Summary: Viking Brian is a founding member of the Viking Youth. Jan Irvin is the co-author of Astrotheology and Shamanism: Unveiling the Law of Duality in Christianity and other Religions. You can find all kinds of good stuff from Jan and his co-author, Andrew Rutajit, including numerous audio interviews at Gnostic Media. Email from Black Beauty: Hi KMO,Please accept this small donation as a humble gesture of my gratitude for the time and effort you spend in bringing your listeners regular C-Realm installments. I see a definite value (both tangible and intangible) in the knowledge and discussions shared with listeners like me through your shows. I have even started my own herb garden for our cooking and go out of my way to frequent Organic and 'Slow Food' Farmer's Markets here in Melbourne - a far cry from having chickens but being an 8-to-6 corporate-type, living just 5 minutes from the inner city it's all I can manage right now! I listen to your shows quite regularly and make a point to be doing nothing else but listening and walking or sitting. Often it is on my 45 minute bus trip to work or perhaps during a forced lunch break at the large park behind my corporate offices. Going for a walk in this park and listening to my MP3 player is a fortune that many take for granted but each time I step foot outside, it is with humility that I thank the powers that be for allowing me to do so. Free from torture, slavery, unemployment and poverty. My mother came to this country (Australia) from a remote area of Indonesia where healthcare, schooling, clothing and education have been a rarity up until the last few years. Each time I visit, I am awed that my mother came up against such adversity to leave this small town and consequently prospered in Australia. My mother is one of only 2 or 3 others that managed to make a life for themselves outside of Indonesia and I am so proud of what she achieved. My mother worked hard and long as a factory worker, kitchen hand and cleaner up until weeks before her death in April 2006 from a long fight with cancer. Even to the end, she refused to stop working - seeing having a job as a privilege. So many people around me take employment for granted. Instead, choosing to complain about their boss, their colleagues, their commute to work, the rising coffee prices at the cafe downstairs. In her home town in Indonesia, unemployment is high. There is no social welfare system and combined with a lack of education and professional* healthcare, I see the increasing population being a further strain on the resources and lack of infrastructure growth in the region. In my family house alone, there are close to 6 related families staying on the property. On my recent visit, I shrugged off suggestions of staying at a hotel, instead offering to 'camp out' in one of the small rooms in the house. My father quickly chided me, reminding me that to stay in one of the rooms would be literally forcing a family out first! (I have attached a photo of the 'kitchen' at our house in Indonesia - that's me standing up with the fan in my hand. My family have a roof on their house (many houses do not even have a door). They are fortunate also to have many of the second-hand clothes passed on from my mother and I but we still struggle to provide them with things such as shoes and optical aids). With the expanse of the internet, I have stumbled upon an increasing number of resources about women who are happy with being 'Childfree', either by deliberate choice, circumstance or health problems such as infertility. However, it wasn't until now that I am facing my 30th birthday and many of my friends are having children that I feel uncomfortablly compelled to conform to society's view of females as being mothers. Strangely, your recent Podcast (Episode 42: Tragedy of the Bathroom) has prompted me to make this much-overdue donation and write you this email. Since I was about 18,
