As the world knows – Russia began an invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February. The media outlets, including the alternative news channels, have increasingly made it difficult to know the truth of why this is happening. The stream of news today has pitched Russian president Putin as the bad guy, and Ukraine president Zelensky as the good guy; however, how can any of us sit in judgment of this situation without knowing the actual truth? The bottom line is that there are people on both sides, Russian and Ukrainian that are suffering and dying because of the current situation. Most of the world is greatly separated from this conflict, and are only feeling the pain of rising costs and effects of the financial markets. But it seems easy to judge from a distance because most of us do not have a war on our doorsteps, but conflict can easily find its way to us, and it has. This conflict is not just a problem that is resident with Russia and Ukraine but lies with the entire population of the planet. Those of us that are not directly involved in this conflict still have an obligation to support all those involved in this catastrophe. I have spent a lot of time in the military, and the pathway of conflict is simple. If you are the gunner, then shoot. If you are not the gunner, then load the weapon. If you are not the loader, then supply the loader. If you are the supplier, then support in any way you can. Everyone has a part in the mission, and we should all be doing our part. Our part does not come through fighting against the war and the politics involved with this action, for what we fight, we become. If we are fighting against those who wage war, then we are no better than those who are doing the fighting. Even Mother Teresa stated that she would never support a rally against war, but would wholeheartedly support a peace rally. We must become the change that we are seeking, and not fight the same thing that we are trying to change. Many religious writings suggest and state that gathering together with others can multiply the outcome of change. There is absolutely something that we can do from afar that can affect the outcome of this conflict, and I challenge each of you to find time each day towards this change for peace, love, and safety of ALL those involved in this conflict. We must also include those leaders that have effectively incited this operation and are now perpetuating this into a grand scale of suffering. We should remember that even high-level leaders are only human and are acting through the lens of the human emotion program, just like everyone else on this planet. I challenge everyone on this planet to take time daily, even if it is a few minutes, to lift up the positive energy for all the people of Russia and Ukraine. There are many methods to lift the positive vibration of this situation – some folks will meditate, some folks will invoke ascended masters and saints, some will pray to their God, and others will work through established rituals. No matter how you perceive raising and sending positive energy across the planet, we need to bond together in this effort to positively affect the outcome of this war and establish peace, love, and safety of all those who are suffering at the hands of this war. Take time today, right now, and lift these human beings up and change the energy of this conflict!!!

There are many varied ways to argue about the existence of “Free Will” or what some refer to as choice. A classic rock band, named Rush, said it most profoundly in one of their popular songs; “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”. Having the ability to avoid making a choice appears to be a very difficult concept indeed. I propose that free will exists and that we always have a choice. There are many definitions for the problem of free will. Some philosophers believe that free will is the ability to make choices for the outcome of our life and that our choices are not determined by events in our past. For example, a compatibilist believes in determinism while also believing that free will plays a part in this equation. An incompatibilist believes that determinism is false and that free will is possible; that free will and determinism are incompatible. Metaphysical libertinism states that choices can be made but only within a certain parameter of conditions. Other theories that include free will in some way are deliberative indeterminism, centered accounts, efforts of will theory, hard incompatibilism, soft determinism, and classical libertarianism. I can go on for many paragraphs regarding the numerous beliefs regarding how free will is defined by philosophers. However, I will choose to focus on determinism as it relates to the problem of free will. There are others that suggest that there is only one course of events that is possible which is not consistent with free will. Those that believe that there is no such thing as free will are called determinists. A determinist believes that all actions and events are determined in advance and that there really is no choice to be made because everything is clear-cut destiny. Determinism then is not just contained within our physical existence but with all reality and all time. This doctrine even extends to not only our future events but our past events as well. Essentially a determinist believes that if you change one thing from the past or the future, you change it all. Determinism has also been discussed amongst philosophers who have different views and I shall provide some definitions. Biological determinism is the belief that our actions are fixed by our genetics. Behavioral determinism states our actions are only reflexes that are conditioned by our environment. Cultural determinism is the belief that our culture determines who we become. Environmental determinism states that the environment determines our culture and what we become. Casual determination means that everything is causal based on our past conditions there making it impossible for anything else to happen. Logical determinism shows that our past, present, or future are either false or true. Theological determinism is a belief that we have a preordained path that is being directed by a creator. Once again, even determinism has a tremendous number of fractured beliefs, and I could discuss each facet for a very long time. You can see from my rhetoric that there is an abundance of different ways to define free within a multitude of different beliefs. It should be obvious that with all these approaches to the free will dilemma, I have to make a choice. If I did not have free will then I could not make a choice in this matter, so contrarily, I could not make a choice if I did not have all these options. It seems obvious that choices and options are inherently needed at the same time. A determinist would like for us to believe that everything in our life, every decision, every action, every feeling, absolutely everything about our lives has already been decided in advance. In this respect a determinist says that everything about us is totally and completely out of our control, even my choice to write the words that I am writing. Interestingly enough, a determinist has the free will to decide to believe in his own belief or to choose another belief. I would argue that our free will starts before we are ever born into this world. The belief in reincarnation has long been held by most countries of the world; this belief is gaining acceptance in western countries. Let’s assume for augment’s sake that reincarnation is an actual phenomenon and that we choose our life path before we return again. Before being reincarnated, we are provided the free will to choose what experience we want to have when we return. Once we are here on this earth plane, we are still given the blessing of free will. There are certain key experiences that are marked for us to take part in, our free will governs how fast we arrive at these experiences, how slow we arrive, or if we arrive at all. We are then expected to learn and grow from these experiences and how free will affects this path. How could determinism possibly fit into an equation like this? There is also a prominent philosopher that aligns with this belief in a slightly different way. Thomas Aquinas believes that humans are preprogrammed for goals and are given the ability to choose what route or routes serve best to reach these goals. Essentially this philosopher is stating the same notion, giving it a different label than reincarnation, yet reaching the same conclusion. Free will is impossible to remove from human beings. Even if someone is chained to a floor and cannot move, they still have the free will to make choices, they still can decide and make choices about anything they want. There may be physical constraints that make some decisions impossible to act on even when a choice to get up is still entirely possible. In this particular situation, this person still has the free will to make something happen; their free will still cause neurons to fire and synapses to connect. Is this not free will? Doesn’t this person still have the ability to choose for this action to happen even when he is constrained? Hence, we can never truly remove free will from any equation or belief.

I am a hypnosis practitioner and it seems that I hear and learn something new during every session that I conduct. The awesome thing about hypnosis work is that we are working a deep subconscious level and connecting purely to the spiritual world. With this type of connection, we are receiving information and guidance from outside of ourselves and removing the human dimension from the equation. In this way, there is no opportunity to distort the information based on our inherent human beliefs and emotions. I am also a psychic medium, and I realize that information that I connect to in the spiritual realm, still has to be processed through my own perceptions, and can at times be altered from the pure message. I am not saying that receiving information through a human mind will always be distorted; however, I am saying that there is always a chance that our own values and concepts may skew how we interpret the information that is coming through us. Recently, I performed a hypnosis session that provided me with some additional insight and helped me strengthen what I already believed for myself. During hypnosis, questions are asked through the client, who is connected to the spiritual world through their subconscious; and the answers are also answered through their subconscious and verbalized by the client. One of the questions raised during this session was: “Even though I physically sleep well, and for a long time, why do I always wake up exhausted as if I have been working mentally all night?” I feel like I already knew the answer, but to hear it from the spiritual world solidified and etched this answer onto my heart. To summarize the response, the spirit world informed the client that they were spending all her sleep time teaching her, mentoring her, showing her past lives, and upgrading their mind. They continued by saying that if the client would simply trust and learn to listen to them in a conscious and awake state, they would not have to bother her at night while they were sleeping. The was likely the best question and answer that I have received over all my years of performing hypnosis. What I truly understand about this message, is that no matter if you are consciously trying to evolve as a human, you will still be evolved by the spiritual world. In other words, whatever you are supposed to become, no matter what you are supposed to do, and no matter what you are supposed to learn – you will learn it at some level regardless. I personally like to wake up feeling rested and don’t want to have to learn things the hard way. Learning to listen to the spiritual world, then learn to trust spirit, is a simple process, yet is not necessarily an easy thing to do. We truly have a choice of how we are going to evolve, we can volunteer, or we can be voluntold!!!