Taomeow

and what a glorious feeling it is! reminds me of when I first discovered taoism which legitimized the concepts I had no words for before -- qi, shen qi and sha' qi, ganying, wuxhing, the Eight Directions... all the goodies that plagued my bodymind with tantalizing "knowing" which I couldn't define or express, and made me alternate between frantic research and tongue-tied attempts to explain, which of course only made any average explainee question my sanity! How I danced when I discovered it's already been discovered! So, not a repeat performance this time, not frantic, not chaotic, but random enough because I'm still not completely on it -- I determined that the things to study (besides sacred geometry, numerology, taoist astrology, feng shui, and deep history) in order to understand the phenomenon better are crystallography and mineralogy. (Keeping in mind that DNA is a crystalline structure and crystals grow and shape themselves via communication with meaningful signals from other crystals, communications not limited by proximity but very sensitive to spacial configurations and the timing of the signal.). The first foray has yielded some interesting results, so I'll keep going. E.g., here's a list of chemical elements that have repetititve atomic numbers: 11 Sodium 22 Titanium 33 Arsenic 44 Ruthenium 55 Cesium 66 Dysprosium 77 Iridium 88 Radium 99 Einsteinium See a pattern?.. If not, take a plunge into the properties of these elements and, furthermore, their functions in biological processes -- and in social ones too!

Yes, later today. So anyone who still wants to take the test, please do, and if you take it later, use your zhi for self-control and please don't peek!

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Bokonon

From Wiki: John 3:16 (chapter 3, verse 16 of the Gospel of John) is one of the most widely quoted verses from the Christian Bible,[1] and has been called the most famous Bible verse.[2] It has also been called the "Gospel in a nutshell"[2] because it is considered a summary of the central dogma of traditional Christianity: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. —John 3:16 Does it make any sense to you?

If you call instant contempt ruffled feathers... but why would you?.. Because an opponent is easier to take down after ascribing an emotional reaction to him/her? This may be true, but in my world, lack of respect for the author's factual accuracy and interpreting honesty is not a strong emotion unless... well, in any event, not in this case.

Yes, but that's when they don't have letters after their names, tenures to maintain and sabbaticals to enjoy, reputations to uphold, grants to win, mastodon superiors to please, peer reviews of work to weather by peers who have tenures and sabbaticals and reputations and grants and superiors to ruffle not, THAT's when they call whatever they apply" the scientific method," don't they?..

If the intro at Amazon is representative of the book, my feathers are staying put. It goes: " The Tao Te Ching was only created because Lao Tzu was thrown in jail by a disciple who didn't want to let him leave town without writing down his teachings? "Passover" celebrates God killing all firstborn Egyptian kids while Jewish homes were "passed over" by the angel of death? Shinto, a nature-loving, mellow religion, was transformed by the Japanese government into a nationalistic ideology promoting "holy" war?" Oh boy. Lao Tzu was thrown in jail? No, he was not. King Wen was. The author of the I Ching, not the author of Tao Te Ching. Whoever wrote this doesn't have his facts straight, looks like. Ignoring facts to prove a preconception, let me guess... scientific method?.. "Killing Egyptian kids while Jewish homes were passed over." Sounds like an anti-Israel Islamic press release. An ugly story without the beginning and the middle. Here's the beginning and the middle: Egyptians kept the whole of the Jewish people in slavery, Moses asked the pharaoh, "Let my people go," the pharaoh said, not on my watch, Moses said, I have power from my god, I can make you, the pharaoh said, bite me. Moses did. Slightly at first, just to show him. The pharaoh said, that didn't hurt me none. Moses said, let my people go or next time it will. And so on. Shinto a mellow religion was transformed into a nationalistic ideology? Nah, it had to be dumped in favor of buddhism for that. Bushido code and all that. How on earth did a Japanese samurai warrior lose that in favor of shinto? Oh... on the street, as Marge Simpson would say. On the street in the author's mind. Doesn't look promising...

I've had a dormant kombucha in my fridge for a few years. Used to make the brew -- very yummy -- I've a booklet from a health expo where I also had a chance to talk to the kombucha pros, and also remember recipes from the old country (my mom used to make it not with tea but with birch sap!) But then the last batch contracted mold and I was afraid to use it ever since, even though I discarded the "mother" and the "baby" seemed to be mold free. (Moldy kombucha is very dangerous.) It all happened when I lived so close to the ocean that avoiding mold was an uphill battle, it would take residence on the screens on my windows from the outside and hey presto, next thing that happens is, it's in my kombucha. But I moved a mile higher since then and the new place doesn't seem to have the problem (knock on wood), so I might give it another try. Zerostao, do you have a perfectly healthy "baby" you could spare or sell?

If you want to get tipsy and stay tipsy on an ongoing basis, you can't really accomplish this with drinking. Instead, you would need to become a vegetarian, avoid all fats and especially animal fats, and emphasize carbs (the majority of vegetarians are really starcharians). This diet gradually thins out the myelin sheath on your neural dendrites which normally provides isolation on your "wiring." Stripped of isolation, all activities of your neural nets seep through into all the neighboring ones, interfering with each other all the time (your brain becomes much like a radio that is tuned into multiple stations all at once), making the "buzz" an existential constant.

Yeah, that's another thing -- not only different strokes for different folks, but for the same folks at different times in their lives... I did my (or anyone's) most heavy drinking between the ages of 16 and 19. There were no drugs in Russia for the general consumer when I grew up (it has changed now...), so experimenting teens experimented with alcohol. If I told you how much I could drink at a party during this time, you wouldn't believe me. Then I hooked up with a boyfriend who was a karate champ, and he started giving me an exceptionally hard time about drinking and smoking. It slowed me down quite a bit, but I didn't like the way this desire to control "for healthy purposes" extended into other areas -- he wanted to control everything about me... so, OK, I don't drink anymore and he wants me to use no makeup, fine, no makeup, but then he wants me to wear skirts and not wear pants, fine, no pants, but then... then I dumped him, celebrated by getting trashed, and that was the end of it. I didn't have a "relationship" with alcohol ever since. I had and still do an "avoidance relationship" with control freaks though. They are detrimental to my health more than anything else, in my experience. I did do a few years of complete abstinence when I was going though a deep-impact body-inclusive feeling healing modalities. I became overly open (on all levels, no defenses, no armor, no gates -- everything just blown wide open to everything, yikes...) and supersensitive, and during that period sniffing a cork put me in a coma, pretty much. When, a few years down the road, I restored my new and improved defense mechanisms, this oversensitivity went away and absolute tolerance took its place. Currently I mostly drink when I remember that it's good for me, which I tend to forget. I experience no effects from a glass or two, and a mild buzz when, at some celebration or other, I happen to drink a few more. This is rare, and a non-issue. I'm pretty happy with my current deal with this particular substance, it's very easygoing, no demands on either party's part.

A Japanese company, Slashfood, conducted a study after it had been noticed that sake brewers have amazing skin. Turns out sake, but not other alcoholic beverages the controls consumed (250 ml if I remember correctly), increases moisture in the tissues by 30%. As usual, individuality is the key. American diets tend to produce Dampness in the body, a breeding ground for cancer, diabetes, and other degenerative disease. Which alcoholics, unfairly enough, get at a much lower rate than the general population (while indeed getting far more liver disorders). They are also much less prone to infections, account for much fewer cases of the flu and the common cold, and are seldom overweight, with the exception of beer alcoholics. Of course alcoholism is not the answer, but alcohol has properties worth knowing, and counteracting Dampness is one of them (while it's the opposite for the moisturizing sake). Old school doctors still remember... well, in the "old country" they do... that before antibiotics, inhaling the vapors of alcohol treated pneumonia and tuberculosis, and failing that, Edgar Cayce did a reading concerning his beloved wife who was about to die of tuberculosis and had been given a few hours to live by three or four attending physicians, and prescribed this in combo with -- hold on to your hat -- heroine and cocaine. She got well and they lived happily ever after. Cayce was a very religious man very opposed to "recreational" uses of any substances, but his readings often called for these on a case by case basis. Everything is a double-edged scalpel. Can kill, can heal. Don't give a scalpel to a neanderthal and don't take it away from the surgeon, and everyone will be fine.

At some point I spoke with a Chinese acupuncturist at a post-seminar lunch, who is also an indoor student (yup, there is such a thing, much as the outdoor students hate it ) of someone who has no public presence, whom she described as a high level taoist master. She is a tiny little woman and seems very fragile until you talk to her. So, we had a fairly in-depth discussion, and reluctantly at first, and then eagerly, she told me about her training under her master. She said he aims to demolish every pre-conception she ever had, and so he took her on a trip to Hong Kong to meet with and spend time among other masters of his level, his friends. She told me of many absolutely miraculous things they do for fun, and one of the things she saw them do, on a number of occasions, was challenge each other to consume and then transform cisterns of hard liquor and remain sober, smoking fat cigars while at it and poking fun at each other, and then play martial games in earnest, with much laughter and mirth. She said the master made her learn to drink and smoke (which she never did prior to her training) while at the same time working on neigong techniques of transforming these substances into extra pure qi. "How else are you going to live in a toxic world if you don't have the skill?"

I think it's to be avoided by those who have a problem with it. Everybody else should pay attention to the information about health benefits of minor/moderate occasional drinking, because it is correct. Animals and birds of the world seek out fruits and berries that have accidentally become fermented (happens all the time in natural environments) and get drunk from time to time. I've seen a whole bunch of hummingbirds go after a pool of wine-smelling juice around a banana that fell on a wide leaf below and fermented. They were trashed! Playing and colliding in the air, throwing themselves up and down, emitting lightnings of brilliance in the sun, such joy to watch! But only animals owned by humans are capable of becoming alcoholics. Everybody else enjoys the brew sporadically. A sage emulates that.

My Mac won't open the link.

Dentists put me in a trance every time. I refuse anesthesia except for something that touches the nerve, and if you're not numbed out, there's something about dental interventions that pushes you through the "door of perceptions" -- but alas, my dentist is not ethereal, and won't accept the smoke of a burned dollar for payment. Do you still have the number for yours? Otherworldly states do wear off -- this is normal, because this world is, well, not the other world. Got to be clear about where you are... that's the first requirement of sanity for whoever values it. I am always put off, e.g., by people who wear their ritual clothes for non-ritual occasions (an interview, or a workshop that is not a ritual, or -- worst case scenario -- just everyday life), as much as by those who attempt magic while wearing their casual or business clothes. You've got to know WHO you are in which world... and let others know on a need-to-know basis only.

Yes, you need to be able to do it either way from this standpoint, but when actually sitting in meditation, you may want to either keep it gender specific (I sit the opposite way of Drew) or switch to the opposite-gender way if you aim to diminish your gender-specific characteristics and strengthen those of the opposite one. Which may come up if a girly girl wants to gain more yang to face the world with more courage, or a macho man, some deeper sensitivity and discernment -- intuitive, subtle, yin abilities.

Well, it's hard to explain... On my Peruvian trip I saw the Machine. Their/its operations are not about us but we are a trickle-down reality from their/its operations. (It was impossible to tell whether the Machine is alive or mechanical, technology or biology -- it was sort of both and neither. If you've ever seen Mayan and Inca art, it might give you an idea of a world that looks like a combo of a jungle and a microchip... that's the best I can put it.) They/it are doing some maintenance. I saw stuff swept out of existence in the course of this maintenance. A few civilizations, a bunch of nations, continents, even planets, stuff like that, all getting removed from our reality but not because we "did" or "didn't do" something, just because we somehow didn't matter. You know, when you vacuum your carpet, you hold no grudges against any mites that may get sucked out of their peaceful existence in the carpet... something like that. So, the Machine terrified me more than anything ever possibly can, because the "vacuum cleaner" does not just remove life, it removes Being and Nonbeing of everything that has no Meaning. But anything that does, it doesn't remove, Meaning is indestructible. It's hard to translate into words, because Meaning does not reside in words, nor depends on them for its existence. Meaning resides in the Pattern. So, the pattern of your carpet stays, but the mites that are not part of its Meaning don't. So it was my understanding that if you do not contribute to the pattern, if you interfere with it, you get removed. That's the best I can do... if it doesn't make much sense, that's because, like I said, I know what it is but I don't know if words can convey even the foggiest. For the purposes of where it came up in the thread: I was working with "conform to the Pattern" meaning of it -- much like a cat takes the shape of the pillow she's lying on without BECOMING the pillow, or a school of fish that conforms to the current in its outlines without becoming the river, or a swirl of autumn leaves that conforms to the wind and follows its shape without becoming the wind. It's not unlike taiji -- "stick, adhere, and follow." But then I had to break the contact because, well, in taiji you don't involve EVERYONE, it's a one-on-one exercise, until you're at a higher level. I did notice that some of the spectators started "stick-adhere-follow" to MY pattern which was itself conforming to the offered pattern, so there was a hint of how you can work with the pattern further if you want to expand it. But I didn't, so I terminated it. I do many exercises of this nature because of the Machine I've seen, never knowing in advance which ones will reveal a Meaningful Pattern to adhere to and which ones, Meaningless Garbage to steer clear of. As you go, you start discerning them better, but you don't see it all at once. You learn by practicing... I don't know how else to say it. Don't know if I made any sense to you. I tried.

LOL, no enlightened statisticians? but -K- says statisticians are the first ones to get enlightened? I guess you're both right, it depends on what you make of the numbers... the numbers are the crossroads, where do we go from here? E.g., far as "official" statistics are concerned, I respond the way a five-year-old might respond to the question "how much is two plus two" with a meaningful non-sequitur -- "I want some ice cream NOW." (I respond with "Who paid for the study?" and usually get my ice cream as soon as I find out, no need to wrack my brains anymore over why two plus two equals seventeen in this particular study, which is what I always see if you just believe the statistics without going through the door of the numbers to wherever it really leads.) To a student of taoist arts and sciences, time is the primary subject of study, and one reason I got into things taoist was that I was into things "western" before and they don't faze in the nature of time, they all assume that all time is the same time, which is inherently absurd if you think about it. We accept somehow that "winter" and "summer" are not quite "the same time" (well, here in San Diego you could be fooled, but not in Norway), that "day" and "night" are not quite the same time, but that's about as far as we go. But ALL time is not the same time. Just yesterday I was doing my round of walking qigong around a local lake, which takes exactly two hours to circumvent, starting at 3:30 pm, and at exactly 4:44, when I was well into my qigong-altered state, as the sun was going down, ALL the birds started singing SUDDENLY, as if responding to the baton of an invisible (to me, not to them) conductor, in all the trees surrounding the path. If you were to go to a concert, it would be starting at a specific place at a specific time, you wouldn't show up just anywhere anywhen to hear your favorite performer, you would find out when it starts where it happens, right? ALL times for ALL concerts are like that. Different "concerts" in the universe, in heaven and earth and humanity, as well as in an individual human life, start at different specific times, and others end, and others are performed over and over... Taoism studies this. It sees the nature of events as intimately intertwined with the timing of events in the universe, with the nature and quality of particular times, cycles, beginnings and ends of transformations of the energies of the world. You get into that, you start seeing some of the conductors, just like those birds do...

Oh, this resolution. Many a New Year has passed since the first time I made this same resolution. Many a forum I quit. I don't know what happened to this one, why the resolutions didn't stick. Maybe I need to use the Chinese New Year instead. But maybe not. I think learning to give as much time to forums as you consciously decide to, and no more, is a better exercise. A forum is a mini-universe. It pulls you in, chews you up, spits you out, you reincarnate again... and if you haven't learned anything from the previous time around, no use to scroll down -- the page never changes. But you don't (well, I should say I don't) solve the problem of repetitive incarnations by turning your back on the universe and watching your bellybutton collect the dust of ages. You want to learn to master the universe, not to pretend it's not there. So I think a forum is one of those entities Don Juan called "petty tyrants" whose role in one's life is to practice, and practice again, to impeccability, the inevitable impending dealings with the Great Tyrant -- reality itself. So, Hagar, does it sound about right? To me it looks like you've mastered this particular petty tyrant, but I don't know how many there are in your life... If only one, it's a cool way to cultivate self-discipline, both for those whose problem is "gee, I talk too much" and those whose problem is the opposite -- "gee, why is it that I never have anything to say? (or 'why is it that I never have anything nice to say?') Is it because I can only feel safe when the universe does not notice the vulnerable me?" and so on.

Well, I've started collecting evidence. Shopping receipts, bills, dinner tabs, stuff like that. Hard copies, so to speak. Coincidence theorists are having more fun at our expense than their fair share by debunking what's easy to debunk -- subjective perceptions. Something no one can "prove." Well, I'm gathering "objective" proof. Of course a hard-core coincidence theorist would still argue that I calculate my random grocery, gas, birthday gifts, etc.. purchases (plus tax) in advance to come up with $33.33 or $12.12 or the like almost every day and sometimes twice a day and sometimes more than twice in a single day every shopping day for more than a week or a month. Or that I know what a dinner for three or four will cost in advance too, by hypnotically suggesting the other participants what to order and then adjusting my own order (and calculating that plus tax in my head before ordering) to finish the meal with a check for $77.77. I can assure you I don't. And yet I'm really surprised these days when I get billed $77.76. Can't be. What does it mean? What went wrong? So, besides the complex conspiracies a coincidence theorist would have to invoke in order to prove that nothing but a tedious eternal stretch of heartless, mindless, and completely meaningless coincidences comprises the core and essence of everybody's existence and of every occurrence in the universe, I think a simpler explanation is possible. E.g., this one: the universe is trying to tell us something. For which, as I've mentioned, I'm collecting material proof, just for the hell of it. I don't know what I'm going to prove with it and to whom. But maybe a statistician will get enlightened on the spot by just looking at that collection, who knows. I don't know what it's about. I just know it's about time.

Well, yeah, I give up. I was trying to humor 9th because, well, if he attacked someone else out of the blue, I'd moderate, but since he went after me, I was sort of undecided -- let it slide? -- bad example... have some fun? -- well, I'm human. Sorry.

Such profound insights! I am honored to have been positioned on the receiving end of your creativity. What kind of little memo book of brilliant repartees are you perusing when straining to come up with one? I've GOT to get me one of those! Nevermind you're on the wrong page, your response has to have meaning in some context sometime. Not the context of the above conversation, to be sure... but you've tried, and you've tried your hardest, and that's what counts.

It's not staples, it's symbiotic ascended masters from the Pleiades, staples boy. They like to hang around signs of intelligent life on planet Earth. Took me a while to convince them that staples boys is not all this planet has to show for intelligent life, or they would've zipped off in a jiffy, after performing the global spring cleaning I've persuaded them to postpone till the next year. The planet has become dirty, they've been telling me, so they are anxious to remove some garbage. Now, since I have their ear for as long as I don't bore them as badly as you bore me, I promise I will insist on their accepting a definition of "garbage" that would assure safety of at least some of the staples boys, the well-behaved ones.

Very cool. Not just books though, there's teachers out there... they will slip this knowledge in quietly, very quietly, because after two thousand years of persecutions and brainwashing there's a helluva lot of sterilized minds out there that react to the slightest hint of reality with psychotic fits. I would say "find them" but no -- they will find you if you pursue this whiff of truth, they have sensitive noses for potential students who have sensitive noses!..

No bows from me, for I live in fear of my tin foil hat falling off.