This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we join Cathy and Barry Smiler who will lead a discussion of Polyamory As A Spiritual Path. Our format will be more conversation than lecture as we explore this topic together.

Polyamory can be a powerful path of personal growth, a framework for
considering deep issues of self-empowerment, responsibility, community and what keeps us from real emotional intimacy and deep communication with ourselves and others. It's a truism that everybody does poly
differently, but what that really means is that if you want, every aspect of how we live and relate can be on the table for
consideration, not simply the elements around sexuality. When seen in this way, the poly vision of co-creating relationships offers a powerful opportunity to reconsider who we're close to, and why and why not. Taken the right way, this ongoing opportunity to re-evaluate all our boundaries to intimacy can be a powerful and growth-expansive spiritual practice.

Cathy and Barry have been leading poly discussion groups, workshops, and other events for years, initially in California and nowadays in the DC/MD/VA region, and especially in the Baltimore area where they
live. They can be reached at polyjunction (at) gmail (dot) com or through the BmorePoly Meetup at http://www.meetup.com/BmorePoly/

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 8:31 PM and has received 1601 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I first came across polyamory in the Radical Honesty/Getting Real world in 2000. And I saw Clara Griffin speak on poly at the Building Bridges conference in 2001. At the time it seemed a pretty weird idea of being honest about dating multiple people. But as I had experienced dating multiple people without honesty (ie cheating) on both sides of the fence which was not fun so I knew that there might be something to honest multiple partners. My next long term relationship with Sandy was open and was a vehicle for both our personal growths. My experience is that all relationships can be an aid to growing spiritually and that poly ones can be a way to grow even faster. Party due to the extra people and situations. partly due to the assumption in a poly relationship that lots of extra explicit communication will be required up front.  And poly people general do seem to do more learning about relationship issues and how to solve them than mono people - or at least the ones I meet do.

More recently I have studied energy systems such as chakras and meridians and learned that different people have different capacities to relate to multiple partners at once. Some people have "wiring" to be more jealous than others (and this "wiring" can be changed either way with energy work and experience). And some people just don't form the same energetic bonds as others.

Here is Bolivia I have not come across any poly groups - but doesn't mean that they don't exist. And if the Latin culture here is anything like France then  the concept of mistresses is common and  can be dealt with in a open way. I just read the book "Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S and Kerouac" by Patrick O'Neil and he talks about the pattern of young people in Columbia dating multiple partners. He thinks that folks here have a much more released attitude to sex that in the US. Anyway I recommend this book for wild travel adventures and a young man's journey to learn about himself. It is funny too!

This is my last week in Bolivia - I felt sad earlier this week thinking about leaving not having done everything I wanted to - and now I accept what is (thank you EFT adn Byron Katie for your help on this!). I will be back in Rockville for only one week so if you want to see me the 4/6 Sandbox on Polyamory as a spirirutal pah would be a good time. The rest of the week I am going to various healers, buying supplies for my next trip and at the weekend to a Mark Dunn workshop on using consciousness to heal and to working large group morphic fields. On Tuesday 4/12 I fly to Mexico to the Mayan temples and the beach for a workshop with Sylvia Brallier who I met at FSG a few years ago when I got my tattoo. Then on to Peru. I don't expect to be back in Rockville until December for Yule party...

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 8:28 PM and has received 755 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Upto 13% of whole earth's electrical needs could come from this... especially big for the Amazon basis in South America and in Africa where there are major rivers. Much cleaner and safer than coal or nuclear.

River Water and Salty Ocean Water Used to Generate Electricity

 

From http://battery-news.blogspot.com/2011/03/river-water-and-salty-ocean-water-used.html

Anywhere freshwater enters the sea, such as river mouths or estuaries, could be potential sites for a power plant using such a battery, said Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research team.

The theoretical limiting factor, he said, is the amount of freshwater available."We actually have an infinite amount of ocean water; unfortunately we don't have an infinite amount of freshwater," he said.

As an indicator of the battery's potential for producing power, Cui's team calculated that if all the world's rivers were put to use, their batteries could supply about 2 terawatts of electricity annually -- that's roughly 13 percent of the world's current energy consumption.

The battery itself is simple, consisting of two electrodes -- one positive, one negative -- immersed in a liquid containing electrically charged particles, or ions. In water, the ions are sodium and chlorine, the components of ordinary table salt.

Initially, the battery is filled with freshwater and a small electric current is applied to charge it up. The freshwater is then drained and replaced with seawater. Because seawater is salty, containing 60 to 100 times more ions than freshwater, it increases the electrical potential, or voltage, between the two electrodes. That makes it possible to reap far more electricity than the amount used to charge the battery.

"The voltage really depends on the concentration of the sodium and chlorine ions you have," Cui said."If you charge at low voltage in freshwater, then discharge at high voltage in sea water, that means you gain energy. You get more energy than you put in."

Once the discharge is complete, the seawater is drained and replaced with freshwater and the cycle can begin again."The key thing here is that you need to exchange the electrolyte, the liquid in the battery," Cui said. He is lead author of a study published in the journal Nano Letters earlier this month.

In their lab experiments, Cui's team used seawater they collected from the Pacific Ocean off the California coast and freshwater from Donner Lake, high in the Sierra Nevada. They achieved 74 percent efficiency in converting the potential energy in the battery to electrical current, but Cui thinks with simple modifications, the battery could be 85 percent efficient.

To enhance efficiency, the positive electrode of the battery is made from nanorods of manganese dioxide. That increases the surface area available for interaction with the sodium ions by roughly 100 times compared with other materials. The nanorods make it possible for the sodium ions to move in and out of the electrode with ease, speeding up the process.

Other researchers have used the salinity contrast between freshwater and seawater to produce electricity, but those processes typically require ions to move through a membrane to generate current. Cui said those membranes tend to be fragile, which is a drawback. Those methods also typically make use of only one type of ion, while his battery uses both the sodium and chlorine ions to generate power.

Cui's team had the potential environmental impact of their battery in mind when they designed it. They chose manganese dioxide for the positive electrode in part because it is environmentally benign.

The group knows that river mouths and estuaries, while logical sites for their power plants, are environmentally sensitive areas.

"You would want to pick a site some distance away, miles away, from any critical habitat," Cui said."We don't need to disturb the whole system, we just need to route some of the river water through our system before it reaches the ocean. We are just borrowing and returning it," he said.

The process itself should have little environmental impact. The discharge water would be a mixture of fresh and seawater, released into an area where the two waters are already mixing, at the natural temperature.

One of Cui's concerns is finding a good material for the negative electrode. He used silver for the experiments, but silver is too expensive to be practical.

His group did an estimate for various regions and countries and determined that South America, with the Amazon River draining a large part of the continent, has the most potential. Africa also has an abundance of rivers, as do Canada, the United States and India.

But river water doesn't necessarily have to be the source of the freshwater, Cui said.

"The water for this method does not have to be extremely clean," he said. Storm runoff and gray water could potentially be useable.

A power plant operating with 50 cubic meters of freshwater per second could produce up to 100 megawatts of power, according to the team's calculations. That would be enough to provide electricity for about 100,000 households.

Cui said it is possible that even treated sewage water might work.

"I think we need to study using sewage water," he said."If we can use sewage water, this will sell really well."

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 6:31 PM and has received 499 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

How to deal with hot button stuff - when I am centered (always good to ground and deep breath if triggered!) I read the email as the observer. It is like one of those martial arts where if someone punches at you you don't take it straight on - you side step at the last minute and use the opponent's energy to rush on by you. Do this mentally when attached and the punch doesn't land on you - it fly by you as you observe it going by.

Another method I just learned from Donna Eden book is called holding the "Oh My God" points. These are the bumps about an inch about each eyebrow. Hold them with your finger tips with thumbs on tempers for 30 seconds while you deep breath. These acupressure spots trigger more blood to flow to the forebrain (cerebellum) instead of the reptilian brain which is more reactive. This helps me see things from a higher perspective instead of reactivity and being stuck in old patterns.

And  I remind myself that my judgment is not me. And that usually it is something in me that is cause me to be triggered by someone else. How can I love that part of me that is like the triggering person in someway? Perhaps some Ho'oponopono - mediating on that disowned part of me with "I love you, thanks you, please forgive me, I am sorry" works for me.

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 5:48 PM and has received 855 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.