Taomeow

The difficulty IS the remedy. The more extreme the difficulty, the more radical the remedy. Try the simplest zhan zhuang (no stance, just loose pole standing) for a length of time at the outer limits of your endurance -- then stand for another hour. When the comfort ends, gong fu begins. When it becomes painful, make sure you only have burning pain in your thighs, not in your knees, ankles, shoulders, back -- adjust the posture if you feel pain there, and loosen up, relax, relax. Your system will switch to making something useful of all the neural and neuromuscular mechanisms involved in depression -- it simply won't have the resources to maintain both the chronic depression and the immediate challenge of extreme physical difficulty. It will have to choose. Soldiers returning from wars often get depressed (for reasons too multiple and complex to go into here), but during the war, the incidence goes down dramatically -- and no one has ever been depressed in combat. Good luck.

My roots, they run deep, away from all enemies -- rock, paper, scissors.

Actually, tribes are real and connected by blood. Nations are fake, created and canceled by wars and held together or split apart by politics. Take a look: And here's 10 current "countries" that may cease to exist as such in the next 20 years:

And let's not forget his father, Arseny Tarkovsky, a poet so much at home on the mysterious border between the real and the surreal, the brutal and the tender, the crystal clear and the impenetrable, that someone familiar with his work needn't wonder where his son's unique cinematographic style comes from. As usual, Russian does not translate into English without losing a whole bunch of dimensions, but here's for a glimpse: Arseny Tarkovsky The Cricket To tell the truth, I'm kin to the house cricket. I sing a secret song above the oven's ash. For me, one brings the water to a fierce boil, For me, another prepares a hearth of gold. A traveler will recall my voice in a distant land, Even if he's traded me for the heat cicada. I don't know who planed my poor violin, but I know that I'm rich as a cicada in songs. How many Russian consonants in my midnight language, How many sayings I place in the bast box So a child can rummage In this box of bast, In the old oven violin with its sole brass string. You can't really hear me, my voice like a clock Behind a wall, but take heed and I'll lead you. I'll rouse the whole house: I'm the night watchman. Arise! Your people across the river will trumpet their reply. 1940

wheel within a wheel crushing grass, grasshoppers, ants -- death's locomotion** * that's why nature didn't invent a bicycle -- or any live creatures that move about on wheels * "loco" is the Spanish for "crazy"

Much sense and wisdom. Watching electricity. Eating chemistry.

When Sol is hiding, the rooster's song calls him back, telling him it's safe.* *The God of Eastern Heaven, Di Jun, had ten children who all turned into suns. Ten suns in the sky were too much. They were scorching the Earth with their heat, burning crops, evaporating rivers -- it was a disaster. Houyi, the God of Archery, came to the rescue then, and one by one he shot nine suns out of the sky. He was about to kill the tenth but this tenth sun (or son) of god was so scared by then that he hid in a cave, plunging the world into total darkness. Well, that wasn't good either, people realized. They needed a sun -- one sun -- but this last sun was hiding in a deep dark cave and no amount of pleading could convince him to come out. The Rooster, who in those olden days was not like our humble domesticated chickens of today, but a dragon-bird of magnificent plumage who used to fly as high as the sky and took its colors and its brilliance from the sun, came up to the mouth of the cave and started singing, "Please come back, sun! We need you! No one is going to hurt you, I promise!" In those olden days, the Rooster could sing very sweetly, not harshly like our domesticated chickens do. The sun was mesmerized by the song and peeped out of the cave, wanting to check out the singer. As soon as he did, a little light seeped through, beginning to illuminate the world. The Rooster kept singing, the sun kept climbing out little by little, to hear him better. Well, you know the rest of the story. They still play this game every day. If your Chinese horoscope has a Rooster, rest assured that you got the most important animal of the twelve.

WCK, I did a quick reading asking the oracle the following question: "Dear I Ching, ni hao. I divine your opinion of Wong Chee Kwan. Please give me an image." Got Hexagram 53, no changing lines.

You may want a different word than "nationalism" for what Laozi is talking about here. How about "tribalism?" "Nationalism" is a side effect of manipulating a "nation." "Nations" are a side effect of forcibly herding people into "countries." (If you doubt this assertion, study, e.g., the history of such "countries" as Germany or Italy.) Herding people into "countries" is a side effect of "civilizing" away a way of life that throughout our history was tribal. We are social, and the size of our natural society is between 120 and 150 members. For two million years, neighboring tribes intermarried without uniting into any larger groups so as to maintain this way of life -- a way of life where each individual personally knows every other individual, and the leader chosen by the tribe personally knows every member of the tribe. "Civilizing" us all away from the way we lived for 99,9% of our overall time on this planet is something that had a forcible, coercive, bloody beginning and does not have a happy ending. The Jarawa's impending fate is pretty much what happened to us all a bit earlier. Look at them and know you're looking at what Laozi called "the real human." I still encourage everyone who would care to sign the petition to save them from us to do so. No stopping this omnipresent and omniscient demolition ball... but to win a few more years for the Jarawa before it strikes would still be great.

I use Firefox on Mac (as I always have), and today it's working again. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Stalagmites also come in handy if you buy Herr Freud's take on dreams

Spoke too soon. It worked for one day, and now it does not again.

I'm not that polite, but I bow to a low branch not to bump my head.

Tulpas also like popcorn. The similarity between a tulpa and an Aldebaranian ends right there. Moreover, Aldebaranians don't create tulpas for the earthlings' entertainment industry. They do create stars, but not movie stars, and they do like popcorn, but not pop stars. This little Sun of earthlings, e.g., was created to facilitate the growth of all plants that might take root on one or more of the planets thrown in as a bonus, not just corn. Earthlings got it all wrong, of course, and started planting monocrops, but that's not our fault. We like popcorn, but we can't take responsibility for its creation or the actions of its creators. As your own feudal code formulated in France in the 14th century (but actually a universal code of ethics, which your visiting aliens who interfere in your affairs via your governments who serve them are blatantly violating) states quite clearly, "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal." We make stars. What you do with them is your business.

By granting free will, let him ask you if you will, though you know you won't.

Stretches from earth to... ...sky, the extra syllable. God takes liberties.

Accept your actions. It's your drugs, your guns, your wars, your mess, man! Repent!!

And reason number one: the aliens who are in favor of full disclosure have won a round against the aliens who are working in secret. I'm not going to speculate which ones of them, if any, are the good guys, personally I think neither. I don't think it's a good idea to mess with another species no matter what it is, dolphins, mice, soybeans, or humans -- whether in secret or out in the open. But don't mind me, I'm here for the popcorn. So, they have told the governments to ease the disclosure on the population slowly but fast. Which is exactly what has been going on -- "tiptoeing disclosure." Hence all the articles from more and more "reputable" sources multiplying like mushrooms. And the Pope chiming in with promises to baptize the aliens. And NASA telling everybody that aliens are now officially possible... well they would know. They (I'm not talking about all of NASA, of course), the full disclosure aliens, or the partial disclosure aliens, well, you know... the ones who don't like conspiracies and don't appreciate being referred to as a "conspiracy theory" because in their culture it is offensive for an individual or a group to be deemed and/or proclaimed nonexistent... so it is in ours, incidentally, but Aldebaranians are more used to it than most, being billions of years older and having mastered the art of camouflage to the extent that they can't really blame newer experimental species for being less perceptive than what it would take to see through the veil -- sorry, derailed my own train of thought -- back on track -- they told the governments that this has to be done or they will do it themselves, in a spectacular demo that will leave no earthling uninformed. Aldebaranians, I should add, have nothing to do with it, they're here for the popcorn.

Hooray! My cat was right! It worked! Whoever listened with compassion and responded with competence -- thank you!

The last time it happened after some overhaul of the forum, someone fixed it, but unfortunately I don't remember who or know how. What I do remember is that I didn't have to change the browser (which would be a non-solution, since I use what I use and it would make little sense to use something else for just one page.) Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow? Meow?? Meowwww??? (This always works for my cat when he wants something, so I decided to try.) Meowww!!!! MEOWWWW!!! M E O W M E O W M E O W........(etc.) Meow?..

The same thing is going on with me, for about a week. Can't get to the home page, can only go via Courtyard or Pavilion, but if from there I click on the Forums in the left corner to get somewhere else, the page disappears and gives me "Offline, be back soon" message. Consequently can't access all the forums. Help would be appreciated.

Humble beginnings. Amazon dot com used to sell books... then, the world.

Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification, by Dr. L. Wieger, S.J. Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnelly Japanese Tales, edited and translated by Royall Tyler Great Ideas in Physics, by Alan Lightman

Your cardboard cut out gets votes. My cardboard cut out gets votes. Who's counting?..

Destiny awaits. Come, dear boy. Have a cigar. Which one's pink? Bernie.