JOIN ME IN BEING A SHIFT-CHANGER

Yes, I have created the For Freedom Now Project and what does that have to do with being a Shift-Changer? Everything. I have long had a love affair with words and during my lifetime, I have come to understand the power of words. Some words are weak such as 'maybe' because in indicates indecision. Two words that I have used in the past and I know others use it constantly are 'cannot' or 'can't'. Cannot or can't indicate that something will not happen or will not be done. I recently heard someone speak about someone out of work and the statement made was "he can't get a job." Well, as long as 'can't' is used, he won't.

So, how can we change bad or unhappy situations around? It only takes two words to change anything as long as these words are spoke or thought sincerely. These two words are the foundation of the For Freedom Now Project. The first word is love or LOVE and it carries within it a powerful frequency when said with sincerity. Masaru Emoto has proven through his experiments that by placing the word Love on the outside of a bottle of polluted water, that after a short period of time the water will become clean. Now that is power! Love is Source power or as some will say God-power.

Gratitude is another powerful word. Gratitude goes hand-in-hand with 'thank you' and especially when spoke or thought of with sincerity. Gratitude carries a frequency that can also change many things. The ancients knew the power of gratitude and this is why blessing our food and blessing others was handed down through the ages. Gratitude or thank you when spoken over a meal or a glass of water or wine, can change the molecular structure.

The Freedom Now Project is very simple and all that is required is a commitment to focus or pray once a day (or more) using the words love and gratitude and encompass the world with these two words. These two words will link us mind-to-mind and when done with thoughtfulness and intent, we can shift the awareness of the world from abuse, poverty, war, enslavement, bigotry, prejudice, rape, and enable the world to evolve into something greater. This is the time to heal our woundedness. Now is the opportunity to heal and give to the world a shift that will lift it up into something evolutionary.

Again, please join me in this project. For more information: http://www.forfreedomnow.weebly.com/

Bettye Johnson

A NEW WORLD

World making has a delicious connotation. Would it be similar to a washerwoman who would scrub it clean? On the other hand, would we be an artist and paint new over the old? Having been an avid researcher of history and ancient history, it is as stated, in Eccl.1:9 "There is nothing new under the sun" and in some ways it appears this is semi-true. I say semi, because there are always new avenues of thought to pursue.

It appears that there have always been wars, enslavement, political plotters, murders, plagues, the rich, the poor, and subjugation of women, rape, and the robber barons. Today it is said there are six billion on this planet. Now that is many people with each one having different perceptions. Here we are in the year 2008 and we still have prejudices, discrimination, wars, rape, child abuse, female abuse, controllers and the barons of old who have become corporations.

What has brought us to this point in time? Some will say it is genetics, that's just the way it is, or my religion tells me this or that. There are a host of reasons and excuses for human behavior. Yes, we have great technology today, but if one observes people, we can note that many are part of a herd of cows following a leader. Therefore, what can bring about a new world—a different world? Ah, that's a question rarely posed. Why not begin with our self? What can we bring to a new empty table? A new world?

Are we bringing old, worn-out beliefs, habits, resentments, guilt, jealousies and other relics of the past, or do we bring to our empty table a new and different perspective? This calls for radical self-examination. What hidden thoughts do we harbor? What emotions are we suppressing? What words do we use over-and-over unconsciously?

Each of us is a thread in the tapestry of life. Some of us may appear to be the same color, but our hue—our tint is different. Each of us carries within us our own stamp of uniqueness. Perhaps it is time to remove the blinders we wear and allow new and different ideas and perspectives to flow in. Now we have change and an opportunity to see a new world unfolding within us as it moves into the outer reality. It is a challenge to move out of the herd. There are temptations to hang on to the past. This is a journey others have previously made while creating a new world for themselves. They became the eye in the center of the storm raging around them.

If each of us made a choice and moved out of the mold—the herd think of how exquisite it will be to live in a new world of our making. We each can become the center of calm while the outer world appears to be falling apart. We each can become the artist and paint a new scenario, or the writer who can write a new script. Each of us have the capability to create our own personal new world. From adversity comes the jewel.

LOVE AND GRATITUDE

I have written about love and gratitude in previous articles, and I cannot stress the importance of creating our life with the powerful frequency of Love and Gratitude. It can override any situation when evoked sincerely. We are living in trying times on this planet and societies have become steeped with fears, judgments, prejudices and control. Where did these beliefs/attitudes come from? There really is not any one culprit, however various religions have done much to perpetuate these and it is time for us to look at our religious beliefs. Religion and spirituality is not the same thing. Religion is man-made while spirituality comes within with a direct connection to that which created us. Some may call this connection God, Allah, Buddha or whatever name one wants to place on it. All plants, animals and water respond to love and gratitude. Even the earth responds to love and gratitude. This is ancient knowledge.

I have gone through a period of my life where I was judgmental, had prejudices , thought I was a victim, anger, jealousy, and I realized that those emotions and attitudes did not serve me. No, they made me sick and miserable. This is when I began my awakening as described in my book Awakening the Genie Within. I have discovered that to live a balanced life that my main tools are observation, love and gratitude.

We can change our lives by observing our beliefs, attitudes and emotions and discarding those that no longer contribute to our well-being or happiness. In speaking about love, I am not addressing romantic love, or parental love. I am writing about universal love and when we can place a non-biased love as a blessing on people, places, events, our food, our drink, our animals, plants and this Earth, we have altered the frequencies and a blossoming occurs not only in our self but also in others.

Love has many attributes such as kindness, acceptance, understanding, allowing, with no judgments or prejudices. I have learned that the more I put into action these attributes that my life has less chaos. I have learned for myself to mentally stand back, observe my reactions, and then choose to change them. It is a challenge at times to observe situations, which spawns herd mentality. It takes courage to step out of the box, but it can be done. Complacency stagnates love. It lulls one into a false sense of security. I have realized that there are times to speak out on issues, but there is also a time when to keep silent and observe until I realize that something wonderful may come from this.

Gratitude is a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation. It is also acknowledgement of a benefit received or will receive. I grew up in a household where we said a blessing for our food at every meal. I never understood why and it appeared to be a rote action. A true blessing is one said silently or vocally with focused intent. The blessing of food, drink or anything is also ancient knowledge. The pagans used blessings and gratitude long before the Christians. There are many stories of people who gave a blessing, a prayer of thanks for something they knew they would receive.

From my perspective if more people would begin blessing their lives and the people in their lives along with their possessions, jobs, the problems would fade away because showing gratitude for everything opens doors to new possibilities. Margaret Cho stated it quite well, "Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone's life forever."

A WISE WOMAN LEADS

We are living in a chaotic time with turmoil erupting and spewing all over the world. Here in the U.S. we have a nominee for vice-president and there is much controversy regarding her qualifications and her ability to govern for all the people. Having read many articles about Sarah Palin, I began to think of the qualifications I want to have in a woman who would represent my interests in a fair way. Here are my list of qualifications for any woman in a position of power:

QUALIFICATIONS: (Some of them.)

* A wise woman will be open-minded and willing to see all sides of the issues.

*A wise woman will be able to stand the heat and friction of adversities and adversaries.

*A wise woman will remove herself from favoritism or cronyism. Friends are not always the best allies.

*A wise woman would study the issues in depth before making decisions.

*A wise woman will seek counsel from wise people and then use her innate knowing to make a decision.

*A wise woman will not force her spiritual/religious beliefs on others, but allow each to have her or his own connection to God.

*A wise woman will keep religion out of politics.

*A wise woman may not condone abortion, but will not support restrictions on the way a woman chooses to use her body.
*A wise woman will be courageous, have integrity and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

* A wise woman has a fountain of knowledge and wisdom and uses her mind accordingly.

Is it possible to have a woman with the above qualities lead this country? I would hope so. I am one of the first to admit that not all women have admirable qualities just as there are men who do not have admirable qualities. However, there are women and men who have integrity, are honorable and speak their truth. It is time for them to come forward to lead this nation and it can begin with only one person to lead the way.

It is time for people all over the world to move out of flatlander thinking and open their minds to a grander future. It is time to awaken to conscious awareness and take responsibility for one's words, thoughts and actions.

I have used the image of the Goddess Athena or some call her Goddess Minerva. She represents Wisdom and Truth and is also a Warrior.

ARE YOU MAKING A DIFFERENCE

This election year is a pivotal one. We can choose to vote or not vote, however one vote can make a difference. Votes can send messages loud and clear. Speaking out can send messages loud and clear. Today I received an email and in the body of the email was a profound message,

and one I had put on the back burner of my mind. In the 1970's I worked to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. Only 38 ratified states were and are needed. It fell short by 3 votes and there are 15 states sitting on their hands. Why is the ERA needed? It gives women full benefits and not lip service. The woman who wrote the Equal Rights Amendment is no longer on this plane. However, her work does live on. Her name is Alice Paul. Please read the following about this great woman and the women who worked with her 81 years ago.

A History Lesson For Us All ....How Women Got To Vote

"A short history lesson on the privilege of voting... The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why,exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining, I'm too busy?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.' HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so ha rd for by these very courageous women."

I recommend "Iron Jawed Angels", starring Hilary Swank, available through most libraries and the Ken Burns film "Not For Ourselves Alone: the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony", also available through a library. These films really tell us how important it is for all women to vote. Please exercise your hard won right.

There are 15 unratified states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia. If you live in these states or know people who do, please

bombard them with information and urge them to vote only for those who are pro-ERA. We only need 3 - yes, 3 more states to ratify the E.R.A.

For more information:
http://www.eracampaign.net/
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EMPOWERMENT versus ABUSE

Within every individual there is a spirit connected to the Source and I call this spirit Genie. If the Genie is kept in the lamp of forgetfulness, this allows for abuse. For most individuals, the Genie was put back into the lamp or the bottle of forgetfulness by religions hundreds of years ago and it has been perpetuated by men who for the most part write history, or his-story.

Eons ago, women and men had a direct connection to their Genie. As religion began its encroachment into various countries, the Genie was put back into the lamp and the people were taught that they had to have an intermediary to the Source. The Source became the God out there in a nebulous place. For hundreds of years religions have taught that man is superior to women and women became chattels, breeding-bitches, and slaves. The divine rights of women were stripped from them. One only has to read scriptures of the various religious texts to realize this. What has been done to women could be called rape of the mind. Ancient history has been stripped of most information regarding women who ruled, contributed to society and were honored as women being equal to men.

Today the abuse of women and children is still rampant. In the arena of war, women and children are raped and women are often sold into slavery as prostitutes. We in the Western world have made some great strides, but there is still the 'good old boy network.' In today's world, little has changed except that special interests have joined religions by seducing the minds of women and men into thinking that sexy is the thing to be. Humanity is treading in a mind field with the individual being blasted with subliminal programming and visuals on the news of war, visuals in films of violence, commercials and ads leading people to think they are ill so they need to take this medication. Is it any wonder that people cannot think for themselves?

All is not lost. An individual can still let the Genie out of the lamp and become free-thinkers instead of one of the herd. As in olden times, one can make a sacrifice and today the sacrifice is to turn off the television and spend time with self. That can be fearful, because the individual will be bombarded with a tape playing in their mind of shoulds and should nots. It takes courage to drop out of the herd and become an individual free-thinker. I know because at age fifty I did this. I share tools that I used to change my thinking - my mind and releasing the Genie within. My latest book Awakening the Genie Within can change a life. It changed mine. In my book I use the symbol above, because I realized that it is really an ancient symbol for the brain. Read my book and learn why.

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ~ MARY MAGDALENE

History is very much like unraveling a skein of yarn in some respects. On the other hand, history is fluid and changes according to whose perspective one is reading. For the mystique of the Knights Templar to have survived history since the 12th century, I researched this interesting group for my book Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls and Mary Magdalene, Her Legacy. My library is filled with books about the Knights Templar because they are associated with Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail and are responsible for the architecture of the many Gothic churches in France--especially Chartres.

I am putting forth another perspective. It is known that the group was formed by nine knights while on a Crusade to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims. It has also been written that they supposedly were digging to locate Solomon's Temple and discovered some sort of treasure. After nine years the group of nine began taking in new members and the group grew and were given the blessings of the Pope, however I am not going into that phase of the Templar.

What I have discovered as a great possibility is something different. In my posting of July 5, 2008 titled Knights Templar - Another Perspective, I wrote of the possibility of Solomon's Temple being in Egypt-actually, Tanis since the Davidic line was known as the Hyksos before the great Exodus. It may appear that I digress at times, however I am tracing a weave--connections. After I read the many books, I began contemplating and questing to find answers. The most obvious possibility that came to me was that if Solomon's Temple was in Egypt, then the nine original Knights Templar would have discovered information about Egyptian Mystery Schools. It is a possibility that these nine men became initiates and brought back to France knowledge and with this knowledge created wealth, cathedrals, and esoteric symbols that are in almost all the Catholic churches.

Europe during this period was barely emerging from the Dark Ages that began in 476 AD. The Dark Ages was an era of ignorance, superstition, repression and social chaos. It was a period of intellectual darkness. The Moors brought to Spain contributions to science, medicine and mathematics while the Catholic Church strived to repress knowledge.

I am putting forth the hypothesis that the Knights Templar learned from a Mystery School. I also wondered where the Moors received their knowledge. The Moors' history is sketchy and they have been called Berbers. The thread leads back to Egypt and the Mystery Schools where Mary Magdalene and Jesus were taught. Their teachings originated from Egypt as did most of the productive verses in the Bible.

Not all of the Knights Templar died under the hands of the Inquisition and King Philip. They went underground so that knowledge could be preserved and it has emerged under many guises.

The symbol at the beginning of this posting is a Euro coin. The figure is of the Vitruvian Man first drawn by Leonarda Da Vinci depicting the cosmos man in the shape of a pentagram. The pentagram or the five-pointed star is a sacred symbol and if you look at the symbol of the Euro coin, it has 12 stars. Twelve and there were twelve Annunaki rulers and the planet was divided into 12 segments with each segment having 12 tribes. The number twelve is most interesting, because we have 12 inches make one foot. There were 12 tribes according to the Hebrews and there are 12 months in a year. Jesus had 12 disciples. The Twelve Days of Christmas also has an inner meaning and these twelves all have threads leading back to the Annunakis. Plato in his paper Law picked up on this. And, if we had 12 tribes in 12 sections, then we have the 144. Therefore each person on this planet belongs to one of the 12 sectors and is part of the 144. Interesting what a few threads will reveal.