Practical Thoughts

Dear Reader. The universe is hugely mysterious and the story of  Earth's history is mind-boggling, yet when history is studied conventionally it can be a very dull subject. But when history and its time frame is revealed in its proper context as part of a much bigger story, a grand tapestry even, it is difficult to reject its allure. So, as Heather Ensworth Ph.D. informs us,  in another insightful video  of hers, history should really be viewed in the context of the plan of the universe and through astrological understanding.  Though reason may take a different view, it is astonishing how each major period in history and its characteristics align with its astrological age. The following table of astrological ages is based on a table appearing in Wikipedia: only the comments (right column) has been changed (extended). This table also varies partly in that I have purposely made it start with the age of Leo. I have taken Leo as being significant because it  represe...

Dear Reader, Well,  some would say that it's been good while the Capitalist age  lasted! It seems to be clear that this era is over as its faults and lack of adaptability  are becoming more and more revealed.  Not that Communism - as implemented over the years - is the right answer either, and nor is anarchy. As the political writer Jim Wallis said, "The right gets it wrong and the left doesn't quite get it". So, is there such a thing as a true solution?  In traditional Socialism, however, resources would be distributed equally by the government to create a classless society.  Interestingly,   the view of Marx (as against what Communism became) was that after a few generations of people living under the benefits of a socialist system focused on cooperation and sharing, people would learn to work for equality rather than for personal greed and profit. The problem was that Marx did not factor in a quality that was needed to bring about the succ...

Dear Reader, Way back in the mid-1970s, circumstances in my life suddenly - and shockingly - came to a full stop. At age 30, I needed to find some answers to certain questions about life and soon decided to quit my lucrative job in software development in order to do that while mulling my time doing some voluntary community work for a month or two. I loved books, but until then they were mostly of the fictional kind. At this point, I paid visits to leading book shops (no Amazon then!) and was drawn to a plethora of books about our changing world - particularly about environmental studies but also about psychology and the sciences in general, and philosophy.  But some of the scientifically-orientated writers I came across were starting to look at the world through new spectacles and they fascinated me. Having been bored to death by the 'hard fact' scientific approach when I was at school, I loved these new books and their authors - particularly John Michell, but also another one...

Dear Reader , Today's issues can easily make people wonder whether it's possible for grief to be transformed into joy. Leaving aside (if possible) Climate Change and pandemics, these appear to be unforgiving  times.  The  economic pressure on every ordinary person - working or retired - causes the scrounging nature of the UK energy companies to be more vividly exposed. Their profits, apparently, are not to be touched while the average household energy bill is due to rise  early in the New Year  by 250% since April. The privatisation of these energy companies - plus the water companies - in the 1980s seems, now, to be something to be justifiably vilified, and this can be said without taking a political stance. From an independent standpoint, the argument seems to be clear. In fact, I always did think that there was  something unnatural about  the privatisation of water. Like education and health, water is surely a natural right not to be exploited for p...

Dear Reader, I am sure you will have noticed that the word Commonwealth in the title of this post is hyphenated. That's done for a reason, which I will come onto. Firstly, however, may I state, as one born and bred in Birmingham, how happy I am that these Games were so successful. Virtually all the stadia seemed to be packed out every day and it is clear that wherever the competitors came from - whether the Bahamas, India or Australia - Birmingham and the West Midlands' multi-cultural climes were totally embracing, and the folk here cheered every man and woman towards the fulfilment of their dreams. Even little Guernsey at long last had something to celebrate. Somehow, though, I felt it a bit naff that Michael Johnson (the former American athlete) was chosen as one of the BBC's expert action review panel while knowing nothing about Guernsey! Ah, well - now he knows. I learnt that Birmingham had won against Liverpool in a rescue bid to host these Games as Durban had to pull ...

Dear Reader, The following article is based on one I wrote in 2019, but it is updated to include some further details that have emerged. It is more than 10 years since people were being alerted to the phenomenon called the end of the Mayan calendar - 21st December 2012. People popularly thought that this was another "End Of The World" hoax, but its meaning was a lot more profound. Since then it has fast disappeared from our consciousness. Should we still be concerned about it? This article discusses why it is still relevant. An alert to the 2012 event was made manifest as a crop circle in 2008. The picture below shows this in the form of a diagram of our solar system. The place and the date of a crop circle is shown, but the most interesting thing is that from the positions of the planets in this crop circle it was possible to calculate a date that corresponded quite accurately to the planetary positions that would occur on the aforementioned 21st December 2012.  Significantl...