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Great Shift Newsletter #42
September 14, 2011

Dear Great Shifters,

My how time flies. I see that the last Newsletter was on the Spring Equinox and now the Autumnal Equinox is coming up fast!

I'd like to welcome new subscribers; this loosely-knit virtual community passed 1,000 about a week ago. Although I have not been able to make a personal connection with most of you, I have connected with enough of you to know that this is a very diverse community. Diversity is what the New Earth is all about, but at the same time I sometimes feel daunted when I begin a Newsletter wondering what I have to offer such a diverse community. I always come back to realization that what I have to offer is my own experience and perspective that arises from that experience. If any of it resonates please accept the information with my best wishes. If little or none of it resonates, that's OK too.

Staying in the Flow Amidst the Chaos. My Earth Energy Healing Newsletter has gone out a little more frequently than this one, and something I wrote in May feels worth sharing here:

The intensity never seems to let up for those of us who are committed to supporting Mother Earth and humanity in the great energetic transformation that is underway. Since the earthquake/tsunami in Japan in March I have been in communication with so many people who have been feeling the upheavals in their bodies, physically and emotionally, and also have been feeling like they are working double-overtime in the ethers during Dreamtime. If you have been feeling this, know that you are not alone! If you haven't, enjoy the respite! My sense is that there is a well-orchestrated individual timing and phasing taking place, where each of us may feel stretched to the limit at times, but not more than we can handle. My own experience has been that when the my body is serving as a channel for easing geophysical and collective human stresses that are particularly intense, Spirit somehow manages to ease demands elsewhere in my life to allow the extra sleep that my body requires.

I have to admit that in my imagining about how the Shift might take place, I completely missed how chaotic things would become at the 3D level, and how continuously intense the energies would feel. The demands of my 3D environmental work have seemed unrelenting, and yet yesterday several projects stalled, finally giving me time to get this Newsletter out. The good news is that higher dimensional sources that I trust say that from a larger perspective things are proceeding nicely, though unpredictably. The not-so-good news is that a letup the intensity does not seem likely in the foreseeable future for those of us who have consciously committed ourselves to helping birth the New Earth.

Earth Changes Update. In my last Newsletter I wrote:

At the beginning of this year it felt to me like the baseline planetary energies had ramped up several notches and my physical body has not always found it easy to adjust. I know many others have also found the shifting geomagnetic, solar and cosmic energy influxes to be something of a challenge.

What I find really interesting right now is that these huge energetic shifts are for the most part not being detected by the scientific instruments that measure solar and geomagnetic storms. In 2006 NASA predicted that the current solar cycle, which would normally peak next year (2012), would be one of the most intense in the last fifty years. Yet the solar minimum was the quietest on record with no recorded solar proton events (SPEs) from 2007 to 2009. SPEs create the kind of solar storms that cause major geomagnetic storms on Earth. This lack of activity is quite amazing when you consider that since more-or-less systematic measurements of SPEs began in 1966 there has been only one other year with no recorded SPE.

When I hear from higher dimensional or other sources that the influx of solar energies is especially intense I check NOAA's 3-Day Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity and rarely find a level of activity that I consider significant. I take this as further confirmation of my sense that most of the solar energies that are coming in to the planet now are being missed by 3D instruments. As a scientist I can only present this as a hypothesis to explain the apparent anomaly of unexpectedly low solar activity as measured by current instruments. Instruments that are able to detect the energies that I and others perceive to be coming from the sun would be required to confirm the hypotheses.

In the meantime, it is interesting to follow the shifts in consensus predictions of sunspots in the current solar cycle since NASA predicted in 2006 that this cycle would be the most intense in 50 years. Below is a plot of the observed sunspot data through August 2011. In March 2007 the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel could not reach a consensus and offered a range for the maximum number of sunspots (90 to 140) with slightly different months for the peak (marked on the graph below). In May 2009 the Panel again revised its prediction with a consensus that a maximum of 90 sunspots would take place in May 2013, a year later than usual for a solar cycle (also marked on the graph below). The actual numbers of sunspots since the May 2009 prediction are running below the projected curve on the graph below and looks to me like it may peak around 75 (marked with a question mark)

Since March there have been six Solar Proton Events (SPEs), which provide the most intense influxes of solar energy to Earth, but the average of 37 Mev isn't much over the 10 Mev threshold (in 2006 that last year with major SPEs, the average was 134 times the 10 Mev threshold). Below I've updated the SPE graph with a estimated 7 SPEs based in a projected 75 sunspots for 2011. Of course surprises are always possible, but so far the 3D measurements suggest a solar maximum comparable to Solar Cycle 20 that peaked in 1970, which was the least active in the last sixty years. For further discussion of this subject see my posting on Solar and Geomagnetic Activity.

Concluding Words of Encouragement. Recently when things were feeling especially rough an image came to me of an interconnected grid of millions of Lightworkers and Balance Workers around the planet and a constantly changing pattern of influxes of light into Mother Earth and releases of energies that no longer serve from Mother Earth and the human collective moving through our bodies. We are all in this together. It helps me to remember that when I feel stretched to the edge of my ability to cope. One thing I've noticed recently is that my body can feel totally stressed out and yet inside I feel an expansiveness in the area of my heart. It's not necessarily fun, but at such times I know I'm in the energetic flow of the planetary transformation.

In the meantime friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Great Shift Newsletter #41 and Earth Energy Healing Newsletter #52
March 20, 2011

Dear Great Shifters and Earth Healers,

Blessed Spring Equinox to All! And I'd like to welcome the some 80 new subscribers to the Great Shift Newsletter and 40 new members of the Earth Energy Healing Network, including our first member from Trinidad (I like to extend a personal welcome to each of you but am far behind in such welcomes). It seems like a joint newsletter once every three months is the frequency that my schedule permits, and despite my busyness and often continuing to feel stretched to the limit (as I know so many are) that seems to be the Divine Flow of things in the little piece of the huge Planetary/Cosmic picture that connects us through these Newsletters.

Amid the Tumult and the Strife. It was with some trepidation that I changed the title back to Great Shift Newsletter last time, but the mostly peaceful outpouring of human Spirit that swept through the Middle East and North Africa in the following months helped me feel the title change had a prescient quality. The birthing of the New Earth has begun in earnest, and to continue with the birthing metaphor, the labor contractions that both humanity and Mother Earth are experiencing are intense and the spacing between them shorter and shorter.

I've mentioned before that often songs come to me whose tunes and words give expression to the energies I am experiencing. The wonderful song How Can I Keep from Singing is one that is often with me these days:

My life goes on in endless song above Earth's lamentation,
I hear the real though far-off song that hails a New Creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roars, I know the truth, it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close, songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is Lord of Heaven and Earth, How can I keep from singing?

On December 30 last year I posed the question How can I best be of service to humanity and Mother Earth in the next few years or so? to a HDB (higher dimensional being) and received the following response:

Healing, health, the natural state of BEING in the body is a focus for you this coming year...finding balance in the body, not only in good health but in being grounded and feeling the Earth streaming through you in all it's splendor.

Not quite the answer I anticipated! But it resonated, and it seems that more often than not, the present moment has me preparing garden beds (yesterday's Full Moon), collecting firewood for next years heating season, and more 3D environmental work right now than I would personally choose. There are times (not often!) that I chafe a bit at how seeming mundane the 3D work is, when I might prefer gadding about in the ethers (the EEH Network is never far from my Heart!). Nevertheless, increasingly I am able to see how the 3d environmental work is energetically connected with the larger picture of what is happening on Earth at this time and am so grateful.

You Have to Admit It's Getting Better, a Little Better All the Time. These words from an old Beatles song also describe the energies of what's happening right now, at least as I sense them. Of course you're not going to get this message from the mainstream media which continues to serve those who wish to keep the populace feeling fearful and powerless. I'll offer a few concrete examples. In the Newsletter #22 Newsletter I discussed in some detail the overall downward trend in wars and violent conflicts globally since they peaked in the early 1990s (different sources put the maximum in the late 1980s or early 1990s). There was a bit of an upsurge around 2000, but since showing a second minor peak in 2001 the trend has continued downward. The following graph is from the Center Defense Information. Last year the total number stayed the same, but the number of major conflicts dropped from 13 to 12.

In Chapter 1 of my Great Shift book I also discuss briefly the largely inexplicable downward trend in violent crime in the United States since peaking in the late 1980s. It been a while since I checked those statistics, and was astonished to find that in the last five years the FBI's crime statistics showed a decline in every year in every crime category.

Earth Change Update. It's been quite a while since I've discussed what's been happening with Earth changes. At the beginning of this year it felt to me like the baseline planetary energies had ramped up several notches and my physical body has not always found it easy to adjust. I know many others, especially those who are consciously committed to being part of the Great Shift, have also found the shifting geomagnetic, solar and cosmic energy influxes to be something of a challenge.

What I find really interesting right now is that these huge energetic shifts are for the most part not being detected by the scientific instruments that measure solar and geomagnetic storms. In 2006 NASA predicted that the current solar cycle, which would normally peak next year (2012), would be one of the most intense in the last fifty years. Yet the solar minimum was the quietest on record with no recorded solar proton events (SPEs) from 2007 to 2009. SPEs create the kind of solar storms that cause major geomagnetic storms on Earth. This lack of activity is quite amazing when you consider that since more-or-less systematic measurements of SPEs began in 1966 there has been only one other year with no recorded SPE. So far this year, there has been only one SPE. If this subject interests you I go into some detail on the discussion of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity that I posted in April 2009. I've updated the graphs included in that discussion through to 2010 and include available data for 2011 (highly provisional). When you consider that mainstream scientists predicted this to be an especially intense solar maximum the results so far in this part of the cycle are remarkable for the extent to which they are the opposite of what was predicted. There was one SPE in 2010, and so far this year there has been one, which would project to a total of five this year. This is consistent with the sun spot numbers I've been seeing so far this year (the graph below projects a total of 6 SPEs based on an average of 80 sunspots) and could well be the lowest SPE activity during a solar maximum since systematic data became available.

The maximum intensity of solar proton flux is as important as the number of SPE events in terms of the likelihood of major geomagnetic storms and so far this solar maximum has proved to be pretty ho-hum, with maximum fluxes of 14 Mev last year and 50 Mev in the one that happened this month. As you can see from the graph below, these aren't high enough to appear as a bump on the graph below.

The main significance of SPEs from a day-to-day human perspective is their potential for creating severe geomagnetic storms on Earth, and related disruptions of electrical power grids and communication systems. In my 2009 discussion I noted the astonishing disconnect between above normal frequency of SPEs in the last two solar maxima and the downward trend in severe geomagnetic storms. For completeness, I am providing updated graphs below, that show severe geomagnetic storms resumed in 2010 after an none for a three year period (unprecedentedly low for the 60-year time series of data) and that the average intensity was still below the 60-year trend line.

Easing Stresses on the Ring of Fire. I received the following information from EEH members Anna Marie and Jack in Michigan who have been engaged in energy work through their connection with the John of God Casa in Brazil:

Today, when we were sitting in high energy working with Casa Entities and with some Lemurian crystals, I got the message that it is useful to connect to the Crystal Community and work with them on the Ring of Fire. Specifically, to imagine lots of crystals planted upright along the ring of fire. These crystals will act as acupuncture needles for the earth and help to release some of the excess energy in the earth at this time.

I would like especially to share this information with the members of the EEH Network and offer this image of the Ring of Fire to assist those who may feel drawn to work with this meditation:

I continue to have so much more I would like to share with the EEH Network--still haven't had a chance to report on the Newfoundland trip last fall, and I spent a week of spiritual R&R near Mt Shasta the first week of March that ended up being profoundly connected with the Newfoundland experience. I will be returning to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State in late August for a nieces wedding, and would like to connect with any EEH members in the area for some additional Earth healing work that also feels somehow also related to Newfoundland and California (possible dates ranging from August 26 to 29). I've been in preliminary contact with some EEH members in the area, but anyone who might be interested in participating in person or from a distance, please drop me note in reply to this newsletter. Also, the 144 Elemental Points of Light project continues to proceed at a slow pace, though completion of the initial phase seems in sight. For those of you who have been in touch with me about that project, thank you for your patience. I have not forgotten our communications, even if it may seem like a while since you've heard from me. As often seems to be the case, Spirit's schedule for this project seems to be on a much more leisurely schedule than it would have been if I were in charge.

In the meantime friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Great Shift Newsletter #40 and Earth Energy Healing Newsletter #51
December 21, 2010

Dear Great Shifters and Earth Healers,

This is the first time I have sent out a joint Newsletter and unless those of of you who receive both newsletters signed up with different emails I trust you will not received duplicate mailings.

It is more than three months since my last Newsletters went out, and for me it's been as intense a time I can remember in recent years. During the times I have felt stretched to the limit, bone-weary to point where I wondered if I could take another step, I kept reminding myself that I signed up for this, that Spirit never asks me to undertake more than I have the capacity to handle. To my great relief, for now at least the pressure is off, I am luxuriating in the feeling of having time to sit and catch up on things that had been relegated to the back burner for what felt like far to long, like getting these Newsletters out.

Blessed Solstice to all! What a year its been. And what wild rides await us in the coming year? I'd like to share some observations based on my own experience and sensing. You are welcome to whatever resonates and gloss over anything that does not.

A Time to Laugh and Time to Weep, a Time to Dance a Time to Mourn. The certain knowledge that the Spirit of loved family members and friends continues after their physical bodies die softens only a bit the sorrow and grief I feel with their passing. This has been a year for mourning like none I have ever experienced, my brother-in-law and Mother earlier this year, and in the past few months my sister, Bonnie's uncle, and a beloved Light Brother. Some deaths felt timely, others did not, but each one who passed over brought great Light to Earth while they were alive. A number were what I call Anchoring Lightworkers, ones who gave the collective vibrational level of humanity a boost by living lives of simple goodness, and I take some small solace that their passing is an indication that we are so far into the Shift that their presence is no longer required in the physical plane. And yes, through all this I have been able to laugh and dance almost every day with my granddaughter Petra.

I have no idea how many others of you who have consciously committed yourselves to being part of the Great Shift may have experienced what seem to be unusual losses of loved ones this past year. I can say that this does not seem to be part of a larger trend. In fact when I checked annual global death statistics there has actually been an overall downward trend from 8.83/thousand people in 2003 (the earliest year for which I could find systematic data) to 8.37/thousand people in 2010. This overall trend runs completely counter to what would seem likely given that the global human population exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet by more than three times, that ecosystems are severely stressed collapsing globally, increases in extreme weather events are causing too much or too little precipitation for crops in many places, flu pandemics predicted, and so on. On the other hand, this trend is entirely consistent with the idea that the maximum number of people on Earth are being given the opportunity accompany Mother Earth while still in their physical bodies in the dimensional shift that is well underway.

The New Children Are Coming of Age. Another positive sign that I see that the Shift is happening is that the New Children are coming into their own. I was struck by this by an article in the Winter 2011 Earth Island Journal titled The Next Generation: A New Group of Young Leaders Hopes to Take the Environmental Movement Back to Its Grassroots. It is astonishing the number of major environmental organizations whose are now led by individuals younger than the age of forty: Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Earthworks, Green for all, 350.org, and Moveon (a broad-based political action organization). Here I should note that the first wave of New Children began to be born in 1972 and turned 38 this year. The second wave, born after the Harmonic Convergence in 1987, are in their early twenties. I find the enthusiastic energy of those in the First Wave that I know to be inspiring.

Shift Happens. I may be jumping the gun a bit, but those who have been receiving this Newsletter for a while probably noticed that I have changed the "Pretty Good" in the title back to "Great" Shift. It feels to me (and some others I know) that the confluence of energies this Solstice, coinciding with a Full Moon Eclipse, may well represent a tipping point. I recently spoke with an activist friend in the peace movement and she said it felt like we were at the point where the first domino had tipped and was about to knock down down in sequence the line of dominoes that represent old unjust and oppressive social and economic structures. Earlier this year I had a conversation through Barbara Brodsky with my higher dimensional friend Aaron. When I commented that it still seemed hard to find concrete evidence in the mainstream culture that the Shift was happening there was a smile, and he said, the Shift was like the tide coming in. Moment to moment it's hard to see much change, but then there comes a moment when the tide is high.

I am still seeing sources that I respect saying that the Shift will be marked by three days of darkness. I don't know. There are so many intersecting realities at play on Earth right now perhaps those who expect to experience three days of darkness will, and others won't. Or maybe we all will, but only some will notice. I will be surprised, but not worried if that's what I experience, though now that I think about it, an enforced rest of three days sounds pretty good :-). In terms of what it means to make the dimensional shift at a personal level, my sense is that there is a lot of experimentation going on now, with no one way necessarily *better* than another. Some seem to be creating what appear to me to be separate realities with varying degrees of connection to the larger *mainstream* reality. My own experience of this has been a bit different.

This past year, a bit to my own bemusement, Spirit has had me immersed in 3D environmental work. This work has required me to go into physical places and energetic spaces that after-the-fact I have realized that those sensitive to energies would perceive very *dark* energies present. However, I have simply been there, attending to the tasks at hand, trusting I am where I am meant to be at the moment. There have been times when I have chafed at not having more time to attend to *higher* dimensional work, but looking back on this year I see how good it has been to be so engaged in more-or-less mainstream reality. Right now what seems to be working best for me is maintaining a strong sense of connection between the bit of Heaven on Earth that I find with my immediate family at Windgather Homestead, local church community, and several virtual communities (including those of you who read these newsletters) and the "mainstream" reality that at one level still seems to be guided by mostly fear, but at a deeper level consists of folks like you and me who carry on day-to-day as best they are able.

Time will tell whether I have been premature in changing the Pretty Good Shift to Great Shift name for the Newsletter. In the meantime friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

PS to members of the EEH Network. I have much to share about my amazing time in Newfoundland in September, and other things as well. Spirit willing, I will be sending out a proper EEH Newsletter in January.

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #39
September 2, 2010

Dear Friends,

Thank you all for the many kind words and condolences I received about my mother's passing. I still continue to see the fruition of her work for peace, justice, the empowerment of children and women, in the many tributes I receive from those she has inspired to carry on the work. I usually like to reply personally to notes I receive in response to Newsletters, but I have not found time lately to reply to many that I have received.

Earlier this year in Newsletter #36 I wrote:

I have the good fortune to find myself in or near the intersection of many of the realities that are playing out on Earth at this time, so I get to see the Good, the Pretty Good, and Not So Good.

If I were to confine my understanding of what is happening on the planet right now to only what I see in the physical plane as an environmental scientist, I would have no hope for future. Yet even from that perspective, I can step back and marvel that things aren't a lot worse than they could be. These past few months I have been absorbed in 3D environmental work as the lead scientist in a report that was released last week: In Harm's Way: Lack of Federal Regulations Endangers Americans And Their Environment. This project brought me in contact with so many truly good people, most of whom remain thoroughly grounded in material reality and don't share my understanding of multidimensional reality, who are deeply committed to making Earth a safer place for humans and all living organisms. It was heartbreaking hearing the stories of harm to people caused by lax regulation of coal ash disposal and inspiring to see their persistence in speaking Truth to power. I have seen a high degree of cooperation and collaboration within the environmental community at the national and local levels and I invite you, if it feels right to you, to let the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency know that, after years of inaction, it is time to develop national regulations for the disposal of coal ash: How to Submit Comments

The energetic shifts that are continuing planet-wide are awesome. I'm still calling this the Pretty Good Shift Newsletter, but I'm ready to amend my earlier statement as follows:

I have the good fortune to find myself in or near the intersection of many of the realities that are playing out on Earth at this time, so I get to see the Wonderful, the Good, and the Pretty Good.

Earth Changes Update. It's been a year since I gave an Earth changes update. One change I've seen since I first began analyzing geophysical and astrophysical data that may serve as expressions of Earth's dimensional shift is that mainstream scientists are predicting a humdinger of a peak to the latest solar cycle after the quietest minimum on record. This newsletter has several hundred more readers since Newsletter #33 and what I wrote then feels just as applicable now as then:

There are Lightworkers [and others] who continue to tap into *old/improbable* catastrophic timelines. When I encounter predictions of catastrophe and reports of the latest government conspiracy to oppress the people, I say to myself: Not in the timeline I wish to create. As the planetary energies continue to shift to a *higher* vibrational level, I have become aware that I must be increasingly care-ful and discerning in where I focus my attention and the energies I chose to align myself with.

One more thing I would add is that many of us carry deep cellular memories of dying in prior catastrophes here on Earth or other planets. If you feel fear when encountering scary predictions, let the feeling come to the surface, acknowledge and release it. When we feel fear without letting it get the upper hand, it becomes easier for others to deal with their fears.

Our Children/Grandchildren/Great-Grandchildren, Our Future. In the last Newsletter I invited readers to send pictures of young ones coming into the Planet who are special for them. Kevin from New Zealand shared pictures of two grandchildren Kieran and Ava, born on the same day one year apart.

Welcome to planet Earth Little Ones! Your eyes carry wisdom far beyond your years.

Friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #38
June 27, 2010

Dear Friends,

A time to laugh, a time to weep.
A time to dance, a time to mourn.

At 4:40 pm two days ago my Mother, Elise Boulding crossed over. Since November 2008 I have chronicled her (and my) healing journey as her long and productive life entered its concluding stage: Elise's Journey with Alzheimers (additional personal perspective on my Mother is shared in EEH Newsletter #49. The tears I have been shedding equally mingle Joy and Grief. Here I would like to share one of the truly joyful moments, when my granddaughter Petra (with daughter Kit) met her Great Grandma Elise before she passed over 12 days later:

This fits nicely with a suggestion I received from Adam after I sent out the last Newsletter to invite others to share pictures of some of the New Children that bring joy into their lives. Here is Adam's son Rowdy:

And recently Claire, a dear friend and Elder of my parent's generation in New Zealand shared this picture of two of her many great-grandchildren titled Cousins Communicating:

This loosely knit virtually community now numbers more than 700, and I would love to receive more pictures of New Children/Grandchildren/Great-Grandchildren to share (or if you are a teen-ager and reading this, a picture of yourself!). As the Hopi Elders have said: We are the ones we are waiting for. All of us!

A time to laugh, a time to weep.
A time to dance, a time to mourn.

We are not yet through the time here on Earth for tears and mourning, as the insanity of war and the environmental devastation arising from human ignorance and greed continues. When they arise, and they sometimes burst forth in unexpected moments, I let the tears flow. Tears that arise from Love and Compassion are Sacred, and healing in more ways than we can know.

I would like to close with this this cartoon by Dan Piraro (reproduced by his kind permission), which had good Lightening Up medicine for me. Perhaps it will for you, too.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #37
May 24, 2010

Dear Friends,

I seem to be at something of a loss for words lately, feeling that I don't have much new to offer. For those of you who don't receive my Earth Energy Healing Newsletter #48, you can find a bit of a personal update there. It does occur to me perhaps some of you may have topics or questions you would like to see addressed in this Newsletter. Let me know by replying to this email, and we'll see what happens.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #36
February-March, 2010

Dear Friends,

I'd like to welcome those who have subscribed in the last few months. We are now more than 600 strong and I'd like to dedicate this Newsletter to you All, as diverse a group of folks as I could imagine who have felt drawn one way or another to connect here.

It's a wild and wonderful time to be alive on Planet Earth, though maybe it doesn't always feel like its a wonderful time at every moment. Many long-time Lightworkers and Balance Workers I know continue to be engaged in heavy energetic lifting as part of their service to Humanity and Mother Earth, and it can feel challenging at times. Others I know have created/are creating sanctuaries of relative peace and calm in corners all over the world, bringing Light into the Planet by just Being who they are. Some are aware of the Light they bring to the Planet and others lead lives of simple goodness without seeming to require any particular spiritual awareness. Extrapolating from communications I receive from people who have been drawn to my websites, many are now awakening to their spiritual selves with remarkable grace and ease.

I have the good fortune to find myself in or near the intersection of many of the realities that are playing out on Earth at this time, so I get to see the Good, the Pretty Good, and Not So Good. In my energy healing work I often find myself singing songs whose words convey something of the energies that are involved. Lately, I've been singing Pete Seeger's song Turn, Turn, Turn, that adapts words from Ecclesiastes and beautifully expresses the energies of the last throes of the Old Earth:

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

Most of us who entered the Game of Polarity here on Earth had little inkling of how deeply we would enter into it to create the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the last twenty thousand years or so.

A time to be born, a time to die.
A time to plant, a time to reap.
A time to kill, a time to heal.
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

Here in the Heartland of the U.S. where I live I see so many beautiful children being born. They are Shining Ones. Please indulge me in showing off one that is near and dear to my heart, my nine-month-old granddaughter Petra:

In the circles I inhabit many beautiful Souls are also choosing to leave Earth at this time, some it would seem prematurely. I weep as I honor their lives, and take comfort that when they return to the New Earth, it will be a kinder, gentler place.

A time to build up, a time to break down.
A time to dance, a time to mourn.
A time to cast away stones.
A time to gather stones together.

So many of the old institutions are breaking down and it is time for them to collapse and make way for those who are quietly gathering stones together, building the economic, social, political and spiritual forms and structures of the New Earth.

A time of love, a time of hate.
A time of war, a time of peace.
A time you may embrace.
A time to refrain from embracing.

I mourn and weep that we continue to live in a time where hate and war appear to be so strong. And I find some comfort in my father's words that I shared in the last Newsletter: Though love is weak, and hate is strong, yet hate is short and love is very long.

A time to gain, a time to lose.
A time to rend, a time to sew.
A time for love, a time for hate.
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

Friends, now is the time to gain feelings of hope, trust, balance, and lose/let go of what no longer serves us. One very positive thing I have been seeing at the interpersonal level is that I am hearing friends speak with wonder about broken family relationships being almost spontaneously mended. At the same time I am seeing relationships rended that no longer serve, and then wonderful openings emerging.

The Book of Ecclesiates is a quintessential spiritual teaching for the Old Earth, which is now passing. And this is what is most amazing and wonderful about what is happening at this time. I'm still calling this the Pretty Good Shift Newsletter because here at the physical plane in many ways it still feels like the darkness before the dawn. Nevertheless, something new under the Sun is happening. When we have fully made the Shift into the New Earth we are creating, the Book of Ecclesiastes will be of purely historical spiritual interest.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #35
January 10, 2010

Dear Friends,

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of my father, Kenneth Boulding's birth, and my mother, Elise Boulding, will turn 90 this year. I would like to dedicate this issue of the Pretty Good Shift Newsletter to their generation, the mothers and fathers of those, like me, who came of age in the sixties to lay the ground work for the timeline shift around the time of the Harmonic Convergence in 1987.

My father was an economist, peace researcher, systems thinker, and poet. My mother was a sociologist, advocate of rights for women and children, and peacemaker. Each in their own distinctive way blended the pursuit of knowledge with activism, melded mind and heart, grounded all that they did in their spiritual life as Quakers. Being blessed to have such parents, I also had the opportunity to meet many others of their generation who brought love and light to Earth in large and small ways that carried us through the darkness of two World Wars, and the dangers of the Cold War.

Below is an image of the quilt my parents received in 1988 from the Boise Peace Quilt Project, with words from a poem my father wrote at the time of the Second World War:

I heard my mother often speak in terms of the 200-year present--those alive today who are 100 years old create a connection with the children born today who will live to be 100. I invite you to join me in expanding your horizons to enter a hundred-year present. Consider how much has changed since my father was born in 1910. It was my father's childhood memories of seeing how the First World War affected his family that laid to foundation for his life as a Peacemaker and it was the invasion of Norway in the Second World War, my mother's home of birth, that led her to devote her life to creating a more peaceful world. Though it appears we are still a ways from ending violent conflict on the planet, two years ago in the January, 2008 Newsletter I offered some information suggesting grounds for cautious optimism that armed conflict is declining. In Chapter 6 of my Great Shift (Section 6.3) I offer some information on the possible human we are becoming, my own vision of the New Earth we are now co-creating time, and invite readers to add their own imaginations to the process.

With all the hoopla surrounding 2012 (or thereabouts) it seems possible to me that we may set ourselves up for disappointment if we expect to see dramatic evidence that the Shift is happening in the next couple of years. However, from the perspective of the 200-year present, I feel in my Heart that in the next ten years we will see concrete, positive signs that the Shift is happening, and that a hundred years from now people will look back to our present time from a world that is more wonderful than I am able to imagine right now.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift Newsletter #34
December 2009

Dear Friends,

I'd like to welcome those who have subscribed since the last one in September. We are now more than 500 strong and for some reason have been brought together in this very loosely knit virtual community.

Lately I find myself more in a state of Unknowing than Knowing, where I don't feel fully in synch with the date-related energetic alignments, find I am straddling coexisting realities with as much grace and balance as I can muster. It's not always a pretty sight, but it's all Good.

I'd like to offer a few observations. If they are of of some help as you navigate the constantly shifting energies of this amazing and wonderful time to be alive on planet Earth, good. If not, that's good too. It means you are testing what others say against your own knowingness.

I take with a grain of salt any predictions made by higher dimensional sources these days. What is happening here on Earth is unprecedented. We humans and Mother Earth are making a dimensional shift together to a *higher* vibrational level. As humans our carbon-based bodies are shifting to a crystalline body structure. Perhaps I'll be able to say more about this in the future, but right now I can't wrap my rational mind around what this really means, except that I know people who are well along the way in making this change. How we will make this change collectively is even harder for me to wrap my mind around. It's a Grand Experiment.

There is a huge energetic spread in the human population right now because there is still a lot of density and resistance in the population as a whole. I sometimes have the feeling that we are collectively being stretched like a rubber band. At an individual level, those who are letting go of the Illusion of Separation, who are able to feel their connection to all things, serve as a microcosm for the whole. If you feel like you are being stretched to the limit you are not alone. We are all in this together.

And the stretching continues. My sensing right now is that there will more stretching before the collective tension eases noticeably, but we won't break apart. How do we ease the tension? By practicing love, compassion, tenderness, gratitude, appreciation. And a dash of good humor doesn't hurt either.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #33
September 2009

Dear Friends,

The first few opening words to Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities set in that time of great change called the French Revolution have been running through my mind lately. When I found the full quote I couldn't help but imagine an English teacher clucking with disaproval at such a long, run-on sentence, but it captures nicely what this present time of great change has been feeling like for me:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

It is three months since I've sent out this newsletter. One change since the last one is that there has been a 25% increase in the number of people subscribing to it. For those of you who are new here, please accept my warm welcome. Thank you for joining this Circle.

For the last three months I have been feeling really stretched by the intensity of the shifting energies at a personal/planetary level. I know many other lightworkers/balanceworkers who have felt the same. For the most part I find it easiest to *ride* them with my mind in neutral gear, so I don't have much to offer about what's happening from an interdimensional perspective, except that many of us continue to be called to do what the HDB Kryon calls heavy lifting. At the same time life continues to be quite normal for most of the people I interact with in my 3D, day-to-day life. I am blessed to live amongst what I call Anchoring Lightworkers in my family and church community, people whose experience is firmly grounded in physical reality. They may say "that's nice" when I talk about the Great Shift and get on with their lives of simple goodness. For them its good enough to call it the Pretty Good Shift and so in appreciation for friends and family who make it easier for me to not get caught up again in feelings of "significance" as I shared in the last newsletter, I am continuing with last month's title for this newsletter.

Signs that the Shift is Happening. Those who hold onto the illusion that they control for their own purposes seem to still have a pretty good grip on the fear-inducing, disempowering mainstream media. I have several friends whose experience is firmly grounded in material reality with whom I have been in respectful discussions about my multi-dimensional understanding of reality. I will not consider the Shift to really be manifesting in the larger consensual reality on Earth until these friends start to sense a shift. In recent conversations neither has indicated that they are seeing anything of the sort. I will take it as a cause for great celebration when that happens. In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath.

In Chapter 1 (Social Signs That a Shift Is Happening) I provide a broader perspective on positive indicators that a collective shift in human consciousness is taking place. I would like to share a few recent personal experiences as indicative of things that are quietly happening, without much fanfare or publicity, all over the planet to contribute to the momentum for eventual expression of the shift in the larger consensual reality.

I am a member of a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Men's Group that meets every three weeks. It would be hard to imagine a greater diversity of perspectives within the dozen or so in the group--atheists, agnostics, a former fundamentalist Christian preacher, practicers of Native American spirituality, a devout Muslim (recently returned to Turkey), a devout disciple of an Indian Guru, me. In recent months the mutual respect and caring within this group has led to a depth of sharing that has been astonishing. My father, Kenneth Boulding, was fond of saying with a twinkle in his eye, Whatever exists is possible. What is happening in the microcosm of this group helps me feels a joyful anticipation for the day when mutual respect and caring starts breaking out everywhere.

For a number of years now the Bloomington UU Church has hosted an annual Iftaar Celebration with the Islamic community in town to break the month-long Ramadan fast. On Friday, August 28 I attended for the first time. Someone who had attended previous celebrations told me that he had never seen so many attend. For me it was deeply moving to stand and kneel, shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims and non-Muslims as we were led in prayer by the Imam of the Muslim community. Afterwards we feasted together. Whatever exists, is possible!

Earth Changes Update. There are Lightworkers who continue to tap into *old/improbable* catastrophic timelines. When I encounter predictions of catastrophe and reports of the latest government conspiracy to oppress the people, I say to myself: Not in the timeline I wish to create. As the planetary energies continue to shift to a *higher* vibrational level, I have become aware that I must be increasingly care-ful and discerning in where I focus my attention and the energies I chose to align myself with.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Pretty Good Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #32
June 2009

Dear Great Shifters,

The last few months have been a time of considerable personal shift, yet a small but steady stream of people continue subscribing to this Newsletter, so it feels like time to give at least a brief report, even though I have nothing new to post yet updating my geophysical data analysis.

There is such an intermingling of multidimensional energies on Earth right now, and it feels to me that each one of us is exactly where it is *best* for us to be in terms of our individual and collective spiritual journeys. I know folks for whom 2012 has already *happened* and they work with energies in preparation another energetic window of opportunity around 2020. If you read/listen to/watch the mainstream media, it is clear that lots of folks remain in a consensual 3D reality.

One thing that impresses me about those I know who function at a *high* energetic level is how grounded they are in the physical. In my own journey (see Earth Energy Healing Newsletter #41 for more), I find myself spending less time engaging consciously in multidimensional work and more engaging in the physical plane with gardening, family (I just became a grandfather and that is a wonderful way to become grounded in the Here and Now), environmental work.

A bit tongue-in-cheek, I have retitled this month's Newsletter the Pretty Good Shift. My own journey of late has involved recognizing, bringing to the surface and releasing a virus of the mind that is aptly named The Chosen One virus. This virus runs deep in my ancestral lineages which are European as far back as I can trace them, and foments the feeling that one has a "special" mission/abilities, one's work is "significant." My spiritual awakening in late 2002 activated this virus, and the very title of this website reflects it to a certain extent, though I trust not so seriously as prevent it from offering information that others may find useful.

So friends, stay grounded. The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russ

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Great Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #31
April 2009

Dear Great Shifters,

Chapter 4 (Scientific Framework for Understanding the Shift (III): Direct Communication from Higher Dimensions), and Appendices A through C are now available for downloading as PDF files Chapter Links.

Earth Changes Update. I have now posted the entire discussion of solar and geomagnetic activity from Chapter 5 (still quite a bit of work to do on this chapter, so may end up posting in bits and pieces). Those of you receive my Earth Energy Healing Newsletter received a preview of the geomagnetic activity. I will simply repeat here what I wrote in that Newsletter last month:

It is astounding that both the number and average intensity of geomagnetic storms show a downward trend when the intensity of solar activity has been increasing over the same time period. I consider it the most dramatic 3D evidence that I have found that human consciousness is helping ease the potentially disruptive effects of necessary geophysical changes that accompany Earth's dimensional shift.

In the meantime profound shifts in the Earth magno-crystalline field have been taking place starting with the Spring Equinox last month and continuing through this month (see Earth Energy Healing Newsletter #39).

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #30
March 2009

Dear Great Shifters,

The energies are shifting so rapidly these days I've given up trying to follow schedules and plans I try to make often don't materialize yet I find myself in a mostly continuous feeling of Well Being, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, Divine Timing for this Newsletter is six days into the month and it is short. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 are now available for downloading as PDF files Chapter Links.

Earth Changes Update. I did get a chance to update my data analysis of solar and geomagnetic activity, with results that were even more *positive* than I anticipated compared to my analysis several years ago. This will take a little more time to write up, since I have not presented this analysis before, so please stay tuned. I appreciate your patience.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #29
February 2009

Dear Great Shifters,

This month marks a major Shift for the Great Shift website. Some dear friends recommended my book to the Senior Editor of one of the publishing houses that was on the top of my list of places I would have liked to publish it and I received the following response:

Unfortunately, the genre of books on shifts in human consciousness is too crowded for us to take any new titles on.

This *rejection* turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I felt only a mild sense of disappointment and actually a bit of a sense of relief. When I tuned into the feelings I realized that my passion for Service to the Great Shift lies in my Earth healing work. Heart and Soul I take joy in assisting Mother Earth's dimensional shift. The No Catastrophic Earth Changes focus of this website dovetails nicely with this passion and will continue, but henceforth I will be focusing my energies primarily on my Earth Energy Healing Website.

I have closed down the Great Shift Foundation for all intents and purpose although donations are accepted to help cover the costs of maintaining this website. It never really got off the ground anyway (*smile*) so the Home page has a bit of a different look. I have completed final revisions to Chapter 3 of the book. The first three chapters are now available to be read online or copied to your computers: Chapter Links. Over the next few months I will be making available the rest of the Chapters (final revisions still be done on Chapters 4 and 5).

Earth Changes Update. I am continuing to update my original geophysical and astrophysical data analysis and will continue to share this information in future Newsletters, including data that has never been posted here before. For this month, Volcanic Activity has continued to increase slowly but steadily. I have also updated the analysis of Yellowstone earthquake activity http://www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/ECgraph3.htm, including some comments about the recent swarm of more than 900 events (not to worry).

I will continue sending out this Newsletter as long as I feel I have anything worthwhile to say. Thank you all for joining me on this marvelous journey.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift and Earth Changes Update Newsletter #28
January 2009

Dear Great Shifters,

I discontinued sending out regular Newsletters last year because I didn't feel I had much more to say until some concrete evidence of the Shift manifested in the physical plane. The results of the U.S. Presidential election feel to me to be a pretty good manifestation of potentialities for positive change in so many ways. The challenge for those of us who have been waiting so long for such a change to happen is to remember that it is not going to happen overnight.

In the meantime, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that Spirit has been nudging me to update my original geophysical data analysis, which is now several years old. There are still folks who are tuning into timelines where catastrophic Earth changes will take place. The geophysical stresses that Mother Earth is experiencing as part of her dimensional shift process continue to be very real, and the Earth Energy Healing Network has resumed focus on easing stresses where there potential for extensive harm to living Beings on the planet. This month's focus is on easing stresses in the Yellowstone area: EEH Newsletter #36.

For starters, I have updated ECgraph1 which documents the dramatic increase in the number of moderate earthquakes since the early 1990s as a way to ease geophysical stresses without more destructive earthquakes.

I am resuming monthly publication of this Newsletter (another sign that the Shift is happening?) and will be updating the geophysical data graphs that are already posted on this website and adding new ones. I will also be happy to include information on other *signs* of positive changes that are happening that you who receive this Newsletter might like to share.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Occasional Newsletter #27
October 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

This Newsletter went occasional when I felt I didn't have much to offer until I could see more concrete signs that the Shift is happening in the physical plane. Several weeks ago I received indications from Spirit in a variety of ways that it was time to finish my book Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift. Given the tortuous path that the project has followed, I was tempted to think that getting the message from Spirit that it is time for me to again focus my energies on my Great Shift work is a *sign* that the Shift really is happening. I had not anticipated that global events would quickly indicate that some sort of big changes are happening.

Gray Tuesday. Those of you who have been reading this Newsletter for a while will remember that occasionally I identified a "catastrophe of the month," and suggest that for this predicted event, and any other "scary" predictions one runs across, to say Not in my timeline! I didn't become aware of all the buzz about October 7 being Black Tuesday, when some 9-11 type event was likely to happen which would create chaos for three or four months until a few days before it happened. As is my practice, my immediate reaction was to say Not in my timeline! and suggested that others who asked me about it say the same. I can report from my own experience that Tuesday was a very intense day energetically and I have been connected with many Balance Workers and Light Workers who have been consciously working with the energies of fear and potential chaos to release them as gently as possible. By the end of the day the worst thing that had happened was that the stock market reached a five year low, so I'm calling it Gray Tuesday instead of Black Tuesday.

What Next? I have received queries asking if I address the financial changes that are happening right now in my book. Below is what I say in the concluding chapter:

8.4.2 Several Down-to-Earth Indicators of Change. The ability of what I call the EFITLO (Earth Friends in the Loyal Opposition-see Appendix C, Section C2.4) to control and manipulate the masses of humanity with deception and fear is weakening, but still strong as I write in early 2007. So far the mainstream media have only reported cracks in this facade. A major milestone will be reached when the crimes of those in the highest places in government, business and religious institutions are fully exposed for all to see, and justice is served by holding these folks accountable for their actions. Perhaps milestone is too precise a metaphor, lets say that when it is evident that this is really happening at a large scale we will be in the penultimate lap (the lap before the last lap).

Closely related to this process will be the realization that our global economic system, which has been manipulated for the benefit of the few for a very long time, is a sham. I don't know whether this will happen by a gradual process of unraveling or as a more dramatic collapse. Whichever way, there are untold thousands of positively-polarized awakened and soon-to-awaken souls who are quietly waiting at all levels of governmental and commercial institutions to transform these institutions so that they serve the highest good of all.

8.4.3 When the BETOs Go Public. The many incarnated Starseed souls have been waiting for what they call First Contact for a long time. This is something of a misnomer because many people have been in contact with what I call the Beneficial Extraterrestrial Organizations (BETOs-Section 6.2.4). I will consider the last lap to have started when the BETOs present themselves in a way that even the most died-in-the-wool materialists cannot deny. I say start of the last lap because The BETOs will do this only when humanity as a whole is ready to react without fear and without looking upon them as gods or superior Beings who will take care of the mess we have made of this planet. WE have the primary responsibility to heal our relationships and the harm we have done to Mother Earth. However, when the BETOs go public, they can serve as mentors and partners in this process and can share technologies that will allow us to very quickly stop the harm we do by using nonrenewable resources and by over-harvesting renewable resources.

I have included the section on the ETs going public because I'm seeing a lot on the internet right now predicting something *big* in that arena on or around October 15. I would not be at all surprised if there is increased activity that will be reported to a certain extent in the mainstream media. I will be surprised if the sightings are such that even the most died-in-the-wool materialists cannot deny. I'm still waiting for the general public to wake up to the fact that they been hood-winked in so many ways, but the EFITLO seem to still have a pretty good grip on the mainstream media.

As far as the recent meltdown in financial markets is concerned so far, from my perspective at least, it seems to be more than a gradual unraveling but less than a complete collapse. A friend who is a senior manager in a multinational corporation (one those I have spoken about who are highly aware, spiritual individuals who are ready to transform these institutions when the time is right) shared this with me:

The financial system has a lot of major restructuring to go through still. And that involves ... well, a purification process that I am sure will feel painful for those who are deeply attached to the old financial system (a lot of people).

In the meantime, the large majority of the population of the planet is not deeply attached to the old financial system in the sense that they have much to gain from a shift toward an economic system that serves all rather than the few. I don't mean to suggest that things won't feel bumpy for a while, but if you take a look at what those who are still tuning into the old catastrophic timelines are seeing, things could be a whole lot worse.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Occasional Newsletter #26
July 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

No Soul Left Behind Program. I am sensing that fewer people with precognitive high sense perception are tuning into the old catastrophic timelines these days. However, I continue to see expressed on Lightworker networks/websites the view that many on Earth who remain caught up in the *old* energies will not make the Shift. Those of you who have been reading this Newsletter for a while know that sometimes I identified a predicted catastrophe-of-the-month with the recommendation that readers set the intention "not in my timeline." I invite you to do the same when you encounter information suggesting that a significant number of people will not make the Shift. To this end I have added a new page to the Great Shift website: An Invitation to Support the No Soul Left Behind Program. I wanted those who receive this Newsletter to be the first to have a chance to see this page.

Personal Update. Those of you who don't receive my Earth Energy Healing Newsletter can find a brief report of my experiences at Yellowstone over the Summer Solstice: EEH Newsletter #32. My 3D job requires periods of intense focus. After some initial kicking and screaming, I can now see the multiple levels at which this work makes sense for me to be doing at this time. Aside from the occasional Newsletter I send out, my Great Shift work seems to be in pretty much a holding pattern. My left brain puzzles about this a bit, but apparently Spirit has other priorities for how I can best be of service, which for some time now has been more in the Earth healing arena, and continuing very deep personal/transpersonal healing. One day in June, after no donation activity for the Great Shift Foundation in six months I was about to close down that page and put the Foundation into an inactive status. That day a donation came in with some very kind words about the book. I took that as a sign to leave things be and that perhaps I will be *allowed* to eventually finish Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift. However, based on recent trends in my time allocation it doesn't look like it will be anytime soon.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Occasional Newsletter #25
Late-May 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

I don't find much time to read channeled higher dimensional information these days, but would like to share this April 29 message from Mira of the Pleiadian High Council through Valerie Donner. This summarizes nicely the perspective that many higher dimensional sources have of the Great Shift, and its nice to be reminded that what often feel like the trials and tribulations of human existence serve a Divine purpose.

The Earth happens to be the focal point of creation. The way the Earth goes impacts the rest of us. The Earth is a wellspring of resources far beyond what you know already. The knowledge that is stored within the Earth in the libraries is more that what you would call phenomenal. The living libraries within the human bodies and the human DNA make any scientific experiment that has been completed in the 3rd dimension obsolete. You are walking, living, and breathing holograms of creative significance far beyond your brains’ capacities to understand.

We hope that you understand the significance of the impact that each of you has on a universal scale. The consciousness that you possess is activated in some and will be triggered in many more in the next few years of earthly time. The dynamics are in place for a magnificent capture of Source material that will impact all of Creation. The Earth is the melting pot for 250 different root races. The DNA within the human body is intelligence that is communicated to the central core of intelligence. Yet, as humans many of you have been taught throughout lifetimes that you are insignificant and worthless.

As this news impacts you I want you to know that the Earth is such a powerful soul that she amplifies all that we are speaking about. She wraps it up in what you call a perfect package so that future generations and new planetary systems can learn from what has happened on the Earth. Minute by minute and day-by-day you are illuminating creation and life by participating in this amazing unfolding and transformation. What is holding you up right now is a complex system of intelligence that feeds into the shift that you are making while you feed into it (excerpted from Valerie Donner's Straight From the Heart Newsletter; for full text see: http://www.thegroundcrew.com/updates/vdonner/2008/042908_print.htm.

Lightworker Cybernetworks. In Newsletter #21 (December 2007) I talked a bit about the proliferation of intenet social networks as a sign that the Great Shift is happening. I regularly receive invitations to join such networks and my own time constraints (especially now that I have a 3D job) require me to be selective in those that I join myself. However, I am happy to make information available about them to others who wish to make connections with other Lightworkers. I have created a new page on the Great Shift website for this listing: Lightworker Cybernetworks. If you are a member of a network that is not listed and would like it to be listed, either send me an invitation or send me an email with a link (jrb47@bluemarble.net).

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Occasional Newsletter #24
April 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

In my February Newsletter I said:

At the present time I see nothing happening to change my positive view of the future, as reported in recent newsletters. I will wait until I see something that is more than just snippets of good news, some indication that the Shift is solidly being expressed in the physical plane, before sending out another Newsletter.

When I wrote that I wasn't clear in my own mind what it would take to prompt me to send out another Newsletter. Those who control the mainstream press continue to instill feelings of fear and disempowerment, and make things look worse than they really are. There is also a well-intentioned segment of the alternative news media that focuses on what I like to call the EFITLO (Earth Friends in the Loyal Opposition) that does the same, in my opinion. I'm not sure that what I report here can be considered to be dramatic signs that the Great Shift is happening, but they feel to me to be more than "snippets of good news."

Spirituality Goes Mainstream. In the first Chapter of my Great Shift book I cite Eckhart Tolle, author of the bestselling book, The Power of Now as an example of someone who experienced a spontaneous spiritual awakening without any obvious spiritual preparation. Since my own spontaneous awakening a little more than five years ago I have met many others who have had similar experiences in recent years.

In early March Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey teamed up to do a ten-week web seminar on his latest book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. More than 700,000 people initially registered for this seminar. The latest information suggests that millions of people have experienced the web classes (http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/webcast/ane_marketing.html). I find Tolle's writing to be profound in its simplicity and accessibility, and see him as a shining light in bringing spiritual awareness to many who are ready to awaken. He is also explicit that there are energetic encodements in his words that will help the reader attune to *higher* awareness.

Behind the Scenes. In Chapter 8 of my Great Shift book I wrote:

The ability of what I call the EFITLO (Earth Friends in the Loyal Opposition to control and manipulate the masses of humanity with deception and fear is weakening, but still strong as I write in early 2007. So far the mainstream media have only reported cracks in this facade. A major milestone will be reached when the crimes of those in the highest places in government, business and religious institutions are fully exposed for all to see, and justice is served by holding these folks accountable for their actions. Perhaps milestone is too precise a metaphor, lets say that when it is evident that this is really happening at a large scale we will be in the penultimate lap (the lap before the last lap).

Closely related to this process will be the realization that our global economic system, which has been manipulated for the benefit of the few for a very long time, is a sham. I don't know whether this will happen by a gradual process of unraveling or as a more dramatic collapse. Whichever way, there are untold thousands of positively-polarized awakened and soon-to-awaken souls who are quietly waiting at all levels of governmental and commercial institutions to transform these institutions so that they serve the highest good of all [emphasis added].

I recently learned that a key number of these souls at high levels of the pentagon thwarted the Bush administration's plans to attack Iran. While visiting my mother (one of the elders of the peace movement) last month I had the opportunity spend an evening with a remarkable woman who has spent her life working behind the scenes training military, government, and religious leaders conflict resolution skills. She has worked with generals at the Pentagon, who told her that when the Bush Administration asked them to develop plans to attack Iran, a significant number said that they would resign en masse if ordered to attack. I received independent confirmation of this from my sister, who knows a member of her Quaker meeting who has high-level contacts in the Air Force, and who told her the same thing.

Many of you may remember that there was a time last year when an attack on Iran seemed almost inevitable. So let's give thanks for the unsung heroes that we don't know about throughout the world who are taking similar courageous actions.

The Newsletter Goes Occasional. One thing that gave me a nudge to send out another Newsletter is that since I said I wasn't sure when I would be sending out another Newsletter there has actually been in increase in the number of people signing up to receive it. Today I would like to welcome the 200th subscriber.

A lot has changed in my personal life since I last sent out a Newsletter, returning to the 3-D workplace being one of the bigger changes. The Great Shift Foundation is again accepting donations, but they are no longer necessary for me to continue my work, so unless Spirit gives you a strong nudge don't go to the Donate page.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #23
February 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

As the "deadline" approached for sending out this newsletter I experienced some anxiety as to what I would say. Finally, I realized that if I have nothing new to say, I don't need to send out a newsletter, except to say that you will hear from me again when I feel there is anything significant to report.

I thought I might give an overview of what higher dimensional sources are saying about the upcoming year but didn't find anything that felt "new." There are some predictions that by mid-2008 or later we may see some political events in the United States that signal the beginning of profound positive changes.

At the present time I see nothing happening to change my positive view of the future, as reported in recent newsletters. I will wait until I see something that is more than just snippets of good news, some indication that the Shift is solidly being expressed in the physical plane, before sending out another Newsletter.

Until then: anticipation, not expectation!

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #22
January 2008

Dear Great Shifters,

As I report later in the Newsletter, work on finishing my Great Shift book has been halted for the indefinite future. I am including an excerpt from updated Chapter 1 which provides evidence that the world is becoming a more peaceful place.

Recent Decline in Number of Armed Conflicts (Section 1.2.3)

As a teenager I opposed the war in Vietnam. As a young parent I opposed this country's covert war in Central America. In early middle age I opposed the first Gulf War. Now in late middle age I find myself opposing the second Gulf War. I suspect that a lot of people are ready for the violence and killing to stop, and I see some concrete signs that merit cautious optimism.

• The National Defense Council Foundation (NDCF) has tracked major conflicts since the early 1990's, and their graphs show a general downward trend since 1993 (world conflict lists from 1997 to 2002 can be found on their website: www.ndcf.org). In 1997 NDCF identified 67 major conflicts around the world which decreased to 53 in 2002 (a 21% decline). In 2003 the Foundation stopped tracking major conflicts because the threat of terrorist violence now means that no place on the planet is free of the threat of a terrorist attack.
• The German Arbeitsgemiehschaft Keriegsursachenforschung (AKUF Working Group on War Causes), a conflict research group at the University of Hamburg, annually updates statistics of wars and armed conflicts. Both wars and violent conflicts peaked in the early 1990s. By the criteria this group uses, armed conflicts declined from a high of 55 in 1992 to 27 to 28 since 2003, a drop of around 50%. The number of wars dropped 31% from 62 in 1993 to 42 or 43 since 2003 (Worldwatch Institute, 2007).
• The Center for Defense Information (Defense Monitor, January/ February 2003) reports that the number of major conflicts (defined as conflicts with more than 1,000 casualties) declined from 38 at the end of 2001 to 30 at the end of 2002, a 21% decline).
• The Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported a decline from 24 to 21 major conflicts (a 12% decline) during the same period reported by the Center for Defense Information (SIPRI, 2003). The downward trend in major conflicts has continued since 2003, with the years 2005 and 2007 seeing 17 major conflicts, a 29% reduction since 2001 (SIPRI, 2007).
• Jerry Mark Silverman in an analysis of a wide range of statistics related to terrorism and conflict found all trends, except for Iraq, to be stable or declining. For example, using another set of data on major inter- and intra-state conflict for the period 1945 to 2005, Silverman found that inter-state conflicts peaked in 1987 (a significant year-see Section 7.4.4) and dropped to 2 in 1992 and have remained around that low level since. Combined inter- and intra-state conflicts since 1945 peaked at 57 in 1991 and declined steadily to 26 in 2005, a declined of 54% ("Real Intelligence Estimate, By Numbers: Terrorism and Conflict Not Up Worldwide," National Interest Online, October 3, 2006, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=12358).

I find it encouraging that five different organizations, each using slightly different methods for defining major conflicts, suggest that we are moving slowly towards becoming a more peaceful world.

Other Positive Signs That a Shift is Happening. Although a few new hotspots have erupted, overall, I have seen an increase in "good news" from BBC News, the one mainstream source that I monitor regularly. I include as good news reports abuse of power being made public in the mainstream press (although it is not new news for those who rely on other sources of information) and abusers of power being held accountable. Here is a summary of notable headlines:

'Dramatic" Fall in Measles Deaths (BBC News 12/3/07)--measles death in Africa fell by 91% between 2000 and 2006 reaching the target goal of a 90% reduction by 2010 four years early.

US Report Cools Crisis on Iran (BBC News 12/4/07)--The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has acted like a safety valve, letting off the steam that had been building up over a possible American military attack. See, also another article on the same day titled Iran Report Frustrates US Hawks--In an abrupt change of position, the US intelligence agencies now say they do not know if Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon.

CIA Destroyed Interrogation Tapes (BBC News 12/7/07)--The CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects. See, also, CIA 'Kept' Tapes from 9/11 Probe (BBC News 12/24/07)--A leaked memorandum from the former 9/11 commission says it made repeated requests to the CIA for information on the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.

Sudanese Peace Deal Back on Track (BBC News 12/12/07)--Sudan's southern former rebels have said they will rejoin a national unity government in an apparent end to the two-month political crisis.

Fujimori Jailed for Abusing Power (BBC News 12/12/07)--The former Peruvian President, Alberto Fujimori, has been sentenced to six years in prison and $92,000 for abuse of power.

General Jailed for Sarajevo Siege (BBC News 12/12/07)--The UN tribunal in The Hague has jailed a former Bosnian Serb general for 33 years for attacks on civilians during the siege of Sarajevo.

Japan Drops Humpback Whale Hunt (BBC News 12/21/07)--A controversial Japanese mission to hunt humpback whales in the Antarctic has been temporarily abandoned, a top government official says.

Ivory Coast Disarmament to Start (BBC News 12/22/07)--Rebels and government militia in Ivory Coast are expected to start to disarm more than five years after the start of the civil war.

China and Japan PMs Hail Progress (BBC News 12/28/07)--China and Japan PMs hail progress. (Anyone who know the twentieth century history of interactions between these countries knows that this is not a trivial headline).

Middle East Conflict Toll 'Falls' BBC News 12/31/07)--Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says that the number of death in the Israeli-Palestinian violence fell sharply in 2007 as compared to 2006.

Spirit Throws me Another Curveball. I will not bore you with the details of the frustrations I have had with having completed Chapters 1 and 2 and being prevented from creating the PDF files so that I could send them out. Usually I am able to interpret the signs I receive from Spirit and not waste much time trying to move against the flow, but I was feeling so close to being finished with this project I kept thinking, surely one more try and I will be able to move forward again. The upshot is, except for continuing to send out this Newsletter, work has stopped on the Great shift book for the indefinite future, and the work of the Great Shift Foundation has been put on hold, symbolized by the fact that I am no longer accepting donations to the Foundation.

My January Earth Energy Healing Newsletter provides further explanation as to where Spirit is placing priorities for my time: EEH Newsletter #26 in the section titled The Dark is Rising.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #21
December 2007

Dear Great Shifters,

Appendices A (Criteria for Evaluating Information About a Larger Reality), B (Kinesiology as a Means to Obtain Information from Higher Dimensional Sources) and C (Prophecies of Catastrophic Earth Changes and Other Scary Things) are finished and available to donors to the Great Shift Foundation. Spirit has finally placed finishing the book as a top priority on my "To Do" (coequal with several other projects) so we'll see how fast I can complete final revisions to Chapters 1 through 5. You can read an excerpt from Chapter 8, published in the December issue of the eMagazine Cosmic Lighthouse: http://www.cosmiclighthouse.com/dec07/articles/eyes_of_cosmos_upon_us

Connections, Reconnections, and Intersections (1). This past month I have somehow found myself caught up in the world of internet social networking which has been alternately exciting, exasperating (I have a slow land line internet connection), uplifting, frustrating (it can be extremely time-consuming even with a fast internet connection which I had access to for a few days), and entertaining. I see the connections, reconnections and intersections that are happening at an accelerating rate on the internet as a sign that the Great Shift is happening, although it offers mixed blessings. For the addictive personality it can become all-consuming, such as this comment I found:

I'm a member of so many social networks and I have so many "friends" that sometimes I feel like these sites enslave me.

Her solution was a desktop profile aggregator that calculates your top friends from the popular networks Facebook, Flickr, Myspace, Twitter and Youtube and sends live notifications whenever there is something new on one of your profiles.

In sacred geometry the many intersecting circles in the Flower of Life symbol serve as a metaphor for the connectedness of all life. I see the proliferation of internet social networks with many people participating in multiple networks as creating the energies of the sacred geometry of the Flower of Life. I see this effect exemplified in the Ning Networks, which makes it relatively easy for anyone with a little bit of computer savvy to create their own network. I spent a fascinating day browsing through pages and pages of links to the tens of thousands of Ning Network that have been created (http://www.ning.com/home/networks--you can do word searches to narrow the focus) finding some network pages with no more members than the person who created it, many with tens to hundreds of members, and a few with thousands of members. Ning Network Creators network (http://networkcreators.ning.com/), for those who have created Ning networks, has more than 6,000 members. These networks range from the good, to the bad, to the ugly. There is the ScrewSocialNetworking Ning (2 members), and then there is the Meta Network Ning that gives you this message:

Sorry, membership of The Meta Network is by invite only! If you received an invite, sign up or sign in! Didn't receive an invite to this site? Get your own invite-only group site!

This one tickled my fancy, but not enough to sign-up:

MySpade (http://myspade.ning.com/), with 70 members: tired of social networking sites that don't cater for your garden implement needs? Then be tired no more with MYSPADE. A site where people can share photos and stories about their favourite spades and also leave their best spade based puns.

A nice thing about the Ning Networks is that when you join a new one, any friends from other networks automatically appear as friends on the new network. I got my feet wet by joining and relatively small network (less than 100) and when I joined a second network with hundreds of people, I already had ten friends on the new network. For anyone reading this who is not already hooked on internet networks and would like to explore a few, I have listed a few below with links.

New Earth Soul Family Communities (http://newearthcommunities.ning.com) has 31 members, created by Jody Howard.

Children of the Sun (http://sunchildren.ning.com/) has more than 490 members, created by Tiara Kumara.

The Intention Experiment (http://theintentionexperiment.ning.com/) has more than 3,500 members and Living the Field (http://livingthefield.ning.com) has more than 1,900 members and 120+ groups, both created by Lynn McTaggert.

Lightworkers http://lightworkers.org/node/224--not part of the Ning Networks, but another large network for Lightworkers with more than 3500 members.

Catastrophe of the Month. Those of you who have been reading this Newsletter for a while know that sometimes I identify a predicted catastrophe-of-the-month with the recommendation that readers set the intention "not in my timeline." None of those that I identified in the past came to pass. In this newsletter I would like to comment on information from the Hathors channeled by Tom Kenyon which has had wide circulation (http://tomkenyon.com/transcend-and-transform-your-world/) and was forwarded to me by several people. First I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for Tom Kenyon's work (I cite his book The Hathor Material in my Great Shift book as an example of high-quality channeled material). and appreciation for the Hathors (a civilization on a higher dimensional Venus) who have come into my Earth healing work in a supportive way. In this latest message, which is consistent with messages they have been giving for several years, they say:

We wish to speak with you about a perilous passage in which you now find yourselves. This shall extend throughout the rest of this year, as well as into and through 2008.

They go on to speak of difficult financial times and continued intensification of "Earth changes, climatic alteration, geopolitical destabilization, and threats to the ecosystem." I have encountered other higher dimensional sources that I cannot discount saying similar things. I would like to respectfully disagree with the Hathors, and offer my own perspective that things do not need to get a rough as they seem to be indicating, and that as individuals we have a greater ability to affect our collective destiny than they have suggested:

There is not much that one single person can do to mitigate humanity’s collective destiny.

I sense the Hathors smiling as they look over my shoulder as I write this, but I still have to say that from my perspective their track record at predicting the future is fair to middling.

Economic Collapse. The Hathors said two years ago that November 2007 was would be the most likely last window when a downturn in the US economy would happen. It is true that the value of the dollar against the Euro sank to new lows last month, but it is early December now, and the US economy is still clunking along. This continues to be a mystery to me because I have been waiting for our unsustainable global economy to collapse since the early 1990s. Now that we are past the window identified by the Hathors, my sense is that those who are slow to wake up to the way they are being manipulated and disempowered are being given more time to continue their gradual awakening process.

Geophysical Catastrophes. The Hathors are among many higher dimensional sources who state that Earth's dimensional shift creates substantial geophysical stresses that must be relieved. My research confirms this. However, my research also provides strong evidence that at a superconscious level (and increasingly at a conscious level) humanity is able to modify the location, timing and intensity of geophysical stress relief so as to minimize harm to living beings on the planet. The last three months has seen a huge increase in the number of major earthquakes (48 that were 6.1 and greater for an annual rate of 192--the historical record in a year was 173 in 1994), yet the large majority have been reported to cause little harm or damage (the worst was the earthquake in Peru in November that killed around 500 people). Exceptional extreme weather events continue, but actual loss of human life from these events has not been exceptional. In general, reports about the extreme events indicate that they have brought out the best in people and in so doing are contributing to humanity's overall movement toward relationships based on love rather than fear. I can offer one anecdotal example from the fires on southern California. My daughter-in-law, who was in San Diego during the fires told, me that horse lovers in the area spontaneously organized themselves to transport horses that were endangered by the fires to a safe place in the County fair grounds.

It is a Divine Dichotomy that there is truth to the Hathor's saying that there is not much that a single person can do to mitigate humanity's destiny. However, when we join with other people who have awakened and are awakening to their potentials as multidimensional beings, as I described at the beginning of this Newsletter, we are able to make a real difference. The tricky thing is that it will take a certain amount of stress to serve as the catalyst for many people to awaken. So when I respond to predictions of chaotic, difficult times by saying "Not in my timeline" I am not necessarily intending or asking for smooth sailing. In co-creating the No Soul Left Behind timeline I set my intention in service of the highest good of all while minimizing harm for the greatest number possible. So far it feels like we are on track.

Positive Signs That a Shift is Happening. The good news in the mainstream press remains a trickle, but it continues to trickle in. Here is a selection of headlines.

Most Ready for 'Green Sacrifices" (BBC News 11-5-07)--Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change (even in the U.S. and China), according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

Call for U.S. to Re-Open UFO File (BBC News 11-13-07)--A group of former pilots and government officials has called on the US government to re-open an investigation into claims of UFO sightings. As Steven Greer, Director of the Disclosure Project pointed out in a recent press release (http://www.disclosureproject.org/PressReleaseNov132007-revised.htm), the need isn't so much for a new investigation, but for congressional hearings to make public the abundant evidence that is already available.

Bush Involved in CIA Leak Case (BBC News 11-21-07)--A former White House press secretary has said the US president was involved in misinforming the public over the leaking of a CIA agent's identify. Of course this is no news for those who don't depend on the mainstream press for their information. I still can't help but wonder how long it will take for the average American to pay attention to reports like this that make it to the mainstream press.

Rudd to Apologize to Aborigines (BBC News 11-26-07)--Australia's new government will issue a formal apology to Aborigines for the abuses they suffered in the past, prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd has promised. I see great energetic significance in a formal acknowledgement of the harm "civilized" nations have done to indigenous peoples. Australia is leading the way.

Cameroon Gorillas Returning Home (BBC News 11-30-07)--four rare gorillas are being flown from South Africa to Cameroon, five years after they were illegally smuggled to Taiping Zoo in Malaysia (they arrived safely the next day). Although this does little to change the status of the critically endangered Western Lowland gorillas in Africa, this has a great symbolic significance to my mind.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #20
November 2007

Dear Great Shifters,

Chapter 8, Understanding the Shift (III): Something Amazing is Happening on Planet Earth, is finished and available to donors to the Great Shift Foundation. It is the concluding chapter of the book and provides a synthesis of higher dimensional perspectives on the Great Shift. I am working on final revisions to the Appendices and then will go back and finish Chapters 1 through 5. Perhaps Spirit will allow me to do intensive work on the book this month so it can be completed before the end of the year.

Global Proliferation of INGOs and NGOs working for Social Change. A little known trend that I take to be a sign that the Great Shift is happening is the proliferation of organizations that do not involve the participation or representation of national governments. I remember my mother, Elise Boulding, a well-known sociologist and peacemaker speaking in the 1970s of the importance of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) for creating a more peaceful world. Many alternative terms are used to describe these organizations: non-state actors (NSAs), independent sector, volunteer sector, civil society, grassroots organizations, transnational social movement organizations, private voluntary organizations, self-help organizations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization). INGOs (International NGOs) are an especially important category of these organizations because they transcend national boundaries and allow people to connect with other like-minded folks in diverse cultures. It's hard to find systematic statistics on the number of INGOs. The earliest estimate I have found is that there were about 4,000 INGOs in 1972-1973 and this had grown to 20,000 in 1986 (1986 Yearbook of the Union of International Organizations). By 2001 the number had grown to 40,000.

Entrepreneur and activist Paul Hawken has written eloquently about what he calls "the largest social movement in all history" in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/265/). During the past fifteen years, as Hawken traveled around the world giving lectures, he was impressed by the number of local organizations he encountered that were working toward ecological sustainability and social justice. His first estimate of the number of environmental, social justice and indigenous rights organizations was around 100,000. He now estimates that there are more than 1 million such organizations consisting of

tens of millions of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

Positive Signs That a Shift is Happening. Korea continues to be the one bright spot in the geopolitical arena (BBC News headlines: Korean Leaders in Historic Talks (10/2/07), North Korea Agrees Nuclear Deadline (10/3/07), Korean Leaders Issue Peace Call (10/4/07). Here are a few more positive signs.

Summit Calls for Ministries and Departments of Peace in All Nations. The 3rd Global Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace took place September 21-26 in Kisarazu and Tokyo, Japan. This extraordinary event began on the International Day of Peace and Global Ceasefire declared by the UN. It featured 21 country delegations, representing both civil society and parliamentarians, from all five continents, including Nepal, which became the second country after the Solomon Islands to form a Ministry of Peace, and Rwanda, a country that experienced genocide in 1994 (http://www.peoplesinitiativefordepartmentsofpeace.org/). On a personal note, my mother was on the U.S. Commission that led to the establishment of the United State Institute of Peace in 1986 (for more information about USIP see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Institute_of_Peace). The Commission held hearings all over the country, and I remember my mother saying that some of the strongest testimony in support of creating a Peace Academy came from the Army, Navy and Air Force War Colleges.

Jewish-Arab Circus (BBC News photo feature, first posted October 27, 2007). In northern Israel, Arab and Jewish children are finding common ground in an unusual way - at the only youth circus of its kind in the country. Based in the town of Carmiel, the Galilee Circus aims to bring the two communities together by teaching friendship and cooperation through the performing arts. There are 50 Arab and Jewish performers, from mainly Jewish Carmiel and Israeli Arab villages, who meet for classes twice a week in a community center gymnasium. Please view these photos and be inspired: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/middle_east_jewish_arab_circus/html/1.stm.

2007 Ozone Hole 'Smaller Than Usual' (Science Daily, 10/4/07)--The ozone hole over Antarctica has shrunk 30% compared to last year's record size. Scientists are not willing to predict that this is a trend, but this is certainly positive news (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071003100537.htm).

New Energy Sources and Inventions. If we had to depend on mainstream science and technology to get out of the mess we have made of our beautiful planet I would not see much hope for the future. The following link provides a good overview of the the types of technologies that will allow us to quickly wean ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels when the barriers to developing and using them crumble (this article also has a good analysis of why they have not become widely available): http://www.wanttoknow.info/newenergysources. As I was writing this newsletter I received notice of an award program offered by the Advanced Energy Research Organization (AERO) designed to bring legitimate inventors out of the wood works: http://www.aero2012.com/en/award.html. This website is also a good source of technical papers on this topic.

The Shift is happening. Hang in there.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #19
October 2007

Dear Great Shifters,

Well, I am still here, feeling more chastened than sheepish (new readers might want to read last month's Newsletter for background). As far as I can tell the potential timeline split that could have created a catastrophic timeline did not occur, although I am personally aware of two occasions when it almost happened (which is why I feel more chastened than sheepish, but that's a story for another time). One indication that it did not happen is that the stalled final revisions to Chapter 8 of Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift titled "Something Amazing is Happening on Planet Earth," are moving forward again. My sense is that completion of this chapter had to be delayed until the energies of the Eclipse window were resolved. Fortunately, no major revisions to the original chapter seem to be required.

An Assessment of the Recent Planetary Energetic Shifts. The last few months have seen huge energetic shifts on Earth, beginning with the Fire the Grid event in mid-July, followed by the twentieth anniversary of the Harmonic Convergence in mid-August, and concluding with the Eclipse Window from August 28 to September 11 (described in the last Newsletter). Influxes of energies of the sort that have never been experienced on Earth before continue to come in. The observations I share here come from personal experience, and anecdotal information arising from my connections with many Lightworkers. I also offer at the end of this section a few links to a few higher dimensional perspectives on the latest energetic shifts. The reports I am receiving from other Lightworkers is that they are all over the place in how they are feeling with the current planetary energies. Some are in bliss, but many are having a hard time physically, emotionally and financially (why so many are feeling especially stressed financially right now is a mystery to me). For those who are interested, I share my own recent experiences, which have not been easy, in Earth Energy Healing Network Newsletter #23.

The latest influx of energies seems to be precipitating a sorting-out process amongst Lightworkers as to which dimensional energies they will embody as the shift away from third-dimensional reality proceeds at what is likely to be an accelerated rate in the next ten to fifteen years. It is possible for high drama in interpersonal relationships to continue in the fourth dimension. What will not carry over from the third dimension is physically and emotionally abusive behavior. With the latest energetic shifts, it is possible for Lightworkers in large numbers to fully integrate fifth dimensional energies into their physical bodies. From my perspective this is not better than integrating fourth dimensional energies. It is more a matter of different than, and a little harder than, fully integrating fourth dimensional energies into the physical body, which most Lightworkers are able to do quite naturally. The main difference is that a much deeper clearing of the emotions of fear, anger, and ego attachment to one's work is required. It also requires an ability to interact lovingly with individuals who are caught up in third- and fourth-dimensional dramas without getting caught up the emotions that accompany the dramas. I find it interesting that I am seeing many Lightworkers (and I may end up being in this group, having recently reconnected with a consulting firm I worked with many years ago) returning to workplaces where they have to keep pretty quiet about their multidimensional understanding of reality. At the same time I am seeing increasing receptivity to such a multidimensional understanding when I have the courage to share it with audiences for whom I know I am pushing many beyond their comfort zone.

I honor all of you who are reading this, whatever energies you embody. Each of us has a role to play here on Earth. For those who prefer the fourth dimensional energies, enjoy the dramas of human experience. As you learn to play the roles without taking them too personally, you model and are able to teach others to not take them so personally as well, and that is when healing becomes easier. For those who are moving into fifth dimensional energies, you are moving into uncharted territory, where even those in higher dimensions have not trod. However, if you go so far out that you can't find your back, you will not be able to serve as guides for those who will eventually follow, which is all of humanity and those from many Star Nations. It becomes especially important for you to find ways to remain grounded in physical reality. I recommend the following recent messages from higher dimensional sources for those who feel called to be pathfinders: a message from Adama of Telos through Lauren Gorgo on September 22, 2007, a recent channeling through Story Waters (if you do not find the August 11, 2007 message titled You Are Ready on this page it may have been moved to some other location on the website)

Positive Signs That a Shift is Happening. I have to confess that it is still hard to find many indications in the mainstream press that the Shift is filtering down to the physical plane. The Worldwatch Institute has released its annual publication Vital Signs 2007-2008 and virtually all the major indicators for human and planetary health are grim. We humans have exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth to support our population for about 20 years. Here are a few positive headlines from that report:

Sustainable Communities Become More Popular--the Global Ecovillage Network reports that there are 375 ecovillages throughout the world.

Number of Violent Conflicts Steady--this rates as a positive headline to my mind. There has been a gradual decline in violent conflict globally since the 1990s.

Literacy Improves Worldwide--up from 75 percent in 1990 to 82 percent in 2000-2004.

Here are a few positive headlines from BBC Online News:

Child Mortality 'At Record Low' (September 13, 2007)--worldwide, the number of young children who died in 2006 dropped below 10 million for the first time. This was such an unexpected headline, I had to read it twice to make sure it said what I thought it said.

Bush Aide Says Warming Man-Made (September 14, 2007)--this is a pretty astounding headline given the Bush administration's historical stance on global warming.

Rwanda 'Most Improved' in Africa (September 25, 2007)--According to the Ibrahim Index, a composite of many factors analyzed by Harvard University academics, in the past five years Rwanda moved from 36th to 18th place in a ranking of best to worst governed countries in Africa.

Earth Changes Update. So far this year there have been four earthquakes with a magnitude 8.0 and greater (since 1973 the average has been about one a year, although there were also four earthquakes of this magnitude in the year 2000). Overall major global earthquake activity (6.1 and greater) seems to be up a bit this year, but in keeping with my hypothesis that human consciousness is now able to modify the location, and timing of earthquakes so as to minimize harm, death tolls have been modest (on the order of dozens to hundreds of people--I don't mean to sound callous by saying this--please see my definition of catastrophic death toll for context). I review data on global earthquake activity daily, and have lost count of the number of tsunami alerts that have not materialized. For example, on September 30 the New Zealand region's biggest earthquake since 1934 sparked an international tsunami alert; the earthquake caused only minor rises in the sea level near Tasmania and Bluff, Australia. In the meantime there have been swarms of small earthquakes on the west coast of the United States that have relieved stresses that might lead to really damaging earthquakes. The huge increase in moderate earthquakes in 2004, documented in ECGraph1, has continued with the number in this category exceeding 10,000/year since then.

Blessings, Love and Light,

Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #18 and EEH Newsletter #22
(August 29 to September, 11 2007)

Dear Great Shifters and Earth Healers,

For the first time I am sending out a joint Newsletter to the Earth Energy Healing Network and Great Shift Update subscribers. The Lunar/Solar Eclipse Doorway from August 28 to September 11 feels to me to be an unusually important time period in the dimensional shift that Earth and humanity are experiencing. Spirit has brought two wonderful, intersecting, groups of people together through my two websites, and for the first time I am inviting all of you to join together with me to provide an energetic presence through a daily 20-minute meditation at 9:09 am EDT focusing on Mother Earth, ourselves (humanity) and all other beings on the planet asking simply that the energetic shifts during this time happen in as gentle a way as possible. For those who are not familiar with the procedure to connect with sessions that I do (these will be mostly done at Windgather Glade, but I will be in Boston from September 7 to 10) please follow this link: http://www.earthenergyhealing.org/EEHNetwork.htm#Schedule. I also encourage anyone who sets the intention to join these sessions to review the thoughts I have shared about the clarity and purity of our intentions: http://www.earthenergyhealing.org/EEHNetwork.htm#Intentions. Later in the newsletter I share some information from other sources about the significance of the Eclipse Doorway period.

What I have to say now is making me feel very vulnerable. I have Lightworker friends who seem to start feeling uncomfortable when I place myself in a situation of vulnerability, perhaps because they have many memories of being hurt when feeling vulnerable as part of the karmic dance of 3D human experience. The vulnerability I am feeling comes from a place of strength which recognizes that there are opportunities for growth when one is willing to take risks. Yesterday I was given what felt like a choice as difficult as any I have been given since I said almost five years ago "I am ready, take me as far and as fast as you can." On very few occasions have I hesitated when given an new opportunity for growth. The choice I was given yesterday felt comparable to the time I was asked to make a commitment to playing the Game of Duality as "high" as it goes. In some ways the commitment to playing the Game of Duality to its completion was easier because I was pretty much clueless as to what I was getting myself into by making that commitment.

I have considered carefully the possible consequences of choice I was given yesterday. One possible outcome is that I will look very foolish to a lot of people (you, my dear readers). That actually is the best case scenario as far as I'm concerned. The worst case scenario is that this is the last you will hear from me. I shed some tears considering this scenario, but I cannot rule out this possibility with the choice I ended up making.

Many higher dimensional sources that I am reading indicate that many are in for a very bumpy ride between now and the end of the year. This is entirely consistent with my understanding of how the Great Shift is happening. Our economic, political, social and religious institutions need to be shaken up in order to be transformed, and the best information I have at this time is that the time is "soon." Nevertheless, many people continue to be tapping into the old catastrophic timelines and information came to me yesterday indicating that our friends in the Loyal Opposition, see the Eclipse Doorway as their last chance to divert a sizable segment of Earth's population into a timeline that manifests the fears of the conspiracy buffs.

This information posed me with a dilemma, given my commitment to the No Soul Left Behind program. If such a timeline split occurs, and the Russell in this physical incarnation on Earth has to make a choice, which one do I choose: the positive timeline of the Great Shift, which is already well-anchored from my perspective, or the timeline that I perceived in the early 1990's where a Great Dying of humans takes place? When that was my vision of the future, I prepared myself to carry love and joy through the monumental suffering of such a timeline. Yesterday it felt like I was being asked whether I was still willing to be a part of such a timeline. It is entirely possible that I do not need to make a choice, but it feels like I have to make the decision as if it were a choice. I am declaring now that if a timeline split occurs, and I have to make a choice, I will be going with those who have been expecting the the worst for the future.

In the meantime I invite you to join me during the daily 20-minute sessions at 9:09 am EDT through September 11. If you hear from me after then, it will be a sheepish Russell who greets you. If you don't hear from me after then, know that I am where I can be of greatest service to humanity and Mother Earth in the physical plane, and that I will always be available energetically to support you as the Great Shift unfolds.

Love, Russell

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION ON THE LUNAR/SOLAR ECLIPSE DOORWAY

August 27 Message from the Star Elders regarding the upcoming Lunar/Solar Eclipse doorway:

The lunar eclipse on August 28 and the following partial solar eclipse on September 11 is a very important doorway for humanity. In the last few months the light workers of the planet have seriously undermined the forces of darkness. Thank you very much for this. Because of this, it has created a huge shift in the construction of the mass consciousness of humanity. It has also created a great up-liftment in your spirit.

During this eclipse doorway everyone will have the opportunity to reboot an upgrade their entire being. You will be able to reboot an upgrade your body, your spirit, your soul, and your evolution. This is a very powerful time.

Rebooting your life is very much like rebooting your computer. When you upload a new computer program you have to turn off your computer and started up again so that the new program will work properly. That's exactly what's going to happen to all of you in this doorway. No one is exempt from this reboot. Once rebooted, the old programs systems and manifestations will no longer work properly. So if you're finding that certain areas of your life are not flowing or manifesting in the way they should, maybe this is the universe saying that it is an old virus ridden program, and it is time to delete it from your consciousness. Why would you want to keep it anyway?

From the June 21 solstice, to the Perseid meteor showers culminating on August 12, you have received, if you were aware of it or not, new programs in your consciousness. Now it is time to put them to work. If you are feeling the building pressure in your chest, almost to the point where you feel like you can't breathe, then you are already feeling this reboot.

We don't have to tell you this because you already know, but those old programs you've been running for many, many centuries were flawed. They had viruses that created fear, lack, anger, grief, shame, despair, poverty, war and all other atrocities against spirit and humanity. These faulty programs pushed you into corners in which your reactions were not coming from a place of light within you. It's time to forgive yourself and others for the perceived wrongful things you felt you had done, or have done to you. It's time to realize that living in a dualistic world is a great challenge. But you also must know that we see you as the brave courageous souls, the ones that dared to traverse the reality of extreme light and dark.

To ease the effects of this collective consciousness reboot, it would be greatly beneficial to you all to take some time each day to let go of the old you. Let go of the old world. Let go of your past, your wounds, your betrayals, your insecurities, and even your beliefs that you are somehow not a brilliant masterful being. Take time each day to remember who you truly are, not what you've been told by others, or what society would make of you. Remember if the Great Creator made you just the way you are, then it should be good enough for you… yes?

By the year 2008 you will have completely crossed the bridge and have begun acclimatizing to the New World. It is a much higher altitude/frequency than you are used to. It will take some adjusting. This is what you might call the shift to the ages. You have pushed the evolution envelope by your strong will, tenacity and strong intense spiritual focus, by an entire four years from our predicted shift dates in 2012. So we don't want to hear you thinking to yourself that you are less than a lighted master. You're the first human beings in a dualistic 3-D reality that has been able to push the envelope, and to push the envelope by four entire years is still astonishing to us.

Be open to the fact that what lies ahead of you in the very near future is wildly astonishing, beautiful, wonderful, peaceful, and harmonious, and a place you remember deep inside as home. Why will it be this way you ask? Because you not only wanted this new reality, and believed it was possible, but are now beginning to act as if this amazing new future is already here. When you do act as if, you quit being an initiate, and step into the role of the living master. We are always with you. (Special mailing of the Center of the Sun Newsletter; to sign up for this newsletter use this link: http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/joinnewsletter.html).

Valerie Donner in her August 27 Straight from the Heart Newsletter identifies September 9 as an especially significant date within the lunar/solar eclipse doorway (numerologists translate 9-9-2007 to 9-9-9 (2+7), and this date also the 36th week of the year (3+6 = 9) and the 252nd day (2+5+2 =9). I'm not really all that much into numerology myself, but many higher dimensional sources that I respect place significance in the Divine mathematics of numbers, so I pay attention when dates are identified as significant numerologically. In the practice of numerology, the number 9 is the number of completion. Valerie concludes by saying:

So 9-9-9 will be a very powerful day. It will be the turning point for humanity and this planet. The 9-vibration is about letting go, about transformation and about starting a new cycle. Humanity will let go of duality, of three-dimensional thinking and embrace unconditional love and detached compassion, which are fourth and fifth dimensional qualities. Straight from the Heart Newsletter (http://www.thegroundcrew.com/updates/vdonner/2007/082707_print.htm)

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #17
August 2007 (posted July 24)

Dear Great Shifters,

I'm sending this Newsletter out a little early because I will be traveling from July 24 to August 18 during which I do not expect to have easy access to email. As noted below, this family vacation time will also be a time of reflection and reassessment as I consider the direction of my Great Shift work. I am still learning the ropes with the service I am using to send out these Newsletter by email. Subscribers who are set up to received text-only messages should find the Newsletter more readable now (let me know if that isn't the case). In that format, you will need to copy links from the Newsletter into you web browser rather than click on them.

Positive Signs that the Shift is Happening (2): In July huge energetic shifts happened on Earth with July 7 (7-7-07) seeing a big influx of energies followed by Fire the Grid on July 17, which I have a sense was an event of comparable significance to the Harmonic Convergence in August 1987. My main interest now is in seeing evidence of these changes filtering down to the third dimensional level. Although I can't say that peace is breaking out all over, there do seem to be some positive moves in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The following link describes some marvelous work that Byron Katie has done in that area: www.byronkatie.com/2007/07/an_email_from_orly_in_israel.htm. This is the kind of healing work, which doesn't get reported in the mainstream press, that will support real breakthroughs when they happen.

I don't pay much attention to the mainstream media because it continues to be so distorted. However, I do receive by email the daily headlines in the New York Times. I was struck by the following headlines, because they were so unexpected based on previous reports on North Korea:

North Koreans Say They've Shut Nuclear Reactor. The North Korean claim, synchronized with a shipment of fuel oil from South Korea, marked the first step toward reversing a confrontation with the U.S (New York Times, Sunday, July 15, 2007).

U.N. Confirms N. Korea Reactor Shut. U.N. inspectors have confirmed that North Korea has shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor, its first step toward halting production of nuclear weapons (New York Times, Monday, July 16, 2007).

The final item I would like to share is purely anecdotal, and comes from an American friend who has lived in Paris for many years. He tells me that in recent years progressive, Green Party activists have managed to gain enough political power in the city of Paris to transform it from a place of grid-locked car traffic that made local bus transport very slow to a bicycle-friendly city where buses run efficiently and cars are not quite the nuisance they used to be.

Crossroads: Spirit has led me on a merry chase during the researching, writing, and editing of the Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift. As a scientist who was used to doing things in a logical, orderly sequence, I had to get used to the nonlinear way in which the manuscript evolved. It had so many starts and stops that several times I wondered if it would ever be completed. Even when the first draft was completed the merry chase continued with numerous delays and detours in the final editing. From the start I had a sense that I was to publish it myself, and my earlier experience with a small press I had established seemed to have been preparation for this work. Launching of the Great Shift Foundation seemed to be another major step in the process. However, it is now clear that the relatively modest traffic that the website receives (around 2000 visitors a month) would have to increase a hundred-fold for the Foundation to be financially viable. There are ways to do this and I have a pretty good understanding of what is required. The Board of the Foundation has wisely asked me to consider the implications of such a huge increase in visitors to the website and whether I, a person who has always worked out at home with no office support staff, am ready and willing to deal with such a change. I'm not sure. While traveling from July 24 to August 18, a trip which will include camping in the Black Hills, Colorado Rockies and travel in the Pacific Northwest, I will be considering a number of options, including seeking an established publisher to bring out the book, and looking for work in my old fields of technical expertise.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift Update Newsletter #16
July 2007

Dear Great Shifters,

With this Newsletter I am reporting major changes that have taken place with the Great Shift website. It is now the website of the Great Shift Foundation, which I trust will grow to have the capacity to financially support the work of many Lightworkers around the planet. The Foundation has a wonderful Board of Directors who have challenged me to think outside of the box I created, which made me think that the final revisions of my book Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift needed to be completed before it could be made available to people. The website is now set up to receive online donations via credit/debit cards and PayPal and all donors will receive advance copies of the final Chapters of the book via the Internet, if they so wish. The first installment is ready to go and subsequent final chapters will be sent out as fast as final revisions and editing allow (Make a Donation).

A Personal Shift: One of the reasons final revisions to the book have proceeded slowly is that Spirit has been placing more emphasis on my higher dimensional work in support of the Great Shift (if you would like to know more about this, you can visit my Earth Energy Healing website). In June I experienced a completion, of sorts, in the process that began in November of 2002 when I said "I'm ready, take me as far and as fast as you can." I am now feeling a renewed focus on what I like to call the No Soul Left Behind Program, which requires me to ground myself more thoroughly in material reality. I am working more in the garden and around Windgather homestead. I say a bit more about these personal changes in the July Earth Energy Healing Newsletter.

The upshot of all this is that it feels like I am turning toward more of a focus on the human side of the Great Shift. To this end, there will be a new regular feature that will focus on signs that the huge, positive, energetic shifts that many higher dimensional see happening on Earth are actually filtering down into third dimensional reality.

Positive Signs that the Shift is Happening: My father had an aphorism: "Whatever exists is possible!" When we have examples of the human capacity to live in loving community with each other and in harmony with Mother Earth, we are given glimpses of the New Earth. Below I offer links that provide information about three very different, but positive examples of human communities. Explore these websites and be inspired:

--Gaviotas, Columbia: www.friendsofgaviotas.org.

--Curitiba, Brazil: www.curitiba-brazil.com.

--Damanhur, Italy: www.damanhur.info.

It's still hard to see much positive happening in the Middle East but here is a link to a video with young Israelis and Palestinians saying that it is time for peace: http://assets.onevoicemovement.org/video/wef/wtd_wef_flash.html. They are the ones who will lead the way.

Earth Changes Update: With the shift in focus of the Newsletter to emphasize positive signs of the Great Shift filtering down into third dimensional aspects of human behavior, I will be probably be saying less about Earth changes in future Newsletters. However, I feel I should follow up on my report in the May Newsletter that that major earthquake activity was way up through to the end of April. May and June were relatively quite months in terms of major earthquakes so the projected total number of earthquakes based on the first half of this year is about the same as the previous few years.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #15
May 2007

Dear friends,

The energies of the planet are shifting so rapidly now, Spirit has had me working on about a half dozen projects in addition to the Great Shift book. Final revisions and editing are proceeding, and I have given up setting target dates for when it will be available. I will let you know when. In the meantime there are interesting things to report in terms of Earth changes.

Earth Changes Update: Volcanic activity in 2006 continued at the record high set in 2005 of 68 volcanoes, as the fifty-year trend continues upwards with the addition of one new volcano every 5.6 years. In 2006 the number of major earthquakes greater than 6.1 was down slightly as measured by the USGS NEIC global database (121 vs 139 in 2005) and the University of Edinburgh database (98 vs 104 in 2005--I exclude aftershocks in this count). What is really interesting though is that major earthquake activity(>6.1) is way up so far this year. As of the end of April the projected annual rate of major earthquakes using the USGS database is 155--the only other year of record that exceeded this amount was in 1995 with 176 big quakes. Even more striking is that April had the largest number of earthquakes in a month since I have been tracking this closely--23, for an annual rate of 276 major earthquakes! The high level of seismic activity hasn't received much press, because fatalities so far this year have scarcely exceeded 100 people. These data trends continue to be consistent with my hypothesis that human consciousness is now able to modify the location, and timing of earthquakes so as to minimize harm.

Please note also that I have added a new section to the links page to websites that cover Frontier Science and Science and Spirit

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #14
January 2007

Dear friends,

Those of you who received my Earth Energy Healing Newsletter know that I am going on "vacation" January and February for a more personal spiritual focus. The one outward thing I am not cutting back on is finishing the Great Shift book. This website will also get a new look as The Great Shift Foundation website, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting all aspects of the Great Shift. I can't promise when, but the next Newsletter you receive will be to announce how to order Preparing Ourselves for the Great Shift, Volume I: A Guide to Cosmic and Global Aspects of the Coming Dimensional Shift in Human Consciousness. Until then...

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #13
December 2006

Dear friends,

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men. Spirit has me juggling a half dozen projects right now, and the Great Shift book spent most of the month up in the air. I did make good progress on Chapter 8 and I have included an excerpt below. However, it looks like my January 1 publication target date was optimistic. I promise that subscribers to this Newsletter will know as soon as it becomes available.

Earth Changes Update: It's been a while since I identified a catastrophe of the month. This month it is Sunspot 927. On November 28 Mitch Battros (www.earthchangestv.com) issued a warning about Sunspot 927, a very unusual one which "could spell disaster" in the next 5 to 10 days (December 3 to 8). On November 29 he reported that the ring seemed to be breaking up, reducing the possibility of a "nasty" solar flare and CME (coronal mass ejection). On November 30 a moderate geomagnetic storm was reported and was predicted to cause extreme weather and increased volcanic and earthquake activity. My thesis, suggesting that human consciousness can modify such events so as to minimize harm, would appear to have been starting to take effect on November 29. Since I am posting this before the indicated time frame for a disaster (December 3 to 8), we shall see if I end up having to eat my words. Speaking of earthquake activity, November had 14 major earthquakes greater than 6.1, the largest number in a month since the mid 1990s, with no catastrophic harm as far as I have seen in the press. We are making a difference.

Excerpt from Chapter 8 (Subject to further editing)

8.1 The Eyes of the Cosmos Are Upon Us

As I began to piece together my own understanding of the Great Shift in human consciousness I became increasingly awed and astonished by the perspective the many higher dimensional sources are offering concerning its nature and significance. Something amazing is happening on planet Earth, and individuated consciousnesses throughout the cosmos are focusing their attention on this blue orb in space and its inhabitants. To realize what a stretch it was for me to come to this understanding you have to realize how differently geologists look at things than most people. As a geologist, when I became discouraged with the state of the world, I used to shift gears to a billion-year cosmic perspective that saw what was happening on Earth as insignificant in the larger scheme of things. The notion that the human species represented the apex of the evolutionary process struck me as arrogant.

When I began encountering information from higher dimensional sources suggesting that what is happening on Earth today has cosmic significance and we humans are central to the process, my initial reaction was to look for signs of ego-filtration in the channeled material. I did not find the ego-filtration I thought I would find, and as I encountered more and more higher dimensional sources saying so, my methodology required me to conclude that something special is happening on planet Earth. Just as Mother Mary gave birth to the Christ-child in a humble stable, Mother Earth, located in a back-water arm of the Milky Galaxy, which itself has nothing special to distinguish itself from billions of other galaxies, is giving birth to something new and wonderful in the Cosmos.

Drunvalo Melchizedek reports that it became apparent within the first three years of the Sirian Experiment of 1972 (discussed in Section 7.4.2) that something very unusual was beginning to happen on Earth, something that no one anywhere in the galaxy had ever seen or expected.

As this strange phenomenon began, people from all parts of the galaxy became very interested in us. Before this time we were just another speck in the worlds of light. As the experiment continued, even other galaxies began to watch us. And on dimensional levels, all of life shifted it attention to our humble little planet. We became a superstar in the universe--and everyone knew but us! (Melchizedek, 2000:426).

In the rest of this section I will let the higher dimensional sources speak for themselves on this theme, with a minimum of commentary on my part. Djwhal Khul is an Ascended Master who has spoken through many individuals. Speaking through Janet McClure a few years before the 1987 Harmonic Convergence he said:

In a very special sense, the cosmos watches our efforts. The Earth is a small, dark planet of relative unimportance compared to the totality of creation, but it is watched carefully to see how we utilize some very special gifts given to us by the Creator, some very special energies that are being spun down for our use. The Creator is doing some "experimentation"...to see how evolution can be speeded up. Djwhal Khul (1983-1984) McClure (1996:307-308).

The Pleiadians are higher dimensional extraterrestrials who have been long involved in the human experience on Earth. Speaking through Barbara Marciniak in the early 1990s, they support Djwhal Khul's statement:

Your Earth is presently moving very rapidly toward playing a major part in a tremendously cosmic universal drama. When a planetary sphere, a planetary home, is sponsoring or hosting events of such magnitude, many come from far and wide to participate. This is not a small event, but an integral part of a very gigantic plan that is set about to move energies in very different packages throughout the Universe and galaxy. The Pleiadians (Marciniak, 1991:169).

As does the HDB Zoosh:

Your time is a pivotal time for the change, not only of your dimension but of your whole universe (Zoosh/Robert Shapiro, Shining The Light III, May 26, 1995:164).

The angelic energy called Kryon, channeled through Lee Carroll, reinforces this further, and gives us a glimpse of the respect that is given to the souls of many diverse origins who have chosen to participate in the Earth experiment:

Because of your work the direction of the actions of the universe will be altered. Entire worlds will now have a plan that has substance...There will come at time, when you travel the universe, when all who meet you along the road will stop and stare in awe at your colors, and will recognize your celebrity. They will ask you what it was like to participate in the experiment of Earth! Like massive badges and awards, your colors will tell the story of the group of warriors who did so much for so many! The legends of your work will be universally known, and the word Earth will mean so much more than just a planet. Kryon III (1995:18-19).

The HDB Ortan agrees, although his language is less effusive:

We have come to a time upon the earth plane where your planet has become of great interest. The changes that are occurring for your planet, the ascension of your planet, the evolution of your planet and all those who ride upon it, is an important move, if you like, within the divine plan, if you wish to call it that. Ortan (de Alberdi, 2000:116)

The angelic energy that identifies itself as The Group, speaking through Steve Rother, also sees something unusual happening on Earth:

And here you are changing All That Is, for all eyes in the universe are upon you this day as you now move the game of free choice to the next level. (The Group/Steve Rother, Sedona Journal of Emergence September 2004:43).

Finally, Archangel Michael, through Ronna Herman, speaks of more than our universe, but of the omniverse being affected by what is happening here:

Now, however, during this unique time of tremendous evolutionary expansion and the culmination of a great cosmic cycle, wondrous beings of light from throughout the omniverse have come forth to observe and take part in the birthing of the next cycle of creation. (Archangel Michael/Ronna Herman, "Creating Your Own Sphere of Light", Sedona Journal of Emergence, August, 2004:32).

Before you get too puffed up by all the attention we are receiving, I would like to interject my geologist's perspective again. The sources I have cited above represent individuated consciousnesses which have a special interest in the creative opportunities of the evolutionary soul path. There are realities and galaxies and universes where there is no evolutionary process, where consciousness is perfectly happy to remain exactly where it is. According to Zoosh only about 1 percent of the total "mass" of All That Is consists of evolutionary beings (Zoosh/Shapiro, Shining The Light III, July 19 & 23, 1995:274).

So here we have another Divine Dichotomy. Something special is happening on planet Earth and is receiving the focused attention of evolutionary beings throughout the cosmos. On the other hand, we aren't even on the radar screen for 99% of All That Is.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #12
November 2006

Dear friends,

I'm working on the last chapter of the Great Shift book and scrambling to learn internet marketing techniques and how to use Adobe Acrobat so as to have the eBook ready by my target date of January 1, 2007. I am also in the process of creating The Great Shift Foundation, which will receive proceeds from sale of the book. Starting next month I will probably start the process of turning this website into the website for the Foundation.

I would welcome blurbs from any of you who have read what I have written so far and liked it, to post on the sales webpage for the book. Email me at: jrb47@bluemarble.net. Of course I welcome critical comments as well--they help me keep on my toes, but please understand that I probably won't post them on the sales page.

Earth Changes Update: October was one of the most seismically active months so far this year (only May had more major earthquakes 6.1 and greater) and is notable in that many of the major earthquakes happened on or near land (Hawaii, Phillipines, Chile, Peru, Japan and Indonesia) yet few, if any, deaths have been reported. We are making a difference! In my latest Earth Energy Healing Newsletter I briefly report on an experience indicating that more and more are consciously entering into this work.

Excerpt from Chapter 7. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 7 that discusses another interesting explanation for why volcanic and earthquake activity are causing less harm than they might otherwise. This comes at the end of the section that discusses evidence that Earth is already well into the dimensional shift:

I will conclude this section with another perspective from [the higher dimensional Being] Zoosh on how the timeline and dimensional shift is working:

As I've said, these Earth changes are happening massively at 3.0 dimension right now as we speak….For instance, I'm thinking of a volcano right now that is erupting at 3.0 dimension in downtown Portalegre, Brazil. (Zoosh/Shapiro, Shining The Light IV, May 23, 1996:260).

Zoosh goes on to say that the volcano was erupting full bore right in the middle of town and that some individuals in Portalegre occasionally smelled sulfur for no particular reason. In one instance an instrument that can register gases showed an unusual rise in sulfur content of the air, which was interpreted as an anomaly because there was no scientific explanation for it.

I admit that this sounds pretty far out, but I've actually run across a report in the mainstream press of inexplicable events that can be explained as geophysical dimensional "bleed through" similar to that described by Zoosh in Brazil. In an article titled "Mystery Underground Vibrations Around the US," dated April 25, 2006, Alex Roth, staff writer with the San-Diego Union-Tribune, reports that residents of San Diego experienced physical manifestations of an earthquake on April 4, 2006 which was not recorded on seismographs or attributable to sonic booms from aircraft. Even the UFO community had not reports of unusual activity at the time. While researching the story, Roth identified similar inexplicable incidents in Maine, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina within the prior four months.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #11
October 2006

Dear friends,

Writing of the remaining chapters of the Great Shift book is proceeding well, and I have set a target date of January 1, 2007 for publication as an eBook with a printed version to be available at a later date. For those who are interested, there is an article on easing the most common symptoms of spiritual awakening (headaches and fatigue) in my latest Earth Energy Healing Newsletter.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #10
September 2006

Dear friends,

When Spirit brought writing of the Great Shift book to a halt in March, just one-and-a-half chapters short of finishing Volume I, several Lightworker friends suggested that part of the reason was that there was new information that I needed before it could be finished. For several months now I have had the sense that I had the information I was missing earlier this year, and I am happy to announce that Spirit has moved finishing and publishing Volume I to the top of my "to do" list with the notation "ASAP." In order to concentrate on writing, I am discontinuing the Earth Changes Update portion of this Newsletter. I will use this space to report progress in writing. I plan to post a draft of Chapter 7 on the website when it is finished, but I want to forewarn readers that you will need to purchase the book to read the last chapter. I have lived primarily on savings for three years now, and will need to receive some financial return for the time I have invested in this project.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #9
August 2006

Dear friends,

Things have been heating up literally and metaphorically. Minneapolis, Minnesota, where one of our sons lives, has been sweltering in temperatures of 100-degree Fahrenheit (38-degrees C) while we in southern Indiana, 600 miles (1000 km) south, swelter in 90-degree temperatures. Tempers and concomitant violence are flaring in the Middle East, which has been a major focus of my Earth energy healing work lately (see the August Earth Energy Healing Newsletter for more on this). For some additional perspective on what is happening in the Middle East I will mention that in Chapter 1 of the Great Shift manuscript I cite multiple, independent sources that document a steady decline in the amount of violent conflict globally in the last fifteen years or so. This trend has continued with 2005 having the lowest number of wars and armed conflicts worldwide since peaking in the early 1990s (Vital Signs 2006-2007, Worldwatch Institute, 2006). However, in this month's Newsletter I want to focus on a topic that I receive more comments and questions on through this website that any other: soul origins.

Our Soul Origins: Anchoring and Activist Lightworkers. In reviewing usage statistics for visitors to the Great Shift website I have been interested to observe that the Soul Origins page is one of the most popular in terms of number of visitors who enter and leave by that page. Some communications I have received from Starseed souls have prompted me to make some minor revisions to that page to indicate that Starseeds can also be "Old Souls" (having had at least 40 incarnations and been around Earth since at least Atlantean times). The main difference between Starseed and Earth souls lies is how "at home" they feel on Earth.

Adult Lightworkers (born before the timeline shift in 1987) include souls of diverse origins who chose to incarnate as humans on Earth to specifically assist Mother Earth and humanity make the Great Shift. If you were born before 1987 and are reading this Newsletter I would be very surprised if you are NOT a Lightworker. I have come to recognize two major types of Lightworkers: anchors and activists.

Anchoring Lightworkers are positively-polarized fourth or higher density souls (see Chapter 6 for more explanation of what I mean by this) who did not have to incarnate on Earth at this time for karmic reasons. Instead, they came to basically have a good time and provide a base-level boost to the average of the collective human consciousness. This doesn't mean that these souls have no karma to work out, but it is the sort that could be worked out in the fourth dimension. Anchoring Lightworkers tended to incarnate into closely-knit, nurturing family environments without a lot of emotional drama.

Activist Lightworkers are similar to their anchoring counterparts in being fourth density or higher positively-polarized souls, but voluntarily chose to incarnate into extremely difficult, often abusive, family situations even though there was no karmic obligation to do so. The activist souls chose to do this for two main reasons. First, the stresses of their difficult life situations tended to force them to awaken to their spiritual natures and consciously develop their potentials quickly. Second, the positive energy that was created when these Lightworkers transcended the pain and abuse they experienced, through forgiveness, is primarily what elevated the overall level of human consciousness above the critical threshold to create a noncatastrophic timeline.

If any of you reading this recognize yourselves to be activist Lightworkers, words cannot express the depth of the gratitude to I feel for what you have done. For you see, I was an anchoring Lightworker until my own spiritual awakening in November 2002. Even today most the those I am close to and interact with on a daily basis (family, in-laws and their families, church community) are anchoring Lightworkers, many of whom find what I am doing, and my understanding of what is happening incomprehensible.

When the timeline shifted in 1987, soul contracts began to be rewritten on a massive scale, and this continues because when we incarnated the probable timeline was that most of us would be dead now. When I said, in November, 2002, "I am ready, take me as far and as fast as you can," I became an activist Lightworker. I am not alone in feeling a bit bemused by finding my comfortable, stable world turned topsy turvy. The shift of anchoring Lightworkers to activist status seems to have started in earnest around the year 2000, and continues at an accelerating rate. Anchors-turned-activists build upon the momentum created by long-time activist Lightworkers, who have grown a bit weary. Our new-found enthusiasm and fresh energy will help carry things forward, despite the apparent slowness of change at the third dimensional level, until the New Children (born after 1987) reach an age where they can more readily transform our social, economic, political and religious institutions.

Earth Changes Update: I don't have much to report here, except to note that Indonesia/Papua New Guinea took the brunt of geophysical stress relief in July with six major earthquakes 6.1 and greater. One created a tsunami that killed about 300 people, five orders of magnitude below the threshold I have defined for a catastrophic event. At the same time I recognize that the death of a single loved one can feel like a catastrophe, so I ask you to pause and join me in sending love and compassion to the those around the planet who have recently lost loved ones for whatever reason--earthquake, heat, violance.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #8
July 2006

Dear friends,

Spirit continues to keep me focused primarily on my Earth energy work, but the time feels right to share with you a little more about my evolving understanding of the nature of the dimensional shift that humanity and Mother Earth are experiencing. This month I don't have much quantitative to offer in relation to the Earth Changes Update, but offer some qualitative observations

To What Dimension Are We Going? In the first Section of Chapter 7, which I made available in May, I offered a seven-dimensional model for understanding the Great Shift, while noting that there are many other ways to understand this. What I am offering here is pieced together from many higher dimensional sources of information. Something unusual is happening on planet Earth at this time. Usually a dimensional shift on a third dimensional planet is a discrete event in which most of the population dies, and those who are ready reincarnate on the "new" fourth dimensional planet while others who are not ready reincarnate on other third dimensional planets. With the timeline shift in 1987 the old Cosmic Manual on Planetary Dimensional Shifts became obsolete. We are writing the New Manual as we go, as we (with considerable higher dimensional help) figure out how the population of an entire planet, the large majority of whom are still functioning at a third dimensional level of consciousness, can make the necessary physical and consciousness adjustments to move to a higher dimension.

The main way that this is being accomplished is by a loosening of the boundaries between the dimensions, allowing them to freely intermingle. A clairvoyant Lightworker friend described to me being in a church service where the energies were very third dimensional, but suddenly shifted to the fourth dimension when a humble monk began to speak at the altar. Most people in the congregation were not aware that a shift had happened, but a few individuals could sense the shift, even if not at a conscious level. Sacred places around the planet exist at a fourth or higher dimensional level. By the same token, we as individuals and groups have the capacity to create pockets of fourth dimensional Earth. Lightworkers who have visited our 36-acre homestead in southern Indiana comment on the shift in energy they feel when entering the property. For years we have called Windgather Homestead our "little piece of paradise" and now I realize that we are among countless others who by committing ourselves to loving personal relationships and caring for Mother Earth have created small areas of the New Earth.

Fourth dimensional energies are becoming more and more common in localized areas, and these areas are steadily expanding. I now visualize the Shift as a process of individuals, and groups of individuals coming together to create the New Earth locally, and as the numbers of such localities increase, they also expand in area and eventually will coalesce until the entire planet will exist primarily at this vibrational level. The really amazing thing about what is happening on Earth right now is that not only are the third and fourth dimensions freely intermingling, but the fifth dimension is as well! My sense is that most of humanity is still functioning mostly at a third dimensional reality, but that hundreds of millions are functioning mostly at a fourth dimensional level (where love outweighs fear). There is a smaller number of souls incarnated on Earth at this time (on the order of tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands) who are commited to ascending to the fifth dimension while in their current physical bodies as a way to bring fifth dimensional energies into third/fourth dimensional Earth, which in turn will make it easier for others to make the third to fourth dimensional shift. Pockets of fourth dimensional Earth are common on the planet today. Pockets of fifth dimensional Earth are also now present. They are not common, but I have been to one, and it is a beautiful place indeed. My friends, it is an amazing and wonderful time to be alive on planet Earth.

Earth Changes Update: Fire AND Water This Time. I don't have a catastrophe-of-the-month to offer for July. However, I am reminded of the old spiritual "Keep Your Eye on the Prize," which has a verse that says: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, He said fire, not water next time. With fires in the western U.S. and the eastern U.S. drowning in rain, Mother Earth is cleansing herself by both fire and water, but in such a way that lot's of people aren't being killed. My more skeptical friends find this a weak argument, but with more than 6 billion people on the planet, things could be so much worse than they actually are.

June was a fairly quiet month seismically, with seven major earthquakes ranging from 6.1 to 6.3, mostly in remote locations. Lately, I have had the privilage of getting to know more and more people who are working "behind the scenes" to help Mother Earth and humanity make the Great Shift. Hence, after noting last month that the Hathors saw the potential for tectonic activity on the East Coast of the U.S., I was intrigued when I learned that at the end of May some Lightworkers engaged in some deep Earth healing work on the East Coast related to some trauma related to the destruction of Atlantis. Again, my skeptical friends may smile and consider the prospect of a destructive earthquake on the Eastern seabord as a straw man. What could be easier than predicting an unlikely event, and saying we can prevent it by our good intentions, and then claim credit when the unlikely event doesn't happen? I will grant that a major earthquake on the East Coast is unlikely. However, most people are surprised, as I was as a young student of geology, when they learn that the second largest earthquake in the continental United States in recent history occured in Charleston, South Carolina in 1876.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #7
June 2006

Dear friends,

Spirit continues to keep my focus on my Earth energy work, but let's me keep my rational mind from atrophying by allowing me to continue monitoring certain geophysical indicators, as described below.

Earth Changes Update. Since I'm a little late in getting this Newsletter posted, the catastrophe-of-the-month (Tuesday, June 6, 2006--666 prophecied to portend nasty happenings in the Book of Revelations) has come and gone quietly. The comet mentioned in last month's newsletter didn't hit in this timeline either. The Hathors, channeled through Tom Kenyon, a higher dimensional source for which I have considerable respect, have recently indicated that they see the potential for increased tectonic activity in the near future, especially the Pacific Rim Ring of Fire, East Cost of U.S. as well as Greece and Turkey: www.tomkenyon.com/hathors/hathors8.html. I invite you to join me in offering this prayer, sllightly modified from the prayer I make when I begin an energy channeling session for Earth healing:

I ask that the energies being processed and released in areas of the Pacific Ocean, Yellowtone, Eastern United States, Greece and Turkey serve the highest good of Mother Earth and all Living Beings on the planet through modifying the location, timing and intensity of geophysical and other stress relief so as to minimize harm to Mother Earth and her inhabitants.

In early May I posted some new evidence that human consciousness is making a difference in easing geophysical stressses in the Yellowstone area. I also recently updated my analysis of global volcanic activity to include 2005 and the upward trend continues. The Global Volcanism Program reported an all-time record high of 68 active volcanoes last year. The previous record was 67 which occurred in 1973, 1986, and 2000 (those of you who have read Chapter 5 will recognize 1973 and 1986 as on or close to significant events related to the Great Shift). In 2004 the linear regression trend indicated a new volcano every 6.2 years. With the 2005 datum added, the new trend line indicates a new volcano every 5.8 years.

My Earth energy healing work is moving in a new direction, as reported in the June Earth Energy Healing Newsletter. Again, I invite readers of this Newsletter who have not already done so to join the Earth Energy Healing Network.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #6
May 2006

Dear friends,

Spirit has continued to direct most of my time in support of the Great Shift in the direction of Earth energy healing, as reported in the May Earth Energy Healing Newsletter. If you identify yourself as a Lightworker with starseed or other soul origins, and you have been having a rough time of it lately, know that you are not alone. You might find a new webpage I created this past month of some use: Starseed/Lightwork Miasms. If you are drawn more to the rational, left-brain aspects of my work, below you will find the latest I have to offer in that respect.

First Section of Chapter 7 Available. It does not appear that I will be returning to active writing on the Great Shift book anytime soon, so I am making available the first section of Chapter 7 (Multidimensional Perspectives on Space and Time): www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/request_info.php. This is the last section of the book that I finished before Spirit shifted my focus elsewhere (see Newsletter #5 below) and presents the seven density/dimensional model of multidimensional reality that I have developed as a conceptual framework for understanding the Great Shift.

Earth Changes Update. The catastrophe-of-the-month for those who are still tapping into the old timeline is a comet fragment that is predicted to hit the Atlantic ocean some time around May 25 and create at 200-meter (650-foot) tsunami (www.savelivesinmay.com/EricJulien-En.htm). If that sent chills of fear up (or down) your spine, take a deep breath, acknowledge the fear, let it go and say "not in my timeline!" Of course I am safely ensconced in the heart of the Midwest, but if I did have plans to travel to the East coast around May 25 I would not change my travel plans.

Meanwhile, April was a very active month seismically with a dozen major earthquakes (6.1 and greater), but all located in relatively remote regions, so there hasn't been much in the news about them. The biggest earthquake (7.6) was in the remote district of Koriakia in Siberia which includes the northern part of Kamchatka Peninsula,a geologically complex area where several major tectonic plates intersect. There have been a large number of magnitude 4, 5 and 6 earthquakes concentrated in this area during April, but the area is sparsely populated and no fatalities have been reported.

The other interesting pattern that I have observed in April's earthquake activity is that earthquakes in the 4 and 5 ranges seem to have been more evently distributed around the planet than I have observed in the past few years. This is a qualitative, rather than a quantitative observation on my part (perhaps some day I may try to test this more rigorously), but it also fits with the perception of a friend of mine with clairvoyant high sense perception. Lately she has been receiving images of various Earth energy grids and observed that they have become sufficiently integrated that geophysical stresses in many locations are being transmitted and spread out to other locations rather than being concentrated and all being released at the point of origin.

Folks interested in Earth changes who have been following the rumors on the internet predicting a catastrophic volcanic eruption at Yellowstone, may find the section of my May Earth Energy Healing Newsletter titled "Healing Some of Mother Earth's Trauma" interesting.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #5
April 2006

Dear friends,

As I will describe in more detail below, during the last few months Spirit has been helping me (somewhat reluctantly on my part) learn to to walk my talk as it relates to my Great Shift message which, if I were asked to summarize it in two words, is: anticipation, not expectation!

Something Interesting May Happen Around 2012. There is so much being written about the year 2012 it is tempting to develop expectations that something dramatic is going to happen thereabouts. Winter solstice, December 21, 2012, the most widely accepted date for the end the the Long Count of the Mayan Calendar, is probably the date that I have encountered most frequently in my studies. However, there are many other dates around that time that are significant, such as August 1, 2012 in the Quero/Inkan tradition, and I have encountered the years 2011 and 2012 identified as significant years in dozens of messages from higher dimensional sources. The date of October 28, 2011 has received a lot of press lately. I interpret the multiplicity of dates as messages from Spirit to honor them all, but not become overly attached to any single one. Remember: anticipation, not expectation!

Earth Changes: We Are Making a Difference. So many websites are available that provide valuable information about the Great Shift/Awakening/Transformation in human consciousness that is underway, I've been thinking about where my work fits in. There are still many websites that seem to be tapping into the energy of the old timeline, which involves catastrophic Earth changes. This is not surprising because that was the probable timeline for thousands of years so those with precognitive abilities can still easily tap into it. In addition to the two-word summary above, I would summarize my Great Shift messsage in two sentances as:

1. In the late 1980s (I use the Harmonic Covergence in August 1987 as a convenient reference point, but it wasn't the only significant event), human consciousness reached a critical threshold that changed the timeline for the dimensional shift that humans and planet Earth were scheduled to make somewhere around 2012 so that a great dying of humans as part of the process was no longer necessary.
   
   
2. Major geophysical stresses (earthquakes, volcanoes, extreme weather events) are a normal part of a planetary dimensional shift, but humanity has reached a level of consciousness that allows us to modify the location, timing and intensity of geophysical stresses so as to minimize harm to all Livng Beings on the the planet.

You won't find this perspective expressed quite in this way in many other places, and my training as a geologist has made it possible for me to provide solid geophysical and astrophysical data in support of the second point (see Chapter 5, Geophysical Signs That a Shift is Happening). I will offer several bits of preliminary evidence that we continue to make a difference in this respect. If the rate of occurence of major earthquakes (6.1 and greater) in the first quarter of this year continues, the total number will run 70 to 90 percent that of 2006 in the two databases that I monitor. On February 22, much to the surprise of geophysicists, a 7.4 earthquake occured off the north coast of Madagascar, causing minimal harm (the devastating Pakistan earthquake last year was 7.6). On March 31 Iran experienced a 6.1 earthquake with less than one hundred deaths reported. In 1990 a 7.7 earthquake in Iran killed 40,000 to 50,000 and in 2003 more than 26,000 people were killed by a 6.6 earthquake.

Lately Spirit has been guiding me to spend most of my time working with Earth energies to ease geophysical and human emotional stresses. In Newsletter #3 I invited readers of the Great Shift Newsletter to join me in this work by joining the Earth Energy Healing Network. I extend this invitation again. The latest EEH Newsletter reports on recent developments in this work: www.earthenergyhealing.org/EEHNewsletter.htm.

The Great Shift: Coming Major Milestones. Although I am unwilling to attach my anticipation to any particular dates my research has led me identify a number of major future milestones that are likely to provide visible manifestation in third dimensional reality that the Shift is happening:

1. The ability of what I call the EFITLO (Earth Friends in the Loyal Opposition--see Appendix C, Section C2.4) to control and manipulate the masses of humanity with deception and fear is rapidly weakening from my perspective. So far the mainstream media have only reported cracks in this facade. A major milestone will be reached when the crimes of those in the highest places in government, business and religious institutions are fully exposed for all to see, and justice is served by holding these folks accountable for their actions. Perhaps milestone is too precise a metaphor, lets say that when it is evident that this is really happening we will be in the penultimate lap (the lap before the last lap). Closely related to this process will be the realization that our global economic system, which has been manipulated for hundreds of years for the benefit of the few is a sham. Collapse of this system will pave the way for untold thousands of postively polarized awakened and soon-to-awaken souls who are quietly waiting at all levels of governmental and commerical institutions to transform these institutions so that they serve the highest good all rather than the few.
   
   
2. The many incarnated Starseed souls have been waiting for what they call First Contact for a long time. This is someting of a misnomer because many people have been in contact with what I call the Beneficial Extraterrestrial Organizations (BETOs--Chapter 6, Section 6.2.4). I will consider the last lap to have started when the BETOs present themselves in a way that even the most died-in-the-wool materialists cannot deny. I say start of the last lap because they will do this only when humanity as a whole is ready to react without fear, and without looking upon them as gods or superior Beings who will take care of the mess we have made of this planet. WE have the primary responsibility to heal our relationships and the harm we have done to Mother Earth. However, when the BETOs go public, they can serve as mentors and partners in this process, and have technologies to share with us that will allow us to very quickly stop the harm we do by using nonrenewable resources and overharvesting renewable resources.

I have gone into some detail here because as I note below, I'm sure sure when, or if I will finish Chapter 7 of the Great Shift book that says the above. It is possible that these milestones/laps may happen sooner, so I offer the above as something to anticipate, but not to expect.

Spirit Has Thrown Me A Curveball When I Expected a Fastball. Lately I have been receiving quite a few emails asking when the Great Shift book will be published. In several places in the website I have noted that publication date is to be determined by Spirit. In the last Newsletter I made the mistake of developing some expectations and said I felt like I was coming down the home stretch for finishing Volume I. A brick wall suddenly appeared on the home stretch when I developed a case of severe writer's block working on Chapter 7. I won't bore you with the details, but in many ways Spirit has given me the message that I am to let go any expectations concerning completion of the book. When or even if the book is finished is truely in the hands of Spirit, and I'm not even sure Spirit knows how this is going to go because the energies on Earth that are supporting the Great Shift are changing so rapidly. Lately I have been proceeding from task to task, often not knowing what the next task assignment will be until the current one is comleted. It turns out that most of the tasks lately relate to my Earth energy work, so that seems to be the most important thing for me to be doing at this time. However, Spirit has indicated that those who have been reading the draft material for the book can help guide the future direction of work on the Great Shift project by giving me feedback on a few specific questions:

1. My plan had been to finish Chapters 7 and 8 and publish Volume I as soon as possible. Lately I have been getting more requests for Chapters that have been finished in Volume II. What should be the priorities for writing remaining Chapters of the project? Let me know what you would like to see next.
   
   
2. How useful are the extended reference lists at the end of many chapters and the table that provides an index for them?
   
   
3. In the introduction I say that I have defied the conventional wisdom by writing for two different audiences--skeptics and believers in a multidimensional reality that is much larger than our physical senses are able to perceive. From your perspective have I been able to do this?

Please send me an email if you would like to offer any responses: jrb47@bluemarble.net.

Blessings, Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #4
February 2006

Dear friends,

This is just a short note to let you know that Chapter 5 (Geophysical Signs That A Shift is Happening) is available for review: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/request_info.php. It feels like I'm coming down the home stretch for finishing Volume I, and hope to have Chapter 7 (Understanding the Shift (II): Time, Space, Great Cycles and the Positive Probable Timeline for Planet Earth) ready in a month or so.

Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #3
January 2006

Dear friends,

Its a while since you have heard from me and a lot has happened.

New Appendix Available: Appendix C, Catastrophic Earth Changes and Other Scary Things is now available for review: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/request_info.php. I explain below why it has taken so long to get this written. Among other things, this Appendix analyzes the various Earth change maps that have been around since the 1970s for evidence in support of my thesis that the timeline shift in 1987 means that catastrophic Earth changes are no longer a necessary part of the Great Shift. I also propose a numerical threshold for defining a catastrophic event. My proposed quantitative criteria, and the basis on which I developed these criteria, can also be found on the No Catatstrophic Earth Changes page. I welcome discussion of these criteria. Spirit willing, I will be finishing Chapter 5 soon (Geophysical Signs that a Shift is Happening), and I hope the remaining two chapters of Volume I will be completed without further delays.

Earth Changes in 2005: The Year In Review. I am writing this Newsletter on January 18, the anniversary of the day that the Mayan Elders called for people around the planet to focus on Mother Earth, because they foresaw a difficult year for her and humanity. It was this call from the Mayan Elders that prompted me to share on the internet for the first time my work that supports the idea that we (humanity) have reached a level of collective consciousness that makes it possible to release geophysical and other stresses in a way that minimizes harm. The positive response I received from individuals around the world to my initial communication prompted me to create the Great Shift website. My sense is that we did make a big difference last year. To give you one specific example, in mid-October the Indian spiritual leader Siva Baba (not to be confused with Sai Baba) predicted that the months October through December would be "quite disastrous" with floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires making a huge impact on the lives of people all over the world. Based on Vedic astrology he identifed 8 specific one- to three-day periods for extra prayer so as to "minimize the destruction." Major earthquakes (>6.1) occured during five of these periods, but none was located in a place where it caused significant harm. Below is a review of geophysical events during this past year.

Earthquake Activity. The USGS/NEIC PDE database (searched January 18, 2006) indicates that 139 major earthquakes (6.1 or greater) happened in 2005. Only three other years have had a greater occurrence since 1972 (1992, 1995, 1996). There were 1821 earthquakes in the 5.0 to 6.0 range, this is the highest on record, but not high enough to change the long-term flat trend line. What was phenomenal, however, was the number of earthquakes in the 4.0-4.9 range: 13,684. This is almost 2,700 more than 2004, which in turn was 2,500 more than 2003. For me, this is some of the most dramatic evidence that major geophysical stresses are being released so as to minimize harm. I have to acknowledge the tragic Pakistan earthquake which killed more than 80,000 people. This is three orders of magnitude below my definition of a catastrophic event, and ranks eighth in the last 100 years for number of people killed.

Tornados. The Natonal Weather Service reported 1169 tornados in 2005, well below the record-setting 1722 reported in 2004, but not far from the average of around 1200 since 1990. The NWS has compiled systematic data on "killer tornados" (ones which cause deaths) going back to 1997. Since 1997 there appears to be a downward trend in the number of killer tornoados, from a high of 35 in 1998 to an all-time low of 12 in 2005.

Hurricanes. 2005 was a record-breaking year for tropical storms and hurricanes in all respects. It has never happened before that weather forecasters had to go through all the letters of the alphabet to name tropical storms and hurricanes and then go into the Greek alphabet. By the end of the year six letters in the Greek alphabet had also been used. The Gulf Coast received a one-two punch from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and hurricane Wilma was the strongest ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. I interpret the remarkably low official death tolls from these hurricanes (around 1300 for Katrina, 70 for Rita, and several dozen for Wilma) as consistent my thesis that geophysical stresses are being released in a way so as to minimize harm.

Volcanoes. Statistics for the total number of active volcanoes are not yet readily available for 2005, but I find it notable that despite ongoing predictions of catastrophic volcanic activity on the web, there were no dramatic eruptions in 2005.

A Note About Death Statistics . I do not mean to sound callous when I noted that the deaths from the Pakistan earthquake did not "qualify" as catastrophic. Every death and every natural and human-created disaster can be understood as a test which provides us with an opportunity to open our hearts and respond with love and compassion to the living who feel pain and experience suffering. The Tsunami in 2004, hurricane Katrina, and the Pakistan earthquake were huge tests, and from my perspective humanity has passed all three with flying colors. As I explain in Chapter 6 (Section 6.2.3, Why Do the Innocent Suffer?), there is nothing final about the death of the physical body, it is simply a transition. When I speak of modifying the effect of geophysical stress release so as to minimize harm, and use human death statistics as a measure of harm, I do no mean to imply that death is harmful, per se. I use the phrase "minimize harm" as a short-hand for "minimize deaths, so that the maximum number of humans alive on the planet today can make the Great Shift."

Earth Changes Outlook for 2006: The Mayan Elders are predicting another "Hard Year" (Earth Changes TV Newsletter January 9, 2006), and this is consistent with information I am seeing from other higher dimensional sources that suggest we are still in the phase of the dimensional shift where major geophysical stresses need to be released. Our collective human capacity at the conscious and superconscious level continues to grow so that we are able to shift the location, timing, and intensity of these events so as to minimize harm. To give you another example that we are making a difference. Siva Baba (who I mentioned above) has predicted that one-third of India will undergo intense suffering from a wide-spread disaster--earthquake, fire, tornados, floods, etc. and identified the period January 12-18th as a prime time for this to happen. I actually delayed sending this Newsletter out to see what would happen and as far as I can tell nothing unusual happened during this period.

Invitation to Join the Earth Energy Healing Network: One of the reasons it has taken me a while to finish Appendix C is that most of my energies were focused on supporting Mother Earth during November and December in her own energetic shifts. My Earth energy healing work is where I walk my talk in helping ease geophysical and other stresses related to the dimensional shift. Since November I have been experimenting with ways for others to participate in this sacred work, and they are well enough established now that I invite anyone who has felt drawn to my Great Shift work to visit my second website and consider joining the Earth Energy Healing Network: www.earthenergyhealing.org/EEHNetwork.htm.

Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #2
September 2005

Dear friends,

New Chapter Available: Chapter 6, Understanding the Shift (I): The Game of Duality and the Possible Human, is now available for review: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/request_info.php. One of my personal challenges in writing this book has been letting go of my rational left-brain desire to follow a logical sequence and write this book in a linear fashion. I am now working on Appendix C (Catastrophic Earth Changes and Other Scary Things).

New Geophysical Data Graph Posted: Evidence of Increased Volcanic Activity: The latest posting in the Earth Changes page of my website presents evidence that geophysical stresses related to Earth's dimensional shift has resulted in increased volcanic activity: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/ECgraph2.htm

Getting Grounded. I have observed that many Lightworkers have moved into levels of consciousness that makes it challenging for them to remain grounded in third dimensional reality. As our personal energy fields open up and the dimensional distinctions blur it is important that we continue to anchor these energies in the third dimension until many more people are ready to make the Shift. One indication that we are well into the Shift energetically is that the old general dietary guidelines no longer apply. Protein, especially meat, can help ground the physical body and some long-time vegetarians I know report feeling a need to eat meat. For many years I have had mostly vegetarian leanings and have avoided red meat. Lately I have experienced an occasional craving for pepperoni pizza! Each person is different so I suggest that we all pay close attention to what our bodies say they need for sustenance.
Common symptons of a lack of grounding are dizziness, light-headedness and feeling a lack of focus or spaciness. Getting out into nature is a wonderful way to stay grounded--walk barefoot, hug a tree. A grounding exercise that can be done anywhere is to take a few deep breathes and visualize a stream of energy flowing freely from the Cosmos to the crown of your head through your body to your feet and moving deep into the Earth.

Love and Light, Russell

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Great Shift/Earth Changes Update Newsletter #1
August, 2005

Dear friends,

This is the first of an occasional informal newsletter that will provide updates on the status of the Great Shift Manuscript and earth changes associated with the planetary dimensional shift. You are receiving this if you have requested the summary or chapters from the Great Shift website or sent me a comment as a result of visiting the site. If you do not want to receive future newsletters follow the instructions at the bottom of the page. Future newsletters will only go to those who sign up.

Two New Chapters Available: Chapter 3 (Scientific Framework for Understanding the Shift (II): Social Science and Direct Observation Using High Sense Perception) and Chapter 4 (Scientific Framework for Understanding the Shift (III): Direct Communication From Higher Dimensions) are now available for review: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/request_info.php

New Earthquake Data Graph Posted. With each newsletter I will be provding a link to new geophysical or astrophysical data graphs and commentary that I have added to the Great Shift website. This posting relates to the frequency of lower intensity earthquakes since 1973: www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/ECgraph1.htm

Opportunity to Support the Shift. I will be continuing to present evidence that collectively human consciousness has reached a level that allows us to shift the location and modify the intensity of geophysicl and astrophysical stresses associated with the coming dimensional shift so as to minimize harm to humans and other life on the planet. Some of you received an email I sent in May indicating that higher dimensional sources were forseeing serious geophysical stresses on the western coast of North America in June. That month saw exceptional earthquake activity in California, but the most intense quakes were off the coast, doing minimal harm, with many less damaging quakes occurring in the 4 and 5 magnitude range. I take these events as further confirmation of my reduced geophysical harm hypotheses.
Many around the planet have been uniting their intentions to reduce human suffering through human action, and I would like to offer a specific call for action that I feel is worthy of support from a Lightworker named Triaka:

As often as practicable, focus intense thought energy on affirming...
(1) WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ARE HEREBY NEUTRALIZED!
(2) THEY WILL NOT FIRE ON COMMAND!
(3) SO BE IT AND SO IT IS!
Note: Visualize all nuclear, biological, chemical and other explosive material of mass destruction as "neutralized, rendered ineffective and immune". This is a first step as we seek specific WMD locations. Planetary Activation Center Peacemakers Corps http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peacemakerscorps

That's all for now.

Love and Light, Russell

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Newsletter Index

Newsletter #42 (September 14, 2011),Newsletter #41 (March 20, 2011), Newsletter #40 (December 21, 2010), Newsletter #39 (September 1, 2010), Newsletter #38 (June 27, 2010), Newsletter #37 (May 24, 2010), Newsletter #36 (February-March, 2010), Newsletter #35 (January, 2010), Newsletter #34 (December, 2009), Newsletter #33 (September, 2009), Newsletter #32 (June, 2009), Newsletter #31 (April, 2009), Newsletter #30 (March, 2009), Newsletter #29 (February, 2009), Newsletter #28 (January, 2009), Newsletter #27 (October, 2008), Newsletter #26 (July, 2008), Newsletter #25 (Late-May 2008), Newsletter #24 (April 2008), Newsletter #23 (February 2008), Newsletter #22 (January 2008), Newsletter #21 (December 2007), Newsletter #20 (November 2007), Newsletter #19 (October 2007), Newsletter #18 (September 2007), Newsletter #17 (August 2007), Newsletter #16 (July 2007), Newsletter #15 (May 2007), Newsletter #14 (January 2007), Newsletter #13 (December 2006), Newsletter #12 (November 2006), Newsletter #11 (October 2006), Newsletter #10 (September 2006), Newsletter #9 (August 2006), Newsletter #8 (July 2006), Newsletter #7 (June 2006), Newsletter #6 (May 2006), Newsletter #5 (April 2006), Newsletter #4 (February 2006), Newsletter #3 (January 2006), Newsletter #2 (September 2005), Newsletter #1 (August 2005)

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What's Happening

Upcoming Lectures and Workshops (none scheduled at this time).

If you would like to know more about my work providing energetic support to the Great Shift, or would be interested in sponsoring a lecture or a workshop, please visit my second website: www.earthenergyhealing.org.

No Workshops or lectures scheduled at this time.

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Past Lectures and Workshops

Lecture: Cosmic. Global and Personal Aspects of the Coming Dimensional Shift in Human Consciousness Hoot Owl Attic, Atlanta, GA, October 13, 2005.

Workshop: Working with the Energies of the Great Shift for Personal and Planetary Healing, Atlanta, GA, Saturday, October 15 2005.

Lecture: Higher Dimensional Support for Humanity and Planet Earth's Coming Dimensional Shift. Crystal Visions Books, Naples, NC, October 17, 2005.

Workshop: Expanding Consciousness: World in Transition Creating Harmony and Peace in the Midst of Chaos Barbara Brodsky and Aaron with Russell Boulding, September 9 to 11, 2005, Michigan Friends Center, Chelsea, MI. Sponsored by Deep Spring Meditation Center, Ann Arbor: www.deepspring.org

Workshop: Working With the Energies of the New Atlantis and Lemuria, Earthland, Petersham, MA, July 16, 2005
Lecture: A Geologist's Perspective on Geophysical Aspects of the Great Shift, Northampton Friends Meetinghouse, Northampton, MA, July 15, 2005

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