Astrological Associations of The Major Arcana

This is a simple astrological breakdown according to The Golden Dawn. This system helps us draw more meaning from the pictoral forms of these astrological associations. It is also important in determining significators of the person involved in the reading. If someone you are reading is a Capricorn and The Devil comes up in the reading, you may draw an extra level of information out of the spread. There are many significators for every person in the deck that I will cover in more time.

Mental Rehearsal Boosts Performance

Ever take a golf lesson, practice, think you have it, but it's not working a couple of days later? Happened to me last time I paid for a lesson.

You and I don't retain all details when learning brand new tasks. Here's why... The brain's working memory holds only small bits of new information. Steps just learned for a great golf swing sequence easily spill out of the working memory during activities you engage in before you're back on the course.

Interestingly, you can use mental rehearsal to raise performance.

Just think, if someone teaches you to use video software or to play a solo on your sax, running through a routine in your mind, sometimes benefits you more than doing it. When I learned that golf swing, evidently I lost some information... so next day, I practiced incorrectly. If you physically go through a skill incorrectly, you can hamper learning in future lessons... I can see why now!

The secret -- envision the whole new task as soon as possible. Thirty minutes of mental practice works well. Mental practice helps you and me remember since the process is picked up by your brain's basal ganglia. The more you practice, the stronger the memory. And once you "have the skill," you can improvise and even adapt to new situations.

Matthew Hutson, Psychology Today author, suggests three tips for optimum mental rehearsal:

1. Stick to Vivid Detail Try to remember your own body movements and visualize as accurately as possible.

2. Adjust Your Speed When beginning, go slowly through process so you can focus on detail. If you're an excellent golfer, quick works best.

3. Watch and Discover Take time to observe others who perform well.. Careful observation activates the brain's motor skills as if a person were performing the task.

See possibilities to rehearse new skills on your next plane trip or as you wait in the doctor's office? Thoughts?

Urine Therapy vs. Apple Cider Vinegar

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. (The Book of Proverbs 5:15)*

But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? (Isaiah 36:12)* (See also 2 Kings 18:27)

(http://skepdic.com/urine.html)

There is a new disturbing trend arising out of the ashes of the pharmaceutical monopolies. Drinking one’s own urine seems to provide a wide spectrum of health benefits as a cure all. Many civilizations and times have promoted the medicinal use of urine. I have no doubt that this is a great method for disease prevention and personal nutrition….BUT! Come on…. I don’t want to drink piss. That sucks. What if there was another way? A middle path. Eureka! I believe I have found a solution.

There is another trend that is making a strong come back in our current age, raw Apple Cider Vinegar. I have been using this product for the last couple of months to heal myself of a persistent stomach ulcer. Now that the ulcer is gone, I was wondering if there was a good reason to keep this practice in my routine. I’m not one to usually get sick, but I have noticed that through these long cold bitter winter months, I haven’t had a sniffle, cough, fever, not a thing. What’s going on with this apple cider vinegar anyway?

• 
  
  Surprise, ACV has never even been studied by the FDA or any other profiting organization. This is because it is a natural occurring phenomenon and therefore cannot be patented; so no one can make any drug money on it. It is believed that ACV causes the body to balance its PH to the perfect level of slightly alkaline. Disease cannot live in the body with the correct PH. ACV is also acid and makes a great antiseptic. Here is a small list of the healing properties of ACV:
  
  · ARTHRITIS
  · ASTHMA
  · BLOOD LOSS
  · COLITIS
  · COUGHS
  · DIARRHEA
  · DIZZINESS
  · EAR DISCHARGE
  · ECZEMA
  · EYES (TIRED AND SORE)
  · FATIGUE
  · FOOD POISONING
  · HAIR LOSS
  · HAYFEVER
  · HEADACHES
  · HEARING
  · HEARTBURN
  · HEMORRHAGES
  · HICCOUGHS (HICCUPS)
  · HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
  · INSOMNIA
  · KIDNEYS AND BLADDER

The list goes on and on. This site has a list of hundreds of aliments with personal testimonies for each problem cured: http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/acvinegar.html

Doubting Customers Reevaluate Brands

Lately, McDonald's mailed discount coupons, so I decided to eat lunch at a newly revamped restaurant. A once over of the menu, revealed salads and healthy food choices. More kinds of offerings than hamburgers, the Big Macs, and fries laden with fat calories I associated with the brand. A major change. Interestingly, many customers listen to marketing messages and, like me, give older firms another try. Have you reevaluated any brands lately?

New research shows that most consumers crave clear understanding of brand images related to companies and products. Consumers may be "swinging between doubt and closure more often than we think," claims Susan Shavitt, University of Illinois marketing expert. When customers read fine print or face other constraints with products, they're more open to new messages. “Consumers expect a strong sense of understanding for those brands," Shavitt adds, "and when that’s threatened it can lead them to be more open to reevaluating a brand.”

Four tactics to tempt customers to reevaluate brands

1. Create a sense of struggle through polls, surveys and contests with new information that counters a brand’s long-established image. McDonald’s, a brand used in the study, instilled doubt by asking consumers how many salad varieties appeared on menus or the sodium content of its burgers and fries.

2. Develop a logo projecting brand character Interestingly, even the briefest exposure to well-known brand logos can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits. For instance, when people see the Apple logo, they behave more creatively.

3. Outdistance Well-Established Brands by Using Distinctive Features Consumers more strongly associate common characteristics with traditional brands and unique traits with brand new brands, according to Cunha and Laran's research findings. They noticed a stronger connection between the unique feature and the new kid on the block's brand may result in an advantage when the unique features are more valued than the common characteristics.

4. Repeated unconscious exposure to a brand increases people's likelihood to select it How many times to you see someone walk down the street with a Starbuck's coffee or mow their lawn with a John Deere mower? All your exposures to a brand register subconsciously in your brain and affect what brands you pick. How is your brand exposure working beyond paid advertising?

Many parts of human brain activate as people select brands. Advertising and communication experts say that seeing the process in the brain and how it works will help organizations learn what people really feel about something, whether an ad or other stimulus. Novel stimuli tend to activate the hippocampus more than familar stimuli do. Because the element of surprise triggers release of dopamine, it creates stronger connections that lead to long term storage.

Keep in mind that novelty stokes memory. "Not surprisingly, memory strengthens and the brain’s rejuvenated in the presence of novelty," Ellen Weber reports. You can see exactly why uniqueness for brands is top consideration.

How do brands grab your attention and change your choices?

The Rest of the Story

I talked to my consultant about an issue that we would like to address, and I thought it might be a separate objective from the "I don't know" work we have been doing. Basically, Pamela half-hears a conversation on the phone or from another room and then yells loudly "You're not sick!" if she hears the word "cold." It does not matter whether the person said, "I feel cold" or "the weather is cold" or "Billy Bob got over his cold." She has certain trigger words and, when she hears them, she overreacts in a high-pitched mini-rant. After my consultant gathered together more details, she helped me see that this issue fits in perfectly with our "I don't know" work. Only, I didn't know it! LOL!

Up until now, we were working on helping Pamela feel comfortable with times in which she feels uncertain. Now, we are taking it to another level: sometimes, we only hear part of a story and, instead of overreacting, we can choose a different option: read the faces of other people to see if they are calm, reflect on past experiences, wait and listen for more information, wait and ask a question, etc. If she learns to do this, she might recognize that hearing the word "cold" is only part of the story and she might pause and reflect before going into red alert.

When I begin thinking about how to teach this, I realized it is not much different from the "whole-part" thinking we do for addition and subtraction word problems in our math curriculum, Making Math Meaningful. The key is to find neutral situations that are not triggers for red alert and to slow down the moment around which we discuss whole-part thinking. The video of our shopping trip will make this much clearer. Pamela knew what was on her list and how much money she had. She did not know what was on my shopping list nor how much money I planned to spend.

A couple of things on the video caught my attention. Pamela has a hard time focusing on my nonverbals in an overstimulating environment like Walmart! She and I normally walk rapidly through the store, but she slowed down very nicely behind a woman taking her sweet time. Pamela referenced me when she was not quite sure of what to do during checkout. (And, don't you love how well she does at checkout!)

Falling asleep on the Job - Take a Hike

Ever have trouble staying awake at work? If you frequently experience afternoon slump you'll be interested in the Treadmill Desk invented by Dr. James Levine as a way to exercise while you're at your desk! Seems like there's no way you'd be sleepy if you're walking while you work!

On the average Dr Levine's research subjects burned 100 extra calories every hour while walking slowly -- at 1 mile per hour -- than while sitting in a chair. Just think of what could be done if you walk a bit more briskly!

And if you battle zzzz's during boring meetings with long-winded speakers, and/or diet-busting doughnuts, Jennifer Baran offers an antidote... a walking conference room. Everyone walks on treadmills or elliptical machines so there is no sitting going on.

In addition to staying awake, the new Treadmill Desk benefits you by...

1. Increasing your brain power

"Exercise in many ways optimizes your brain to learn," says Dr. John Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston who's at work on a book about exercise and the brain.

"The brain cells actually become more resilient and more pliable and are more ready to link up," he says. It's this linking up that allows us to retain new information.

2. Trimming the fat Without breaking a sweat, the so-called work-walker can burn an estimated 100 to 130 calories an hour at speeds slower than two miles an hour, Mayo research shows.

3. Improving concentration

“I thought it was ridiculous until I tried it,” said Ms. Krivosha, 49, a partner in the law firm of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand.

Ms. Krivosha said it is tempting to become distracted during conference calls, but when she is exercising, she listens more intently.

“Walking just takes care of the A.D.D. part,” she said.

4. Relieving stress and enhancing mood

"Exercise improves circulation throughout the body, including the brain," Harvard's John Ratey explains. "Exercise also boosts metabolism, decreases stress and improves mood and attention, all of which help the brain perform better," he says.

5. Creating a climate for high impact minds

"Increasingly science is shedding light on how we create settings that work either for or against human brains," Ellen Weber points out.

Seems like the Treadmill Desk may be a thoughtful answer to transform the way you and I work this year. Thoughts?

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