Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Here at Media Spin we are compulsive collectors of media. Digital archiving started over 20 years ago, and recently we uncovered a huge stash of rare old gems. There are many unusual finds, such as the above cover of an early girly mag test run by a struggling Hugh Hefner.

Here’s a good one. How cool would it be to have a job making up good intelligence, news stories and “strategic communications” for the U.S. Government to feed the unwary public? That’s what The Rendon Group does, and you can too! They’ve helped sell us rubes on the last couple of Gulf Wars and that’s only the beginning.

Hers’ a stunning find… Martha Stewart’s lesser known sister, Celeste. Her dedication to office work kept her out of the kitchen and out of Martha’s way. There are many more of these that still are being sorted out. Sorry, still no early Oprah photos.

It is with great anticipation and delight that I look forward to meeting the author of a book I am reading, The Reluctant Shaman by Kay Cordell Whitaker. She is currently on a tour, promoting her new book Sacred Link, and is scheduled to be at East West Bookstore in Mountain View on October 28th and Black Oak Books in Berkeley on Sunday, October 30. Kay’s full schedule is at her web site, A World In Balance.

My first introduction to writings on shamanism were the Carlos Castaneda booksdescibing his travels into the Mexican desert and apprenticeship under the mysterious Yaqui Indian teacher, don Juan Mateus. Unlike Castaneda’s experience, Whitaker’s Peruvian teachers, Chea and Domano Hetaka, introduced themselves and taught her on her home turf in Santa Cruz, California. Whitaker’s writing is far more accessible than Castaneda’s including practical homework lessons given to her in logical steps by her teachers. Castaneda gave much attention to building personal power in order to escape the bounds of the ordinary world of reality. The Hetekas express a greater mission through their teachings: by finding your own song, you contribute to awakening society in order to bring about global healing. Spiritual joys experienced along the way just happen to be a plus.

From Kay’s web site, A World In Balance…

This work is my Path. This is what
I came here to do, to participate in helping
the world, my community, my people. To do that,
I had to first find out about me, help me, heal me,
learn who and what I am, and how I connect
to the whole world. Once I was able to do that,
I had the tools to help someone else.

As the Hetakas have often said to me, it is for each person to objectively reexamine deep inside themselves, their beliefs, their values, and their world, to find THEIR OWN TRUTH – whatever that may be.