Survival Strategies: 2009 – 2012
Part Two
Last month’s article on Survival Strategies was intended to shock those readers who were not already aware that a global depopulation directive is being imposed on the planet. Many readers contacted us expressing concern about their future, their children’s future, where are they going to get supplies of food and clean water and so on.
The world has never been a perfect place and many believe we choose the timing of our lives here on earth. If this is so, then you elected to be here for a purpose and it is not time to shrink from that purpose, whatever the outcome. We look to others to lead us, to do something before we do it. Unsure of ourselves we ask questions like “Has the product been tested?”, “Does it work?”, “Will this help me get better?“ What happened to finding out for yourself?
Some years ago I read a great little book: ‘The Gift of Fear’ by Gavin de Becker. The book is about violence in America and how to use your instincts to recognise the signs of danger when they appear. Unfortunately our response has been mostly conditioned out of us. What do you do if the new babysitter puts you on edge? What do you do if you think you’re being followed? What do you do if you’re about to get into a lift and the person already there just doesn’t look right? True fear is often the signal that can save your life. The question is: are you listening or noticing the body signals?
How did you develop that instinct to walk? By trying it out and falling over lots of times in the process. How did you develop that instinct to ride a bike? By falling off many times. Yet at school when we give the wrong answer to a question we are often laughed at by the rest of the class or scolded by the teacher (mediocre teachers, not good ones!). As a result our instincts change and we wait for someone else to answer first. We are looking for someone else to lead us. What has happened? We’ve shut down our response mechanism; curbed our instincts and stifled our initiative. If and when they surface and we get that ‘gut feeling’ about something, our mind persuades us to suppress it just in case it gets us into trouble again.
About the same time I was reading this book, I drove with Phylipa and two of the children from Ojai in Southern California to Mammoth, a ski resort in Northern California, a journey of about 6 hours. A few hours into the trip the children had fallen asleep and Phylipa was dozing in the front seat beside me. The road was undulating, mostly through desert and there were few other cars around. As we started up an incline, I felt a strong instinct to slow down. I didn’t know what it was but moved from a centre lane to the inside lane, slowing down to 50 mph. Phylipa noticed the change in speed, opened her eyes, couldn’t see anything near us and asked me why I had done that. Where my reply came from I had no idea, but I said “because there’s a speed trap over the hill.” I couldn’t even see over the hill, yet as we reached the summit and could see down the hill, sure enough, there was a Highway Patrol car waiting in the lay-by for targets.
The moral of this is that if you do get spontaneous messages from your body (they come from your body not your mind), listen to them because they are there for a reason and you may not get a second chance. This isn’t about starting again from scratch – after all you already anticipate the movements of traffic and pedestrians every day.
Gavin de Becker spent many years in the security business looking after film celebrities and rock stars. His experience taught him about the positive or negative responses in people, why they responded in the way they did and the many patterns that evolved. When George Harrison died of cancer in November 2001 he was staying at Gavin’s house in Los Angeles. Good friends of ours in Scotland got in touch with Gavin to help them out when their daughter broke up with a boyfriend that wouldn’t take “No” for an answer and terrorised them for over a year, always staying just within the law.
People need to learn or re-learn this information because they get comfortable in their lives and don’t know what to do when something unusual challenges them. It is my understanding and belief that many people will be challenged in a variety of ways over the coming years. All they need is preparation and they will be ready.
A great exercise for getting in touch with your body senses comes from Craniosacral practitioner and author Hugh Milne’s “The Heart of Listening”. So my clothes wouldn’t make a difference, I either did it naked or wearing underwear only. If you can, do it every day until you get a ‘felt sense’ within.
Stand very peacefully. Take a few deep breaths and allow calmness to settle on you, entering alpha wave - the brain rhythm associated with wakeful relaxation. Focus your awareness on your feet. Turn your head to look to your left, and notice whether your weight distribution changes on either of your feet. Follow with a rotation of your head to the right, then come back to center and take a couple more relaxing breaths.
Now rotate your jaw only your jaw - to the left, being aware of the effect on your feet; repeat to the right side. Come back to center and pause.
Now move only your eyes to the left, noticing again how the weight distribution on your feet changes, then move your eyes to the right. Notice which direction causes the most weight transfer on to which part of which foot.
This exercise demonstrates an interconnectedness in movement
that has its roots in our savanna-living hominid ancestors of five million
years ago. For them, it was a matter of life or death that these movements were
synchronous: head turning, eyes seeing, jaw prepared to bite - all with feet
poised for fight or flight in the millisecond it would take to wheel their wiry
bodies around if startled by a noise to the rear. The eyes and neck are deeply
connected: the main evolutionary reason for the existence of the neck is to
give our eyes greater scope. All but one of the muscles that move the eyes
attach to the sphenoid, the central bone of the cranium. As the eyes begin to
move, the sphenoid and the whole body begin to respond. As an example, we
prognate (jut) our jaw when we are threatened or become aggressive, and the powerful
muscle with which we do this originates from the sphenoid.
This sequential test - which begins with the movement of a large body part and progresses through an intermediate part to a discrete but vital unit of function - shows how interconnected body motion, and emotion are, and how vital a pattern-setter the head, jaw, and eyes are for the whole body. This begins to explain the profound effects craniosacral work can have when a displaced or "jammed" sphenoid is corrected and returned to normal position and mobility. A balanced sphenoid can correct not just a headache or temporomandibular joint problem but also an internally rotated foot.
Also recommended:
1. Mother Earth News http://www.motherearthnews.com/ This website and newsletter provides good information on everything you may need to know – from growing food yourself to living off the grid.
2. Read how Tristram Stuart gets his food. At first I thought “Good for him, but that’s not for me!” We are however in interesting times so I’ll make a pledge that before the next newsletter I’ll try this at Sainsbury’s or Waitrose (I don’t like Tesco’s food!) and let you know how I got on.
3. Build a Rocket Stove (with many thanks to Anne in Glasgow)
If the price of gas and electricity is
getting you down, build a simple rocket stove and cook with twigs! It's
free and it's sustainable. Cooking with a rocket stove is
another big step towards freedom from extortionate energy bills and the
multinational giants ransacking our planet and our bank accounts. A
rocket stove can be used outside in the summer, on your terrace
or balcony, or indoors in the winter, hooked up to a chimney with a
hood. Because of the insulated interior, this stove gives off far less
smoke and carbon monoxide than a normal fire. Only when igniting and
putting out the fire is there really any smoke worth speaking of. This
simple design creates a strong air suction that makes the cooking flame very
intense with just a few twigs. Using bigger and more twigs gives a
stronger flame which will heat your pans faster than a gas hob. You can
reduce the flame by reducing the amount or size of the twigs.
Use the information and explanation video at http://rocketstoves.org You can download the Aprovecho Research Centre booklet 'Capturing Heat' that the video was based on here: http://rocketstoves.org/capturing_heat/pdf/capturing_heat.pdf
In it you
will find plans not only for a rocket stove like this one but also a passive
cooker heat box, 
a solar
cooker and a large bread oven.
Graeme Dinnen