The Whistle of the Condor

  Rondador (panpipe) is one of the oldest instruments played in Latin America. It is a wind instrument made of condor feathers, bamboo and cotton string. When played, its pure sound echoes across the Andean mountain peaks where the condors fly. A well-known folk song played with this instrument is “El Condor Pasa”.  In the original lyrics, an allegory is made to the condor flying high above in the sky as the symbol of freedom and dignity. As flying, he looks at the Andean miners working below and his flight becomes the miners’ aspiration for freedom and a dignified life.

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Hypnos, the God of Sleep and his Powers

The story of how Hypnos, the god of sleep made Zeus fall asleep and how the Greeks went across the Aegean and won the  Trojan war. The Greek god Hypnos was represented as a gentle and calm young man, with wings attached to his temples. His voice had enormous power over the mortals and immortals including Zeus, the god of the gods. The word hypnosis derived from his name is used today as a psychological method to put someone into a deeper state of consciousness where pure attention is heightened. When conducted properly into this state of mind, one can

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The Magnetic Power of Music

    “ Certain sounds boost attention and facilitate remembering at deeper levels of consciousness.” Music, bringing a unique pleasure to humans for ages continues to engage us with its captivating power in ways which remain unknown. When we listen to a piece we like, we are affectively engaged to it and its melody may cause us to have chills, or fire a dopamine rush leading to an emotional peak.  Another piece may be calming and attuning one to a desired state of well-being. Depending on the context, the musician, the psyche of the listener and possibly other factors not

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The powerful improvisation of Pink Floyd Kindles Echoes in the Heart

  Echos Lyrics: Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves The echo of a distant tide Comes willowing across the sand And everything is green and submarine And no one showed us to the land And no one knows the whereas or whys But something stirs and something tries And starts to climb towards the light Strangers passing in the street By chance two separate glances meet And I am you and what I see is me And do I take you by the hand And lead you

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The Inner Dialogue with Our Unique Friend

    Inner dialogue with oneself is an essential human condition states psychologist and anthropologist Victor Rosenthal, in his recent book Somebody is Talking. Murmuring, noisy, intuitive, singing, liberating, the conversation made with oneself is the characteristic of all human beings. From an early age on, one speaks to himself without any external trigger, relentlessly accommodates and comforts himself … in the form of talking aloud either through objects or directly with oneself… It allows us to reflect, to come back to our self while distinguishing us from our environment, and helps us to develop our sense of discernment for

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The Subliminal Patterns Behind Perception

  The impact of our perceptual patterns on the way we navigate the “self” has always been a cornerstone in understanding human behavior. Long before neuroscience started thought experiments on the nature reality, W. James put forward “ our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to perceive ” and that, in effect, shapes the world around us.  C. Jung, firmly believing  “ unconscious is our great guide ”, he proclaimed that the information stored in the unconscious plays up in decoding the world, and the manifestation of the self out there. It happens in daily

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Helen Keller on Knowledge and Optimism

  “ The world is sown with good but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good. The desire and will to work is optimism itself. ”   Helen Keller (June 27, 1880–June 1, 1968), the outstanding woman who grew up without sight or hearing, in her quest for knowing she not only became learned in philosophy, history, math, science and world matters, but also became an intellectual activist, a “doer” for the good of humankind, and the society at large. She recounts the transforming experience

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How One Gains Resilience

  “Resilience across writing is a good way to get out of the fog and light up your life” says Boris Cyrulnik, neuropsychiatrist and writer, having lost both his parents at the age of five, is a living model of how one develops resilience and can overcome the major dramas of life. When the word “resilience” was first used in physics it referred to a body’s ability to absorb an impact. Transformed to the human psyche, it is the capacity to transcend from traumatic experiences.  Brené Brown defines resilience as a character quality “ it is how we fold our

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