redcairo

I bought those books. I read the first book. By the end of it I was like, GODS! Is this author the most depressed person in the world? Does he see nothing but misery and death and the worst people triumphing? I thought well, maybe it gets better. Maybe the first book is just kinda dark. But then I found a review that talked about everything that bothered me the most and then said, and the ENTIRE SERIES is like this! It never changes! I sent the books to someone else. I didn't watch the TV show, even though one of the bad guys (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is one of my favorite actors to drool over since I saw him in the awesome series New Amsterdam (see hulu or amazon or a warez site for the only season). RC

Gardening is great! These pics are a bit dated, prior to some medical stuff that took me out of gardening. But it's been a bit of an obsession of mine I hope to start regaining before long. :-) I made a 'standing garden' - using cinderblock in a 24" and 36" height. Then I arched 4"x4" cattle panels along the fence behind that. You can get BIG tubs for not too much (esp at dollar stores although it's likely china's export of their waste in anything that can be liquified as a manufacturing material...) to use for making homemade earth-boxes for the giant trellising arches. Every couple years I dump in a bunch of topsoil-compost from the local mushroom plant, which tragically does have a chemical base; aside from that I'm wholly organic. If the bugs eat the plants, then it's a good year for the bugs, I don't really treat them aside from once when I had to dump diatomaceous earth in one bed because through some freak of nature it became literally filled, I mean like you couldn't even see soil, with roly-poly bugs (ewww). I don't grow melons/gourds because the bugs here would have to be treated for or I'd never get any. I don't grow strawberries anymore because after FOUR YEARS of growing the suckers in this lovely BIG round garden bed, I got something like one. EVER. From all that work and money. Basically the birds dive bomb them, putting holes in them with their beaks, and then the ants and other bugs rush them, and literally "almost ripe!" berries one day are literally gone, not a single shred of them left the next morning. I finally lost my temper about it and just quit growing them. But I grow a boatload of different types of tomatoes, peppers, basils and a variety of herbs, and sometimes garlic, onions, and a couple years a lot of greens early in the spring. Being able to reach everything while just walking around is really just awesome. RC Pics to follow, if this works... When we built it (in Winter) An overview during a sweltering summer (bit droopy) in probably the most verdant year The arch trellising with earthboxes (homemade sorts) oh yeah, and RC

I do not think that compassion, charity and kindness are available as a result of rational thinking or the mind. I think if people do not develop the qualities of the heart[1], which often happens prior to their (over-) development of reason, they lack the innate morality that sponsors those feelings and behaviors. [1] I say heart not to be poetic, but literal. I (subjectively, since that is the only way any of us can experience anything) have perceived that at least three of my chakra areas of body/self seem to have a focus on emotion. They are different sorts for each. The emotions you speak of are those I have felt in the chest region. RC

Wow. All of the above, perfectly. I feel silly saying 'me too' but I don't think I could say it better than you did. RC

It just figures the guys who are immortal and least need to procreate would be the sex gods!

I think it's a gradual thing, not a sudden thing. I'm confused by the "what are you doing about it" question. For the love of cats, dude, I can't even do anything about my Mayor, never mind about the impending doom of the entire planet earth. Did you have a list of things you assumed people would be "doing about" impending escalation (until WW point) internationally? What, exactly, would you suggest people do about it? I'm serious, now you have me wondering! RC

That's hilarious. I had a boss who once paid me to read Rush's books and listen to his show. This was I think not long after Bill Clinton got elected on LESS than half the vote. Was that his first election? Anyway, his show was filled with the tons of people in congress who were standing on the floor reading the news into the congressional record (about the Clinton's and the body count behind them) because they knew it would get lost utterly and forever otherwise. It still got forgotten but at least it's buried in the archives somewhere... I liked Rush. I haven't really heard him in 20 years so I can't say I still do because I don't know. But I did then. I recall right after the OKC bombing it was momentarily suggested that any internal terrorism would be the result of people in the media who complained about the government, specifically RL, and that they should be silenced. That went away immediately, seen as the horror it was. But I always wondered if, terrorism sure to be in our future inhouse, that logic would be dredged up again when The Hill on the The Hill is in the chair. RC

Was distracted by the giant gold bling rings, count them three, on that man's hands lol I think I missed the point of that video, or rather, it was so obvious it seems odd that anybody would need to make a video to make the point, perhaps. Nothing personal OP, thanks for sharing :-) RC

HC will win pretty sure. But Trump winning would sure be more interesting. Perhaps equally depressing but way more interesting! Moore's opinion is possibly the last thing that would seem a positive to me... RC

P.S. I am sorry I have nothing to say about fleas. LOL

I recently read a link someone (maybe Karl?) posted that was a series of three lectures by C.S. Lewis. The first one I liked best, "Men Without Chests." Actually it's something I've always observed and felt strongly about but never really had the moment to go on about it, and I was so delighted that he did. But the overall essay series got me thinking about what he called the Tao (of course that is only his use of the word). Namely this concept that I myself accepted when young, that there was no good or evil, there was merely whatever is, and all our judgement about what is good or bad is merely subjective. The more I thought about Lewis's argument, the more I am inclined to think he was accurate. In that: Actually, maybe there IS, fundamentally for humans (and this does not mean this is so for spirits or aliens or trees, but is so for humans) an "objective" set of what amounts to "values." Didn't Huxley call that The Perennial Philosophy or something like that. The values that around the world throughout time are generally found everywhere, e.g. that it's fundamentally wrong to kill another human being. Lewis's argument is that even the drive to teach people that there is no objective set of values, to teach people that everything is subjective, is itself motivated by the sense of need to teach this because, assumedly, one thinks that what they think - that other people thinking this way - is what is right, or at least what is good. If it wasn't there would be no point to teaching it. But what defines it as good? Either the good is utterly arbitrary, or it's not. And if it's not, then where does that value come from? Either it is inherent in the ... balance of energy in this sphere, or it is not. I am still going around in my head about it. But it was a wonderful essay and has given me a lot to think on. Duality... I don't think it implies good/bad, but who knows. I've had some 'duality' type experiences... people later told me this relates to Binah in QBLH which I know nearly zip about. Mostly it just seems, in rare moments of insight, that self-awareness fundamentally is a thing of two (e.g. sorry to use a biblical ref but I mean like, and the word was with God, and the word was God) -- to be 'self-aware' -- that is two things. Awareness is one thing. Self by definition creates a think for the awareness to be aware of separately from other things. That is fundamentally dual. Isn't it? RC

Oh I forgot to add. Seth would say that whatever we project on others we feel, that is to say, if I daydream of overcoming threat of any kind, then I fear threat. In occasional moments of insight I actually conclude that almost everything is "variations on degree and shade of fear" and when I let go of fear in any area it's amazing how it changes my perspective. Fear of separation from self/god, fundamentally, I think, but that part's theory. I did have one meditation that accidentally suggested maybe he was right (for me) though. Years ago in a med one of my Aeons had an issue with someone in one of her lives and it was invasive, so in the med I pushed that energy "out the door" to protect her. Forgot all about this. Later that night I spent about two hours nearly having a heart attack with unusual fear about someone maybe trying to come in my back door. I kept checking that it was locked. I wasn't sure if I heard something out in my garage (where the door leads to). On and on. Finally another of my Aeons pointed out that I had 'pushed the threat out the door' and now I was paranoid, totally, of a threat outside my door. LOL!!! Once I knew, I fixed it. Still, it was kinda funny... later. RC

Well I think it's possible that just getting more exercise, and perhaps doing more entertainment (generally in the house or literally on stage) would fill certain energetic needs that instead end up trying to find an avenue in daydreams of some kind. I've had so many epiphanies about how my meditations, my daydreams, and my life, are not really any different except a couple details of manifestation degree and speed... but that they are all legitimate energetic constructs I'm interacting with -- and that always has consequences. A smoother life would lead to less head-punching energy in daydreams I feel sure, but I can only theorize. :-) RC

I am pretty sure it is the ego (other people involved, one appears mighty) that is sucking up that energy. The gain is in attention and admiration I suppose. I had such an issue with it I finally came up with a diff set of basics that involved rescuing people instead. Unfortunately that still creates the energy of someone needing rescued. Gah! Life on earth! RC

I like people. I think even people I disagree with are probably lovely folks I likely have plenty in common with, regardless of our politics. I'm a mystic of sorts spiritually, not to be confused with my politics which are totally constructionist (that is to say that all altruism is the affair of the human heart, not the government). But all my spiritual development kinda comes crashing down when I ponder why we cannot just banish anyone demonstrating subversive intent to some other continent. Preferably not South America since they'd just be back on the next train. * For some reason this reminds me of a daydream dilemma I had a long time ago. I was attempting to tame my daydreams which were the normal sorts -- 5 primary versions of me the hero -- and in this case, me the bourne/jet-li like nimble ninja saving the day. After a moment in the daydream when I flipped a knife at a bad guy I stopped, rewound, and told myself no, I don't want to feed this kind of energy. A knife in someone's throat would likely kill them. Lizardbrain: OK. We'll throw it in their gut! {does so.} Guiltybrain: {rewinds} Have you heard about gut-shot? That's a horrible wound. Lizardbrain: Fine. We'll throw it in their shoulder! Guiltybrain: Still far too injurious. Lizardbrain: Fine! It'll spin past and just cut their arm! Guiltybrain: Remember the incision wound from surgery, how horrible that was? Why would we do that to anybody? Do we want more of that energy ourselves? Come on! Lizardbrain: We will flip it around and whack them on the head with the hilt! Guiltybrain: Like brain injuries are so much better. Lizardbrain: F--k. How can I stick a knife in the bad guy without hurting him too much? Observingbrain: You cannot stick a knife in anybody without hurting them. Obviously. Lizardbrain: Well how the f--k am I supposed to have a decent action daydream if I can't hurt anybody?! Guiltybrain: I think this is the energy we should be looking to curb or convert, here... Lizardbrain: I hate you. Guiltybrain: No you don't. Lizardbrain: I really do. Observingbrain: Perhaps we should do something else now. Daydreaming is not working out at the moment. Evolutionary individuation (e.g. personal growth) is a PITA. RC

Wait. Is that their actual logo? A wolf in sheep's clothing?! Boy that's taking all the mystery out of it isn't it? PJ

I think an entire class ought to be dedicated to 5th-column strategy in high school. It would change everything. Unfortunately the current edu system is kinda part of it now too, so that's unlikely! RC

I recall reading historical stuff where (in the USA) people were freaking out about immigrants. Funny thing, of course, since at least today, legal immigrants on the whole are vastly more employed / less criminal / more productive than the same 'average' of those born here. And of course, immigration built our nation. The thing is though, historically, they were upset because of: 1 - race 2 - nationality On rare occasion also 3 - religion But in NO cases in all this stuff I saw, were they faced with "and this set of immigrants has an ideology that in any past historical time, admitting to would pretty much get you either killed or banished as an outright menace to society and government both." That part seems a bit new to the more modern day. PJ

Thanks. Steve rescued me from the music of the prior video. :-) RC

I have also had very vivid dreams, chronic lucid dreaming and out of body experiences since I was about four years old. These all began to reduce when I was 18 and read a couple of books (on LD and OBE) -- interference of my overwrought intellect alas. I still have LD and OBE now and then, and I definitely still have vivid dreams, 'visions' (when awake), and as you refer to them Big Dreams . I've had lots of dreams related to people who were already dead. And my cat who had died. I dreamed of my mother around the time she had died, though I didn't know it at the time. We had a long talk and she told me she was going. When I awoke, it was a strange feeling, that I simply 'accepted' this. I wasn't told she had died (I was 9) until the evening of the next day. RC

Actually this is one of those things where a legit and serious scientific topic is repressed from the mainstream, which means you mostly find it mentioned on fringe sites, where everything else around it seriously detracts from taking it seriously -- and where most of the people talking about it, don't know that much about what they're talking about either, so its presentation is poor at best. Look for topics like "plasma physics" to find discussion on this ('the electric universe' is also a topical title, but there are others). There are some 'mysteries' in current astrophysics, or huge theoretical-fictions-based-on-formulas, that are easily and obviously explained by the plasma model. This is not my topic of expertise so I won't expound on it except to say, if you find someone who knows what they're talking about, it's like suddenly having your eyes opened and realizing a lot of our current science is basically just an entrenched industry of paradigm, maintaining itself by collusion and self protection which has nothing to do with real science. Geez I'm starting to sound as disillusioned as some of the old timers here lol. RC PS just because someone or a site says they are an electric-universe or plasma-physics sort, doesn't mean all the things they claim is a result of that theory are truly part of it. It may, for example, be the more legit answer to why gravity works as it seems to, but it may not be the answer for why Mars is scarred. We don't really know yet, but one does not constitute the other. :-)

Prison is supposed to be about reform, while the person is kept away from innocents. Then when he is 'reformed' allegedly by the process of it, sometimes with some form of edu or training during, he is released. We refer to prison as punishment but prison is an inefficient and expensive way of going about it if merely making people miserable were the primary goal. Unfortunately prison is not only not reforming, it is probably the single most criminalizing environment in the world. And unfortunately prison is certainly torturous; I believe that forced incarceration especially with lousy people is totally destructive to an individual, not in a 'punished so they will be better' but in a 'damaged so they will be fundamentally worse' way. There was a time when I believed in privitization of prisons. This is mostly because 'the government' as an entity is the most overpriced inefficient corrupt entity to hand any responsibility to, for just about anything, so private interests, I felt, could only make it better. But I forgot one absolutely key, critical element I shouldn't have, that promptly evidenced itself and is the reason why I've completely changed my mind. That is: money is in the maximum quantity of consumers and in repeat consumers. Prisoners are the consumers of the prison 'services'. Their wallets, the payments, are taken care of by the government. At that moment, every financial tie to companies with some part of prison 'services' became an enemy to the American people, because now they are vested in trying to make as many people into criminals as possible; making as many crimes into prison sentences (and longer sentences) as possible; and making as many prisoners into repeated offenders as possible; which also includes making as many parole elements as re-incarcerating as possible. All of these things are in fact the LAST things we want -- they are all things we as a country should be strenuously against. But the moment we made prisons a source of privatized corporate income, we put ALL of that income and power in a place where it is working against, not for, our people. As just one of many seemingly small things: It was bad enough that the government destroys prisoner health by feeding them insane amounts of soy, even harder on men I bet, but if destroying health contributes to mental health problems and feeling crappy -- by jove, it does! -- then it contributes to poor behavior (longer incarceration), and higher recividism (more re-incarceration) for a variety of reasons. Give prisoners food that gives them ongoing growing consequences, without just poisoning them outright, it's a win, and if the food is cheap and your corp or directors also own stock in the various corps that supply the crappy unfood, even better -- win-win! As a secondary but still serious issue: corporate growth is mitigated only by environment and funding source. Innately the nature of business corps is max profit. Normally if a corp is selling, the cap on their selling is the number of people willing to buy and their competition, a mathematical model of market divided by competitors, with varying shares to the latter. But because the government is the 'payer' in the prison model, and because there is no 'competition' (e.g. alternatives to prison, it is merely that the government gives 'the' contract), there isn't really any limit to this. The point of leverage and power for 'making more money' is controlled greatly by what IS defined as crime, how serious a crime, the things I noted above that are leveraged for maximizing the quantity and duration of people incarcerated. The number of people from age 17 and up who have been literally imprisoned for things like having a joint in their pocket, or downloading a file of songs from the internet, is out of this world at this point. And then re-imprisoned for some incredibly trivial thing once they are 'out on parole.' We are allowing the corporations, leaning on politicians and a variety of legalized systems and organizations, to gradually increase the "imprisonability" of our population, and it might seem like a minor thing in any one city for example, but multiply that by a 300 million population in the USA and you have a helluva bell curve going on. What we as a people need to force the government to do, is create a 'reward' system for corporations which benefits from prisoners actually exiting the system as BETTER people; staying OUT of prison. If that were the reward, then the entire prison experience would be different. Unfortunately there would still be the issue of more prisoners = more profit, which is a disaster. RC

LOL!! Love the train station! The knotting is really cool. I have this "Ashley book of knots" or something like that, and I still don't do knotting which is just crazy -- I always wanted to learn at least a lot of basics but I manage to ignore the book for like 30 years. Can't believe I still have it.. I also have an old book on Kumihimo (Japanese braiding... many words for knots, macrame, etc.) that is neat. Some of these very simple versions went 'american fad' used as bracelets -- some of the complicated ones have over 70 or over 140 threads... but they are really cool. They use this round object, like a small table you could sit with, that has an opening in the center the threads go through, and the threads distribute around the outer edge, and then there is a pattern you move them in (a sequence) -- I could see this being done well to some kind of music/beat if it had to be done for long periods. I think I only made one very simple braid but it's almost impossible to do any of it and not have it come out looking very cool. The one you did, the big square knot, seems more complicated to me. :-) Came out looking great though! RC

I think that's also why history, past the last century or so, is such a ridiculously skewed topic -- because we always basically start with knowledge of the result and then "make it make sense" based on that, in retrospect. So insane amounts of assumption and suspicion get written into an assumed situation. Nobody would work out a history that included immense amounts of "total chance didn't mean anything" and "made absolutely no sense whatsoever" and "for no apparent reason because this one guy you never heard of but who was a Major was actually a lunatic" and so on. IMO History can only be understood at the meta-level, where all individual actions, events and circumstance are averaged into irrelevance. So we can track Hitler becoming leader back to the Treaty of Versailles, but the closer you go to the detail, the more deviation 'logic' starts to have -- and that's very recent history so clearer to us than anything prior. RC

1 - thanks. Funny! 2 - the previews were great. Although the first one was more like a summary lol. As to the second, I'd heard of the dirty dozen but not what it was about. 3 - #2DD reminds me that back in the days of the draft, if you wanted the tough guys you thought of making a criminal a soldier. In the current days when it's been all volunteer for a long time, the toughest guys ARE the soldiers already. I think there was this idea with the movie that being criminals also meant they were much more no-holds-barred about behavior. Haven't seen the modern strike force military has any reservations about that though. No prison records required... preferably not, actually... 4 - #1 reminds me of a "sponsored insight" I once had, as I call intuitive understandings, where I'd been reading feng shui stuff, and was rearranging a room physically, when I suddenly realized a few things at the same time: * first, that feng shui was astrology on the ground; * second, that human relationships are social astrology: we "orbit" each other. We have trines, squares, we sometimes eclipse each other; * third, that human relationships are under the same rules as feng shui: we often distribute the energies (e.g. earth vs. fire) and if the people in a group don't intuitively take the natural distribution, you end up with too much fire or too much water, and so on; and * fourth, that you can model situations, both ongoing (certain job/house) or temporal (a party or board meeting) as certain primary elements, and consider a person experiencing that event in light of that relationship; like venus in scorpio or water in a fire zone; and get certain insights from thinking about things that way (and often see more of what qualities a person best/least expresses based on 'comparing' them in your head to certain situations or events that would well fit a certain element, and considering how they might respond or be affected). 5 - #4/third reminds me of realizing one day that if I'm in a situation where people are scared, and I take courage, other people seem to feel more fear; if I feel fear, someone else seems to take courage; and I considered that it was present at work, since I was young: if I was the one who would remember everything, people let me; if I was the one who would figure things out, people let me; but if alternatively I waited for a man to do something (usually an option as a woman if it's something physical) (golly you're strong. And I sure prefer YOU having to lift the 70# boxes not me, so I'm just going to look at you with those wide eyes, ok? LOL), it's like he would take that energy, and I would realize I had become one of the pack, 'letting' him -- I didn't feel as sure, or as confident, or as proactively-exploratory-about-solving something, as if I had literally "given that energy away." I find the subject of small group dynamics really fascinating. 6 - #5 reminds me that in small psi groups I've observed over the last decade or two, the "distribution of data or data-type" is so common it's a given and this is in doubleblind conditions where nobody knows consciously the target or what others are doing until it's done, so it does sort of emphasize this "distribution of energy within groups" is something innate (not conscious or social only). RC PS mysteriously, my firefox is greying out all the WYWIWYG boxes in this forum and everything I type is an endless line I can't even see, so I have to type in text and copy over here. Anybody with a clue about why this is so feel welcome to volunteer.