How to Make a Skin-Nourishing Herbal Salve

Reblogged from herban lifestyle:

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If you have a yard, chances are you are growing the ingredients for a skin soothing herbal infusion without even trying! Plantain (Plantago major) is considered a weed, but it also contains natural constituents that are wonderful for your skin. Violet (Viola odorata) leaves are in the same category (not to mention that the flowers are delicious in…

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This is fantastic! As someone who lives with eczema, acne, and sensitive skin, I can truly appreciate this. I think I'll make some in the spring!

Back Through the Portal

Happy New Year!

OH MAN, has it been too long!  And I mean way too long.  I apologize for that!  KEPRI is back and blogging after a long hiatus and this time we’re better than ever.  We had an interesting 2012, full of both hardship and awesome.

The best part of last year was most definitely Megalithomania.  Andrew and I proudly attended (and photographed) the conference in Glastonbury, England and had one hell of a time!  It was a lot of fun and an unforgettable experience.  The speakers were fascinating and we met so many awesome people!

The most amazing part of this exciting trip was visiting Stonehenge at sunset.  We had the great honor of being inside the Henge for an hour, led by guide and Megalithomania guest speaker, Robin Heath.  His knowledge, energy and humorous, friendly personality made for a truly educational experience.  Believe me when I say there is nothing quite like standing inside the ancient stone circle, embraced by its energy, watching the sun sink below the horizon.  It is truly magnificent.

We made a lot of friends on that trip, discovered many things, and can’t wait to go back!  An enormous thank you goes out to Hugh Newman and Sheena Gaskell.  You guys are truly generous and two of the most awesome people I know.  Love ya both!

Moving into the Year of the Serpent, we have already seen good luck!  Today we were invited to attend Roc-Con Sci-Fi Convention in April.  KEPRI will be there delivering a panel and we couldn’t be more excited!  I will update with the subject matter once it gets closer to the date.

We also have plans to deliver more talks this year, raising awareness of Chamber preservation.

Best wishes, everyone and cheers to a happy and successful 2013!

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The Chambers of Put County

Happy Beltane, everyone!

WOW, It’s been a long time since this thing was updated!  Sorry about that, folks.  Life kinda got in the way.  But now we’re back in business and blogging can once again commence!

Perhaps the nicest thing about today was my visit to Nimham.  I went with a friend and left a few offerings at the Chamber.  It being her first time on the mountain, we of course went to the Tower.  For me, any day that I visit Nimham is a good day.

Another pleasantry was the conversation had with another friend who is doing a school journalism project on the stone chambers.  He has been working with us and others to complete his report, which focuses on the culture surrounding the chambers.  It’s not a story on who built them for what purpose and when.  It’s the story of how they influence our lives.

I’d like to point out that Putnam County, NY has the highest concentration of stone chambers in the world.  There are chambers in other states including CT, MA, VT, NH, NJ, and rumors of chambers in Ohio and Maine.  What gets me is the fact that whenever they are mentioned, especially in publications like Ancient American Magazine, New England seems to be the top priotity, with little mention of New York.  It’s more than a little odd, considering we host a good majority of their dwindling population.  What’s more, we here in New York have a unique surrounding culture.

Never have I seen people get more fired up than when they are debating the origins and fate of a number of small stone buildings.  They have been the cause of arguments, debates, spiteful slander, and nasty rumors.  They’ve divided organizations, stopped building projects, ended friendships, and given the town of Kent a headache.  But more than that, they have brought people together.  The chambers spark intriuging conversation and provide picturesque places to visit.  They have united generations and formed unlikely friendships and alliances over a common goal: their permenent protection and preservation.

The chambers invoke so much emotion in the simple fact that they exist.

Blame it on small town politics, but they have created quite a stir here in the Hudson Valley.  What’s even more interesting is the wide variety of folks the chambers attract.  Most are average every day people intrigued by their archaic appearance.  Some of these people are lucky enough to have one sitting unsuspectingly in their backyard, most likely serving as a tool shed.  Over the past few decades the chambers have been visited by historians, paranormal investigators, writers seeking inspiration, journalists, photographers, druids, and people just searching for something to believe in.  They have been praised by pre-Colombian sleuths and all but shunned by archaeologists.

To be continued…

The Legend of the ’84 UFO

*It is important to note that the title of this post refers only to the stories I heard from my father as a child.  The sightings you are about to read took place between 1982 and 1995.  My father’s sighting was in 1984, on the night that the largest sighting on record took place.

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Listen close as I weave you a tale of mystery, intrigue, and aliens.  This is the story of the Hudson Valley UFO flap, which is one of the largest series of sightings in history.  A good number of people witnessed these events, with a record breaking seven thousand plus in one night.  Not only did these sightings result in the largest (and most impromptu) UFO convention on record, it left behind a legacy of bewilderment and fascination that continues to this day.  Surprisingly, this has also been one of the most forgotten chapters in our history here in the Hudson Valley and in Ufology.  Here I present the facts of the case and its unlikely historical connections.  Our legend begins on a cold New Year’s Eve, thirty years ago…

Hey, I never got to writing this today, so check out this link and I promise it’ll be up tomorrow!

Extraterrestrial Contacts in the Hudson Valley, NY

HAPPY 2012!!!!

Megalithomania DVD’s

Check it out!  If you’re interested in what all went down at the October conference, the DVD’s are now for sale!  We’re even credited on the site for the photography. 

Megalithomania DVD’s, downloads, and more…

Seasons Greetings

Happy Winter Solstice to All!

Winter Solstice Chamber

Today KEPRI celebrated by visiting the Winter Solstice Chamber in Kent.  Every year the sun comes up and frames the doorway in light.  It is quite a spectacular event and well worth the early rise.  The group was made up of Renée, Andrew, Hugh, his girlfriend Sheena, and a Meetup group member, Tommy.  We raced against the sun to get there and made it in perfect time to watch the entire thing take place.  After the sun rose, we made our way to the collapsing Equinox Chamber and then to Mother Earth.  We were just in time to catch the sun framing the doorway of this one, too.  None of us were aware that Mother Earth was a Solstice sunrise chamber, but as luck would have it, she is!  This lasted just long enough for us all to enjoy and photograph, before the clouds rolled in.  It was almost as if it waited!

After our adventure at the Meade Farm we tried the new deli across from Farmers Mills rd.  Turns out they used to be across the street for about 13 years!  The people were very friendly, the food was good, and the pastries looked awesome.  Much better than settling for Dunkin.

Our last stop was Nimham.  Since we were all a little tired we spent only a few minutes visiting the Chamber.  Hugh burned some South American fragrant wood as incense there, like he had at the other chambers.  It smelled wonderfully earthy and it is said that this scent is very attractive to spirits.  We didn’t have any encounters, but it added to the whole experience.  It was lovely up there as always and Andrew even found a geocache!

The whole reason the Celts and many other cultures revered the Winter Solstice is because it marks the end of darkness.  For after this point, until the Summer Solstice, the days get longer.

We hope the coming year brings lots of good things to everyone.  Happy Yule, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Solstice

The onset of winter comes so very early,

with its wind and snow so biting and surly.

But I don’t mind its cold icy heart,

for out of the madness light overcomes dark.

~Renée J. Fleury

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A Djinn in Court

Well here’s something you don’t hear every day.  In this article from last year, a Saudi lawyer asked the court to summon a djinn (genie) allegedly responsible for possessing a corrupt judge.

My questions are first of all, why can’t this man just be accountable for his own actions?  And on the off chance that he truly was possessed by a djinn (it does happen), how can they believe the word of a being that is known to lie?

It’s an interesting article, that’s for sure, and I’d really like to know how the court ruled it in the end.  The comments below are pretty interesting too.

Lawyer wants djinn to testify in court