Air Lover ? Completing Relationships with Compassionate ...

AIR LOVER ? Completing Incomplete Relationships with Compassionate Communication

We are in Air week in the Sensual Shaman Immersion exploring the lover archetype.? In the element of Air, we explore our communication, self-expression and discernment in relationship to our hearts, ourselves and the inner and outer lover.

As we move into the element of Air in with the Lover Archetype, we explore speaking and not speaking,?choosing and discerning our words rather than reacting with our words.? Do our words articulate our love even when there is pain?? Do they work to create more love and openness?? Do they open us and others?? Do they close us and others down? ?The six week Immersion series is never easy and it brings up everything that source says we need to look at to support our intentions and return to right relationship with ourselves, our hearts and our communities.

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This week as a group we examined the places where we?ve been hiding from the lover archetype in anyway, changing our words or withholding them in order to downplay the full expression of our self, our emotions and the full expression of love.? This week we took the opportunity to have transparency and/or completion conversations with any previous or current relationships in our lives that we felt were holding ourselves back from being the fully self-expressed radiant lover we are meant to be.? This included dialoging with the inner lover and also examining those places where we have hidden, hardened or poisoned our hearts from ourselves and others.? We examined where we held residual vibrations of guilt, shame, fear or regret around past or present relationships and moved forward in our week with completion conversations. Let me give you an example.

This past summer, I was exploring my relationship to divine masculine energy and where and how I needed to heal my inner relationship to this energy in my own body.? As I slept one night, I was shown in a very powerful dream all the times I had been in any way intentionally or unintentionally cruel to any male relationship in my life.? In a particularly poignant chapter of this dream, I was brought back to a time in high school where I was dating a beautiful artist and gypsy musician named Oliver.? Oliver was a year younger than me, I was a senior in high school and he was a junior.? Everything about Oliver?s presence intrigued me and set fire to the poetry of my soul.? He was someone who found magic in every moment while I at the time was seeking to suppress the magic within me.? At the time I struggled with finding the right words to articulate everything I felt in our relationship. ?I felt so many emotions surge up when I was around him including forbidden passions that he seemed to effortlessly express through his music and art and that I had bottled up and were slowly destroying me.? Not having a conduit to channel my bottlenecked emotions, I began to take out my suppressed feelings on Oliver.? I did this by withdrawing and retreating from him, avoiding him in the halls, not returning calls and not speaking to him because the emotions stirred too much up in me and were too much to process at any given time.? I had no channel for expression of these emotions and no form for the use of conscious loving language.? I was in a space of teenage romance but the feelings within me did not know how to express themselves.? I had no model for intelligent emotional communication.? ?There was no class that was given in our public education system that said here?s how to have a love-centered conversation with someone during times of emotional turmoil.? I eventually pulled away, retreated and disconnected from Oliver in what is considered typical emotional abandonment because I was in fact abandoning my own emotions and tumultuous feelings at the time.

After I was shown this dream, I reached out to another healer and colleague.? I told him about the dream and asked for his advice.? He said I should reach out to Oliver.? I of course knew this, but?I was terrified. I waited weeks and then I found Oliver on Facebook. Below is what unfolded in our correspondence.? I wrote this email with no expectations other than to simply complete what I had not been able to complete with Oliver and to honor the time we had spent together and the very true genuine love and affection I continue to carry for him in my heart.

Dear Oliver,

?I?ve been putting off writing this letter for a few weeks now. A few weeks ago I met you in a dream and was shown very clearly how painfully I treated you in high school. In this dream I saw how much I struggled with communicating clearly and compassionately and my absence of integrity and regard for you feelings in our relationship. I write this to apologize for, in the plainest terms, being cruel. My own confusion and inability to properly articulate and express my emotions for someone I deeply cared for came out in a jumbled mess of outburst and withholds of affection and love. I am truly sorry for any hurt I caused you. While I would not be presumptuous to assume that you even remember these moments or had a similar experience to the one I perceived, I want to apologize for any pain or hurt I caused you by my words, actions and own confusion. ?Oliver, I cared for you deeply, was in awe of you, intrigued by your gypsy mystery and magical nature and at the same time found it scary, elusive and intimidating. This welled up a huge amount of insecurity in my own system that I misdirected into our communication and relationship. ?Oliver, I am so sorry. From the depths of my being and deepest subconscious places I am sorry. Thank you for being you, in all your beauty and magic. I honor you. I adore you. I wish you all good things.?

With Warmest Thoughts & Much Affection,?

Isis??????????? ???????????

Oliver?s Response:

Isis,

I apologize for taking a few days to respond to your kind, thoughtful note. ?Thank you for writing to me to express these feelings. Not to freak you out, but I remember our times really well, and while there surely must have been a period of being somewhat confused or bummed, I really can?t recall it well. It?s not what sticks out. It didn?t take too long for me to understand that you were going through some things and needed something different. We were young, crazy and such, and if we had to be held accountable for our past actions instead of present intentions, every human animal would be screwed. From my end, I deeply apologize if I treated you coldly at any point thereafter and left that hanging. Had we been who we are, perhaps we could have done better. I felt like I had to protect myself for a while, but soon I moved on and had good friends, including my guitar, who all helped me navigate my end of the emotional stuff.?

?

The thing most imprinted and perhaps the only one that has ever popped into my head is of standing in the parking lot outside java dave?s, cafe cubana, or whatever it was at the time and kissing for what seemed like hours, just standing there in the parking lot and repeating this in perhaps other public locations. just stuck together, stock still for a very long time. I think about this because I wrote a song about it a long time ago, close to 10 years now. Not sure you came across it or if I sent something out when I made the recordings, but here?s a link: http://oliverorion.com/track/what-was-required ?The song began from that memory of those times, and that?s a fair trade to me. ?Thank you for writing! ?-Oliver

When we speak the words that need to be spoken, we create a place of completion and reshape our reality.? We can move forward in our integrity.? We can re-pattern the wounded lover, the overwhelmed lover, the distant lover, the scorned lover.? When we do this, we free up the poetry of our soul to express itself and invite the inner lover to dance with us once again.

Today I am in a place where instead of retreating from relationships with big emotions, big feelings and big processes, I can witness my impulse to do that and grab my inner scared cub by the scruff of the neck and put her back in front of the big emotions that make her scared.?? This does not mean that I do not close down.?? I am opening and closing all the time, only now I am aware of it and my inner big mama grizzly is there to corral her bear cub and say ?Stay. Listen. Speak.? Hear.? Bleed here with your heart open.? Do not run from it.?

I am so grateful to Oliver for giving me permission to post the above exchange and share his music. ? I hope you enjoy!

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Source: http://thesensualshaman.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/air-lover-completing-relationships-with-compassionate-communication/

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Ex-US envoy: $17M French ransom funded al-Qaida

Malian soldiers patrol the entrance of Gao, northern Mali, Friday Feb. 8, 2013, where a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed himself attempting to blow up an army checkpoint. It was the first known time a suicide bomber has operated in Mali. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Malian soldiers patrol the entrance of Gao, northern Mali, Friday Feb. 8, 2013, where a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed himself attempting to blow up an army checkpoint. It was the first known time a suicide bomber has operated in Mali. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

PARIS (AP) ? A former U.S. ambassador to Mali has alleged that France paid a $17 million ransom to free hostages seized from a French mining site ? cash she said ultimately funded the al-Qaida-linked Islamist militants its troops are now fighting. French officials, whose soldiers are pushing north into the territory where the missing captives are believed to be held, denied paying any ransoms.

Vicki Huddleston's allegations, which she said dated back two years, strengthened the view that the Mali rebellion was funded largely by ransoms paid in recent years. In February 2011, three of the hostages seized at a French uranium mine in Niger ? including one Frenchwoman ? were freed; four remain in the hands al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali.

The Islamist rebels retreating northward are apparently taking their Western hostages with them ? among them the mine workers and three other French citizens seized elsewhere.

Huddleston, who served as ambassador to Mali and held positions in the State Department and Defense Department in the U.S. before retiring, told France's iTele network that the French money allowed al-Qaida's North Africa branch to flourish in Mali.

"Although governments deny that they're paying ransoms, everyone is pretty much aware that money has passed hands indirectly through different accounts and it ends up in the treasury, let us say, of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and allows them to buy weapons and recruit," she said in the comments that aired Friday.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College, said a French policy of paying for hostages through middlemen has been clear for years and has broad support from a public that sees near daily references to the hostages on television and in print.

"There is a political consensus that is being built subtly. Every single day you are reminded that you have nationals somewhere," Ranstorp said. "It's through several middlemen. It's almost a normal business transaction."

The primary drawback as far as France is concerned, he said, "is a security cost because wherever French people go they become prey."

Huddleston said the $17 million payment was intended to win freedom for the hostages kidnapped in September 2010 from their guarded villas in the Niger town of Arlit, where they were working with French nuclear company Areva.

"France paid ransom for the release of these hostages," Huddleston said.

Claude Gueant, who was French President Nicolas Sarkozy's chief of staff at the time, on Friday denied that France had ever paid a ransom and said intermediaries had been negotiating to free the hostages. Philippe Lalliot, the current spokesman for the foreign ministry, dismissed Huddleston's comments as based on "rumor."

"On these statements, if you want to quote them very precisely ? statements that point to rumors ? I don't have a particular comment to make. On the situation of our hostages more generally, you know . that it is a concern for us at every moment," Lalliot said.

Even as France launched its military intervention in Mali on Jan. 11, the hostages remained in the French public eye. Rarely a day goes by without a story about their possible whereabouts.

Diane Lazarevic ? whose father Serge was abducted in Mali in 2011, and is among the missing captives ? said each week of the fighting has brought new fears.

"All of us have imagined a scenario about how it could end, what they (the extremists) will demand, how it will happen. We have thought up a thousand different films in a loop in our heads and how it will unfold," she told The Associated Press this week.

"I'm still hopeful, but with this military intervention and the progression of military force close to the kidnappers and the hostages, it is becoming very difficult and very nerve-racking."

___

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report from Paris.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-08-Mali-France-Hostages/id-ddd22a5b395e429dbaacaf7ec4920b00

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Ask Engadget: best roaming options for a trip to the UK and ROI?

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Tom, who wants to know what's the best option to get connected during a trip over the pond. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"Hi Engadget, I'm a Verizon subscriber and I've got an upcoming trip to London and Dublin. As I'm on a CDMA network, my Galaxy Nexus isn't going to be much use to me, so what options are available to me? I'm only going for 8 days, so we can't justify a big investment, but I only need calling and GPS (to get around). Thanks!"

You're right that there's no CDMA networks in the UK, but you aren't without options.

• Of course, the easiest and cheapest thing to do is convince a friend to loan you their unlocked GSM smartphone and buy a SIM card when you arrive in the UK, and then Dublin.
• Alternatively, you could pick up a pay as you go handset from one of the UK's budget carriers. Tesco Mobile offer the Motorola Motosmart, its cheapest with GPS, for £50 ($78), but if you can get by with using a map, then the Nokia 100 is available for just £9 ($14).

But, dear commenters, this is where you come in. Got a better suggestion? Throw it into the space below and help Tom stay connected wherever he go.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ogidc2Hf3yU/

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New high-profile bipartisan group on immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is part of a new bipartisan group that will push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

The other co-chairs of the new effort are former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, a Democrat; and former Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, several people involved told The Associated Press on Friday.

The high-profile group, brought together by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, will aim to keep up momentum behind overhauling immigration and serve as a sounding board for policy makers, Rendell said.

The effort is also meant to underscore that there is a bipartisan consensus behind passing immigration legislation. Bipartisan Senate negotiators are aiming to finalize a bill by March and get it through the Senate by summer, although success is far from certain. Even if legislation gets through the Senate the Republican-led House would still have to approve it. President Barack Obama is also pushing on the issue.

"I hope it makes plain that there is bipartisan support for pro-growth solutions that would result from immigration reform," Barbour said in an interview.

Rendell said that, "there are a lot of issues that are yet to be resolved and it's going to take a lot of goodwill and a lot of patience, and anyone who thinks we're going to have an immigration bill by the end of March is probably a cockeyed optimist."

"Obviously this cannot wait," Cisneros said. "If we're going to be helpful we need to weigh in immediately."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-08-Immigration-Bipartisan%20Group/id-e3656c248802426a8faebdd03e53f5c5

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Rio Carnival: Carnival Fever Prompts Some Locals To Seek Escape

RIO DE JANEIRO -- As samba queens get final touch-ups on their sequins and feathers and hundreds of thousands of revelers take command of Rio's streets for Carnival's opening on Friday, Leo Name is hunkering down. The self-avowed Carnival Scrooge has stocked up on frozen TV dinners and hopes he won't have to set foot outside his apartment during the five days of festivities.

Appalled by the monumental proportions that street parties have taken on in recent years with the influx of an estimated half million visitors to the city of 6 million people, many locals flee Rio or lock themselves away for the duration.

Fans of Carnival dismiss them as blasphemous curmudgeons. But Name and others like him insist theirs is a rational response to an event that shutters businesses, snarls traffic and sees public spaces overrun by beer-guzzling revelers who think any place is a good space to urinate.

"Over the past years, the crowds have gotten so thick that I couldn't even make it to the metro and wasn't able to buy bread at the supermarket, which is literally downstairs from my place," said Name, a geography professor at Rio's Pontific Catholic University. "I felt like I was under siege."

It wasn't always like that. For decades, Rio was fairly calm during Carnival. Residents who could afford it took advantage of the public holiday to go on vacation, and the city's pace slowed. Carnival celebrations were mostly restricted to the well-regimented parades at the Sambadrome, where spectators now pay from $78 to $1,032 a person to marvel at the over-the-top floats, the musicians' unflagging enthusiasm and the fancy footwork of dancers decked out in not much more than a sprinkling of rhinestones and a puff of ostrich feathers.

"When I was a kid, I used to go to three, four or even five movies a day during Carnival because the cinemas had these special discounts to try to drum up an audience," said the 35-year-old Name. "It was great. The city was empty, the metro was empty, the streets were empty, and there were no lines anywhere."

But Carnival has spilled into Rio's streets with the resurgence of "blocos" ? raucous, heavy-drinking street parties that regularly draw tens or hundreds of thousands of people. This year, organizers are hoping Rio's biggest bloco, "Bola Preta," or Black Ball, which in 2012 attracted an estimated 2 million people to the historic city center, will enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's biggest street party.

Far removed from the polished, highly produced glitz of the Sambadrome, blocos are come-one-come-all events that many people say embody the authentic, popular spirit of Carnival. Organized by clubs or neighborhood associations, they draw participants from all walks of life and social classes. While a handful of the most established blocos date back nearly a century, themed street parties have proliferated in recent years, including ones for Michael Jackson fans, Beatles enthusiasts and a canine extravaganza for dogs and their owners, all decked out in extravagant costumes.

Revelers converge at a designated meeting point for a bloco and then the tide floods through neighboring streets as partiers dance and sing along to music blasting from sound trucks. Prodigious amounts of beer keep spirits high, although it also results in an epidemic of public urination, much to the chagrin of city officials.

Starting in 2009, Mayor Eduardo Paes has been forcing some order on what had historically been spontaneous gatherings, publicized largely through word of mouth. Now, each bloco must apply for authorization from City Hall, which has an apparatus funded by corporate sponsorships that announces the time and place of each gathering and takes care of logistics, like traffic diversions and cleanup.

Still, with more than 5 million people taking part in blocos last year, by official estimate, the accompanying chaos, litter and traffic nightmares brought by the street parties has sparked a backlash, with some critics calling on City Hall to rein the blocos in.

"While they're a guaranteed good time for some, the street parties bring problems for others," read a recent opinion piece titled "Too Much Joy" in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. "The consensus is that many of them have grown too big and need to be held in an appropriate place."

City Hall has brushed off the complaints. This year, officials handed out 15 percent more bloco authorizations than for 2012, giving the green light to 492 street parties.

Speaking at a recent news conference, city Tourism Secretary Antonio Figueira de Mello dismissed criticism as "a conflict of interest between residents."

"With an event that has as big an impact on the city as Carnival, you're always going to have lots of happy people and lots of unhappy people, particularly when events are taking place on the front steps of your building and when they get in the way of your daily routine," Mello said. "Blocos are like street fairs: Everyone likes them, but no one wants one on their street."

Mello stressed that with the rise in the number of blocos comes a ramping up of logistical support.

The number of traffic cops has been increased 25 percent to nearly 1,000 officers in a bid to smooth transportation snarls. Nearly 7,800 municipal guards are to be deployed to encourage revelers to take advantage of this year's 17,200 portable toilets ? up from just 900 four years ago. Fines will be levied on those caught urinating in public, Mello said.

Such measures are cold comfort for many residents.

Vinicius Netto, an urbanism professor, said that after "suffering" through the last four Carnivals, he and his girlfriend have decided not to stick around to see if things run more smoothly this time around. They're spending Carnival on an isolated island several hours away.

"Rio is the mecca of Carnival, and I respect that," Netto said. "The problem is that it takes over the city to such an extent that there's no space left for those of us who, for whatever reason, would prefer not to participate."

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/08/rio-carnival-carnival-fev_n_2647620.html

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Hal Steinbrenner concerned about A-Rod situation

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner says he's concerned about the latest drug allegations swirling around third baseman Alex Rodriguez, but that the matter is being looked at by Major League Baseball.

The Miami New Times reported late last month that the three-time AL MVP bought human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing substances in recent years from Biogenesis of America LLC, a now-closed clinic in Coral Cables, near Rodriguez's offseason home.

Speaking on Friday at the Yankees' minor league complex, Steinbrenner said the situation is "a concern, but it's out of our hands."

"We will cooperate with MLB in any way we can, any way we're asked to," he said. "But other than that, there's not much to say. I don't know any more than you do."

Rodriguez has denied the allegations. He admitted four years ago that he used PEDs from 2001-03.

The Yankees signed one-time Boston Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis to fill in for Rodriguez, who is sidelined for at least the first half of the season after hip surgery Jan. 16.

"I've always liked Kevin," Steinbrenner said. "He always seemed like a good leader, a hard worker and a very enthusiastic ? loves the game ? kind of guy. And that's the kind of guy we want."

Steinbrenner addressed a number of other topics, including the contract status of second baseman Robinson Cano, a potential free agent after the upcoming season.

"There's been a conversation or two," Steinbrenner said. "We'll get into that, and we'll talk about that at a later date. But he's obviously been a great Yankee, and hope he's here his entire career."

Steinbrenner feels the Yankees have a "championship-caliber team" this season. He acknowledged the club is sometimes criticized for fielding an older roster, but he likes its experience, "assuming we can stay away from injuries."

"We've got a lot of good veterans on the team, and we've got some good young players as well," Steinbrenner said. "That's always the mix that I want to shoot for. I like our team, but where we end up in October, anybody's guess."

The Yankees are still looking to reduce the 2014 payroll to the $189 million luxury tax threshold.

"All I can assure the fans is, we're always going to field a championship-caliber team every single year," Steinbrenner said. "Is that our goal next year? Yes, to be at that number, that's our goal. But as I've said from the beginning, it depends on some of our young players stepping up and getting the job done. That has to happen, or it's going to be difficult."

The Yankees re-signed a number of their own free agents, including pitchers Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda, but were less active than many previous years for outside free agents.

"I think we have some good signings, and I think we did our fair share in the offseason," Steinbrenner said. "Similar payroll to last year. Shows we want to win."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hal-steinbrenner-concerned-rod-situation-184618554--mlb.html

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10 interview questions, online tests to help identify problem-solving ...

Every company wants managers who can efficiently identify, define and resolve problems. But analytical aptitude is tricky to assess during job interviews.

Don?t automatically assume that management applicants with top references and experience automatically have great analytical skills. Instead, find out for yourself by asking some of these questions during the interview:

1. Explain a time when you came up with a simple solution for a complex problem. How did you do it and what was the outcome?

2. Have you handled a project that involved analyzing large amounts of data and other information? Describe it.??

3. Explain a situation that required you to analyze a difficult problem quickly. What was the result?

4. Describe a workplace problem that you anticipated. What action did you take?

5. Have you ever found a way to accomplish a routine task more productively or efficiently? Explain.

6. Describe a work assignment that frustrated your analytical skills. Why?

7. Explain a situation that required you to gather information from more than one department. How did you evaluate the information?

8. Tell me about a time you created a solution to a problem that proved to be wrong. What would you do differently?

9. What was the worst on-the-job dilemma you ever faced? What did you do about it?

10. About what percent of your work time do you spend analyzing issues?

Online evaluation tools

In addition to these questions, consider using online tests that evaluate analytical skills. Some examples:

• About.com: two free Law School Admission Test (LSAT) analytical reasoning quizzes.

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