Michael Sternbach

I think you may want to still use affirmation in order to dwell on what you intend a little bit longer.

What is your method of meditation to reach that level?

<Yawn> You wouldn't believe how many times I have heard something like that before. Well, I think I am going to pass the ball to Taiji and Bagua master Montaigue this time... (Sorry Erle, I remember how you hated being called 'master'.)

That's actually a remarkable statement. Not only is it seemingly at odds with the second thermodynamic law (according to which no energy, and therefore no matter, can ever be created or destroyed) - much like the Big Bang in most models, BTW -, it defines non-being NOT as 'nothing', but as a state of potentiality. Compare this with ch. 21 (transl. by F. H. Baldour): Tao, considered as an entity, is obscure and vague. Vague and obscure! Yet within it there is Form. Obscure and vague! Yet within it there is Substance. Vacuous and unfathomable! Yet within it there is Quintessential Energy—and this is supremely real.

Yes, a fight can be over in two seconds, but to accomplish this (more or less) reliably, you first have to spend countless hours training your martial art. ☝

Hi Limahong Me? Just a man. And you know... Men are Pigs Hello, darling, I love you. You're the only one for me. It think the others are all dumb. That's why I'm courting you. You're so different, totally special. I always notice such a thing quickly. Now undress and lie down. Soon it'll be dark, soon it'll be nighttime. A word of warning is advisable: Men are pigs, Don't trust them, my child, They all want just one thing, 'Cuz that's just how men are. A man doesn't feel like a man until he can take care of you. He lies like a trooper, just to get you in bed. And then in the morning, he has no idea what your name is. Reckless and unihibited, Feelings are alien to him, For him, love is the same as a loss of semen. Girl, that's why you need to be aware: Men are pigs, Don't ask for sunlight, Sadly, there are no exceptions. There's a pig hidden in every man. Men are sows, don't belief a single word they say. They swear they will always be true, Then are gone the next morning [yeah, yeah, yeah] ["What did I do to make you distress me and say, you don't love me anymore?" "You don't have the slightest idea what love is. We don't even know each other."] {In the single: ["Men? These abominable hairy beasts that always have to paw at everything?" "And at the same time, they all want only that one thing from a girl."] And, in case you make a mistake, And catch a husband, your noble suitor mutates into an animal right after the wedding. He then shows you his true self, completely unshaven and rank, drinks beer, watches TV and quickly becomes fat. And burps and farts in the marriage bed. Then you've got King Kong as your husband. That's why I'm telling you, please always think about: Men are pigs, Don't trust them, my child, They all want just one thing, They are blind to true love. Men are rats, Approach them only with cunning, They want to copulate with everything. That with three it's not in the trees. Men are pigs, Don't ask for sunlight, Sadly, there are no exceptions. There's a pig hidden in every man. Men are cars, Only without a spare tire. [yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah] Leftist pigs, horrible pigs, Disgusting pigs, horrible pigs, Dumb pigs, dumb pigs, Horny pigs Leftist pigs, horrible pigs, Disgusting pigs, horrible pigs, Stinking pigs, leftist pigs, Horny pigs Leftist pigs, horrible pigs, Disgusting pigs, horrible pigs, Dumb pigs, Nazi pigs, Horny pigs We don't want any cops* horrible pigs, horrible pigs Molitav-Cocktails and Stones against the cops. *lit: cop-pigs

It's true that in Taiji, as in so many other martial arts, much was lost somewhere on the way - insofar it has ever been known to begin with, except perhaps to a few of the master's most trusted students! While some modern (post-modern?) instructors make some of that knowledge more widely available today - pretty much for the first time in history! What this boils down to is that what matters more than what kind of style (old or new) you are studying is the quality of the instruction you are receiving. The following is an example of a brilliant instructor:

To be honest, I find this topic boaring!

Interesting. Since potassium can definitely act as a mediator and mercurial agent in Alchemy. Therefore, cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) was suggested by Van Helmont as an ingredient of the Alcahest or universal solvent (in one of its forms) used to dissipate and unite various substances.

Have you guys ever heard of Peppa pig & Cia? Here you go... Send me a PM to request dispension from watching the whole 40+ minutes of this.

Being honest and being cunning are not necessarily opposites.

The question is, do (or perhaps once did) those cities exist in a physical way? Occasionally, I was sitting in a restaurant, imagining (just for fun) that another guest looking over to me may be an extraterrestrian in disguise who had just landed a few hours before and was studying me now. There is nothing wrong with having a (reasonably) skeptical mind, though.

A recent update on the search for that yet unseen planet that may be lurking far out in our solar system. http://www.andylloyd.org/darkstarblog70.htm

For those of you who wish a little more background on Planet X: http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet-49523

Alright, let's take a look now at item #7 from our list of odd astronomical objects (linked to in the OP): The possible existence of an additional BIG planet in our ow solar system! This one has always been of particular interest to me, since as an astrologer, I have been insisting for decades that there should be two more planets orbiting our Sun - in order to complete what is sometimes called astrology's domicile scheme: The concept that each of the twelve signs of the zodiac is 'home' to a particular planet. While in antiquity it was accepted that basically every sign is the domain of two of the then-known planets, the discovery of additional planets quite undetectable by the naked eye (starting with Uranus found by Wilhelm Herschel in 1781) and their subsequent assignment to zodiacal signs by astrologers led to an asymmetry that in my mind strongly suggests the existence of two more planets. I.e., if there is an objective cosmic reality underlying astrological theory, which I assume to be the case. It therefore came to me as a bit of a shock when in 2014 an extensive survey by the WISE space telescope yielded no evidence of there being any major bodies on the outskirts of our solar system. I immediately sent an email to renowned TNO* discoverer Mike Brown, asking him if in his opinion WISE's negative observational result would rule out the existence of Planet X for good. Brown's reply reached me about two years later, when in the January 2016 issue of the Astronomical Journal he declared that (notwithstanding the negative result of the WISE survey) there is indeed strong indirect evidence for one or more further major planets orbiting our Sun - the probability of that being a staggering 15.000:1 as suggested by the gravitational anomalies observed in the outer solar system. Already a year earlier, there was also a professor of Madrid university suggesting the existence of two yet unobserved planets in our solar system. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/two-hidden-planets-could-exist-5000557 One thing is for sure: We do live in excitig times as space aficionados! * Trans-Neptunian Object

Seems like yinz* are saying the same thing here. Yes, that the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth appear to have exactly the same size is indeed pretty amazing. Thus, in many ancient cultures, the two Luminaries were considered to be the two eyes of the Cosmic Man. I am not sure if that means the Moon could not have been captured by the Earth though. At any rate, it does mean that things just fell into place. The currently most widely accepted theory is that primordial Earth was hit by a stray planet (about the size of Mars) in the newly forming solar system. Subsequently, the Moon was patched together from all the debris floating in space as a result of that collision. Given the Moon's distance from the Earth, it takes her 27.32 days for one revolution around our globe. Interestingly, if we divide 1 by the number of days in a leap-year, we get 1/366 = .002732 (whereas 1/27.32 = .0366). This again suggests that there is nothing accidental about the way the bodies of the solar system have been arranged. Moreover, the number series 2732 shows up as some kind of cosmic constant in a variety of contexts. Some of this stuff is rather complex... I may say more about it some other time. * Pardon the Pennsylvian English, it just comes in so handy sometimes that I can't help it!

Heard about White Holes first in my elementary school days, at a time they were all the rave in astrophysics. Then they have no longer been heard of for a while. However, the idea is still out there, and it's as fascinating as it ever was. Take a look... https://www.space.com/40422-are-white-holes-dark-matter.html

Quoting the linked article: So perhaps Ceres represents the Water element, whereas Vesta, the second largest asteroid and bearing the name of the Roman goddess of the hearth, represents Fire. Just a (metaphysical) thought.

And just to eliminate all unambiguities, Ceres has some comet-like features. http://science.time.com/2014/01/22/the-asteroid-that-thought-it-was-a-comet/ The most widely accepted theory rigjht now is that Ceres originally migrated from the Kuiper belt into the inner solar system. At any rate, really a fascinating lady...

I see you edited your previous comment before I had a chance to answer. So maybe you figured out what you were asking about, but just in case: The Moon does rotate - in sync with her orbital motion! But the Moon is no asteroid, and has never been one. Unlike Mars' two small moons, which are most likely captured asteroids. Talking about real asteroids, Ceres is probably the roundest one (now classified as a dwarf planet).

Most of the colliding object as well as much of the surface in the impact area are being atomised and widely spread due to the tremendous kinetic force. On a body with an atmosphere, this can lead to the dreaded phenomenon called 'nuclear winter' - the prolonged darkening of the sky, in this case due to the impact's fall-out. The 'splattering' may also result in anomalous concentrations of iridium and platinum (metals that are very rare on Earth) in remote areas, such as in the ice of Greenland, where its detection in ice core sample indicates (and allows the dating of) such events. There are indeed objects out there that mostly consist of frozen water (along with some frozen gasses, rock and dust) and that occasionally appen to collide with a planet or moon; those belong to the comet category. However, the bright 'rays' you see with some of the craters is not due to ice but to ejecta excavated from beneath the Moon's surface. As the latter is comparatively dark (or 'mature'), bright fall-out material suggests a relatively recent event ('recent' in geological terms; let's say, not more than half a billion years ago). You are correct, the Moon is tidally (gravitationally) locked to the Earth, in this case resulting in synchronous rotation (as opposed to mere spin-orbit resonance as we observe e.g. with Mercury and the Sun). Therefore the Moon indeed always shows us the same face and we had no idea what the other half of her surface looks like before it was surveyed by a Russian space probe in 1959. But synchronous rotation per se has nothing to do with a satellite being artificial or captured; it is simply the consequence of the latter's orbital eccentricity and obliquity being close to zero.

I don't doubt your existence.

Extrapolate

Nice! But where did Saturn's rings go? Were they eaten by a cat?

But you've got to be part of it!