Taomeow

.

.

.

.

.

Quite like chewing gum, talking philosophy is: the mouth works for naught.

.

.

,

.

Off the top of my head, the ones I've seen and would recommend: "To Live" "Balsac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" "The Road Home" -- a love story with only a "flavor" of the "Anti-Rightist Campaign" in the background. From the pre- period (WWII) -- "Red Cherry." The main protagonists are Chinese but the story takes them elsewhere. One of the most poignant movies ever made. From an earlier pre-period (1920s) -- "Raise the Red Lantern." This one can give one a very good idea of why the support for Communists in China doubled overnight when Mao proclaimed women's equality, for the first time in Chinese history. If only he stopped there, China would have been ruling the world already, not just poising to.

I asked my taoist teacher why humans have it backward. He said, not backward, just natural -- we don't walk the way we used to anymore, but we used to walk on all four. The back was exposed to the sun -- yang, the belly, to the earth -- yin. I trust him to remember those good old times, he's an immortal. As for the coins used in divination, the way to go about determining which side is which is by looking to taoist numerology. Odd numbers are yang, even numbers are yin. For a coin, its face is its number 1 side -- when we use coins for their primary purpose, monetary transactions, we look at their faces first, to see their monetary value. A coin's flip side is its side number 2 -- if you want to know more about the coin than its monetary value, you flip it and look at its second side.

Speak your mind, por qué? Por qué do stars shine?.. Por qué do eagles fly high?..

A Chinese friend of mine who is fluent in English since childhood does not understand a single Pinyin word I tried on him. He does not recognize them at all, not as Chinese words and not as English words. He just changes the subject because he feels embarrassed -- for his own ignorance or mine, hard to tell. I have no problem being understood by English speakers who don't know Chinese when I use those pinyin words though. Which makes me believe they are not Chinese words after all. They are English or American English. I suspect their original meaning is often as far off as their sound, or farther. However you slice it, not a single sound in Chinese corresponds to a single sound in English. So to settle on a convenient-to-use approximation and stick with it so that people on both sides of the linguistic fense get used to them meaning what they are supposed to mean when translated into a different language would be a good idea IMO. But they keep changing it. No Romanization used so far has shown heng/hung/h'ung -- staying power. (There was something else before Wade-Giles, don't remember what it was called. And something before that.) Maybe Pinyin will fare better. Too early to tell...

That is not all, folks. Folks living in glass houses. Folks dropping one shoe.

you'll keep running down the longest, most tedious of staircases entertaining yourself with the arrogant song of your heels that keep drumming into every step, "immortal, immortal, immortal!"

And I will keep Taomeow. After all the correct Romanization for Jesus Christ is Yehoshua Ga-Nozri, but ...........(insert a socio-cultural-historic-linguistic argument I am too lazy to formulate).

,

,

你問易經？

Plausible but it's even simpler: 1. The globalists want to kill two birds with one stone -- destabilize as many countries as possible toward profitable (for them, not the countries) powerlessness ensuing from the chaos unleashed, and make money off the wars used as tools toward this outcome while at it. War is the biggest debt creator, banks (e.g.) profit exponentially more from wars than from loans and mortgages of peaceful times. To say nothing of the weapons industries. In short, what President Eisenhower warned about when he coined the term "military-industrial complex" not only alive and kicking but kicking stronger and stronger. "Military-industrial complex" is, of course, a shy man's way of saying "corporate-government merger complex" -- both military and other industries being part of the "corporate" definition, and "government," of the "in the service of corporate" category. Also known as fascism, by Benito Mussolini's definition. 2. No one knows what Putin is up to. If someone thinks they do, they either believed someone who made it up, or made it up themselves. His nickname among people who know more than most: "The Impenetrably Endarkened one" (темнейший, a term coined out of светлейший -- "most brightly visible," a traditional title of the Russian aristocracy.) 3. The bigger picture is even bigger methinks. The local picture, in the meantime, much more tragic than the public in the West realizes.

I've been to crazy markets like this -- the last one, in the rain forest in the Amazon. The sellers arrived by boat at dawn, unloaded their fares, and waited for customers to come, also by boat or via the forest trails. As always is the case in the not entirely corrupted and destroyed traditional cultures, there was some distinction between edibles and medicinals of course but only for some of the items -- most served both purposes. There was this one fruit, aguaja, that I got positively addicted to while I was there -- it's the best breakfast I've ever had in my life, and many people, especially women, eat this for breakfast every day. It tastes like a mix of walnuts and grilled cheese, only better. Doesn't grow anywhere else, only in Peru, on humongous high palm trees that like to have a view of the Amazon from where they grow (or even immerse their roots). The medicinal uses are chiefly along the lines of a "female tonic" -- no time limit on how long it can be taken, ideally lifelong daily, it does wonders for womens' reproductive health and also appearance -- you can tell a regular aguaja-for-breakfast eater by her amazing skin that seems to glow from within, shiny perfect hair (without any stylists' efforts or "products" expenditures) and the fact that she doesn't understand what it is you mean if you ask her about "menstrual cramps" or "irregular periods." Well, I went looking online recently. Sure enough, it is now sold as an "herbal supplement" by someone commercially savvy, there's research and all, and it is ungodly expensive... I've no idea if it's even efficient in those capsuled dosages... If I was an entrepreneur, I would try to arrange to import the fruit -- it's WAY superior to bananas, but does not cater to the sweet tooth, so, I don't know if it would gain popularity here... but I would definitely try if it was my destiny to do things of this nature, which I don't think it is. Another one of the medicinal uses of aguaja makes you scratch your head trying to decipher tao's intentions. It is an antidote for the bite of a venomous snake that is otherwise one hundred percent lethal. This local snake has markings on its back the shape and color of the aguaja fruit, and is encountered only where aguaja grows, often swimming in the same waters into which aguaja palms like to dip their roots. I find it mind-blowing but it would take more than a forum post to explain what conclusions I derive from the fact.

There's things about wars that can be learned from history. No war in history ever ended until it lost meaning to one or both (or more) of the sides, or until one or both (or more) sides were rendered unable to go on. This hasn't happened yet. Not even close. So, to match your Will Rogers dog quote, here's a Russian dog proverb: "the dog barks, the wind carries on."

Scotty, lay folks' ignorance about herbs is not a natural state of affairs -- and not a universal one and not an eternal one. Here and now everybody learns about cars and computers and fashions and trends and private lives of movie stars, but it is quite possible to make a conscious choice to learn something else instead. There's many ways to overcome ignorance. E.g., I knew European herbalism quite extensively since childhood (it's traditional to know, in some -- many -- families), and then I started slowly and steadily expanding globally. E.g., for several years, in addition to my own studies, I was a member of assorted internet groups that teach these things. Learn Chinese Herbs, a course conducted by a TCM professional. Edible Wild, mostly Native American lore. To say nothing of other available sources I perused -- books, folk and old medical and a blend (like the Chinese government's Barefoot Doctor guide) and modern research (and not just in English -- there's little there), and picking knowledgeable minds -- e.g., I used to shop at an Indian grocery whose owner was willing to teach me everything about every single item he was selling, and was better than a college course in folk herbalism -- if there was such a course -- and free, merely enthusiastic about encountering an enthusiastic student. Incidentally, one thing he taught me was that the line between herbs and foods, medicinals and edibles, is arbitrary and does not really exist where he comes from. In South India where he comes from, they make a special stew to cure diabetes, and a particular soup to lower blood pressure. And so on. I've observed the same thing in China. They put things like "opens Lungs meridians" into the description of a soup on the menu, and "Kidney tonifying pork with herbs," and what not. They sell packages of herbal medicinals to add to soups -- here too at Asian markets -- seasonal, strengthening defenses against cold or heat or dampness or dryness, very wise, VERY traditional. This is the normal state of affairs, for lay people to know these things. And if they don't, to learn. It's the opposite state that is out of whack, and I wouldn't rush under its banners just because they are unfolded by the paternalistic establishment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ching-Yuen This herbalist, whose life span of 256 years has been mostly corroborated by various sources (and definitely never proved a false claim), took he shou wu daily for at least over a hundred years (and possibly for much longer) as well as an assortment of other herbs, also taken daily. He outlived 23 wives, commenting regretfully that any one of them could have been his lifelong companion "if only she didn't neglect to take the herbs I told her to take every day." One's mileage may vary when discussing the benefits and dangers of herbs... depends on who you listen to. In the Siberian tradition, e.g., whence Chinese herbal practices originate in prehistory, tonic herbs are thought of as daily bread. Modern research (which dubbed them "adaptogens") undertaken in several European and Asian countries supports this practice. With proper dosages and a habit of listening to one's body, the dangers of doing something wrong with them are comparable to those of, e.g., drinking strong tea late at night -- sure, it's a stimulant and a diuretic and one would be advised against such practice, but it does not mean tea taken without a doctor's approval is all that dangerous, does it?.. The overall drift toward portraying herbal medicine as similarly dangerous to allopathic, and similarly not appropriate to have free access to self-administering by lay people, is very disturbing. They are beginning to do this with food too, criminalizing homegrown veggies here and there, more and more. It's all about control folks. There's a marked tendency to frown upon, and undermine and illegalize and otherwise progressively take away every which way, any and all control you might have over your body without someone allowing or disallowing it, or making money off doing it for you. I'd say, with herbs, err on the side of freedom, and if there's a price to pay, you'll probably have to get up in the middle of the night to pay it, then go back to sleep. Good luck.