We spent last week in the Pilansberg and walking back from breakfast one morning I saw this lot.  The warning bells immediately went off for me - chemtrails!?! The people that were with me said they are just jet streams, but I don't think so.  The "clouds" that developed after the spraying didn't look normal to me.  I did some research on chemtrails in South Africa - people have been reporting them since around 2010.  If you have more info, please share. Geoengineering Watch has a report of from a farmer in the Northwest Province last year on witnessing this. Coincidently, we had perfect weather until these came over, then it was cloudy and windy.  May be coincidence, maybe not...  Check out more photos from around South Africa on the Open Your Minds SA Facebook page.

For those of you who don't know anything about chemtrails / geoengineering / HAARP - start with these documentaries then do your own research.  The second documentary on why they are spraying explains who is behind all this.  And no surprise that the usual suspects come up - Monsanto and Bill Gates.... Listen to how they push their agenda into Africa. 

After I took all the photos of the maize at Pick n Pay today, I decided to ask random people in the store if they knew what GMO meant.  I asked about 10 different people, young, old, white, black, male, female, single, couple and family. 

Nine said they had no idea.  One guy said "it's about additives, that additives give people allergies so they take the GMO additives out so people don't get allergies".  Not quite, no.

What dawned on me today, is that even though maize is now labelled; people don't actually read labels nor have a clue what GMO's are.  "May contain GMO's" is also misleading. One needs to err on the side of caution, and just avoid anything that refers to GM's until there is true transparency in the industry.   It's going to take an epic public relations / marketing effort to educate people on what it means in their lives. 

Explaining to people what GMO's are in layman's terms is a very hard thing to do.  My own journey took 6 months before I even vaguely started to unravel it.  Most people don't have the time, energy or inclination because they're just too tired and too hassled.

 In the meantime, Monsanto is laughing the whole way to the bank.  This has to change.

In the light of the global March Against Monsanto taking place next week, there has been some discussion this week on Pick n Pay's Facebook page about the labelling of genetically modified products.  They maintained that they have started labelling  so I went to one of their stores today to find out.  And true to their word, all maize has been labelled - not prominently of course, their house brand is the most clearly labelled of the lot. Now if only people understood what that means... 

According the African Centre of Biodiversity though, this level of labelling is not sufficient as it is misleading.  Just goes to show how little we the public know about this whole subject and how complex it is.  We can be very lucky that there are unsung hero's and watch dogs out there that are keeping a very close eye on all these proceedings.  Thanks ACB!  You are amazing.  

The globally arranged march is picking up huge momentum!  There are 3000 people from Joburg, Cape Town, Durban, Plett and George registered for the March Against Monsanto scheduled for 25 May 2013!

For those of you who don't have any idea what GMO's and seed patents are about, just know that there are thousands and thousands of people around the world that are busy fighting for your right to nonpoisonous food and self-sustainability.  If you want to start learning, here's plenty links to get you going.

For those of you who do know about the issues, please make a stand with us.  We need to get the details out to as many people as possible.  Mainstream media is all but mum on the subject, so we need you to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog and email like crazy to get the story out there.

Share some love for Tami Monroe Canal who started this global movement when she came to the following realization.   One amazingly enlightened thought from one random citizen sick of how things are; hundreds of thousands of people globally mobilized.  And share the love to the African Centre of Biodiversity for coordinating the Joburg event. Never under-estimate your power to make change.

Click on your region below to join the movement and the conversation.

I decided to put my review on my main blog - this book is too important and needs a bigger audience than this blog currently has.

Quite a few people have at least heard the term GMO, but few actually know what it means and what it's about.  I sure didn't until January this year.  I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is for you to educate yourself on this matter; even more so if you have children. 

Did you know that genetically modified crops have been rife in South Africa for nearly 2 decades already?  You are eating food that is making you and your children sick and they have been hiding this fact from you all the way!  

You can start with the GMO Watch links on the Food and Water page. But definitely download out the 11 awesome fact sheets from the African Centre of Biodiversity.

There is a global event planned for 25 May 2013 against Monsanto - and Joburg is having one too, at Monsanto's Fourways offices.  Did you even know Monsanto had offices there?  

The time of the couch potato has come to an end.  The time of putting your money where your mouth is and getting off your arse has commenced.

If you don't know what this company and it's friends are doing, go the Food and Water page on this site and start clicking on the links.

See you there.

The Logical Song (Supertramp) is my all time favourite song.  Of all the music in this world that I love, that one song has followed me for decades.  For as long as I can remember, way back to my teenage years, this song has been my mantra.  I sang it with so much bitterness and anger for so long.  Any time anyone ever asked me what my favourite song was, this has been it.

Then a couple of days ago, I was driving down the road thinking about the awakening world and all I've learnt over the past few months, and this song popped into my head.  

And I had a moment of pure clarity.  

This song was about waking up, understanding, seeing. Reminding me! All my life I've been singing this song over and over and over without truly understanding why it affected me so much. Now that I am wide awake, I see.  I listened to it again tonight, over and over and over again. And I see...  

We may think we get things, think we're awake - but in these moments of pure clarity you realise you were not, not really; until now.  There were stirrings all along the way, messages coming at you from every angle, but you would not see.  So when your eyes really start to open ..... oh the synchronous magic; and the pure love.  

Finally, I am finally actually starting to get it.  

We are living in a truly wondrous time in humanity's existence.  Can you feel it too?

I want more.  Show me more.  I'm ready.

And you think you have freedom of choice?

There is no way in hell I would agree to one of these units being installed in my house.  Read very carefully what they are saying here.  There is a whole lot of marketing waffle about how clever this system will be - the part you need to be wide awake on is : 

"These meters will help minimise electricity consumption such as load management, shift electricity loads away from peak periods and restrict customers' electricity use. Specific loads can be switched on or off based on usage". (paraphrased) 


Read between the lines here - they will be able to cut you off whenever they feel like it and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it.  Plus they will be able to adjust what you pay based on what you're using whenever they feel like it.  Think we're getting insane increases now?  Just wait till all these meters are installed - they will have you by the balls.

You need to be thinking about ways to get off the grid, not get pulled deeper and deeper into it.  

And if you think this is just another conspiracy theory - a woman was arrested in the States in January this for thinking for herself and refusing to have a smart meter installed.

So NO to a smart meter!!!  

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Post blog update : 24 May 2014 - I may have been misled by the information supplied to me, more research needed.
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Ah the internet ... it is so easy to get completely freaked out by what you read.  I've been doing a ton of research on fluoride in water and it's made me really concerned.  I decided I must have a water filtration system installed to get this poison out of my body because I drink litres of the stuff every day.

Next I went to Facebook to ask if anyone had advice on which system to buy.  There was instant conflicting advice, all from people who's hearts were in the right place and who were just talking from their own personal experience.  I went to all the websites suggested, called some the people.  

One person in particular asked me something no-one else had : "Where does your water come from?" I had to stop a second to think about what he meant.  Do you think to ask that question ever, and do you know the answer?  I thought I knew, (turns out I didn't).  Then he asked me what I wanted removed from the water.  "Fluoride" was my confident answer! Well that's nice, except South Africa doesn't actually put fluoride in our water...

I spent half an hour on the phone to Harry who has got 40 years experience in the water industry. He didn't try to sell me anything, he just tried to educate me. Harry spoke more sense to me in that half an hour than all the research I'd done in a month on the net.  Now that I knew the right questions to ask, I researched again.  

• South Africa is listed as one of the countries with safe drinking water for approximately 80% of it's population.
  
• We have a Blue Drop certification system for drinking water management, (and a Green Drop certification system for waste water management), which was launched by the Department of Water Affairs in 2008. 
• Read the 2012 Blue Drop Report.
  
• Most of the water in Gauteng is supplied by Rand Water, but also from Johannesburg Water and Magalies Water.
• The average Blue Drop rating for Gauteng was 98.1% in 2012.
• My water specifically comes from Johannesburg Water.  They clean 65km of sewers and clear 2000 blocked sewers a month.  It has 4 treatment plants, the largest of which cleans 300million litres of waste water every day!  They test 500 tap water samples a month.
• Johannesburg is one of the only cities in the world not close to its water source, so it gets pumped 50km from the Vaal by Rand Water.
• Treated water from Joburg gets dumped into Jukskei / Crocodile river catchment, and Klip / Vaal river catchment. (I need to investigate this some more).

The situation isn't perfect for everyone, many rural areas still have huge water challenges. However our major cities of Jhb, Cpt and Dbn are considered very safe, and on cursory examination it appears that the suppliers are doing all they can to keep it that way.

Here are the Blue Drop scores for 2012 :

Learning to think for yourself is not easy!  You don't always know the right questions to ask, you can end up in a serious tizz as a result and people take advantage of that fact.  All the internet research in the world can't replace hands on experience in something, so pick up the phone and speak to a human being who specialises in the field.  It can save you thousands in the long run as well as your sanity. I'm still not overly enthralled with the amount of metals that are in water in general, but that's something to research another day.  Oh, and do research around your own country / location too. I'm off to get a lovely big glass of water!

Post Blog Update on 22 May 2013 : 

Read the latest Water and Environment Affairs Budget Speech - all great news for South Africa, and we are not running out of water.  I also emailed Rand Water and the MD of Johannesburg Water to ask them if we put fluoride in our water, here are their replies :

Who do you think you are? Just a meat stick stuck on earth for one lousy life before you tank and get put 6 feet under?  What if you're not?  I'm sure most people can agree that we have a mind, well, most people anyway ;-); and a body.  But what about your soul?  Have you never stopped to think about this?  I believe in my soul implicitly.  

Most wisdom points out that our souls are all powerful and all knowing, containing all the vast information of the Universe from all ages.  Can we even vaguely begin to comprehend what that means?  If you're lucky enough to tear yourself away from the sports, politics, religion and pop culture designed to distract us, you might actually get a glimpse of your soul.  

I've been lucky enough to get that tiny glimpse into my own soul three times!  At three totally unexpected times.  They happened many years ago, but I've never forgotten the experience.  I didn't need any proof from anyone about anything in those moments.  I just knew that we go on - and on and on and on.  That there was just so much more to all this. I was instantly freed from all the religious dogma I'd been subjected to my whole life from those moments on. It will be extremely difficult for to explain the feeling I had, I don't believe we have the words to describe such things.  One has to feel it for yourself to really understand.  My sincerest wish is that everyone on this planet has such an experience even once in their lives.  The magnitude of the soul is incomprehensible to me, the wisdom of all ages in there.  We don't have to learn anything, we already know it all, we merely have to remember it!  I believe we are most afraid of our own power.  That we simply can't believe that we have the knowledge and creative power of all ages right inside of ourselves.  We don't think we're worthy, do we.  But we are dear ones, we are.  Every one of us.

The mind, oh the mind.  It gets us into so much trouble.  We over-think things, over-analyze every little event, cripple and torture ourselves with worry and fear.  We forget that we are a three part being, so we busy ourselves with so many things that just don't matter.  Have you never wondered what it is your soul wants you to do?  Our minds are ruling the roost for the most part.  Have you tried to still your mind and listen to your soul? I battle to do that, just so busy busy busy aren't we...  But even though the soul is all powerful and all knowing, the mind manages to block it out and do its own thing.  We totally under-estimate how crazy powerful our minds are!  The things we can think up, invent!  We can be absolute geniuses when we "put our minds to it".  Or we just see what we want to see, not what's actually happening.  Knowing that your mind has the power to block out the soul means it's not to be trifled with, that it commands respect and understanding.  How often do we do that?  We fill our minds with meaningless drivel when we are capable of so much more.

And then the body.  The magnificent human body.  Tall, short, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, green or orange, doesn't matter - these machines are engineering feats that have never been duplicated in totality.  We abuse the hell out of our bodies; we poison them, burn them, stab them and they carry on going for years and years and years.  They carry around our minds and souls on this planet and protect us from harm.  We cannot discount how utterly amazing each and every single one of our bodies is and how strong they are.  Even when you've been abusing your poor body for decades, the smallest positive changes to take care of it manifest almost immediately.  Our ability to heal ourselves is surely unmatched in the animal kingdom.  And when our bodies perish, they return to the soil to continue the circle of life. Our bodies deserve much better respect than what we've been giving them.  

How can you not be totally amazed at the earth experience?  At the absolute power of your mind, body and soul?  When you remember that you are a three part being, you will be able to harness your greatness and do tremendous things.  Nurture your body, enrich your mind, and feed your soul.  All three are powerful, and you are all of them.

Roller-coasters have got nothing on waking up.  After reading countless online articles, watching endless Youtube documentaries, reading books like a crazy person, you have to just stop and take a breath.  You get pulled in 20 different directions and end up on the verge of total emotional collapse with the enormity of everything that's going on.  

One thing I've discovered, is that I'm not having much fun.  Well that sucks.  One benefit of staying completely oblivious to your surroundings and predicament is that ignorance is bliss!  You can go out, have parties, go away, eat, love, live and pray with gay abandon, without a care in the world, feel the breeze on your face and just think "man, life is good". I haven't had that for a really long time now that I think about it. 

It's hard to have fun when you've started to see how the world fits together; how people are needlessly suffering; how our environment is being destroyed; how your friends and family are so sucked into the system and so far from getting out of it.  Realising that some people don't actually want to be woken up thank you very much, that they are quite happy where they are.  It always comes down to one thing - you can't change the world, you can only change yourself : 'May I find the grace to accept the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be, and the wisdom to know the difference'. And have some fun in the process please!!!

I've also noticed that I am always stuck on negative thoughts - even more so since I really started waking up. (And you thought I was such a positive person). Yet it's really really hard to find positive things to say, but it's so important to get to that place; for my own sanity, never mind anyone else's.  All the research just paints a picture of doom and gloom and I guess that's part of the process.  We are so desensitized to violence now that things have to be really shocking before we take notice. 

Once you've done all the research, and see what these evil corporations are actually doing to us, it's time to move on and just find a peaceful alternative.  It's awfully tempting to want to just walk away and I think many people do because it's just so overwhelming.   We can't do that - I can't do that.  I feel like I've wasted my life until now, it makes me kinda sad really (and angry!).  

It's not too late though; I can change things, and I plan to.  It's time to conquer my fears and move forward. The only place to find peace, answers and your own truth, is to look inside yourself.  That will be my next challenge; to really go within so I don't go without. It's a very scary thing....

Decided to go out and buy a nut cheese and pesto that I saw demo'd in a course recently.  
Spat both of them out instantly!  Revolting.  I will not be putting this stuff in my body again thank you. I'll just make my own so they taste like the ones on the course.