voice

For me, I feel jealous when I disown part of myself, losing part of myself to the center of another.

For example, I am driving and see a sleek black Mercedes -- ooh! I want it! And then I feel tight, bitter jealousy, and I feel off-center and incomplete.

But, actually, there was a moment that I missed. A fleeting resonance with that object and the energy I felt when in its presence.

So, I now amplify that fleeting original perception. I look at the Mercedes, and feel its sleek power in my solar plexus, and don't lose myself to it or its owner.

So, jealousy, for me, is losing my center to another, and not mixing the non-material medicine in me.

Chris

This USA Today article talks about how "The Secret", the book and DVD, is getting it bigtime.

Props to whoever it was that first alerted us to it here!

Chris

My sense of it while reading is that the boy, now fingerless, would have tried to raise his finger in imitation of the master. The boy realized that the motion transcended the embodied state.

I am sure there are many ways of reacting to, or "getting", the story and that that is what is special about zen stories -- they do not have a clear moral and are thus open, wild and uncontained.

Chris

That Google trends thing is interesting:

It seems that prayer is more popular than meditation,

that Max is more popular than Chris, and Plato just doesn't rate,

that yang is more popular than yin

similarly, heaven is more popular than hell

that god is more popular than the devil

and, well, here's one that Plato will be happy to hear!

Chris

I believe in global climate change. I think the sun has a lot more to do with it than man.

You are right that variations in solar activity do play a role in the present global warming. But, during this century increases in solar acitivity have added 0.4 W/m^2 of radiation, while human additions of greenhouse gasses have caused 3.5 W/m^2 of warming.

If we look over the longer term, there are many solar cycles, making it hard to predict whether the Sun will cause more or less cooling over the next 100 years (I don't think that the thousand year scale is of much concern to us now). Two of the solar cycles, though, won't peak until 2030 to 2038 AD.

This page at Wikipedia gives lots of information on solar cycles and links to climate change.

Also, I totally agree with your point that just because humans are altering climate change doesn't mean that we have to do anything about it. We need to separate science and policy so that people's reactions aren't influenced by what it might require of them. I think that many people don't "believe" in global warming because they don't want to change (Republicans), don't like authority (Libertarians?) or believe that spirit supercedes matter (New Agers).

Chris

Voice,

 

Thanks for the clarification. How certain are they of the snowball thing? The vibe I got was 80%ish.

 

-Yoda

The land may not have been snow-covered in all places, and there were most likely some areas where the ocean ice-cover was open, but the ocean must have been essentially completely ice-covered for a long time.

Evidence for glaciers during that time period are found from all of our 7 continents (even though all of them, but Africa, were aligned over the Equator),

During that time period, the form of iron deposited in the ocean was as banded iron formations. These formations contain iron in the Fe2+ state (ferrous iron). That form of iron is soluble in the ocean. The other form of iron (Fe3+, ferric iron) is not soluble in the ocean. The Fe3+ iron is more oxidized that Fe2+. So, these banded iron deposits formed in the ocean indicate an ocean with little oxygen, and that can only happen if the ocean is sealed off from the atmosphere.

Banded iron formations have only occurred twice in the Earth's history: during this Snowball Earth time, and prior to 1.9 billion years ago, when the atmosphere still contained little oxygen (because photosynthetic organisms hadn't added much to the atmosphere yet).

The history of the earth is pretty amazing -- resonating with the past, deep in the bones.

Chris

I think that the cooling effects only "snowballed" once. That is the problem with history -- it only shows a limited number of options, especially with slow moving systems like plate tectonics.

As an aside, many scientists believe that earth was frozen solid pole to pole or nearly so about 800 million years ago. In any case, it was pretty durn cold around then.

"Snowball Earth" was, in the simplest explanation, due to carbon dioxide. At that time there were many small continents aligned along the Equator. Along the edges of these continents were healthy coral reefs. Coral reefs grow by builing a skeleton of calcium carbonate. So, these reefs sucked the carbon out of the atmosphere and took it out of circulation. Rapid weathering of granite rocks in those tropical climates also resulted in carbon being pulled out of the atmosphere. This cooling resulted in large ice sheets forming at the poles, which caused more cooling until the oceans became completely covered in ice (evidence for that are ocean rocks deposited then that contain no oxygen).

We got out of that one because, with the complete ice cover, coral reefs were not growing and granite was not being weathered, so carbon was no longer being pulled out of the atmosphere. But, carbon was being added to the atmosphere by volcanoes.

Pietro said "And the data about the amount of co2 in the atmosphere, and the temperature were evidence, observations, not suppositions. And you could see how those data wente back in time through measurement in the ice carrots taken from the ice caps. Co2 and temerature fitted each other quite well. Now I am not sure how goes the casuality, here. If it is temperature that releases CO2 or CO2 that raises temperature. But they fitted."

You are talking about the covariations in CO2 and temperature from over the last 2 million years. In this case, the oceans are acting as a positive feedback mechanism. Cold oceans hold much CO2, while warm oceans release CO2. Everyone is familiar with this principle -- it is why we keep beer and soda cold, to keep it nice and fizzy.

So, when astronomical factors (three factors: change in the tilt (which is what causes the astrological cycle to change), change in ellipticity of orbit around Sun, and change in date Earth is closest to Sun (right now in January, thus moderating our northern hemisphere winter)) cause a bit of cooling, the colder ocean absorbs more CO2 and causes it to get colder still. Conversely, when atronomical factors cause some warming, the ocean releases CO2 and causes more warming. The concern now is that our oceans will warm up so much that the frozen methane crystals deep in the ocean will melt and methane will bubble up and cause even more warming.

Chris

Spring, according to the Chinese calendar, began two days ago. The two days before and after that date, including today, are transition days when things can get "weird". Perhaps some planetary factor bumped the transition feeling of spring a couple of days late. Interestingly, though the day lenght is getting longer and yanger, the moon phase is waning from the full moon on friday and getting more yinny -- perhaps this contrast is part of the weird feeling.

I'll add a quote from pages 59-61 of "A philosophical translation of dao de jing" by Hall and Ames. Like their translation of the phrase "dao de jing" (as "making this life significant"), their description of the word "de" is also very different from what how it is given in the western tradition. Given your philosophical inclinations, Sean, you might really like this book. I find it hard work, but VERY rewarding.

_______________________________________________________________

In the early philosophical literature, de retains a strong cosmological sense, connoting the "insistent particularity" of things generally, and of humans beings specifically. It is for this reason that de is conventionally translated as "virtue" or "power", defining the particular as a focus of potency or efficacy within its own field of experience. Given the intrinsic relatedness of paraticulars in this conception of existence as process, de is both process and product -- both the potency and the achieved character of any particular disposition within the unsummed totality of experience. Dao and de are related as field and focus respectively. De is holographic, meaning that each element in the totality of things contains the totality in some adumbrated form. The particular focus of an item establishes its immediate world, and the totality as a noncoherent sum of all possible orders is disclosed however faintly by each item.

The cnetral issue of the Daodejing -- literally "the classic of this de and its dao" -- is how this participating item can most effectively excel in brining its perspectival field into focus. It is this process of focusing de that, for the human being, generates cognitive, moral, aesthetic, and spiritual meaning.

The earliest Confucian literature tended to limit its oncerns to the human experience, where this qualitative dimension of de more nearly suggests both "excellence" and "efficacy" in terms of what we can truly be and do if we "realize (zhi)" the most from our personal careers as members of a flourishing community. Like "authoritative conducts/person (ren)", de can certainly be generalized, but it is an inductive generalization that must always begin from a particular instance within a particular context. The cultivation of de is pursued through one's full participation in the ritualized community, where achieved excellence in the roles and relationships that constitute one's person makes on an object of deference for others.

The Daodejing brings both a political and a cosmic dimension to this idea of effective potency. When located within the political realm, de describes the most appropriate relationship between a ruler and the people. In this context, de has a rnage of meaning that reflects the priority of this situation over agency, thus characterizing both the giving and the getting. That is, de is both the "beneficience" extended to the people in response to their worth, and the "gratitude" expressed by the people in the response to the largesse of a wrothy ruler. De encompasses both participating agency and its effects. It is the character or the ethos of the polity. On this basis, we misth suggest "virtuality" in hte archaic sense of the word as "having inherent virtue or power to produce effects" as another possible translation of de.

Recognizing the meaning-creating and meaning-disclosing power of the cultivated human being, the Daodejing emphasizes the ay in which this personal articulation extends beyond the human community into appreciating the cosmos itself. Thos of "highest efficacy" (shande) as paragons of achieved excellence have cosmological signifcance in maximizing the symbiotic relationship between the human experience and the context within which that drama unfolds.

It is my understanding that the author of that piece, Tim Ball, was disenfrachised by the climatology community when he STILL believed in global warming. He didn't become a member of the inside circle, and so he got angry and became a critic.

His criticisms, though, are ridiculous. Physics experiments have easily shown that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, a gas that absorbs long wave energy emitted by the Earth and then re-emits it to Earth's surface. Water is the most important greenhouse gas, and you have all experienced its warming effect with cloudy nights being less cool than cloudless nights.

A simple low-tech science experiment like the following shows that carbon dioxide does lead to warming

science experiment

His contention that the warming and cooling are all natural cycles is shown to be false in this short video.

Chris

(disclaimer: I do research and teach about climate change, though my research is funded by no one)

Hey Sean,

I think I missed something -- you and Lezlie are leaving the Bay Area?! Is this related to the financial problems you were/are having? Where are you off to? I hope it is going well.

Chris

Hey Trees,

I liked two things in that first video: when the foetus/baby/consciousness got sucked up and delivered into space, and when the UFOs were hovering it gave a sense of them being time-space distortions -- portals into other dimensions.

The Dolby video was a surprise, because I only knew him from his first CD (blinded by science etc.). It did have a nice trippy feel to it.

That 10-year old piano kid reminded me of the son of a colleague of mine who started writing his won pieces at age 5! He now has an all-expenses scholarship to supposedly the most exclusive place - the Peabody. Hopefully that Youtube kid has something like that in his future.

I like this video much better alex grey art video on youtube

The music is more appealing to me than Tool. More importantly, though the video techniques are much simpler, they communicate for me the disorientation of consciously embodying the ever-fluid cosmos. The Tool video, in contrast, makes kundalini rising and cosmic consciousness seem too step-by-step mechanism.

oh yah! oh yah! oh yah!

alex grey pictures integrated and animated!

let's hope they make a longer, trippier version...

I think that you guys should invite "Witch" to your party -- and have fun counting her orgasms.

About the Wayfarer - Denty "discussion", it is such a sad and perfect example of how all of us (including moi) are so blind to our own limitations and excremetations (cool word!) of personality.

Chris

A few years ago, when I saw the beautifully complex "crop circles" that were out there, I thought there was no way they could be made by people. The authorites noted hallmarks of "real" circles (ie. not man-made) such as the ben stems and the special swirls. Then, last year when I was looking through one web-site, they pointed out those hallmarks in fake circles.

Clearly anthropogenic circles are discussed by their makers on this website:

http://www.circlemakers.org/exhibit_a.html

The known fake circles are not as complex as the most intricate "real" circles, but the two classes of circles are so little-different, that I believe that humans are the creators of all of the circles.

I started about 5 different times, with reasons as varied as: curiousity, wanting to be different, because it was suggested, and to get exercise without competition.

I now do it to explore, to discover the various levels of communication with myself and with other beings.

I was expecting to hear that these things have some kind of internal signifigance... turns out these things are more external than I expected and perhaps I will stop reading Eva Wong's book as I am not getting too much out of it... I know parts of all her books are quite valueble but they all mention this crazy lead and mercury business... perhaps there is some deeper meaning that we have not addressed?

I am not sure which of her books you are reading In her book "Harmonizing Yin and Yang", the introduction differeniates what the words "cinnabar", "mercury" and "lead" mean in the context of external alchemy, sexual alchemy and internal alchemy.

Reading books about alchemy can be interesting: giving some of the history, and pointing out the difficulty in describing these processes. But, I find that they are reductive in their description of the processes - they make it all seem so controlled and linear when, really, alchemy is a wild and lively process!

I remember being very disappointed by the movie. Yes, there were some wonderful moments of silence. But, he never developed - he was so tied to sex that he killed in jealousy! That, I think, could be considered a critique of Buddhism, and is certainly one levelled by numerous Daoists.

Have any of you read/utilized anything from this system?

The "White Tigress" system is about teaching women how to be sexual vampires. Good for women...bad for men. The whole system is mired in materialism, and contains no whiff of spirituality.

"A sign of beginning stages of this development wouldbe a static electricity upon the clothes. After wearing your clothes they begin to cling to you, and things begin to cling as well,.. mainly dust and fuzzy like paper. It is a beginning level, nothing to be crazy about, but it is something that not many get in a thousand years."

I always get shocks, and my clothes always stick. I figured it was just because I am hairy. Now I know it is because I am special...

I vaguely remember seeing him years ago on SNL or the Muppet Show.

Great music, but I always get a bit of a creepy sense from him...like he has some sick/perverted side of himself that he must keep from the public.