silent thunder

Here's Houdini having at one of the seed pods for breakfast. Though to be honest, I don't know what meal to call it, when this guy hasn't stopped eating since we found him. He could easily out eat a Hobbit.

Southern Star is the third strain along with Longbottom and Old Toby that was grown in the South Farthing. I'm rereading the book, this popped up in the prologue of my edition.

logged so many hours listening to this soundtrack while studying lines and while prepping for shows in my theater daze...

I'd be honored to be in the presence of, and be judged by each of you.

Highly possible to me, based on pure population numbers and prevalent international coporate processes, that there are more slaves at this moment on Earth, than in all history combined.

@Bud Jetsun A Dao Bum I've met in person. Hope you're well mate.

So Houdini has some interesting eating habits not displayed by any of the others we've hosted. After stripping every leaf from the top of his chosen stem, last night we watched him climb to the top and eat an entire seed pod... casing, seeds, tufts... everything. Then after everyone had gone to bed, I walked by and saw him gnawing on the stem of the plant for a good long while. He eventually went down for another leaf, but after that leaf, he buggered right back up to the top and started gnawing on the stem, again. So fascinating... I wonder how much force their bite generates. While on the subject of seed pods... This plant has been producing 2-6 pods at a time regularly over the last two+ months and rather than having them dump all over our balcony and reseed in other pots with current occupants, my son and I have undertaken an Urban Guerrilla Gardening campaign. There are a few prime spots, empty lots and unused spaces along our usual walking route, where we take the pods that are opening and disperse the seeds on our midnight walks. (The true full name for the project is the Guerrilla Gardening Urban Resurgence Dispersal Joyously Each Fornight Federation... or G. GURDJEFF for short) simple joys...

Lawyer: Using your own words, can you tell the Court what happened? Witness: No, I use the same words as everyone else.

This morning, I spotted another caterpiller, happily munching away. Instar 3 or 4 already... impressive that he was here for a week without being spotted. No wasps have been spotted for a while now. They're drawn to the presence of aphids and we've been sweeping the plant regularly. Even so, we've brought him inside the screen to develop in peace... and to stare lovingly. Gal named him Houdini. Impressive yin visual evasion technique dear sir!

Second item in my feed on the other forum I regularly contribute to... Aldous seems to be making the rounds in my space... how delightful!

Wow. Gibran never fails to cut through the fog.

My process has simplified so much in recent years into simple, raw presence. I find no form, meditation, pursued skill, book, satsang, or evaded hardship to be more effective than simple raw presence. It's what is, when all else is allowed to fall away. It's what remains.

Fall of Gods. I was a kickstarter supporter for this piece. Bought it for my mythology collection and for my son to peruse on a long road trip to Oregon last Summer. It's a High Fantasy Norse mythological tale told in graphic novel style. Fun tribute to the Old Norse Hero tales. Though wholly predictable, the Art is of exceptional quality and detail. As a picture book, it's outstanding. It was not a hit, with my son, my gal, or myself at the time and sat unperused until yesterday... Though I'm appreciating it now. Seems all I have gravity to read these daze, is a bit of poetry and picture books... C'est la vie.

Awesome stuff @zerostao! Thanks for sharing. Your post reminds me that no matter where I've traveled and what cultural and language barriers existed... I've never needed a translator for my smile, laughter, or tears.

My Father was of this ilk. Not willing to change behaviors to prevent, just head to the Dr with hand out stretched and ingest whatever pills were prescribed. It was his perogative. I endeavor to avoid encounters with Western Medicine when at all possible. And I'm not one to just take whatever a Dr says, without due dilligence and thorough questioning. I'll look into this (ha!), it sounds mighty intriguing. I experienced eyesight improvement while on retreat with Master Wang. Sometime in the midst of the retreat, I realized while reading my book and waiting for my soup to arrive at my daily meal, that I hadn't thought of my reading glasses in a few days and no longer needed them. (at the time and now, I attribute the shift to increased sung.)

An interesting study and speculation of JRR's possible reasons for not pursuing the furtherance of the story, into and through the Age of Man. Thanks for sharing this gem Apech, I'll undoubtedly check out more of this guy's channel, when I've settled in my chair with a pipe of Old Toby ready for lighting and a pint of the Old Gaffer's Homebrew... *wanders off singing... Old Tom Bomadil, he's a merry fellow! Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow...

Aldous... so succinctly nails it. Reading that made me chortle out loud, then choke up almost instantly... I've long held (going on thirty years now) that Western Medicine is a financially predatory process, at least in Modern 'Murica. It will treat you (with seemingly no interest in prevention), but in the process of treating you, it will extract every possible penny from your bank account, and the system of insurance while doing so...

This death is not directly linked to C:19 through health, but covid may be implicated due to economic factors pushing someone into a shitty circumstance that caused his death. Two days ago, in the early evening, we discovered the body of a man (30'ish) lying in our courtyard, that had recently bled out. By recently... I mean mere minutes as the blood had not coagulated on the cement yet. He clearly had been injured somewhere else and had walked to where he collapsed, as the remaining blood near his body was minimal. What struck me is that the entire event was almost utterly silent. He never called for aid, never cried out in pain. Whoever called the medics for him did not cry out in shock or despair. The EMT's were arrived silently, and kept radios off while they gurnied his body and cleaned the site. EMT's assumed it was bullet wounds, (my wife was compelled to go ask), but wouldn't speculate beyond that. Where we live, we are not far from gang territory to our North and East, but the boundaries are being softened by desperation it seems. No homicide detectives showed up to interview anyone, so at this point I'm assuming they (police) know where he was in an altercation elsewhere and thus, there is nothing to garner from the spot, or witnesses where he bled out. I'm with Marcus, in that the human element to this pandemic, and their complication of the social aspects of it is proving far more terrifying and far reaching than the virus itself. Though I'm fortunate to say in my circle of work mates and neighbors, in my direct contact daily in shopping and moving about in my very limited manner (my wife is high risk) what I have observed is an increase in folks behaving admirably. But that's just in my bubble it seems, whenever I poke my nose in the news... 'Murica, truly seems the land of free-dumb right now to me in how folks are under-reacting to the virus and over-reacting to the social modifications to try and stem its spread. Both the underplaying of the virus and the over-reaction to any social modifications like masks and distancing are clearly coping mechanisms for those incapable of staring this process in the eye... and the implications of their under and over reactions, are rather horrifying. C'est la vie... the cycle continues...

Old Toby! The finest weed in the South Farthing...

Zhuang Zi's use of humor, hyperbole, satire and sardonic, biting wit based on his incredible insights are unparalleled examples to me of extreme high skill in observation. I'll echo @morning dew in that ZZ seems like a social commentarian and comedian of his day, using humor to exemplify the oddities of society living. When I started reading Zhuang Zi, particularly his repeated and unrelenting commentary on Confucianism ways and their myriad inconsistencies; I was reminded of the long form social commentary of the late, George Carlin. George had a piercing eye for revealing the humorous inconsistencies in modern life.

Who were the Five Wizards of Middle Earth?

Not sure that was ever answered, even in The Silmarillion. edit to add: felt compelled to dig a bit, to see if my memory is fading... seems he never settled on an answer. He mentions Ent Wives in two separate letters written to Naomi, 18 years apart. In the first, written in 1954 he states... "I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin..." Ent wives tendered deep affinity for the smaller plants of life, shrubs, vegetables, herbs n bushes, etc and tended their own vast Gardens separate from the boy Ent's forests. They'd headed East of Fangorn (in the Second Age) to tend new gardens there (in the Brown Lands), and that was probably where they perished (perhaps captured) in the scorched earth campaign of Sauron during the previous Alliance War. In the second letter, written just a year before his death... he admitted he had not answered this, even in his own mind. " As for the Entwives: I do not know. I have written nothing beyond the first few years of the Fourth Age."

Bilbo left the Shire after the party celebrating when he turned 111. Frodo turned 33 on that same day which was a reason to make the party even greater since Frodo besides becoming an adult, also became Bilbo's official heir as he entered adulthood (33 is the end of the 'tweens phase' of hobbit life and is the official age of adulthood in Hobbiton). In the book, 17 years passed after the grand party, before Gandalf returned to the Shire to tell Frodo that The Nine began hunting toward the Shire, after questioning Gollum and finding out the name of Baggins. So when Frodo left to start his quest, he was 50 and Bilbo would have been 128, resting, eating and writing his tales in Rivendell.