Taomeow

The cat thread is in the Rabbit Hole. It was originally conceived of as dedicated to what its name says -- Wild cats, but other kinds of cats show up from time to time too. Commercial cat food is a sad topic... "Research" experiments on cats is a sadder one. I try not to go there.

"(Qi) blowing differently on 10,000 things so each can be itself." -- Zhuangzi The artificially achieved commercial uniformity of fruits and the natural variety within a particular kind are as different as a uniformed and identically disciplined army is different from a group of friends brought together by similarities of interests, experiences and abilities. Tao likes variety, it's true, but it also likes boundaries -- the devil is in the details. Natural biological boundaries make sense on every level -- if you plant cabbages, you don't want to be surprised by harvesting cacti. If a couple decides to have kids, they expect (and are likely to prefer) human kids, not baby elephants, not even kittens, cute as they may be. Changes and differences within sensible boundaries are part of normal on the Way. Neither excessive erratic changes nor arbitrarily imposed boundaries are. Yes, even erratic changes are part of it, but there's a boundary for the extent and amount of those as well, and if this boundary is violated and erratic unnatural changes become the "new normal," this is a sign of a departure from the Way. Ditto the excessive imposition of unnatural boundaries. In the "old country" they painted the bottom part of the fruit trees with lime -- instead of doing nothing about the bugs or using pesticides. This imposed a sensible nonlethal boundary on many kinds of critters that would otherwise damage the crop and surprise you with a worm inside an apple. Not that it never happened, but normally you wouldn't get a worm in more than one apple out of a dozen, and it was easy to spot -- you just examined the surface for the hole and if you saw one, you cut the apple open and kicked the squatter out.

We were supposed to be equal. I remember a taoist source (but forget which) that asserted "people of old" were much more similar to each other than they are today. (Keep in mind that the source's "today" was taking place some 2000 years earlier than our "today.") The analogy was given -- if you plant some seeds (forget which, let's say cabbage), under normal conditions all of them will have the same soil to germinate in, the same amount of it to spread out in, access to equal amounts of sunlight, water, and care. After a while, they will all sprout on the same day, grow at the same rate, have the same level of health and resilience, look pretty much the same, mature at the same time, flower and bear fruit together (unless harvested, in which case they will all taste the same), and so on. But if different parts of your plot are uneven in quality, you will find that you plant some of the same seeds in fertile black soil, some on rocky terrain, some on a sandy patch in full sun, some on a muddy one in the shade of large trees, and so on. Try planting some seeds so close to each other that they have to compete for space. Then try watering some but not others, overwatering still others, pulling weeds around some but not others, and so on. You will soon see vastly different plants that do not germinate or grow simultaneously, don't mature in unison, some will shoot up and others will wilt, some will be healthy and some, sickly, the development of some will be stunted while their peers will thrive, and so on. The source asserted humans are only very different from each other for exactly the same reasons. I'd add, thousands of reasons, thousands of factors. Sometimes it's blatant -- you can tell how someone came to be the way they came to be -- but more often it's impossible to know. Which nutrients were missing from that particular patch of the soil? Which poisons present? Who knows...

Solitude embraced. A tea rose in a bottle from Asahi beer.

Like everybody else, Muslims are very different from other Muslims. Yesterday's terrorist act at a concert in Moscow was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group. 133 people were killed. About the same number of people were saved by a 15-year old Kyrgyz boy named Islam who worked as an usher at the concert hall where the attack took place. He had the key to a back door located somewhere away from the public premises, and amidst the automatic weapons shooting and grenades thrown, he started yelling to the panicking people to follow him and led them to safety. He exited last, making sure every single person in the crowd of over 100 who followed him was out of that door, only then getting out himself. Comments to the interview he gave today: "That boy is a Muslim, and the terrorists are shaitans (devils, evil spirits.)" Alas, it's not as simple as that. Humans can be easily turned into shaitans -- and the "level of satisfaction" of shaitans doing evil and happily expecting paradise promised them as reward for murder may be as high as anyone else's -- or even higher.

The real horseback riding stance https://www.facebook.com/reel/1570590947143131

Not even medicinal? In CA, before they legalized it, for a while it was legal for MDs to prescribe it for chemo patients and for glaucoma. It did have a dubious status at the time because of the discrepancies between the state law and the federal law -- so the state allowed dispensaries for medical weed available with prescription, while the feds raided them and confiscated the goodies on a fairly regular basis. So not every doctor was willing to prescribe it, but it was possible to find one who would. It' supposed to improve brain health and, in particular, blood flow to the brain, but when I tried it, it gave me a headache. I'm not prone to headaches (knock on wood) so I'm fairly sure it wasn't a coincidence. Might give it another try, it was a long time ago. If it helps with intraocular pressure, this may be part of the overall effects, but I haven't seen or heard anything on the subject (doesn't mean anything of course, I wasn't looking closely.) I think herbs that are in general reputed to improve eye health might be useful -- bilberry, eyebright, goji berries, Chinese chrysanthemum. Fat soluble vitamins. Fish oil.

I read this book, by two Yale researchers if I remember correctly, when it first came out in 1997. I remember one of its main conclusions: there's nothing that works better to lower intraocular pressure than marijuana. And for severe glaucoma, it's been presented as sometimes the only salvation. The most prescribed glaucoma drops, pilocarpine, constitute an alkaloid obtained from a jungle medicine herb, pilocarpa, native to South America. I don't know how the natives used the plant itself and how they fared, but the pharmaceutical version is highly toxic and many people find it hard to tolerate. MJ, on the other hand, is well tolerated by many, but I don't know what its legal status and/or availability are in your parts. If that's not a problem, try to make sure you steer clear of the GM strains.

Then and there, cats were gods. Here and now, however, gods are cats.

These are sculptures of the deity Tlaloc from the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. To the natives, he was "the god who came from the sky," god of thunderstorms and destruction. However, some of Tlaloc's depictions do not look god-like or menacing. For example, here he looks more like a rather depressed pilot from a crushed plane.

@Nungali Strange indeed. But dream-weavers are liars. In the 8th grade, I had a dream about America. In the morning, when I came to school, a boy in my class told me he had a dream about me in America, and apparently some relative I had there left me an inheritance of $76 million. I still remember that number, and am still waiting...

Definitely. But if you're offering them alcohol (for some gods and immortals, it's a must), you discard it afterwards. A bit of a different approach is used with Zhurong, the God of Fire, who is is present in the cooking fire in your kitchen. Since you're into cooking, here's a tip: offer him some hard liquor from time to time, you just need to sprinkle a little on the burning fire, e.g. by dipping your fingers in your drink and shaking the drops off while inviting Zhurong to partake and giving him thanks for cooking your food. This is supposed to improve its taste and bioavailability, and prevent mishaps like under- or overcooking, burning, oversalting, etc..

Thanks for the tip. I'll put that Paris scarf in my pocket, pull it out, see what happens. Please stay tuned.

This makes total sense. If you don't hold a live rat in your teeth, the kundalini snake will have no good reason to rush upward. (That's why most practitioners fail to awaken it. Masters who know this secret guard it closely.) And if you don 't sit in lotus, you won't have a legit reason to claim spiritual practice. But in reality, the snake will rush upward to get the rat even if you sit in any other upright position for a while.

I own a vintage scarf with the map of Paris printed on it. If there was no difference between the map and the territory, the Eiffel Tower would be poking me in the neck.

All the time.

From the taoist perspective, the central channel can be found or placed anywhere where there's yin-yang interplay and transformation. It's the "mysterious border" between yin and yang, and it's not anatomical nor material and not even "spiritual." What it is is in a certain sense virtual -- a virtual field of potential manifestations. If you look at the taijitu, it's that S-shaped demarcation line between yin and yang which both divides and unites them and sort of doesn't exist -- it's the interplay and co-creation of yin and yang that make it appear. No such interplay takes place in wuji where there's no duality. The reason there's no duality is that nothing happens there. Once something happens -- anything at all -- bye wuji, bye nonduality, hello manifestations. So, the central channel can be this division-unification between, e.g., the left side of the body and the right side, the left brain and the right, but also the upper and the lower body, or the back and the front, or the outer and the inner, and so on. Moreover, it can be the border between the body and the mind, between jing and qi, qi and shen, between life and death, between gods and mortals, and so on. If you place your unwavering awareness on any of those division-unification borders, that's where your central channel will be.

"Against the flow" examples from nature: Salmons live for 2-3 years and die immediately after spawning. All salmons are powerfully drawn to spawning, but if you put obstacles in the way of it happening, they will live for 14 years. That's going against the flow -- for longevity. Mice like to eat. If food is plentiful, they will always eat their fill. If you restrict their food at an early age, their lifespan increases greatly -- sometimes fivefold, which in human years would correspond to getting to be 160 years old. They grow up smaller than average mice but their health is stellar. That's going against the flow -- for longevity. Neidan practitioners try to go against the flow because they want to be healthy (in body, mind, and spirit) and live longer than what their "natural" lifespan dictates. What is it anyway, this "natural" lifespan? Maybe an individual practitioner won't be able to pull off a dramatic increase -- because of compromised genetics, environmental adversities, stressful events, traumatic experiences -- there's no guarantee that he or she will live a longer and healthier life than some lucky individual who just goes with the flow and still beats them at this game due to stellar genetics, environmental blessings, low stress life, happy avoidance of traumatizing occurrences or routines, and so on. But the idea is to improve one's chances despite adversities. In other words, it's natural to go with the flow, and paradoxically enough (taoism is nothing if not full of paradoxes), it can also be natural to go against the flow. It all depends on what kind of flow and where one is headed going against it and how they go about it.

I can imagine. If I had artistic training, I would probably try to get some well-deserved amusement out of those calls too, but for me, it's a rare occurrence to be inspired like that. Most often I just hang up without saying a word. The reason is twofold. For one thing, those callers are chronofages... though not as ferocious as the inhuman ones that set up time-eating traps when it's me who needs to reach this or that den of officialdom. All those "your call is very important to us," "all our representatives are assisting other customers," "please stay on the line" etc. repeated every minute, tens or hundreds of times while you wait-- with the most horrible, unbearable compulsory music enforcement in between. For another, I pity folks who have to take a telemarketing job, no one chooses it, it's something one would do out of either sheer desperation due to the overall state of the market, or else out of sheer uselessness in any other capacity. If I engage them in a conversation knowing all the while I won't give them a chance in hell of it leading to a sale, I'd sort of turn the tables and eat their time myself. So I do my best not to take those calls personally... most of the time.

It's not what happened today, it was a while ago, but I just remembered it by association with something else. Some cold caller managed to get me on the phone (the area code looked like it might be someone I know) and goes, "Is this Miss Me... umm... Mzhe... ahem... Mrzhebr... meebeeee... bebebemeee... (in exasperation) do you speak English a little?!" I hadn't uttered a single word yet, so I figured she projected her own difficulties in pronouncing my name onto me. "I do speak English a little," I responded pleasantly. "Among other things, I've learned how to pronounce names of foreign origin -- I think of it as part of English proficiency. For instance, the caller before you told me his name was Srikarthikeyan. If you can spell this name back to me, I will sign up for whatever you're offering." She hung up.

Yes, Elysium (aka Luo Ji?), go for it. Eliminate human tyranny! The world belongs to Trisolaris!

Most opinions that are absolutely correct and valid are wildly unpopular. Yours here are a good example. Yet if you wanted people to argue against them, you could choose some more outrageous unpopular opinions. Here's a few examples off the top of my head: Rich and powerful people are edible. The world belongs to Trisolaris. The jing-qi-shen sequence is natural and inevitable, and naturally and inevitably ends up in Void whether you speed it up with this or that ridiculous practice or not. If you alchemically reverse the flow, you can avoid the Void. Taoist alchemy is not about "going with the flow," but about going against the flow.

One of those many stories most people never heard -- along with the stories of the great female samurai warriors of Japan, or the most powerful and successful pirate of all time who was a Chinese girl, or the three great women who headed the fight for independence from Moscow in the 15th century Novgorod Republic, and so on. This is Henriette D’Angeville, who, in 1838, climbed Mont Blanc with 18 bottles of wine, 26 roast chickens and a carrier pigeon. She was the first woman to complete the ascend unaided. Her outfit was homemade as there were no climbing clothes for women. The pants stirred some controversy...