silent thunder

Here was the moon from our balcony last night. So much ash in the air, it was still deep crimson/orange an hour and a half after rising. Woke early and went out to finish prepping my truck and toolkit. Had momentary sense memory/reality overlay distortion when it looked like my truck was covered in snow. Then sighed and recalled it's ash from the El Dorado fire to the East of us... 55 miles away.

Chewing raw garlic. That is intense. I smash and let it sit a few minutes, then mix that with a tablespoon of honey.

I make one press full of coffee in the morning. I fill up my travel mug/thermos and there's one cup left over. Drink that while I get ready. Then drink from the travel mug at work or around the house. When it's half empty, I recharge it with hot water. Repeat that until it's basically just water. Since I don't eat until about five hours after getting up, most of my full strength coffee is on an empty stomach. When I'm not on a project and sleep whenever I feel like it, I may make another half press, or some turkish mud in my Iblik in the afternoon, or after a great meal in the evening.

Mushroom is a great foundation booster. thanks for the reminder. Might even pulverize some and add them to the bone broth... I used to regularly use a blended mushroom tincture. Don't recall the name, but the last few times I was in Whole paycheck... I mean Whole Foods... they'd stopped carrying it. I should find another.

Honey daily. Vit D daily. Thinking it's a good time to revisit raw garlic again... two fold benefit, boost my system and provide incentive for others to maintain social distancing. (I start a new project Tuesday). Start making bone broths again. We have ox tail, pork, beef and chicken bones waiting in the freezer.

The Lost Room A one off story told in six episodes. Really imaginitive. I expected to dismiss it, but was absorbed. A very clever concept piece. A detective finds a key at a crime scene, which opens a door to a room in between dimensions. The Lost Room. From this room, using that key, one can enter any other door on the planet.

I loved this series. Another one of the rare ones that I worked on and enjoyed watching. My crew built the second season. One of the better concept tv series.

Ok, I'm spamming now I realize, so I'll ease off for a bit, but not until I share this next one (which is two). My friends and i have done this for years.... putting on an album and then turning on some random movie, see if/how well they match up. Start listening to this one first, then begin watching this one muted and enjoy the epic randomness.

these guys lay down a smooth run... Dude: Hey man, can I hang with you? Other Dude: Sure, but first you gotta put this hat on... Dude: Right on!

These new hang drum tones are mesmerizing...

I love how the editor merged 'unrelated' activities into one unified process through their rhythms... there is no movement without rhythm... while all motion seemingly arises from revolves about... and returns to a point of stillness .

Welcome to the Bums mate! You're certainly in an auspicious place for finding a local teacher in a wide variety of lineages in your location. California is ripe with options.

I'm confused... does the forum software have a built in picture resizer?

So much is conveyed in those three words... A lifetime of pursuit and release, reaching and unfolding... simultaneously. Reaching out with intent, then releasing and withdrawing to assimilate, synthesize and then... reaching out again. paradoxical and life altering.

I mistook a question as directed at me when it was meant for another.

Well said! As per your usual quality of sharing, this highlights the paradox of 'effort and allowance'. It seems a dance of polarity, rather than an either/or endeavor to me lately.

Master Wang never taught the MCO directly, he taught methods that, looking back now mirror what @freeform describes as 'digging the trench'. Water flows through the channels of least resistance without pushing or cajoling of any kind. It follows its nature. He downplayed any obsessive over interest or pursuing of the creation and establishment of the MCO through mental forcing, saying in effect, 'it will arise naturally of its own volition (tzujan) when conditions support it; so don't concern yourself with creating it, focus on the work. There is no need to seek or try to manufacture it, it's already occuring at whatever level the body and mind currently supports, and will become more robust as training foundations lay the proper framework for expansion.

Both systems I use interchangeably, alone and together, (from lineage holders Zhou Ting-Jue and Wang Liping) make use of visualization and very specific points within and without the body. They were taught very specifically and that is how I've always used them. I think something to keep in mind about the nature of this work, is that as it begins to engender change within us, this change is often far from pleasant. If one engages with this work on the assumption that it will make one feel better (particularly in the first few years), then they're likely in for a surprise. It was this way in my case. When the shifts began to gain inertia, the changes wrought in my life and awareness were far from pleasant. They were and still are, disorienting, uncomfortable, painful even. Rooting out blockages, releasing traumas, realizing one's past misbehaviors. That we encounter unpleasantness when this work 'gets going' is not an indication to me that things are broken. It's an indication that things are healing and this is often not a pleasant undertaking. Then again, I did not learn any of my techniques from a book. And this is only my experience of my practice(s). This is not to say things can't go wrong in some cases. But a call out from my experience that it can be downright hellish at times without being a deviation, rather, this is the process of trauma and blockage re-presenting for release. The process of awakening for me over the last two and half years is far from a pleasant process, filled with bliss. 'The Work' for me has been one of intentional sung in the presence of extremes of discomfort and awakening. A constant releasing of previous assumption and conditioning and fostering a perpetual unfolding through whatever arises without clinging, hampering or fighting. (i still fail and run from some realizations). As awareness opens blocked traumas and repressed energies, I experience the pain that wasn't able to be dealt with when the blockage formed, so as my toolbox expands through the practice and teachings, subconscious awareness realizes that these old packages of trauma may now be processed when before, i lacked the ability, or techniques to deal with it healthily, so it was stored as blockage and ill mannered illusory thinking. My path to awakening has been far from a ride of bliss and a perpetual meadow of unicorns, but not to be all doom and gloom, the fog is lifting, but it's not (for me) an overnight shift from illusion and blockage to thrumming blissful neutrality in the face of life. It has been a steady relentless dissolution of assumptions, illusions and when possible a committed unfolding into arising blockages, memories and past traumas (some heretofore unknown). This is not to discount folks who experience sicknesses due to unbalanced practices, or encountering blockages so severe that working alone is untenable. I just want to share my own experience that engaging in these practices is in my experience designed to do exactly what is unfolding in my case... bring to awareness the unpleasant, the blocked and the traumatic... and release it and finally be free of its influence... and this is in fact... the work (at least in my case). This, I suspect is why teachers with vast experience in these matters will often dissuade and shy potential students away from starting such work. It is far more often unpleasant than blissful, in the opening phases. disclaimer: (not trying to convince anyone of anything with this... just sharing what is pertinent to my own experiences, past and ongoing)...

Khruangbin evidently retreated to their Houston area farm for some isolation recording. Mordechai is the result, released back in June. Their SE Asian Funk infused mellowness and quirky sense of humor is just my speed lately. and then they hit me with this... <woof!>

Of German Cows and Dalmation Dogs: This thread just caused me to recall one of the sweetest memories. One that my wife has told me and retold me and folks we meet, over our life together. She grew up in the Alps where she'd roam free during the Summers, all through the meadows and freely among various farmer's cow herds and pastures as well. She had a Dalmation/Lab mix and they were inseperable, he followed her everywhere... except for certain paddocks where he was reticent to follow too closely... for inevitably... when the cows would get one look at him, and based on his color patterning figure he was a lost calf and come veritably charging over to smother him in motherly love. He was never amused, but my wife adored having the cows consolidate in a big loving clump...

This works so well for me... too well when I'm trying to work on other things. I used to keep a blank wall in my meditation room and would soft focus stare at it during qi gong, standing and stillness work. It was a bit surprising when still images arose unsought. It was a novelty, it has happened on and off throughout my life (and I assumed this was an engendering of the third eye work I'd been engaged in intensely over previous years, working in pitch black with eyes open to induce open eye and third eye visuals). At first they were a novelty and were vague hints of still images, pareidolia and not distracting. Usually more intense in the early evening during the longer light and shadows of sunset/twilight. Soft focus and ignoring them did not dissipate them, and they'd arise a few minutes into practice after mind quieted. They usually started soft, vague and then suddenly blossom into photo-realistic, full detailed static images. Not always in perfect focus, but clear enough to make out all the details... these are distracting. I continued on, intending to allow and not feed them, assuming they'd dissipate. Just the opposite occured. Eventually within a few minutes of facing the wall. The images would arise and then they began moving. The wall shifted into full cinematic scenes, usually in a sapphire or sepia toned filter (depending on time of day). These are crystal clear and incredibly distracting full cinematic moving images of places, people, moments. Ignoring them is not possible (for me). Whether they were ancestral memory, residuals of the location we live, current happenings, or pure fabrication... I don't know. But they made practice nigh on impossible. I eventually framed a canvas and spent months layering paints on it until it told me it was sufficient. That hangs on my wall now and allows me to practice without the wall morphing into a giant third eye/imagination projector.

Potent lesson in how our perception of reality is actually what we hallucinate of our reality, not reality itself. Our interpretation of the stimuli arriving in our perceptual process is unique to our conditioning and assumptions and thus is always a subjective map/model or representation of reality... never reality itself. As this conditioning is created by familial and social influences, some of us share similarities, but it's still an individual process in each awareness, which is why there is often such diversified recall of details in events shared by multiple people. And with the recognized massive influence of our mind's pattern projection/interpretation in co-creation as it relates to 'physical' phenomenological stimuli (such our eyes seeing this picture) and what we perceive... imagine how much more influence 'this builder/storyteller/interpreter' wields when we're not processing actual perceptual input, but simply playing in the fields of the inner eye/imagination. How much influence does this interpreter/storyteller wield when we are thinking about thinking? Or operating just in the realm of the noumenal. It becomes monumental. I can see why the Buddhists key in on working with this Builder, when intending to ferret out the illusory nature of our mind's ignorance. We truly perceive what our perceptual process hallucinates for us, not what is present. And this is trained by society and family and reinforced daily by those same influences and our habits. This is why self reflection, meditation, self analysis is such a part of spiritual pursuits in my opinion. Cognitive Sciences refer to it as 'Fitness Modeling', not Reality Rendering. Our conscious perceptual tools have evolved to highlight and 'icon' those aspects of perceptual triggers that have proven most beneficial to survival. Our world perception builder highlights what benefits us most, rather than just processing what is present as accurately as possible And this is beneficial to us as a species and to our survival. Too much accuracy in vison can lead to detrimental effects, we refine out much of what is available in information to suit fitness modeling toward survival, not accuracy. Donald Hoffman, Cognitive Sciences Professor has devoted over 30 years to analyzing the process by which human perceptual modeling directly distorts the accuracy of the world it interprets and presents to our awareness, to our distinct survival advantage. Our percptual process filters out many aspects of information coming in through the apparatus, in order to highlight aspects of that info that are most relevant to our survival and that will bring most benefit. He uses the metaphor of a computer program rendered on a screen. To engage with the program on the computer, we interact with icons on a screen that represent processes that are not rendered and are beneath the threshold of conscious awareness. We don't see the circuit boards, the soldering... we do not see the information as stored on data disks, or crystal matrices. We see icons on a screen that represent functions and once known, we understand that the icon is not the actual process, it is the manner in which we interact with the process. To engage in everyday life, we benefit not from complete accuracy, but from highlighting those aspects of the incoming sensory data, that most adroitly provide for our health, vitality and safety. Imagine two people solving a puzzle on a computer, one is watching the screen, using the icons rendered on the screen (that represent processes having no resemblance to the icons) but which allow interaction that allows one to finish the puzzle... while the other has opened up the tower, and is looking for the 'real and most accurate information' of where the game exists in coding and in circuitry. Not only is it not beneficial to try and engage in the puzzle by garnering a 'more accurate' input, it's not even functionally possible. Ack, this is getting longer quickly... apologize for the rant, but this is a topic I've been rather obsessed with in the last five or so years in my own process with Doubt and Dissolution of Assumption/Interpretation and in becoming aware of The Builder. For a far more adroit and in depth explanation... Donald Hoffman has several lectures and interviews available on youtube on the topic in depth. The following one, is a short 20 minute intro to the topic in general. And if this tweaks further interest, here is an hour n a half conversation where Donald is interviewed by an M.D. and they discuss the topic of Fitness Modeling and The Case Against Reality and many related avenues in much greater depth. top notch stuff in my experience and opinion...

sunnyside up w/hash browns and pork sausage and a healthy dash of cholula all mixed up in a bowl I have a meteor I happened upon, sitting next to my breakfast bowl...

Message received! Cease breakfast and take up jewelry smithing.