Tune into Earth by turning off
By Atención staff

Millions of people in homes and businesses around the globe turned off nonessential lights and electrical appliances 8:30–9:30pm on March 28 as part of the global event Earth Hour. The annual event organized by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) to raise awareness toward the need to take action on climatic change began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 with 2.2 million participants. In 2008, the international event included more than 400 cities with 50 million participants. This year more than 2,400 cities from 82 countries joined the global initiative. To see images from around the world go to www.earthhour.org.

In Mexico City, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard turned off the lights on the city’s main icons: The Angel of Independence and Plaza de la Constitución, the Bellas Artes theater and the Cathedral and Zócalo. Hundreds of hotels and businesses joined in the campaign.

In San Miguel, the city Ecology Department ordered the lights out in the first block of the historic center. The churches Parroquia, San Francisco and Oratorio as well as the Ex Presidencia and Museum Allende had the majority of their lights switched off. Parts of calles Juárez and Mesones were also dimmed. Many businesses and homes joined in the energy-saving action.

Atención contacted sanmiguleneses and other friends around the globe and asked them if their lights were on or off and why. Here are some of the responses: 


Lights out

I was out of the house with all lights turned off and el Centro when the lights went out on the Parroquia, Casa Allende and other major sites around the Jardín. There was a slight gasp and then a quiet which was duly observed. I was simply delighted to see our own town switch off right in the middle of the Saturday night euphoria always happening in the main square at that hour of the evening.
Natalie Hardy

I did turn off the lights in my place yesterday! I think is a cool idea, the international movement to help the planet, even if we believe or not that this will help our planet it makes a huge difference because all the people who did it are showing that we can have a cause to be together as a unit. That is what makes this situation so interesting! 
Mariana Taboada

What is so fantastic about this idea of turning out the lights is that it creates community around the globe in a way. It gets everyone thinking and working together at something we can all do, turn off the lights. I think that this simple act raises consciousness and perhaps even brings hope that with a little individual initiative, we can make a big collective difference in the world. 
Jayne Rager

We were in DF where they really did it. There was live television coverage, photographers and lots of people watching the lights come back on Avenida Reforma by the Angel statue. Lots of kids were walking around with signs to turn out the lights. It was good to see such participation. 
Linda Whyman

Friends and I discussed this event about an hour beforehand. We felt connected to the global heart and felt the idea unified those who put attention on making a difference, when perhaps one can feel like “there is no difference I can make.” Together we could move on to other positive unified events and further how powerful the focus of thought can be. 
Dawna Masters 

I turned off my lights on Saturday night. I’d been alerted to the activity by Paco Cárdenas of Petit Four, who had sent out an earlier email about the event. I lighted candles and thought about people all over the world doing the same thing. It was an effective consciousness-raising experience for everyone who participated, I suspect—at least it was for me. 
Jane Sallis


Lights on

I did not turn off my lights for a couple of reasons:

1. Global warming is not happening. If you look at the current science, the claims of the IPCC, Jim Hansen and Al Gore, especially in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, are inaccurate, falsified and misleading. Indeed, a court in the UK stated that Gore’s film could not be shown in schools as science, but only as politics, because of multiple misinformation that it contained. Governments and the corporate-controlled media spread the dis- and misinformation because of its potential for manipulation through popular, environmental sentiments and fear-induced mass hysteria. They do not want a scientific discussion and therefore arrogantly claim that the “science is done.” No real scientist would ever make such a brazen assertion. (See ://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/.) 

2. The organizers of the event, the World Wildlife Fund is a disingenuous organization that purports to protect the animal kingdom while at the same time pursuing the dubious eugenicist intentions of its founders. (See http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/
060807_enviro_eugenics.html .)

It also has been caught with the IPCC, Jim Hansen and others using manipulated data to promote the AGW agenda. (See http://www.prisonplanet.com/wwf-resorts-to-
deception-in-climate-fearmongering.html. )

Having been one of the original participants in Earth Day 1967 at my college, I have environmentalism at heart. Good stewardship and universal sharing of natural resources, preventative anti-polluting measures and healthy organic products are necessary for human well-being. But the Global Warming hysteria, carbon cap and tax, even the UN policies on sustainability as well as the nefarious Codex Alimentarius, are globalist efforts toward universal disenfranchisement and world government. It is a distraction from the real dangers of unbridled, irresponsible, self-aggrandizing corporatism and the concomitant economic enslavement that it ensures.

So, while the WWF and the corporate globalists continue their work under the cloak of darkness, I am keeping my lights on!

In light, Gideon Weick






Wellness
On My Mind
By Joseph Dispenza

Inner Easter: An opportunity for personal renewal

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.—Voltaire

Easter is upon us again. In San Miguel, we are making ready for the most solemn, colorful and passionate public rituals of the year.

Many years ago, when I was taking theology courses as part of my training to be a Roman Catholic monk, I encountered the curious rule for setting the annual date for the feast of Easter, called in the official liturgical calendar “The Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Unlike Christmas, which falls on December 25 every year in the Western Roman Church, Easter is what is termed “a movable feast”—that is, its date changes every year according to certain circumstances. In the case of Easter, those circumstances are cosmic.

When Easter occurs is so important to the Church’s liturgy that figuring out the date actually has a specific name in Latin—one that may sound suspiciously contemporary. Since the early Middle Ages, Computus has been the name for the rule used to determine the date of Easter, from which many other feasts and commemorations that precede and follow it in turn take their scheduling.

For instance, once we know the date for Easter next year, we will be able to backtrack through the weeks of Lent to find Ash Wednesday, and the day before that, Fat Tuesday (called so, of course, because one could get fat for the last time on that day, before launching into the rigorous fasts of Lent).

The Computus rule, right out of the Church’s Canon Law, is that Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the 14th day of the lunar month (the nominal full moon) that falls on or after March 21, which is nominally the day of the vernal equinox. Another way of saying it: Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.

If a Christian feast being set in accordance with phases of the moon and equinoxes sounds vaguely like an ancient pagan earth-deity ritual, it is because in the beginning it probably was. What better time of year to mark the resurrection of the self than the moment the earth begins its journey back to life, taking all of nature with it? The idea of personal renewal at the start of spring no doubt goes back to the dawn of human consciousness.

Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, we all have the opportunity at this time of the year to connect with the deeper mystery and stirring metaphor of resurrection. The tree that was just a dark tangle of bare branches all through winter is now sprouting new growth, obviously alive, though it appeared dead for so many months. In the same way, if we get into the spirit of the season, we can renew ourselves by rededicating our efforts to be the highest expression of who we truly are.

Personal renewal is probably different for everyone depending on what one values in life. For me, the idea of rebirth has several dimensions—the first, the reawakening of my physical self. I find that this is the time of year to revisit my New Year’s resolutions, particularly the ones about the health of my body, and redouble my efforts to get enough rest, engage in regular exercise and eat healthy food.

Mental renewal can be about staying sharp and alert—avoiding TV or other numb-out mental “activities”—and conversing intelligently with others, trying to stay on-target and “on-message,” without wandering down verbal blind alleys. This is a good time to examine mental attitudes and beliefs, as well, to see whether they are still working in us in a positive way. Toxic, self-defeating self-concepts can be identified and stripped away now, leaving room for the growth of new and better ways of regarding ourselves.

Spiritual renewal, in my mind, has to do with reconnecting in a meaningful way with the source of life within us. Taking time during the week—during each day, really—to reflect on the truth that we are spiritual beings walking a human path (not the other way around) can bring us to a place of peace and serenity in all the other areas of life.

When Easter comes around every year, it is another opportunity for us to rise from the ashes of past and be reborn into a new and higher sense of self. Getting in touch with the archetype of resurrection and making it part of our own internal process can bring a deep richness within to accompany the awesome spectacle that is taking place right here in the streets of our town.


Joseph Dispenza is a co-founder of LifePath in San Miguel and the author of God On Your Own: Finding a Spiritual Path Outside Religion, and many other books.