On Friday, August 31, 2012, I’ll be interviewing Biologist, Teacher and Spiritual Explorer, Janet Southall Connell about her book called, “Bits & Pieces….of a Biologist’s Journey Into Spirit” on Blog Talk Radio’s Hope42Day.  Janet also happens to me a very special Aunt to one of my good friends as well.  So what does this all have to do with Nobel Gas you may ask?  Well, let me tell you (and the peanut gallery who knows me really well can keep their thoughts to themselves about the gas part of this…)

In one of the book’s passages Janet wrote, “We are like the Nobel Gases, complete and non-reactive” and “Nobel Gases are a group of elements found on the periodic table. They have all their electron shells complete, filled with eight electrons. Eight is the magic number. All atoms combine with other atoms so they can have eight electrons in their outer most shell. Now salt is made from sodium and chloride. Sodium has 1 electron in its outer most shell and chlorine has 7 electrons in its outer most shell. If sodium has 8 within and 1 outer and chlorine has 7 outer and they remain isolated and alone they are both very reactive…….they are so needy of each other to complete the magic number eight. But, Nobel Gases can stand alone (because) they already have the magic number of 8 electrons.”

Janet goes on to say that when “two Nobel Gases get together there is no reacting (because) they are already complete and that’s like two enlightened people.” According to Janet, Dr. Bruce Lipton is the “most amazing speaker” because “he explains spirituality in science terms.”

I’m no scientist, but I am a sci-fi geek and have always wondered why some people don’t see how science and spirituality can go together, fit like a glove.  I remember years ago when I worked for a world-renowned electroanalytical chemist, he told me that the more he and his grad students and post docs researched and dove into their experiments, the more he saw God.

Please do join us tomorrow for the live broadcast or click on the link for the downloaded podcast after tomorrow for what is sure to be an enlightening conversation!

If you’ll watch at least two episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s new television show, Newsroom, I am confident that you will remember how to feel inspired and hopefully, will remember what we humans are capable of being (in a good way).

On the second page of the Austin Daily Planet is a photo comparing the mass of ice in the Arctic in 1979 to the shrinking mass in 2012.  The blurb below predicts unpredictable weather caused by the shrinking mass of ice causing the temps to raise around the world.

I remember several years ago hearing Deepak Chopra speaking in front of the Austin Women in Technology group about global warming and the hole in the ozone.  What he said that made an impact on me then and still lingers in my memories today is that we (humans) have scientists and technology available today (that must have been back in 2006) that could heal and fix the hole in the ozone layer, cure major diseases, etc.   I believe this is so.  At least for the half century I’ve been a visitor to this planet, I’ve certainly come across some amazingly capable people who are doing incredible things for our planet that doesn’t always make it up to the air of the popular media.  This requires some digging into the matrix.

I hope at some point each of us will stop and take stalk of who we are and about the world around us and be able to choose where we will put our thoughts and energies.  Do we really care so much about what housewives are doing to themselves in various genres on the boob tube?  I feel sorry for the people who were born years after me who often don’t know what “normal” weather is like where they live.  But I do believe they could. We humans can create amazing results when we put our minds and our hearts to it.

Where will you focus your thoughts today?

We’re all following clues and leaving clues on how to live life.  When I returned to school in 2008, some of the monkey-mind chatter going on in my head was asking and ribbing me about what education was anyway.   Wasn’t it just a bunch of people who paused long enough in their pursuit of life to write down what they had discovered?  Yes! That was part of it and actually the idea that learning from others could help me not recreate the wheel over and over again is what keeps me going in the pursuit of learning and following clues.

I love learning something that is elegantly communicated whether it be a new word, phrase, mathematical equation, or spiritual concept.  Anything, really, that coaxes me to crawl out of the den of my mind and ponder the world around me is a very good happening.

How about you?  What have you learned lately or what clue have you uncovered to cause you to wonder?

Welcome to the world. Not even the real world, just the world that at least most of us live in where we have go to a job, usually five days a week, and put in an agreed amount of hours.  To land that kind of a job/career there are certain steps we go through with the first one being — looking for a job!

This week I posted a question on LinkedIn asking if in three sentences or less, could you concisely and accurately tell the world what your ideal job/career would be? Several people answered with general responses of what they would desire in a position but not with specifics although I have to say one person answered what she does with numbers for a company in such a beautifully creative way that I really hope she uses her three sentences as a tag line at the top of her resume when applying for jobs. I know her resume will move to the top of several lists because of it.

What I’m witnessing with other people and experiencing myself out on the streets is that many of us are so shell-shocked with fear of never landing any job that we’re all blindly scrambling around submitting our resume if the job posting has even the scent of a word within it’s description that could be a match for us (you know, like how you make a perfect martini is to wave a Vermouth bottle over the vodka….).  I was looking through some postings on LI and found one for a Facilitator and upon reading through the job description found they were looking for someone with Agile Software experience. So that position would eliminate quite a few of us out here who although may be qualified to be a great facilitator, certainly don’t have Agile Software experience.  Have the respect and with-it-ness to read through the postings you’re submitting your resume for, especially if you’re submitting to the same company.  Trust me. Even though they may receive hundreds of resumes a day, if you continually submit your resume to all kinds of positions no matter if you are qualified or not, your name will be recognized and remembered and you will not be taken seriously.

Earlier this week I met with a friend who I have a ton of respect for because she has all parts of her brain working, not just the left or right side.  Such a smart gal. Anyway, back in the hay day of a global corporation where she worked for years, she was a senior vp/business partner and has the kind of experience and knowledge that I know many CEOs and Senior Vice Presidents would so value having within their inner.  Yet, does she do the reconnaissance to find out what companies are out there she would be interested in working  today? Maybe. But she submits her resume through the usual channels.  I would imagine that most of the people at the level of screening resumes and/or even hiring might not have the sense or the power to see that my friend could be a very valuable part of their organization and should be considered.  At her level of experience, it is my opinion that she would be best served to look through her great network of friends and business acquaintances (including her boyfriends) to find out who knows who until she discovers a way to meet with the CEOs and/or decision makers of companies she’s interested in working with these days.  I know it’s a conundrum that on the one-hand for many of us with lot’s of great experience are finding ourselves treading the waters of bureaucracy just to get ourselves considered for a job but on the other-hand I have seen life-altering decisions made in a matter of minutes by someone who had the clout to make it happen.

For wishful thinkers, this is something we have to watch out for because although it can happen very quickly, it does not mean that leading up to the meeting, discussion, and finally the consideration was effortless. Think of yourself as Mr. or Mrs. Bond doing the stealth research necessary behind the scenes so that when you finally get in front of the decision-makers they know that you are definitely someone they need on their team.

This is your mission should you choose to take it.  Good luck.

Aging is definitely not for sissies (play on Betty Davis’ quote)!  And most especially aging is not such a chilly red hot thing in the U.S.A.  especially if you’re female.  I communicate with many people on a daily basis, both men and women, who are mostly from the U.S. but there are some from Mexico, Canada and across “the pond”.  I was born at the end of the fifties and so I’ve lived through a few decades here and have some experience from whence I write!  As much as I would like this blog to be uplifting and inspiring to you, I’ve got to be honest about the negative aspects of the aging of our outer shell that encases 85% water! At least in this country.

At the same time, I am very grateful for many aspects that I enjoy today including robust health, clarity of mind, good heart and good energy!  I am very grateful that my husband and I have affordable healthcare unlike many of my single female friends who choose to either not pay for healthcare or buy the very expensive catastrophic variety with a huge deductible.   I run five miles every other day, I also run five miles on the elliptical and work out three times a week and swim laps in our pool. Not bad for a “seasoned broad”.  Many friends in my age group and many who are a decade or more older than me are finding themselves in the new world of a different kind of retirement.  Many plan to work well into their seventies.  A good friend who is the sexiest 75 year old woman I know just landed a job in her field after three days of looking.  Although she is grateful, if she had her druthers she’d much prefer to be retired and enjoying her grandchildren.

So why is aging in America such a trial?  Well, if you don’t happen to have a good job (or any job for that matter) it is expensive to live as a senior especially if you need healthcare services.  For those of us just hitting the age where our outside bodies don’t match how good we feel on the inside, we buck up against all of us who have been steeped in the advertising and commercialization of beauty and begin frantically looking for the magic pill that will remove the effects of nature.  Isn’t it a shame that we humans have dedicated so much of our energy and lives to resisting and fighting aging? I met a billionaire a couple of years ago who is in his early 70’s and I remember wondering what the hell his story was because his face looked like it had been ravaged and repaired after an accident or fire because the sheen from the stretching of his skin was so apparent.  He is obsessed with face lifts and has had many in his life.  Really made me pause.

On one of my jogging routes, there is a piece of land that I love running by because of the three really old and glorious cedar trees scattered on it. Yes, cedar trees can be quite resplendent when they’re allowed to grow tall.  I especially love them because of their gnarly trunks and evidence of having weathered many a day and several years in their plot in our hood.  If only we could change our thinking, opinions, judgements and beliefs to view aging humans the same way.  I often think about elders from various cultures in Africa, Australia, the mid and far East as I slather on creams and concoctions to beautify myself and wonder what they are doing with themselves right now in their lives.  Do they worry about looking older? Probably not.  Are they even thinking of themselves? In most cases they’re probably not as self-absorbed.  What would they do if they were in our shoes?

What do you do?