The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Curated Links

Louis Theroux in India

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A friend in our work chat this morning shared this video after a short exchange about Hindu and Buddhist practices. It’s from the BBC program Weird Weekends with Louis Theroux.

Theroux is, I think, a sincere and light hearted skeptic. The video presents a mostly amusing look at some Westerners who have gone to India seeking enlightenment, their practices, and the Gurus that they follow, from OSHO to Prabhupada.

Toward the very end of the program, we witness Theroux’s encounter with Amma, and it is a moment of beauty and truth.

EBook Download: New Handbook for a Post-Roe America

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Post-Roe Handbook

Robin Marty’s Handbook for a Post-Roe America has been recently updated, and is available for download for less than $10 from Seven Stories Press.

It seems like this might be a good time to take a look at practical steps we can take to offer aid and comfort to women who need it.

Follow this link to learn more.

Here are a few related links.

Handbook Website

Abortion Care Network

Major Booksellers Links

Amazon Link – This one donates a portion of the sale to the Abortion Care Network.

Preventing School Massacres

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With each new school massacre, there is a predictable pattern of reactions that has come to seem almost performative. Much of what is said and written seems little more than hurling insults towards political opponents, utterly without value to either grieving or prevention.

There are some actual, practical, well-researched and replicable steps that our communities can take toward prevention though, and they do not require shouting obscenities, or writing your representatives in Congress, or tilting at political windmills.

Mark Follman is the author of Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America. He appeared in April on Democracy Now! to discuss the book, and they recently featured the interview again after the massacre in Uvalde.

You can read an excerpt of the book at the link below from Mother Jones.

Here’s How We Can Prevent the Next School Massacre – Mother Jones. Inside a growing method that experts are using to thwart disasters like the recent Oxford High rampage.

Ritual and Tarot

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Tarot TableOver on my Tarot blog, I wrote about how to get the most from your Tarot practice by establishing a routine for your readings.

As far as I am concerned, this moment to get still and get in touch with one’s intuition is second only to a thorough shuffle as the basis for a good experience with the cards. The stimulus of a random card, as interpreted by a quiet, intuitive mind, is the very nature of my practice.

Read More: A Simple Tarot Ritual | Cards of Light

The Language of the Birds

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Guggenheim Fellow Anna Badkhen writes about zeitgeist in Philadelphia, collective spirit in the Global North, and what the birds foretell.

We may say we like to be surprised, astonished, but we like to be surprised in a particular way that is expected or suits our projected needs. This is why children like to hear the same stories. Their predictability is something to hold onto. This is why I am rereading the classics, which I first read as a very young child: it is like worrying a rosary or a wave-grooved seashell you keep in your pocket, something familiar for the fingers to run over and over. This is why we read projections for how long the pandemic will last, or who will win the election, or whether the global uprising against racism will prevail: we want to know when those of us who survive can go back to normal. We want to project that normal.

Source: The Paris Review – Blog Archive How to Read the Air – The Paris Review

The Best Government Money Can Buy

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Open Secrets reports that Biden is near to raising $1 Billion in the most expensive election in history.

Money and MaskThe 2020 election is more than twice as expensive as the runner up, the 2016 election. In fact, this year’s election will see more spending than the previous two presidential election cycles combined. The massive numbers are headlined by unprecedented spending in the presidential contest, which is expected to see $6.6 billion in total spending alone. That’s up from around $2.4 billion in the 2016 race. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will be the first candidate in history to raise $1 billion from donors. His campaign brought in a record-breaking $938 million through Oct. 14, riding Democrats’ enthusiasm to defeat Trump. President Donald Trump raised $596 million, which would be a strong fundraising effort if not for Biden’s immense haul.

Source: 2020 election to cost $14 billion, blowing away spending records • OpenSecrets

Mystery Democrat Theater 2020

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Barrett Takes the Oath

Truth bomb from Leonard C. Goodman at The Chicago Reader. TLDR: Barrett is exactly the kind of judge corporate donors love.

The Democrats claimed to be united in their opposition to Barrett’s confirmation. Yet their resistance to having a justice rammed through at the 11th hour of a lame duck presidency feels like the resistance that the Washington Generals used to show against the Harlem Globetrotters. That is, pure theater in which the outcome is never in doubt. What this tells us is that the corporate donors who control the Democratic Party are happy with a Justice Barrett.

Source: The real reason Democrats didn’t stop the Barrett confirmation | Opinion | Chicago Reader

Dimensions of Meditation

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Today over on the Shyamatara Das site, I share some thoughts on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of meditation.

As we achieve deeper and more profound levels of consciousness during meditation, it has been speculated that we can experience this field, and interact with it – perhaps even influence it – more directly than we do when mitigated by our bodily senses. Since the field is the foundational essence of all time and space, it is boundless. While experiencing these deeper levels of consciousness, we, too, become unbounded.

Read More: Four Dimensions of Meditation | Shyamatara Das