The first full moon in December signifies the beginning of the Winter Solstice whereby
thousands of people around the world begin a conscious process of inner
self-reflection while also focusing on their vision for the upcoming
year. This process runs from the full moon before the Solstice
(Dec 22nd ) until New Year's Day.
For the ancient Celtics it marked the rebirth of the sun, symbolically moving away from dark and into the light.
The Winter Solstice was one of the most important celebrations, a
practice going back thousands of years, not only with the Celtics but
the Nordics, the Mayans, the Egyptians and many other ancient cultures.
The reverence for solar power took root in organized agriculture,
significant to community survival, as well as spiritual rebirth.
Solar Astrology is the science of relationships between all living things within the universe. Using
this system has proven to be a powerful process in manifesting my own
dreams and recognizing my personal responsibility and
relationship to the planet. We are significantly influenced by that
which is present around us; weather, other people, world events, solar
and planetary influences. How aware we are of these influences gives us a
better understanding on how to transform these influences into positive
experiences in our life.
From December 22nd to March 21st,
is when the mind is most potent and fertile for creative thinking. There are more opportune times to
use mental energy and more opportune times to use physically energy etc. Once you start to connect with the ebb and flow of the four seasons you start to intuit which cycle you are in.
From the full moon in December right through to New Year’s Eve,
spend time reflecting on what goals you wish to see actualized for the
upcoming year. I have twelve ‘baskets’, areas of life that I
am specifically setting goals for this coming year.
A helpful tip...When
considering your aspirations for the New Year, make sure you include
aspirations for all of you... career, body, mind AND soul. Don't forget your spiritual needs…and playtime which is often not considered.
If you are spiritually content and connected, health, career, relationships, etc, will get the boost they need and everything
will start working in alignment.
After successfully applying this process steadily for over seven years,I have designed and published my first Manifesting Calendar based on the Science of Solar Astrology. It's beautiful, practical and inspiring.
To Order: Call Grail Springs at 877-553-5772 or purchase online.
Makes for a very special Christmas Gift. Get ready to see your dreams and visions come true!!!
We are so excited to tell you we are proud sponsors of a sassy Red Carpet party
happening in Toronto on November 19th. If you are a speaker, coach,
author and/or entrepreneur and you are ready to get your message out to the
world and increase your bookings, clients and sales, this event is a must
attend.
The speaking industry is oversaturated, making it incredibly
challenging to have your message be heard by the people’s whose lives your work
will change as well as be able to monetize from it. Cindy Ashton, who has
awards from both President Obama and the Queen and has shared stages with some
of the biggest names in the speaking industry, is the master at personality
branding – bringing out the best and most compelling parts of you so you can…
- Be memorable & stand out from the crowd so
you can be irresistible to meeting planners, fans and clients.
Craft a powerful marketing message so your
audience is clamouring to buy your products, work with you and see you again and
again.
Strategically pitch bookers and meeting planners
to close the deal and negotiate in higher pay and perks.
Plus, this night will be filled with networking,live
entertainment, red
carpet pictures, prizes and more!
We have six tickets to give away to Grail Springs fans, so post a comment on why you'd like to attend this fabulous event, and your name will automatically be entered in the draw to be held on November 16, 2012.
Ready to Superstar Your Career?
Check out the details here: Speaker Launch Party
Executive Chef Tomoko Kominami created this beautiful and delicious feast for Grail Springs guests to celebrate during Thanksgiving 2012.
Artistry in fruit and flowers
Grail Springs foods are eco-friendly, fairly-traded and animal-friendly -- all for the good of people and Planet. Visit the Grail Spring Wellness Kitchen for inspiration and healthy recipes you can easily make at home.
Locally-sourced and healthy Whole Earth cuisine
We are so grateful for Earth's abundance and this generous bounty. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our Autumn Equinox celebration and shared their family traditions, rituals and ceremonies for recognizing the beginning of the fall season. We loved hearing from you all!
We're also happy to announce the five recipients of our Autumn Equinox draw. Each recipient will receive a bottle of Avalon Sacred Mediation Bath Oil from Glastonbury, UK. These fragrant bath infusions are made with Frankincense, Bergamot, Neroli and Lavender. They also contain Vitamin E -- a welcome treat for your skin in winter.
The winners are:
1. Colleen Friesen
2. Summer Plewes
3. Frugal Deb
4. Michele Cove
5. Deborah M. A. Haentjens
If your name appears above, please email your name and mailing address to Michele@GrailSprings.com and we'll send you your Autumn Equinox gift.
Autumn Reflection at Grail Springs Credit: John Parson
September 22nd is the Fall Equinox and, as
the nights grow longer, it’s a time for reflection and giving thanks. At Grail
Springs, we’re looking back with appreciation on our best summer season ever
and recording new inspirations. Autumn is also a time to detox
and strengthen the immune system (visit the Grail Springs website for Top Detox Tips. We’d love to hear how you plan to celebrate the Autumnal Equinox!
Share your favourite fall ritual (or Grail
Springs memory) with us here, on Twitter or on our Grail Springs Wellness Retreat Facebook page by September 30, 2012 and you could receive one of five free bottles of Glastonbury Meditation Bath Oil ($25 value). We're giving away five bottles of this magical oil to recognize the most inspiring ideas and memories. These fragrant bath infusions are made with
Frankincense, Bergamot, Neroli and Lavender – they’re soothing for your mind and calming for the soul... Happy Autumn Equinox Everyone!
Most individuals today think that animal testing is nil and void after the big social push by Greenpeace back in the 1980's to end the use of whale oil in makeup, and animal testing for grooming products. Many of these companies (with the exception of Gillette Inc. whom I still refrain from purchasing products today) did change their practices somewhat, looking to publish 'no animal testing' on their labels and satisfy customers.
The truth is animal testing is at its highest ever in human history. So what happened? Population grew, new products were developed and animal testing continued to grow leaps and bounds. Manufacturers found ways around the labeling laws. Nothing changed, we just didn't know about it. Thankfully, because of the internet and sites like youtube the truth is coming to light. Animal rights activists have been able to enter into these horrific dungeons of pain, suffering and death undercover and film with hidden cameras. Often times this, followed with charges of animal abuse, the successful release of animals, or the complete shut down of the facility. Unfortunately with the closing of one facility, two more opened.
But there is good news on the horizon thanks to Wyss Institute of Harvard University. They have developed a new chip that assimilates human organs, cheaper than animal testing, simpler to use and more accurate. This can create a profound shift in human history if pharmaceuticals and other institutes using cruel animal testing move swiftly to adopt this new technology.
I in the words of Gandhi "The greatness of a nation and it's moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." And since then the world has failed very badly. Let's vision greatness in ourselves again and end the cruel and unnecessary practice of animal testing forever.
Last week, as a member of the powerful petition site Care2.org, I was sent this memorizing video that I crown the speech of our century; the most important message that every human being needs to hear, feel and do. Please take 10 minutes to watch and then pass it on.
Philip Wollen’s shakes the rafters of the auditorium with his
10-minute speech to the St James Ethics Centre and the Wheeler Centre
debate in Australia on May 16, 2012. The larger debate consists of six
speakers, three that make the case for getting animals off of the menu
and three that make the case against it. Wollen is a former VP of
Citibank and Australian philanthropist who is known to keep out of the
limelight. But he sure rose to the challenge for this debate to deliver a
huge performance and a powerful message. Bravo!
Join Philip Wollen and the Kindness Trust on their Facebook page. Watch the full debate with all six speakers.
This is the transcript to the speech:
On behalf of St James Ethics Centre, the Wheeler Centre, The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, The Age, The City of Melbourne and the ABC. All of whom have worked together to make this event possible. I would like to welcome Philip Wollen. ((Applause))
King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asks the blind Earl of Gloucester “How do you see the world?”
And the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly”.
Shouldn’t we all?
Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in
terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages. Vile ignoble gulags
of despair.
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the
cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before.
In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the
cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese
harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.
Their cries were the cries of my father.
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals.
And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.
Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.
CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock.
Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.
Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.
We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus.
It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.
The world has changed.
10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www was a stuck keyboard, Cloud
was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was a baby burp, Skype
was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.
Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.
There are over 600 million vegetarians in the world.
That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy,
Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger
than the 27 countries in the European Union!!
Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous
huntin’, shootin’, killin’ cartels who believe that violence is the
answer – when it shouldn’t even be a question.
Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.
Medicare has already bankrupted the US. They will need $8 trillion
invested in Treasury bills just to pay the interest. It has precisely
zero!!
They could shut every school, army, navy, air force, and Marines, the FBI and CIA – and they still won’t be able to pay for it.
Cornell and Harvard say’s that the optimum amount of meat for a healthy diet is precisely ZERO.
Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it.
Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.
It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.
1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from
malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people.
Eliminating meat will end starvation forever.
If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed them. We only have one. And she is dying.
Greenhouse gas from livestock is 50% more than transport . . . . . planes, trains, trucks, cars, and ships.
Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children
starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a
steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat
we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I
look into her eyes, should I be silent?
The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.
We are facing the perfect storm.
If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the
planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into
the Bronze Age.
But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry.
The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it.
George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or
Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass
Destruction are our knives and forks.
This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. This cruel industry will end because we run out of excuses.
Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth.
And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It
would boom. Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so
much money they wouldn’t even bother counting it.
Governments will love us. New industries would emerge and flourish.
Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would
disappear.
Hell “We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”
So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:
1. Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
2. I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of
their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their
colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.
Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.
The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice.
Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is
not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. And there is unimaginable
terror in those ghastly Guantanamos.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we wouldn’t need this debate.
I believe another world is possible.
On a quiet night, I can hear her breathing.
Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers.
Please vote tonight for those who have no voice.
Thank you.
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‘Women 2012: The Rise of Smart Power’ is about the
emerging new woman; those who have acquired an intimate re-connection with
Mother Earth knowing she is our primary mother. They strive to intertwine this
awareness into everything they do, knowing it makes a difference to the future
of the planet and to humanity.
Women innately and historically HAVE been the
guardians of the Laws of Nature, and our responsibility has always been to pass
this wisdom on to the children. The
medicine wheel is a teacher, and a symbol of that awareness. It represents the
human journey in so many ways. It is a symbol of many archetypes, our journey
from virgin to maiden to mother to crone. It is a symbol of the seasons of the
soul from birth to death to rebirth, the four directions, the four elements;
earth, water, fire and air, four animal power totems, and so on.
I’ve chosen this symbol for this year’s
faire to remind us of our innate bestowal as women, to reconnect with our
significant Mother and to re-establish our responsibility as wisdom keepers and
teachers of the laws of nature. I truly believe that the answers to a thriving
planet, lies in woman's intertwined relationship with Mother Nature. The woman
who accomplishes this, is smart, and she is powerful. Join Us!
The Wesak is a grand spiritual festival celebrated
on the full moon of May (May 5th, 10:36pm EST). It is observed as the
annual ‘spiritual conference’ of the Hierarchy – the Christ, the Buddha, the gathering of all
Ascended Masters. A special guest list indeed.
What does this mean to you as an individual? It is considered a most potent time whereby the Hierarchy's
spiritual forces can be poured through the body of the human, also called ‘Days
of Distribution’. We are the recipients, and we can also choose to be
custodians, capturing as much of that inflowing spiritual force into our body,
hearts and minds and allowing it also to pour through us and out to others.
Beginning May 3rd, two days prior to the full moon, we may focus on that
which we wish healed or transformed for ourselves and loved ones.
May 5th, the day of
the full moon, we are to simply bathe in the light of the moon, be centred, be
quiet, be reverent.
May 6th and 7th, the following two days, we are to now step out of ourselves, but continue to observe and channel this ‘goodwill’ energy via contemplation, actions
of service, holding a vision of peace on earth, and peace for every member of humanity, and that they be touched by this transformational energy of the highest order.
This year's theme for the Grail Lady Faire was inspired by a Time Magazine article on Hilary Clinton. I've been a long time fan, admiring her conviction and effectiveness delivered with calm and grace. Anytime I try to embody this combination of 'state of being' it produces results with ease and swiftness. It is this same 'ease and flow' that poured through the women who attended last year's GLF, and it continues to be the very same mindset needed to balance and heal the planet. It's smart and it's powerful.
And so it is I wish to bring a recognition of this high state of being, as women rise up to the meet the demands of the time in which we live, who find themselves exploring new horizons, or solidifying the clear destiny that awaits them. I look forward to sharing and hearing the messages that await us once again at this years summer conference & life celebration, no doubt exemplifying the rise of true and smart power the world expects of us today.
I await your arrival with great anticipation... Madeleine Marentette http://www.grailsprings.com/Events-Grail-Lady-Faire
