silent thunder

This is inconsequential, but it intrigues me and has for a while, so out of curiosity I'll ask. I've never logged in anonymously, yet my name is never listed as online when present. I find that odd. I thought perhaps our own names don't appear when logged on as, well, we know when we're on, but in testing it by viewing the site as a guest on my son's laptop, while logged in on my system, my name is still not among those listed as online.

Elaine Pagals: The Origins of Satan Is that the book you were mentioning in an earlier post @Nungali? She began her exploration of the concept of the origins of evil and its sources in Western literature after the death of her husband, on their honeymoon if I recall accurately... Her exploration led to that book. I happened on it in the midst of my apostacy from the lutheran fundamentalist upbringing I was raised with and vividly recall that encountering it was like opening a window to the forest in a room of fetid air. Or like Bilbo, garnering a breath of fresh air in the Mirkwood.

Take care what you allow yourself to think and ruminate on... this becomes your reality.

that got it! like scratching an itch... curiosity abated. Thanks mate!

Ah, interesting. Thanks mate. Wonder why I didn't see it listed then on my son's system while viewing as a guest. I checked my account settings to make sure i hadn't inadvertantly toggled an 'always log in anonymously' option, if there was one. There isn't.

Wonderful conversation. Thank you all involved. My approach is to use my body and positioning to work my musculature. I abstain from weight lifting, though did use it for a time in my teens and 20's. Though I do employ some external weights however, as I build scenery as my job, which is active and involves a fair amount of moving materials and large scenic elements; but when performed intelligently, is not loading the body with extremes of exertion and repetitive lifting of heavy loads. It is about position, leverage and using help when appropriate, so the body is engaged but never overloaded. My workouts when I am between projects are solely based on my own body-weight and not using external weights of any kind. Zhan Zhuang, Qi Gong, simple calisthenics (push ups, planks, etc, but mostly lots of simple stretching and breathing) and walking, walking walking. Morning and Night walking, usually in the hours before dawn and during dusk. For a couple decades my favorite workout was tree and rock climbing. It engages spherical awareness of mind and full extension of articulating motion while supporting, pulling up and lowering your own body weight, which is what your muscles were designed for and used to accomodating. This to me, combined with good martial forms, created and maintained a body whose internal joint/tendon connections were strong but also fully flexible. Iron wrapped in Silk. I am 50 now. A typical work day is 10 hours, at my pace, I keep up with the 20 somethings I'm training and rarely sweat while doing it. I've been playing Qi Gong and martial arts for 30 years, been in construction for 23 and wake each morning pain free with good mobility (can place my palms backwards on the floor between my feet without warm ups). My process is to use and work with my own body weight and positioning to develop and maintain good strength in the connections between muscle and bone, through the full range of motion. And to stretch, stretch, stretch and walk, walk, walk. Of course, this is only my take. Not selling anything, only sharing. Things that were appropriate in my 20's are not so now and vice versa. My Best to all of you on your Paths...

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” ― Rumi

In the pause between exhale and inhale. Abides a quiet. A silence. In the hour before Dawn, the world pauses before the inhale of the rising day. and here in this silence... i walk.

um...

20 year old Brit, Alexandra Whittingham, channeling Spanish Maestro Francisco Tárrega on the steps of a french chapel. Now this... is my kinda United Nations.

I'm reminded of a scientist... East German or Russian, post ww2, studying the possible effects of qualities of light (sun cycles) on dna, in particular that of fern seeds. He was working with cohesive light, under the hypothesis that changes in the sun's light will awaken certain genetic markers in the ancestral memory of dna. i.e when the sun cycles and the quality of its light shifts, this affects dna and active gene markers. He happened upon a particular frequency of laser/cohesive light that he shown through a fern seed prior to planting and from that seed, grew an 11 million year old ancestral version of a modern fern. Reminded me that there is such wisdom in the body. Indeed, there are more miracles in a square yard of 'simple, ordinary' earth, than in all the libraries and religious texts of the world. Who is it truly notices the mundane? Who bothers with the ordinary?

I don't. United States, Poland, Hungary, Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia are words, ideas, not things.

I'm American, of Norwegian descent. In my experience, humans own nothing but their presence and attention. This cannot be purchased, cajoled, bought or sold, but it may be offered... shared, given. It is the only thing of real value I have ever encountered.

Wonderful progression and artful incremental shifts from simplicity to wall of sound. Puts me in mind of Spiritualized.

Welcome! Always nice to meet and connect with a fellow traveler on the Path.

Potent topic. Challenging in the extreme. I find I can only engage in it for limited bits. My experience is that Politics concretize and demonstrate our society's communal Spiritual Climate. As such, politics are the distillation of our collective spirituality in practical action to me. Due to the climate shift in Political/Collective Spirituality in America over the last 40 years, it is often untenable for me to participate in certain aspects of political discussion for long, (or at all), in a similar manner that it is untenable for me to go for a walk in certain climates outdoors. I grew up in Minnesota. I recall walking to school and having my watering eyes and runny nose freeze shut when the wind=chill dropped below -40F. I recall the gear I had to use to protect my health, to play outside, or risk real harm. I recall the family who froze to death a few yards away from a pub, when they abandoned their broken down car in a white out blizzard. When walking in certain climates, I must take precautions to ensure not only survival but when possible, vitality. When engaging in certain topics of mind, I find I must take similar precautions or risk internal injury and intense repercussions. When the communal political climate in which I find myself is non-conducive to my own personal health and longevity, I take precautions when engaging, or when I can't maintain sincerity and grow too judgemental, rigid and triggered, I withdraw engagement entirely. It's simply not always healthy to go for a walk outside after all. That said... Politics is Spirituality in action... to me. How Spirit could ever be disconnected from any process, noumenal or phenomenal lies beyond the ken of my mind to imagine and my body to experience. Spirit, Matter, Mind...are no longer perceived as separate at all, but in my mind they coalesce like facets of a fluid gem... distinctly apparent aspects of one fluid process. As such, I cannot find one aspect of manifest reality Politics included that is devoid of Spirit. Spirit infuses every aspect of all i encounter. Pavement, city layouts, sewer drainage systems, the shape of toilets, the consistency of toilet paper, our autos, grocery store layouts, parks, traffic... Spirit infuses all form and the flow of forms interacting, for me. Politics is to me, infused utterly to its core with our collective social spirit. I find a country's Politics to be the most palpable demonstration and the direct result of that culture's collective Spirituality. For it is via the political process that we determine and declare openly, as a culture, all of the most important and pressing issues we deal with. It is through the political process that we decide how we will: allocate our resources, educate our young, decide what we consider to be right and wrong action, how and to what extent we will punish folks for infractions when they do wrong, how we will interact with the environment (protect, ignore, pillage). It is through our political process that we legislate in what manner and how intently we will care of our infirm, the mentally unsound and our elders as they pass their final years. Politics to me, is Spirituality in action... collectively. The seeming fact that folks find politics to be somehow separate from spirituality seems a key indicator of the current tone and shape of our interactions regarding it. I became politically aware at the age of 10, when Reagan swept Carter out of office and the reaction to this by the adults around me that I cared about, cut through my child-mind fog and awakened me to curiosity about the process. My experience of American Politics is that it's a quagmire, a bog, a roiling soup of the consensus of all, that is most often controlled by the loudest and brashest of voices competing desperately for the microphone of influence and the tools of leverage. As time has progressed and extremes have rarified further, I have receeded from all but the most local politics, focusing on family, neighborhood and self. Out of selfishness and self preservation. The climate is bitter and harsh, precautions must be taken for the sensitive. And I will not sacrifice my sensitivity. i have sat the cushion and flowed the forms for too many hours to relinquish what was long earned and hard won. I wear the badge of 'bleeding heart' and 'snowflake' with honor and love. The folks who most desire influence and power, usually seem (to my sensibilities) to be, in character, the most psychotic and least altruistic. There seems an inverse proportional ratio in our current system, that those most drawn to influence, display least the qualities of a beneficial leader. In our current power structure, if a man or woman with integrity and high spirit is even drawn to pursue power (most often i find these are too wise to seek out such positions) and manages to arrive in a position of influence; their character and essence do not and will not possess the spirit to do 'whatever it takes' to maintain that position. Hence, they will inevitably be pushed out of influence by the more desperate and psychotic who will stop at nothing to achieve and maintain influence. How do we take care of the weakest among us? How do we prepare our children? How will we use our resources? Do we rehabilitate those who break our laws, or injure them with punishment? These are not political questions to me, but deeply spiritual ones. The answers I find coming from those avenues of public influence some folks still call news, are often mind shatteringly disconnected, sadistic, selfish and horrific. I have no answers but a few tendencies have developed. Work on self, care for family, care for neighbors, reach out and connect. And to cultivate awareness, presence and readiness to engage personally face to face. When ugliness arises, protect the weak without hesitation and likewise, when altruism and compassion are witnessed, openly praise, connect and support such. Connection is the only workable answer I've come across to the question "what is the meaning of life?"

Welcome! Plenty here of dedicated and insightful folks here to bounce ideas off of and to share experiences with... Glad you found your way here.

the last, an offer a lingering, unending, ever unfolding

sure can't be the news perhaps the storyteller's weaving a mind-tale

Well said. Every prior generation's experience is present in our genetic structure and their former forms are also present materially in the soil we grow our food in. It is as accessible as we are willing or capable of seeking tapping in and accessing it. One of my teachers, (18th generation lineage holder) spoke of this at length. He was a young man child when the Japanese invaded and was trained in the Arts by two Uncles on his Mother's side (one Shao Lin the other Wu Dang), they went into hiding and came to live with his mother when the Japanese were sweeping through, murdering as many capable Arts Masters as they could manage. That same teacher, was imprisoned for decades by the CCP, for this very reason. As I mentioned in my first response, the accumulated experiential vibration of our entire generational past is present in our very genetic structure and is accessible in my experience, on occasion seemingly spontaneously as conditions support it, or through diligent, prolonged effort, training and seeking. In my case, this is why stillness and looking inward are so potent. The past is not lost, or gone in my own unfolding path... it's woven into the very fabric of my body which contains all this wisdom, so poignant, profound and present, that it often staggers my localized awareness when I encounter it. Whispers: Don't think, feel, be present... like a finger pointing to the Moon. While there may be cultural and social amnesia, I find it's very much present individually and is carried on in some families with great alacrity and hardy stewardship. The wisdom in not lost; only dormant, unaccessed in current vibrational tendencies and distractedness. When quiet, still, looking inward, it's all present... hell it's materially present now, our houses are built on it and it's in the soil we grow our food in, which is literally the bodies of our ancestors. Great conversation all, deep thanks. I'm experiencing great benefit from this reminder at this moment. adding: synchronously... two clicks after leaving this conversation I encountered this article on the genetic presence of denisovan and neandertalis dna in our modern structure... Genetic Ghost Hunt

The What If Game. rules: imagine a what if or a thought experiment share it or comment on one that's shared Here are a couple that arise often, seemingly randomly: What transpires when an unstoppable force encounters and immovable object? If I were a source of light... what would I see?