Mark Foote

Regarding femurs and other "relics":

Walpurgis Night  

an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night, also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve), is the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia, and is celebrated on the night of 30 April and the day of 1 May. This feast commemorates the canonization of Saint Walpurga and the movement of her relics to Eichstätt, both of which occurred on 1 May 870.[7]

 

Saint Walpurga was hailed by the Christians of Germany for battling pest, rabies, and whooping cough, as well as against witchcraft". Christians prayed to God through the intercession of Saint Walpurga in order to protect themselves from witchcraft, as Saint Walpurga was successful in converting the local populace to Christianity. In parts of Europe, people continue to light bonfires on Saint Walpurga's Eve in order to ward off evil spirits and witches. Others have historically made Christian pilgrimages to Saint Walburga's tomb in Eichstätt on the Feast of Saint Walburga, often obtaining vials of Saint Walburga's oil.

 

It is suggested that Walpurgis Night is linked with older May Day festivals in northern Europe, which also involved lighting bonfires at night, for example the Gaelic festival Beltane.

 

Local variants of Walpurgis Night are observed throughout Northern and Central Europe in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, and Estonia. In Finland, Denmark and Norway, the tradition with bonfires to ward off the witches is observed as Saint John's Eve, which commemorates the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

 

I can just imagine the remedies Walpurga applied to cure rabies and whooping cough. 

 

Get your Saint Walburga's oil here, nothing like it for making those old femur crowns shine!

 

Meanwhile:

 

Beltane or Bealtaine (/ˈbɛl.teɪn/; Irish pronunciation: [ˈbʲal̪ˠt̪ˠənʲə], approximately /ˈb(j)ɒltɪnə/ B(Y)OL-tin-ə) is the Gaelic May Day festival, marking the beginning of summer. It is traditionally held on 1 May, or about midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Historically, it was widely observed in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. 

 

...  it marked the beginning of summer and was when cattle were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect cattle, people and crops, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, whose flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective powers. The people and their cattle would walk around or between bonfires, and sometimes leap over the flames or embers. All household fires would be doused and then re-lit from the Beltane bonfire. These gatherings would be accompanied by a feast, and some of the food and drink would be offered to the aos sí. Doors, windows, byres and livestock would be decorated with yellow May flowers, perhaps because they evoked fire.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Get yer ritual gear on, and proceed with the bonfires!

 

 

 

14 hours ago, Apech said:

I did but it did take a fairly large amount of alentejo red wine.
 

 

I'll have to look for it.

 

 

15 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

 

I would say he drank   ....

 

The Cask of Amontillado
 

Down in the catacombs, with the surrogate corpse...

 

 

4 hours ago, Apech said:

I, being I in this clouded world,

Am drawn by base desire and some malevolent duty,

To thrust my naked self into the Waterfall,

Deluged there by reckless beauty,

Submerged in sandy shores and,

Named Sharon mysteriously,

Washed up on distant shores,

Not dead but yet a surrogate corpse,

The body of an unborn kind,

Transmigrated from this world to the next,

Timeless and yet waiting,

For the late night bus.
 

If you made that up, can you tell me what sherry you are drinking these days, please (I quite like it)?

On 4/16/2024 at 1:17 AM, Vajra Fist said:

Recently I've been reflecting on the increasing geopolitical tensions and the likelihood for a new global war in our lifetimes. 

 

In the Western world, we have perhaps some of the most favorable conditions in history for cultivation. Teachings are everywhere and previously sequestered lineages are accessible from your home. We have no disease, famine, extreme poverty or war. 

 

But that could all change. For some reason yesterday I got a Facebook update from a chap called the Khenchen Lama Rinpoche. He prophesied a global nuclear war by 2030, and recommended his followers certain practices to stave off that possibility.

 

I don't know anything about him or if he is a reliable source, but it lit a fire under my arse. I feel like instead of spending the majority of my time on hobbies, entertainment, I should perhaps practice more. Practice as much as I physically can. After all, we don't know when this special period of peace might end. 
 

 

 

Mr. Downer Himself:

 

… the Blessed One addressed the monks. “Whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for a day and night… for a day… for the interval that it takes to eat a meal… for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up four morsels of food, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’–they are said to dwell heedlessly. They develop mindfulness of death slowly for the sake of ending the effluents.

 

“But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food… for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’–they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.

 

“Therefore you should train yourselves: ‘We will dwell heedfully. We will develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.’ That is how you should train yourselves.”

 

(Maraṇassati Sutta  AN 6:19, tr Thanissaro Bhikkyu; Pali Text Society AN volume III p 218; I think I prefer I. B. Horner's "cankers" over Thanissaro Bhikkyu's "effluents")
 

 

And why is that, you ask.  I would say that is because the interval that matters is like the one immediately before falling asleep.  Something I hope to post to my own site soon:

 

Just before falling asleep, the ability to act by volition shuts down, and consciousness catalyzes activity necessary to the movement of breath by taking place at a particular location or at successive locations in the body. At that time, the placement of consciousness alone coordinates activity, and if the mind should attempt to wrest the placement of consciousness back under control, a hypnic jerk results that interrupts sleep.
 

I sit down first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and I look to experience activity of the body through a placement of attention like that just before sleep.

 

As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience, as occasion demands--that's enough.
 

 

That kind of placement of attention can be experienced in "the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food", or "the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out".  

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Nintendao said:

 

Right, I am off now

to practice new kung fu move:

Abbot phone-whips monk

 

 

Abbot phone-whips monk

enters phone-whip samadhi

cat yawns and stretches

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

 

I have a gay friend that loves trans men. But one thing interesting I noticed was once I started transitioning gay men stopped flirting with me and lesbians started lol.

 

 

I lived above Hamburger Mary's bar and grill in San Francisco in '80's.  Mary's was a part of the LGBTQ scene at that time, like the Stud across the street.  

A quick check reveals Hamburger Mary's lives, they even have a website showing seven or more locations nationwide--in SF, no more.

 

I loved to go to Mary's after work, have a beer, and play the pinball machines in the back.  They had a DJ, and sometimes I'd be dancing in the bar, I'd be the only one dancing in the bar.

 

I got hit up by the gay blades a couple of times, I'll admit I kind of resented that they couldn't tell that wasn't my persuasion off the top.  I remember the DJ Ted, whom everyone called Tess, telling me that I should try it sometime I might like it.

 

I remember two guys in long dresses in the bar once, I asked them what they were up to, they were just enjoying the experience and I appreciated their complete honesty.

 

Then there's our bringer of test cases, edge cases, the enlightening surrogate corpse, who says:

 

It is wonderful for men to use their dicks as powerful symbols of their masculinity. It is also wonderful for women to use their dicks as powerful symbols of their femininity. There is no contradiction between these. Both can be affirmed.

 

My life since 25 has been about learning to move from the inside out. 

They do an exercise in Aikido where a practitioner is blindfolded, and the students of the dojo attack the blindfolded individual, sometimes one at a time and sometimes all at once.  For me the exercise was instead staying upright on the dance floor at Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway.  An example of Mabuhay I've posted before--you can just catch a glimpse of the slamming going on at 44 seconds--those folks aren't bending over the stage 'cause they like bending:
 

 

One thing I've found is that the only real way to relate to people is from that place of inner awareness, like in the Aikido exercise.  

Oftentimes there's no there there in the populace at large, as Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland.  That makes it hard to relate, especially if someone has decided they "like it" and having a heart be damned.  That's prevalent in the culture at large, but especially evident sometimes in the gayer sections of San Francisco.

 

Anyway, I feel I've benefited greatly from the conversation here--thanks Maddie, thanks blue eyes, thanks transmogrified griffin.  Thanks, Luke, and that cat wherever it went.  Thanks, everybody!

 

 

 

 

On 4/21/2024 at 3:03 PM, snowymountains said:

 

Now it is true that therapy, in general [*], won't bring cessation, as this is not a therapeutic goal nor does therapy in general even have tools for cessation but with respect to removing conditioning, it's extremely effective at that.

 

 

Gautama spoke of cessation, in the context of thoughts initial and sustained with regard to the state of mind:

 

(One) makes up one’s mind:

 

Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out.

 

Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out.

 

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.

 

Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out.

 

(SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced, re-paragraphed)

 

 

The thoughts he described, he said were a part of his way of living.

 

"Contemplating cessation"--the cessation of the "activities", which are the actions of speech, body, and mind that take place as a result of "determinate thought":

 

…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance [first meditative state], speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased. ... Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.

 

(SN IV 217, Vol IV p 146)

 

I'm convinced Gautama touched on "the cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing" as a regular part of his way of living, that he sat until he attained such a cessation and the subsequent "survey-sign of the concentration", and that by means of the "survey-sign" he could touch on "the cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing" in his contemplation of cessation in daily living.

But say--what did you mean by cessation?  

11 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

  I use this in the stead of a missing heart emoji
 

That works, although it's a tad more person to person than a heart to indicate a love of what was written.
 

Quote

 

that photo is absolutely stunning Mark.

Thanks for sharing!

 

You're so welcome!  If you're interested, there are some amazing photos of Clear Lake and Mount Konocti, here (and some duds, lots of duds, actually, but what's good is very good)--if you're not on Facebook, just click the "x" in the upper right-hand corner of the "See More on Facebook" pop-up.

 

 

On 4/21/2024 at 6:46 PM, Taomeow said:

 

Fabulous, of course

A snail climbing Mount Fuji

with Issa's blessings
 

 

with Issa's blessings

the cat goes out, comes back in

the doorman gets pissed

5 hours ago, Salvijus said:

But putting the light where another person is indulging in ego might be a very positive thing. If you take it the right way. 

 

 

I've never found that to be true.

 

 

18 hours ago, Nintendao said:

  On 4/16/2024 at 3:25 PM, Maddie said:

You seem to be confusing sex and gender. 

 

This. This right here might be at the core of a majority of vexation with regards to the topic. For individuals who have not personally experienced a significant enough decoupling of the societally enforced equivalency of the two, i guess i can see how it might be inconceivable that such a thing even exists.

 

 

 

Dao Bums needs a "heart" icon.

Lacking which, I give you a quasi-mystical photo of the lake and mountain I live next to, in appreciation.

 

 

 

(photo by Stephanie Espinosa)

 

 

15 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

I have an anti-desire to appear in photographs    .

 

I usually use this guy instead  and claim he is me  ;

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm completely fooled, Nungali!

 

 

9 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

No no .... its okay now , I promise  . You where right  .... no one is going to anything nasty to you or judge you for being  suspect about a perceived  defensive over-reaction  ...... come on  ..... come on puss   ....  its safe now  ....

 

You can trust me   .....

 

Got him ! 

 

 

 

 

 

Apech, on the left...

 

 

Quote

 

   On 4/19/2024 at 10:31 AM, Salvijus said:

 

But you exist as something right. Even if you have no identity. You still exist. As what? The spirituality that I follow would say. As existence. Or as pure consciousness.

 

 

 

There are a lot of folks who swear by "pure awareness" as the essential element of sentient being.  Something like that.

I think of Nisargadatta:

 

My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!

 

("I Am That", Chapter 75, p. 375)

 

 

'You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of 'I am'. It is without words, just pure beingness. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself. 

 

(Gaitonde, Mohan (2017). Self - Love: The Original Dream (Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Direct Pointers to Reality). Mumbai: Zen Publications. ISBN 978-9385902833)
 

 

Or Dogen:

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.

 

(Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, trans. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, pg 176)

 

 

I used to write about the location of awareness, but a friend of mine felt that awareness is all encompassing, throughout the universe.   Because of him, I switched to writing about the placement of attention, but there's a trick (isn't there always!)--the placement of attention out of necessity in the movement of breath, with the activity of the body following entirely from the location of awareness, such as occurs in the moment before falling asleep.

 

As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience, as occasion demands--that's enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 4/17/2024 at 10:13 AM, Taomeow said:

 

Wild blackberries!

"Cranberries" are also wild.

"Pretenders," more so.

 

 

"Pretenders", more so

Made me look up the lyrics

Fabulous, of course
 

 

On 4/16/2024 at 4:34 PM, silent thunder said:

The expression @ 1:30! 

So much kinship in my core, with this snippet...  so much expressed between tribe in the extreme intimacy of long path walking together.   As always, I learn from teachers who speak not a word of my language mind...

 

 

 

The cat says, make it stop!

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

Just holding opinions or views doesn't make you a troll.  To be a troll you have to present those arguments with a deliberate intent to cause a certain reaction or to mess with the person they are addressing.  So if he actually thinks the ideas he expressed he is not a troll, he might be wrong and confused - in which case a q&a like this would be the very place to put him right.  

 

 

I can understand that Maddie did not see any point in continuing a conversation with Salvijus.  

 

Salvijus, I would suggest that offering personal experience would be more conducive to advancing a practice than debating angels or devils on the heads of pins.  

Feelings are complex, my feelings on the topic are complex.  Maddie has offered a chance to dive into that.  

 

16 hours ago, Salvijus said:

You just need to have the last word even if it's something completely irrelevant... Lol

Okay you can have it. I will let this one go. 
 

 

 

My favorite band, in the '80's:

 

 

On 4/16/2024 at 1:39 PM, Salvijus said:

 

So if we all contain many incarnations of male lives and many incarnations of female lives. Why be fixated on changing the shape of your body? How is that supposed to make you feel better. Or make you feel more "real you"? 

 

Btw, I'm not trying to condemn any group of people. 
 

Salvijus--keep this in mind:
 

Being intersex is a naturally occurring variation in humans, and it isn’t a medical problem — therefore, medical interventions (like surgeries or hormone therapy) on children usually aren’t medically necessary. Being intersex is also more common than most people realize. It’s hard to know exactly how many people are intersex, but estimates suggest that about 1-2 in 100 people born in the U.S. are intersex.
 

There are many different ways someone can be intersex. Some intersex people have genitals or internal sex organs that fall outside the male/female categories — such as a person with both ovarian and testicular tissues. Other intersex people have combinations of chromosomes that are different than XY ( usually associated with male) and XX (usually associated with female), like XXY. And some people are born with external genitals that fall into the typical male/female categories, but their internal organs or hormones don’t.

 

(https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity/whats-intersex)

 

 

 

On 4/15/2024 at 12:38 PM, Maddie said:

 

The right totally manipulates Christians into voting for them. This is why the evangelicals act like Trump of all people is the second coming of Christ lol. 
 

 

 

It's complicated.  There was a study done on why poor people living on welfare in the USA would vote for politicians who declared flat-out that they were going to end those welfare benefits.

The answer turned out to be the fear in those same poor people of becoming the racial minority in their state, and the politicians who promised to cut off welfare were also the politicians who promised to keep down the minority.

I guess I can understand the fear that's at work there.  Just look at what the racial majority did to the racial minority in some states, and you can see why the majority would fear becoming the minority! 

 

On 4/15/2024 at 12:01 PM, blue eyed snake said:

 

For people born female a lack of estrogen will have severe repercussions on the body, we see that with women after menopause and the effects are not nice, to put it mildly. Think here connective tissue loosing strength and connectivity, organs prolapsing, teeth loose, joints hurting, plus of course osteoporosis.

 

 

 

The body produces estrogen from fat cells, so there is still estrogen in a woman's body after menopause.  Not as much, granted.

 

What there is not, is progesterone.  Many of the effects you mentioned are the lack of progesterone, particularly the onset of osteoporosis.

 

 

On 4/14/2024 at 12:06 PM, snowymountains said:

 

The chart is for the public healthcare system though and can only be compared to waiting times in the public healthcare system, as the times may reflect overall waiting times for public healthcare in Netherlands.

The 1 month waiting list I referred to was an approximate number for private practices btw, some will be fully booked, those that aren't typically will be able to offer some slots within a month.

 

Multiple disorders are difficult because they need a therapist who has experience in all of them, and this is indeed difficult to find, especially if they are from different clusters.

 

I can't know if the cases you have in mind do it for the buck, but if someone does not have experience in a disorder, the responsible thing to do is to refer to another professional who does. Doing otherwise will be harmful for the client.

 

 

 

Like to thank snowymountains for the education, regarding modern therapy.  

I, like Taomeow and blue eyed snake, largely see Western medical science as only useful in cases requiring intervention.  Chronic conditions appear to be largely beyond the capacity of Western medicine to treat effectively, although that may be changing with the new genetic science.  The medical/pharceutical complex is real, and chronic conditions where a new medication must be taken for life are where the private research money goes.

 

I've written about Dr. John Lee.  One thing he commented on was the way that people put their faith in their doctors, in our society.   He likened it to people in primitive cultures putting their faith in the witch doctor.  A person might well die, if their witch doctor put a curse on them, and the same is true for Westerners and Western medicos.

 

Another thing I've read.  About 10% of Western medicos have reliable medical intuition and use it.  They are witch doctors with a Western education, you could say.  They have to be careful, not to get outed.

 

I think I believe that.  I've also read that the best intuition is the best-educated intuition, so I try to study up before I hit the ouija board. 

 

On 4/13/2024 at 3:35 PM, Taomeow said:

 

Not on this specific topic as much as on this among all others I'm not very trusting of the motives of those who promote anything that happens to be fantastically profitable for the medical cartel.  The minds of the recipients of any and all of their offerings are manipulated very skillfully, in every possible area, and I'm not saying all of their offerings are corrupted by ulterior motives (money, power, 'fame and fortune' as a taoist would put it) -- but failing or avoiding to consider them as a factor is IMO a mistake in many cases. 

 

I don't know how sex/gender dysphoria would be different in this respect from a multitude of over-diagnosed, over-treated, mis-treated conditions going hand in hand with a multitude of under-diagnosed, under-treated, and again mis-treated conditions.  I could give a million examples...  For instance, antibiotics resistance is directly responsible for millions of deaths every year, yet research into new antimicrobials has been stagnating for decades, because, to quote a PubMed publication titled "There Is No Market for New Antibiotics,"  "By the early 1980s, private investment in antimicrobial research ebbed as a result of (...) a broader reorientation of private research and development (R&D) towards more focused investment in expensive yet lucrative noncommunicable (e.g., cancer and lifestyle) medications. The decline in private investment was exacerbated by the parallel closure of formerly successful public R&D efforts, as a result of the contemporary political emphasis on privatization and marketplace-oriented research."  In other words, they figured they get more bang for their buck if they invest in chronic conditions requiring continuous indefinite (often lifelong) use of their medications.  No one is interested in financing whatever can be cured by efficient new antimicrobials, hence their nonresearch, nondevelopment, and nonexistence.   (And no media>public outcry despite an incomparably wider population affected.)  Nothing personal -- they just don't care if millions die from this nonresearch and nondevelopment, as long as they can develop something that guarantees repeat customers.  

 

 

Hopefully folks read my comments about progesterone, above.

Dr. John Lee, who I mentioned, went around the country lecturing groups of women about the benefit of topical progesterone for treating osteoporosis among women who were at risk for ovarian or mammarian cancer.  He tried educating the doctors, but because malpractice is defined as not doing what the rest of the doctors are doing (regardless of the science), he didn't have success with that.  So, as he said, "I will educate the women, and they will educate their doctors."

At the time I heard him speak (1995), hormone replacement therapy was all the rage, consisting primarily of estrogen.  As Dr. Lee pointed out, when estrogen is not balanced with progesterone, there's a tendency for it to promote cancer.  And in the northern hemisphere industrialized nations, progesterone production drops off in a woman at menopause, if not before (not so in some other parts of the world).  

Dr. Lee told a story about a husband and wife team of doctors in San Francisco (Dr. Lee had a family practice in Marin for 30 years).  The husband would prescribe estrogen to a woman.  Within a few years, the woman would develop ovarian cancer.  The husband would refer them to his wife for the hysterectomy.  They were making quite good money.

You are right to be suspicious, Tao Meow--of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 4/13/2024 at 3:35 PM, Taomeow said:

 

Jesus quilt-knitting Christ...