silent thunder

My son introduced me to The Longest Johns. He absolutely loves em and has learned a few and has the foundation of a good baritone. He has no idea I used to sing chantey's as part of a barbershop foursome back in my early theater days. We mostly went to retirement homes and sang for free, but also booked gigs for a few years after word got out. Now I get to revisit them them with my boy... pure awesome.

Thanks mate. I needed that...

I've not heard of Malazan, thanks for sharing. Been a while now since I've read for pleasure, might be time. Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series is one of my all time favorites. And surprisingly little known among fantasy lovers I've encountered. I've handed out and repurchased countless copies over the years, spreading my love of his work. Fritz wrote in series of conjoined short stories about the two anti-heroes Fafhrd of the Northern Ice Tribe Barbarians and Grey Mouser, the slim wizard-thief from the sultry low lands in the South. The stories link together loosely and can be read in any order really... published over time into about seven books total. Ill Met In Lankhmar is the first. Lieber's phrasing was always a keen draw for me, very unique. He was inspirational to many other writers as well. He along with Michael Moorcock and Robert Howard are considered the Fathers of the Sword and Sorcery genre. Fritz was also a deep love and inspiration of JRR Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings it seems, will always be my crown jewel for high fantasy. While living in NYC in the 90's and riding the tube daily, I devoured both Terry Goodkind's and Robert Jordan's series... each somewhere around a dozen books. The Kingmaker series has been coming to mind lately as well. I read that while hanging out at The Cloisters Castle in The Bronx. As perfect a setting for reading that in America as one is likely to find... sections of five different European castles reassembled into a new castle in the heart of the Bronx, NYC. And if you want to veer out of fantasy and into top notch sci fi... the Strugatsky Brothers out of Russia... <woof!> Amazing stuff! I recommend Roadside Picnic to start.

Surstromming challenge. I can't even be in the same room with it, let along try a mouthful. Freaking Swedes and their delicacies...

Lakota Elder and Tibetan Chanter. Magickal!

Welcome mate.

Wow... who added the terrible photoblob of the man to that lynx pic? lol! nice shadow matching.

Sex between consenting adults does not concern me one iota, nor can it seem relevant to anyone but those involved... (unless one is interested in voyerism, in which case... we're back to consenting adults). Leave consenting adults to their own process. Why bother about it?

I forsee, my wife is going to wonder why I added cumquats to our grocery list...

Intriguing line of reasoning. Where then, I wonder, does the Rainbow Body of Tibetan/Buddhist lines fit in with the Daoist Immortal Foetus? Rough equivalent, or completely differing sphere of influence?

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I often have a sense that my own local awareness and body, are akin to a whirlpool in a river. An observable pattern, yet ever shifting. Whirlpools have an observable shape and influence on surrounding conditions and this can be readily observed and persists for a time. Likewise there's an observable shape to my presence... a pattern that my family and friends recognize and persists for a time. Yet like a whirlpool, that pattern is comprised of an ever shifting, whirling, whorling series of processes, influences and smaller components... veritable incadescent, effervescent vibrations on the foundational level that when observed, reveal themselves as vibrations within emptiness. fascinating stuff...

It's almost time for Monarchs to begin passing through... again. I hope. We're getting three bushes this year. Two will remain outside for hosting eggs and initial hatchings. One will remain behind the screen and we'll transfer the cats there as a haven to safely finish their process and avoid another Wasp assault. Unfortunately I read a few weeks ago that Monarch populations have potentially plummeted this year. If reports pan out to be accurate, it looks bleak. Observer's counts in several key and historically significant areas numbered only in the hundreds, while others reported none, or a a mere few thousand. When my wife and I encountered that sleeping cluster in a Eucalyptus Grove in Big Sur, back in the early 2000's, there were so many ladening down the branches of a dozen trees we couldn't see the branches or leaves... now those Groves may be bare. While it is the nature of that which has form, to pass away and I embrace this. I also am unflinchingly aware that within my own field... there exists an abiding and a deep longing to see this pattern of Monarchs in nature to endure, for whatever reason. So... three Milkweed bushes will be picked up soon and we'll invite any passing Mothers-to-be, to devote their young to our fostering observations and nurturing.

Waking awareness as well, for me... more and more in recent trips around the sun.

Wow does this resonate! Adding to my library. Thank you.

The Secret and Sublime: Taoist Mysteries and Magic by John Blofeld was a potent read and may offer some mileage. But it is strictly anecdotal accounts of John's personal meetings with secluded, high level masters of Taoist Arts in the 1920's and 30's while traveling in remote areas of China... no functional descriptors of processes, meditations or rituals. But woof! some powerful accounts. Another book on Eastern Magic I'd recommend is Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel. It recounts her personal experiences in Tibet... when Tibet was officially closed to outsiders. Not only was she allowed to remain, but was given robes and a title fitting her achievement after being tested and granted access to the higher levels of indoor methods. She also formally adopted a Lama who traveled with her the remainder of her life. Fascinating woman.

Nothing occupies certainty but a few strong suspicions abide. That tao seems a bottomless, ageless well endlessly unfolding the 10,000... empty formless bellows of life and death. That my skin used to bring a sense of my separation, independence and individuality... and now reveals as the very intimacy linking my awareness and presence to the rest of the 10,000... to Indra's Net and tao. That all my pursuits, achievements and follies will never span the depth and breadth of tao or the 10,000... Happiness is no longer craved, sought, nor welcome. Contentment in presence reigns. and nothing that i have pursued, achieved, or failed at, exceeds raw awareness, innate beingness and inherent presence... water flowing into the sea, becomes the sea. This is it. i am this.

I have had a copy of Jerry's book Daoist Internal Alchemy: Neigong and Weigong Training/The Secret Teaching of Esoteric Daoist Magic for 7 years now. There is so much more in that manual than I will ever be able to incorporate in this lifetime. That book is a veritable cornucopia of Daoist knowledge and wisdom. 621 pages of pure, distilled taoist theory, practices, meditations, rituals. I highly recommend it. One of the more practical books I've encountered. No nonsense. Organized. Functional.

I find this line fascinating and its tweaked my mind for decades now. I'm human, yet no where inside me is the human element and yet, the elements came together and formed into a human. It's remarkable to me, this threshold between 'a bunch of elements' and 'a human', or a tree, or flower, or fish. Pile up elements randomly and you get a pile of elements. Yet a pregnant woman eats elements, none of which are human and they combine to become a human. Yet there is no 'human element'. Even our very human DNA is a mix of nucleotides and protein chains, none of which are made of a human element. No human element exists. No frog element. (what an incredible manifestation of the function of the 10,000) Humans are comprised of the same elements as all the other 'things' in the universe, but when combined in a certain pattern in a pregnant woman, we eventually combine to form a 'human'. (though sometimes at walmart this can be tougher to ascertain). What I eat transforms into human... somehow. No matter how many apples I eat, I never turn into an apple. It was standard procedure for me to bring home a bag of tacos whenever I thought of it while my wife was pregnant with our son. We joke that his first body was mostly taco... yet no matter how many tacos she ate, they transformed in our son, even though, inside him, there is no human element present. Our bodies are comprised of non human elements, yet we are human. Reminds me of the notion of the Brahman's body being the universe.

I enjoy reading or listening to something without needing to endorse it, or deny it. I enjoyed Unacknowledged, but didn't spend energy believing, or needing to disprove it, I just enjoyed listening and mulling it over. In a similar vein I got a lot of enjoyment out of the series Cosmic Disclosure on Gaia TV through Amazon Prime. 12 seasons worth of in-depth interviews.

omg i love you all... i'm cryin over here...

This site radio garden displays a globe. On the globe are green dots, representing live radio broadcasts around the world. Click one and listen in instantly... I've been listening to this radio station broadcasting in Trondelag, a few kilometers from where my 15th century ancestors farmed the seas... Hopped over to Scotland for a bit, then swung by Kyoto... Pure. Awesome.