRANK WHITE – space theorist and author of the book ‘The Overview Effect’
• DAVID LOY- philosopher and author
• DAVID BEAVER – philosopher and co-founder of The Overview Institute
———-
CREW
Produced by: GUY REID, STEVE KENNEDY, CHRISTOPHER FERSTAD
Director: GUY REID
Editor: STEVE KENNEDY
Director of Photography: CHRISTOPHER FERSTAD
Original Score: HUMAN SUITS
Dubbing Mixer: PATCH MORRISON
———-
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Filmed with Canon 5D Mk ii.
Additional footage from NASA / ESA archives
Duration: 19 minutes

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From DiscoveryNews.
By Jennifer Viegas.

An analysis of ancient dog burials finds that the typical prehistoric dog owner ate a lot of seafood, had spiritual beliefs, and wore jewelry that sometimes wound up on the dog.

The study, published in PLOS ONE, is one of the first to directly test if there was a clear relationship between the practice of dog burial and human behaviors. The answer is yes.

"Dog burials appear to be more common in areas where diets were rich in aquatic foods because these same areas also appear to have had the densest human populations and the most cemeteries," lead author Robert Losey, a University of Alberta anthropologist, told Discovery News.

The discovery negates speculation that dogs back in the day were just work animals brought along on hunting trips.

"If the practice of burying dogs was solely related to their importance in procuring terrestrial game, we would expect to see them in the Early Holocene (around 9,000 years ago), when human subsistence practices were focused on these animals," Losey continued. "Further, we would expect to see them in later periods in areas where fish were never really major components of the diet and deer were the primary focus, but they are rare or absent in these regions."

For the study, Losey and his team researched dog burials worldwide, but focused particularly on ones located in Eastern Siberia. Siberia appears to have been an ancient hotbed of dog lovers, with the earliest known domesticated dog found there and dating to 33,000 years ago. Dog burials in this region, however, span across a more recent 10,000-year period.

The researchers found that most of the dog burials in this area occurred during the Early Neolithic 7,000-8,000 years ago. Dogs were only buried when human hunter-gatherers were also being buried. When pastoralists later came through, they did not bury dogs, although they did sacrifice them from time to time.

"I think the hunter-gatherers here saw some of their dogs as being nearly the same as themselves, even at a spiritual level," Losey said. "At this time, dogs were the only animals living closely with humans, and they were likely known at an individual level, far more so than any other animal people encountered. People came to know them as unique, special individuals."

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“...human and dog diets, burial practices and more often paralleled each other, revealing how close the dog-human bond has been for thousands of years.”

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The burials reflect that association. One dog, for example, was laid to rest "much like it is sleeping." A man was buried with two dogs, one carefully placed to the left of his body, and the other to the right. A dog was buried with a round pebble, possibly a toy or meaningful symbol, placed in its mouth. Still other dogs were buried with ornaments and implements, such as spoons and stone knives.

One of the most interesting burials contains a dog wearing a necklace made out of four red deer tooth pendants. Such necklaces appear to have been a fashion and/or symbolic trend at the time, since people wore them too.

"The dog buried wearing the necklace was buried in a region where human diets were relatively rich in riverine fish," Losey said. "The dog, however, was consuming relatively little fish, having a protein diet with more emphasis on terrestrial game. This suggests the dog was likely a recent arrival in the region, and its body chemistry had not yet adjusted to the local fish diet."

All of the hunter-gatherer dogs were similar in appearance to large varieties of huskies, similar to today’s Siberian huskies.

Erik Axelsson, a researcher at Uppsala University’s Science for Life Laboratory, has also studied prehistoric dogs. He too found that human and dog diets, burial practices and more often paralleled each other, revealing how close the dog-human bond has been for thousands of years.

Axelsson said, "Dogs and humans share the same environment, we eat similar food and we get similar diseases."

Based on the number of burials, we also often spend eternity together too.

Image credit: A dog buried in a resting position. Robert Losey

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In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel laureate in Medicine

From Noetic Now, “Energy Psychology: The Future of Therapy?” Institute of Noetic Sciences
by John Freedom

Modern psychotherapy’s enfant terrible, Energy Psychology, has been alternately praised and ridiculed, extolled and rebuked....

The term energy psychology describes a new field of innovative interventions that balance, restore, and enhance human functioning by stimulating the human subtle energy system. These techniques have spread throughout the world—largely via the Internet—and have been observed to catalyze rapid, dramatic, and lasting changes in feelings, beliefs, mental states, and behaviors. Just as we have a physical anatomy—consisting of our skeleton, organs and glands, muscles and connective tissue—we also have an energetic anatomy—consisting of the acupuncture meridian system, chakras and nadis (energy centers and channels), and the human biofield/s. The common denominator underlying EP techniques involves stimulating energy, whether by tapping, touching, or intention.

But what is this purported “energy” that is being “stimulated”? And who are we under our skins, egos, and subpersonalities, beyond neurons, synapses, the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes, and limbic system, and beyond auras, meridians, and chakras? Are we souls or spirits or merely a complex system of oscillating neuropathways? As we explore ever-deeper levels of our beingness, moving beyond tissues, molecules, atoms, and particles to waves, strings, and fields, we enter the realm of very subtle energies. Thus, if we wish to interact with, touch, and heal others and ourselves on the most fundamental levels, we need to do so on an energetic level. If we are indeed energetic beings, perhaps we can heal at the speed of light.

The etymology of the word psychology is revealing. It comes from the Greek logos, meaning “word, reason, or principle,” and psyche, or “the soul.” For our intellectual forebears, psychology was literally the study of the soul....With the advance of scientific reductionism, psychology was reduced to the study of rats and pigeons and later to neurotransmitter interactions in the brain. Indeed, these castrated versions are what many scientists still think of as modern psychology.

These excesses have been partially corrected by the fields of humanistic and cognitive psychology (which have restored the study of mind and its attributes as legitimate objects of inquiry) and by parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, and noetic sciences (which acknowledge psychic, spiritual, and transpersonal experiences as real phenomena, deserving consideration and investigation). The Institute of HeartMath has been instrumental in restoring interest in the role of the heart in human emotion and behavior as well. Even so, many neuroscientists believe that consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon of neurological processes in the brain. Yet with the anomalous evidence we have for out-of-the-body experiences and near-death experiences as well as evidence for the survival of consciousness after death, the hypothesis that consciousness is but a function of neurological processes simply does not fit the facts.

Energy Psychology has historically focused on psychotherapy. But there are bigger questions and larger issues at play here.

 •  Who or what are we most essentially?
 •  Is there, analogous to the physical body, an energy body/ies? If so, what is the nature of the relationship between the energy body/ies and the physical body, and between the energy body/ies and the spiritual body, or soul?
 •  What is the nature of body, mind, and spirit? Are these separate but interactive entities, or are they one? What are the specific nature and pathways of the body-mind-spirit connection?
•  What is the nature of health/wholeness and illness/dis-ease? Are these fundamentally physical phenomena, energetic phenomena, field phenomena, or all three?
•  Just as there are electromagnetic, gravitational, and strong and weak fields, are there energetic fields, noumenal fields, or both? Are these fields individual biofields centered around each individual, or as Rupert Sheldrake has suggested, are there group fields for different species? If so, what is the relationship between these individual fields and the larger group fields, and between what we call our “selves” and the underlying energetic matrix?

...Energy Psychology modalities include therapies such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT), Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT), Neuro Emotional Technique (NET), Heart-Assisted Therapy (HAT), and Healing from the Body Level Up (HBLU). Beneath this panoply of theories and techniques, EP modalities combine intentionality with imaginal exposure and energetic stimulation, energetic balancing, or both. Seemingly simple in technique, the results can be rapid and surprising.

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When I observe a number of suffering patients who did not respond to our usual treatment modalities suddenly get better after TFT algorithms are given, I don't need a double-blind controlled study to tell me the value of TFT.
— James McKoy, MD; Kaiser Permanente Pain Clinic, Hawaii

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...The different EP modalities are behavioral desensitization techniques. The theory about them, first proposed by Roger Callahan, holds that negative emotions are caused by perturbations in the energy field, and tapping on specific meridians reportedly resolves these perturbations. Another hypothesis about the mechanism at work involves resonance, a phenomenon in which different parts of a system oscillate at the same frequency so that their wave frequencies reinforce each other.

...A healthy body is a body in resonance. Trauma is not only energetic, but as James Oschman and Melinda Connor have pointed out, trauma causes physical blockages that obstruct and dampen the free flow of energy and information through our tissues, causing us to feel blocked, cut off, and dissociated, both physically and psychologically....

...Energy Psychology is growing up and already changing the conversation, changing how psychotherapy is being practiced and expanding the limits of what we think is possible.

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About the author—

John Freedom, CEHP, is a long-term student of meditation, consciousness, and the healing arts. He currently serves on the board of directors and as research coordinator for the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology. A former radio talk-show host and magazine editor, he teaches seminars in EFT, EP, and related topics throughout the United States and Europe. Learn more at www.JohnFreedom.com.

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The author's account illustrates one of Bob Monroe's best-known quotations, "The greatest illusion is that mankind has limitations."

From the ARE Blog.
By Suzette Faith Foster —

We all hold, whether tapped or untapped, the healing and manifesting potential of the mind, body and spirit. It took one experience for me to validate the depth and power of this potential in myself.

I had met up with my friends for our weekly mountain bike ride, which involved leaning into curves, riding over obstacles, and jumping piles of logs.

We reached a familiar teeter-totter, one we had mastered many times, riding up one side and down the other. Then we stopped and contemplated one much bigger that was new to the trail. I wanted to try it.

In mountain biking, speed is your friend. I pressed forward.

My front tire made contact with the teeter-totter. But next, I found myself barreling headfirst into the ground.

My neck snapped!

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“Caught between life and death...I had the opportunity of a lifetime to walk my talk.”

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Lying there, I tried to move—but couldn’t. I tried to talk, but no sound came out. I was totally paralyzed.

Then I stopped breathing—the imminent death sentence.

Caught between life and death, my training instinctively emerged. Daily, I had practiced, as I now help my clients practice, spiritual and holistic healing principles. In that moment, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to walk my talk.

I had no movement, no voice, no breath. But I had everything I needed within me; I had my mind and my faith.

A short, powerful mantra that I used daily rushed forth. Still on the ground, motionless, breathless, I willed my body, emphatically: “I refuse to accept this limitation—God is my Source!”

Boom! What felt like a huge, pain-free lightning bolt coursed through me. I repeated, “I refuse to accept this limitation—God is my Source!”

A second bolt instantly went through me.

Miraculously, I regained my breath! My lifeless form had accepted the dance of my mind, body, and spirit.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) arrived after 17 minutes and transported me to Duke Medical Center. An ER doctor told me that my full paralysis was the result of my totally severed C2 neck vertebra and a very serious spinal cord injury, the same injury that the late Christopher Reeve had suffered. Soon, friends and family arrived. I told them, “This is temporary. See me dancing.”

The surgery to reconnect my C2 was successful. But I was still left a quadriplegic. Unbeknownst to me, my doctor, Robert E. Isaacs, Director of Spine Surgery at Duke, prepared a friend by telling her, “Don’t expect much improvement in Suzette’s condition.”

I knew the profound healing I desired was my responsibility from the inside out. I did affirmations, visualizations, and meditations. I also listened to CDs that bathed me with healing-sound frequencies.

When I awoke from surgery, I refused pain medicine. I experienced no pain. They said I would be in ICU for 7-10 days. I said I would be out in two, and I walked out two days later. They predicted my hospital stay would be three weeks, minimum. I said I’d be out in a week, and I was. Appearing perplexed, Dr. Isaacs said, “People like you don’t exist.” He explained that most people with severe spinal cord injury die at the scene, because they stop breathing. I had stopped breathing. He said even the surviving few who don’t stop breathing are left quadriplegic. Yet I walked out of the hospital.

My passion and belief in the teachings and tools that I had learned thus far along my spiritual journey directly influenced my outcome. In hindsight, it was my commitment to my spiritual deepening that literally saved my life and allowed for my unexpected healing. I’m grateful for my practice of having energy healings and going within to shift my old programming, limited thinking, and emotional wounds. All these had raised my vibration; a vibration that magnetized me to my remarkable healing.

Within months, I was fully functioning: enjoying dancing, hiking, and yoga. I am blessed that I am living the emotional and physical freedom that mind, body, and spirit principles allow.

A year later, Dr. Isaacs wrote, “Considering Suzette’s spinal cord damage, her results surpassed medical expectations. The rapidity and completeness of her improvement is more than would be comprehended. So I’m trying to make sense of it in my mind.”

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Suzette Faith Foster is a life coach, distance energy healing facilitator, transformational author and speaker. To read her full story and many other personal and client stories and to get inspired to delve deeper into your own spiritual journey, read Suzette’s book, Calling Back Your Power. Her Web site is Choose2Thrive.com.

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Image credit: Universal Mind by Alex Grey

From NBCNews.com. By Alan Boyle, science editor.

Astronomers have come out with a Horsehead Nebula of a different color to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 23rd birthday.

The iconic nebula in the constellation Orion, about 1,500 light-years away, can be seen even through small telescopes. In visible light, it's a dark dust cloud in the shape of a horse's head, silhouetted against a backdrop of glowing hydrogen gas. But the Horsehead takes on a completely different look in the new view released Friday.

"This image was taken in the infrared," Joe Liske, an astronomer from the European Southern Observatory, explains in a video introducing the picture. "In infrared light, we can pierce right through some of the bulky plumes of dusty material which usually mask and obscure the inner regions of the Horsehead. The result is this rather fragile-looking structure, made of delicate, wispy folds of gas — very different to the nebula's appearance in the visible."

The infrared glow, captured by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, lights up the nebula's clouds from within. Liske says it's "a fitting celebration of an incredible 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope."

...Like a veteran racehorse, Hubble is hitting its stride — but that hasn't always been the case. The first couple of years of operation were hampered by a flaw in the telescope's main mirror. Equipment to compensate for the problem was installed during a crucial series of spacewalks 20 years ago, in 1993. The shuttle Atlantis paid a final servicing visit to Hubble in 2009, and the telescope has been working just fine since then.

Hubble operations have been extended through 2016 — and if the telescope remains in good working order, it's likely to continue being funded at least until 2018, when the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch. Eventually, Hubble will have to be sent down to a fiery doom. But who knows? Maybe the old telescope will hang around to experience life after 30.

Photo credit: NASA / ESA / AURA / STScI — The Horsehead Nebula shines in a Hubble Space Telescope image that marks this month's 23rd anniversary of the orbiting observatory's launch.

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