If you really have not heard about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge... look it up! It has gripped social media for the last few months (-Sept '14) and since my whole family, including me, did it last week, I got to wondering “What actually is ALS?”, “Why have so many people uploaded videos of themselves being drenched with ice-filled water?”, “Why nominate your friends to do it too, causing this charity awareness campaign to 'go viral' across the whole world!?” and finally “What does that mean in the bigger picture of what's going on in our collective consciousness?”...

ALS is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is the most common form of Motor Neurone Disease (MND), which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells (motor neurons) in the brain and the spinal cord. The disease varies depending on whether upper and/or lower neurons are affected and the symptoms that develop. It affects voluntary muscle function meaning that messages from the brain to initiate movement gradually stop reaching muscles leading to weakness and wasting and the progressive loss in the ability to speak, move and breathe. The Ice Bucket Challenge originated from the ALS Association, the US-based charity, and here in the UK, the MND Association. Its aim was to raise awareness and funds, which it has achieved very successfully... but why?

This quote by Hermes Trismegistus, an Ancient Greek author, came to mind...

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…”

It describes an underlying principle of holistic philosophies that what you experience in your daily life shows you what is also going on behind the scenes in your deeper consciousness; your physical health is inter-related with your psycho-spiritual health within but also with the health of your environment around you and that of humanity as a whole. The phenomenal growth of social media over the last decade indicates how we on a global scale wish to be connected, to talk, to share, to support, to create...

So how does ALS / MND fit into this? This is a disease affecting the Relationship between the Brain and the Body, between the Mind and the Physical World... this is not just a disease of an Individual, this campaign has brought our attention to a new developing global Relationship between our Physical Reality and the Mind of Humanity shown to us within the virtual world of the internet and social media. 'Big, Selfless and Simple' was how one media analysis described this campaign... and doesn't that also describe all the greatest discoveries that have changed how Humanity thinks?! Keep growing into your World, make Connections, Keep it Real . . . Make it Real Your Way <3