by Alexa Erickson, Collective Evolution

Why do we go to the zoo? To see animals we’d never imagine coming across in our day-to-day lives wander about, eating, rolling around, and looking cute for our amazement. At least that’s what I get out of it.

As a child, I wanted to hear the trumpets of elephants, the roars of lions and tigers, the chatter of monkeys. I wanted to watch a giraffe walk elegantly about, its long neck stretching high and far for food. I wanted to marvel at the incredible array of colours on the seemingly endless species of birds. What a beautiful thing to be able to see so many animals from all over the world in my hometown.

But long before I understood the downsides of many zoos, I wondered if the animals were happy. Maybe it was because I’d seen Free Willy too many times, or maybe it was because I had this innate feeling that being locked up was wrong, and couldn’t possibly be a part of happiness.

by Arjun Walia, Collective Evolution

According to a statement made by Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office, “forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double the normal rates on the night of August 11-12. . . . Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour.”

Typically we get 80 meteors per hour during the Perseids, so tonight’s shower could be a historical one.

The Perseids occur when Earth enters into the path of Comet “Swift-Turtle,” though we usually only get to the edges of the debris trail that it leaves behind as it hurtles through space.

Below is a little video from Business Insider about tonight’s shower.

by Amanda Monteiro, Collective Evolution

Reading a book recently, I came across the saying “the Devil is in the details” for the first time, and for some reason, I couldn’t wrap my head around what that actually meant. Instead of doing a quick Google search to satisfy my curiosity, I decided to let the thought go in hopes that the answer would come to me when the time was right.

I live in a rural area, surrounded by fields of wheat and corn, bush, and forest. I adore the scenery and often times when driving past, I’m reminded of being a little girl, when I wished I could run freely though a wheat field, without a care in the world — something I have yet to accomplish.

During one of my most recent nostalgic moments, I thought about how I really could run through that field if I chose (the joys of being an adult) but I would probably hate it because of the mud and the bugs and god knows what else that field contains.

And then it hit me! The Devil is in the details. I suddenly didn’t want to fulfill a childhood dream because of how I thought the experience would make me feel! My imagination can bring me to beautiful places but this time it brought me to recognize that my dream might not be what I imagined it to be.

by Jennifer Sodini, Collective Evolution

Project MKUltra, sometimes referred to as the CIA’s mind control program, was the code name given to an illegal program of experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Experiments on humans were intended to identify/develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control.

If you’re a fan of Stranger Things, MK Ultra may sound familiar (see: Hidden Programming Within Stranger Things), and the truth is just as strange as fiction.

According to Wikipedia:

Organized through the Scientific Intelligence Division of the CIA, the project coordinated with the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in 1973.The program engaged in many illegal activities, including the use of unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy.

by Joe Martino, Collective Evolution

The war on terror, economic disasters, racial wars, big pharma and food quality/modification. When you look at our world today you have to wonder how we got here.

It was in my later years of high school that I began to feel relief about something that bothered me for a long time: I started to realize how the world really works. Now at 29 years old, I’ve interviewed, met with and worked with many of the top researchers in the field of truth seeking and several conclusions are clear, but one more than others: our world is run by psychopaths.

I want to be very clear here, this is not meant to be a judgment, to rile up our emotions and call these people evil, no. This is about coming to a stark realization about what’s really going on in our world so that we can actually change it.

“As difficult as it was for me, I’ve come to an inescapable and profoundly disturbing conclusion. I believe that an elite group of people and the corporations they run have gained control over not just our energy, food supply, education, and healthcare, but over virtually every aspect of our lives; and they do it by controlling the world of finance. Not by creating more value, but by actually controlling the source of money.” – Foster Gamble