Category Archives: Mind Building

Build a strong character

How bacteria can organize themselves

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Structural patterns can be created due to the chasing interactions between two bacterial species. In a new model, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) describe how interactions on the individual level can result in a global self-organization of species. Their findings provide insights into general mechanisms of collective behavior.

In a recent study, scientists from the department Living Matter Physics at MPI-DS developed a model describing communication pathways in bacterial populations. Bacteria show an overall organizational pattern by sensing the concentration of chemicals in their environment and adapting their motion.

The structure only becomes visible on a higher level

“We modeled the non-reciprocal interaction between two bacterial species,” first author Yu Duan explains. “This means that species A is chasing species B, whereas B is aiming to repel from A,” he continues. The researchers found, that just this chase-and-avoid interaction is sufficient to form a structural pattern. The type of the resulting pattern depends on the strength of the interaction. This complements a previous study, where a model was proposed that also included intraspecies interactions of the bacteria in order to form a pattern.

In this new model, which also includes the effect of bacterial motility, neither adhesion nor alignment are required to form complex super-structures encompassing millions of individuals. “Although the bacterial population dynamics show a global order, this is not the case on the individual bacterial level. In particular, a single bacterium seems to move in a disordered way, with the structure becoming visible only on a higher level, which is very fascinating,” summarizes Benoît Mahault, group leader in the department Living Matter Physics at MPI-DS.

A general model for collective behavior

The model also allows to consider more than two species, increasing the amount of possible interactions and emerging patterns. Notably, it is also not limited to bacteria but can be applied to a variety of collective behaviors. These include light-controlled microswimmers, social insects, animal groups and robotic swarms. The study therefore provides general insights on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of large-scale structures in networks with many components.

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Ginger pigment molecules found in fossil frogs

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Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) have found the first molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration, in the fossil record.

The new study reports the preservation of molecular fragments of the pigment phaeomelanin in 10-million-year-old frogs, adding molecular analysis to the palaeontologists’ arsenal when reconstructing the original colours of extinct organisms.

The study, published today in Nature Communications, was led by palaeontologists Dr Tiffany Slater and Prof. Maria McNamara of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences (BEES) and Environmental Research Institute (ERI). They worked with an international team of scientists at Fujita Health University (Japan), Linyi University (China) and Lund University (Sweden).

Dr Slater said:

“This finding is so exciting because it puts palaeontologists in a better place to detect different melanin pigments in many more fossils.

“This will paint a more accurate picture of ancient animal colour and will answer important questions about the evolution of colours in animals. Scientists still don’t know how — or why — phaeomelanin evolved because it is toxic to animals, but the fossil record might just unlock the mystery.”

The team performed rigorous laboratory experiments on black, ginger, and white feathers to track how phaeomelanin pigments degrade during the fossilisation process, which backs up their interpretations of the fossil chemistry.

Prof. McNamara, senior author on the study, said,

“Fossils are invariably altered by the ravages of heat and pressure during burial, but that doesn’t mean that we lose all original biomolecular information. Our fossilization experiments were the key to understanding the chemistry of the fossils, and prove that traces of biomolecules can survive being cooked during the fossilization process.

“There is huge potential to explore the biochemical evolution of animals using the fossil record, when we account for chemical changes during fossilization.”

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Pulsars may make dark matter glow

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The central question in the ongoing hunt for dark matter is: what is it made of? One possible answer is that dark matter consists of particles known as axions. A team of astrophysicists, led by researchers from the universities of Amsterdam and Princeton, has now shown that if dark matter consists of axions, it may reveal itself in the form of a subtle additional glow coming from pulsating stars.

Dark matter may be the most sought-for constituent of our universe. Surprisingly, this mysterious form of matter, that physicist and astronomers so far have not been able to detect, is assumed to make up an enormous part of what is out there. No less than 85% of matter in the universe is suspected to be ‘dark’, presently only noticeable through the gravitational pull it exerts on other astronomical objects. Understandably, scientists want more. They want to really see dark matter — or at the very least, detect its presence directly, not just infer it from gravitational effects. And, of course: they want to know what it is.

Cleaning up two problems

One thing is clear: dark matter cannot be the same type of matter that you and I are made of. If that were to be the case, dark matter would simply behave like ordinary matter — it would form objects like stars, light up, and no longer be ‘dark’. Scientists are therefore looking for something new — a type of particle that nobody has detected yet, and that probably only interacts very weakly with the types of particles that we know, explaining why this constituent of our world so far has remained elusive.

There are plenty of clues for where to look. One popular assumption is that dark matter could be made of axions. This hypothetical type of particle was first introduced in the 1970s to resolve a problem that had nothing to do with dark matter. The separation of positive and negative charges inside the neutron, one of the building blocks of ordinary atoms, turned out to be unexpectedly small. Scientists of course wanted to know why. It turned out that the presence of a hitherto undetected type of particle, interacting very weakly with the neutron’s constituents, could cause exactly such an effect. The later Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek came up with a name for the new particle: axion — not just similar to other particle names like proton, neutron, electron and photon, but also inspired by a laundry detergent of the same name. The axion was there to clean up a problem.

In fact, despite never being detected, it might clean up two. Several theories for elementary particles, including string theory, one of the leading candidate theories to unify all forces in nature, appeared to predict that axion-like particles could exist. If axions were indeed out there, could they also constitute part or even all of the missing dark matter? Perhaps, but an additional question that haunted all dark matter research was just as valid for axions: if so, then how can we see them? How does one make something ‘dark’ visible?

Shining a light on dark matter

Fortunately, it seems that for axions there may be a way out of this conundrum. If the theories that predict axions are correct, they are not only expected to be mass-produced in the universe, but some axions could also be converted into light in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields. Once there is light, we can see. Could this be the key to detect axions — and therefore to detect dark matter?

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To answer that question, scientists first had to ask themselves where in the universe the strongest known electric and magnetic fields occur. The answer is: in regions surrounding rotating neutron stars also known as pulsars. These pulsars — short for ‘pulsating stars’ — are dense objects, with a mass roughly the same as that of our Sun, but a radius that is around 100,000 times smaller, only about 10 km. Being so small, pulsars spin with enormous frequencies, emitting bright narrow beams of radio emission along their axis of rotation. Similar to a lighthouse, the pulsar’s beams can sweep across the Earth, making the pulsating star easily observable.

However, the pulsar’s enormous spin does more. It turns the neutron star into an extremely strong electromagnet. That, in turn, could mean that pulsars are very efficient axion factories. Every single second an average pulsar would be capable of producing a 50-digit number of axions. Because of the strong electromagnetic field around the pulsar, a fraction of these axions could convert into observable light. That is: if axions exist at all — but the mechanism can now be used to answer just that question. Just look at pulsars, see if they emit extra light, and if they do, determine whether this extra light could be coming from axions.

Simulating a subtle glow

As always in science, actually performing such an observation is of course not that simple. The light emitted by axions — detectable in the form of radio waves — would only be a small fraction of the total light that these bright cosmic lighthouses send our way. One needs to know very precisely what a pulsar without axions would look like, and what a pulsar with axions would look like, to be able to see the difference — let alone to quantify that difference and turn it into a measurement of an amount of dark matter.

This is exactly what a team of physicists and astronomers have now done. In a collaborative effort between the Netherlands, Portugal and the USA, the team has constructed a comprehensive theoretical framework which allows for the detailed understanding of how axions are produced, how axions escape the gravitational pull of the neutron star, and how, during their escape, they convert into low energy radio radiation.

The theoretical results were then put on a computer to model the production of axions around pulsars, using state-of-the-art numerical plasma simulations that were originally developed to understand the physics behind how pulsars emit radio waves. Once virtually produced, the propagation of the axions through the electromagnetic fields of the neutron star was simulated. This allowed the researchers to quantitatively understand the subsequent production of radio waves and model how this process would provide an additional radio signal on top of the intrinsic emission generated from the pulsar itself.

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Putting axion models to a test

The results from theory and simulation were then put to a first observational test. Using observations from 27 nearby pulsars, the researchers compared the observed radio waves to the models, to see if any measured excess could provide evidence for the existence of axions. Unfortunately, the answer was ‘no’ — or perhaps more optimistically: ‘not yet’. Axions do not immediately jump out to us, but perhaps that was not to be expected. If dark matter were to give up its secrets that easily, it would already have been observed a long time ago.

The hope for a smoking-gun detection of axions, therefore, is now on future observations. Meanwhile, the current non-observation of radio signals from axions is an interesting result in itself. The first comparison between simulations and actual pulsars has placed the strongest limits to date on the interaction that axions can have with light.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to do more than just set limits — it is to either show that axions are out there, or to make sure that it is extremely unlikely that axions are a constituent of dark matter at all. The new results are just a first step in that direction; they are only the beginning of what could become an entirely new and highly cross-disciplinary field that has the potential to dramatically advance the search for axions.

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Researchers create a neural network for genomics — one that explains how it achieves accurate predictions

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A team of New York University computer scientists has created a neural network that can explain how it reaches its predictions. The work reveals what accounts for the functionality of neural networks — the engines that drive artificial intelligence and machine learning — thereby illuminating a process that has largely been concealed from users.

The breakthrough centers on a specific usage of neural networks that has become popular in recent years — tackling challenging biological questions. Among these are examinations of the intricacies of RNA splicing — the focal point of the study — which plays a role in transferring information from DNA to functional RNA and protein products.

“Many neural networks are black boxes — these algorithms cannot explain how they work, raising concerns about their trustworthiness and stifling progress into understanding the underlying biological processes of genome encoding,” says Oded Regev, a computer science professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “By harnessing a new approach that improves both the quantity and the quality of the data for machine-learning training, we designed an interpretable neural network that can accurately predict complex outcomes and explain how it arrives at its predictions.”

Regev and the paper’s other authors, Susan Liao, a faculty fellow at the Courant Institute, and Mukund Sudarshan, a Courant doctoral student at the time of the study, created a neural network based on what is already known about RNA splicing.

Specifically, they developed a model — the data-driven equivalent of a high-powered microscope — that allows scientists to trace and quantify the RNA splicing process, from input sequence to output splicing prediction.

“Using an ‘interpretable-by-design’ approach, we’ve developed a neural network model that provides insights into RNA splicing — a fundamental process in the transfer of genomic information,” notes Regev. “Our model revealed that a small, hairpin-like structure in RNA can decrease splicing.”

The researchers confirmed the insights their model provides through a series of experiments. These results showed a match with the model’s discovery: Whenever the RNA molecule folded into a hairpin configuration, splicing was halted, and the moment the researchers disrupted this hairpin structure, splicing was restored.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (MCB-2226731), the Simons Foundation, the Life Sciences Research Foundation, an Additional Ventures Career Development Award, and a PhRMA Fellowship.

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Error to open pubs not schools, Covid inquiry told

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The ex-children’s commissioner in England says most senior officials did not put children first.

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How is the ADHD medication shortage in the UK affecting people?

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People with the condition say they face uncertain times as their supplies run out or run low.

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‘Long colds’ are a thing, like long Covid say experts

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Common ‘long cold’ symptoms people reported include a cough, stomach pain, and diarrhoea.

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Concern over severe food allergy prescriptions

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Only 60% of people needing hospital treatment for allergy reactions were prescribed EpiPens, data shows.

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Strep A: University of Bristol study to aid hopes of vaccine

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It is hoped the study will aid the development of a vaccine against the infection.

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The Power of Spirit – Join the Event

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This post is an invitation for you on multiple levels. First, there’s the human-level invitation, which you’ll get by reading the words here. I’m hosting a live event on Zoom this weekend called The Power of Spirit, and I invite you to join us for it. It will be 3 hours each day, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time on October 7 and 8, 2023.

The second level of this invitation is the spirit level. I’m writing this invitation while feeling very tuned in (thanks in part to a minidose of magic mushrooms this morning). As I’m writing, I can also feel some of the energy of the upcoming event flowing through. So as you read these words and reflect on whether to attend, see if you can perceive the spirit level of this invitation coming through as well. You may feel it on an emotional or intuitive level if you’re sensitive to that. See if you notice a perceptible shift in your energy by the time you get to the end.

Intention & Purpose

Here are four primary reasons that you may want to attend the Power of Spirit event.

  1. Take a Spirit-Level Break – This weekend offers you the opportunity to take the weekend off from your human-level challenges. Elevate your perspective back to the spirit level for a while, and reflect upon your human journey with more self-compassion and understanding. Discover how and why you find yourself in your current situation, and gain clarity about what to focus on next. Afterwards you can return to the matrix of your human life with a new sense of purpose, perhaps regarding your old problems as not so daunting anymore.
  2. Make a Transition – Are you facing a potential transition such as shifting the kind of work you do, pondering leaving a relationship, changing up your social circle, moving to a new place, or adopting a different lifestyle? Devote this weekend to looking at your life from the perspective of your spirit-level purpose. Participate in the Fire and Water Ceremonies to help you release the misaligned and cleanse your human energy matrix, so you can embody your best self going forward and fully embrace the transition that’s ready to emerge. Attending this call could be your way of saying to reality, “Yes, I’m ready. It’s time.”
  3. Upgrade to a Spirit-Centric Life – Perhaps you feel called to embrace and embody a richer, fuller, more spirit-centric life while still in human form. One friend called this a “pre-ascension” phase. If you sense that this may be part of your path, I invite you to join us for the Power of Spirit, immerse yourself in spirit-level connection and practice, and see if it feels like home to you. Use this experience to gain clarity regarding how to take the next steps. I’m happy to answer your questions about what it’s like and how to keep progressing too.
  4. Immerse Yourself in Spirit Space – Initially I had only identified the three previous reasons, but this fourth one popped into my mind just now, which is that you may attend because you love being invited to immerse yourself in spirit space with like-minded, like-hearted, and like-spirited people. Join us in a space where you get to attend as the real YOU, and connect with others who want to immerse themselves in a similar kind of energy bath for the spirit. I love connecting in this way too, so I’m right there with you. 😁

Topics

Here are some of the topics we might cover during the experience. I share this list not as a promise of exactly what we’ll include, nor as an exhaustive list, but as a list of suggestive possibilities with a reasonable likelihood of coming up during the experience. On the live calls, I’ll be going with the flow of inspiration and guidance as it comes through. I’ll also have some notes for key ideas that I consider very likely to be included. I’ll share this list of some ideas that have been coming up for me lately, which I interpret as a reasonably good sign that many (but probably not all) of these topics will be woven into the experience:

  • Giving your mind what it needs to flex into spirit space, explore, experience, and discover without pre-rejecting possibilities (a very likely starting point for the first call)
  • Identifying and releasing blocks and filters that limit you
  • Using spirit-level insights and practices to generate practical human-level results
  • The role of trust when communicating with spirit
  • Connecting with the energy of your home and possessions
  • Spirit-level bonding (with people, places, possessions, your work, etc)
  • Connecting with your higher self
  • Embodying your higher self
  • Connecting and conversing with departed/deceased human-spirits, including people you knew while they were alive as well as people you didn’t personally know
  • Gaining access to spirit-level insights
  • How to upgrade your spirit-level access to connect in more varied ways, experience clearer connections, and unlock communication that you were previously blocked from accessing
  • Inviting spirit-level assistance for your human-level problems and challenges
  • Insights from the spirit side about what the afterlife is really like
  • Death and what it feels like to transition back to spirit
  • What a human-spirit experiences after death, including the adjustment process
  • How psychedelics can be used to open or enhance spirit-level connections
  • What spirit space is like according to various spirits who’ve been willing to share the details, including former humans
  • How spirits regard humans and our human lives
  • Spirit-level perspectives on why the most challenging aspects of human life exist (like war, disease, imprisonment, etc)
  • The nature of spirit time and how it differs from human time
  • What spirits can and can’t see from their end
  • Bonding with spirit-level allies and helpers
  • Building goodwill on the spirit side
  • Using spirit-level communication to heal problematic relationships, both with living and deceased people

So it’s going to be spirit-level awesome. 😉

Note that we’ll have open Q&A at the end of each call, so whether we cover a given topic during the main part of the calls or not, you’re welcome to ask about anything from the list above or any related spirit-level topics too to ensure that we address what interests you most.

Vibes

Vibe-wise I want to make this a really beautiful, engaging, lively, and welcoming experience for those who choose to attend. Let’s bring lots of warmth, compassion, connectedness, heart energy, and spirit energy to the gathering. I also want to share concepts, ideas, and insights in ways that can satisfy the mind too, so you can build useful mental models for interfacing with life and reality through the spirit level.

I think I’m uniquely well-suited to communicating across these different levels since I have a background in computer science and mathematics, including being a computer game developer for 10 years, and I was also in a previous relationship with a pro psychic medium (Erin Pavlina) for 15 years. I’ve also done a fair amount of psychedelics in the past few years (especially during the past four months) to connect more deeply with different modes of experience, including ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, and MDMA.

One of my most powerful drives is that I’m intensely curious. I love to explore and learn about life and reality through direct, hands-on experimentation. I enjoy forming and testing different mental models of how reality might work, so I can discover what new possibilities may open up. I consider it much riskier to miss out on opportunities by succumbing to limiting assumptions than to make a mistake by stretching too far. When I go too far, life knocks me back, and I accept the lesson. But I’ve often been surprised when I test for a wall and discover that the wall was just a mirage. I’m reminded of this quote that I have posted on the wall in my home office:

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Suffice it to say that I have quite a collection of beards that I’ve yanked off over the years.

Journey

While I’ll do my best to offer you frames and mental models to help soothe and satisfy your mental side, I won’t be playing the role of spirit-level apologist on this call. I’ll get you warmed up first, and then we’ll go on a full-throttle ride through spirit space, delivered shamelessly from that perspective. I want this to be a powerful and immersive experience for those who’d find such a journey appealing.

The easy part is that no belief in any spiritual philosophy is needed. I invite you to approach these calls as from an experiential standpoint. Join us for the ride and see what it’s like. Afterwards you can analyze the heck out of it, reflect upon what it all means to you, and decide what practices and ideas you’d like to test more extensively. I’d like to show you where I think the most interesting gold can be found.

I’ll do my best to really tune in to spirit space throughout this experience. As I did during the Spirit of Money call last month, I’ll be minidosing with magic mushrooms on both days (a few hours before each call), which helps me open up and be more receptive to spirit-level inspiration and communication. I know that the shroom energy network will be open to us and very happy to assist us (just as they assisted me in writing this invitation today). I’m also going to channel some info and insights from my higher self; I’ve been very attuned to him since my first solo MDMA journey a few weeks ago. And on top of that, I’m pretty sure some helpful former humans will want to come through and share with us as well since they’ve been popping in quite a lot recently. We can even do some extra Q&A with them, and I’ll channel their responses for you. So there will be lots of different spirit-level energies coming through to be shared with you during these calls.

I also think the experience will be a lot of fun. Minidosing tends to relax my filters, which affects how I communicate. So don’t be surprised if I swear more than usual during these calls, much like I did on the Spirit of Money call. I’m not swearing at anyone; it’s just that my self-censoring is mostly switched off, so when I feel the flow of ideas more intensely, they naturally flow into more intense language. You might find that aspect amusing if you’re not used to seeing me in that mode.

I feel better prepared for this call in terms of respecting just how intense the group energy can be when connecting at this level. I had a lot of help during the Spirit of Money call to shield me from much of that energy, so I could focus on sharing the messages and guiding the flow of the experience. If I were to permit that energy to hit me full blast while I’m so open and sensitive, I’d be overcome with emotion and wouldn’t be able to talk very well. I’d be swept up in the intensity of emotional energy that some people are working through, especially when certain truths and inner realizations may hit them like a ton of bricks. Sometimes I like to let some of that energy come through in small bursts because it helps me feel more connected to what people are experiencing. I invited that to happen a few times during the last call but still not at full intensity. I don’t mind being knocked off balance by this energy sometimes, but then I need to return to being shielded, so I can stay centered in sharing what wants to come through. Otherwise I’ll just want to sit and sob with everyone who’s intensely feeling whatever they’re releasing. Just know that I respect that this type of experience can be emotionally deep, powerful, and intense for some people, and my role is to stay with the flow of what the spirit-level energies want to share with you.

I sense that this will be a very deep, rich, and meaningful experience for you if you’re open to it. On these two calls, we’re not focusing on any specific human-level transformations. The core invitation here is to elevate yourself to a level of beingness at which many different kinds of transformations become accessible, especially those involving releasing or transitioning.

Details

To have this experience together, we’ll connect on Zoom during these times:

  • Saturday October 7, 2023 – 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM+ Pacific Time
  • Sunday October 8, 2023 – 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM+ Pacific Time

The call will be done Zoom meeting style, so you’ll be able to see everyone else who shares their webcams (as opposed to webinar style). This makes the experience feel more more social, open, and connected for those who like being visually present for it. You’re welcome to attend with your webcam on or off, or switch it up as you see fit.

You’ll get the recordings of both calls too (audio and video versions, streamable and downloadable). We’ll have those published within a few days after the live calls are complete, and we’ll email you when they’re ready.

After you sign up, you’ll get the link to register for our weekend Zoom calls, and you’ll also get access to the web portal where the call recordings will be published.

I include the plus sign (+) after the end time for each day since we may go a bit beyond 1:00 PM, especially if there’s a lot of Q&A or if I feel guided to share some extra insights at the end. It’s totally fine if you need to leave earlier. Remember that everything will be recorded, so you can always watch or rewatch the recordings later.

I do think that if you’re able to stay till the end of each day, you may find that we settle into a really lovely (even cozy) energy where it just feels so relaxed and delightful to connect and share with each other. It’s like the energy of the experience helps to synchronize us so nicely and beautifully. I loved how that happened on the Spirit of Money call. I really don’t mind hanging out with everyone a bit longer if it feels aligned to keep going. Holding this kind of energy space for so many people can be challenging though, so at some point I do need to call it complete and rest. I think you’ll find the experience pretty generous time-wise though. I’m sure it will give you a LOT to reflect upon and integrate.

Both calls will involve introspective inner journeys. We’ll have open text chat for connecting with others from the community throughout the call and for commenting as we go. And please feel free to crack jokes along the way if you want since I always enjoy reading those afterwards. We’ll have some interactive experiential exercises and ceremonial aspects too. All of the social aspects are optional, so we won’t be doing any breakout rooms or anything like that. I think you’ll find the format very introvert-friendly.

Please bring your most open and receptive self to the call, not your social mask. Wear whatever feels real and true for you on the days of the calls.

Price – $88

As with the previous call, I feel like the price was chosen for me at the spirit level. This time the number 88 came through very clearly, and I intuitively knew it was supposed to be $88. I didn’t immediately grasp why until I reflected upon it afterwards.

The number 88 is two infinity signs, which seems appropriate for exploring the space of infinity infinities. It’s also considered a power number in numerology, and we’ll be working with some powerful energies together. In Ham radio 88 is used to transmit a message of “hugs” or “hugs and kisses.” And in the Back to the Future movies, 88 miles per hour is the speed that initiates time travel, which seems perfect for connecting with the timeless aspects of spirit. So $88 it is.

It’s the same price to attend live and/or for access to the recordings. While I personally feel it’s best to have the experience live if you can, I’ve heard from others who watched the previous Spirit of Money recordings after they missed the live calls, and they still found it very powerful for them. So I anticipate that the energy and connectedness of the experience will still come through very well on the recorded version.

You may also appreciate having the recordings, especially of the Fire and Water Ceremonies (described below), so you can use them to guide you through the experiences again when you feel the time is right, such as when you’re facing another big life-changing decision or transition.

Fire Ceremony (Saturday)

On Saturday as part of the experience (not during the first hour but deeper into the call), I’ll guide you through a special Fire Ceremony to invite you to burn off and release misaligned patterns from your life. We’ll be working on this at the spirit level together, including through human-level symbolic actions that I’ll invite you to take.

To prepare for this ceremony, I encourage you to bring something to Saturday’s call that symbolizes fire or heat. Here are some examples of what you might bring and/or use during the Fire Ceremony:

  • Candle(s)
  • Fireplace
  • Oil burner
  • Incense
  • Warm cozy clothes to wear, especially with warm colors like red, orange, or yellow
  • Warm snuggle blankets (also with warm colors if you have them)
  • Dragons (images, figurines, stuffed animals, etc)
  • Images or videos of fire such as an bonfire, fireplace, volcano, lava (physical or digital photos, device wallpaper, YouTube videos, etc); consider streaming a fireplace video on your TV
  • Small quantity of hot or spicy food like something with jalapeño peppers, cayenne pepper, or wasabi powder (to create a hot or burning sensation in your body or even to induce some sweating)
  • Take a small amount of niacin (aka vitamin B-3) – the flushing kind (not the non-flushing kind) to induce a niacin flush if you want to feel the sensation of burning off old energies more physically in your body – see my note on this below for more detailed tips if you want to include this
  • Hot water, coffee, or tea to drink, especially with warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, or cloves
  • If you have colored lights in your room, set them to red, orange, fire effects, or a warm palette
  • Turn up the heat or set up a space heater to make the room feel a little warmer
  • Sit in direct sunlight (careful not to overdo it)
  • Anything that represents fire, warmth, heat, or burning to you (be sensible, not reckless)

I’ll give you plenty of time to set things up, so all you need to do in advance of the first call is to consider what you might want to have available to you, and optionally pre-gather it in your space. There will be plenty of time to gather items during the call as well, so how much advance consideration you give this is up to you.

Please do what feels intuitively right to you, and don’t do anything dangerous or risky. Create a space of warmth and fire energy in which you can feel safe and comfortable releasing old energy patterns that you’re finally ready to let go of. For some people a single candle is plenty. Others may prefer to create a more immersive environment with multiple symbols of fire energy. And some may prefer to feel the sensation more intensely in their body, such as by eating spicy foods or by doing the niacin flush described below.

Here’s my note about niacin: Niacin, also known as Vitamin B-3, is a natural substance made by the body and also found in food. In supplemental form it comes in flushing or non-flushing varieties. The flushing kind causes what’s called a niacin flush if you take enough of it. I’ve taken this most days for the past several weeks, especially with lion’s mane mushroom (not a psychedelic mushroom). Niacin temporarily increases blood flow to the skin and extremities by opening up the capillaries. It can create a burning sensation and itchiness for a while, mainly on the surface of the skin. For me it usually kicks in about 20-50 minutes after I take it, and then it feels like I have a sunburn for about 20 minutes (usually felt in my ears, neck, and face first and then progressing downward through the rest of the body). It also turns my skin reddish for a while (maybe 30 minutes). Afterwards I may feel some mild itchiness for a short time. I typically take 100mg or 150mg, which is plenty to get the flushing effect. If I want a stronger effect, I might take 200mg or 300mg. A “serving size” for the niacin supplement I have is 500mg, but I’ve never gone that high before. I put the powdered form in my own capsules with lion’s mane, but it can also be mixed into a liquid like hot water or tea. I will likely take some niacin shortly before our Fire Ceremony, so I can feel the burning effect as part of the experience and channel the sensation of fire energy more viscerally. If you want to incorporate a niacin flush into your Fire Ceremony as well, that’s your choice and your responsibility for how it goes since I’m not your doctor or health advisor. It’s very optional, and I’d say it’s probably best for people who are already familiar with it and know what to expect from it. Otherwise you can just as easily lean on my channeling that part of the experience on your behalf, so you don’t have to join me in looking like a lobster for a while. If there are others who want to do this together though, we can team up to collectively hold the burn for the benefit of everyone else.

I’ll guide us through a collective version of the Fire Ceremony, which I expect will be very powerful and perhaps a bit playful too, but each of us will be implementing the physical details in our own unique ways, doing what feels intuitively right.

In this ceremony we’re holding a collective container that invites you to create a meaningful event to mark your transition from your old reality to your new one. Please bring whatever you feel is the right level of respect and reverence with you into this space, commensurate with the value you place upon your intentions and the meaning you’d like this experience to hold for you.

Releasing misaligned energies is not easy work. Sometimes it can be intense and emotional. Sometimes old patterns don’t go quietly, even when they know their time is up. I’ve done a lot of releasing work over the past few weeks, and I’ve been surprised at just how much of a cobweb each new releasing step can be. When I pull out one misaligned thought or feeling, others often come to the surface to be released next. On the other side is usually a great deal of lightness and relief, but the path to get there can be pretty involved.

Water Ceremony (Sunday)

On Sunday we’ll be incorporating water energy for our Water Ceremony. The purpose here is to cleanse and purify your human energy matrix. This may involve the sensation of healing as well, including potentially recovering from the previous day’s releasing activities. Think of this energy as gentle and soothing, like a very nice form of self-care to conclude our journey together on a high note.

I encourage you to bring to this ceremony something that symbolizes water or cleansing. Here are some examples of what you might bring to the Water Ceremony:

  • Glass, cup, or bottle of water (to drink)
  • Bowl of water with a sponge and/or towel (for rinsing or wiping your body)
  • Electric fountain
  • Rain, storm, stream, or ocean sounds playing in the background
  • Images or videos of water such as ocean waves, a lake, a stream, or a waterfall (physical or digital photos, device wallpaper, etc)
  • Anything blue, aqua or with cool colors
  • If you have colored lights in your room, set them to blue or a cool palette
  • Wear cool-colored clothing or anything with images of water
  • Take a shower or bath before the call
  • Wet your hair
  • Use a nearby sink to rinse or wash your hands or face as part of your ceremony
  • If it’s accessible for you, you may choose to sit near a pool, aquarium, fountain, pond, lake, ocean, or any form of water
  • Natural rain (if you happen to be in a rainy place during the experience)

Create a space that feels intuitively right for you, so you can symbolically work with the energy of water to cleanse and purify your own energy. I’ll guide you through the process of creating your individual version of our collective Water Ceremony, just as with the Fire Ceremony on the previous day.

If you have a label maker or the ability to create stickers, you may want to create some positive labels to put on your water bottle such as love, peace, cleansing, purity, joy, etc. Then whenever you take a sip, you can imagine those energies flowing throughout your body and helping every cell to align with them. I recently put “pure love” labels on most of the water sources in my house (on the water pipes below each sink, the showers, the water main, etc). Even if you think the only benefit would be the placebo effect, that’s still a real and measurable effect.

Performing symbolic physical actions with spirit-level intentionality communicates a powerful message to the spirit level of life, which can powerfully shift your human-level experience as well. When partaking of these ceremonies, do your best to focus on your intentions while performing the physical actions, such that your energy, your actions, and our collective energy and actions are positively aligned.

Join Us!

Now I invite you to sign up and join us for the Power of Spirit event this weekend, which is coming up very soon. If you’d like to participate live or get access to the recordings (or both), just fill out and submit the sign-up form, and you’ll get what you need to be a part of the experience.

I anticipate that this will be a fun, lively, deep, rich, surprising, connected, beautiful, and sometimes intense experience. As we saw with the recent Spirit of Money call, there’s a solid possibility that this Power of Spirit experience could shift your life in ways you wouldn’t predict. Please do your best to show up with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and possibility, and let me and the various spirit energies take you on a fascinating ride through spirit space.

Is this for you? Trust your intuition! I hope to see you this weekend. 😁🍄

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