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You’ve heard the buzzwords: Attitude is everything! Change your perspective! Have a positive outlook! But, can these words really change our future? And if so, how?
In my childhood and adolescence, I was skeptical. If my brother was born without being able to walk – how could my attitude or outlook change anything?
As I got older I continued to reflect on a youth seemingly filled with disappointments and doubts. And in talking to my friends and family, I realized I wasn’t alone; we’ve all experienced them. Then, I started taking a good, long look at myself and my feelings:
I realized that my deepest feelings were the ones guiding me forward; challenging me to reach to the depth of what I was able to feel – happy or sad – and allowed me to explore the dimensions of my being.
So, why do I share this with you? Through all the laughs, disappointment and sorrow I’ve learned: We can use the power of our feelings to build a stronger, happier, positive life. I’ve also discovered a secret way to facilitate this process: Affirmations.
How Affirmations Work
How do affirmations work? They are a simple exercise that can tap you in to this positive, creative part of yourself.
This place is free from your ego (the part of all of us that is a leaky tire in constant need of being filled up from outside sources).
Affirmations are different. They allow you to tap into the secret, powerful, depths of yourself and care for your being by affirming what is there.
Do you feel a calling toward a particular feeling you have been having? Is there something in your life that you need and desire to manifest?
If you can use you mind’s eye to creatively visualize you can bring forward all that you desire. How? Simply by “affirming” that it is already here.
Creating Affirmations
The key to the success of an affirmation is its potential or the potentiality of your creative thought.
The laws of the universe will respond then not to your “asking” for what you wish – for it does not respond to begging or supplication. The universe responds to affirming statements:
I AM BEAUTIFUL!
I AM HEALTHY!
I AM KIND AND LOVING!
Thus, it takes the ideas of creative visualization one step further. It takes a picture from inside your head, a “thought” and creates a statement about this thought in a “word” or verbal format.
Take some time to affirm what is in your heart. What do you wish for? Choose an affirming statement to focus on and place your attention on it:
I AM ABUNDANT!
I AM LOVED!
Applying An Affirmation
So how to make the laws of affirmation work in your life? Let’s focus for a moment on the “word” aspect of this “thought, word and action” process.
The words “I am” are a very powerful tool. These words, once again, exceed the ego. “I AM” tells the universe to put the wheels of energy in motion. It tells the universe you are ready to receive your prayer.
Already you can see the importance of this process. I AM Beautiful!
If I write this on an index card and place it in my pocket, write it several times in my notebook, say it out loud to myself: What happens? I manifest beauty! I feel beautiful.
Waiting The Results In Peace
Once you have affirmed and written you intentions and spoken them, the “action” needs to come from you. Think: If I already had the thing I wished for, what would I do?
For example: if I am beautiful – I need to ask myself: Am I wearing beautiful clothing? Is my make-up on? Am I honoring my body with exercise and nutrition? And if not: I need to take a long look at how I am treating myself – If I wasn’t feeling beautiful before, perhaps treating myself better is what I need to heal.
Take a moment today to focus on what you need to heal. Then apply the Thought – Word – Action process. I think you will find it to be a powerful tool.
For more information on the beauty of affirmations please check out Louise Hay’s Power Thought Cards: www.hayhouse.com
Also highly recommended is Dr. Wayne W. Dyers book “There’s a Spiritual Solution To Every Problem.” A great read.
Remember: Affirm, take action and “wait the results in peace.” Continue to remain open to receive and I think you will find that that your blessings will far exceed your expectations.

by: Laura Turner

“Nope, this just ain’t good!” How many times in our lives have we had those or similar words bouncing around inside our skulls? Yeah, I’ve lost count, too!
There are usually only a few reasons these annoying words show up. Occasionally, it’ll be when we just run smack-dab into an “Oh Sh–! situation. You know what I mean. Accidents, diseases and a whole bunch of other stuff that seem to have popped up out of nowhere and suddenly we find ourselves up to our neck in swamp water with alligators nipping at our butts.
Now admittedly, some of these situations that seem to pop up out of nowhere are a normal result of the things we personally did or didn’t do. We made our own bed and suddenly we’re forced to either lie in it or start ripping off the sheets. Don’t ya just hate it when that happens?
Other times, an event occurs that honestly is completely beyond our control. These are just unfortunately, part of life. Natural disasters, impulsive or inconsiderate actions by other folks and many diseases fall into this category. Once again, we’re put into a position where we’ll likely need to do something that we never would have wanted to do in the first place. Dang the bad luck…
In both of these types of situations, we’re forced into a position of either having to “act” or suffer the undesirable consequences. Most of us will then put our logic and maybe even our survival instincts to work to do those things we need to do to try to overcome our yucky situation. More often than not, we’ll succeed. Cool!
But what about those situations that quietly sneak up on you? You know the ones I’m talking about. It’s the job that started out to be pretty good and later on down the road has turned into drudgery and uncertainty. The relationship that was once built on caring and compassion which has deteriorated into indifference or abuse. The life path that was once paved and well maintained that has made a gradual transition into a muddy cow path. Now what?
Unfortunately, because the rate of change from “great” to “crappy” was so gradual, we tend to be reasonably well adapted to our present situation even though it may be quite uncomfortable. We may even be resigned to the fact that “this is the way it is” – or feel that we have invested so much time and effort into our circumstances that it just wouldn’t be worthwhile to try to make any changes. We feel trapped – and annoyed by those danged words bouncing back and forth inside our heads. “This just ain’t good!” “This just ain’t good!”
Oh, if only this were one of those sudden “Oh Sh–!” situations. If it were only a matter of immediate urgency. Then I’ll bet we’d do something. We’d take action and work to overcome our emergency. It’d be a matter of survival!
You don’t have to be a psychic to know where I’m going with this, do you? Nah, it’s pretty obvious. An uncomfortable condition – whether it suddenly pops into our lives or develops over a period of several years – is still an uncomfortable condition. Yeah, this is one of those “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck…” well, you know the rest…
And that bring us to our “This Just Ain’t Good” checklist. When we find ourselves in uncomfortable or undesirable situations, we only have two initial choices.
1. Do Nothing – This of course, is the easiest course of action and is absolutely guaranteed to bring about zero change. Things will continue to be as they are right now. (Is this the way you really want to finish out your life…?)
2. Do Something – This is the more difficult of the two choices because it immediately creates two more choices.
A. Take action to change the situation – Change jobs, relationships, life path or whatever condition is causing the discomfort.
B. Take action to change yourself – Your thought processes, the way you view your job, relationships, etc.
That’s it! That’s all the more complicated the initial decision-making process is. And yeah, I know that our “do something” may actually wind up being a combination of modifying both ourselves and our situation. And the actual steps we may be required to take to make those changes may be rather involved and take a bunch of time and effort on our part. That’s OK – if we’re genuinely interested in making a change. That’s just the way life is.
Of course, the basic requirement for making any changes – either within our situation or within ourselves – is “Do Something”. Take action. Set some goals for the changes we want, decide what we need to do to get there and get crankin’.
So if you’re trudging through life with “This just ain’t good!” ringing in your head, use the preceding checklist to decide what you really want to do. And above all, ask yourself the question, “Is this really the way I want the rest of my life to be?”
You’ll know what you should do…

My artistic endeavor have led me towards a personal sense of mission, because the visual arts are more than a passive representation of the life style and culture of the Incas, Aztecs, Mayas and Chinese of the Asian-pacific.
Through my work, I seek to preserve and stimulate an alternative vision to the modern industrialized twenty-first Century. Western culture has moved away from the serene life style that my ancestors lived. It is more important to recognize that we indigenous hold on to a distinct culture with other values other ways of seeking the world.
I am forty-nine years old and was born in the Peruvian altiplano of Puno. The traditional indigenous highlands of the Andean Mountain are portrayed in my art. My parents had been driven there from their home near the ancient Andean ruins of the Incas. This was the result of their families disapproved of their relationship. I returned my home village at the age of seven and since then I have committed my art to indigenous roots, my art expresses my indigenous roots and Asian influences.
My mother has always said that in our culture, we use choose to use strong colors to appease the spirits so that they are happy and will not bring about darkness. It was not expected for the son of an Andean Mountain family to attend in fine arts school, because it is very expensive.
I began to paint at the age of seven and at seventeen studied fine arts in Peru. Afterwards I went to France, China and Mexico. I am presently studying in Salt Lake City and I am also painting full time. Through my formal training, I have been able to explore more than one theme. These themes are within Peruvian, Chinese and Mexican cultures.
In Peru, it is not common for Peruvian artist to step out of the European style taught to them in college.
I choose to emphasize in Incan, Aztecs and Mayan organic cultures of our ancestors. Rather than naming old masters and legends as my inspiration, style, and subjects I choose to name my mother as my true inspiration.
My mother Ceferina has lived a tranquil life until now. I pay direct tribute to women such as my mother. She gave me tenderness care, dedication and guidance to pursue my career.
I paint Mother Nature as the Creator of All Cultures. His is a tribute to Incan Indian women because they often work harder than men. Most of them spend all day working in the fields with three to five children to care for, and often carrying one of them on their backs.
They are willing to fight for a better life. I render an emotional tone of every rhythm of the Andean life through my vibrant use of color. I also use bright and radiant
Combinations of reds, turquoises, purples, and oranges characterize the textiles and ceramics of the Peruvian Andean Mountain.
I use many colors of the Andean Mountains. When I asked my mother why the Andean Mountains have such vivid colors, she once again replied that it is to appease the spirits so that they will be happy and will not bring forth darkness. I employ simple swirling patterns to transmit a sense of the peace and harmony that radiates from the Incan Indian close interrelation to the land. It is this sense of the sacredness in nature that comes from deep within my works. I think art is the “mother earth.” Since in Peru, there are few artists who step out of the European style; there is no a vision of our own way of seeing things. It is the same with mother earth. In expressing this relationship with the land, my paintings have a profound ecological message. In Incan Indian culture, there is always a close relationship between man and his environment. There is a connection with the ecosystem in the Incan Indian world. The people are dependent on it for their very existence. !
For this reason we give thanks to the mother earth.
There are repeated historical themes in my work related to festivals. My paintings represent festivals of the countryside that originated before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. One painting depicts a traditional Andean ritual known as the festival of blood, in which a condor is attached to the neck of a bull. The condor pecks at the bull’s head until the bull dies. The image from this ritual is very strong. The condor represents the people of the Andes and the bull represents Spain.
This festival signifies the recovery of the Andean dignity and religious imagery. The imposition of Christianity in the Incan world was never completed. Indigenous cultures of Peru have mixed their beliefs and practices with the icons and lithography of the Catholic Church. I blend indigenous and European religious symbols to show this cultural mixture, also know as mestizo.
Another strong Incan ritual still strongly practiced is to give offerings to mother earth. A type of drink is thrown to all four corner of a room before an event or before eating and drinking. This ritual is done to give thanks to the fruits of the earth that mother earth provides that we may live.
For example, the square cross was a sacred symbol for the indigenous people across the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish. The cross was found in Machu-Picchu, in the ancient civilization of the Incas as well as in the ceramics of the North American Indians and is considered part of a cultural Christ. I see synchronicity between these religions. There is a blend of pre-post Colombian religious symbols to create Andean Virgins, Christ’s and Arch Angels. I am returning them to a more indigenous theme, making them Indian with dark skin and traditional symbols such as the moon.
My paintings are driven by a more ambitious goal that represents an Andean Mountain Incan Indian way of being. My work is a defense against the encroachment of Western values, because of a high level of migration of my people into the cities. Tribal people that come to the city do not want to speak the Incan Indian dialects and they forget their traditions and practices since now they rely on movies and television for self expression. My cause is to retain the cultural integrity of my people which I believe is a noble one. Through my work I seek to preserve and stimulate an alternative vision to the modern industrialized twenty first century. Western culture has moved away from the serene life style that my ancestor lived. I am in a rare position to help promote the Andean indigenous cosmic vision of the world.
In Peru, we are 60% indigenous and outsiders are relatively few in our tribal villages. We want to have our culture valued and that my people can feel proud of their cultural differences.

by: Ernesto Apomayta

“We come equipped with everything we need to experience a powerful life full of joy, incredible passion, and profound peace. The difficult part is giving ourselves permission to live it.” – Deborah Rosado Shaw

Summer is a great time to practice slowing down and re-connecting with what you enjoy most in life — spending time appreciating nature, barbequing with old friends, or expressing yourself through a creative hobby such as painting or gardening. These are what I call the “humble riches” of life. They don’t necessarily cost a lot of money but their “bang for your buck” in terms of your quality of life is huge.

Often when we think of taking steps to improve our quality of life we think about big steps –quitting a job, getting physically fit or moving house. Today I would like to introduce you to another approach. I call it Momentary Contentment. This means not necessarily waiting for one of those perfect times when everything feels completely in alignment and you wouldn’t change a thing, but rather, it is recognizing when you feel mostly content. You may have a few worries about your life but nothing so pressing that it stops you from enjoying the humble riches that are available to you here and now.

Recognizing any moments of contentment, be they Momentary or perfect, pulls you back in touch with what is good about your day and your life. It lifts your spirits and naturally shifts your mental state from your anxieties, worries, and concerns to possibilities, appreciation, and gratitude.

Recently I was traveling on a morning commuter bus to Boston. As I was riding along I was worrying about all the to-do’s ahead of me that day. Just then something caught my eye and I looked out the window next to me. What a sight! Beautiful wispy clouds were strewn across the blue summer sky. The silver glint of a jet was flying across and leaving behind two streams of ethereal white vapor. The tops of the nearby trees were bursting with full, summery green leaves. The vibrant mix of colors looked like a painting.

I thought to myself, “Ah ha! This is as close to a quiet, contemplative moment as I’m likely to get all day. I feel mostly content — I have a few worries about my work day but nothing so demanding as to stop me from taking this moment to enjoy the view nature is offering to me.”

I continued watching as the bright sunlight caught the edges of some of the clouds and not others. The scene changed from moment to moment in front of my eyes, never to be repeated in exactly the same way again. White, Blue, Green. White feathery clouds, blue skies and green trees. It was beautiful.

While gazing at this scene, my thoughts shifted to what a warm and sunny day it was and how lucky I was to have such good weather for my trip into the city. I couldn’t have asked for a better day for walking between bus stations and T stops and my various meetings. Starting to feel gratitude for the good things in the day, I effortlessly let go of the tension I had been holding about the schedule of obligations laid out before me. I was able to sit back and literally, enjoy the ride. I felt blessed by life’s humble riches.

Think of this newsletter as permission to give your self a few much deserved breaks of Momentary Contentment this month. Why not notice the world around you and revel in its wonders, call an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while, or take a half an hour to do something you love?

Lucky you, these riches are yours for the taking. Enjoy!

by: Helen Ksypka

“Because there will always be something more to do, we need to consciously choose what we are doing.”

– Helen Ksypka
Why is it such a challenge to prioritize?

We have enough to-dos to last for a lifetime.
We tend to view every to-do as an immediate “must” do.
We’ve become desensitized to what’s really important.

The first thing we need to realize is that we will never “catch up.” There will always be something more to do because life doesn’t stop. So it’s all about making wise choices.
And how do we do that? By asking these two questions before tackling any to-do.

Do I need to do this now?
If I don’t do this now, what are the consequences?

Let’s begin with something obvious. Imagine that you’re in your office, and your fax short-circuits, causing the entire room to go up in flames. It’s a no-brainer that your top priority would be to get out of there immediately, but let’s ask our two questions:
Do I need to do this now?
Answer: Yes. The office is an inferno.
If I don’t do this now, what are the consequences?
Answer: I’ll be charbroiled.
Since it’s easy to recognize that the top priority in the above case would be to flee from the burning office, it means that you and everyone else has the ability to prioritize. It’s just a matter of practicing, weeding through what’s on our plates, and reassessing when necessary.
Now let’s say you have a list of fifty to-dos, and you insist that they’re all very important. The key is to determine which is the “most” important of the very important by asking and answering our two questions.
If you also insist that every single to-do has consequences if left undone, determine which consequences would be the most drastic. Those to-dos would be worthy of a higher priority.
A curve ball is inevitable, however. As soon as we masterfully prioritize our to-dos, “life happens.” That’s when it becomes necessary to “shift” priorities.
Let’s go back to the example of the office fire. Say it was nine o’clock in the morning and you were working on a proposal to present to a prospective client at noon, which could have resulted in tripling your income. At that point in time, nothing would have been a higher priority than completing the proposal. But if late in the morning, the fire broke out, there would have been an immediate “shift” in priorities.
When “life happens,” it will be in varying degrees, which means varying degrees of “shifts” in priorities. For example, a plumbing problem may require a “shift” in priorities for that day. A fire, or the loss of a job or spouse, may require extensive reassessment and a massive “shift” in daily, as well as long-term, priorities.
Life keeps moving. Life changes. And a steady stream of to-dos continuously competes for our attention. But, the good news is, any one of us can learn to determine which to-dos are really worthy of our time, and we can learn the skill of prioritizing effectively by remembering to ask two questions:

Do I need to do this now?
If I don’t do this now, what are the consequences?

Thanksgiving is the most important holiday of the year.
Oh, sure, Christmas is grand, and I know it has many, many fans. I’m not knocking Christmas, but Thanksgiving is more important. And Easter has its fans, too. Rebirth is a wonderful thing, but I still say Thanksgiving is more important. Yes, the kids might put in a good word for Halloween. I am sure they enjoy the costumes and the sugar overdose, but Thanksgiving is more important.

Why?

Because the two most important words in the English language are “Thank You”. This is true for business success, for social pleasure, even for self-actualization.
For business success, a thank you tells a prospect or partner that you are appreciative of what she has just done. It shows you have a genuine interest in that person and the business relationship.
For social interaction, expressing gratitude is equally important to show how you value the other person and the social relationship you have with him. Thank you is a bonding phrase.
But thanksgiving is most important on a personal level for our own happiness. This is true for anybody who has ever lived, but it is even more true for us today.
Consider how much we have. More than any of our ancestors, we live in the Land of Plenty. We have more than anybody who lived at any time before. And for those of us who live in the developed world, we have more than most people on our little planet even today.
I’m not just talking about “stuff”. Oh, sure, we have digital color televisions and computers that take us around the world faster than the speed of sound. And we have 31 flavors of ice cream waiting for us on every second street corner. And we throw out more “junk” than we ever needed to own in the first place.
But we have so much more than just stuff. Consider the following:
FREEDOM: More of the world lives in a democracy than ever before, and democracy is becoming more open or “democratic” with every year (perhaps in part due to the Internet).
OPPORTUNITIES: With freedom and affluence comes opportunity. We have more opportunity to make more money, to earn it the way we wish, to choose our profession, our location, even our lifestyle. Women have just about reached equality with men in most of the developed world, and more people are able to flee oppressive regimes.
KNOWLEDGE: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? With freedom, comes the ability to satisfy our curiosity: knowledge. And with knowledge comes a thirst for freedom. Let’s face it, the idea of “the ignorant masses” has become an anachronism. Even the dumbest among us has more knowledge than most people who lived a couple centuries ago. (I said more “knowledge”, not more “wisdom”, but that’s another topic.)
HEALTH: Just surviving past childhood used to be a major accomplishment. Now we expect to live into our 80s or 90s. And we expect – no, we demand – to have exceptional health care all along the way (even those who are afraid to go to the doctor!).
This list could keep growing, but I think these are the major benefits of living in the twenty-first century, especially in the developed world. What does that have to do with thanksgiving and happiness?
Well, follow this train of thought. Whatever you have, you can either appreciate or not. If you appreciate it — I mean really notice that you have it, that it is good, that you feel good about having it — it will bring you happiness. However, if you get used to it, take it for granted, and focus on getting something you don’t have, it won’t bring you happiness.
Appreciation is the key to happiness. Whatever you truly and proactively appreciate, whether “stuff” or education or a vacation, will bring you happiness. But in this fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, over-stimulated society how can we appreciate anything?
Sadly, many of us who have the most to be grateful for express gratitude the least and feel the least appreciation. It seems the more we have the more we want. The more we want, the less we appreciate what we have. The less we appreciate, the less value there is to having anything, which may explain why we keep wanting more

The secret to feeling that appreciation we often overlook is in expressing our gratitude vocally or in writing. How can we possibly fail to appreciate something when we say “Thank you” for it and focus our attention on the appreciation?
I offer several ideas on how to express gratitude in the “Get Happy Workbook” and my book “Climb your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness”, including keeping a gratitude journal, saying grace, practicing “bolsterism”, or just sending flowers, cards, or an appreciative e-mail message – to name just a few ideas. Perhaps the most useful of all ideas is to make Thanksgiving Day every day.
Christmas is important. Easter is important. Halloween is important for the kids. But for our own personal happiness, there is nothing like a truly heartfelt Thanksgiving.

Dr. Larry Stepanowicz

Has anyone “rattled your cage” lately? You remember the phrase!
And you’ve certainly heard of ‘Think and Grow Rich,’ the success classic written by Napoleon Hill back in 1928. Though it’s sold countless copies over the years and is a perennial favorite that’s highly recommended to each succeeding crop of would-be entrepreneurs, it’s hardly made the kind of impact on the world a book of this nature is capable of making.
It kind of makes you wonder, do we think, or don’t we?
That’s a question worth considering!
Somewhere back in the 1600′s, French philosopher Rene Descartes made his famous observation: Cogito, ergo sum — “I think, therefore I am.”
Now, think about it!
Does that mean that if we don’t think, we aren’t?
At it’s depth, the statement holds a profound truth of its own.
But on its surface, a lot of us only think we are!
In this sense, most people really aren’t. In fact what we call society, isn’t! It’s all imagined, all a sham. It looks real because nearly everyone participates, but at its core, it’s no more than a conditioned illusion. The “emperor” really “has no clothes!”
Conditioned “thought” is not thinking! But if we “think” in this way, that is, responded to conditioning, we will most certainly grow poor! It’s why most everyone is poor — or in debt, which amounts to the same thing!
Most of what we do really isn’t based on thought, but on conditioning and emotions!
Of course, emotions do have a life of their own. It can easily be said, “I feel, therefore I am” or “I hurt, therefore I am.” And you may recognize the latter as a place where many find a false sense of life!
But emotions aside, most people are doomed to be poor because of their conditioned “thinking” — the way their minds have been trained and the way they put them to use or, rather, disuse.
For example…
If you think you need to watch some spectacle like the Superbowl instead of taking an active part in your own life, “think” and grow poor!
If you think lighting up a cigarette at $40 per carton is ‘cool’ or necessary, “think” and grow poor!
If you think this country is a ‘democracy,’ “think” and grow poor. (Clue: It’s a republic but you are being heavily lied to and conditioned against even knowing this, let alone realising just what that difference is and what that difference means. Hint: Ask yourself why?)
If you think the government is out to help you, “think” and grow poor!
If you think a job, a new job, any job is the ‘answer,’ “think” and grow poor!
If you think you have any ‘income,’ “think” and grow poor!
The list is endless!
There are people who are poor because they “think” all business is evil, Network Marketing is a scam, their friends, relatives, or neighbors who have never done anything with their lives know better than someone who has, that ‘you get what you pay for’, ‘the grass is always greener…’ or ‘don’t rock the boat.’
And if you’re a black or a woman who “thinks” you can’t make it, ask yourself why you want to make it THERE, anyway!
Making it ‘there’ is a struggle for most people, no matter the color or gender. “Here” to use the familiar phrase “is where it’s at.” If you realize that ‘here’ is your mind and then you actually use your mind, you can think and grow rich, for change!
Much success!

The grey sky of morning contained an ominous quality. The clouds were so thick they were almost tangible. Then I saw it. Faintly sandwiched between the clouds was the hint of a rainbow. Barely visible were the bands of color, with a straining, subtle expectancy as the dim colors arched upward. It was the beginnings of a rainbow. The hint of a possibility of something beautiful, magical and rare.

Was the rainbow becoming more of a rainbow? Or would it retreat?

Would all the pieces that need to come together to create a vibrant halo of color in the sky so the rainbow would flourish, or would one of the factors jump out of balance, thus erasing the hint? Which would be created? Nothingness or gloriousness?

In your life, where are there hints of a rainbow? What is standing in the way of your magnificent rainbow?

Perhaps it is over analysis. Sure, planning is valuable. And becoming paralyzed by considering "What happens if X happens? What happens if Z happens? What happens if Mary tells John that A might have a negative effect on B so then X is a moot point anyway?" And what if a huge meteor pummels Earth and tomorrow ALL of the planet is destroyed?

Having a game plan is always a good thing. A good coach knows that a game plan is consistently modified once the ball is put into play. Who knows what the other side has up their sleeves? Instead of getting stuck in the worry whirlwind, put together a framework and wait with joyful anticipation of the positive potential.

Maybe you are constantly looking at your rainbow from a perspective of fear. From the disempowering rather than the compelling. Fear is especially insidious, because it can come cloaked in many disguises. It may appear to be care and concern, or it may appear as discernment. Another costume it wears is tradition. You know this one, when your friend says, "Why change? This is the only way we have ever done it! Definitely the death knell of a rainbow in the making.

Or another way to make your rainbow in the making disappear is to give up on its existence right as it is about to burst forth with colorful splendor. Norman Vincent Peale wrote these inciteful words on this subject: "Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It’s no use. I can’t go on. If you do you’re licked, and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on." Countless inventors, entrepreneurs, artists and people just like you have given up right on the verge of their personal tipping point to success.

And then there are the people who stay in pursuit of their rainbows.

As a child, Richard Branson, noted Entrepreneur, was diagnosed with dyslexia. His scores on standardized tests were dismal, pointing to the likelihood of a less than stellar future. Perfect example of how radically off the mark prophesies based on "standardized tests" can be for children. These tests don’t measure the passionate drive that fills an individual. They can not hold onto embers that are just waiting to burst into flames. They can not possibly see what can happen by adding the positive support and nurture of family members and teachers: people who instead of looking at the numbers on a standardized test and instead look into the soul and say, as Branson’s Grandmother said, "You’ve got one go in life. Make the most of it.

Richard Branson obviously saw the glimmer of a rainbow and then made sure the environment was right to bring it to fruition.

Media magnate Oprah Winfrey hardly had an easy early life, yet she has said, "All my life I have known I was born to greatness." Her reality was poverty, molest, incompletion of her college studies and then having to switch gears on her dreams from newscaster to morning show host. Did any of these negative moments get in her way of pursuing her greatness?

Many other people would have gotten discouraged. They had a PLAN to become a newscaster, what a step down to be a morning show host! Oh, really?

Who hosts the news for Nashville, Tennessee’s nightly newscast? Sure, the people in Nashville and the surrounding areas are well aware of their beloved news anchors. I am sure they do a terrific job.

Who is Oprah Winfrey? If you have been awake for the last decade, you are well aware of Oprah. A role model who saw a glimmer and has been riding her rainbow ever since. Not only that, she has taken the world along with her, enlightening millions as she creates the life of her dreams. Even her fiancé has celebrity status. His name is Steadman. You probably already knew that.

And Oprah’s radiance births rainbows every day from her Chicago studios. Today I watched half of her program, seeing the ever salty, very down to earth Dr. Phil dispensing common sense relationship advice to controlling wives and the men who love them. Imagine that glimmering rainbow: a success story in the making, along comes Oprah and Dr. Phil now has a huge following. His "tell it like it is style" and simple strategies continue to build rainbows for people each time he appears on Oprah’s show.

I sat at the intersection, looking at the hint of a rainbow, wondering what its message was for me. I sighed at the beauty of it, the quiet whispers from the possibility of the rainbow to my soul.

I turned the corner towards my house. Less than a block later, I saw it. The rainbow, in full majestic color. No longer a hint, but a reality. Beautifully and magnificently formed beyond what any artist could create. My eyes filled with tears.

All I had to do was turn the corner. All YOU have to do is turn the corner. Turn away from the tyranny of overanalysis. Turn away from "what if?" paralysis. Away from a life time of being fearful, of being somehow not enough, away from "but we have always done it this way." Turn the corner to embracing your greatness. Take the fire deep within you and make something of it. Say what is so in your life, and then agree to it! Take action on it! Now!

Vic Braden said, "The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities." Your rainbow is stunning. I can see it from my window. The sun is shining upon it, reflecting that glint of "Yes, I can!" in your eyes. Today, show your rainbow to others. Watch the magic as it unfolds before you. Your rainbow is always there, simply waiting for you to bring it out in all its glory. Right now, it looks fantastic. Congratulations.

Though paper wasps have brains less than a millionth the size of humans’, they have evolved specialized face-learning abilities analogous to the system used by humans, according to a University of Michigan evolutionary biologist and one of her graduate students. “Wasps and humans have independently evolved similar and very specialized face-learning mechanisms, despite the fact that everything about the way we see and the way our brains are structured is different,” said graduate student Michael Sheehan, who worked with evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Tibbetts on the face-recognition study. “That’s surprising and sort of bizarre.”

The study marks the first time that any insect has demonstrated such a high level of specialized visual learning, said Sheehan, lead author of a paper on the topic scheduled for online publication in the journal Science on Thursday, Dec. 1.

In earlier research, Tibbetts showed that paper wasps ( Polistes fuscatus ) recognize individuals of their species by variations in their facial markings and that they behave more aggressively toward wasps with unfamiliar faces.

In 2008, Sheehan and Tibbetts published a paper in Current Biology demonstrating that these wasps have surprisingly long memories and base their behavior on what they remember of previous social interactions with other wasps.

In their latest study, Sheehan and Tibbetts tested learning by training wasps to discriminate between two different images mounted inside a T-maze, with one image displayed at each end of the top arm of the T.

Twelve wasps were trained for 40 consecutive trials on each image type. The paired images included photos of normal paper wasp faces, photos of caterpillars, simple geometric patterns, and computer-altered wasp faces. A reward was consistently associated with one image in a pair.

The researchers found that the paper wasps, which are generalist visual predators of caterpillars, were able to differentiate between two unaltered P. fuscatus faces faster and more accurately than a pair of caterpillar photos, two different geometric patterns, or a pair of computer-altered wasp faces. They learned to pick the correct unaltered wasp face about three-quarters of the time.

Two simple black-and-white geometric patterns should have been easy for the wasps to distinguish, because the insects’ compound eyes are good at detecting contrast and outlines, Sheehan said. Yet the wasps learned complicated face images more rapidly than the geometric patterns.

At the same time, introducing seemingly minor changes to a P. fuscatus facial image — by using a photo-editing program to remove a wasp’s antennae, for example — caused test subjects to perform much worse on the facial recognition test.

“This shows that the way they learn faces is different than the way they seem to be learning other patterns. They treat faces as a different kind of thing,” Sheehan said.

“Humans have a specialized face-learning ability, and it turns out that this wasp that lives on the side of your house evolved an analogous system on its own,” he said. “But it’s important to note that we’re not claiming the exact process by which wasps learn faces is the same as humans.”

The ability to recognize individuals is important to a species like P. fuscatus , in which multiple queens establish communal nests and raise offspring cooperatively, but also compete to form a linear dominance hierarchy. Remembering who they’ve already bested-and been bested by-keeps individuals from wasting energy on repeated aggressive encounters and presumably promotes colony stability by reducing friction.

Sheehan also tested a closely related species of wasp, P. metricus , which lacks the varied facial markings of the paper wasp and lives in colonies controlled by a single queen. In the T-maze test, P. metricus scored no better than chance when asked to distinguish between individuals of its own species.

“Differences in face learning between the two species cannot be attributed to general differences in visual learning, as both species learned to discriminate between pairs of artificial patterns and caterpillars at the same rate and with the same accuracy,” Sheehan and Tibbetts wrote. ” P. fuscatus and P. metricus differed only in their ability to learn normal face stimuli.”

“The evolutionary flexibility of specialized face learning is striking and suggests that specialized cognition may be a widespread adaptation to facilitate complex behavioral tasks such as individual recognition,” they wrote.

Funding for the project was provided by the University of Michigan and an E.S. George Reserve Scholarship to Sheehan.

A red dye derived from lichens that has been used for centuries to color fabrics and food appears to reduce the abundance of small toxic protein aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease. The dye, a compound called orcein, and a related substance, called O4, bind preferentially to small amyloid aggregates that are considered to be toxic and cause neuronal dysfunction and memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease. O4 binding to small aggregates promotes their conversion into large, mature plaques which researchers assume to be largely non-toxic for neuronal cells. Further research with animal models is needed to determine whether this new approach by Dr. Jan Bieschke (Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, MDC, Berlin-Buch), Dr. Martin Herbst (Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin) and Professor Erich Wanker (MDC) in Berlin, Germany, will be useful for therapy development.

Protein misfolding is considered to be the cause of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and also Huntington’s disease. In a multistep process, proteins misfold and accumulate into large extra- or intracellular plaques. Researchers assume that small misfolded protein aggregates that are precursors of mature plaques are toxic for nerve cells and are the reason why they are eventually destroyed.

Dye from the Canary Islands

The dye orcein is isolated from lichens that grow on the Canary Islands, among other places. Lichens have been used for centuries to color fabrics and food. Eight years ago Professor Wanker screened hundreds of natural compounds to find potential candidate drug molecules for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Among those substances he found orcein, a compound made up of about 14 small molecules. As these molecules might have different biological effects, the researchers in Berlin began to search for pure chemicals with similar properties. They identified the substance O4, a blue dye, which is structurally very similar to one of the 14 molecules. Moreover, they showed that O4 stimulates the formation of large, non-toxic protein plaques from small toxic protein assemblies.

New Mechanism

A few years ago Professor Wanker and his colleagues discovered that EGCG (Epigallocatechin-3-gallate), a natural chemical compound found in green tea, renders toxic protein assemblies non-toxic. With orcein and O4 the researchers have now found another mechanism to eliminate small toxic protein aggregates. However, instead of remodeling protein plaques, the dyes reduce the abundance of small, toxic precursor protein assemblies by accelerating the formation of large plaques, as the researchers could now show in their laboratory.

“This is a new mechanism,” Professor Wanker explained. “Up to now it has been considered to be very difficult to stop the formation of small toxic protein assemblies. If our hypothesis is correct that the small aggregates, which are precursors of plaques, indeed cause neuronal death, with O4 we would have a new mechanism to attack the disease.”

The synthetic dye methylene blue is currently being tested in clinical trials. This dye also seems to stimulate the formation of large plaques in a way similar to O4. Other therapeutic approaches tested in clinical trials which aim at eliminating small precursor aggregates have so far not led to a significant improvement of disease symptoms.

However, it still remains to be seen whether the blue dye O4 can also be effective against small amounts of misfolded proteins in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and whether the accelerated formation of larger plaques can indeed reduce the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. Further studies will be necessary to address the question whether the accelerated formation of large plaques can be a therapeutic approach. “We hope that our findings will stimulate research activities in this direction, especially in drug discovery,” Professor Wanker said.