Taomeow

Ideally, eating should be delayed, while drinking water is sometimes very useful (especially after any practices aiming at removing toxic qi and/or dispelling blood stagnation). Waiting before using the bathroom is unnecessary and doing it on a regular basis is harmful (e.g. UTI risk becomes higher, also this practice can weaken and slacken the bladder walls.) Washing hands or touching water is a non-issue. Doing stimulating things -- depends on what the practice is and what it is for. In most cases some period of rest is better, but sometimes one wants to balance the body energies before engaging in stimulating activities. If you want to make sure your qi is not lost while urinating, the classical cultivational method is to click your teeth together 32 times while at it every time. (Few people will remember I'm afraid. )

Right. It's the more sensible parts of Pitchford's book that were from Chinese medicine as I recall, in particular his designations of the thermal nature of foods -- an important aspect of nutrition completely overlooked by Western "nutritionists." But for a better take on food from the "esoteric" perspective there's books by Henry C. Lu (e.g.). A questionnaire to determine one's wuxing type? The world is going to the dogs in a basket.

From that list, toss Paul Pitchford's vegetarian drivel disguised as having anything to do with Chinese medicine. In fact, Kaptchuk and Laozi would be a fine start, while the Yellow Emperor's Classic is definitely not something for a beginner without a teacher. The remaining two I have no opinion of, Beinfield's I read too long ago and don't remember how it compares to many similar ones, and Swanberg's I haven't come across. Fairy tales are in the eye of the beholder. E.g., most Western medicine practitioners and recipients alike still think that acupuncture is in that category, and only a small percentage reluctantly admit that "it can help with pain" -- but that's where they draw the line between fact and fiction. Moreover, in the hands not too skilled (which is to say, most hands holding acupuncture needles in this day and age) it is indeed lagging light years behind what it can do in the skilled ones. The same goes for the rest of the fairy tales. Depends on who's telling them, and to whom, and what about...

This time it wasn't me. I did give a much more serious August 2011 Irene in NY/NJ a slap on the wrist that took hours of work and all the expertise I was taught by ayahuasca ahead of the event and (far as my understanding went back then) specifically for it. Afterwards I felt I was off the hook and swore off any further shamanic feats.

No, it happened when the rain was still very mild, no idea why. I haven't witnessed a 5 stories high fountain out of a fire hydrant before either. Glad this Hilary thing didn't live up to its name. We also had the loveliest wet winter and a mild cool summer -- if no heat wave hits us come September (keeping my fingers crossed), I'll also count our 2023 weather as the nicest in quite a while. I live in the marine layer and we never broke 80 so far! (fingers crossed) Yes, the pockets of local weather here are unbelievably variegated, but the rule of thumb is, you get a temp increase of one degree (F) with every mile you move east from the coast. On a couple of occasions when I visited friends who live, like, a 20 minute ride away inland, it was like finding myself on another planet. I think I live in the only livable (for me) area around here, that desert vibe farther east is not my thing at all. Love back to you and the bums.

Hurricane Hilary update for those who are watching or might be affected: An hour or so ago it suddenly turned east veering around San Diego instead of hitting us directly as was expected. We had a 5.1 earthquake while this was going on but that's not out of the ordinary, everybody thought this whole thing would wind up being a nothingburger. Some locals seemed disappointed -- the weather here is usually so uneventful that they were hoping for an 'experience.' All it was all day was gloomy, rainy, and boring, so I took a nap. Slept through a tornado and hail warnings that came and went. Woke up to howling wind half an hour ago. Still hoping it will be just strong wind and nothing more dramatic.

Taking hurricane updates to another thread -- Stranger Things in The Rabbit Hole.

It was pretty hard on Baja California, but it hasn't reached our parts yet except for the rain, which is now intensifying. Current ETA 5 pm-ish (it's 3:30 here).

I love them too. There were many everywhere in my pre-CA lives. The most dramatic and unforgettable one which caught me on the highway in Virginia was, at the time, proclaimed to be the lightning storm of the century -- it was in the 1990s and google doesn't show it anymore, so I have no documented proof that it was, but it sure looked like it. We were driving back from Williamsburg to wherever we were staying (don't remember exactly) and the highway went along the ocean most of the time and not only did the lightnings strike nonstop for over an hour I think, but it was never just one or two at a time, it was the whole ocean ablaze all of the time! And what lightnings! From somewhere infinitely high they came, monstrously long and twisted, many ricochetting from the surface of the ocean (at least it looked that way) and striking back at the sky! And they were everywhere all at once -- over the ocean and in front of and behind the car, and the thunder was like megaton bombs exploding. And it rained so hard the car was practically a submarine, zero surface visibility without a periscope, which it wasn't equipped with. That one was a bit much... though the mix of primordial terror, sensory overload and esthetic ecstasy was unique to the experience.

https://packaged-media.redd.it/9k0h9125pyib1/pb/m2-res_720p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1692464400&s=a5839df4e7897a8c27bb691bfade3d3fc12c8dbd#t=0

P.S. In the meantime, the locals are baffled by strange clouds everywhere -- a pattern never seen before -- and keep posting pictures from all over the city. I'm hoping it's not ____ (fill in an unpopular opinion about weather modification shenanigans.) And perhaps the strangest of them all -- a lid from someone's trash bin wound up hanging high in the tree, though it couldn't have been blown there today, there's no wind... unless it was a gust from the future through some spacetime wormhole?..

@Nungali It's a good thing you weren't riding your motorcycle when that happened! Thank you. Hurricane Hilary, which is now category 4, heading for Mexico and then SoCal. We are in its direct expected path but it will weaken once it makes landfall (a shoutout to @liminal_luke -- are you watching this thing? You're in its path too, get some preps ready just in case . @silent thunder you seem to be reasonably out of the way I think but keep an eye on it just in case?) We are used to weather folks exaggerating the dangers of all things weather, so I'm hoping it won't be too bad, but we got a tropical storm warning for the first time ever -- normally they simply don't happen here. Come Sunday I'll know if the warning was justified or just fearmongering. I'm usually reasonably ready for unexpected adversities of the natural kind. Food, water, flashlights, candles, TP, gas in the tank, bike secured, a few potted plants to take indoors, and hunker down on Sunday/Monday is the plan.

Here we are mostly into bluffs collapsing. After a good rain, I usually worry that 1) my favorite walking qigong trail might disappear into the ocean --it's been steadily shrinking, and 2) what about the railroad tracks and the trains? Cutting it a bit close from the get-go, and closer every time...

Many opinions I hold are unpopular, so as time goes by and more and more of my opinions wind up in the "unpopular" bin, I keep more and more of them to myself. Was digging in that bin for a reasonably innocuous one to share. Heard something that might fit the bill in a conversation this morning: Roads built in a river bed will always revert to river during a good rain. (In anticipation of hurricane Hillary, which according to current forecasts is going to be downgraded to the biggest storm we had in 80 years once it reaches our parts this weekend.) Another innocuous unpopular opinion: SoCal has shit for water collection. Not only are good rains rare, they mostly get wasted even when they arrive. You get the drought, come rains you get the flooding, then back to the drought.

Beautiful. There's also a Mediterranean island where the cat population exceeds human population, but the name of the island is kept from the public so as to discourage meddling by tourists. I have this book with absolutely stunning photography.

Methinks those are two very different sets of dreams. Daoist self-cultivation/immortality pursuits were always a very personal affair, shared only via one-on-one interactions with a master or else a very small group of like-minded friends and/or disciples, and sometimes entirely solitary. "Humanity's" generic dreams was something they were trying to get away from, not gain fame and fortune pursuing.

Never heard of George Carlin?.. Could be a generation thing, could be a country other than the US, most likely both? They don't make the likes of him anymore. Current comedy is simply tragic in comparison, and sarcasm can get one cancelled. Anyway, your goals are lofty. If you're ready for obstacles that match their size (and on this path they are guaranteed), fusheng wuliang tianzun.

As long as it's not about what George Carlin meant when he said, " the more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole."

Tongue-in-cheek use of literary allusions can be funny. Funny is part of normal. If literary allusions were butterflies, sticking pins into them instead of letting them fly would indeed produce a butterfly murder factory.

An established routine is akin to a magical ritual. Put your toothbrush in the wrong place -- and a butterfly will die somewhere. -- Mikhail Kharit

Thanks for caring, Mark. I did initially, but then thought, nah, wrong thread, wrong mood. (That was more appropriate for a different place and time. The only thing I will say is that I used to hope god, should such an entity exist, is merciful and just. But now I hope god is as vindictive and wrathful as the old testament says he is, and then some. Though neither scenario seems more plausible than the third one: he doesn't give a shit.) Now a question to contribute to the game: What's your biggest passion in life?

I was thinking about the absolutely critical initial time of covid when the WHO and the CDC and the FDA and the Big Pharma-made MDs unleashed, as a measure to prevent the then-impending pandemic, a whole campaign instructing people not to touch their faces with their hands. (Sorry, deleted the rest of my answer initially posted - so as not to thwart the mood of the thread.)

San Diego, home to 32 military bases, is where you scratch your head often enough trying to figure out if weird things you see in the sky are secret military stuff, alien reverse engineered secret military stuff, or straight-up secret alien stuff. With my habit of observing the sky on a very regular basis and at different times of day/night, over the years I've seen more than my fair share of objects that look and/or behave weird. I lived in various places and on three continents and visited four, and I've never seen any of that weird stuff elsewhere. (And, yes, I know how to tell a warplane from a black helicopter from a combat drone from a weather balloon from a Chinese sky lantern from weird stuff.) The Manhattan project, by the way, was a kind of breakaway civilization at the time it was happening, and the fruits of its activities only became known to the public on August 6, 1945 -- even though 100,000 people were privy to the secret -- there was no leakage of information to the public whatsoever. Which goes to show that secrecy works, one thing that works in our world. (Perhaps one of the main reasons nothing else does.)