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Inside this IssueIssue 2718 Competition - Making Everyone the EnemyThe unhealthy nature of competitive behaviour.20 Globalization vs ProtectionismAnother alternative to the new world ordereconomy?22 Nutrition vs AntiretroviralsOrthomolecular approach - What the research shows.24 Opening Pandora’s box - Nuclear Costs &ConsequencesMore evidence of the unsustainable nature ofnuclear power.30 Holy PowderThe wonders of Turmeric.36 Never say “It’s Just a Weed!”Those “weeds” in your garden can be highlybeneficial.48 Health MattersTopical issues affecting our well-being.50 Awakening The New PermacultureEconomyFixing our global economics requires a fundamentalshift in personal attitude.54 Travelling RawIf you are a “raw-foodie,” best prepare whentravelling.59 Ant’s CornerObservations & perspectives of Ant Borain.61 Message From SaLuSaInsight from a distant traveller.Plus! Special Offer on Page 35!Image: Photo.netCover: Photograph:©“Ladybug on Dandelion Field” by YellowJREGULARS02 Inbox10 Editorial11 The Biofiles14 Get Active17 Carrot Cruncher32 Green Directory34 Subscription & Back Issues40 Radioactive42 Sentience44 Thumbs-Up45 Thumbs-Down46 Green Growth48 Health Matters54 Travelling Raw56 Jena’s Hand in it All58 Meaningful Media60 From a Spiritual Perspective63 Cosmic DirectionsPrinted with lead-free inkson recycled paperMinimum 10% of profitsdonated to charityAboutBiophile is published every twomonths, in February, April, June,August, October and December.Please submit your adverts andarticles by the 10th day of themonth preceding publication.Mission StatementOur mission is to impartknowledge with truth andintegrity for the highest goodof all. Biophile is not affiliatedto any religious, political orphilosophical ideology ororganization. Our ethos is oneof co-operation and sharing. Wetherefore actively encourage youto reproduce and share theinformation in this magazine, butplease contact us first to confirmthe availability of the materialyou’d like to use.The Team:Editor: Anthea Torranthea@biophile.co.zaManaging Editor:Chris Lautenbachchris@biophile.co.zaAdvertising:Lindsay Mitchelllindsay@biophile.co.zawww.biophile.co.za/advertiseSubscriptions: Coral McCallumcoral@biophile.co.zawww.biophile.co.za/subscribeAssistants: Des du Plooy, ShahiedIshmail, Debbie Enslin, LawrenceKapyepyeContact usTel: (021) 709 0390Fax: (021) 709 0392Postal: Box 39277Capricorn Square 7948E-mail: inbox@biophile.co.zaVisit us online at:www.biophile.co.zaCopyLeftThis magazine has been freedby copyleft. Unless otherwisenoted, you are free to redistributethe content of this magazine ifyou clearly credit the author andsource.ISSN: 1813-1395DisclaimerNo guarantee is made concerningthe validity of the informationin this publication and noresponsibility will be acceptedfor any errors, omissions,or comments made by ourcontributors.

STARLETTERA Step in the RightDirection, BUT...Send your letters to inbox@biophile.co.zaor to Box 39277 Capricorn Square 7948It was with great pleasure that I presented a copy of The Enviropaediato South Africa’s President Kgalema Motlanthe recently and it was witheven greater pleasure that shortly thereafter I heard him making clearand unequivocal commitments to addressing the challenge of Climate Change. One might expect such committed words from aMinister of the Environment, but to hear this coming from the very top level of Government followed by similar commitmentsfrom three other Departmental Ministers - was deeply encouraging and I believe reflects a fundamental shift in the political willand response to the challenges of Climate Change.Unfortunately, I am missing out on one of the negotiation sessions at a Climate Change Summit hosted by the Departments ofEnvironmental Affairs and Tourism in collaboration with the Department of Science & Technology. From the outcomes of this 4 daySummit in Johannesburg, they intend to produce a detailed policy framework which will provide the foundation for creating agreen paper on a National Climate Change Policy.Whilst I am encouraged by the evident levels of scientific and political commitment, there are a couple of aspects that do concernme.Firstly, why, when this is a matter of such critical National importance, were only 600 delegates invited?Secondly, it seems to me that there is an elephant in the room that no-one is willing to look at. All the focus has been on findingscientific ways to address Climate Change - but no talk at all about addressing the value systems and culture of Consumerism thatare an underlying cause and key driver of Climate Change. Climate Change itself is only a symptom, a consequence of inappropriatepast behaviour. If we want to change this consequence, we need to change the mindset and values that drive inappropriatebehaviours. To my pleasant surprise I have found agreement with this perspective from a few other Delegates including a CSIRScientist - but the issue is just not up for formal debate right now.At this Summit, there is a clear call for each and every one of us to take whatever individual action we can - RIGHT NOW, so letme draw your attention to two particularly important initiatives that YOU can be part of right now.ONE: The environmental focus for this month is WATER. Due to Climate Change & Population Growth we are going to be verywater challenged into the future, so please use our water wisely to save every drop you can.TWO: WWF have asked us to support the EARTH HOUR initiative. What you need to do is to click on and sign up on www.earthhour.org.zaand your name will be added to a global petitionputting pressure on world leaders to pass appropriatelegislation on Climate Change.Then you can join the millions around the world who at8.30 pm on 28th March will turn their lights out for 1hour.Last year, the effect of 2.2 million people and over 2100businesses turning their lights out for Earth Hour wasequal to 48000 cars being off the road for a year. Whilstthis collective action is therefore of significant benefit toour planet, I will turn my lights out primarily in order tosupport a growing world community of environmentallyenlightened individuals who are taking responsibility andaction to protect and preserve our planet.image: meditations71.comKgalema MotlantheYours eco-logicallyDavidBiophile 27• Page 2

Firstly let me thank you for the lovely inspirational article inthe latest Biophile.I am living on the farm (started by my husband 12 yearsago) for 5 years now. Before then I was a consumer; notaware and not in tune with my world. Now I am a “creator”and a full time student of nature. I have realised that I getvery impatient with “guests” who insult us in a way forliving the way we do. Not wanting TV, mobie reception andhow could you quit your office job to live in a place like this…. What if you get sick or robbed?!? We are taking smallsteps at a time to become more environmentally friendly.Currently I am experimenting with various options onusing no more chemicals and using local organic productseg. Enchantrix, Bloublommetjie & Earthsap.We have been generating our own electricity for the past 8years with hydro & solar. Farming responsibly with “alien”The InboxMaking Changes...- trout and practicing low impact tourism. I sometimesfeel lost. Being part of a Conservancy and working 7 day’sa week for our farm sometimes gets you down. Especiallyif you do not see the results you want ... or perhaps whatothers want.You must have come a long way yourself to have writtensuch a touching, motivational article. I admire you ... I wastruly moved by this and sorry that it was only 3 pages long!Warm regardsNaomiNaomi can be contacted at: troutlodge@ifrica.comor tel: 044 7523140www.outeniquatrout.co.zaThis murderingDangerous Despot Mad Bobgovernment ishiding this storyand not allowingagencies into certainareas. I haverented vehicles toan organisationwho are tryingto help and theyare restrictedin movement asthe Governmentcontinues its desireto kill 5 000 000people. You thinkthat is not true? Ifthey are allowedimage: flickr.comto continue, theywill meet their target. If you do not support the party, you mustdie. Life means nothing to them. They have killed and tortured sooften that is a way of life. We do not have oil, and other thingsthe rest of the world wants but have a 90% opposition who isfighting for democracy and human rights, but as we have foundout, these things are political crap and no body really believesin them. The people of Zimbabwe will continue to die and therest of the world will watch. More Zimbabwean will die than inthe holocaust. People around the world went crazy to opposeApartied in SA. What hypocrites. Now a black party behavesten times worse than any white South African government and allthose hypocrites remain silent.Pip.Mugabe’s Murderous InsanityContinues...Whales are stranding themselves not because theyno longer are needed to anchor light on the planet,but because US Navy testing in their habitat hasdamaged their sonar capability.The influence of the departed dark forces on theirweak-willed puppets on the planet is responsiblefor the “national security” testing and the slaughterof whales for “scientific” purposes. However,even when the cetaceans, who species-wide are themost spiritually and intellectually evolved souls onEarth, physically die, they have agreed that theirenergy will remain and continue to anchor thelight being beamed from distant civilizations.StruanWhale Mailimage: abc.net.auBeached Humpback WhaleBiophile 27 • Page 3

The InboxNot So Complacent...I would like to comment on the article “Thecost of complaisance,” written by E.TanayM.D.I find this article completely un-balanced,un-informed and rather ignorant of theREALITY of the situation. My transformationprocess has involved taking fullresponsibility for “my side of the street”and growing in awareness of this I am thengraced with a choice of making better andmore healthy decisions for my higher good,recovery and evolution. This for myself is/was not a passive process and often-timesa “warrior” like spirit is needed for me towage war on those parts of myself /ego thatare destructive rather than constructive.In other words as in the teaching of JesusChrist “came with a flaming sword” to cutmyself / people from their illusions andattachments. The reason is that these lieskeep us from truth and peace.In this process there are common blocksfor everyone. The biggest and one of thefirst is DENIAL and then her three henchmen:Blaming , Rationalising and Justification.This article is one sided and blaming;therefore not very aware, but another rightwingSKY FOX news armchair past-it whoseems to be fast asleep to the reality ofwho is doing “The Rampaging” across theworld.Let us take a few points from recent historyto create a counter point to Mr Tanay.The United States and the UK invaded Iraqunder the guise of Democracy and Weaponsof Mass Distruction.If we take a look at the Political Economyof Media in the UK and the US since 2001,the misinformation, fabricating of evidenceand lies that were fed to both populationsand the rest of the world (through unconstitutionalinternational media control) wasoutrageous and real enough for Tony Blairto resign as Prime Minister in 2008, withwidespread outrage across the US.Democracy exists based on the premise thatthe country is ruled by popular vote, withthe role of media in modern times to informthe public in order to make their decisionsand hold the Governments accountable.However, the media has degeneratedover 20 years into a mouth piece for largemulti-national commercial interests and thecongruent government actions i.e.: privatebenefit at social cost. Let us not forgetthe infamous farcical election that broughtBush Jnr. to office in the first place. In conclusion,it is safe to say that with very littlereal information, infringement on personalliberties, freedoms and privacy, democracy;true democracy, informed democracy doesnot exist. Western democracy is a farce.Misinformation = farcical votes = farcicaldemocracy.On the count of weapons of mass destructionin Iraq, it is widely known that this wascomplete misinformation and fabrication.In fact a brief investigation of the use ofDepleted Uranium Weapons in the Balkansin the early 90’s, Operation Desert Storm,Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation EnduringFreedom as well as in Afghanistanclearly reveal a far more sinister picture of“rampaging.”. In fact it was acknowledgedlast year by the European Parliament afterover 15 years of activism that these lowlevel radiation weapons are in fact responsiblefor exponential increases in cancers,birth defects and other radiation sickness.Furthermore, the amount of such weaponsused in these wars is enough to constitutea disaster for tens if not hundreds of thousandsof Iraqis, Kuwaitis, Serbs as well asUS, UK and other armed forces.This humanitarian human-rights disaster isone of many committed by Western governmentsof which the majority of the Westernpublic is not aware, due to the mediastructure mentioned above. I do not thinkthat, had the Western public been aware,they would have voted for this strategy ofleaving the gulf with a long lasting longactingTrojan horse of low level radiationwhich cannot be stopped after conflict andcannot distinguish between woman, childand combatant. Hence the only weaponsof mass destruction in Iraq were the one’sthat the Allied forces used in their invasion.This War in Iraq and the use of aboveweapons breaches the Geneva Conventionon several counts and constitutes George WBush and Tony Blair being held accountablefor War crimes against Humanity.This closer look at “one of 50 shootingwars” across the globe serves to demonstratethe entire premise for war was false.The type of war, its failure and for many afar worse scenario than before (with exceptionof all the corporate interest that profited,including the Military complex thatsucks more than half the US Fed budgetwhile the majority of Americans of colorhave no Health Care) also highlight this.Let us look at Conflict #2 recently. InJanuary 2009 as Georgian forces laid siegeto South Ossetia, Russian forces naturallywith a security threat on the bordermoved troops in to remove the Georgianoccupation. The Western media machineportrayed as a bully, unjust, reckless andpower hungry Russia needlessly invadinghelpless neighbours. This was receivedby many without question as the truthhowever, the troops from Georgia thatinvaded South Ossetia were actually a UStrained special security unit which was partof the controversial US missile defencesystem deal with Georgia dating back to2005. This US military installation onRussia’s border has been a huge block inUS/Russian relations since inception andwas seen by many as a provocative moveby the Bush administration, never-mind theUS trained forces invading Ossetia. Onceagain in conclusion, when the investigationgoes further and broader something closerto a true picture is revealed. The Russianswere not the “rampaging force” here.In terms of Mr Tannay’s comment of“fanatics who teach their young to kill andbecome suicide bombers”, I am aware ofthese training camps as I am aware of thesize of the US military Complex. Furthermore,as the case with the FARC inColumbia who were trained by the US as“Freedom Fighters”, today because theyhave out-lived the US’s political agendathey are now listed “ Terrorists”. Another,example and one not covered by Westernmedia is how the Mujahedeen, Taliban, AlQaeda fighting groups were all originallytrained by the CIA in the conflict againstthe Soviet Union. These are just two moreexamples that questions the root of all evilbeing “The Radical Muslims.”Let us look at conflict # 3. Israel’s recentinvasion of Palestine also constitutes WarCrimes against Humanity. The justificationto the World: indiscriminate Rocketattacks from Hamas into Israel. However,the rocket attacks were in retaliation to theOccupation of the West Bank and Israelisettlements and the supplies blockade.Already this blockade reveals human rightsabuses and failure to recognise a democraticallyelected party. Furthermore, asBiophile 27• Page 4

The InboxDepleted Uranium was used first by theIsraelis in the 70’s , familiar with the tacticsthey decided on White Phosphorous as thechemical weapon of choice to maximizecasualties in the densely populated areasof Gaza. Of course close relations withthe US reveal similar tactics in terms of asmuch media misinformation as possiblewith no Western media allowed to cover the“rampaging”.Possible Conflict 3 & 4: The world is nowfaced with being sold the idea of co-signingan invasion of Iran under the same illusionof mass destruction and democracy. HA!The West has almost been duped again underthe same thin veils. However, against afar more formidable force and witha more united Arab front due tothe “rampaging” of Israel,UK and the US. Furthermore,despite warnings from all sides (includingRussia) that Afghanistan is goingto pose far worse a problem than Iraq, USrhetoric and actions preclude the inevitable.Further “rampaging”, further destruction.As if the above mediaargument was notenough, we havebeen draggedinto a financialmelt-down dueto the inherentgreed, corruption,dishonesty,deception of thesame corporateelites thatorchestrated theabove in a blindpanic to create adiversion fromthe grim realityof the Godlessbeast they created- Pseudo colonialinsatiablecapitalist beast.In fact, such wasthe engineeredignorance of their misdeeds that individualslike Tanay still think that this is to do withsome “rampaging Muslims”.The social fabric of America is eroding byorchestrated over-consumption (for whichthe whole world is paying the price.) Withapprox. 35% of kids older than 10 in theUS on prescription drugs supporting afarcical, superficial psychiatric industry of$330 billion that does not provide a solutionto anything, even killing an estimated42 000 people per year. The levels of drugaddiction and other disorders are rampantas a reflection of the dis-ease for whichgovernments and corporate interests arelargely responsible. “The Rampagers” areour own, here in the West.Mr Emanuel Tanay M.D stating that radicalMuslims particularly pursue and killChristians is most untrue and excuse theassumption here that you are ignorant ofthe fact all Muslims, radical and moderate,have to accept Jesus Christ and many, manyothers as prophets of GOD as a precept ofIslam. This comment I find to be inexcusableas you are falsely assuming the prejudiceof Muslims against Christians. Whenin fact by your article you reveal your ownprejudice, that can only stem from fear andignorance (choosing to ignore).MY eyes were filled with tears onChristmas morning as Mr MahmoudAhmadinejad’s when I heardhis greeting to followers ofChrist and the UK.Here are selectedexcerpts, youcan find“Fox, Sky &the usualsuspects.”the full message http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5394734.ece“All Prophets called for the worship ofGod, for love and brotherhood, for theestablishment of justice and for love in humansociety. Jesus, the Son of Mary, is thestandard-bearer of justice, of love for ourfellow human beings, of the fight againsttyranny, discrimination and injustice.If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedlyHe would stand with the people in oppositionto bullying, ill-tempered and expansionistpowers.If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedlyHe would hoist the banner of justice andlove for humanity to oppose warmongers,occupiers, terrorists and bullies the worldover.If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedlyHe would fight against the tyrannicalpolicies of prevailing global economic andpolitical systems, as He did in His lifetime.The solution to today’s problems is a returnto the call of the divine Prophets.”This message resonated with me on thedeepest level because I feel the same wayas a follower of the mystical teachings ofJesus Christ and not the Christian religion.Interestingly the Koran means “distinguishingthe true from the false”, which is notfar from Jesus’ “flaming sword” and keyto all transformation. Without uncoveringthe truth in our reflection in the mirror thereis no transformation in our window on theworld and one may choose to ignore andremain a slave, with no freedom and thereforeno peace. So perhaps we as “Westeners”should look at our own misdeeds,godlessness, failing values, failingsystems, deteriorating environment,uncontrollable youth, CorporateMASS THIEVERY, oppression,prejudices, ambitions, leaders,injustice, Grand Deception,oppression and Control. Lets uskeep our transformation basedon our side of the street and takeresponsibility before pointingthe finger at a people and nationsmost westerners have nevertaken the time to meet or bridge.As for the “talking” heads, donot flatter yourself. Nobody caresabout making you feel better andfurthermore your comment “thestatement that most Muslimswant to live in peace is entirelyirrelevant” sums up the WesternRampagers’ attitude altogether.Their culture is rooted in disciplineand prayer and based on a system which isan alternative to the WEST. The latter doesnot look very strong around the foundationsso let us be careful not to set ourselves upeven furtherAs for you “who watch it all unfold” perhapsyou should look up the word “transformation”and switch from Fox, Sky andthe usual suspects.Rory HarrisonBiophile 27 • Page 5

A technologically advanced society inevitably leads to tonsof accumulating waste. Does anyone care about what happensto this waste? What becomes of the spent batteries?Is filling up landfills with toxins a now acceptable practice?Taking a look at everyday life – cameras, cellular phones,iPods, laptops, toys, pacemakers, hearing aids, handheldvideo games, remote controls, GPSs, hybrid cars, mobilebusinesses etc. – ensure that batteries make-up anintegral part of life. When the cellular phone is dead thenonly do we realise our dependence on battery power, asan alternate source of electricity. During the 2008 powerfailures we quickly realised our dependence on electricityand how useful batteries were. It provided and continuesto provide essential back-up electricity for telephones,fire alarms, homealarms,hospitals,motorizedgatesetc.The InboxTAKE CHARGE! - Recycle Your Batteriesinto the ground and enters the food chain. Batteries dohowever contain a range of metals (lead, nickel, mercury,cadmium) which can be reused as secondary raw material.Ni-Cd batteries, for instance can be reprocessed throughheat treatment where the cadmium and iron-nickel is recoveredand used for steel production. Most batteries canbe recycled and the basic materials reused. This is done toa limited extent probably due to it’s not reflecting in profitabilityof companies. However this will soon change withthe shift from single to triple bottom-line reporting, meaningthat companies are now going to be held accountablenot only for financial or profit reporting but also for theirsocial and environmental responsibility.The USA is a leader with lead recycling where morethan 90% of battery lead is recycled, versus 35% of glasscontainers, 62.5% of aluminium cans, and 69% of newspapers.South Africa is definitely lagging the world withrespect to recycling in general, as well as with recyclingbatteries. There are however a few ongoing projects inSouth Africa such as rechargeable batteries producedlocally are being recycled by Willard Batteries, Dixon Batteriesand First National Battery.Butdo westop tothink howmuch harm we are causingto the environment by constantly relying on batteries.Humankind is ever increasing its carbon footprint on theworld without realising the future impact it will have.It is necessary for us to understand the increasing implicationsthat arise from waste generation. This is a globalas well as a local problem. Globally only less than 2% ofsingle use or primary batteries are recycled and about 5%of rechargeable batteries are recycled. These are extremelysmall figures compared to the amount of batteriesmanufactured and sold.Landfills are common sites of disposal for batteries. Thisis potentially a serious problem. As time passes this maybecome harmful to the environment as its metal seepsThe South African Battery Manufacturers Association(SABMA) introduced a levy included in the price of batteriessold by manufacturers in an effort to improve thecollection of lead-acid or car batteries. To facilitate the collectionof batteries a deposit is levied on all locally manufacturedbatteries sold and a spent battery is accepted forevery new battery sold. Willard Batteries recycles up to97% of their batteries in SA and First National Battery recycles10 000 tons of lead a year. A concern of SA batterymanufacturers was that they are subjected to regulationsbut importers were not.The key to improving and encouraging recycling is toinform and alert the public to the future implications. Inanother initiative to improve recycling, Pick n Pay teamedup with Uniross to recycle rechargeable batteries. Thereare green boxes provided at stores such as Pick n Pay andStax, where the rechargeable batteries can be disposed.Pick n Pay also has an awareness campaign to encouragepeople to buy rechargeable batteries.As an active member of society with a responsibilityto future generations, we need to take the initiative tominimise dumping waste into landfills and look at trying tosave and nurture the environment.Pamela McIntyre-PillayBiophile 27• Page 6

The InboxBiophile 27 • Page 7

The InboxThe ‘iam” activitypresentsthe originalascended masterinstructionfrom the teachingsgiven inthe books of thesaint germainseries and inother materialreleased by saintgermain foundationand distributedworldwideby saint germainpress.The ‘i am” seriesof activity booksare now offeredin South africa!To order, or formore information,please call:021 785 5996Biophile 27• Page 8

The InboxGO GREEN Sunday Market LaunchIt’s a fascinating time to be alive. More and more of us are re-awakening to the impact our choices have on our wellbeingand the health of our planet. That said it’s a pretty fast paced life for many of us too. The challenge with initiatingand sustaining healthy habits is that it can take time – sourcing healthy foods, eco-friendly alternatives and preventativeholistic health options. The impression we get from many friends and family who are not particularly health or eco conscious,is that if it was easier to maintain a healthier greener life style, they would be keen to take steps. Even for thosepassionate about maintaining a healthy green lifestyle, it’s often involves some running around. With time such a prizedcommodity, the best of intentions often miss the reward of experiencing themselves take form in reality.Out of this frustration was born the vision for Go Green Markets - to create a one stop shop for every natural, organicand holistic need imaginable, enabling a healthy eco-conscious lifestyle to become hassle free, accessible and easilysustainable option. To create a fantastic shopping experience, offering something for everyone, from those keen totake the next step toward a healthier green lifestyle, to the seasoned health and eco buffs, to those simply craving anauthentic ambient market experience. A celebration of chemical-free, sustainable, eco-friendly, health optimizing options,from sumptuous foods, to luscious fresh produce to dry goods, cosmetics, body care, textiles, arts, crafts, music,kiddies activities, holistic wellness practices and more.April 5th 2009 sees the launch of our vibrant brand of Sunday market, eager to fan the flames of creatively increasingawareness and sharing knowledge.We are looking forward to working together to revolutionize green and health consciousness across the globe!Jason, Glen and Loren JosselsohnThe Go Green Markets Teamwww.go-greenmarkets.comimage: armonroeBiophile 27 • Page 9

The InboxThe Path to reconnection...Editorialhave just returned from Jothy (meaning ‘Light’I in Sanskrit and pronounced ‘Jody’) Body of`Light Retreat. (See www.pranashakty.org.) Andwhat it re-affirmed, in a very real way, as it issomething that I know and believe, and also see,more and more in my life, is that our thoughtscreate our world. . . 100%! The ‘grand finale’ ofthe weekend was the ‘Breaking of the Tile’, or the‘Not Breaking of the Light Bulb’! We were askedto bring 4 light bulbs (or globes) just the ordinary100 or 60-watt type. Natalia and I had such alaugh about these, as the poor fellow at the 7Eleven down the road, looked surprised and a littleconfused by the constant stream of people, alldressed in white, buying only light bulbs!The last morning we started with the usual, veryimportant exercises to activate our ‘chi’, ‘prana’ orwhat ever name is familiar or comfortable for youto call this energy, as that is what it is, and veryreal and tangible too - ‘God’, would be perfectlycorrect in my world. This is the energy thatbeats our heart and is closer than our hands andfeet, and completely responsive and intelligent,although until we reach a state of consciousnessthat surpasses our humanness, it appears verylinear and limited. We did physical and mentalexercises that balanced and activated our energycenters down our spines, and put us into a calm‘meditative’ state. We consciously brought inthe ‘Jothy’ or Light, and this started to become avery tangible experience and by this stage theseexercises were feeling friendly and familiar. Myown personal experience was the more I broughtin ‘The Light’ - Jothy, the more I felt my physical(and mental and emotional) body starting torespond and feel ‘different’! I must say that I havebeen working with ‘The Light’, and commanding itin (with gratitude and love!) for quite some timenow, but doing if for three days for long periodsof time each day, and surrounded by like minedpeople made the experience very intense andeven more real.We had now reached the time for the Light Bulbsto do their thing! We each carefully held one inour hands, as don’t forget they have a very thinglass surrounding the filament, and break easily.We were instructed to take the ‘Light’ - Jothy,from our hearts down our arms to the globe in thepalms of our hands, and to visualize and ‘feel’ thatthe globes were turning into heavy metal balls. Inthe middle of the room sheets of black plastic hadbeen laid down, and in the center was a single 20mm (and 6 mm thick - I know I measured it - sothey were good and solid!) ceramic tile supportedby 4 smaller tiles at the corners, so that it wasslightly elevated off the floor. After a short while,when we felt ready, and our ‘metal balls’ werefeeling good and heavy and ‘real’ we were askedto come up and drop them from waist height - agood meter for most of us - the glass part pointingdownward, directly onto the ceramic tile. If thealchemical process had been successful the tileswould shatter and break and the globe would stillbe perfect! My time came and I felt ready and theglobe felt heavy and clearly in my mind it was ametal ball, I walked up to the tile and dropped itand I heard a loud ‘CRACK’ as my metal ball hitthe tile, and sure enough the tile was broken intopieces and my little 60-watt globe was perfect! SoI knew that I had managed, by the power of my‘Light ‘- Jothy and my mind change that delicatelittle thing into a heavy metal ball!The experience made more concrete and realto me, that we have powers we can used mostpositively, that most of us are not even awareof, and certainly don’t practice very much. If wetake this further, and this is something that I haveread in more that one book, including all theancient books from the various religions, we canliterally change, regenerate and rejuvenate ourbodies, heal ourselves and each other instantly,manifest from the Universal Source - The DivineLight - Jothy - God, anything that we desire! Wecan do anything, we are infact “God’ in physicalform and the more we connect to the ‘God’ inourselves the more responsive it becomes! It wasclearly told to us by Jesus, that we could do whathe did and more! And please don’t get me wrong,I am not trying to push any religion - quite theopposite, as sadly most religions have taken the‘Ideal’ that these wonderful teachers brought tous and made the teachers themselves ‘Idols’ -far away, not reachable or tangible - and usuallyonly contactable through some other ‘human’being! We are often so busy and distractedwith worshipping the ‘Idol’ and doing what weare told we ought to be doing from the humanconduit, that we forget to practice and master theIdeal ways that they showed us. Some religionshave also been successful in making the InfiniteIntelligent Light - Jothy - God, stern, fierce, andjudgmental and again far away, usually on athrone in a place called ‘Heaven’! The Christianslove to tell their flocks that they are sinners -immediately disempowering and putting fear intothem, thereby closing down the direct connectionto Source via our minds and feelings.It appears that the KEY to these God-like abilitiesis through our MINDS and EMOTIONS, and thisis that we need to be BEHAVING and FEELINGcomplete UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and HARMONY24/7! Furthermore is it essential to BELIEVEthat we are all-powerful and that God - DivineLight - Jothy is within us all the time. As soon aswe go into FEAR mode of any kind we have lostit - and fear covers most things from gossiping,blaming, criticising, judging others, anger, povertyconsciousness or lack of any kind, includingLACK of CONTROL, fearful of doing somethingor going somewhere, - it is all NOT of our God-Selves, and merely from our Ego selves, which isactually an illusion, as we ARE only God having aphysical experience. These negative feelings andexperiences have to be gone through, transmuted,and transformed into fearlessness andBiophile 27• Page 10unconditional love. There are many extraordinaryand wonder-filled ways and means to gettingthere and as the saying goes, “all roads eventuallylead to Rome” (why Rome I’m not sure!)I have found personally a set of books thathave probably changed my life more than anyothers and slowly but surely (three steps up andtwo down - sometimes only one down!) I beenchanging my consciousness as I practice andpractice and practice more, to live accordingto the way of these Masters. The first book iscalled ‘Unveiled Mysteries’ and there are 20more from the Saint Germain Press. These bookshave changed my life so much that I decided tofly some in from America to make them moreeasily available here - just call the office if you areinterested.So our real challenge is to firstly to BELIEVE andKNOW that we have these powers and then tolive according to the way-showers, and which everone resonates with you is fine - Buddha, Jesus,Mohamed, Saint Germain, Swamiji Ramalinga,or any or all of the other Ascended beings thathave reached ‘God Realization’. It is also veryimportant to realize that negative thoughts andactions will create a negative world for us, as weknow that our thoughts make our world. We arelike magnets and attract the same as we are givingout. This is also where we have also been ledastray - as so often religions remove the elementof responsibility that is so essential for personalgrowth. A classic example here is the Christiansbelieving that Jesus died to ‘Save us’ from oursins! How can anyone save us from our discordantthoughts and actions, only WE can do the work,and change them - nobody is going to do it forus, and the sooner we get busy with it, wastingno more time the happier we will all be and theLIGHTER we will become - literally! We becomeless burdensome to ourselves firstly, as that iswhere the change starts, others, and our BelovedPlanet. Enjoy the journey and try to remain calm,happy, and harmonious NO MATTER WHAT comesyour way! See it as the gift that it is, to give youthe experience to grow into that Mastered Beingof Light that you are - you just forgot!!Anthea

The BiofilesNews & Views from around our WorldWorld’s Most Efficient Solar Panels?An Irish company, Surface Power,has launched what could be themost efficient solar hot water panelever produced. The new solar panelwas independently certified by TUVRhineland.Their tests verified that whencompared to other solar panels,Surface Power’s solar panel was inone case as much as 131% moreefficient in the morning and evening,and 76% more efficient at midday.The pectin from apple peels andextracts of apple juice appear toincrease the production of a chemicalassociated with protection fromcolon cancer, according to anew study conducted by Germanresearchers and published in thejournal Nutrition.Surface Power estimates that theproduct, which has undergone sixyears of development and testing,has the potential to reduce domesticand commercial hot water bills by upto 70%.-by Justin for MetaefficientApple Pectin Helps PreventColorectal CancerThe researchers fermented fecalslurry from healthy volunteers witheither apple pectin, apple juiceextract, or a combination of thetwo. They found that the concentrationsof a short chain fatty acid(SCFA) known as butyrate werehigher in the samples that hadbeen fermented with apple pectin.Concentrations of other SCFAs werealso elevated.“Butyrate not only serves as a majornutrient for the colon epithelia[lining] but is also thought to playan important role in the protectiveeffect of natural fiber againstcolorectal cancer,” the researcherswrote.- by: David GutierrezPellet Stoves vs. Wood Stoves: Which is Greener?Pellet stoves have become darlings of the green home heatingworld, in some ways; they’re more efficient and have fewerparticle emissions than their wood-burning stove brethren,but they aren’t a perfect solution. Many pellet stoves requireelectricity, taking them out of service when the power goesout, and pellets and other fuel can be hard to find in all areas.Supergluefrom Sea WormsBroken bone? Soon, you'll be able to have thebreak superglued back together, all thanks tosandcastle worms and biomimicry. Researchersat the University of Utah have been inspired bythe sea worms, who secrete their own naturalglue that they use to build underwater houses;the researchers have been able to copy andsynthesize the glue, and hope it can somedayreplace pins, screws and such in mendingbroken bones.The team of bioengineers is looking in to thepossibility of using the glue to repair injuries likeknees andother joints,shatteredfacialbones, witha specificfocus on(literally)gluing smallpieces backtogetheragain -- ifonly HumptyDumptyhad been solucky.Source:C.DunnTreehugger Photo: Keone on FlickrWood stoves, on the other hand, burn fuel that is plentiful,and can create heat without electricity. Newer stoves, too,have devices that cut way back on polluting emissions, makingthem much more efficient than stoves once were.- by Collin DunnPhoto: G-tastic-7 on FlickrBiophile 27 • Page 11

The BiofilesWhen it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mineisn’t a canary at all. It’s a purple finch.Snow geese, like theones shown here, arespending the wintermore than 200 milesfarther north thanthey used to in 1966.(Donald Metzner /Cornell Lab of Ornithologyvia AP)As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, thepurple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 milesfarther north than it used to.And it’s not alone.Global Warming Changing Birds’ HabitsAn Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found thatmore than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodgethat includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, arespending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did40 years ago.Dangerous Signs of NewEra of EugenicsThe era of pre-birth genetic screening of babies has commenced.Doctors at University College in London have produced what theycalled the “world’s first breast cancer gene-free baby” by screeninga baby for the BRCA1 gene, which they claim causes breastcancer.That announcement is saturated with so many medical myths,it’s difficult to know where to begin. For starters, the idea thatthe BRCA1 gene causes cancer is pure hogwash. There’s no suchthing as a gene that causes cancer by itself. The truth is that environmentalfactors such as exposure to cancer-causing chemicalsin foods, medicines, personal care products, pesticides or otherindustrial chemicals causes the expression of the cancer gene.Without all that toxic chemical exposure, the gene never getsexpressed in the first place.So now we havea new era being unleashed wherebabies bornwith the BRCA1 gene are going tobe considered“defective” while babies born withoutthe genewill be considered “superior.”The purple finch was the biggest northward mover. Its winteringgrounds are now more along the latitude of Milwaukee, Wis.,instead of Springfield, Mo.Bird ranges can expand and shift for many reasons, amongthem urban sprawl, deforestation and the supplemental dietprovided by backyard feeders. But researchers say the onlyexplanation for why so many birds over such a broad area arewintering in more northern locales is global warming.Over the 40 years covered by the study, the average Januarytemperature in the United States climbed by about 5 degreesFahrenheit. That warming was most pronounced in northernstates, which have already recorded an influx of more southernspecies and could see some northern species retreat intoCanada as ranges shift.“This is as close as science at this scale gets to proof,” saidGreg Butcher, the lead scientist on the study and the director ofbird conservation at the Audubon Society. “It is not what eachof these individual birds did. It is the wide diversity of birds thatsuggests it has something to do with temperature, rather thanecology.”- Associated PressMirror TreehouseMirrorSwedish design firm Tham & Videgard HanssonArkitekter have used the mirror concept to greateffect with this designer treehouse. Reflecting itssurroundings to minimize impact on the environment,it has taken woodland chic to the next level. Of course,the sophisticated exterior, mirrors the interior whichincludes a kitchen, sleeping area, living area and aterrace. Bathroom? Well, you are in the forest after all!- Eco-TThis isleading us into a dangerousnew mindset where babieswill be condemned assecond-class citizens fromthe moment they’re bornsimply because theycarry a gene that thecorrupt medical systemmistakenly believes is a causativefactor for some disease.- by Mike Adams,The Health RangerBiophile 27 • Page 13

Get Active!what YOU can Do...EnvironmentalJustice NetworkForumEstablished to servicethe common interestsof participating SouthAfrican non-governmentaland community-basedorganizations on mattersconcerning environmentaljustice and sustainabledevelopment.Tel: +27 (0)11 403 8978Fax: +27 (0)11 339 3859Web: www.ejnf.org.zaEarthlife AfricaA membershipdrivenorganization ofenvironmental and socialjustice activists, founded tomobilize civil society aroundenvironmental issues inrelation to people.Web: www.earthlife.org.zaBiowatchSouth African NGOpublicising, monitoringand researching issues ofbiological diversity,geneticengineering and sustainablelivelihoods.Tel: +27 0(21) 447 5939Email: biowatch@mweb.co.zaWeb: www.biowatch.org.zaCANE - Coalition AgainstNuclear Energy South AfricaA group of organisations,NGOs, EnvironmentalGroups, Communities andCitizens from all over SouthAfrica who are opposed toNuclear Energy as a powersource.Web: www.cane.org.zaThere is a new threat to African land rights, people andecosystems, parading as a corporate solution to ClimateChange. It is known as “Biochar”.Biochar essentially operates on the same principle asBiofuels, but claims that by developing massive treeplantations, converting the biomass to charcoal and thenburying part of it, this will sequester carbon in the soiland increase soil fertility. This is based on the principleof Terra Preta (“Black Earth”) from the Amazon, wheretraditional practices enhanced soil fertility by buryingcharcoal.The proponents claim that 1/10 of total global emissionscould be returned to the soil through biochar from organicresidues, and further 1/10 from plantation biochar.The argument has lots of high-profile supporters. But ifit sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This modelis likely to bring with it some critical problems.For example:“BIOCHAR?”- Over 500 million hectares of land would be requiredfor biomass plantations. Africa will be targeted for thesedevelopments.- The large scale burying of charcoal is completely differentfrom the small-scale indigenous Terra Preta process.- There is very little peer reviewed evidence to show that Biochar actually DOES sequester carbon.What peer reviewed work there is suggests it may actually RELEASE more carbon into the atmosphere.- On its own, biochar is useless. It needs combination with ammonium bicarbonate to make it intouseable fertilizer. This process is being patented. Claims that this going to help small farmers inAfrica are therefore nonsense.But lobbying for biochar has moved fast, and has been very effective at going under the radar. Thereare already proposals at UNCCD (Conference on Desertification) and UNFCCC (Climate Convention)for these to be solutions. 11 African governments have called for Biochar to be included incarbon trading systems.A sign-on statement from Civil Society Organisations is being circulated. If your organization wishesto support this declaration, or for questions or comments please send an e-mail containing the name ofyour organization and country to biochar_concerns@yahoo.co.ukTrees For Life Greenpeace SAFEAGETrees for Life is a community groupdedicated to re-vegetation and protectionof threatened bushland.www.treesforlife.org.au/Greenpeace is an international non-governmentalorganization for the protectionand conservation of the environment.www.greenpeace.org/international/ GBiophile 27• Page 14TAKE ACTION WITHEARTHLIFE AFRICAWho Is Earthlife Africa?Earthlife Africa (ELA) is a membershipdriven organization of environmental andsocial justice activists, founded to mobilizecivil society around environmental issuesin relation to people.What does Earthlife Africa do?Earthlife Africa’s main activities arecampaign related. This includes lobbyingand advocacy, building campaigns at communitylevel through sharing informationand skills, engaging with environmentalimpact assessments, engaging the media,and researching and producing informationmaterials.We work to promote ecologically soundalternatives, like renewable energy andefficiency, organic farming and adoptingthe ‘Zero Waste’ approach to industrial pollutionand waste management.FOR MORE INFO, OR TO JOIN EARTHLIFEAFRICA CAPE TOWN, PLEASE VISITwww.earthlife-ct.org.zaor call: 021 447 4912 orEmail: coordinator@earthlife-ct.org.zaSAFeAGE is an alliance of individuals and organizationssupporting a 5-year freeze on GeneticEngineering in South Africa.www.safeage.org/SAFEAGE IS A GM CONSUMER WATCHDOG

Get Active!what YOU can Do...Volunteer Wildfire ServicesThe Volunteer Wildfire Services is a group of about 120 men and women, from all walks of life, who assist with thecombating and extinguishing of wildfires. Over the past 10 years it has assisted the Table Mountain National Parkand surrounding areas with some of the wildest fires Cape Town has experienced. The VWS works closely with variousother organizations in wildfire management activities, including the Cape Town Fire & Emergency Services, CapeNature, Working on Fire, Titan Aviation, the SA Navy, and South Peninsula Municipality. For more info go to: www.capefires.com or call VWS Marketing Manager & Senior Communications Officer Adrian Marnewick on 083 658 7033.image: Adrian Marnewick From 21h00 18March 2009,the VolunteerWildfire Servicesfought the blazethat claimedvast tracts ofland on Devil’sPeak and nearRhodes Memorial.In conjunctionwith CapeTown Fire andEmergencyServices and theTable MountainNational Parkforces, VWS firefighters foughtrelentlesslythroughout thenight and earlymorning.US House and Senate bills to Kill all Organic FarmsFood Safety Modernization Act (HR 875): Criminalizationof Organic Farms.Bills are:House H.R. 875 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-875Senate S 425 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-425There is an enormous rush to get this into law withinthe next 2 weeks before people realize what is happening.Main backer and lobbyist is (guess who)Monsanto!This Bill will require organic farms to use specificfertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by thenewly formed agency to “make sure there is no dangerto the public food supply”.If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds willbe allowed, only Monsanto genetically altered seedsthat are now causing unexpected diseases in humans.Here is a short video on the subject:http://www.voteronpaul.com/newsDetail.php?Food-Safety-Modernization-Act-HR-875-Criminalizationof-Organic-Farms-222Lets get realfolks! This hasNOTHINGto do withfoodsafety.This isonlyaboutTOTALCON-TROL bythe feds inour lives.TransitionSouth AfricaEmpowering communitiesto responddifferently to energy,climate and financialcrises.Transition SA hostregular talks Tuesdayevenings atthe Josephine Millin Cape Town. Formore info, visit:http://transitionza.ning.com/Biophile 27 • Page 15

GETACTIVE!Dear fellow environmentalistThere is a limited amount of natural clean water available and we CANNOT MAKE MORE!This is not the kind of news one likes to read about and is definitely not something one wants to think about. However, the subjectof whether South Africa has enough potable water to sustain us all has been making headlines recently. After the blackouts wesuffered last year because of the electricity shortage, we need to prevent the same from happening with our water supply. Wemust urgently address the state of our rivers – the source of this limited resource.Our rivers are dying and some dams are under siege from a scourge called the blue-green algae. This bubbling goo flourishes inthe company of too many phosphates and nitrates in the water, producing toxins that can be dangerous to people and animals. Todate this scourge has affected approximately 35% of water in our storage dams!We have TOO LITTLE HEALTHY WATER to waste and pollute it!The Endangered Wildlife Trust’s newly launched Healthy Rivers Programme is working to keep our rivers alive and healthy. Theyhave their work cut out for them and need our help. Prof. Mike Muller (WITS University’s Graduate School of Public & DevelopmentManagement) commented on the state of our rivers: "... panic at the right time, and the right time is probably now". Indeedthe state of our rivers has become a state of emergency. Together we can be the solution.To support the Endangered Wildlife Trust in its new initiative, please visit us online at www.ewt.org.za.Biophile 27• Page 16

Confessionsof aConvertedCarrot Cruncherby Patricia Gly nPatricia Gly n is ana dv e n t u r e r, s p e a k e r an dw r i t e r .w w w .patriciaglyn.c o .zaNearly four years ago, in what often seemsto have been another life, I walked over 2000 kilometres from Durban to the VictoriaFalls. The expedition is well documentedand I have alluded to it previously inConfessions. So let us speak this timeabout the journey’s end. And the nextjourney’s beginning – since these areinvariably one and the same thing.After four and a half months’ trudgethrough sun, wind and rain; over rockyrise, hot tar and deep sand; despiteexhaustion, temper tantrums and betrayals,I finally took the last of my three millionsteps to The Falls. And I stood at thepoint I’d dreamed of for so long - the oily,black precipice overlooking the world’smost wondrous cascade. Sobbing andshuddering I tossed the four shells I’dcarried all the way from the sea into thefoaming water of the Zambezi River.What I didn’t know, then, was that thosetalismans rushed downstream as scouts formy next quest– and that they held secretsthat I’d best not know for a while. Andwhat I didn’t notice, then, was that I wasstanding at a position on the cliff which, inhindsight, was most appropriately named:“Danger Point.”Recently I returned there. I was invitedto speak about my walk for a corporateaudience at a hotel on the Zambian sideof the Vic Falls. After the presentation,and with time in hand before catching myflight home, I walked across the border, intoZimbabwe and back to Danger Point. Theembankment that had been crisp and khakiwhen I arrived there on foot in mid-winterwas now pliable and verdant. At low water,the last time, the tumbling curtain hadarrayed itself before me without reticence.Now, frogs and crickets competed with thecacophony of the spume – spume so thickthat I only occasionally got a glimpse of thewater. Clarity, confusion, clarity, confusion.Like growth. Like life.But as to the secrets my shells had carriedaway down the river, there was now noconfusion at all. The new journey that hademerged at Danger Point had turned outto be as unpopular as the walk had beenpopular. And I had signed up for a battlewhich would be unwinnable – at least in mylifetime. The journey is into veganism. Andthe war is against speciesism*.Deciding to forgo eating animals and all theother ‘forgoings’ involved in my attemptsat a compassionate life proved to be quiteeasy. Once I’d seen the horrific images ofhow they died in abattoirs, laboratories,hunts and ritual killings, it did not takemuch self-control to stop putting them intomy mouth and using them on my skin andin my kitchen.But telling people about that decision hasled me into territory that was far scarierthan anything I’d encountered in Big FiveBotswana. Day after day my audiencesdrown me in waves of shock, anger, guiltand denial. And rather than take a long,hard look at what they’re perpetrating, theywrite me off as sentimental, misinformed,extremist or completely mad.Well, the pariah path is now well-troddenand I’m familiar with its gulleys and dongas.But what I have yet to accept in the deepestparts of my being, is that my nearest anddearest, my kith and kin (with the exceptionof my mother and sister), care not a jotfor the suffering and abuse of billions ofsentient beings with whom they share theplanet. They know what’s going on now –they’ve seen my show – and their crueltyTHE RETURNand indifference leaves me incredulous andoften in great pain. Elizabeth Costello, thecharacter in J M Coetzee’s wonderful book“The Lives of Animals” says it thus:“I seem to move around perfectly easilyamong people, to have perfectly normalrelations with them. Is it possible, I askmyself, that all of them are participants ina crime of stupefying proportions? Am Ifantasizing it all? I must be mad! Yet everyday I see the evidences. The very peopleI suspect produce the evidence, exhibitit, offer it to me. Corpses. Fragments ofcorpses that they have bought for money.”Yes, the secrets that the shells carried werethose of a monumental, horrifying blight atthe centre of our so-called civilization thatI would no longer be allowed to ignore.But I would have to accept that the vastmajority of humankind was not going toshare my epiphany. Worse, I would have toaccept that animals’ agony was not going toameliorate, let alone end, before I’ve takenthe last step of this new journey – indeedof my life.I thought about these things as I stood,once again, at an ending that wasbeginning. And I decided that the newestjourney would be one into even greatercompassion – in particular compassion forpeople who, for reasons which only theyknow, are happy to support and condonethis outrageous conduct. No doubt, thiswas to be the hardest trek of them all.I took a small stone from the cliff, wrappedit in my anger, pain and frustration, andhurled it into the water with all my might.On the stroll back into Zambia, I stood in along queue at the Zimbabwe border post.The woman in front of me wore a blue Tshirt, plain save for the words:“What now?”* Speciesism is the (somewhat awkward)term coined for the prejudice inherent inplacing the interests of our human speciesabove those of others. Similarly, thepractice of according some non-humananimals greater value or rights than others– for instance, deeming an elephant moreworthy of conservation and comfort thana pig.Biophile 27 • Page 17

“When I have no favourites and no positions to defend, the outcome of anysituation will be in the best interests of everyone.” - Brahma KumarisCOMPETITION -Making everyone the enemy!by Anthea TorrTHERE CAN NEVER BE TRUEPEACE, HARMONY AND CONTENT-MENT IN AN ATMOSPHERE OFCOMPETITION.Peace is when we are at One witheverything else, when we see only thebest in people and recognize their InnerGodliness and love. When in competitionor duality we cannot achieve permanentpeace, as the opposing energieswill always result in imbalances. Peaceis within us and comes from makingspiritual progress, when we can acceptthat we are all part of the whole andequally loved in the eyes of the DivineCreator. In reality no one is any betterthan another, but simply at differentstages on their journey through theCosmos, and as soon as we get into thehabit of seeing the ‘God’ in everyoneelse, we will achieve peace in ourselves.This will then reflect in our outer world,and we will have peace on Earth. We willlearn to stop the continual chatter inour minds of judgment and criticism, ofourselves first and foremost and then ofeveryone else around us.With competition comes the habits thatare ingrained in us from very early childhood,as we are encouraged to be betterthan the next person, always strivingto achieve acceptance, recognition andgratification outside of ourselves fromour parents, siblings, friends, schoolteachers, work acquaintances etc. Wesimply CANNOT be at peace with thesethoughts and feelings running throughout busy minds. Winning becomes soimportant and all consuming; particularlythose whose consciousness is suchthat their self-esteem is linked to howthey think others perceive them. TheChildren are especially at risk here, asthe majority of them are locked intothe extremely competitive schoolingsystem. They are inherently honest,pure, and unadulterated, but the systemengulfs them so fast, that these God-likequalities are gone in a very short time. Iwatch within my own family, as the raceis on to win at table-tennis for instance,and how precious little children canturn into aggressive monsters or tearfulfrustrated heaps, and the devastation ontheir little faces when they lose! Theydon’t concentrate on bettering theirskills for their own sake, they do it tobeat their opposition, be it their siblingsor friends, and if they are having fun andtake it lightly it’s a bonus. It appears toBiophile 27• Page 18

e all about winning - and cheating is notfrowned upon either it seems!! Somepeople argue that we are ‘born’ withthe desire to ‘win’ and duality consciousness.I once read the story of howBritish Missionaries who went to ‘teach’the Aborigines in Australia found it verydifficult to get the children to ‘learn’that one side had to win in the footballgames. The children had not been exposedto this type of competitive winningand would play until both sides reachedthe same goals.It is another means of keeping us pinnedin the ‘separatist’ consciousness, somethingthat pervades the very foundationsof our Earthly Culture. It’s destructioncreeps far and wide and the inherentgoodwill in all of us, is eroded in therace to win and outdo our fellow men.As materialism and industrialization gainmomentum, the Divine Connection toSource, all life, and Ourselves seemsto dwindle, and we see ourselves asseparate and alone. The modern man,unconsciously and consciously often seesnot only his business rivals as his competition,but also his partner, siblings,neighbours and friends in the same light.Business is all about WINNING against thecompetitors! Advertising and Marketingare all about ‘pushing your brand’and there are degrees in such subjects!Very rarely do we help each other with agenuine desire to better the predicamentof our fellow brother/sisters. It is usuallyconditional, and certainly is not somethingfound in our modern day materialistic‘dog eat dog’ world. I find even inmy own business, this challenge comesup for me. People may come for adviseor wanting to know something that hastaken us years to figure out, and I cansometimes ‘sense’ that the lower egowill creep in and I may have the thoughtof ‘the opposition’. I immediately workwith this, as it is purely my ego and fearbased thinking that gets me into this. Ido my best to share whatever I can, nomatter who they are - my philosophy beingif it is good and of integrity it shouldbe out there.We compete at home, at work, at school,in sports, and in virtually every aspect ofour lives! Parents can’t wait to boast oftheir children’s accomplishments, schoolsare judged by their academic or sportingachievements, as they push the childrenharder and harder to achieve higher andhigher averages. In some schools teachersare sometimes given bonuses accordingto the pass rates of their classes“Competitionis one ofthe mostdestructiveelementsof anyrelationship...“- and to what end? Very little recognitionis given to kindness, sharing, patience,tolerance, acceptance, differences andemotional IQ - the intellectual IQ is muchmore important.Margaret Mead’s study of the ‘Cooperationand Competition Among PrimitivePeoples’ shows that the pockets of tribalpeople left that live in harmony, peaceand co-operation, exemplify the answersto many of our troubles on Earthright now. Such societies are the CongoPygmies, Kalahari Bushmen, AustralianAborigines, The Blackfoot Indians, IsraeliKibbutz, Kikuku from Kenya, Rural Mexicansand the Waoranis of the Amazon.They would never trash the planet, asthey know it is their home, part of them,and every bit as alive and consciousas themselves. The Studies showedclearly that the rural children in allcultures observed were more cooperativein conflict-of-interest situationsthat require mutual assistance. Competitivesocieties also tend to hurrytheir children towards adulthood andthere is a remarkable correlation insocieties whose cultures are drivenby competitiveness and a deep dividebetween the ‘have’s’ and the ‘havenots’.This seems to fit in with thecultures where the distribution ofwealth is vastly unequal and competitionis great, leading to possessivenessand hoarding.This also debunks the generally acceptedbelief that for achievement their needsto be competition. What are we actuallyachieving? It seems the majority ofpeople are in a comatose state when itcomes to spirituality and the necessityto re-program their mental and emotionalbodies. They are so busy with the dayto day grind of keeping up their materialisticroundabouts that they simply payno attention to how they are behavingor feeling most of the time, and whathurt or devastation is being caused totheir families and others close to themon their journey. Further studies of competitionby psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim,show clearly that ‘aggression islearnt’ mostly in a state of competition.Athletes were found to become more aggressiveover the course of a season, asthe heat of the competition built up!Competition is one of the most destructiveelements of any relationship, asthe other party becomes the enemy. Nomatter how subtle, it is still there andwhy are we on this planet other thanto grow more Godly and loving towardseach other? We can’t do this in a stateof competition. So it is time to changesurely? One of the first places we shouldstart is in our schools - their very foundationsare based on competition. As soonas we begin to realize that all peopleare born with many different talents andpreferences and we step more into thespace of peaceful allowing - instead offorced learning, mainly parrot- fashion,perhaps we would find the children happierto learn at school. Getting the olderstudents to teach the younger ones someof the time seems to be an interestingconcept but is very rarely seen inour schools. It encourages cooperation,patience, tolerance, and compassion -attributes that would serve us all greatly.If there is no greed or fear, there is noneed for competition! Modern man, inhis race to accumulate more and more atthe expense of his habitat, his peace, hishealth and his love for his fellow men,is now suffering the consequences. Hisdomination, detachment over nature,and his disconnection from his ownGodliness, his fellow humans, animalsand to virtually all of life, simply cannotmanifest a life of peace and happiness,the two just do not go together.References: “No Contest - The CaseAgainst Competition” - By Alfie KohnBiophile 27 • Page 19

Globalization vs Protectionism:Could the answer be SIMPOL!As the shock of the global credit crunch subsides,the next phase inevitably kicks-in: steeply risingunemployment and growing domestic political pressurefor a return to protectionism. As the global economichangover hits home, the world’s nations, like a bunch ofrecalcitrant teenagers, sink into their morose, self-centredprotectionist sulks.But is greater protectionism – each nation for itself -the answer, or should free trade and open markets bemaintained? That’s the question facing governments,trade unions and citizens alike - or so they think. Butanswers to the financial crisis, as well as to globalwarming, poverty and many other global problems donot lie in changing the mode of trade. That’s becauseprotectionism and free trade are equally flawed andequally contradictory. Neither offers the answer.The problem with free trade is that the free movementof capital forces nations to compete destructively toattract footloose global investors, resulting in a race tothe bottom as each nation competitively de-regulatesand dismantles environmental and social safety nets. Andit is that competitive de-regulation, we now realise, thatfuelled the financial recklessness and risk-taking whichled to the global financial crisis in the first place. Littlewonder that over the last twenty years of de-regulationthe rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and climatechange was left to run rampant.It’s been clear for some time that free trade has reachedits limit. Years of failure to reach agreement in the Doharound of WTO trade liberalisation talks have shownthat already. But reverting to protectionism is not theanswer. For that simply unleashes a competitive, beggarthy-neighbourraising of retaliatory tariff barriers, antidumpingsuits or other more subtle forms of trade oremployment discrimination. Protectionism only raisesinternational tensions and, as many astute commentatorshave noted: where goods are prevented from crossingborders, armies soon will. Moreover, when it comes toprotectionist policies, almost no government is beyondreproach, so any government complaining or litigatingagainst others only risks looking hypocritical.The problem with both free trade and protectionism, then,is that they’re both predicated on the same unsustainablepremise: on an underlying state of destructivecompetition between nations; on a vicious circle no nationby John Bunzlcan escape. The answer lies not in competitive freetradenor in competitive protectionism but in somethingquite different: in co-operation. It lies not in the modeof international trade but in changing the mode ofinternationalpolitics.The hangover the world’s teenager-nations suffer is,for the first time ever, global. That’s why fiscal stimuluspolicies carried out on a nation-by-nation basis won’t beeffective, as Gordon Brown repeatedly points out. EvenChina, once thought to be the undisputed winner in theglobal economy, suddenly finds growth faltering andthousands out of work as global demand for its exportschokes off. Unlike the 1930s, no nation is immune and weare all in this together. We live in a global world and onlyglobal solutions will do. So, like it or not, nothing shortof global governance can cure simultaneous nationalhangovers. All the while the global economy remainsriddled with conflicting interests, undermined by taxhavens and dogged by the ability of corporations and therich to avoid paying taxes, traditional national governancecannot hope to solve our problems.We should remember that the emergence of nationalmarket economies in the 17/18th century producedsimilar national hangovers: periodic recessions, bankruns and adverse social and environmental fall-out. Noneof that is new. So how were those problems overcome?By crisis! That fall-out eventually drove each nationalsociety to demand its government to regulate its growingdomestic market. When they did, the problems werelargely solved. The fall-out we see globally today is nodifferent – and neither is the solution. Global problemswill soon become so dire that governments will eventuallybe forced to regulate transnationally. So Gordon Brownand Barack Obama are absolutely right to call forinternational policy co-ordination. But given the currentframework of competitive international relations and thefact that governments, economists, business-people andtrade unionists are all still asking themselves the wrong“free-trade vs. protectionism” question, politicians haven’tthe slightest clue how to achieve it.Some of you may fear that global governance meansyet another level of distant, burdensome governmentbureaucracy, or that our national identities will be lost, orthat national governments will lose their freedom to act.But it is the very lack of cooperation between nations -the lack of a seamless global regulatory regime – thatBiophile 27• Page 20

caused this crisis in the first place and is now preventingnations from acting adequately to halt it. Far from limitingnational freedom of action, co-ordinated policy acrossnational borders would actually enhance everyone’sfreedom of action. While individual governments todayfear taking any action that might displease the rich orthe markets, co-ordinated action would at last allow themto reign them in decisively without fear of them movingelsewhere. Co-ordinated international action across amultitude of issues would allow the world’s nations todeal decisively with today’s global problems. But wouldwe be wise to wait patiently in the hope that politicianswill make that a reality? Would we be wise to thinkpoliticians can achieve this on their own?Happily, citizens who support the Simultaneous Policy(Simpol) campaign aren’t waiting around to find out.Simpol is a unique global campaign which allows citizensto use their votes in a completely new way to drive theworld’s politicians towards implementing the right globalsolutions - simultaneously.The basis of Simpol is that all or sufficient nations are toimplement the needed stringent measures simultaneously,so avoiding the fear that first-mover nations wouldlose investment and jobs to other countries. By posingno-risk to any nation’s economy or its internationalcompetitiveness, simultaneous action removes theexcuses for inaction and delay and opens the way to farmore robust policies being adopted than relatively weakagreements we see governments trying to implementtoday, such as the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming.Not only could simultaneous international action openthe way to solving the global recession, it would allowglobal warming and a host of other global problems tobe solved too.initiative, firstly, by taking the task of global policymakingout of the hands of politicians and, secondly,by intensifying the competition between candidates to apoint where politicians who fail to support Simpol risklosing their seats to those who do.This new way of voting even though adopted by only arelatively small number of people has already resultedin 27 UK MPs and countless candidates pledging toimplement Simpol alongside other governments. Withmore and more parliamentary seats and even entirenational elections being won or lost on fine margins, itneedn’t take many of us to make it in the vital politicalinterests of the main politicians and parties to supportSimpol, thus offering Adopters the opportunity of drivingeven uncooperative governments to sign on.Ambitious, no doubt. But do we really think politiciansare going to save the world for us? Do we really thinkthey can achieve international cooperation on theirown? It’s not just politicians who need to grow up andtake responsibility: it’s us, too. What Simpol offers is apowerful way for us to do that; a powerful way for citizensto show our politicians that “when the people lead, theleaders will follow”.Joining Simpol is free and takes just a moment: Please gonow to http://www.simpol.orgAnnouncing his support for Simpol, Lembit Opik, one ofa growing number of MPs who support the campaignsummed it up when he said, “We live together at once, onthe same small planet. There are some things we shoulddo together, at once, on this same small planet. Thecompelling logic of Simultaneous Policy is really collectivecommon sense – it’s a campaign to find out how commonsense really is!”But what about nations that refuse to cooperateinternationally? To secure sufficient international politicalwill for the implementation of the Simpol, citizens aroundthe world who support it, known as Adopters, not onlydecide the global policies to be implemented, they tellall the politicians in their constituency area that they willbe voting in future national elections for any candidate,within reason, who has signed the pledge to implementthe policy alongside other governments. Or, if they havea preferred party, they encourage that party to supportSimpol. In this way, citizens are seizing the politicalBiophile 27 • Page 21

Linus Pauling defined OrthomolecularMedicine as: “The treatment of diseaseby the provision of the optimummolecular environment, especially theoptimum concentration of substancesnormally present in the human body”.In July 2007. headlines resounded acrossthe globe that the world is losing the fightagainst AIDS (acquired immune deficiencysyndrome.) Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of theNational Institute of Allergy and InfectiousDiseases and the US’s top advisor on AIDS,said at the 4th International AIDS SocietyConference, held in Sydney Australia, that“for every one person placed on therapy, sixpeople get infected with HIV. He agreedwith the then UNAIDS Executive Director,Peter Piot, that the discrepancy between thenumber of individuals being put on therapy,and the number becoming infected “ is notsustainable”, and it means “that we are losingthe battle against HIV and AIDS”.The Drugs:The widespread belief that “HIV/AIDS” hasbecome a chronic manageable disease andthat the latest drugs (antiretrovirals) forfighting AIDS are reducing mortality (deathrate) has been confounded by a huge study,covering 10 years of treatment, whichinvolved more than 22,000 patients in Europeand America. The major finding: “ Virological response after starting HAART(highly active antiretroviral therapy or“cocktails”) improved over calendar years,In short, HAART wrecks the liver and causesheart attacks, and causes more injury(675) than the dreaded virus (332). A medical study found: opportunisticinfections and AIDS-associatedmalignancies (cancers) ... often appearedshortly after the introduction of HAART.( Ann. Int Med. 2000; Sept.) Thisis precisely the oppositeof what the press usuallyreports. Very little is knownabout the longtermside-effects- accelerated releaseis the norm for theantiretroviral drugs, without the longtermsafety studies mandatory for otherdrugs. ( Carr et al; Lancet 2000, Oct) There is not a single controlled trialthat proves that people taking theseantiretrovirals live longer than acontemporary similar group of ‘HIVpositive’people not on these drugs.The Vaccine Trials:On 21 September 2007 the pharmaceuticalgiant Merck called a halt to a phase 2 trialof a new vaccine candidate against ‘HIV’.The vaccine not only failed to prevent testsubjects from becoming infected with ‘HIV’,but there were actually more infectionsamong those given the vaccine. The collapseof the trial leaves Merck & Co., which hadspent a decade developing the vaccine, withno remaining prospects in the global huntThenormalfunctioningof the intestinaltract depends upon thepresence of large herdsof hundreds of species ofbeneficial bacteria. Thesebacteria are in a symbioticrelationship with humans: they help to digestfood, produce vitamins such as B-12 andK, synthesise crucial amino acids and affordprotection against aggressive colonisationby fungi, mainly Candida Albicans. Intestinaldysbiosis can lead to a series of problems: First, the lining of the gut may becomemore porous than normal, a conditionknown as “leaky gut syndrome”. This thenallows a flood of antigens (undigestedproteins) to enter the blood stream,which in turn sets off a systemic immuneresponse, with the production of largenumbers of antibodies. Rodney Richards,an organic chemist who worked on thedevelopment of the first ‘HIV tests’, assertsthat this condition, rather than infectionwith ‘HIV’, is what causes reactive resultson ‘HIV antibody’ tests.NUTRITION vs ANTIbut such improvement has not translatedinto a decreased mortality”; in otherwords, viral load was suppressed, butpatients’ health - or risk of dying - did notimprove. (Lancet 2006; 368)Another study found: During follow up. 675 patientsexperienced grade 4 events, while 332developed an AIDS event. The mostcommon grade 4 events were liver related.Cardiovascular events were associatedwith the greatest risk of death....(Reisler et al; 2003: JAIDS)for an AIDS immunisation. This, the latestin a series of multi-million dollar vaccinefailures, brings to 63 the number of abortedvaccine trials, and heightens concerns thatthe vaccine strategy may be fundamentallyflawed, and hence unsafe and unethical.Intestinal Dysbiosis and AIDS:It has been established that more than60 percent of the human immune systemresides in the gut, and intestinal lymphocytes(immune cells) are modulated by intestinalflora. Second, an imbalance of intestinalmicroflora has serious immunologicalimplications. (American J of Clin. Nutr. 69.1046S) Third, the depletion of beneficial intestinalmicroflora affects nutrition Since we relyon bacteria to help us digest food andproduce various nutrients, a reduction intheir number or a change in their naturemeans the gut is less able to nourishthe body. Malnutrition is a predictableconsequence of the malabsorption ofessential nutrients.Biophile 27• Page 22

A recent study found levels of CandidaAlbicans nearly 10,000timeshigher in‘HIV+’“antiretroviraltherapy causesmore injury than thedreaded virus“individuals.The amount ofBifidobacteria in the ‘HIV+’ group wasbetween 25-50 percent of that in the generalpopulation, and astonishingly, the levels ofLactobacilli were “ nearly untraceable” in the‘HIV+’ individuals”. (J. Clin. Microbiol. 2008;Febr. 46(2).There is mounting evidence that restorationof intestinal flora can lead to exuberantlymphocyte increases in so-called HIVpositivechildren, and significantly improvesthe health and lymphocyte profiles of Sub-Saharan African women, not treated withantiretrovirals. Antiretroviral drugs oftenyield almost immediate benefit in AIDSpatients, because of the “lawn-mower” effect- by polishing off a few parasitic infectionsand worms and bacteria, like any other toxicagent.prevalence at 1.77 percent in the generalpopulation, and 0.5 percent in ante-natalclinic attendees, along with the mostselenium enriched soil.In contrast, some regions like KwaZulu Natal,have bedrock and soils that contain littleselenium. Attendees at ante-natal clinicsin KwaZulu have the highest ‘HIV-positive’incidence in South Africa.In the latest professional Bible of nutritionand the immune system: Diet and HumanImmune function, a clear picture, of thecompletely dominant influence of nutritionon the outcome of treatment, of thosesupposedly suffering from ‘HIV’, emergesin the chapter on “HIV Infection” by Ph.DsMarianna Baum and Adrianna Campa ofFlorida International University in Miami.A few key sentences from the body of thearticle: The risk of dying from HIV-related diseasesdecreased by 33 percent for every 1mg/dincrease in dietary zinc intake, and thiswas independent of antiretroviral therapyand CD4+ T-cell (immune cell) count atbaseline over time. The relative riskfor mortality for those with an intakeunder the median was 11 (eleven!) timesgreater”. “Selenium status is a predictor of HIVrelated prognosis and survival. In acohort of chronic drug users with HIVinfection, only selenium deficiency wasan independent predictor of survival...Selenium deficiency was associated withdecreased length of survival. In a 1997study, referenced by Baum, seleniumdeficiency is associated with a 10 to 20by microflora, including various strains ofLactobacilli.AIDS patients are characteristically deficientin glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant..The Herzenberg group at Stanford University,USA, has shown that glutathione deficiencyin HIV-infected individuals correlates withdecreased survival. They also showed thatsupplementation with N-acetyl-cysteinedramatically increased the survival rate(200 per cent) of AIDS patients, despitethe counterproductive administration ofglutathione-consuming HAART.A recent double-blind, randomised clinicaltrial has shown that the use of a nutrientmixture, with high concentrations ofselenium, N-acetyl-cysteine, glutamine andhydroxy-tryptophan, can stop the decline intoAIDS of ‘HIV-positive’ patients, not receivingantiretroviral therapy. (Namulemia, E;Sparling, J; Foster, H;. J of Orthmol. Medicine2007:22)Conclusion:The virus-centric “HIV=AIDS” paradigmhas repeatedly failed. AIDS patients areimmunologically abnormal in ways that asimple virus infection cannot explain, asacknowledged (albeit indirectly) by theAIDS establishment at the recent( 2007)International AIDS Society conference inSydney.More than twenty years’ experience withnutritional regimens developed by Drs.Heinrich Kremer and Juliana Sacher, foruse in German drug-abuse clinics, clearlyRETROVIRALSby Dr Elizna HanekomNutrition and AIDSAs Jain, V K, and Chandra, R K have shown,decades ago, there is an uncanny similaritybetween the immunological findings innutritional deficiencies and those seen inAIDS. ( Nutr. Research; 1984).Since 1994 researchers have remarked uponthe fact that low levels of the trace elementselenium, are observed in AIDS patients.During the last decade, research has alsoindicated an important geographical linkbetween regions of selenium-deficientsoils and peak incidences of ‘HIV infection’.Senegal, in West Africa, has the lowest AIDStimes higher mortality”.The uptake of selenium is directly affected byLactobacilli, which are able to concentrateselenium inside cells.Selenium is essential for the synthesis of theantioxidant glutathione peroxidase, whichprotects the mitochondria (cellular powerplants that generate energy in human cells).Although glutathione can be absorbeddirectly from the food we eat, it is chieflymanufactured intracellularly from aminoacids, including cysteine and glutamine..These amino acids are produced in the gutshows that AIDS can be treated successfully,without HAART - by normalisation ofbody levels of glutathione, glutathioneperoxidase, selenium, cysteine, glutamineand tryptophan.BibliographyDie stille Revoltion der Krebs- undAIDSmedizin. - Dr. Heinrich KremerUnravelling AIDS - Mae-Wan Ho, Sam Burcher,Rhea Gala, Vejko VelkovicExplaining HIV/AIDS Paradoxes in terms ofIntestinal Dysbiosis - Tony LanceBiophile 27 • Page 23

Opening Pandora’s box:Nuclear costsAND CONSEQUENCESby Helena KingwillBiophile 27• • Page 24

At a press meeting, our former Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin announced:“ Government will continue to increase its nuclear capacity. Wehave little option but to go this route,” he said.Although the government is beginning to give a little more attention to renewableenergy options, Nuclear Energy is being touted as “the best short-term solutionand the only real alternative to coal. A massive deal with French company Areva toinvest in a fleet of pressurized water reactors - (similar design to Koeberg) -at thecost of between 120 and 180 billion rand each was being negotiated. To convincethe public, a high-powered advertizing and branding company was commissionedto push pro-nuke propaganda in the SA press. The budget for the campaign wasaround 4 million rand.We were told by a bevy of charismatic International experts that that nukesare “the cleaner” solution to South Africa’s increasing energy crisis because incomparison to the monstrous Co2 emissions being pumped into our atmosphereby our dinosaur coal powered power stations, nukes are not contributing to globalwarming. Even the minister of minerals and energy herself, when I asked herwhy the Government was investing so much in nuclear energy in comparison torenewables, said with a smile: “But nuclear is also clean energy!” In governmentstatements and the press, nukes are bunched with renewable energy forms likewind and solar power.It is easy to forget that nuclear energy runs on fossil fuels. And not just on thestolen sunshine captured long ago in coal or oil deposits, but the formidable,magical, not to be messed with: Uranium. The mining and processing of uraniumdoes in fact create Co2 emissions, but that is almost beside the point. Mediareports about global warming, important as they are, has given the spin doctorsfor nuclear energy a way to use the publics own fear to pull wool over their eyes.“The amount ofenergy consumedby all the processesrequired to createnuclear energyfor one 1800 MWreactor, exceedsthe energy thatthe nuclear reactorproduces in itslifespan!”When it comes to weighing up the pro’s and con’s, and the energy efficiency economics, the sums are mind-boggling. Accordingto Amory Lovins, Chief Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Intstitute in the United States, the amount of energy consumed by all theprocesses required to create nuclear energy for one 1 800 MW reactor, exceeds the energy that the nuclear reactor produces inits lifespan! What’s more a study by Joshua Pearce of Clarion University of Pensylvania proves that “ To both replace fossil-fuelenergyuse and meet the future energy demands, nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010to 2050. This large growth rate creates a cannibalistic effect, where nuclear energy must be used to supply the energy for futurenuclear power plants… The results of this study demand modesty in claims of ‘emission-free nuclear energy’ as a panacea forglobal climate destabilization.”Pro-nuke propaganda may also lead you to believe that nuclear energy is more cost effective than renewable energy. The truthis that Nuclear energy has always been so heavily subsidized by our government that it takes up the lion’s share of the energybudget and only produces a tiny fraction of the energy in our energy basket. And financialcosts are only the tip of the ice berg, the real costs are being paid by marginalized groupswho have little say in the matter and who do not reap the benefits.“It is easy to forgetthat nuclearenergy runs onfossil fuels.”Then there is the unsolved riddle of the nuclear waste. Although we have been making it forover 20 years, South Africa still has no official plan for the safe disposal of this waste. Billionsof rands have already been spent on developing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (P.B.M.R.);yet the safe disposal of the waste it will produce not to mention the decommissioning of theactual plant have not fully been accounted for. Internationally, no solution has been foundfor the safe disposal of high-level nuclear waste, all they have figured out is ways to store theless dangerous stuff in the short term. The problem is that it remains dangerous to the ecosystemfor millions of years. Obviously this length of time is much longer than any companyor government can account for. If Eskom’s nuclear plan goes ahead, tons of nuclear waste willbe produced every year. A whole radioactive industry will be built around it, from the miningof uranium, to the processing of the fuel, all of which produce forms of waste.Anything that comes into contact with radiation has to be contained, and becomes nuclearBiophile 27 • Page 25

waste. It all has to be transported along our roads to the SA’smain nuclear waste-dump – Vaalputs near Springbok, from thecity highways to the slippery gravel tracks of Namaqualand,where it is very easy for trucks to overturn. In fact anything canhappen along the way: a truck carrying low and intermediatelevel nuclear waste fromPelindaba nuclearfacility near Pretoriawas once highjackedandneverrecovered!••••- Iheardthat froman in-housesource. There arestrict regulations around nuclearinstallations, giving the impression that everything isunder control and those making a fuss are just beingirrational and emotional, yet there are also endlessstories about the irresponsible storage and accidents.This highly volatile material remains a danger to theeco-system for up to millions of years. Nevertheless,plans are storming ahead to build at least 20 morenuclear reactors in South Africa. It’s like “buildinga sky-scraper without toilets” says Mike Kantey,chairperson of the Coalition against Nuclear Energy.(C.A.N.E.), “If Neanderthals had invented nuclearenergy, we would still be sitting on the radioactivewaste!” he jokes.The native America Navaho tribe can tell the storyof Uranium mining, which has been done in theirhomeland for decades. Breathing radioactive dust anddrinking contaminated water has created debilitatingmuscular diseases and cancer, which has devastatedthe roots and remains of one of the earthsFirst Peoples from whom many Americans aredescended, and whose creed is to protect andnurture the earth.The Navaho are not the only “first peoples” ofthe world to be silent, long-suffering victimsof the nuclear industry. Our own nuclearwaste facility, Vaalputs is on the borderof Bushmanland and Namaqualand. When the facility wasplanned in the apartheid era, “white farmers were moved offland near the dump, but many “coloured” communities werenot taken into account “ explains Rev. Peter Grove, of theNamaqualand Recreation and Education Centre (NAMREC)based in Springbok.The energy intensive processes required to create nuclearenergy and complete the cycle include:Many of the menfrom Namakhoi• Mining the uranium, processing it to get the Uranium oxide (UO2),• Converting this into usable uranium hexafluoride (UF6, or “yellowcake”),• Enriching it o a higher percentage of fissionable U-235 content (above 5 percent, and higher for nuclearweapons grade highly-enriched uranium, or HEU), making the uranium fuel pellets (fuel fabrication)Putting the whole thing together in zircalloy (zirconium-hafnium) fuel rodsBuilding and loading and starting up and running the reactor itselfNuclear waste and spent fuel storage (NOT “disposal” - no such thing)Decommissioning after 30 to 50 years.communitiesliving near thedump are employedthere. The rainfall there is low and thisunderground water is essential to their survival.“Those containers stand on God’s earth,” OomJapie Bekeurs, a respected elder of the Namakhoitribe told me. “So the underground water could beand will be polluted. To me it looks like the whiteman has planted a bomb under the ground to makewar on our people by contaminating the water forfuture generations,” he told us vehemently in an oncamerainterview. “I believe this and I will say it untilI die,” he said. Oom Japie died in July this year, buthis words still echo in my mind.Once the uranium is taken out of the earth, it’sdust and tailings spread and contaminate air waterand get into the blood and muscles and DNAof all life. Sadly and unfairly, these mutationsand disorders are inherited for generations.Uranium mining is on the cards for SouthAfrica, (possibly around Beaufort West) and anew fuel enrichment program is to begin.After the uranium is dug up, it getsenriched with plutonium, a man-madecompound. Aproximately five millionthof a single gram of reactor plutoniumin the human lung is enough to causelung cancer. It is the deadliestsubstance known to humans,Biophile 27• • Page 26

and an essential ingredient in making atomic bombs.Owning an atomic bomb is the easiest way for any country (or terrorist organisation) to gain enough power to intimidate orthreaten their enemies. These days, the hardest part about making a nuclear bomb is acquiring the plutonium or enricheduranium. Even this is not as hard as it used to be. In fact there was an armed break in at Pelindaba earlier this year.George Bush pricked up his ears when this statement was made at the Pentagonby Mathew Bunn of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs atHarvard, to the Committee on Senate Homeland Security describing the incident:“On the night of November 8, 2007, two teams of armed men attacked thePelindaba nuclear facility in South Africa, where hundreds of kilograms of weapongradehighly enriched uranium (HEU) are stored. While one of the teams waschased off by site security forces, the other team of four armed men disabled thedetection systems at the site perimeter, entered without setting off any alarm,and went to the emergency control center and shot a worker there in the chest.He then raised an alarm for the first time. This team spent 45 minutes inside thesecured perimeter without ever being engaged by site security forces, and thendisappeared through the same hole they had cut in the fence. No one on eitherteam was shot or captured. South African officials later arrested three individuals,but soon released them without charge. The South African government has notreleased important details of its investigation of the attack and refused earlier U.S.offers to remove the HEU at Pelindaba or to help improve security at the facility,”he announced. It sounds like a scene from an action movie!Uranium in various forms has been found to be a deadly and effective weaponin war. Not only through the sinister atomic bomb, but also through the use ofdepleted uranium (a crafty way of getting rid of unwanted waste) in ammunitionand tanks, because it is such a heavy, dense metal “that it cuts through steel likea hot knife through butter.” The cruelest result of it is that radioactive rubbleremains in the fields of war to be found by the innocent fingers of children forgenerations.“What is clear to meis that neither coalnor nuclear powerstations will be ableto solve the energycrisis right now”Author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Dr. Helen Caldicott clearly points out the details in her books of how relationshipsbetween the military industry and various power administrations has allowed weapons manufacturers to dictate foreign policyin America. “These links have also been the reason the World Health Organization (WHO) has resisted conducting studies onthe health effects of exposure to uranium 238 following Desert Storm, Bosnia and Kosovo,” she writes. “The reason for thisrefusal is an agreement forged in 1959 between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which actively promotes nuclearpower worldwide, and the WHO, stating that if one agency wishes to carry out a study that affects the work of the other,mutual agreement is required. The IAEA has never agreed to such studies.” But even WHO’s co-coordinator for occupational andenvironmental health acknowledges, “Young children could receive greater depleted uranium exposure when playing within aconflict zone because of hand- to – mouth that could result in high depleted uranium ingestion from contaminated soil,” he said.Medical reports from Iraq show childhood cancer has increased to seven times what they were and congenital malformations hasdoubled in areas where the bombing was the most intense.The bottom line is that as soon as we dig up Uranium we have opened Pandora’s box and unleashed a thousand unspeakable ills,which take many forms which no one administration can contain. The motivation to choose the nuclear path is never as straightforward and simple as the “best short-term solution to the energy crisis” or the “only real alternative to coal power” as we arebeing told because if you do your research you will discover that neither of those statements are true. According to Eskom’sbillboard at the pristine Bantamsklip site (near Gansbaai) where they plan to construct one of the Pressurized Water Reactor’s weare buying from Areva, if all goes smoothly it will take 16 years, just to build it, and then a number of years to get it to the point ofactually pushing out the power.In spite of all this, our Ex-Public Enterprises minister Alec Erwin is convinced that the nuclear path is the only way, insisting onbegging more funding from the tax payer’s treasury to pay the multi-billion rand bills associated with investing in more nuclearpower stations.Biophile 27 • Page 27

So what are our alternatives, you may ask.The energy network in South Africa was built around industry and the mines. It is a centralized monopoly, which has grownungainly. The solution seems to be intrinsic to the concept of community instead of being controlled by a central governing force.In “The New Energy Book- for urban development in South Africa,” Sarah Ward of Sustainable Energy Africa (S.E.A) explains thedifference between centralized and decentralized locally produced energy.“Local government really has a responsibility and a need to take on power issues,” she pointed out in an interview. “They havenot participated much at all in the past because, their mandate is very narrow, they have made money from selling electricity,never a good situation as they have a vested interest in selling more (in Germany energy efficiency is encouraged by incentives.)”she explains. “But now that their cites are actually threatened by lack of energy security, there is a need for local government toaddress these issues. They are the ones who can introduce solar water heater bylaws; they need to be supporting independentpower producers. They can introduce their own feed in tariffs.” She said.If the network were decentralized and each settlement had there own solar and wind powered project, not only would it createlocal employment, locals could benefit from the results. The grid would be fed by all the different projects and plenty of lesshazardous jobs would be created than if we went for the centralized nuclear option. Industrialists might argue that green poweris strong enough to feed industry. The answer to this is that if there were many diverse projects all feeding into the grid it, wouldremain more stable than it is now. Besides, as Prof. Harold Winkler of the Energy Institute explains, “ It’s important to dispel thismyth that renewable energy is too weak… once you have created the electricity, it’s all the same. Renewable energy if it grows toscale is able to supply industry.”Spin doctors can try to pull the wool over our eyes as much as they like, but the truth is the nuclear renaissance is a myth: thereal revolution is Green. High- tech Germany is working towards completely phasing out nuclear energy. The Danish Ambassadorto SA, speaking at the opening of the wind farm in Darling (which they funded) explained that In Denmark the energy needshave not increased significantly even though the population has doubled because they have worked so hard on energy efficiency.South Africa still has a lot to learn. The Green Building – which is the environmentally friendly office of Sustainable Energy Africa(SEA), is the only building in Cape Town with two-way metering. This allows the building to feed energy into the grid on days whenit’s solar panels are producing more energy than the office is using, and to draw energy from the grid on days when it is needed.In Germany, there are whole towns doing this.When asked how he would resolve the energy crisis, Lance Greyling, chief whip of the Independent Democrats (who has beencritical of the governments nuclear policy in parliament) had it worked out. “I think that we can use this energy crisis as anopportunity to become world leaders in renewable energy in SA. What is clear to me is that neither coal nor nuclear powerstations will be able to solve the energy crisis right now, so in terms of resolving the immediate crisis, there are only two options:energy efficiency and renewable energy. We could also start to develop the expertise and become leaders in this field and we canstart to create and industry around this. And in the long term I think renewables could make up the bulk of our energy generationin South Africa,” he added.I believe, if we invested the amount of time, energy and money into researching andimproving renewable energy technology as we have on nuclear energy we wouldnot have the energy crisis we have now. It’s not too late for us to wake up andchange our course before any more damage is done. Do not believe thepropaganda: Nukes are not our only short-term solution to the energycrisis. Instead we will be creating a long-term problem as we continueto open Pandora’s box, or (to use a different metaphor) to eat thefruit from the forbidden tree. And to quote a famous quote: “Thesins of the fathers will be visited on the sons for…generations.” Wewill pay the price long, long into the future. We have been warned.Nuclear energy costs the earth. It is not an option.Further Reading:The New Nuclear Danger: - Georg W. Bush’s military-industrialcomplex by Dr. Helen Caldicott.http://www.nonukes.org/BETTERACTIVETODAY THANRADIOACTIVETOMORROW!Biophile 27 • Page 28

MONTHLY WORKSHOPSLEARNING TO LIVE SUSTAINABLY, IN ASACRED, SIMPLE & HARMLESS WAYComprehensive 2-day workshopValuable information on becoming self-sufficient and sustainablein today’s challenging and changing world.Going ‘Green’ at home, creating your own ‘power station’ athome, growing, harvesting and storing your own vegetables,becoming the sacred activist - as we learn to observeand change our inner world, we watch our outer worldschange. Learning the tools to attract true abundance andharmony in all areas of your life.Facilitated by Anthea Torr and Pat Featherstone in the Noordhoek, Cape Town area.Please call Karen for details -021 785 5996 or email: joyology@saarp.org.zaINVESTMENT R950Biophile 27 • Page 29

The InboxHOLY POWDERby Dr Joseph MercolaTurmeric is a yellow spice most often associated with Indian food, curry and yellow mustard, but as research into this powerful spiceincreases, it’s becoming clear that it may be one of nature’s most powerful potential healers.Both the ancient Chinese and Indian systems of medicine have recognized turmeric’s beneficial properties for thousands of years, butthis new study is the first to show how exactly it does its work.It appears that curcumin -- the pigment that gives turmeric its yellow-orange color, and which is thought to be responsible for manyof its medicinal effects -- is able to “discipline” cells and get them back into working order. When curcumin enters a cell, the study’slead researcher said:“The membrane goes from being crazy and floppy to being more disciplined and ordered, so that information that flows through itcan be controlled.”This not only improves your cells’ resistance to infections, but it also may help prevent cancer.Turmeric May be a Potent Cancer FighterIn India where turmeric is widely used, the prevalence of four common U.S. cancers -- colon, breast, prostate and lung -- is 10 timeslower. In fact, prostate cancer, which is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in U.S. men, is rare in India and this is attributed, inpart, to turmeric.Numerous studies have looked into this potential cancer-fighting link, with promising results. For instance, curcumin has been found to:• Inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells• Inhibit the transformation of cells from normal to tumor• Help your body destroy mutated cancer cells so they cannot spread throughout your body• Decrease inflammation• Enhance liver function• Inhibit the synthesis of a protein thought to be instrumental in tumor formation• Prevent the development of additional blood supply necessary for cancer cell growthAnd according to researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, curcumin blocks a key biological pathwayneeded for development of melanoma and other cancers.The spice actually stops laboratory strains of melanoma from proliferating and pushes the cancer cells to commit suicide by shuttingdown nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB), a powerful protein known to induce an abnormal inflammatory response that leads to an assortmentof disorders such as arthritis and cancer.More Reasons to Add More Spice to Your LifeThe reason people in India refer to turmeric as “holy powder” is because it has such a broad range of health effects. In fact, curcuminhas been shown to influence more than 700 genes, with benefits that include:• Strengthening and improving your digestion• Supporting healthy liver function and detoxification• Purifying your blood• Fighting cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease• Anti-inflammatory propertiesBiophile 27• Page 30

The InboxFurther, evidence suggests turmeric may play a beneficial role in thefollowing diseases:• Cystic fibrosis• Type 2 diabetes• Crohn’s disease• Psoriasis• Rheumatoid arthritis• Cataracts• Gallstones• Muscle regeneration• Inflammatory bowel diseaseCurcuminA Few Turmeric TipsYou can absolutely use turmeric in your cooking, and in caseyou haven’t tried it, it has a warm, peppery flavor. However,when you do choose a pure turmeric powder, rather than acurry powder, as at least one study has found curry powderstend to contain very little curcumin, compared to turmericpowder.TurmericBe sure to listen to your body as always, and if turmeric is aspice you do not enjoy it may be a sign that it’s not right foryour body. If you are not one who enjoys the flavor of curry, youcan also get the benefits of turmeric by taking it in a high-quality,organic supplement form.Spelt Can Replace Wheat for Improved HealthTriticum speltum, known as spelt, is a grain much like wheat. In fact, some experts have called it thegrandfather of wheat. It was known in Biblical times and has seen a dramatic rise in popularity in the pasttwo decades. Spelt is high in fiber and manganese. It also contains good amounts of copper, niacin andprotein. It has a robust, nutty flavor and can be used the same as wheat with one notable benefit - speltusually does not cause allergic reactions like wheat.- Sheryl Walters, Natural NewsADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESSplace your advertisement NOW !first 5 advertisers receive a FREE Enchantrix product.contact Dawn at : Dawn@biophile.co.za • tel: 082 485 6361Biophile 27 • Page 31

the Green Directory“What is the secret of your serenity?”Said the Master,”Whole-hearted co-operationwith the inevitable!”- SOAPNUTS -Nature’s Detergent!Now available inSouth AfricaContact Annie on0833080086 /www.naturesoap.co.zafor info and onlinepurchases.holistic tours to swim with wild dolphins082 458 1302 or 011 786 1268michelle@oceansessence.comwww.oceansessence.com082 846 9294Biophile 27• Page 32

Save Money,Save a Tree!with our newdigital subscriptionSubscribe to BiophileYou now have the option ofsubscribing to a digital (PDF)version of Biophile. If you have aconnection to the internet, you’llbe able to download your copydirectly from our website, or ifyour connection is too slow, youcan opt for the CD subscription,in which case a CD containingthe PDF file will be posted to you.The PDF version of the magazinewill allow you to search, extractarticles and print out any pagesyou wish, and is viewable witheither Acrobat Reader or FoxitReader, both of which are freesoftware.onlineFor more information, and tosubscribe, see this page on ourwebsite:biophile.co.za/subscribeSPECIAL OFFER!For Biophile subscribers only.The amazing Ride-On tyre treatmentis being offered (for a limitedperiod) at the rediculous price ofonly R500* per vehicle (4 tyres.)That is a full 50% off the retailprice! Simply produce proof ofsubscription to claim this awesomedeal. Biophile readers alsoqualify for a special price 0f R600*per installation. See opposite pagefor details. *(excl. VAT)Don’tMissOut!Subscription rates:Biophile 27• Page 34subscribe now and save 20%off the cover priceBACK ISSUESALSO AVAILABLE AT R15. 00 each (including postage)South Africa Neighbouring Countries6 issues: R120. 0012 issues: R240. 00R180. 00 (surface) R200. 00 (airmail)R360. 00 (surface) R400. 00 (airmail)Please post this subscription form,together with a cheque made payable to BIOPHILE:PO Box 39277, Capricorn Square 7948Or pay the amount directly into our bank accountAccount Name: Biophile cc Bank: Standard Bank ConstantiaBranch Code: 02530917 Account Number: 271 596 791and fax the form below,together with proof of payment to 021 709 0392NAME:POSTAL ADDRESS:TELEPHONE:EMAIL:I would like to subscribe for issues, starting with issue numberPlease add the following Back Issues to my order:Back Issues numbers:This is a gift subscription. Please send it to:NAME:POSTAL ADDRESS:

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NEVER SAY. . . “ IT’S JUST A WEED!”by Anthea Torr“What is a weed? A plant whose virtueshave not yet been discovered!”- Ralph Waldo EmersonWe have already put the chat that God had with Saint Francis into aprevious issue - but we could not resist putting it in again - so sorryif you have already read it from some other source or in an oldBiophile, but it just says so much about our society and theway we live!The financial melt-down is having such powerful and ifallowed, positive effects on us all, and one thing that Ihave noticed in my own circle is the veggie and herbgardens that are springing up in the front gardens,let alone the back, and then there are the tyre gardenson the balcony’s of the apartment dwellers! Ipersonally have felt the need to start running workshopson become more sovereign and the wheel isturning and the world is changing so fast that we allneed to be open minded and open hearted. Includedin this is the desire to seek out and revive the ancientknowledge of plants, and this includes the beloved‘weeds’. In ages past the knowledge was handed downfrom generation to generation from the elders, a rare occurrencenowadays, but there are still amazing books andour heart- brains are starting to work with the plants again I feel.The ‘weeds’ have been ‘talking’ to me, especially over the last yearor so! That may sound a little strange to some, but maybe soon it won’t!Plants do ‘talk’ to us, all we have to do is be a little receptive, willing, and believing.I am sure youmay have a houseplant that ‘talks’ to you - it may need water or to be moved to abetter spot and you will pick up on this, sometimes without even being aware that the waves of info coming your way are fromyour precocious little plant that shares your home! My feeling is all the veils are thinning with everything and more and moretelepathy is becoming commonplace between all that lives on Earth. So beware of the thoughts you are putting out there! Thefeelings that have been coming from the ‘weeds’ has spurred me on to do some studying - and the knowledge I have managedto get has been in most instances revelationary for me, and I am so thankful for those that have written and kept records ofsuch important subjects.Dandelion Seed HeadI walk a lot in the mountain behind my home and the precious ‘weeds’ are plentiful. If nothing else they are so resilient and noncomplaining.They keep the ground cool and hold the topsoil in place - such important tasks. I never leave without my doseof Gotu Kola or Indian Pennywort (Centella Asiatica)! And I always ask before I pick (have not felt a ‘no’ yet!) and give thanksfrom my heart - with as much feeling as I can muster. This is a powerful plant, and I will never forget years ago, Margaret RobertsBiophile 27 • Page 36

telling me that I would do my self a big favour if I ate a few leaves every day! In the West it is known for its ability to revitalizethe brain and nervous system, combat aging and senility, assist with digestion and skin clearing. The Sanskrit name for GotuKola is Brahmi, as it is believed to increase knowledge of Brahman - The Supreme Reality or God, and this little plant is one ofthe most important Rasayanas (longevity tonics) in Ayurveda! So there we have it - the ancient knowledge of the Vedas right inour back yard and it is for free - like all food should be! Never underestimate the power of plants.Gotu Kola (Centelle Asiatica)Image: Andri SuprihadiAnother one of my favourites is the Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale - the common one used as medicine the world overby the wise ones), a truly precious plant and probably the most famous of all ‘weeds’! Although this plant originated in theNorthern Hemisphere and is more prolific there, it is now cosmopolitan and we have about 15 different species that have becomeestablished in Southern Africa.It is considered by many to be a useless weed, but in truth this little plant is one of the most beneficial and healthful of allherbs! As Dandelions are found in most parts of the world there are many legends and folkloric stories about it. There are morethatn150 useful species related to the Dandelion, but the easiest way of telling if it is related is to remember that Dandelionsgrow with an unbranching stem from a rosette of leaves. Any plant that has any branching characteristics is not a Dandelionrelation.Did you know that if you take the root of the Dandelion towards the end of a pregnancy it will help prevent pathological jaundicein the baby! The benefits of Dandelion are extraordinary and every part of the plant has many uses ranging from food tomedicine to dyes.Just a word of warning, make sure that you have the right plant when you pick the Dandelion, there are some out there thatlook remarkably like the dandelion, such as the Hawkweed. It does not have such spiky shaped leaves and the stems of theflowers are much longer.Dandelions are survivors and that victorious energy will transfer to you, they reach deep into the Earth, making it imperviousto burrowing animals and fire. The bright yellow of the flower corresponds to the Liver, and explains its wonderful ability to alleviategallstone and liver disorders such as jaundice. Our livers suffer numerous assaults from all sorts of environmental toxins- cigarettes, alcohol, skin lotions and pesticides, to name a few, so too the Dandelions, yet they continue to adapt and in turnhelp the human organisms to adapt. The roots and leaves are associated with the physical body, the yellow flowers with mentalhealth, and the puffballs with emotional well-being. As the seeds fly off and return to the earth, they represent the muscularstructure being calmed. Another marvel is that Dandelion leaves close up when it is about to rain, thereby protecting them!Biophile 27 • Page 37

Dandelions are cosmopolitan and you will find them the world over except in the desert and the tropics. If we compare the lettuceleaf with that of the dandelion, we find that the humble weed is extraordinarily rich in many essential nutrients!NUTRIENT DANDELION LETTUCE UNITPROTEIN 12.3 3.8 gramsFAT 3.2 0.6 gramsCARBOHYDRATES 40.0 9.1 gramsCALCIUM 849 194 mgsPHOSPHORUS 318 63 mgsVITAMIN A 61.970 5.060 IUVITAMIN B1 0.85 0.14 mgsRIBOFLAVIN 0.65 0.26 mgsNIACIN 3.8 0.6 mgsVITAMIN C 163 0.6 mgsIRON 14 3.4 mgsWe must not forget that the plant is only as good as the soil! So keep growing your lettuce with lots of worm juice and compostand it will give you an abundance of energy and health!While Aloes are not considered weeds, they are still found in the wild and are well worth a mention. They abound with goodnessand medicinal uses and are a wonder to behold. There are more than 500 species worldwide and 120 of these are indigenousto South Africa, some sadly are in real danger of extinction. As there are so many I will focus on a couple of the well knownones that we find by the roadside and in many gardens right across the country. Aloe Vera has yellow flowers while Aloe Feroxhas bright red, as do most of the local aloes. Aloe Ferox is also known as Cape Aloe or Bitter Aloe and is one of the few recognizableplant species found in the San rock art. Tonics are made from the gel inside the flesh, as it is full of amino acids, mineralsand enzymes - all essential for good health. It is also known to be excellent for stomach ailments.Aloe FeroxAloe VeraBiophile 27• Page 38

Carpobrotus Acinaciformis and Edulis - commonly known as Sour fig, Hottentot’s Fig, ghaukum, suurvy, or ‘chips’, isanother extraordinary and beloved plant found in the wild that is also not classified as a weed, but is well worth a mention. Itis often found on the dunes and although it is indigenous to the Cape, it can be found in the nurseries around the country. It ispart of the Mesembryanthemaceae family, in case that means anything to you!Carpobrotus AcinaciformisCarpobrotus EdulisAcinaciformis has deep purple flowers; Edulis has yellow flowers, but both have the same medicinal uses. They are exquisite tobehold and are wonderful to have in places where water is scarce.The leaves and fruit can be eaten raw, cooked, pickled, or dried. The fruit must be fully ripe otherwise it is very astringent, and itis a popular snack amongst Cape children who love to pick a ripe sour fig, bite off the bottom, and suck out the slimy contents!The leaves can be used as a substitute for pickled cucumber. The dried fruit is an important ingredient in oriental cooking,mostly in curries. It is also very popular as sour fig jam and sour fig preserve.The sap of the leaves is one of the best first aid treatments for bluebottle stings. The protein poison of the bluebottle is probablyneutralized by the astringent tannins. It is also traditionally gargled to treat infections of the mouth and throat. For sorethroats a leaf can simply be chewed – effective but not very pleasant. The juice is also used internally for tuberculosis, digestiveproblems, acute diarrhoea, giardiasis, and dysentery and as a diuretic. It is applied externally to treat eczema, wounds, burns,ringworm, and mosquito/spider/tick bites. It is also effective against toothache, earache and oral and vaginal thrush in babiesand adults. Mix the leaf sap with the juice of bulbine for instant relief of herpes blisters.The leaf juice, diluted in water, has also been used for eye infections. It is a styptic which means it stops bleeding, it closes bloodvessels and so prevents fluid loss from wounds. Small amounts of fresh leaf juice are used to rinse a baby’s mouth 3 times a dayfor oral thrush. Mixed with baby oils, the leaf juice is also a popular application for nappy rash in the Cape. The Khoi women usea fruit infusion during pregnancy to ensure an easy birth. The leaf sap is smeared over the head of a newborn baby to make itnimble and strong.And it is loved by bees, producing honey with a wonderfully unique taste. It is used as ground cover, which prevents soil erosion.As it has a high water content it can be planted as firebreaks to prevent the spread of fire.How precious and amazing is all that!?These plants are on our doorsteps. Do some of your own research, as this is a tiny little piece of the whole. A word of warning:be careful and make sure before you start chewing away, that the plant is whatyou think it is, and that you are eating the right part of the plant! I don’t thinkthere is one ailment that nature cannot cure and of course our mind is the precursorto it all, so enjoy the journey to creating and sustaining your health.REFERENCES:Medicinal Plants of the world - By Ben-Erik van Wyk and Michael WinkNever say it is just a Dandelion - By Hilary HopkinsFood Plants of the World - By Ben-Eric van WykPeoples Plants - By Ben-Eric van Wyk and Nigel GerickeEat the Weeds - By Ben Charles HarisDandelion Medicine - By Brigitte MarsDandelionBiophile 27 • Page 39

RADIOACTIVELOCAL & INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR AFFAIRSNo Amount of RedesignWill Save the PBMRWith the PBMR Company seeking to redesignthe Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) tofocus more on heat applications, it is imperativeto note that disadvantages of continuingwith the PBMR remain.The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor has becomea black hole for public funds. The costsinvolved in the PBMR saga are illustrative ofthe financial risks inherent in nuclear powerin general.In 1999, the PMBR (165MW capaity) constructioncosts were budgeted at R2 billion.By 2005, these construction costs had risenby a factor of seven, to R14 billion withouta single PBMR being constructed. These costsdo not include the decommissioning costs,which will be considerable.Based upon the 2008 Environmental ImpactAssessment for the PBMR DemonstrationReactor and the decommissioning costs for ofthe predecessor to the PBMR - the GermanAVR - the costs to decommission a singlePBMR range from R1.5 billion to R70 billion.How to Fail before you Start -Courtesy Dept of Minerals and EnergyIt is with great dismay that manypeople involved with energy within civilsociety learnt too late, that theDepartment of Minerals and Energyhas put out for comment, a documentthat effectively kills any prospect ofRenewable Energy in South Africa.While civil society were jubilant that afeed-in tariff had been promulgated bythe National Energy Regulator (NERSA)recently, the culmination of a longcampaign, the latest move by vestedenergy interests through the compliantand subservient DME has neutralizedthis great leap forward in energysecurity in SA and a move towards aless climate threatening future for all..To require a torturous administrativeprocess, with minimal hope ofacceptability, and punitive costs at theend of the process, successful or not,is a sure fire way of keeping any saneRenewable Energy generator far awayfrom our markets.Not only should the DME be brought tobook on this issue, but it should alsobe broken up into it’s constituent parts– minerals as a part of theDepartment of Trade and Industry, andEnergy as part of the Department ofEnvironmental Affairs. There areprobably other ways in which to ensurethat we move forward in a sustainablemanner, but this is critical – we have tostop the DME from continuing it’sgame of wanting to control our energyfuture – we, the people of South Africa,demand our Constitutional right tohalt this charade by the DME, and callupon government to promote genuinelysustainable options for our future – theelections are almost upon us – wewonder if President Zuma, who is onrecord recently as being supportive ofRenewable Energy, will stand by hiswords?The electorate is watching.Nothing lasts forever, not even theUhuru history of the ANC.- Source C.A.N.E.It is nearly impossible, due to the lifespan of the reactor and the variable rates of contamination, to be more exact than this. Hence, thedecommissioning costs of the PBMR are uncertain and could incur a heavy burden on future generations, absorbing funds for vital socialprogrammes.An additional expense will be the waste storage costs, which are impossible to calculate due to the long-term nature of storing waste; forexample, uranium-235 has a half-life of 704 million years, plutonium-239 a half-life of 24,110 years, and caesium a half-life of 30.2 years.These kinds of timeframes defy economic planning, and, given our pressing social needs, should not be entertained. The costs for thePBMR are not efficient in terms of power generation. For example, Eskom is seeking finance of R5 billion to build a concentrated solarplant (100MW) in the Northern Cape; R14 billion for 165MW or R5 billion for 100MW capacity, economic sense favours the solar plant.This also excludes the costs associated with the security apparatus necessary for the PMBR.Nuclear materials and equipment need to be protected and highly regulated, due to the threat of contamination and theft. Theconsequences of radioactive material in the hands on malicious organisations could have profoundly negative consequences and has tobe avoided at all costs. While currently unquantifiable at this stage, these security costs will be passed onto the state and are unique tonuclear power. Other forms of energy generation (including heat generation) do not require these increasedsecurity costs.No matter how much the PBMR Company and the Department of Minerals andcEnergy seek to spin the matter, the PBMR has been awaste of vital public funds and will continue to be so until abandoned.- Coalition Against Nuclear EnergyBiophile 27• Page 40

Nuclear Waste Has No Place to GoObama budget kills Nevada storage site for used radioactive fuel rods piling up near power plantsby Michael HawthorneIn a pool of water just a football field awayfrom Lake Michigan, about 1,000 tons ofhighly radioactive fuel from the scuttledZion Nuclear Power Station is waiting forsomeplace else to spend a few thousandyears.[Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois hasbeen shuttered for years, but its wastelives on. The lack of a permanent solutionfor such waste poses a serious challenge tothe industry’s plans to build more reactors.(David Trotman-Wilkins / Chicago Tribune)]Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois hasbeen shuttered for years, butits waste lives on. The lackof a permanent solution forsuch waste poses a seriouschallenge to the industry’splans to build more reactors.(David Trotman-Wilkins /Chicago Tribune)The wait just got longer.President Barack Obama’sproposed budget all but killsthe Yucca Mountain project,the controversial site wherethe U.S. nuclear industry’sspent fuel rods were supposedto end up in permanentstorage deep below theNevada desert. There areno other plans in the works,meaning the waste for nowwill remain next to Zion and104 other reactors scattered across thecountry.Obama has said too many questionsremain about whether storing waste atYucca Mountain is safe, and his decisionfulfills a campaign promise. But it alsorenews nagging questions about whatto do with the radioactive waste steadilyaccumulating in 35 states.With seven nuclear plant sites, Illinoisrelies more heavily on nuclear power andhas a larger stockpile of spent fuel thanany other state. Besides Zion near LakeMichigan, plants storing waste are sitedalong the Illinois, Rock and MississippiRivers.Customers of ComEd and other nuclearutilities have shelled out $10 billion todevelop the Yucca Mountain site in sparechange-sizecharges tacked on to electricYucca Mountainbills. Most of that money will have beenwasted, and experts forecast that billionsmore will be spent on damage suitsfrom utilities that counted on the federalgovernment to come up with a burialground.Reversing course from previousadministrations satisfies critics in Nevada,including Senate Majority Leader HarryReid, but triggers another round ofmaneuvering and regional bickering inCongress.“We are drifting toward a permanentpolicy of keeping extremely toxic wastenext to the Great Lakes, and that cannotstand,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).More than 57,000 tons of spent fuelrods already are stored next to reactors,just a few yards away from containmentbuildings where they once generatednuclear-heated steam to drive massiveelectrical turbines. More than 7,100 tonsare stored in Illinois, including at the Zionfacility in Chicago’s northern suburbs.The lack of a permanent solution poses aserious challenge to the industry’s plans tobuild more than 30 new reactors. Existingnuclear plants already produce 2,000 tonsof the long-lived waste each year, most ofwhich is moved into pools of chilled waterthat allow the spent-but still highly lethaluranium-235to slowly and safely decay.Biophile 27 • Page 41But containment pools never wereintended to store all of the spent fuelthat a reactor creates. The idea wasthat the cool water would stabilize theenriched uranium until it could be sentto a reprocessing plant or stored in acentralized location.Instead it keeps piling up. And thoughindustry officials insist the waste is safelystored in fenced-off buildings lined withconcrete and lead, concerns remain thata leak or a terrorist attack could create anenvironmental catastrophe.As power companies run outof space in their containmentpools, they increasingly arestoring the waste aboveground in concrete andmetal casks; the Zion plant’sspent fuel rods eventuallyare to be moved into casks alittle farther away from LakeMichigan.“We continue to ask thefederal government to providea clear solution for what thelong-term storage of spentfuel will be,” said MarshallMurphy, spokesman for ExelonNuclear, which owns Illinois’plants.Until now, the solution wasYucca Mountain, a dusty mountain ofvolcanic rock about 100 miles northwest ofLas Vegas that Congress chose in the late1980s as a permanent repository. Federalofficials spent the last two decades-andbillions of dollars-preparing to bury spentfuel in a series of fortified tunnels drilledinto the mountain.Without further funding the project willwind up as a very expensive hole in theground.The repository’s apparent demise is partscience and part politics. Recent studieshave shown that water flows through themountain much faster than previouslythought, raising concerns that radioactiveleaks could contaminate drinking watersupplies. More than anything else, though,the project is opposed by two powerfulpoliticians: Reid and Obama, who is callingfor more study to find a better solution.

SENTIENCEANIMAL FRIEND ISSUESWhen undercover investigators made their way ontoChinese fur farms recently, they found that many animalsare still alive and struggling desperately when workersflip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs ortails to skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cutthe skin and fur from an animal’s leg, the free limbs kick andwrithe. Workers stomp on the necks and heads of animalswho struggle too hard to allow a clean cut.When the fur is finally peeled off over the animals’ heads,their naked, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile of thosewho have gone before them. Some are still alive, breathingin ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals’hearts are still beating five to 10 minutes after they areskinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dogon the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift hisbloodied head and stare into the camera.freezing nights, and, at other times, scorching sun. Motheranimals, who are driven crazy from rough handling andintense confinement and have nowhere to hide while givingbirth, often kill their babies after delivering litters. Diseaseand injuries are widespread, and animals suffering fromanxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throwthemselves repeatedly against the cage bars.Is There a Skeleton in Your Closet?The globalization of the fur trade has made it impossible toknow where fur products come from. Skins move through internationalauction houses and are purchased and distributedto manufacturers around the world, and finished goods areoften exported. China supplies more than half of the finishedfur garments imported for sale in the United States. Even if afur garment’s label says it was made in a European country,the animals were likely raised and slaughtered elsewhere—THEBRUTALITYOFTHECHINESEFURTRADETake a look inside the Chinese fur tradeBefore they are skinned alive, animals are pulled from theircages and thrown to the ground; workers bludgeon them withmetal rods or slam them on hard surfaces, causing brokenbones and convulsions but not always immediate death.Animals watch helplessly as workers make their way down therow.BackgroundUndercover investigators from Swiss Animal Protection/EAST International recently toured fur farms in China’s HebeiProvince, and it quickly became clear why outsiders arebanned from visiting. There are no regulations governing furfarms in China—farmers can house and slaughter animalshowever they see fit—meaning miserable lives and excruciatingdeaths. The investigators found horrors beyond their worstimaginings and concluded, “Conditions on Chinese fur farmsmake a mockery of the most elementary animal welfarestandards. In their lives and their unspeakable deaths, theseanimals have been denied even the simplest acts of kindness.”Living HellOn these farms, foxes, minks, rabbits, and other animals paceand shiver in outdoor wire cages, exposed to driving rain,possibly on an unregulated Chinese fur farm.Because a fur’s origin can’t be traced, anyone who wearsany fur at all shares the blame for the horrific conditions onChinese fur farms. The only way to prevent such unimaginablecruelty is never to wear any fur. Take PETA’s pledge to befur-free today!http://www.furisdead.com/pledge-furfree.asp?c=chfrplg- Source: PETATo Die For...!Biophile 27• Page 42

Help Introduce Welfare LabellingWhy is it that we allow animal-derived products to be presented to us without proper labels to indicate whether the animalconcerned had a life worth living or not?How convenient it is for producers to conduct their farming operations away from public view and then, on top of that, to havea nation of con- sumers so undiscerning and ready to believe that the product was humanely produced!“South Africa’s already threatened vulturepopulations may face a collapse similarto that seen in South Asian vulturepopulations if a particular veterinaryanti-flammatory drug is introduced to theregion.” That is the alarming message of DrVinny Naidoo, of the Faculty of VeterinaryScience, University of Pretoria, who isworking on the World Wide Fund forNature’s (WWF) Vulture Chemical ThreatsProject.His comments follow the completionof a study conducted by him and KerriWolter from the Rhino & Lion WildlifeConservation’s Vulture Programmewhich found that Southern Africanvultures are just as toxicologicallysensitive to the drug, diclofenac, asthose from South Asia.Compassion in World Farming (South Africa) is calling on our supermarkets to introduce a welfarechecklist label on all animal-derived products that will afford consumers the right to make informedchoices. Please add your voice to our call and e-mail: • Tessa Chamberlain, GM SustainableDevelopment, Pick n Pay, tchamberlain@pnp.co.za • Brian Weyers, Marketing Director, Shoprite/Checkers, bweyers@shoprite.co.za • Graham Claassens, National Brands Manager for Spar, Graham.Claassens@spar.co.za • Peter Gordon, Commercial Manager: Meat, Seafood and Poultry, Woolworths,petergordon@woolworths.co.zaNew Veterinary Drug Could Collapse Sa’s Vulture PopulationThe study forms part of the VultureChemical Threats Project which isimplemented by Naidoo and Wolterand funded by the WWF and AFGRIOperations Limited. This project isaimed at evaluating the risks to vulturesfrom the use of veterinary and stockremedies in treating domestic livestock,to lead from bullets that become availablethrough the scavenging of carcasses in thefield.Diclofenac is used on domestic livestock inIndia as a non-steroid anti-inflammatorydrug (NSAID). It has caused the dramaticdecline of three species of Gyps vultures inthe region which has had a major impacton the country’s ecology, as well as onhuman health with an increase of diseasessuch as rabies.Naidoo says vultures play an importantrole in natural habitats by decreasing theclearing up of carcasses. He added thatmany scientists believe this limits thecontamination of the environment.“Millions of vultures in South Asia havedied after consuming carcasses containingveterinary diclofenac. Southern Africanvultures could suffer the same fate if thisanti-inflammatory drug is introduced inthe region”, says Naidoo.Cape Griffon VultureImage: EndangeredWildlife Trust“Vultures are important in identifyingsubtle changes in the environment,like the appearance of toxins. Theyare environmental cleaners and eventhough the availability of wild lands hasdecreased, the number of game farms is onan increase making vultures an importantclean-up tool,” says Naidoo.Even though veterinary diclofenac iscurrently not available on South Africanmarkets, there has been interest fromcompanies to import this drug into thecountry.The Vulture Chemical Threats ProjectBiophile 27 • Page 43would like to see the drug banned fromSouth Africa and neighbouring countries.“There is too much risk involved. I wouldlike to see an International ban onveterinary diclofenac. Who knows whichother carrion eater is susceptible,” saysNaidoo.Dr Moji Mogari: Executive Director forCorporate Affairs & Strategic Projects says:“AFGRI is proud to be associated with theVulture Chemical Threats Project. We trustthat the results of this study will form abasis for enhancing awareness amongpolicy makers, companies and scientistson the role that Diclofenac plays in thedecline of vultures and to discuss feasiblealternatives”.There are currently nine vulture species inSouthern Africa, of which seven are listedon the IUCN Red List as being threatenedand endemic – meaning they are foundnowhere else in the world. Of the sevenendemic species, three species are Gypsvultures, with one being the Cape GriffonVulture (Gyps coprotheres). With only 2900 Cape Griffon Vulture breeding pairsin the world, this species is consideredto be the most threatened and globallyvulnerable.The Cape Griffon Vulture has similar genesto that of the Gyps vultures in SouthAsia and due to their extremely wideforaging range which includes crossingborders in the Southern African region,this could make them more vulnerable toconsume carcasses containing diclofenacin neighbouring countries.- Source: WWF

THUMBS-UPCanadian Senator Proposes Bill to End the Seal HuntA miracle onice, the birthinggrounds of hundredsof thousandsof baby seals willbe turning red withthe cruel slaughterof Canada’s commercialseal huntas you read this!Seals as young as three weeks old will be clubbed and beaten.Others will be shot in open water ... many will suffocate underthe ice or even be skinned alive. But for the first time in ourhistory, a Canadian politician is proposing a law to end this sufferingof baby seals.Tell Canada you support the Harb Seal Bill to end Canada’scommercial seal hunt. Follow the link at the IFAW website.- Source: IFAWCourier Company Voluntarily Measures,Reduces and Offsets Carbon EmissionsSouth Africa canonly reduce itscarbon emissionsif all of us changeour attitudes andbusiness practices.Delia Claassen,founder and MDof Cape Couriers,recognised thisand embarked onan environmentalcampaign in 2007 tocreate awareness ofglobal warming.“The transportindustry plays ahuge role in globalwarming. Weneed to combineour efforts andcollectively make astand to sequestrateour carbon dioxideemissions,” said MsClaassen.Cape Couriersemployedan externalconsultant tomeasure theircarbon footprintand is strivingtowards reducingtheir electricity,waste, vehicle andair travel impactswherever possible.They then contactednational greening,climate changeaction and foodsecurity socialenterprise, Food& Trees for Africa(FTFA), to assistthem to voluntarilyoffset theseemissions. Carbonsequestration is amajor opportunityto address this, andas the trees providemany other social,environmental andeconomic benefits,thistype of offsetproject offers muchadditionality.To offset a year’semissions, 2377 trees will bedistributed, at 198trees per month fora year, to projectsaround South Africa,as Cape Couriers is anational company.“We invite allcouriers andtransporters tomatch or better ourcontribution to FTFA.In the meantime,Cape Couriers willcontinue to re-cycleand contributetowards off- settingour carbon footprint.For moreinformation orto attendone of CapeCouriers’tree plantingevents, pleasee-mail: info@trees.org.za- Source: FTFAPhilips Accepts Recycling ResponsibilityWe are delighted that Philips has announced a change in itsrecycling policy, taking responsibility for the cost of recyclingits own products. Earlier this week Philips confirmedthat these costs should no longer be paid directly by itscustomers through an additional fixed fee but instead comecloser to being part of the overall product price.Philips had been the biggest obstacle in the electronicsindustry to tackling the growing problem of e-waste. Andwe have been calling on them since 2007 to stop activelyopposing laws that would oblige electronics producersto accept financial responsibility for the recycling of theirown products. After several actions and 47,000 messagesfrom our supporters, the company has finally agreed to ourdemands. This is a big step forward, and makes Philips anew green leader in the electronics sector.This is not only good news for consumers but also for theenvironment - because recycling costs are influenced by theamount of toxic chemicals present in products and how easyit is to recycle them. Producers like Philips now have theadded incentive to develop cleaner, more recyclable productsthat will reduce recycling costs now that they are paying forthe collection and recycling of their own products. Producerresponsibility is crucial to the greener development of theelectronics industry. The electronics giant has also madecommitments tomake substantialcuts in its owngreenhouse gasemissions andsupport a 30 percentemissions reductionfor industrial nationsby 2020.- Source:GreenpeaceBiophile 27• Page 44

THUMBS-DOWNIceland: Killing Whales toSave the Economy?Killing whales to save the economy? Itsounds like a terrible idea. Last week, theIcelandic government resigned, followingwidespread protests over its handling ofthe financial crisis.On his way out the door, outgoing FisheriesMinister Einar Gudfinnsson suddenlyannounced a massive increase inIceland’s whaling quota - up to an annualquota of 100 minke whales and 150 finwhales.- Source: GreenpeaceHackers Help Destroy theAmazon RainforestBrazil — High-tech smuggling operations may not be what you’dnormally associate with the ongoing clearance of the Amazonrainforest, but logging companies intent on plundering it for timberhave been using hackers to break into the Brazilian government’ssophisticated tracking system and fiddle the records.The result of the Amazon hacking scandal is that nearly 1.7 millioncubic metres of illegal timber have been smuggled out of theAmazon, enough to fill 780 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The sumsof money involved are also huge, and the public prosecutor is suingthe companies responsible for 2 billion reais (US $833m). Accordingto federal prosecutor Daniel Avelino, many of these companieshave a track record of illegal practices: “Almost half of the companiesinvolved in this scam have other law suits pending for environmentalcrimes or the use of slave labour, amongst other things.”- Source: GreenpeaceTell Armani That You Refuse to Support the Cruel Fur Industry!The undercover investigations of rabbit fur farms in China andFrance—two countries from which Armani has bought rabbit fur—revealed pitiful living conditions for rabbits, who are confined to tinywire cages before they are slaughtered.In the video footage from the investigation, workers at the Chinesefarm pull rabbits out of cages by their ears and shoot the screaminganimals in the head with captive-bolt guns, often multiple times.Rabbits with slit throats can be seen twitching and shaking, with theireyes wide open, before they die.While Donna Karan has followed in the footsteps of top designers—including Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein—Armanistill refuses to stop using fur. Armani claims that he “only” uses furfrom rabbits who are butchered for meat. We hope that you will takethis opportunity to contact Armani to tell him that while the meatof gentle rabbits killed for their fur in China is sold to be eaten, thesuffering that they endure is exactly the same. Point out that thecruelty depicted in this video on fur farms in both China and Franceshow animals who are killed for both fur and meat.Armani now sells fur, including rabbit-fur coats for babies and children.The new designs mean he has broken the promise he made just lastyear when he said, “I spokewith the people from PETA,and they showed me somematerials that convinced menot to use fur.”Please contact GiorgioArmani and urge him to keepthe promise that he made bypermanently removing all furfrom his collections.Please also send politecomments to:Giorgio Armani Corporation114 Fifth Avenue, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10011212-366-9720-Source: www.allcreatures.orgBiophile 27 • Page 45

GREEN GROWTHPLANT LIFE NEWSAn International Campaign against Monoculture Tree PlantationsBackgroundThe International Day against MonocultureTree Plantations has its roots in Brasil whereSeptember the 21st is the “Day of the Tree”.There, local communities and landless peasantsare involved in an ongoing struggleagainst the planting of vast tracts of landwith Eucalyptus trees. These plantations aredestroying their way of life, their livelihoodsand the environment, and on the 21st of September2004, this culminated in mass actionagainst the corporations responsible. Inspiredby these events, this day has since beenrecognised as the International Day againstMonoculture Tree Plantations, and it plays animportant part in focussing peoples attentionon the global, ongoing problem of expandingindustrial tree plantations. Many developingcountries are affected, notably Brasil,Indonesia, India, China and South Africa, buttree plantations are also a major menace inso-called ‘developed’ regions, including Scandinavia,Europe, North America and Australia.The aim of the international plantations campaignis to link the over-consumption of paperin our modern consumer societies (mainlyin the North) with the negative impacts thishas on local people in the global South who,as a result are facing the negative effects ofthe widespread expansion of industrial-scalemonoculture tree plantations. Such plantationsforce people from their traditional lands,destroy biodiversity, displace food farming,and consume incredible amounts of water. Seewww.wrm.org.uy.Impacts in South AfricaIn South Africa, where alien monoculture treeplantations of wattle, gum and pine are grownto produce raw fibre for the pulp and paperindustry, similar problems are experienced.Wherever industrial timber plantation treesare grown and processed, they cause untoldenvironmental damage and impact negativelyon local communities. They consume hugeamounts of water and displace other economicland-uses, especially small-scale subsistencefarming. Where pulp and paper mills are situated,air and water pollution affect people’shealth, and the biodiversity of both terrestrialand aquatic habitats. The destruction ofnatural vegetation to establish plantations, themassive consumption of energy used in theproduction of pulp and paper, and the hugeamounts of waste produced during and at theend of the papermaking process, also qualifythe industry as one of the biggest contributorsto climate change. See www.timberwatch.org.za and www.geasphere.co.za.Wasteful consumptionMost people are unaware of what goes intothe making of the paper that they use on adaily basis, and usually throw away withoutany thought. As a versatile commodity,paper has historically contributed to humanprogress, but in most industrialised nations,wasteful consumption of tree derived paperand packaging has now reached an all timehigh that cannot be sustained. Much of thisconsumption is unnecessary - including theindulgent use of excessive packaging, printedpromotional materials, multi-ply toilet tissueand the like. As a result, paper and paperproducts create massive quantities of waste -between 37% and 50% of the average rubbishdump. Much of it also ends up in drainsand sewers, and ultimately in our rivers andoceans. Recycling can reduce overall rawmaterial requirements to a limited extent, buthas been extensively hyped by the industryas a way to justify and promote the increasedconsumption of its products, which will inturn lead to even further expansion of plantations.See www.storyofstuff.com.It is imperative that people become aware ofthe environmental degradation, social dispossessionand health problems that lie behindthe innocent appearance of an inexpensivesheet of paper, cardboard and other woodpulp-derived products. Wood from both theunsustainable logging of forests and industrialtree plantations comes with many unquantifiedand therefore externalised social andenvironmental costs. Forest certification’ systemssuch as that of the FSC (Forest StewardshipCouncil) are an attempt by the industryto ‘greenwash’ it’s practices and merely helpthem to market unsustainably produced pulpand paper products. See www.fsc-watch.org.The drive to expand plantationsThe first stage in the paper making processis producing the raw material needed. Withnatural forests becoming depleted, and the industrydriven to increase profits and simplifyproduction, this is now increasingly obtainedfrom large-scale monoculture tree plantations.Throughout the world, governments in leaguewith trans-national corporations and internationalfinancial institutions are promotingplantation expansion, despite the serious andwell-documented social and environmentalconsequences already experienced dueto existing plantations. South Africa is noexception to this trend and the governmenthas earmarked large tracts of fertile communityowned land in the Eastern Cape andKwaZulu-Natal as “key for developmentin the forestry, wood and paper sector, withreforestation a vital part of the strategy.” Toachieve this, it has planned a R20 to R30-billion investment in ‘forestry’ over the nextfive years, to be provided by the private sectorand the Industrial Development Corporation(IDC).Both government and industry justify theexpansion of tree plantations on the groundsthat they are good for the economy whileproviding much needed employment and developmentfor rural communities. We are alsoled to believe that there is a shortage of rawlogs, when in fact much of what is producedis exported in the minimally beneficiated formof wood chips and pulp. While profits flowoverseas, South Africa pays the price with thedestruction of its environment, suffering of itspeople, and permanent depletion of its naturalresources.Empty industry promisesPromises are made to preserve the environment,implement social upliftment programmesand create jobs. However, onceplantations have been established, a far morelikely scenario is wide-spread environmentaldegradation, the displacement and breakdownof communities and the loss of existinglivelihoods, with only minimal, low-level,poorly paid and often dangerous employmentoffered as a substitute. With the collapse ofBiophile 27• • Page 46

traditional social structures, the drift to thecities is inevitable and people who once hadstability, community support and a degreeof self-sufficiency while living on their ownland, begin to contribute to the growing urbancrisis – sprawling, unhealthy slums, homelessness,unemployment and increasing criminalityand violence.Greater awareness neededPeople are generally uninformed about the destructivenessof monoculture tree plantations.This is largely due to public relations spin and‘greenwash’ put out by pulp and paper producerssuch as Sappi and Mondi. Most peopledo not understand that PLANTATIONSARE NOT FORESTS and have been led tobelieve that so-called reforestation (replacingindigenous forests with alien tree plantations)and afforestation (replacing grasslands andcroplands with alien tree plantations) are goodfor the environment. These terms are typicallyused by industry, institutions at universitiesthat are industry supported, and even somegovernment departments, to beguile peopleinto believing that growing tree plantations -even of alien invasive varieties, in grasslandswhere none previously existed - is a beneficialpractice as it is ‘creating forests’.Toxic to people and to NatureIn South Africa, the trees normally used inmonoculture plantations are Pinus (pine),Eucalyptus (gum) and Mimosa (wattle). Theseare all invasive alien species that have adaptedoverly well to South African conditions. Theyconsume huge amounts of water and aredetrimental to the soil, resulting in increasederosion and nutrient depletion. In addition,the toxic chemical insecticides, herbicidesand fertilisers that are used affect both humanand environmental health by contaminatingground water, streams and rivers and killingindigenous plants, insects and small mammals.Workers handling these poisonous substancesare subjected to severe health risks.Besides the more than 1,5 million hectaresof ‘managed’ plantations in South Africa, another1,6 million hectares of unmanaged feraltrees and abandoned plantations also devastatenatural biodiversity and seriously reduce theavailability of water. Despite this, governmenthas continued to issue new plantation licencesto the industry while failing to hold it accountablefor the unlawful spread of alien trees andother weeds from its plantations.Tree plantations have displaced local andindigenous communities, replaced farmlandand destroyed vast areas of valuable naturalhabitat, primarily grasslands, which have arich biodiversity and among other things,provide rural people with food, medicinesand materials for housing and crafts. Unfortunatelythere is little understanding of theenvironmental value and social importance ofgrasslands. Instead, they are often mistakenlyregarded as under-utilised, unproductive land,while the wide range of environmental goodsand services they supply are convenientlyoverlooked.Paper production (and consumption)causes Climate ChangeThe pulp and paper industry is also one ofthe world’s biggest contributors to globalwarming. This begins when carbon-storingforests, peatlands, grasslands and wetlandsare destroyed and replaced with monoculturetree plantations. Together these ecosystemscontain as much carbon as there is in theEarth’s atmosphere and when destroyed emitmassive amounts of CO2, making deforestationthe second largest source of greenhousegases after electricity generation. The burningof fossil fuels for transportation and processing,waste from mills and the huge quantitiesof methane which are released when paperproducts accumulate and decompose in rubbishdumps, further compound the problem,as do plantation fires.Plantation fires add to the problemMost South Africans are familiar with the terriblefires that now recur on an almost annualbasis in the timber growing areas of our country.What is not admitted is that plantationsare themselves one of the main causes of thefires, since the planting of millions of invasivealien trees leads to general dehydration of theplantation and surrounding areas while poormanagement of plantation debris increasesthe fuel load, and fire breaks are often nonexistentor overgrown. The simple fact isthat large-scale plantations of water-guzzlinginvasive alien trees severely reduce the overallavailability of water with dire consequencesfor people and the climate.Incredibly, in the face of all the devastationthey cause, the pulp and paper industrystill tries to present plantations as one of thesolutions to climate change. Carbon “offset”forestry is poised to develop into one ofthe largest and most lucrative internationalmarkets, and promoting plantations as carbonsinks therefore provides the perfect justificationfor pushing their expansion whereverpossible. This is of great concern as not onlywill it impact detrimentally on the environmentand local communities, but it will in factincrease carbon emissions, if the whole cycleof the paper making process is taken intoconsideration instead of just when the treesare growing and absorbing carbon.The way forwardWe can no longer afford to ignore the realityof the harmful effects of monoculture treeplantations. Abuse of the environment due toour ignorance, greed and apathy has culminatedin Climate Change, which now threatensthe very existence of life, as we know it.Awareness followed by change and actionin our own lives is the first step needed fortackling the situation. We have to recognisethat we are all part of the problem and mustcut down on wasteful consumption whereverpossible. However, reducing consumption isnot just a matter of individual choice, it is alsoa political issue. The pulp and paper industryhas huge financial resources and is backed bya complex web of private and public companies,governments and even some environmentalorganisations. It also benefits from arange of perverse subsidies, and by externalisingsocial and environmental costs, it remainsfinancially viable and able to continue toexpand.Those with vested interests profit from theindustry as it currently operates, and willactively resist any efforts aimed at reducingpaper consumption. Success in opposing theseinterests will depend on consumer awarenesscampaigns that link to grass-roots movementsin the communities that are directly affectedby plantations, deforestation and pulp/paperproduction, in order to form a strong andunited opposition to the abuse and exploitationof both people and the planet by the pulpand paper industry.Also see: www.globalforestcoalition.org;www.woodlandleague.org; www.foei.orgFor more information contact:Wally Menne 082-4442083Jenny Duvenage 076-2366713E-mail: timberwatch@iafrica.comTel/fax: 031-2663994Box 30577 Mayville 4058South AfricaBiophile 27 • Page 47

HEALTH MATTERSRECLAIMING OUR HEALING POWERCancer is not a Disease, it’s a Survival MechanismConsider the possibility that cancerand other debilitating illnesses are notactual diseases, but desperate and finalattempts by the body to stay alive for aslong as circumstances permit.It will perhaps astound you to learn thata person who is afflicted with the maincauses of cancer (which constitute thereal illness) would most likely die quicklyunless he actually grew cancer cells.Cancer will only occur after all otherdefense or healing mechanisms inthe body have failed. In extremecircumstances, exposure to largeamounts of cancer-producing agents(carcinogens) can bring about a collapseof the body’s defenses within severalweeks or months and allow for rapidand aggressive growth of a canceroustumor. Usually, though, it takes manyyears, or even decades, for these so-called“malignant” tumors to form.Unfortunately, basic misconceptionsor complete lack of knowledge aboutthe reasons behind tumor growth haveturned “malignant” tumors into viciousmonsters that have no other purposebut to kill us in retaliation for our sins orabusing the body.Cancer has always been an extremely rareillness, except in industrialized nationsduring the past 40-50 years. Humangenes have not significantly changedfor thousands of years. Why would theychange so drastically now,and suddenly decide tokill scores of people? Theanswer to this questionis amazingly simple:Damaged or faulty genesdo not kill anyone. Cancerdoes not kill a personafflicted with it! Whatkills a cancer patient isnot the tumor, but thenumerous reasons behindNormal Cellcell mutation and tumor growth. Theseroot causes should be the focus of everycancer treatment, yet most oncologiststypically ignore them. Constant conflicts,guilt and shame, for example, can easilyparalyze the body’s most basic functions,and lead to the growth of a canceroustumor.by: Andreas Moritz, Natural NewsTo read more go to:http://www.naturalnews.com/022578.htmlCancer CellDo you want to know the secret to reducing cancer riskby up to 90 percent? It’s simpler than you think: Healthyfood and exercise, all by themselves, can reducecancer rates by anywhere from 25 percent to over 60percent. Add in vitamin D, anti-cancer superfoods andavoidance of cancer-causing chemicals in personalcare products and you can readily achieve 90 percentreductions in the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancerand many other types of cancer.Read the amazing collection of author quotes onthis subject and more at : http://www.naturalnews.com/025730.htmlIn the mean time, watch out for mouthwash products.They’ve been found to increase cancer rates by 900percent! ( http://www.naturalnews.com/025729.html)Big Pharma is now pushing a drug for preventingprostate cancer. But get this: The drug is so ineffectivethat you’d have to treat 71 men for 7 years to preventa single case of prostate cancer! A better option?Pomegranate seeds: http://www.naturalnews.com/025725.htmlby: Mike adams, The Health RangerBiophile 27• Page 48

2m Kids per YearCould be Saved...Nearly two millionchildren die ofdiarrhoea each year,even though treatingthe ailment isrelatively simple and“almost miraculous”,the World HealthOrganisation said.Why Bleaching Makes White Flour Even WorseIt has been shown that alloxan is a byproduct of the flour bleachingprocess, the process they use to make flour look so “clean” and-- well, white. No, they are technically not adding alloxan to the flour-- although you will read this bit of misinformation on the Internet.But, they are doing chemical treatments to the grain that result in theformation of alloxan in the flour.With so little food value already in a piece of white bread, now thereis potentially a chemical poison lurking in there as well.So what is so bad about alloxan?Research into childhood diarrhoea has declinedsince the 1980s, keeping pace with dwindlingfunds for a disease that nonetheless accountsfor 20% of all child deaths, the WHO said.“Funds available for research into diarrhoeaare much lower than those devoted to otherdiseases that cause comparatively few deaths,”it said.The most immediate challenge is to ensure allchildren suffering from diarrhoea can access asimple, 25-year-old treatment consisting of zinctablets and a mixture known as Oral RehydrationSalts or ORS, said Dr Olivier Fontaine,a WHO medical officer specialising in childhealth.- SAPAEarly Childhood StressCan Have a LingeringEffect on Your HealthStressful experiences in early childhood can have long-lasting impacts on children’s health that can persist well beyondthe resolution of the situation.A study revealed impaired immune function in adolescents who experienced either physical abuse or time in anorphanage as youngsters. Even though their environments had changed, physiologically they were still responding tostress. How the immune system develops is very much influenced by early environment.The researchers looked for high levels of antibodies against thecommon and usually latent herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Whileroughly two-thirds of Americans carry this virus, which causes coldsores and fever blisters, people with healthy immune systems are ableto keep the virus in check and rarely if ever have symptoms. However,people with weakened immune systems can have trouble suppressingHSV-1 and produce antibodies against the activated virus.Adolescents who had experienced physical abuse or stressful homeenvironments as children had higher levels of HSV-1 antibodies,showing their immune systems were compromised.-mercola.comAlloxan, or C4 H2O4N2, is a product of the decomposition of uric acid.It is a poison that is used to produce diabetes in healthy experimentalanimals (primarily rats and mice), so that researchers can then studydiabetes “treatments” in the lab. Alloxan causes diabetes because itspins up enormous amounts of free radicals in pancreatic beta cells,thus destroying them.Beta cells are the primary cell type in areas of your pancreas called isletsof Langerhans, and they produce insulin; so if those are destroyed,you get diabetes.There is no other commercial application foralloxan -- it is used exclusively in the medicalresearch industry because it is so highly toxic.Given the raging epidemic of diabetes andother chronic diseases in this country, can youafford to be complacent about a toxin suchas this in your bread, even if it is present insmall amounts?- Source” www.mercola.comBiophile 27 • Page 49

Ihave written this article in response to the view offered in aneconomic posting I read recently on Webspirit. It is meant to bea helpful and inspiring alternative to the view you may not wantto have anymore about the future- a negative, closed-minded, widelycirculated view which we seem to have a lot of trouble disengagingfrom and which I, personally, am particularly tired of hearing. It is alsoa reminder of what’s real- the premise that divine presence is awakeningin us now, and that it literally is replacing thinking, strategizing anddoing, and all that goes with it, as a way of life. Finally, it presents theonly true, practical, and inevitable, solution to our current economic“problem”.Here is the excerpt:It is said that our conventional monetary system will not last long. Thisprediction is shared by almost every economist today: debt-basedand interest-based money is an unstable system that is condemnedto die...No one knows precisely when the big collapse is to beexpected, but everyone agrees it will happen sooner than later. Thecurrent world wide monetary crisis, as well as the effects of monetaryconcentration, are one of those historic social alerts announcing thebig crunch.- http://livingmandalas.ning.com/video/the-future-of-moneyThere’s a lot out there lately about our proposed gloomy futureand how we will have to save ourselves. Propaganda buzzwords like“collapse” and “crunch” excite the lizard brain into survival mode.We haven’t yet seen through this fantasizing about what has tohappen as nothing more than the assertion of the human ego, eachfantasy a somewhat different version of the same story in disguiseas a “solution”. Why are these fantasies? Because “the future” doesnot exist. “The future” is a fabrication of the mind. I can show youthe present but I cannot show you the future. Only the present isreal. If we let ourselves leave the now to “plan” the future, we arefantasizing. If we are worrying, we are hallucinating.The truth is: no one knows what will happen next (and no one needsto), except that we will do something completely different from nowon.Another truth is that the life force, God, has power over everything,all of us, and our changing time, and it is in control of the whole thing,not us. And its agenda is to wake up through us. That is what really ismaking this change happen. If it weren’t for that, we would continueon forever in our glorified and dysfunctional feudal system.If there is any question about how significant change can happen ifwe don’t (a) make it happen, and, (b) if “others” are against changehow do we convince them to change, please understand that this ishappening from the inside out, not the other way around.When I say we are waking up, I mean that divine consciousness isbecoming present within us now and taking the place of our limitedsense of self and our beliefs. (We do not need beliefs to operate inreality.) Our subsequent behaviors will follow this new consciousness.But our old consciousness cannot understand this. To the mind thiscan sound like a new age fairy tale. It is in fact simply thenaturalmovement of the evolution of spirit. We are spirit and are growing outof our egos which may be considered to have been a developmentaltool.Said another way, this change is not about rearranging the outsideworld to get things to fit the picture of how we think they should be. Itis about remembering what we are, Presence, and allowing Presenceto move into and through us so that It orchestrates things holisticallyand spontaneously. Housing this new consciousness means being it,thus acting in new ways - a complete departure from the old, not anew version of it.Most of us are still using our old-fashioned, conditioned, thinkingminds to try to predict what will happen based upon memories of thepast and then trying to figure out how to make things work from that.(This is where most economic information comes from.) This is a badhabit, it is crazy, and it is dysfunctional, since things worked just finebefore we started interfering with them. Also, it is unnatural, since thisis not how anything new actually gets born. New things are born outof an “empty space” that has no reference to past or future, a space inwhich the divine can enter -and the ego is terrified of empty space.But most importantly, approaching life through thinking is arrogantand implies that we believe that everything would just go crazy if wedid not control it. We distrust the divine, which unfathomably createdand brilliantly handles the everyday business of the entire Universe,let alone our simple, little mudball, the Earth, completely sansthinking. How are the planets doing in their orbits? Are we controllingthem okay? How about gravity? Ha!The memory of God can dawn only in a mind that chooses toremember and has relinquished the insane desire to control reality.You who cannot even control yourself could hardly conspire to controlthe universe....You believe that without the ego all would be chaos. YetI assure you that without the ego all would be love.- A Course In MiraclesNo one knows what will happen next. And it is just too scary for mostof us to go there. Yet, going there is exactly what we are called to do.We have no alternative left but to jump into the not-knowing and trustbecause deep inside we know that we have exhausted every singleego-devised avenue possible and they have all failed. Planning andcontrolling will now be replaced by following (guidance) and flowing.And this will actually work.But where could knowledge capable of helping us live life without aplan actually come from?Life is a lot simpler than what most of us expect it to be because westill listen to what our egos tell us, and the ego thrives on sufferingand self-importance because the ego is a reflection of our limitedunderstanding of ourselves. To exist, the ego needs problems, notpeace. It needs differences to perceive and challenges to overcome. Itneeds to be either hero or victim, two different sides of the same face.We used this mind to make up the world we have now and that is whyit is ending. Our entire civilization has been spawned from the ideathat we are people. This is what “the fall” of humanity actually was.Let us be grateful that it is now dissolving.Awakening and the New Permaculture Economyby Alexander AlexisBiophile 27• • Page 50

It is important that we understand that we believe that we are ourego identities and that the mind, the ego’s tool, is trustworthy andinfallible. These are fallacies.The device of the ego is to flash frighteningly negative pictures aboutwhat might happen to convince us not to trust openness and love. Itexerts all the force it can, including “adrenalin-izing” us, to drag us outof the moment (where there is almost never anything actually goingwrong) and make us believe we have to hurry up and do somethingbefore something really bad happens. (OY!)The result of believing this insanity is the made-up experience ofseparation from others and God, therefore a feeling of endangermentand lack. It is actually a state of psychosis. That is why the world oftenis referred to as an illusion -we cast it upon ourselves. This is ourcurrent experience.Spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle:The ego is a voice in your head which pretends to be you and neverstops speaking.It is a voice that speaks only from what it remembers of the past, whatit is programmed to say and therefore wants to project into the future,and whose agenda is to keep things going the way they have been. It isthe voice of shock. Is this the kind of voice we really want to continuelistening to?A different voice comes from a deeper place which is divinely guidedand utterly loving. This place would never fantasize a negativescenario or “come to a decision” about what needs to be done. It doesnot use fear or even recognize its existence. It operates solely on theUnity principle and Its nature and ours is love. It is the voice of peace.Its “What for?” is always the same one thing- the highest good of all.This place is the silence within, the Oneness, the Presence.Its kind of “problem solving” is beyond the abilities of the ego andanything experts can come up with. This kind of thinking is strictlydivine, and it works because the Oneness sees nothing as beingoutside of Itself and therefore dangerous. (That is an ego assumptionand it rules this world.) It recognizes no lack. (Another assumptionderived from duality.) We are capable of hearing Its Voice when weignore the ego chatter and enter the silence from which all things arecreated and sustained.The root of all of modern man’s problems is the fact that he isincapable of sitting alone in a room in silence.- Blaise Paschal, scientist/philosopher, 1600sNow that we have come to the end of the competitive,materialistically-based era, we are rapidly awakening to the fact thatwe all are part of this Oneness and that there is nothing to be afraidof.We are actually just one all-encompassing Being that is expressingItself as the Human Family. As we remember thetruth of what we are (rather than focusing onthe “who” each of us is in this dream of separation) we will act inthe only way a functional family can act. All our concerns about “theeconomy”, an ego-generated device, will disappear and we simply willstart sharing everything.Why not?When we started using money it was because we had forgottenwhat we are. We went crazy with anxiety and made up the storythat somehow we were no longer connected with our Source. (Thisis what all our myths are about.) We freaked out and invented a lotof unhappy dreams. (Modern “science” is one of them.) The use ofmoney is an outstanding symptom of this insanity. Using money, usingany medium of “exchange”, is completely unnecessary. What the useof money is actually saying is that we believe in our separation fromthe Source and that we have to prove that we have the right to exist.So now we have to earn a living. This is the myth of Adam and Evebeing expelled from the Garden of Paradise.The truth is that there is more than enough of everything rightnow and that hoarding resources and making people prove theirworthiness before they can eat is insane. We deserve to be here.All this will fall aside as we remember what we are again. As sanity(love) returns, no one will be working for money in order to survive,and no one will be making millions from things which are mostlyugly, unhealthy or unnecessary, just for money. Crime will cease aspeople find they have ten times more than they need of everythingimportant (including time and peace) because life, by its very nature,is superabundant and pure and self-replenishing. We will finally andtruly relax and enjoy ourselves. Knowing the truth of ourselves, wewill be free.This will be the beginning of Heaven on Earth.This is the true, self-sustaining permaculture of “natural economy” - away based on trusting in our innate connection with the Source whichput us here in the first place and not trying to make things happenourselves. It will have nothing to do with anything mundane stemmingfrom the old paradigm. It will only have to do with living as a DivineFamily and the fact of having remembered.When we stop listening to what our minds tell us we will have nomore desire to figure anything out, have meetings to make decisionsor make rules to control other people’s behavior because we fearwhat might happen if we don’t. The right “decisions” for everythingwill become obvious. The life force, Itself, will provide all the solutionsthe ego mind has determined it must in its attempt to be God. Andall those solutions will be perfect because they will be created witheverything in mind and with no agenda other than Love. And we willfinally receive those solutions because we will have turned our backson the voice of the ego and embraced the voice of truth. What arelief!Now, let’s take a deep breath and imagine a world in which:- we are worry-free about when the next bill isBiophile 27 • Page 51image: noahsgram - flickr

due or what would happen if we don’t get something done “on time”.(Yes!)- we have power that is perfectly clean, quiet and free. (Yay!)- a minimal amount of working together provides all the simple,friendly and fulfilling necessities of our lives. (Aaahhhh!)- most of our time is spent in play, communing, creating or resting.(Yum!)All this is already possible now and has been in suspended animationbecause of the inner agreements we have kept as a group. Thisbecomes our current reality as we let go of our attachments toour ideas about how things have to be and who we are. Since it ismore valuable to be happy and free than to be right and in control,resistance is supplanted by love!Please don’t think about how this can happen - it already is, and it’snot under our control. The divine force expanding now on Earth is fargreater than ever and its irresistible agenda is to coax us to relax, tolet go, to remember and to trust. The only true control we have is tobe willing to go with what is already happening, to say Yes.And if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe cosmic comic,Swami Beyondananda:So those of you spiritual folks who’ve long envisioned a moneylesssociety, your patience is paying off. We’re almost there!Fortunately, money isn’t wealth. In and of itself, it is worthless. If youdoubt that, try this simple experiment. Eat your money. While high infiber, paper money has little nutritional value. And here is somethingeven more amazing. A hundred dollar bill has no more nutritionalcontent than a dollar bill.So here’s the real good news. As surely as the sun comes up everymorning, we have more abundant wealth than we know what to dowith. Wealth is energy, and how that energy is used. Not only have webeen given solar energy to grow our food and power our lives, we’vebeen given soul energy as well - to use and magnify our resourceswisely. With the collapse of the house of credit cards economy, we canfinally get real. We can use the two most underdeveloped resourceson the planet, love and imagination, to re-grow our Garden and have aheaven of a time doing it.And with regard to the new local currencies and other things beinginvented now to help along or to take the place of the old systemthosemust be fashioned and used only in the spirit of the new age,the spirit of play (play money!), as steppingstones needed by thepersonality in its transition from proving, hoarding, accounting foreverything out of fear for the future to unity consciousness, love,sharing and trusting ourselves. For if we were to employ the newmethods in the old spirit of !seriousness and urgency! about oursurvival we will do nothing more than recreate the problems we havenow in another form.Nothing outside of us, not a new president, a new economy nor a newgizmo will save us- we do not need to be saved. That is the voice ofthe ego that is calling for crisis intervention because it is dying alongwith the old civilization it fostered. Don’t listen to it! We are cominginto the knowing and living of what we really are - divine, perfect,innocent, safe and loved eternal beings that are here to be just that.We are not our ego identities nor our beliefs any more than we areour cars or our clothing. We are One Being and we are God. Think withthis mind of peace.So I suggest that we welcome the next steps of our global awakeningand keep these truths in mind, and that we take the advice awakenedbeings always have given us: Stay In The Moment. Refuse to getcaught in reactions or strategizings. Don’t believe what you know.Be comfortable in the not-knowing and especially invite the spirit oflife to flow through you and breathe. Start to share in new, unheardof ways with innocent, gleeful abandon, and expect that we will besupported for being what we are.Love, peace and blessings will find us as we leave behind who welearned to be for what we came here to be:Oneness.image: La LostBiophile 27• • Page 52 52

RAW INSPIRATIONby Lindsay MitchellWhy raw? By eating raw we are choosing to eat consciously and harmlessly. Raw organic food holdsa specific vibration that can aid us in our own evolution. Nature is extremely proficient at assisting uswith healing – if only we would learn to communicate with her once again.I recently had the life-changing opportunity of attending a 2 day raw food workshop hosted by Peter and Beryn Daniel. About3 months prior to that I had attempted to go raw in a true ‘cold turkey’ fashion, - eating only fruit and nuts – but felt that I wasmissing some vital information & ingredients and hoped the workshop would provide me with these. It certainly did.The course took place over a weekend and was presented by Peter and Beryn with unbridled passion. Not only were we fed themost delicious, nutritious treats ever known to humankind, but we were also bombarded with the most radical, mind-alteringinformation – the kind of stuff the medical profession won’t be sharing with us; God forbid we attain abundant health andpersonal empowerment. We were presented with two manuals – which have become my bibles and the topic of much conversationbetween family, friends and even strangers. The one is filled with mouth-watering, tantalizing recipes and the other withcrucial information that will re-create your perception of food and re-enforce the importance of scrutinizing the ingredients thatgo into our precious meals. We had the privilege of watching Peter and Beryn creating wonderful culinary delights and wereeducated by Lexi on the ‘art’ of making a real wild salad – I never thought of eating weeds and flowers – yummy!!! Breakfastwas a liquid feast of smoothies – with all manner of Gaia’s finest ingredients - , ‘green juices’ and wheatgrass – pure liquidsunshine. Lunch never tasted better and then, of course, the ultimate taste bud sensation, DESSERT! Not to mention the greatcompany, laughter, fun and inspiration.Forget everything you ever learnt in Home Economics and dive into this new way of being and eating with gay abandon – youwon’t be sorry! The information on the course will blow your mind – expect re-programming and detoxification to begin onall levels. Peter and Beryn are a mine of information and leave no stone un-turned when sharing their raw knowledge. Theyare true pioneers of the raw food movement in South Africa and thanks to them, the raw food community is expanding rapidly.They offer a variety of courses. The Elements of Health Workshop, in my experience, is a great place to start as this will laythe foundation for your new eating habits. You can then top up your knowledge with weekly food preparation classes hostedby Beryn and Lexi. These classes take place either in the morning or evening and the menu’s change constantly – which isgreat for building up practical experience and showing your stuff when entertaining friends and family. There is also the ChocolateLove Workshop, which is a definite must for all chocoholics and of course the Raw Food Retreat coming up in April – Iwould urge all to attend, it’s going to be fab!! The Soaring Free Superfoods ‘on-line’ shop will be also be manifesting shortly,where you will be able to purchasenature’s best superfoods and much more – be sure to check it out. The webaddress is www.superfoods.co.za.A huge thank-you to the Superfoods Team for a truly memorableexperience. You are an inspiration to us all!!Biophile 27 • Page 53

Travelling Rawby Beryn DanielHello again,If you are regular readers of Biophile youwill already know that Peter & I are RawFood Chefs. We have been contributingarticles to this publication for well overa year now thanks to Anthea and herteam. Peter and I travel all over SouthAfrica presenting our 2-day Raw FoodCourse which focuses on how to preparehealthy and delicious raw meals as wellas conveying some of the fundamentalprinciples of why a raw food approach islife changing and health ensuring (andhealth insuring). So we get to travel a lot.We also bring a variety of superfoods fromaround the planet to South Africa. Recentlywe spent 6 happy and raw weeks in SouthAmerica visiting our suppliers, so we arehardened and resourceful travellers.I often get the excuse that ‘I travel toomuch for work to be able to keep up ahealthy lifestyle’. Well, here are some ofour tried and tested tips and methods forstaying healthy on the go. These tips arenot only for travelers but also for peoplewho have not yet gotten many of the toolsand gadgets, blenders and juicers thatsimplify the raw approach. Basically this ison the go food for the busy person.The main thing with travelling is thatyou are moving around, busy and notnecessarily eating well balanced meals atevery turn, however the important thingto remember is that you need to get foodsin from the following 3 categories and asmuch variety as possible.• Green leafy foods• Natural plant sugars• Raw plant fatsSome of the best foods that fit thesecategories that are travel friendly are:1. Green Leafy Foods- Green PowdersPowdered green whole foods such asbarley grass, wheatgrass & spirulina areamongst the most nutrient denseand there are many & variouscombinations available.- Salads and SproutsWhen possible if you stop and/ areeating out have a salad and sprouts.Grow some sprouts to take with youto see you through the first few daysof your journey when your body hasto adjust the most, especially to theharsh conditions of flying.2. Natural Plant Sugarsthis is easy…– Raw fruits and vegetables, whichare available all over the world!- Sea vegetables such as kelp, Nori,Dulse and Wakame are also greattraveller’s companions with a wholedifferent spectrum on minerals, traceminerals and nutrients.- SuperfoodsSuperfoods are mostly powdered and/dry so they are easy to travel with.Goji Berries are an example of a driedfruit and Maca powder an example ofa raw powdered root vegetable Theyare easy to travel with or have in yourbag.3. Raw Plant fats- Avocados, these are the traveling stapleand the easiest to get hold of.- Olives and olive oil fit into this categoryas well, as do,- Nuts and seedsWhat to take?If you’re traveling by air, airplane foodis awful, no matter whether it is vegan,vegetarian, kosher, you name it! I choseraw vegan on one flight and got cookedsoya sausages, so get used to the fact thatyou need to pack a bag. If you’re travelingby road and have space in the car, it’s muchbetter to pack a cooler box especially if it’sa long drive and hot. Road trips are easierPeter & Beryn Daniel are Raw Food Chefs. Togetherthey present Raw Food Courses all around SouthAfrica educating people about the healing power ofraw and living foods as well as demonstrating how toprepare these foods in interesting and delicious ways.Their living motto is: As close to nature as possible.“We aim to show people how to transition awayfrom de-natured foods and re-balance with highlynutritional superfoods and natural foods. In thisway we move joyfully towards the simple, fun anddelicious way of divine nutrition and eating directlyfrom your garden.”Peter and Beryn Daniel run 2-day Raw Food Coursesaround SA. Call 021 7947793 for more details or visitwww.superfoods.co.za and check out the Courses andWorkshops and Events Schedule.because you can take extra useful tools likea chopping board and a knife (althoughthe cooler box lid often works well as achopping board). Another must is to havea stick blender – they are not heavy, don’ttake up that much space and you can thenmake banana smoothies with superfoods.A good food backpack should have someof the following staples:A small sharp knifeA small chopping boardA stick blenderGood salt (e.g. Himalayan salt or Sea salt)Olive Oil (a small jar or bottle)Kelp powder (this is so that you can up thenutrient density of all your meals)HoneyBee Pollen, when availableBiophile 27• Page 54

A Superfoods snack pack of Goji Berries,Cacao Nibs, Raisins, and Almonds, Cashewsor PistachiosDried FigsMaca powderGreen Powder mixHemp Protein powderOther essentialsDigetive enzymes – these are essential tohave for when there is nothing else butcooked food and you happen to eat someof it along the way. The enzymes will helpdigest this enzyme deficient cooked food.Probiotics – what we don’t realise is thatflying knocks out our armed forces of goodbacteria, so when you land dose up on thegood guys to rebalance the system.Zeolyte Powder – if you think you’ve pickedup some kind of nasty bug, a tsp of zeolytepowder in water will help to draw toxinsout.Breakfasts:This is what we normally have.1. A glass of water with a tablespoon ofPure Synergy Green Powder blend.2. Fresh fruit such as mangoes, pawpaw &banana go well together topped with oursuperfood snack mix3. Peter sometimes makes a superfoodsmoothie, using a stick blender. Blend 1 or2 bananas with 1 or 2 glasses of water andadd the Green Powder mix and Maca. Youcan add extra honey if desired. You can eatthis out of a bowl with nuts sprinkled ontop.SuperfoodsI’ve already mentioned Goji Berries whichare good with fruit breakfasts, smoothies,in salads and even in tea, but what abouta sweet treat? We travel with Raw CacaoPowder and honey – and mix the 2together with some warm water to makea chocolate paste to either dip pecan nutsinto or just to eat straight off the spoon, ordripped over chopped banana or mango.Maca is an adaptogen meaning it adaptsyour body easily to different and difficultsituations; it balances the hormones andhelps you to deal with the stress of beingin the go. Get it in with breakfast and you’llbe off to a great start.Hemp Protein Powder is one that tastes greaton salads and adds extra protein to a vegantraveller’s diet.All these foods are either superfoods or havehigh nutritional profiles and are easy to travelwith or find whilst you are traveling:- Gojis- Cacao Powder, Beans & Nibs- Hemp Protein Powder- Maca Powder- Green powders such as Barley &Wheatgrass- Sea vegetables such as Dulse,Nori, Wakame & Kelp- Brazil nuts- SpirulinaIf you are travelling to a first world countrysuch as the UK or the States, go online andorder your superfoods ahead of time andhave them delivered and waiting for youwhen you get there.Salad LunchesWe travel with 2 tupperwares and cutlery.We can whip up something far nicer bypopping into a supermarket or fresh vegmarket and then sitting in a park andassembling a salad. The restaurants justaren’t up to raw food superfood status yet.Standard ingredients for a ‘quick toassemble’ salad:Fresh greens including alfalfa sprouts,spinach, parsley and basilTomatoesCucumberAvocadosLemon juiceRed peppersChop up all these ingredients and put inbowl, sprinkle with salt, lemon juice andolive oil.Useful dry ingredients to addWe’ve found the following along the waywhich give some variety:Tahini (mix the paste with water, garlic,salt and lemon juice to make a nice sauce.Dried mushroomsOlivesSeaweed mixes and NoriDried tomotoesDried herbsSometimes we throw the salad ingredientsin the nori sheet and have a wrap instead.Some warmed options:Brown rice/Quinoa is easy to findWhen we were in South America webought a flask and if we wanted quinoaor rice, we put some in the bottom of theflask, added hot water (not boiling) andleft it for about an hour to soften, thenturned it out into a bowl and added oliveoil, salt and chopped up fresh vegetables.You can add lightly stir fried onions, driedmushrooms and garlic if you wish.Snacks:Pecans dipped in honeyCacao Beans dipped in honey (a very highantioxidant-rich and enzyme-filled snack).Other nuts: Brazils, almonds, walnutsCacao nibs, Gojis and raisins.It is very important to load up on antioxidantrich foods especially when flying toprotect you against the radiation of flying.The top antioxidant travel foods are: CacaoBeans and Goji Berries.Once you get into the routine of havingsomething green, something fruity andsomething nutty every day whether youare traveling or just rushing from oneplace to the next well, you may be nuttyand fruity but you’ll also be traveling rawfood super-style. It takes just a tiny bit ofplanning and being stocked up on the rightcombinations of ingredients and you’reaway! It really is in fact very simple.To stock up on Superfoods at fabulousprices call 021 7947793 for a pricelist, ormail: info@superfoods.co.za or check outSoaring Free Superfoods’new online shop www.superfoods.co.zaBiophile 27 • Page 55

Piste in SwitzerlandJena’sHand in it Allby j e n a Gr i f f i t h sw w w .ha n d a n a l y s i s o n l i n e .c o mFirst, let me warn you, the word‘piste’ doesn’t mean what you thinkit does. But the results are the same.You end up falling in a heap somewhere,usually quite inelegantly.In Switzerland generally it’s onlythe foreigners who do this. Land ina heap I mean. The Swiss are at itfrom a very early age. Usually they’reat taught from age 3 on what to dowhenever they find themselves inthis condition. They learn to managethemselves with discipline, poise, andcontrolled recklessness.‘Piste’ of course means ski slope andthe other night I found myself on apiste in the pitch dark with a friend, 4children and 4 sleds (mistake!)I’d neglected to bring along a headlampso when Sylvia whipped out 4large wax torches and proceeded tolight them, I was momentarily overjoyed.Now let me tell you a dark secretabout the Swiss. In a country that’sfixated on caution, usually the onlything that surprises me is that wearen’t all forced to wear 2 seatbeltsinstead of just one when driving (incase one fails). But every now andthen this ultra cautious race throwscaution to the wind and they dosomething everyone else on theplanet would consider decidedly risky.Such as attempting to slide down adangerous slippery slope in thepitch darkwith youngchildrenwhile holdinga flamingtorch. Thisis the effectthat pistehas on theSwiss brain.The remotepossibility ofhaving a redhot pokerslammedup one’srear endseems rather too unremote to all butthe Swiss. I think this is just mothernature’s way of balancing her checkbook.If no one in the country is preparedto take any risks how are youever going to steer them towardsthe exit door? This is why piste wasinvented.Anyway, back to my story. Here Iwas at the top of a very steep pistewith my son laying down some evensteeper ground rules before allowingme on his carriage. He was threateningto abandon me at the drop of ahat should I put my feet down or tryto steer in any way.Now the problem with our pistewasn’t just that it was pitch dark. Itwas also a rather used piste. After along hard day of having people throwtheir bodies down it relentlessly ithad developed some rather largewaves. The results were you didn’teven have to dig your own grave.You’d just go slamming down intothe wave and come to an abrupt halt.With the added adrenalin rush of having3 flaming torches bearing downon you from above.Needless to say, this turned into anintra-sled competition, with theBiophile 27• Page 56“Piste”mothers trying to be last into eachhole and the children on the samesled trying to be first.It didn’t take long for the mothers tobe abandoned mid piste. I was quiterelieved by the sudden silence of theplace. It was a clear starry night. Aninky sky and an invisible landscape.The only thing certain about it wasthat it was decidedly tilted. We had togo lurching , scrambling and slippingdown the slope on our bottoms.Moral of the story?Sleds are like bank accounts. Alwaysmake sure you have one of your own.About Jenna Griffiths:Jena grew up in SA butnow lives in Switzerland.She’s a certified IIHA handanalyst. Jena was SA triathlonchamp and SA cyclingchamp in the late 80’sand founded the Women’sCycling Assoc before jumpingon a sailing boat andgetting thoroughly lost inall sorts of exotic places,including landlocked Switzerland.Basically she’s anexpert at being lost and whythis is a good thing. Jena will be in SA from15 May to 4 June 2009. She’s be consulting inJhb and running workshops. For SA bookingscontact elizabeth@handanalysisonline.comand put your name on the list at http://handanalysisonline.com/SA2009.phpto be keptup to date.

LIGHT OVER AFRICAAN AFRICAN GOODWILL NETWORK INITIATIVE“From the point of Light within the mind of God, Let light stream forth into the minds of men. Let light descend on earth ““Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth”Extracts taken from the Great InvocationIt is with the above imperative that the clarion call goes out to all the men and woman of Goodwill upon this, our most splendid continent of Africa.Right Human relations , the unity of mankind , love , goodwill and harmlessness in speech , word action are the cornerstones upon which this networkhas been founded and upon which it will continue to grow as it reaches out and encompasses every country , every religion , every political ,economic and racial divide without exception .The state of Africa todayWe hear and read daily of people living in abject poverty, of heinous crimes being committed against women and children - of rape, abuse andcruelty. We are shocked by the xenophobic attacks on foreigners in our country, and watch helplessly how our leaders show political expediency intheir decision making. Nameless killers stalk our city streets, terrorising citizens, even the rural areas are not excluded. It seems that crime does payas fraudsters seem to get away with their crimes. Elements of anarchy are creeping in on the lives of ordinary residents in many countries in Africaand we see the basic fabric of good governance and society fall away. Racism, deeply entrenched social attitudes producing suspicion and fear ofothers, together with crime and poverty are all human rights violations. The following “hotspots” on our continent confront us daily:• We had clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs in Nigeria. Rival ethnic and religious mobs burned homes, shops, mosques and churches infighting triggered by a disputed local election in a city at the crossroads of Nigeria’s Muslim north and Christian south.• The Darfur situation lingers on with hundreds of women and children dying daily.• Added to that is the Somalia pirate problem where the hijacking of oil tankers seems to be a lucrative way of blackmailing nations, companiesand individuals. These pirates have seized dozen of ships, extracting ransoms that total about $30 million this year alone.• The humanitarian catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the fear of a genocide disaster comparable to that which tookplace in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990’s has led to the call for European Union forces to be deployed in the DRC to support embattled UNpeacekeepers.• Zimbabweans have died from government-orchestrated violence and hunger. Now cholera is claiming scores of lives. A warning was recentlysounded that their country could soon become a failed state, the Somalia of southern Africa.Impacting on these crises we have the world economic recession and our planet’s environmental changes affecting water supplies, deforestation,clean air, fossil fuels, and the warming of the planet.The heart of humankind is, however, sound. Countless non-profit and community organisations, religious groups and thousands of volunteers areworking in creative ways to bring relief to the suffering of people caught up in unbelievable poverty, to vulnerable children, abused women, threatenedcommunities, and those whose human rights have been totally violated. All of us are contributing materially, physically and skilfully wherewe can, yet we feel hopeless and powerless and we wonder how else we can contribute to the solution of the crisis our continent is experiencing.How can I help?There is a most effective and creative way of working for the good of all people, a way of countering the tendency to selfish and materialistic behaviour,of getting stuck on our agendas and thereby creating subtle barriers to sharing, cooperation and taking responsibility for the wellbeing of allaround us. The essential dynamic for creating a more peaceful and equitable world for all is to focus on goodwill as the driving force of all constructiveeffort. Creating an atmosphere and an attitude of goodwill is a key requirement if we are to move towards a better world. (Goodwill = thewill-to-good = the-will-to-God.) Your field of service and the impact that it makes upon public opinion provide an opportunity to contribute to themassive effort now needed to mobilise goodwill among all responsive members of the human family.A Growing Group of Men and WomenSince the formation of the African Goodwill Network many men and women of goodwill have joined from several African countries such as Nigeria,Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa. They came one by one, in groups, in congregations, bringing with them therichness of their own cultures, languages, religious convictions, and above all an open heart and mind with willing hands to help. They stood up tobe counted, not asking for glory or recognition, but quietly, determined and focussed they play their part daily in bringing Light to Africa.- These men and women of the African Goodwill Network stand for the fundamental freedom of the human spirit and think and act according totheir own conscience.- They do not lay blame on any person or country or religion, but accept that the errors and mistakes of past centuries have culminated in ourpresent problems and are the joint errors and mistakes of humankind as a whole.- They believe in the underlying unity of all people and the oneness of humankind. They believe in harmlessness which is expressed in speech,writing and above all in action – in the way they live. Goodwill is the motive behind all activity.- They believe in the goodness of all people and that by mobilising the forces of light, love and goodwill, the negative and evil forces will lose theirhold and power in human affairs.This group is subjectively supported by many people living outside Africa, people of African origin, other goodwill groups who join us in our effortby praying, meditating and in this way strengthening our hands.The InvitationWe invite men and women of Africa from all countries, of all races and religions -• who believe in the potential for good in every human being;• who believe that right relationship between peoples and nations, between humankind and the earth are the key to world peace and progress;• who accept responsibility for establishing right relations and who will work daily to establish unity and goodwill in the world,• to join in our effort in meeting the need of the day by creating right human relationships with each other and with the earth.We do not ask you to leave your religious persuasion, your employment, your home or your country, but we do ask you to cross borders of separation,to reach out to each other across Africa, from north to south, from east to west, to respect and honour the human spirit, to create an atmosphere andan attitude of goodwill in order that we all move towards a better world.”For further information, contact: irisbornman@mweb.co.za sending your name, email address, country and nearest town/city in which you reside.Details will be confidential and will not be passed on to any mailing lists or other persons without your permission. In the case of no email facility,please post your details to African Goodwill Network. P.O. Box 13718, CASCADES, 3202, KZN, South Africa.Biophile 27 • Page 57

m e a n i n g f u l m e d i aThe 3 D ViewStephen BlewettKima Global PublishersR140.00ISBN 978-0-9814278-0-Stephen Blewett’s successful business concepts come to life through story telling. OurAfrican continent holds a wisdom within its borders that stems from the life experiencesof its people, animals and nature. To bring this alive through the wisdom of our animalsand nature is a skill only a few of us seem to have. In today’s global economic crisis, itis the kind of wisdom that every entrepreneur, or school leaver just starting with theircareers needs to have. To be successful in their lives is shared very creatively in thisbookThe Language of LightNadine MayPublished by Kima Global PublishersR160.00ISBN 0-9584493-3-3The concept behind The Language of Light workbookis a deep one. The author shares how, through simpledoodling exercises, we can awaken the Soul qualitiesthat we all have. It’s these energy particles that shapeour lives and our manifestations. The power behind theenergy of ‘forgiveness’ is an example. Our individualLanguage of Light symbol can make a big difference toour lives, but these soul qualities need to be ‘invited’ intoour daily living. Through being in a creative space, whiledoodling, we are awakening to the wisdom that comesfrom our Higher Self.THE NEPTUNE CYCLE – 2012Lois StahlRaider Publishing InternationalISBN-13: 9781935383116The events of 2012 are manifested in a smallcommunity in South Africa and their courageousattempt to survive the earth shifts that take placeduring this year. Through various indigenous culturesthe community learns ways to live in harmony with theearth and each other. Their own personal dramas andevents are indicative of the events occurring on theplanet during this year.When the people wake up on the morning of 2012 theyfind that everyone has had very strange dreams or pastlife experiences that give them the keys to change theirlives and standtogether to builda new future forthose that follow.The main characterLarize goes throughmany initiationsto becomeempowered, whichenables her toassist others in thecommunity duringthe earth-changingevents.Biophile 27• Page 58

ANT’S CORNERObservations & Perspectives from Ant BorainI love old sayings, maybe because they only got to be old sayings because they are the truth. Nothing untrue canever last. I have been wanting to tell people to come home since I discovered home, a few years ago. I alwaysthought the heart felt comfortable at home, the address I lived at. This obviously could not always be true.Then it dawned on me.Home is Where the Heart isMy heart is always with me, so wherever I am is home. It is a wonderful feeling, all the time, well, most of thetime. Coming home, now means getting back within. Being present, it is so grounding, centering, comforting.Accepting ‘what is’, out there, around us, not judging, but just taking care of our own business, not trying to runanyone else’s business. Remember, there are only three types of business, our business, their business and Godsbusiness. When we interfere with or try to run someone else’s business, who is running or minding our business forus, no one. When no one runs a business, it falls apart. Another old saying comes to mind, “mind your own business”.Thanks mom, bless your soul, you taught me all these old sayings. I have only recently begun to understandthem.The old Chinese proverb, ‘Read a book a thousand times and you are bound to understand it’ also rings true. Wetruly understand or know very little. The more we learn the less we realize we know. Doing “A course in miracles”helped me, reading the Toa a hundred times and still reading it helped me, reading “A new earth” ten times andstill reading it helped, reading “A thousand names for joy” a couple of times and still reading it helped, writing twolittle books myself helped tremendously. We definitely only teach what we want to learn.A thought flows into my head and my fingers do the rest.Like riding a bicycle. Friends are amazed that I can ride tothe beach, about 90-km away. It is so peaceful and quiet. I don’t peddle, I don’t even breathe. I get breathed andmy legs just push and pull happily until I get to my destination. When I go up a big hill, my lungs know to breatheharder to supply my muscles with more oxygen, I don’t have to do anything. I spent many years in court rooms, Ieven won High court cases without a lawyer, I lost a few too, I had a lot to say but didn’t know who to say it to.I subconsciously must have thought that lawmen, judges and magistrates were educated, they would hear andunderstand me.What a disappointment, a let down. I did learn that if weexpect nothing, we have everything.Dr Len HewIt took me many years to accept reality and become present, come homeand get comfortable in my own skin. I only ever do anything with acceptance,enjoyment or enthusiasm now. And, like Len Hew (ho’oponopono)said, I have promised myself a chocolate (rice) milk Sunday so big thatI will be sick after drinking it if I can get through one full day withoutjudging anyone. After fifteen years he still has not made it. Len is a veryspiritually advanced soul having a human experience.Read about him. (Google him) The overcrowded maximum-security prisonhe was working at ended up closing down, the hard core inmates alltransformed without him ever seeing or speaking to them. He sat in hisoffice with each man’s file and said over and over, I am sorry, I am sorry, Iam sorry and I love you. He was apologising for creating these men’s circumstancesin his space. He understands that whatever we are surroundedwith, whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we have created.Awesome stuff. A new meaning to minding our own business, taking 100%responsibility for ourselves and teaching by example.Biophile 27 • Page 59

The InboxLou Bognon is a spiritual healer, author,teacher, producer and presenter of TheInner Voice, an inspirational programon Channel Africa which is broadcastinternationally in English and French.www.loubognon.com orlou@loubognon.comTHE CRUMBLINGHAS STARTEDfrom aSpiritualPerspectiveby Lo u Bo g n o nw w w .lo u b o g n o n .c o mAs 2009 progresses – we sense a slowingof the frenetic pace at which wehave been travelling for the past fewyears, while witnessing, as if in slowmotion, the crumbling of many systemsaround us…In all TV news, local or international,the news readers themselves, areusing the kind of terminology that reflectsour own deepest fear and worry,and often ask the very same questionswe all do to ourselves: when will allthis end, how are we going to get outof this mess? how did we get here?How did this actually happen? Howcan giants in all sectors all of a suddenand out of the blue, be reducedto a position of mere midgets? Howcould some greedy people get awaywith it for so long?In the two previous issues I sharedwith you the insights I have glimpsedas to where we are headed and, herehopefully I will take you a little furtherinto the understanding of whatreally is happening, how we will survivethese ongoing crises and what implicationsthere are for us as individualsand as a collective of humanity.By the time you read these words thebudget deficits in some of the richestnations (not to mention most) will bereminiscent of a big black hole – wenow acknowledge that we have consumed,spent, promised, pledged andinvested more than we could affordand so the situation is now more thanever exposed for what it is – greedgone bust, the “cooked books” lookingever more like a concoction offigures no one really knows for surewhether they are real or imaginary.Some countries did not indulge in thegreedy frenzy or the virtual financialbanking reality and are thus weatheringthe storm in a far better shape.Still, all are affected.Some governments will freneticallyprint paper money as if trees themselveswere cloning each other everynanosecond while the so called soundfoundations of economics have all butvanished, disappeared, and movedinto nothingness…In short – and again to quote fromthe wisdom given in my third book,The Divine Laws* – the crumbling hasstarted in earnest…There is indeed no going back, noholding on to what and how it used tobe; that is now vanishing right in frontof our eyes: the systemically destructiveand unsustainable way of lifewe have lived for so long, with beliefsystems and structures of economicgovernance that serve the greed ofthe few against the needs of the many,have simply now shown us beyondwhat we needed to be shown, theirabsolute incapacity to fulfil the needsof all humanity.We are witnessing the end of an era– the end times of all that has beendivisive, from economics to religionsand politics, as well as all and everythingthat has become unsustainable.In our taking without ever giving back,we have lived under the illusion thatabundance was only for the chosenfew, that the masses of humanitywere just another tradable resourceor commodity and now the massesof unemployed and the suffering aregrowing by the day inside the very nationsthat birthed these very beliefs,notions and economics of greedy unsustainability.Biophile 27• Page 60Time has come to play another game,to apply new ideas, birth new sustainablesystems, but we have notyet grasped what is ahead nor whatexactly we are to create, how to playthe very game and rules we still haveto invent, and, because most peopleare so lost, they cannot see, muchless sense, the new possibilities. So,here is a peek at what is coming ourway, quote *:As the old and obsolete gives way tothe new inventions – all of them willbe, not only user-friendly but alsoand most importantly, also friendlytowards your environment and all theelements and kingdoms of your belovedplanet.When and as you learn to tap into theuniversal energy, you will move, communicate,travel and share all as one,for it will not cost anyone anythingto do all these things that now stillremain an impossible dream for themasses of humanity.By then you will have taken yourplace among all the nations of thestars and you will travel there justas they have been travelling to yourssince the beginning… Unquote.*Good place to start - we have to juststart imagining this…after all we allare now able to understand that ourbeloved Planet is perfectly able toprovide for every man’s need, but ofcourse she cannot provide for everyman’s greed…And one last word: let us never forgetthat each time we imagine it is theCreator-Source who really is imaginingthrough us…With infinite love – Lou Bognon*The Divine Laws, by Lou Bognon -ISBN 0-620-36651-6

We find a need to return to the subject of your creative powers, as few of you understand how much you contribute to the continual re-shapingof your reality. What comes to you is the result of your mass consciousness, which projects your desires into the ethers and attracts such as isnecessary for their manifestation. You are the creators of all that is around you, yet for many centuries you have been led to believe that othersare better suited to decide your future. It is true that you have been deceived and misled, but with little questioning you have given away yourrights. Fortunately, there is a greater plan that decrees the end-times shall hand these back to you, and give you the chance to ascend. It is youwho determine how it shall work out, but the end result will still be the same with Ascension.Your individual power can be used for any expression that you should choose. For example whether or not there is a deliberate intent to selfheal, the fact remains that when you apply yourself to putting out such thoughts, they do have an effect. It should be mentioned that youcannot “force” healing onto someone else even with the best of intentions. Surprisingly to some of you, a soul will often wish to have a fullexperience of whatever illness they have elected to go through. If you think upon it, it also involves many other souls who may also be part ofthe victim’s life plan. Such powers can of course be directed at another person whether for positive or negative purposes. However, the lattercan incur karma where you have actually interfered with another souls freedom of choice.Life plans cannot be analyzed too deeply, as you do not yet have the full knowledge as to how the spiritual side of your life is arranged. It isabsolutely true that nothing happens by chance, and it is worth bearing in mind when you are involved in matters that concern others. Sufficeto say that as this cycle reaches its conclusion, many souls are taking the opportunity to clear away their remaining karmic responsibilities. It iswhy some individuals have had action packed lives and often extreme challenges. As always you never tackle them totally by yourself and helpis given, often by moving you in the direction of other people, or opportunities that will assist you in making the best response.Karmic ties bring people together, and often they will incarnate as a family for that purpose. Such an understanding can be very useful, byshowing you where your energies and efforts are best placed. Following your lives on Earth they are reviewed, and the results form the basis offuture life plans. Opportunities are taken at suitable times to brush up on matters that need more attention from you. You will understand fromthis that your lives are not random affairs of no consequence, but carefully orchestrated to offer you chances to further your spiritual evolution.As you might gather, those of you who have become spiritually awakened have progressed far along your path, and many of you have almostreached the end of your experiences in duality. You have passed the tests and responded to the challenges they have presented you. You nolonger need any further time in this cycle, and your progress will continue in the higher dimensions. It would be correct to call it your reward,because you have not reached this point without applying yourself to your spiritual advancement. No one can do it for you, but of coursethey can guide you with the benefit of their own understanding. This is why you find that there is an emphasis on always following your ownintuition. You may go astray at times, but as long as you keep an open mind you will find the correct path again. There is no race against timeand it does not matter not how long your evolution takes, as ultimately all will return to the Source, and it cannot be any other way.When we arrive on Earth, listen to us as we come to help you take the next steps in your evolution. Like all members of the Galactic Federation,we are Light Beings from levels that you are destined to reach. We cannot do other than be truthful with you, and we try to set our levels insuch a way that we make sense to you. It is no good trying to take you too far too quickly as there is no rush, but we do want to lift you to thepoint where you can begin to understand your time on Earth. Historically, there is very little that you can refer to where the truth can be found,and by and large there has been a deliberate attempt to keep you in the dark. That word is totally appropriate, as the dark ones have neverwanted you to know that you are truly great and powerful spiritual Beings.The truth will hurt some people, as they have been totally captivated by the dark ones and believed what they have been told. No one caresvery much to learn that his or her cherished beliefs have been false. However, the truth must come out before you all take your next stepsin whatever way you have chosen. You will then have the foundation of truth with you, which will be of particular Importance to those whochoose to stay in the 3rd dimension. They will continue their evolution elsewhere, but with the sub-conscious knowledge of the truth. It willenable them to start again at a reasonable level of vibration, and not go back to the earlier stages. Dear Ones, it is the intent of the Creator andall helpers that you continue to evolve, and there is no plan that holds you back as your progress is largely down to you and your choosing.We view all events that take place on Earth and monitor the outcome. It gives us a good idea as to what will happen next, and enables us toengage our allies in tasks that will help us all. The impact of what is happening now will eventually give us the opportunities we seek to goahead with our plans and First Contact. Naturally during any period of cleansing there are bound to be hardships, but these will be relativelyshort lived. Everything required to turn things around is already in existence, and we shall help you leap into the future. There are many thingsthat you should already have had, but were kept from you through the greed and desire for control of the Illuminati.I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and I find acceptance of our presence and the love we bring you is becoming more widespread. It greatly pleases us, asour arrival is in no way intended to add to your problems, but quite the reverse.Thank youSaLuSa.A Message from SaLuSathrough Mike QuinseyBiophile 27 • Page 61

As Mother Nature ushers in the rhythmof autumn in the Southern Hemisphere,the themes for April, initiated by theAries New Moon at the end of March,get off to a high-voltage start. As withany action-orientated, vibrating energy, itneeds a positive place to go, or it tendsto look for mischief. Aries energy isvibrant and self-directed often associatedwith the “What about me?” personal self.This self-preservation characteristic hasa very positive function when operatingat the highest level. Aries and its rulerMars are also known as the warrior andthe God of War. At this time, we aredealing with the warrior who will rise tothe challenge, fight for the cause, or startthe war. This is a great time to get thingsdone if it involves strategic planning,embracing discipline, creating structure,reducing and letting go. If not, there canbe a feeling of frustration or restriction,rather like driving with the handbrake on,exerting lots of energy but not gettingvery far.Venus in Aries, in retrograde motionuntil Friday the 17 April, is out of hercomfort zone and functioning withdifficulty. The retrograde motion and thealignment of planetary anger triggersintroduce additional discontent thatwill be felt during the course of the nexttwo months. When the goddess of love,beauty, money and values is unhappy, itwill be felt by many in a personal manner.Issues relating to relationships, valuesystems and finances will be relevant.There can be much discontent whenwants and desires are not being met. Itmay be difficult to find a resolution untilafter Venus goes direct on 18 April, butthings may get worse and come to ahead before they get better.We have Jupiter up close and personalwith Neptune, offering hope andpromise and what might appear to begood and happy light relief but thereis a caution to look for the substanceto support this. Without the substance,we are in danger of hooking into theillusion that everything is okay, or will be.As with all fantasy and illusion, we areCosmicDirectionsBernadette Medderof Cosmic DirectionsConsultant and Teachersince 1993021 794 4150 orcosmicdirections@icon.co.za“A Taleof TwoCities...”setting ourselves up for disillusionment.There can be huge progress for thoseworking at a very conscious spirituallevel. The term “a leap of faith” applies.This will separate those who talk aboutspirit and those who live with spirit.Aquarians on a spiritual path will benefitthe most, those who give lip serviceor are oblivious, will experience thedisillusion. Those born under the signof Sagittarius, Aries, Libra and Geminimay benefit to a lesser degree. All othersigns, especially Leo, Scorpio and Taurus,may have a test of faith. This conjunctioncontinues to be in focus for the rest ofthe year. For the next two-month periodit is highlighted at the time of each newand full moon.In Biophile no. 23, I made the briefestreference to possible problems in Chinaat the time of the Olympics. This concernrelated to Neptune’s association withthe Moon at the time of the eclipses.Only recently have I become awareof the revelation that the Chinesegovernment covered up the toxic milkscandal because they did not want tobring negative attention to their countryat the time of the Olympics. So sinisteris Neptune’s realm that when active,something of that magnitude can bekept secret. However, as in this instance,most behavior tainted with illusion, iseventually uncovered. I mention thisbecause this is very relevant for ourelection day chart.At dawn on 22 April, we have Uranus,Moon, Mars and Venus all lined up atthe end of Pisces, but at the close of day,the Moon and Mars will have movedinto Aries. This means that the daygrows in momentum, going from a slow,laid-back, maybe even sluggish morningoffering the promise of change and abetter tomorrow, into a more aggressiveand highly charged end of the day. Marsmoving into its own sign tends to makethings happen, is very good about usingthe warrior energy productively but thisis a difficult placement for the Moonand the alignment at the end of the dayindicates anger and action that needsto be directed or it could be destructive.Astrologers of yesteryear would havenoted the karmic position of the Sunat the bendings and cautioned that ifyou take this power, you need to beresponsible for it. There is a challenge forgrowth and change, the Sun representsthose in power and control of countriesor corporations, and more specificallythe ego of those in power. On electionday the most interesting of planetaryalignments involves Mercury withJupiter and Neptune indicating promisesthat are too big to be delivered andan overdose of optimism that has nosubstance. This is a clear indication ofhope and trust but also illusion, and thisis the clue that the hope and trust couldbe misplaced.Workers’ day is celebrated with theMoon very comfortable in the femininesign of Cancer; there is power to thepeople, especially the feminine. This isa good day to spend time with familyand loved ones; do something fun,step out of your comfort zone and beadventurous. However, one can’t relaxBiophile 27• Page 62

totally as anger and violence issues arestill relevant at this time. Once againMercury is in retrograde motion from7 to 31 May, so not only does one haveto take extra care with communication,arrangements, timing and keys but sinceNeptune is in challenging alignment atthe same time, one needs to be honestin all dealings, or run the risk of beinguncovered after 1 June. Most of all, tothine own self be true.Saturn moves direct on 17 May afterfour and half months of being inretrograde motion. This should releasesome of the tension and frustrationand we will find this energy working ina more constructive manner. The chartof the New Moon in Gemini on 24 Mayperpetuates the Neptune theme oftruth vs. fantasy or, if looking at it froma different perspective, lies and deceit ofmonumental proportions. For the rest ofthe year, it is important to sustain a levelof realism no matter how good or badthings may appear to be – it may neitherbe as good, or as bad. Things may seemunusually chaotic and difficult but peoplewith a true and honest sense of self anda strong connection to spirit will havethe compass to navigate through theuncertainty. Aquarian, Charles Dickens’words written in the 19th century seemeerily appropriate in today’s times:“It was the best of times, it was the worstof times, it was the age of wisdom, itwas the age of foolishness, it was theepoch of belief, it was the epoch ofincredulity, it was the season of Light,it was the season of Darkness, it wasthe spring of hope, it was the winterof despair, we had everything beforeus, we had nothing before us, we wereall going direct to Heaven, we were allgoing direct the other way.” (A Tale ofTwo Cities)Conversation with God (& St Francis)God: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the World isgoing on down there in the USA? What happened to the dandelions, violets,thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect, no-maintenance gardenplan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiplywith abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies,honeybees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colorsby now. But all I see are these green rectangles.ST. FRANCIS: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. Theystarted calling your flowers weeds and went to great lengths to kill them andreplace them with grass.GOD: Grass? But it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies,birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It’s temperamental with temperatures.Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it andkeep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning anyother plant that crops up in the lawn.GOD: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow reallyfast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it,sometimes twice a week.ST. FRANCIS: You aren’t going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stopsgrowing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so theycan continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a Sheerstoke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the springto provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to theground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect thetrees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance thesoil. It’s a natural circle of life.ST. FRANCIS: You’d better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn anew circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and payto have them hauled away.GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the Winterand to keep the soil moist and loose?ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy Somethingwhich they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in placeof the leaves.GOD: And where do they get this mulch?ST. FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.GOD: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?ST. FRANCIS: No, sir -- just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.GOD: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. Andwhen it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?ST. FRANCIS: Yes, sir.GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut backOn the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the gro wth and savesThem a lot of work.GOD: Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine,you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?ST. CATH-ERINE: Dumband Dumber,Lord. It’s a realstupid movieabout.............GOD: Nevermind, I thinkI just heardthe wholestory from St.Francis.Biophile 27 • Page 63

Many people, deeply concerned at the trend of human affairs, are interested in finding new and practicalways of contributing to the solution of world problems. But they do not know with whom to ally themselves,or what to do. They feel futile as individuals and have no faith in stereotyped old-age campaigns, or new-fangled“isms” and cults. Something must be provided, based upon the essential human qualities of love and understanding,and sufficiently fundamental to give promise of constructive effects. To this end the most contagioushuman quality which can be organised and made effective is goodwill.Goodwill is such a simple concept and yet so multi-faceted in expression. It is a universal energy, for, to quoteone of its many definitions, it is “love in action”, compassion for all beings turned into concrete words anddeeds. World Goodwill is engaged in creating techniques for people of goodwill to build a new civilisation ofunity, justice and peace. One such technique is The Cycle of Conferences meditation initiative.An email letter is circulated to all registered participants with links to a meditation outline, thoughts for ponderingand any other relevant materials. The meditation outline is a simple one that can also be used as a dynamicvisualisation exercise; once memorised, it can be brought to the front of the mind and energised at any time.There is also a link to our weblog on which relevant news updates and journalistic comment are posted on aregular basis.This experiment in group consciousness is intended to grow organically and it naturally lends itself towards theuse of electronic media. Through the immediacy of electronic communication, the group mind can be synchronisedand collectively tuned into related aspects of the subject matter concerned, promoting the growth ofpoints of resonance around which group telepathy can develop. With this in mind, commentaries on the themeare circulated to participants on a regular basis.For further information on the Cycle of Conferences and our other work, please go to our website at:www.worldgoodwill.orgWe may also be contacted at the email and postal addresses below.Biophile 27• • Page 64