Taomeow

We will live in tents, I once told my white camel. She spat on the ground.

No, TCM is not wrong by itself and I would be the last person on earth to doubt it... it's only wrong as understood by westerners not exposed to its wider expanse. ( My taoist teacher's lectures on taoist nutrition, e.g., or the vast regional knowledge on nutrition from all over China blanket-defined as "folk wisdom" and largely transmitted orally for thousands of years.) Paleo refers to pre-TCM human condition though. Pre-China, pre-Yellow Emperor, but not "scientific fancies" as you put it as much as an ironclad scientific fact: human species evolved and lived for the 99% of its time on earth during the ice age. DO read the book I referenced, is all I can tell you. I've been researching gluten for 10 years and one thing I learned is that gluten intolerance (a rather universal human condition but with a spectrum of manifestations, from undetectable to rapidly deadly, with many shades of in-between) is never diagnosed by modern methods until it is severe enough to have destroyed over 90% of the intestinal lining -- everybody else flies under the radar of current diagnostic methods. Another thing I learned was that you have to invest time and effort into understanding an issue whose impact is diffuse and universal. You need a bit of a multidisciplinary education to understand things gluten. That's why I keep referencing Nora's book -- it merely puts much of what is known from various areas of research and empiricism alike (that don't necessarily communicate with each other or are aware of each other) together in one place. As for the three worms, Eva Wong's "The Shambala Guide to Taoism" not only describes them but presents drawings from ancient taoist manuscripts depicting their appearance. They look like something nasty you would see under a microscope. Fermentation does not affect gluten. Another commercial fad, "whole grains," actually increases its concentrations (which are already upward of 20 times higher than what was present in pre-agricultural wild grains). The highest concentrations are found in the outer shell, so "whole weat" is really bad news, whether sprouted, fermented, or otherwise hippie-hyped.

He's cointelpro. He does what he does specifically for the task of discrediting legitimate concerns by mixing in fragments of the hidden truths into an overcooked stew of fear-mongering, paranoia, and fabrications. This is the by-the-book tactic of cointelpro operatives. There's documents available for review that spell out the recipe. But a recent French study that lasted two years, the first one ever because Monsanto's "scientific" standard for evaluating the impact of GM foods is three months, showed that in the GM food fed rats tumors start developing in the fourth month and death rate in the exposed group is 800% that of the controls. That ain't no Alex Jones saying this, that's the first ever independent study (after Arpad Pusztai was fired and dragged through a smear campaign the moment he said GM potatoes did have adverse effects on human health). People who "trust scientific evidence" in all areas where profits or control are at stake never cease to amaze me. Finding out HOW EXACTLY science is done these days... that's very scary indeed. Who needs Alex Jones to be terrified out of her mind if she can look at the actual standard protocols for introducing new scientific breakthroughs into our environment toward the same outcome.

Interesting question! Yes, I think so. For things that trigger a response in us ("resonate"), we have established grooves of habitual processing of this particular type of stimulus -- grooves of seeking and grooves of avoidance. As soon as something in the environment "vibrates" (I'm not sure it's the right term -- "ganyings" would be a better one) at the "relevant frequency," it is recognized systemically (though not necessarily consciously) and directed toward the particular groove in charge of this type of input. If it's a groove of non-processing, of avoidance, in some cases it can be complete enough to generate, e.g., an extreme form of denial known as anosognosia. An anosognosiac can be fully functional mentally except he does not register any information pertaining to the trauma, no matter how obvious -- it is simply erased the moment it is presented. The brain creates a blank groove for any input that could potentially be integrated into understanding one's condition, and anything that is systemically recognized as leading toward this understanding simply vanishes -- instantly. In less severe cases, which of course constitute the majority of the rather universal human condition of denial, there's still much similarity to the extreme version if you look closely. A long time ago, I once witnessed the following exchange (between two psychology students, of all people) that made me think of "blank grooves of resonance" for the first time: Tom: "How old were you when your father left the family?" Carol (indignantly): "I loved my father very much!" Tom: "I believe you, but that's not what I asked. I asked how old you were when he abandoned the family." Carol: "My father was never angry with me, never yelled at me, never hurt me." Tom: "But didn't he hurt you when he left the family? How old were you then -- five, six?" Carol: "I was a very happy child. I could show you the pictures, I'm smiling in all pictures from my childhood." Tom: "That's nice, but can you please answer my question -- how old were you when your father left?" Carol: "I had a dog when I was a kid, you know, I think that was great, children are so much happier when they have pets..." and so on. Of course Tom's (and mine) conclusion was that Carol was traumatized enough by her father's leaving the family to create a blank groove for the event -- in fact an altered state of consciousness that maintained it never happened. This, too, is very common. Ganying, which discerns much subtler resonances and directs us either toward, or away from, conscious encounters with the truth (depending on what the whole system decides is more advantageous for survival), operates on levels far below and far above the narrow band of everyday awareness. I believe that noticing its operations is the first step toward expanding this band. New grooves start forming, those that will resonate with subtler and subtler (or wider or deeper or more farfetched, as the case may be) phenomena as soon as you stop throwing them all indiscriminately into a blank one. (I mean the generic "you," of course, not you or anyone else personally). The opposite danger I think is to form a groove that is adept at making false connections, stretching it, exaggerating the significance of such events and seeing them as earth-shattering revelations in every case... I've seen people do that with ganying phenomena too, and I can't decide which is more annoying, a closed mind or a mind open so wide that stuff keeps falling out.

Yup... sorry to hear that, but like I said, this is common though not commonly addressed. Any efficient interference with the baseline homeostasis (however precarious that may be when hinged on pain and defenses striking a deal for a while), can and often does wake up at least some of those sleeping dogs. (Basically, "qigong sickness" and "kundalini syndrome" and the like is what happens in the case there's many dogs and they are especially fierce, and not asleep so deeply as to be comatose.)

I know exactly what you are talking about. I used to have non-physical pain under my left shoulder blade which surfaced as a focal point of a cluster of traumatic memories. It was not a pain and not a not-pain, it was, the best I can put it, hell in that particular spot. I suspect such areas (most people have them) can do a lot of harm, especially if they are numbed out instead of loud.

Alchemy in space: The Spell of Three Letters turns Draco into Ra

For the best diet, go to a place of inner confidence and you can't go wrong. But it's got to be inner confidence, not internalized brainwashing! Excerpts from an article about the documented longest lived human being ever: Jeanne Louise Calment ( 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997) was a French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human lifespan in history, living to the age of 122 years, 164 days.[3] She lived in Arles, France, for her entire life. Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85 (1960), she took up fencing, and continued to ride her bicycle up until her 100th birthday. She was reportedly neither athletic nor fanatical about her health.[10] Calment smoked from the age of 21 (1896) to 117 (1992), drank a lot of port wine daily, and ate almost a kilogram (2.2 lb) of chocolate every week.

Yes, left knee. It never seemed to fully trust me ever since I gave it a choice between the republicans and the democrats... er... between an agave and a boulder to land on on a steep incline in the mountains.

Would you believe that when I asked people I was connecting with in Peru what to bring them from the US, they asked for good coffee? All theirs is exported, nothing good is left for the domestic market -- they sell some processed crap in their stores, instant coffee mostly.

It's not a theory. The long term practical experiment was the eating patterns of all indigenous peoples before they were conquered and subdued to the "civilized" way of eating. E.g., Siberia witnessed bloody persecutions of the native peoples by the conquering Russians who demanded they plant wheat and eat bread -- disobedience punishable by death. Since both sugar and gluten are addictive drugs (via two different mechanisms that get the user hooked on internal opiates), it only takes a push of this kind in the very beginning, the next generation does not resist anymore -- especially with grain alcohol added to the advantages of this new way of life. Native Americans, the percentage who survived the genocide that is, were simply forced out of their hunting grounds, the latter mostly destroyed completely, and that was the end of their natural eating patterns. Did you know that descriptions survive, by the first white settlers, of rivers as dense with salmon as our current highway traffics are with cars, of oceans of bison, elk, buffalo without end, of an abundance of this land that made the newcomers weep bitter tears of envy and resentment? Did you know that the Inca civilization ran on llamas to the same extent ours runs on fossil fuel -- food, clothing, transportation, everything -- and that the conquering Spaniards exterminated all these llamas (millions) within the first three years of conquest? Don't even go up that shit creek without a paddle... and do look at the book I referenced for "solid scientific work," allow yourself to be amazed at how much you find when you know where to look!

A clear martian moon, with deosil and widdershins witches flying by

All doubts will vanish. Walk through swamrs of nano-wasps unsmiling, unstung.

Well, in a nutshell, it's the advantages of normal human functioning over functioning in a continuous metabolic stress. I.e. absolutely everything is affected. That's because fuel from glucose is a back-up system -- the body stores glycogen for emergencies, fight of flight type, it's available immediately and burns fast, like rocket fuel of metabolism. Fuel from ketones is the primary system -- the body stores fat for steady and slow burning, for "mileage" rather than fight-or-flight. With constant consumption of carbs, the main problem, metabolically speaking, is constant (daily and lifelong) spikes of insulin, which is the body's standard response to sugars (converted to glucose) in the bloodstream. This, however, is the abuse of the insulin system whose real primary function, in the absence of this constant jerking, is cellular repair and regeneration. It is a most ancient molecule present in most all life forms on earth, including those that don't eat any sugars at all. To divert it from this function toward processing a continuous influx of sugar tells the body, effectively, that "it's not the right time for repairs, renovations, restoration and regeneration, it's an emergency, hunting is bad, we're either starving, which is why there's no fat getting into the body for energy, or we're being hunted ourselves and there's a splurge of glucose into the system so we can run away." The insulin system does not differentiate between a splurge of glucose from stored glycogen or from an eaten bagel, it will react identically in this respect to "rabbit starvation" (an Innuit term for when nothing but vegetable sources of food are available) or being chased by a tiger (glycogen is there for such emergencies). But functioning metabolically as though it's an emergency, high stress, red alert at all times for all purposes?.. That's taking its tall on absolutely all systems and functions, and may be (together with gluten, a separate devil) the main factor behind a continuous degradation of the human DNA (and this degradation is a sad phenomenon well established in genetic anthropology.) Ketosis is not a dietary fad, it's the primary normal mode of human functioning. Business as usual, something most humans have been deprived of for thousands of years. A high-fat, moderate-protein, super-low-carb to no carb diet signals, "the hunting is good, no immediate dangers present, time to take care of routine maintenance on the cellular level" -- and insulin the repairman takes over many of these tasks when he is not called to an emergency instead, he can fix your toilet (e.g.) instead of hauling its pieces away from the site of an explosion. The book I mentioned earlier, "Primal Body, Primal Mind" by Nora Gedgaudas is a worthwhile read even if you are not going to try this nutritional mode, it's just good and superbly researched and useful, IMO. The reason I quit paleo (maybe temporarily, haven't decided yet) is that I actually don't need to lose any weight but I couldn't stop losing it on this regimen. The remedy would be perhaps to eat more, but that would require better planning and organization, it's a metabolic revolution that warrants a revolution in your shopping and food storage habits, takes quite a bit of ingenuity, and (the bummer in my personal case) remembering what you need to have because you can't use the usual "filler material" for food anymore. So, between melting away and skipping meals because I didn't think ahead (and I hate skipping meals, I love to eat!), I decided I needed a break. Modern lifestyles are not paleo friendly, to say the least... I might give this another try down the road though.

You need better sources to stumble upon. E.g.: https://sites.google.com/site/delawareteasociety/yoked-to-earth-a-treatise-on-corpse-demons-and-bigu

Well, let me take a guess -- and it may be my bad that you screwed up your cup because I emphasized leaving enough room in the ibrik for the foam to rise but didn't mention the second part of the how-to: the water must come all the way to the narrow part of the ibrik, so you shouldn't be using too little of it either, not just too much, and if this doesn't do the job it means you are using too little coffee. If all the prerequisites are met, you do get foam, just not "too much." The vehicle shaped this way facilitates a kind of brewing that is akin to baking or pressure-cooking -- the narrow part allows the rising foam and grounds to form a cork and briefly seal it. So the liquid underneath is exposed to continuous sub-boiling heat under pressure, without actually being able to come to a boil, until the very last moment when the cork can't hold up to the pressure anymore and there's a volcanic event happening. Some of the ibriks used by various peoples in the East are actually clay or ceramic to slow down this steeping-decocting brewing method even further; while some use sand heaters (those are the best, I've had coffee made like that in Yerevan, many moons ago) and bury the ibrik in the sand so the heat is steady and even all around but not excessive. But the first rule is to make sure the concentration and amount of the liquid match the shape that is meant to generate this process.

Everyone please ponder: Is your ability to read and understand what I just wrote physical or not? If it's physical, where exactly is the organ reading this located? If it's physical and has a location (e.g. in your head, though you couldn't use this location in your head without your eyes -- close them for a moment and see that you can't if you don't believe me -- so, is it "also" located in the eyes? so, you need at least two organs for this one function?..), then why doesn't someone who's illiterate have this physical organ?.. Is part of the brain tissue missing, or the eyes refuse to inform the brain "what this means" when looking at printed text, or the eyes inform but the brain ignores the information, or is unable to recognize it? What exactly is different about these organs in someone who didn't learn how to read -- were they born with different organs (eyes and brain) than those who did? If it's a physical organ that creates the ability to read English, why someone schooled in Bulgarian doesn't have this physical organ? Why does he or she have a different organ in the same location, the one that reads Bulgarian? If it's not physical, is your ability to read English metaphysical? If it's metaphysical, what nonphysical phenomena account for its manifestation?

TCM is trustworthy, wider and older taoism, to me, even more so. TCM as we know it was created in an agricultural setting, taoism derives from pre-agruiculture. The taoist tradition of Abstaining From Grains is both dietary and spiritual. The theory is that there's three monsters (sometimes translated as "three worms") that settle in the body of a human eating grains and feed off grains. These monsters damage your health both physical and spiritual -- and what's especially not nice of them is that they prompt you to do stupid things and then, once a month, report to the Jade Emperor that you did indeed do these stupid things! Nutrition for taoist alchemical cultivation is a bit different from "general" and some schools hold that Abstaining From Grains is a prerequisite to passing through certain gates to some "next" levels of cultivation. So I didn't just go with modern science on this -- never do, all I use it for is to update myself on what it may have "stumbled upon" that my true teachers knew thousands of years ago. Just for the irony of it, you know. Besides, I talk to different people about these things, and if someone prefers the language of modern science, fine, I'm fluent. If they prefer the language of taoist alchemy -- well, I'm after proficiency in that too, continuously, but that's a bit harder than epigenetics and the like.

As for sugar. I did almost a year of hardcore paleo diet, which I recently modified to a less strict version -- "abstaining from grains" and further toward "cheating once a month." Before embarking on the paleo experiment, as is my habit, I did extensive research. The version I chose (there are several), as proposed by Nora Gedgaudas in "Primal Body, Primal Mind," calls for excluding absolutely all sugar, not just the kind you add by the teaspoon but all grains and even all starchy vegetables. Honey is absolutely out because its glycating power is, incidentally, 50 times that of refined sugar, and glycation, according to the followers of cutting edge metabolic sciences, is the enemy number two behind many diet-induced horrors of modern human functioning (the enemy number one being gluten). The diet calls for elimination of this process and keeping the body in ketosis (not to be confused with ketoacidosis, a dangerous complication of diabetes). Long story short, you don't touch anything sweet or carby or starchy at all and get your energy from ketones derived from fat rather than from glycogen derived from sugars. It is a completely different metabolic mode -- our primary one (energy from glycogen which all civilization runs on is the secondary back-up system, used as primary only because we fell for grain agriculture... but don't let me digress too far.) So, if you are in this strict mode of metabolic "otherness" you don't want any sugar, not even a teaspoon. I, giving it a serious try, complied fully, with one exception: I still put sugar in my coffee. Not a lot, one teaspoon per cup is my usual dose. But to go without? Who wants to live long then? So, this one t didn't take me out of ketosis (which takes about a month to induce, give or take) and whatever glycation it may have been generating couldn't exceed what I would get if my portion of meat would have been "standard American," which it never is because it is too much and the body will promptly take care of the excess by converting the extra protein to sugar anyway! (Did you know that a steak partially turns into sugar if it's too big for you? and that's how you can get fat even from meat -- the trick would be to eat too much of it in any one sitting!) Oh, and coffee has no impact on cholesterol, blood vessels, and the rest of it, those are all from the mythological lore of junk science. Serious and valid research on coffee's real effects was cited by me in the beginning of the thread -- the book I referenced has 30+ pages of scientific references to hundreds of studies, and I've read most of them.

It's all right. You can always pick yourself up, shake yourself off, and keep going.

Ghost ship through the fog, Pequod chases Moby Dick, the white UFO* ( *Unidentified Floating Object)

Strong ties swaddle all the world of space and time can't break them if I tried they are such strong ties strings of pulsing light I feel its pulse now break and crystallize I feel the moon's pull pull me out into forbidden skies Strong ties mystery of mysteries I've heard lies ringing in our histories of strong ties pulling us along into the wrong skies where the sun is wrong and all the songs are mirrors that distort some other songs Strong ties and a deeper secret yet the wrong skies roaring like a turbo jet and strong ties pulling me along they know where time flies when Time flies home and where Time dies in the depth beneath the crystal dome

OK, Mantis (and whoever else is looking for a transmission ), until I get around to making the video, here's a description: 1. Coffee has to be ground VERY FINE. 2. Put 2 or 3 heaping teaspoons of coffee on the bottom of your ibrik (this is approximate of course, since I don't know the size of your ibrik or of your appetite. Adjust the amount the next time if this is too strong or too weak for you). 3. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar (adjust to taste if it's too sweet or not sweet enough). 4. Pour 1 cup of COLD water over the mix. DO NOT STIR. The amount of substances in the ibrik should leave ample room on top for the foam to rise. It is crucial that you don't overfill the ibrik with water -- stop well before you reach the rim. As it brews, soon your coffee will spontaneously form a gritty "cork" on top. This is not done even as it rises -- you need room for the next crucial step to take place. The FINER FOAM should BREAK THROUGH this "cork" and SUBMERGE it completely -- and the SECOND it happens you need to remove the ibrik from the stove. DO NOT LET YOUR COFFEE BOIL, but don't remove it from heat until it came to this point of sudden eruption of fine foam (it's very similar to boiling milk -- if anyone has ever done that, you've seen this abrupt volcanic arrival to a boiling point -- it will run away if you don't turn the heat off immediately.) So, your cue is seeing the FINE foam break through the gritty cork. Timing is everything here, and good coffee is a function of good reflexes. In a short while (a few seconds to a minute), put it back on the flame for the fine foam to rise again. You can do it a third time too if you like. I've seen it done up to 10 times too, but after the second one, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, so you don't really have to work too hard. 5. If you don't want gritty, you have two options: a] let it sit for two minutes before pouring into your cup -- carefully -- all the grounds will have sunk to the bottom by then, or b] if you want it right meow and can't wait, pour it into your cup through a FINE steel mesh strainer. For those who still want tons of foam, you do the opposite with the initial step -- where I said "do not stir," you stir. The more vigorously you stir, the more foam you'll get in the end. But if you are pursuing the best taste rather than the most impressive presentation, trust me -- the best-tasting coffee made by this method is unstirred. You don't disturb the alchemical process at any point. The shape of the ibrik does the trick, you just watch and stay alert and it's going to make itself perfect. A version for the patient gourmet: make it on very low flame, very slowly (not to exceed about 8 minutes though) -- this is the best approach outside of quartz sand heaters. I don't have the patience for the low flame though except when showing off to guests or initiating a coffee apprentice.