When you need a distraction, RAVE! (video)

Caitlyn Trudnich (kroq.cbslocal.com); Dev, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Tove Lo) "Habits (Stay High)" She's Not on Drugs, just in love. See Sunset Strip Music Festival

Summer concerts, Los Angeles (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/kroq.cbslocal.com)

Sigh. Coachella, Outside Lands, and HARD Summer have officially come and gone.  We’ve hung up our flower headbands and put away our wellies.  But don’t worry, there are still plenty of awesome music festivals coming up in a nearby location. From indie rock, to hip hop, to EDM, these upcoming events have something for every type of music-lover.

DIY Fest, Pomona

What's so "spiritual" about a concert? It's a communal experience with matching physical moves to a single cue, dancing to the beat. That's a way of peacefully nonverbally communicating, NVC, it's fun, it's a distraction, it can even be a celebration. We get out of our left brains and into our bodies. Then there are the lights, the stars, the other people coming together for a single purpose. It doesn't have to be a spiritual experience, but it can be!

• Dead Kennedys' singer Jello Biafra
• Unlocking The Truth to play Hollywood! (Coachella)
• Sweden's Lykke Li in L.A. ("Get Some")

Together Pangea

Echo Park Rising – August 15th-17th

Now in its fourth year, Echo Park Rising is a FREE festival, combining live music, art, food, and activities celebrating the eclectic neighborhood that is Echo Park.  Live performances from over 200 of LA’s best up-and-coming acts, including Local’s Only band Together Pangea. Enjoy strolling the local businesses and restaurants, including Blue Bag Records, Origami Vinyl, and Mohawk Bend. And it wouldn’t be a festival without yummy food!  Food trucks in attendance include Coolhaus and The Grilled Cheese Truck – mmm!

Located on main routes of Sunset Blvd., Glendale Blvd., Alvarado Ave. and Echo Park Ave. Friday 4:00-10:00 pm, Saturday 12:00-10:00 pm, Sunday 12:00-10:00 pm. Free Admission.

(Courtesy of Getty Images/Kevin Winter)

Uforia Music Festival – August 16th

Sponsored by the Hispanic American music service Uforia, this festival includes two stages, featuring popular acts in both Latin and hip hop genres, including Kid Cudi, Ludacris, and Mexican rock group Camila. Held at LA’s Exposition Park, the festival will also include a Vendor’s Village and tons of food-trucks all day.

Exposition Park, 700 State Dr., Los Angeles. 2:45 pm-12:00 am. Gen. Admission $46.05 + fees.

(Courtesy of Getty Images/Robyn Beck)

Venice Beach Music Fest – August 23rd

Whenever we visit Venice Beach, it’s guaranteed we’ll find an eclectic mix of cultures and unique arts.  The 9th Annual Venice Beach Music Fest perfectly reflects the spirit of the area, with an all-day fun and FREE experience! Live performances include legendary singer Willie Chambers, funk rockers Zen Robbi, and Middle Eastern bellydancing from Ya Harissa Bellydance Theater.  And don’t forget to hit up the after-party, featuring a founding member of Black Flag, Chuck Dukowski!

Windward Plaza Park, 1 Windward Ave., Venice Beach. 11:00 am-7:00 pm. Free admission.

(Courtesy of Getty Images/Trixie Trextor)

FYF Fest – August 23rd-24th

What began as a small music event in Echo Park created by an 18 year-old Sean Carlson, has now become a massive music festival that tons of LA festival goers look forward to every year!  Now in its 11th year and located at The LA Sports Arena and Exposition Park, this upcoming SOLD-OUT festival (like all other sellouts has lots of tickets available at the window, scalpers out front, people with a few extras, dealers, brokers, and craigslisters) promises to be a massive talent fest. With names like The Strokes, Phoenix, Interpol, Haim, Against Me!, and more, it’s sure to be a blast.

 

LA Sports Arena and Exposition Park, 3939 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. Saturday & Sunday, 2:00 pm-12:00 am.

Long Beach Psyclone August 29th-31st

SoCal rockabilly lovers will definitely love this music festival, featuring tons of rockabilly and psychobilly performances happening all Labor Day weekend long. Held at the Seaport Marina Hotel, the weekend includes internationally known performers like The Sharks (UK) and The Long Tall Texans (UK), as well as fun record hop events, and a pool party and BBQ to culminate the weekend!

Seaport Marina Hotel, 6400 E. Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach. Weekend Pass Admission $80 + fees.

Shoreline Jam Music Festival – August 30th-31st

This awesome, Labor Day Weekend event, sponsored by KROQ, features a jam-packed live music lineup, including KROQ favorites The Dirty Heads, Pepper, and Seedless!  Located at the historic Queen Mary in Long Beach, festival-goers can enjoy a cold drink and yummy food as you stroll through the many vendors and take in the scenic views of the Long Beach harbor!

The Queen Mary, 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach. General Admission $25.  VIP Admission $75 (includes 2 drink tickets, VIP Lounge access, and access to explore the Queen Mary!)

(Courtesy of Getty Images/Theo Wargo)

Made In America Festival – August 30th-31st

Co-created by hip hop mogul Jay Z in 2012, this successful festival originated in Philadelphia. But this year marks the first time the festival will be held in Los Angeles at Grand Park. The Rocky Stage, Liberty Stage, and Freedom Tent will feature performances from some of the best in rock, hip hop, and EDM, including Imagine Dragons, Kayne West, John Mayer, Iggy Azalea, Weezer, Rise Against, Capital Cities, Steve Aoki, and many more.

Grand Park, 227 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles. 2-Day Pass Admission $200 + fees.

Mad Decent Block Party – September 13th

Created by Mad Decent founder Diplo in 2008, this Block Party tour will be visiting Los Angeles in September. Taking place at the LA Center Studios, this vibrant event will include performances from members of the Mad Decent family, including Laidback Luke, singer Elliphant, and Diplo himself!  Hey, who knows?  Maybe even rapper Riff Raff will make a guest appearance.

LA Center Studios, 1201 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles. Doors 1:00 pm

(Britt Bickel)

Sunset Strip Music Festival – September 20th-21st

One of the most happening music events in LA is the SSMF! Since 2008, the iconic Sunset Strip has been filled with performances on the street and on the legendary stages of venues such as the Whiskey A Go-Go, The Roxy Theatre, and Rainbow Bar & Grill. This year, expect the Strip to get rocked with major performances including, Jane’s Addiction, Empire Of The Sun, Cold War Kids, Mayer Hawthorne, Tove Lo of "Habits (Stay High)" fame, and more.

Saturday, 2:00-11:00 pm, Sunday, 2:00-10:00 pm. 2 Day Pass Admission $125 + fees.

Juicy summer Dharma reads

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly (SUMMER READING)

"Peace is within; do not seek it without" - the Buddha (Vinita Jaynt/pinterest.com)

Juicy Dharma reads for the beach over the long Memorial Day weekend (thedailybeast.com)

 

Young, rich Prince Siddhartha (Buddha-to-be)

This weekend is the unofficial launch of summer in the U.S.

It would be fun to read some good trash with a half-hundred shades of nonsense and salacious... but that gets old fast.

Where's the substance I want? Where's the long term profit. Cheap thrills are not only not that cheap, they aren't that thrilling.

Snakes as sex symbols for Eves?

We have to wonder if the story of the Bodhisattva, when reborn as Siddhartha in the faraway frontier of ancient India, wasn't a kind of bodice ripper of its time.

Handsome, gallant prince has a harem ("dancing girls and all-female musicians and palace guards"), plays sports like archery and proto-polo (Persian chowgan or some kinder version of buzz kashi or kokspar with an un-taxidermically-treated leather "ball"), rides a white pony horse named Kanthaka, does feats of strength, learns great royal skills from Brahmin tutors, wears flowing gowns of the greatest Kasi fabric, and enjoys more riches than he can comfortably get his head around. Where?

Prince Siddhartha in the upper floors of his seasonal palace guarded by women and filled with "dancing" girls and female musicians and a surfeit of luxurious foods and other delights.

Playing with the boys in feats of strength in Central Asia -- proto-polo with a "pigskin" made of lamb, equestrian skill for warriors in need of nomadic endurance (wiki/army.mil)

    

Indus Valley Civilization and Kapilavast

Imagine a cosmopolitan crossroads on the Silk Road, travelers and magicians going from the Far East to the West and paradises beyond India and Asia.

Was that the Terai of Nepal? Not likely, but that's what the colonial British books say. Afghanistan is a better candidate, Sanskrit-speaking Gandhara and the remnants of the once great Indus Valley Civilization (romanticized "distant lands" between Egypt and India) and what remained of it. India's influence extended all the way to Iran (which later became Zoroastrian and Sufi-inspired Persia before being overtaken by Islam).

Dance, dancing girls, dance!

Worlds to the west were pre-Christian, pre-Jewish, pre-Abrahamic described in the pejorative as "pagan." Full of shamans, traders, trailblazers, and Sumerian-Egyptian-Arabian-Bedouin post-Babylonians. Life could not have been easy, after the fall of so many great empires and city-states like Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro.

The Path to Enlightenment, like the course of society as explained by the author-comedian Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy BBC Radio series), goes through phases or stages of sophistication. How will we survive? How shall we eat? ...What's for lunch?

Read (pinterest.com)

So reading The Aphorisms and Back-Stories (Dhammapada), The Bodhisat Fables (Buddhist Birth Stories that inspired Aesop, according to British scholar and University of London Professor Rhys Davids), or The Lists (more) may do at first, then the stories (sutras, long discourses,  and apocryphal texts), then The Analyses (vibhanga), then The Commentaries, The Higher Teachings, but eventually what we need for nourishment is The Synthesis (Bhikkhu Bodhi, Pema Chodron, Ajahn Brahm, Sharon Salzberg, Ayya Khema, Caroline Davids, Joan Halifax, Islaine B. Horner, Ayya Tathaaloka (facebook)...

• Worldly juicy readings (thedailybeast.com) 
• Thailand Coup 2014 (Chiang Mai Daily), Vice video
• VIDEO: World's greatest Indian drum solo boy
• VIDEO: Alien God to arrive from space soon 

Earth Day Pasadena: Family Fun (video)

Xochitl, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Katrina Hoven; CityofPasadena.net

Most of us now rarely think about where our food comes from. This video documents the story of a small urban lot and what a sustainable farm looks like. PathtoFreedom has an "urban homestead" on a successful half acre in Pasadena.

Earth Day L.A.: Pasadena Earth and Arts Festival 

Earth Day with WQ, Pasadena, California

FREE all-ages event in Old Pasadena... Live music from local bands, dancing, and an interactive drum circle you can join... Singles, kids, and parents get creative with art workshops... Eco-friendly exhibitors will display and sell green products and services... Sample tastings...

Celebrate nature, art, music, and community at Pasadena’s 12th annual Earth and Arts Festival (cityofpasadena.net/earthday) from 11-5 pm, Saturday, May 3, 2014 at Memorial Park, 85 E. Holly St., at Raymond Ave., and across the street at the Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave.  Pasadena’s Earth and Arts Festival is one of the biggest free “green” events in SoCal with family-friendly activities, Aztec dancers, drum circle, solar, electric vehicles, wildlife, building better homes, green jobs, gardening and art exhibits, vegetarian food, and entertainment for all ages.
 

North East Trees Earth Day Fest 

FREE admission, free on-site parking, plus 100 free trees to LA homeowners. Come to the Earth Day festival, where local artists, environmental organizations, and sponsors will exhibit and sell at this FUNdraiser for North East Trees. Learn what local environmental groups are doing and ways to can get involved. Be a part of the mayor's "1 Million Tree Initiative."

• Earth Day becomes Earth Fest in the Valley (Woodley Park)

Free Tibet or get a quake

Sharon Stone, 56, sizzles on cover of GQ
Sharon Stone may be 56 years old, but she has never looked hotter! The "Fading Gigolo" actress graces the cover of the May issue of GQ Italia posing in black lace lingerie and black heels. The blond beauty is pictured flirtatiously smiling with smoky eyeliner and tousled hair...

UFO people did it.

Solved! How ancient Egyptians moved massive pyramid stones (LiveScience.com) The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids may have been able to move massive stone blocks across the desert by wetting the sand in front of a contraption built to pull the heavy objects, according to a new study. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam investigated the forces needed to pull…

When we were in the Spirit World (video)

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

The spirit world can appear as weird and strange (Alex Tooth/deviantart.com)

Mother Earth, Father Sky, one a womb, the other a seed, brought together by falling rain.

(KE) The shamans of Mongolia and Siberia who preceded Native Americans illustrate that knowledge of the spirit world is not limited to any culture, group, or period. These Vajrayana Buddhists and animists as well as the rishis (seers) and yogis (hermit-ascetics) of India were well aware of these strange realms and their inhabitants. In northern Europe the spirit world was sometimes referred to as the Wyrd (like our word weird).

Rain Dancing Our Way into the Spirit World

We dance to make it rain calling on spirit helpers and spirit guides. The rain dance of the Navajo Native American was influenced by the Hopi and others (sonocarina)

 

Dryad or "tree nymph" spirit

The spirit world (spirit = breath = an invisible force like the wind), according to Spiritualism, is the adjacent world inhabited by spirits. (WQ Rain Dance)

In Buddhism "spirits" are variously called devas, petas, nagas, suparnas, gandharvas, kumbhandas, yakkhas, narakas, and asuras, or "light beings, ghosts of the dead, dragons, avians, fairies, gnomes, hellions, demons, and titans").

 

Whereas religion concerns the inner life, the spirit world is regarded as an external environment for spirits (Spiritualism - Its History, Phenomena, and Doctrine, Arthur J. Hill 1918, p. 211). Independent from the natural world, both the spirit world and the natural world are in constant interaction.

Through mediumship -- through local shamans, curanderos or healers, medicine women and men -- these worlds can consciously communicate with one other. The spirit world can be described by mediums in trance (Ibid., W.J. Colville, Universal Spiritualism: Spirit Communion in All Ages Among All Nations, 1906, p. 42.

Anyone who does not believe the spirit world is real and right there before on blind third eye, there are three dangerous routes to personally prove that it is: drums, drugs, or trying to get through Finnegans Wake in one sitting.

Journeying to Three Realms in under 30 mins.

(NW) Use headphones. This is a shamanic journey led by Glenn Sullivan (NaturalWisdom.ie) explaining the landscapes and calling in the directions with a 16-min. drumming journey. Come together into a sacred circle and learn to journey into non-ordinary states of consciousness. See the spirits, gain a deeper understanding of the "human" plane and its many inhabitants, cycles, and patterns to problem solve in everyday life and the spiritual path.
 

HISTORY

Mayan shaman, Day of the Dead (IR-M)

By the mid 19th century most Spiritualist writers concurred that the spirit world was of "tangible substance" (ectoplasm) and a place consisting of "spheres" or "zones" (John W. Edmonds, Dr. George T. Dexter, MD, Spiritualism, 1853, p. 262). Although specific details differed, the construct suggested organization and centralization (Bret E. Carrol, Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Religion in North America), Indiana Univ. Press, Oct. 1, 1997, p. 62).

 

The 18th century writer Emanuel Swedenborg influenced Spiritualist views about the spirit world. He described a series of concentric spheres each including a hierarchical organization of spirits in a setting more earth-like than theocentric (Ibid., p.17). The spheres become gradually more illuminated and celestial.

 

Spirit travel through astral space

Spiritualists added a concept of limitlessness (Buddhism's "boundlessness") or infinity to these spheres (Edmonds, p. 123).  Furthermore, it was defined that "Laws" initiated by a god apply to Earth as well as the spirit world (Edmonds, p. 136).

Another common Spiritualist conception was that the spirit world is inherently good and is related to truth-seeking as opposed to things that are harmful residing in a "spiritual darkness" (Hill, p. 168; Edmonds, p.143). 

This conception inferred, as in the biblical parable of Lazarus and Dives, that there is considered a greater distance between helpful and harmful spirits than between the dead and the living (Hill, p.208).

Scandinavia: land of the Sami shamans (VN)

For some the spirit world was "The Home of the Soul," as described by Theosophist C.W. Leadbeater, suggesting that for a living human being to experience the spirit world will be a blissful, meaningful, and life altering experience (Colville, pp. 268-270).

Most shamans were women (DA)

Yet, John W. Edmonds states in his 1853 work, Spiritualism, "Man's relation spiritually with the spirit-world is no more wonderful than his connection with the natural world. The two parts of his nature respond to the same affinities in the natural and spiritual worlds" (Edmonds, p. 104). 

Edmonds asserts, quoting Swedenborg through mediumship, that the relationship between humans and the spirit world is reciprocal and thus could contain sorrow. Though ultimately, "wandering through the spheres" on a path of goodness "is received at last by that Spirit whose thought is universal love forever" (Edmonds, p. 345). More

(PD/EOC) What begins as a Christian program branches out with science in an attempt at credibility. Is the spirit world real? Who dwells in it? How did the spirits come into being? What do science and religion say about the spirit realm? Does the spirit realm affect us?

The Buddha: Knower of Worlds

Knower of the Worlds (Amrit Vismay)

The Buddha frequently said, there is this world and the other (or next) world. And a teacher who is enlightened directly knows and directly perceives these worlds. He frequently is shown to be aware of other planes or dimensions as well as worlds in space and underground (the 31 Planes of Existence). A buddha knows all of these worlds and the paths (karma) leading to rebirth there as well as liberation from them. 

Buddha life panels, Jing'an Temple, Shanghai

Four worlds he frequently saw and interacted with are enmeshed in this human plane -- the worlds of devas, yakkhas and maras, animals, and hungry ghosts. But he could see and visit all the manifold realms in this world system and even worlds between world systems (the interstitial hells of desolation and isolation). It is not clear if he visited other "world systems" (galaxies or universes), but it is certain that he knew about them. Buddhist cosmology describes them as having similar qualities and stations occupied by different beings such as each having a Maha Brahma and a Sakka and some having a Buddha from time to time.

• VIDEO: Sandra Ingerman on becoming a shaman (training) First set the intention. Shamanic teacher gets up close and personal with deep training insights on the benefits of a mini healing retreat (thecenterforhealingarts.com).
• VIDEO: Amazon Shamans and Ayahausca (DMT)
• VIDEO: How to see Spirit Realm (biblical "gift of discernment" with Jonathan Welton and fanatic Sid Roth)

"Desert Breath" spiral

Seen from high above, this spiral in the Egyptian desert captured by Google Earth appears to be a mystery. It's actually an enormous environmental art installation called "Desert Breath" created in 1997. The artists Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou, and Stella Constantinides originally designed the 1 million square foot piece with a small lake in the center, which has since dried out. LiveScience.com

Obama: War begins on 9/11; Twerking (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; D-Now

Mainstream media mogul Babs Walters interviews despotic dictator Assad (ABC News)

Puppet dictator, useful tool for US/MIC

With the focus on the US/MIC's newest war, there is a global failure to meet Syria’s humanitarian crisis. And even as the U.S. and its massive military industrial complex (MIC) push for attack on Syria, questions loom over Obama and Kerry's claims about Assad's chemical attack, which was actually another false flag operation meant to serve as yet another pretext for war.
 
America is the great moral actor in the world: We go in to kill, control, and loot. Why? Because we will not stand for the immoral use of military force and corporate greed. But could this foreign military action turn Syria's civil conflict into a "widespread regional war"?
 

Recent interviews with Bassam Haddad, Phyllis Bennis, Razan Zaitouneh, a lawyer and human rights activist in Syria who says "I haven’t seen such death in my whole life," and Patrick Cockburn, are available. Alert to Iran

 

Let's enslave another country and reduce it to rubble (democracynow.org)

Life During Wartime: Twerk

Jimmy Kimmel reveals conspiracy: "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches on Fire" prank

• Representative Alan Grayson on Syria: congress should reject "warmongering" and focus on problems at home

• "Make the Economy Scream": Secret documents show Nixon, Kissinger backing illegal coup
• VIDEO: Mass UFO sighting at football game in Canada
• As Assad regime accepts Russian plan on chemical weapons, a debate on Syria’s path forward 
• Documents in David House case reveal how U.S. seizes LAPTOPS at airports to avoid need for warrant
• Assad criticizes U.S. and Israeli use of chemical weapons
• India: 4 convicted in fatal gang RAPE that sparked mass protests

Don't Attack Syria

(DontAttackSyria.com)

(DN) American Warlord Obama’s efforts, as the face of the US/MIC, to win legislative backing for military strikes against Syria passed. It was its first hurdle last Wednesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10 to 7 in favor of bombing. Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson (DontAttackSyria.com), a leading opponent of the resolution in the House, is gathering signatures for a petition calling on Congress to deny permission to attack Syria. "I am very disturbed by this general idea that every time we see something bad in the world, we should bomb it," Grayson says. "The president has criticized that mindset, and now he has adopted it. It’s simply not our responsibility to act alone and punish this."