The Madrone is one of the Pacific north coast’s most beautiful trees. Although the Madrone is an evergreen tree it reflects the four seasons with true character, and it easily melds the seasons together in its smooth transition from one phase to another.

It forms large bunches of blossoms in the spring, like bunches of white grapes. Each blossom looks like a tiny white Chinese lantern. Later the new leaves start to bud and form, then the new bark grows a green layer under last years cinnamon-orange colored bark.

In summer, the older leaves turn a creamy yellow. Through the dry summer, they flutter to the ground during the infrequent warm gusts, leaving the tree with the bright evergreen color of new leaves. The bark curls that are shed in the summer are sometimes collected and used as tea.

In the fall of the year the Madrone berries ripen and become a favorite food of the Western Robin, Cedar Waxwing, Band-tailed Pigeon and Quail. Mule Deer also eat the young shoots when the trees are regenerating after fire.

The wood is sought for its heating capabilities during the winter, since it burns long and hot in fireplaces. It has become popular in the Pacific Northwest as a flooring material due to the durability of the wood and the warm color after finishing, and is also used in the construction of furniture.

Snail racing is a sport that involves the racing of two or more snails. There are numerous events that take place around the world, though the majority take place in the United Kingdom.

Snail races usually take place on a circular track with the snails starting in the middle and racing to the perimeter. The track usually takes the form of a damp cloth atop a table. The radius is traditionally set at 13 or 14 inches. Racing numbers are painted on the shells or small stickers or tags are placed on them to distinguish each competitor. 

The annual “World Snail Racing Championships” started in Congham, Norfolk in the 1960s after founder Tom Elwes witnessed the event in France. The 1995 race saw the setting of the benchmark time of two minutes by a snail named Archie. The 2007 event, sponsored by Persil, had to be cancelled when the course was waterlogged by a prolonged period of heavy rain.

The first official competitive snail race in London, the “Guinness Gastropod Championship” held in 1999, was commentated by horse racing pundit John McCririck who started the race with the words “Ready, Steady, Slow”. This is now common terminology for the start of a race. The following year Guinness featured a snail race as part of their “Good things come to those who wait” campaign. The advert won the silver award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and was self-parodied for their “Extra Cold” campaign several years later.

The “Grand Championship Snail Race” began in Cambridgeshire in 1992 in the village of Snailwell as part of its annual summer fête. It regularly attracts up to 400 people to the village, more than doubling its usual population.

An ecotone is a transition area between two adjacent ecological communities or ecosystems. It may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line. The word was coined from a combination of eco(logy) plus -tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, a place where ecologies are in tension.

Changes in the physical environment may produce a sharp boundary, as in the example of the interface between areas of forest and cleared land. Elsewhere, a more gradually blended interface area will be found, where species from each community will be found together as well as unique local species. Mountain ranges often create such ecotones, due to the wide variety of climatic conditions experienced on their slopes. They may also provide a boundary between species due to the obstructive nature of their terrain. Mont Ventoux in France is a good example, marking the boundary between the flora and fauna of northern and southern France. Most wetlands are ecotones.

Ecotones are particularly significant for mobile animals, as they can exploit more than one set of habitats within a short distance. This can produce an edge effect along the boundary line, with the area displaying a greater than usual diversity of species. The phenomenon of increased variety of plants as well as animals at the community junction is called the Edge effect and is essentially due to a locally broader range of suitable environmental conditions or ecological niches.

South African botanist and zoologist John Duncan emphasises how ecotones are much loved niches within the environment.

Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.

Although the first known use of the term dates from 1957, the contemporary meaning is a product of the 1980s when futurists in the United States began to organize what has since grown into the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label posthuman”. Transhumanism is therefore sometimes referred to as a form of transformational activism influenced by posthumanist ideals.

Although some transhumanists report a strong sense of secular spirituality, they are for the most part atheists. A minority of transhumanists, however, follow liberal forms of Eastern philosophical traditions such as Buddhism and Yoga or have merged their transhumanist ideas with established Western religions such as liberal Christianity or Mormonism. Despite the prevailing secular attitude, some transhumanists pursue hopes traditionally espoused by religions, such as immortality.

Several controversial new religious movements, originating in the late 20th century, have explicitly embraced transhumanist goals of transforming the human condition by applying technology to the alteration of the mind and body. However, most thinkers associated with the transhumanist movement focus on the practical goals of using technology to help achieve longer and healthier lives, while speculating that future understanding of neurotheology and the application of neurotechnology will enable humans to gain greater control of spiritual experiences, and thus achieve more profound self knowledge.

Transhumanist thought and research depart significantly from the mainstream and often directly challenges orthodox theories. The very notion and prospect of human enhancement and related issues also arouse public controversy. Criticisms of transhumanism and its proposals take two main forms: those objecting to the likelihood of transhumanist goals being achieved, and those objecting to the moral principles or world view sustaining transhumanist proposals or underlying transhumanism itself. However, these two strains sometimes converge and overlap, particularly when considering the ethics of changing human biology in the face of incomplete knowledge.

Critics or opponents often see transhumanist goals as posing threats to human values. Some also argue that strong advocacy of a transhumanist approach to improving the human condition might divert attention and resources from social solutions. Sometimes there are strong disagreements about the very principles involved, with divergent views on humanity, human nature, and the morality of transhumanist aspirations. 

One transhumanist solution proposed by Nick Bostrom is differential technological development, in which attempts would be made to influence the sequence in which technologies developed. In this approach, planners would strive to retard the development of possibly harmful technologies and their applications, while accelerating the development of likely beneficial technologies, especially those that offer protection against the harmful effects of others.

It is said that when a spiritual master is cremated, beautiful pearl-like crystals are found among his ashes. Tibetans call these crystals Sarira and believe they hold the living essence of the spiritual master. The pearl-like deposits are a manifestation of the master’s inner purity.

These objects are considered relics of significant importance in many sects of Buddhism since they are believed to embody the spiritual knowledge, teachings, realizations or living essence of the spiritual masters. They are taken as evidence of the master’s enlightenment and spiritual purity. Some believe that the Sarira are deliberately left by the consciousness of a master for veneration.

Although the term Sarira can be used to refer to a wide variety of Buddhist relics, it is generally used to refer to the crystal-like bead-shaped objects. Sarira come from masters who have devoted their whole life to spiritual practices that are dedicated to the welfare of all. Every part of their body and even their relics carry a positive energy to inspire goodness and reduce negativity. 

The Buddhists believe that these relics provide an opportunity to make a spiritual connection with the universe. Viewing these sacred relics can inspire us to develop loving kindness and contribute to peace in the world.

It is believed that individuals, regardless of their faith, will be overcome with emotions of joy, love, peace, inspiration, or even spiritual transformation when in the presence of the ringsel. There have been testimonies of healings and visions attributed to seeing these relics.

Sarira are typically displayed in a glass bowl inside small gold urns as well as enshrined inside the masters statue. The pieces of sarira are also believed to mysteriously multiply in number while inside their containers if they have been stored under favorable conditions. 

As it turns out, there is an elegant empirical theory on this matter. Some scientists believe that Sariras are the holy gallstones of the venerated masters. This is pure speculation as far as evidence is concerned. There has been no chemical analysis done on Sariras due to their rarity and highly sacred, highly venerated status.

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances. This can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with long term difficulties. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

It is often described as a core virtue in religion or spiritual practices. For example, Job is a figure that appears in the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible and the Koran. His story is considered a profound religious work. At its core, the theme is the coexistence of evil and God and the application of patience is highlighted as the antidote to the earthly struggles caused by that coexistence. The plot of the book is that Job endures difficulties without losing patience or spirtual belief.

In our current consumer culture, patience is not considered a spiritual attribute but is often viewed as something we must assume when we don’t get what we want. We have been taught by proponents of advertising and marketing that anything we want is available to us immediately. This includes not only physical objects such as fashionable clothing and microwave food, but also personal attributes such as health and well being.

We are taught that we are less whole when we do not have these things. This attitude drives our economy and allows for the explosive progress being made by humanity during this current era. We become obsessed by the need to have things and acquire positive personal traits to the point where there is no other goal to existence.

But what really changes this idea is our attitude toward it. When we go within and practice meditation and prayer we are activating patience. All outside influences fall away and we are left with the one simple truth of our existence. The patience we assume when we allow the nature of spirit to flow through us gradually changes us.

This idea plays into the way we attract things into our lives. If we are frustrated and unhappy about things that we want but do not have, our capacity to experience them is debilitated. By projecting an energy of difficulty and expectation, we will sometimes even attract the opposite of what we want.

When we allow patience to influence our lives, we are suspended in the center of all that is. The things we need come into our lives and sometimes they are quite different from what we think we want. It takes practice to assume this stance and it is often difficult to stay on course. But it is worth the time and trouble, and once acquired can be regarded as a treasure discovered in an unexpected place.

The sense of who we are that is apparent to us in moments of our clearest mental vision is really a reflection of the sense of reality underlying the whole. It is the consciousness of the whole, manifesting through our own point or center of consciousness. We can find our consciousness gradually enlarging until it realizes its identity with the whole. We realize that beneath all the forms and labels of the visible world, there is to be found one life, force, substance, existence and reality.

And instead of experiencing a sense of loss of identity or individuality we become conscious of an expansion of individuality and identity. Instead of feeling ourselves absorbed by an enormous and unexplainable force, we feel that we are spreading out and embracing the whole universe. This is difficult to express in words since there are no words to fit the concept, and all we can hope to do is start into motion the ideas that will help us experience the consciousness which will bring its own understanding. 

As an infant, we are able to identify the real part of the self with the real part of all the other forms in the universe. In every person, animal, plant and mineral we see behind the form of its appearance evidence of the presence of spirit which is the same as our own spirit, for it is all one. We see ourselves in all forms of life, in all times in all places. We realize that the real self is everywhere present and everlasting, and that the life within ourselves exisits within all the universe.

As we mature, we begin to identify more strongly with the idea that we are separate from this oneness of the universe. We slowly drift away from the concept that all things are connected as we begin to develop our own individuality and personality. But if we put effort into realizing the truth that we have known all along we will find that the mind will adapt to a mode of thinking that is more real than the reality we have fabricated. Even though we may be engaged in our ordinary day to day activities, by practicing a realization of the oneness of life it will expand to become second nature.

We must know once again that this connection to the universe is real, and that we are in touch with all else that is real. The roots of our being are grounded in the absolute. We must realize that instead of being a separate atom of reality, isolated and fixed in a narrow space, we are a center of consciousness in the whole of reality, and that the universe is our home. Our true nature which is constantly being revealed to us is so great that our minds in the present state of development only sometimes grasp even the faintest idea of it.

As we expand in the understanding and consciousness of the oneness of reality, so does our ability to use it grow. This realization of the true self brings with it a love for all of life. This slowly emerging consciousness brings with it greater compassion and kindness. We must not be discouraged if the progress seems slow for the soul must expand naturally as does the flower, without haste, without force. The road is long but the reward is great and there are resting places along the way.

How often do I think there is something missing in life? How many times have I thought things would be better if I were younger, richer, busier or more creative? What if I didn’t have that strange birthmark in that weird place? Wouldn’t I be so much better as a person? Wouldn’t I be perfect then? If there were not so many things wrong with me then I could feel like a complete and adequate person. I would do so much more and accomplish everything I want.

But the truth is, I am already complete. In every moment I am a winning example of what creation has put here. I am a unique example of the billions of versions of humans on this planet, and I am the only one that is anything remotely like me. My consciousness has the ability to accommodate and adapt to every idea or concept that is presented to it, and perhaps that’s where the difficulty lies.

I am often told by people that I would be better if I spent more time being social, got married, had children, used different pictures, chose different colors, wrote something another way, drove faster or slower, went right instead of left, or any of a thousand evaluations and suggestions. And then there’s advertising and media that show me the millions of things that I need, and how I am not complete until I possess each and every one of them.

The big problem with this way of thinking is that I end up feeling as though there is something missing within me. It becomes habitual for me to think I need certain things to attain wholeness, and until I have these attributes I am ugly, poor, stupid and wasting my life. Rather than realizing I am a perfect and loving human being, I base my self image on what others think and how they will evaluate me, which is pretty dumb because they do not know what it’s like to be here in this body.

When I look at a baby I don’t stand there and think, oh wouldn’t it be better if this baby had bigger hands, less fat, curly hair or different eyes. The baby is complete and whole and perfect. I adore it and would never do anything to hurt it or think it should be a certain way. This is the way I must treat myself. Just as I was that baby once, I am still a precious and loving example of life. I must take care of that child, nurture it and allow it to grow.

It is important for me to stop believing there are incomplete things about myself. Once I get into a habit of thinking things are wrong I get into a rut that is difficult to get out of. When I start believing things are right I am able to transform and change myself, slowly improving in unexpected ways that usually having nothing to do with what people have suggested to me.