Taomeow

Glad to hear you're having a good time, Cam! mmmmmm... Korean food... ever so pissed I'm not eating it right now!

We are the youngest species on Earth with the exception of the glowing mouse, and just as unnatural. Reptiles ruled this planet for hundreds of millions of years, we've been around for a second... but the attitude on us... glows like that mouse-jellyfish heterochimera we've created in our labs, as glowing evidence of our having learned to tweak with things we are the outcome of having been tweaked with. As above, so below. As the great (and also glowing) cosmic DNA serpent told Jeremy Narby when ayahuaska made the former visible to the latter for the first time, "you're just a human being." Meaning, you're nothing special, just another DNA-based life form, possibly genetically engineered to boot. He could have reparteed with "you're just a reptile," of course, except he-she wasn't... Source of the above slight to our kind: "The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge," by Jeremy Narby, Ph.D.

So I'm told this Thursday is the worst day of the year in the Kabbalah tradition, actually the timing (on the East coast where I presently find myself) is from 8 pm today till 9 pm Thursday. I checked the Chinese San Niang days and, no, it doesn't coincide with any. I know very little about Kabbalah beyond generalities, so I don't know why this day is designated as a dark day -- supposedly the powers of good have no power during this time and whatever good you attempt to do turns over to the evil side. Has anyone heard anything about it? Any explanations? corroborations or refutations? If someone can respond before 8 pm tonight, I'd appreciate it.

This particular Thursday but starting after sunset yesterday and till 9 pm today. We had a sizable storm last night (no Madonna though, whew), and the energy coming in seems to have manifested exactly the way San Niang energy usually does for me (that's the inauspicious days of Chinese lunar calendar), with things suddenly getting out of hand in the kitchen, only far more violently. Head of the household opened the cupboard and two of my unbreakable Lenox dishes that have been pushed around for twenty years with no one ever succeeding in even chipping a chip off any of them jumped out at him from an overhead shelf, hit him on the head, put a star-shaped crack into the lid of the coffee grinder on their way down and down, and shattered to dust. I was impressed.

Thank you! this is different from the explanation I got, apparently in kabballah they assess this day energetically rather than historically... but the two always overlap anyway... I mean, history follows energy.

Oh, OK. Yes, it was worth it -- super worth it. Yes, I learned a lot. No, it wasn't a "close to a famous person" event. It was hard work all the way. I don't think I ever worked as hard alchemically. I was the only American there, most other participants were members of Wang Liping's student's Viktor Xiao's taijiquan studio who had attended the First seminar in Moscow and did a minimum of six months' worth of Dragon Gate alchemical work prior to this one (that was the prerequisite). I was going to tell the bums all about it when I have the time.

Thank you, Scotty and Steam! Scotty, I have so much weird stuff cooking on so many burners... ...but appreciate the thought. Have you tried the pilaf yet?

I went to Wang Liping's Second Moscow seminar (May--June '09). What kind of results are you looking for?

Thanks for your thought too, Steam (nice name! -- your picture of your alchemy seems to show how you came to produce it ) OK, "severe jing depletion" -- that's the sunken-in eyelid folds, according to my sources and personal observations. "Excess jing" is something I've never heard about. I don't think anyone suffers from excess jing these days, only jing deficiency of varying degrees, it's the plague of our time. Jing is energetic and molecular memory of the species and the individual, and one can't possibly have an excess of that, ever. The more the merrier. (I am familiar with misinterpretations of jing as sexual energy or even, god help us all, semen, but these are only the most visible and the most narrow aspects of jing and its manifestations. In an unbalanced bodymind certain manifestations might be excessive, and if one thinks of sexuality as the whole jing enchilada, one might mistake overexpression of that for "jing excess," whereas it's merely an indicator of jing imbalance.) About "excess Yin/internal Dampness." Looks like qi and yin deficiency to me, and -- believe it or not -- dryness, despite the swollen bags of water under the eyes. This is the kind of water they call "sha," it's not structured properly, it is intercellular edema rather than intracellular excess. Intercellular sha, water leaking out into the intercellular space through the cell wall due to the latter's weakness, and cell wall's weakness an outcome of intracellular water having lost its energetic matrix (qi in TCM, ATP in Western terms, both and more in my book) and therefore structural integrity, may indeed look as "dampness" but the underlying cause is "qi deficiency," and also "yin deficiency" because just fluids ain't no yin, yin fluids are "slow yin," the kind that moisturizes the tissues and makes a healthy face appear supple like a juicy fruit, not the kind that goes in and out of the body taxing the kidneys with extra work without taking hold where it's needed. He may eat a lot of slow yin foods but they don't work out for him because fast yang foods are missing to balance them out -- it's like changing oil in your car so it runs smoothly but failing to put in gas! So, yes, we agree on this point, too little metabolic fire, he can't "cook" his yin foods properly in his system... oh, and I forgot, doesn't he prefer to eat stuff raw or semi-raw, grains in particular?! What sad folly. So, anyway, the overall picture is of overall deficiency (I see no excess symptoms whatsoever anywhere, stagnation and blockage, yes, but deficiency-induced, not excess-induced. No energy to move stuff around metabolically. Which all boils down to "jing deficiency," with this going on, everything else follows.) The traditional Japanese diet is jing-restoring, you're right, and very healthy. Kushi hasn't been following that by a long shot. His "macrobiotic" diet is full of idiotic additions (like uncooked grains) and omissions (like red meat, which the Japanese and pretty much all other East Asians eat eagerly, though moderately, the way it should be eaten) but, what's worse, it is another "one diet fits all" deal and this is so very wrong in every single case... and quite unbalanced, and boring to tears. (Boredom at meals does produce life force deficiency! Jing is memory, memorable meals is what restores it, among other things -- whether there's good company and laughter and great wine to remember them by or the superb skill of the cook... or, in the ideal scenario, both. ) Of course I'm still learning too, there's no such thing as "knowledge excess" where diet and health are concerned... only deficiencies and imbalances to correct. Been enjoying the conversation! Craig, my apologies for the tangent within your subject. I always do that.

I very much agree. Water is the most mysterious substance in the universe if you ask me. If one starts digging... I mean, diving... deeper into Water, one winds up chalking up pretty much everything happening in the universe to its antics. I was told a long time ago that if you want to understand the behavior of qi, invest your awareness into studying the behavior of Water. Been at it for quite a while and it's inexhaustible... a new surprise every day, a new "aha" every other day!

That's quite a face to read, thanks for posting! (I hope no macrobiotics fans are reading this, but perchance this is the case, I apologize -- no disrespect to you intended, and your teacher was, briefly, of interest for me too -- waay before TCM and then again at desperate times when I was grabbing at straws... which might be the very pool his followers are recruited from, people not knowing anything about TCM and/or desperate people grabbing at straws. I've read many a glorified bogus diet protocol and can't say I myself never fell for any... thank god, that's not likely to ever happen to me again, now that I know at the very least what Michio Kushi never learned -- yin-yang dynamics! He has THAT completely bass ackwards, for starters, and that's only a start... nevermind, anti-Kushi rant over and out.) OK, staying with his eyes only: droopy upper eyelids -- depression, melancholy; eyelids practically hanging off the edge while there's also deep double folds (very uncharacteristic for a Japanese face!) -- connective tissue weakness, severe jing depletion severe bags under eyes -- bladder and prostate problems, possibly alcoholism, possibly heart problems brown-yellow pigmentation -- liver and gallbladder problems So... the man is sick as a dog if you ask me. I'd tell him what to do about some of it but he wouldn't listen...

It's blue or black traditionally but it is also the color of water in a layer not thick enough to manifest color, which is mysterious indeed. You can see it in the face of someone with weak Kidneys -- a blue tint under the eyes (if you see a black tint there, it may mean more trouble than just weakness.) If in the area of the kidneys projection you see Water's own colors -- blue or black or none at all -- or the colors of her Mother -- Metal -- which is white, or the color of her child -- Wood -- which is green -- it's not the worst case scenario. What's a bad sign is the colors of the destructive or controlling cycles reflecting into Water, the yellow of the Earth (blocks Water) and the red of Fire (evaporates Water). So circles under the eyes can tell the story of the Kidneys in color pictures and in much detail. No color -- Kidneys are fine Blue -- overworked Kidneys Black -- Kidneys dangerously overworked Green -- Liver suffering from overworked Kidneys White -- Lungs overworked, Kidneys undernourished Yellow -- Spleen blocks Kidneys Red -- Kidneys attack Heart (You can tell I've been reading up on Face Diagnostics, right? )

Was it the invention of the X-ray machines that let us see them that made bone fractures real? Some of the Innuit and Chukchi children are still born and raised in round igloos. Scientists have found they do not see straight lines. Not until they've been exposed to enough square buildings and spent enough time inside them. You believe what you perceive, and you perceive what your faculties have been trained to perceive. If I perceive differently from you because my faculties have been trained somewhat differently, it becomes a matter of whether you believe me (a generic me) when I say I perceive something you don't. So in order to decide whether you should believe me, you might want to determine the overall credibility of my statements, on issues unrelated to the one where we perceive differently. If you just choose to not believe things you don't see, you might miss out on a straight line or two... ...and they do exist, abstractly speaking... though in reality they don't, Innuit children got it absolutely right -- they don't see what doesn't actually exist, and straight lines don't actually exist, they are constructed by our brains on specs obtained via early perceptional training, the training consisting in being exposed to square and rectangular man-made dwellings offering visual approximation of the abstract notion of a "straight line" coupled with visual deprivation of the non-abstract, real, natural forms in the early developmental environment. However, these same Innuit and Chukchi children who can't see straight lines can see spirits! -- just like their ancestors could for hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe there's something about our straight lines that crosses over (cuts and damages) the areas of the brain needed to see other things... straight lines not just in our dwellings but in our linear step-by-step logical constructs, seemingly real... ...but not really...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnMDrv8Mx3E

This you fool, just this! Black coffee and cigarettes, alchemy, freedom.

Thanks for noticing! Yes, devoted, grateful, amazed, blown away... but first and foremost, pragmatic. I use it for divination, though not only for divination. I don't think I would understand her to the extent I do (whatever THAT is ) if I didn't make a habit of divination. It's like all taoist arts and sciences -- one learns it by doing it. I divine; things I was divining come to pass, happen, or don't happen, in this way or that way; and that's when -- and only then -- and that's how -- and that's why -- I come to understand completely (or as close to completely as my lil' brain can come) what it was exactly the I Ching meant when she said what she said. The I Ching is not unlike yin zhi (if someone doesn't know what I'm talking about, I'll elaborate later) -- in that you get your "aha" moments in hindsight. Without the divination, no aha. And no relationship. (That's another thing I believe -- that you divine, among other things, for the same reason you call a friend on the phone even if there's no "reason" -- just to keep in touch, just to keep the relationship alive...)

What did you like about that new cookbook of yours, Scottie? Some of China's greatest writers, philosophers and statesmen wrote cookbooks -- the genre was never considered "beneath" anyone, no matter how high one's social or scholarly status. I could write a cookbook if I could get away with descriptions of amounts of stuff along the lines of "a handful," "a few," "a generous splash," "on the conservative side," "insane quantities" and so on. I do cook taoist style, applying the yin-yang/wuxing principles. Here's the recipe for one of my favorite dishes -- old school pilaf: sautee a lot of finely chopped onions with grated carrots in ample butter; add lamb, cubed, and cook together on medium high, stirring often, till it looks good and ready, but then keep cooking it on very low under lid till you're ready to add salt and spices -- there's ways to go and I suggest you go Garam Masala, the Indian mix of a whole bunch of fragrant goodies, bought whole at an Indian store and home-ground in a coffee grinder; plus some extra black pepper, cracked not ground, and a whole bulb of garlic, unpeeled; in the meantime, cook a ton of white rice to half ready; put the meat with all its butter-onion-carrot mess on the bottom of a heavy saucepan, cover with rice, make eight to ten vertical holes in the rice all the way to the bottom of the saucepan and fill each hole with boiling water or broth; cover, put on the lowest low, and make suffer for 30--40 minutes, checking for water in the holes and adding spoonfuls thereof, hot, a few more times if necessary; then mix it all together, even out the surface, cover again and let sit and think about it all for a while. This is insanely tasty and not as labor-intensive as it sounds.

lollapalooza chto sovsem oshizeli ot nefig delat' ?..

Of all the versions I have collected and have read/seen/used, I currently use only one, which is better than the original (bear with me) in that it gives all historic meanings for every term used in the original, which is something even a native speaker/reader of Chinese wouldn't know! It offers a "field' of all possible meanings for each word, so you're not stuck with any particular translator's creative interpretations, scholarly or philosophical or linguistic limitations, personal opinions, preferences, or biases. Highly recommended. http://books.google.com/books?id=a8NlooeZG...lt&resnum=1

Agree about "symbolic" and "actual," Trunk, though "actual" ones liberally use symbolism and "symbolic" ones refer to "actual" events of one's life... but somehow one always knows the difference. "Actual" are real events taking place in nonordinary reality, or dreamtime, or another dimension, or another level of self, or what have you. I have these from time to time, and remember them vividly for a lifetime, in minute detail. The first one of these, I wasn't yet four years old, was a massive foreshadowing of my life-to-be, and I'm still working with its material. They typically affect the future. "Symbolic" are also real events having taken place in this-here life, usually in the long-forgotten, early, ever-unconscious past. They are the most common variety, and mean there's things to process that won't leave you alone until you've processed them. Nightmares and PTSD dreams are almost invariably of this variety. Convoluted dreams are of this variety. Recurring dreams are of this variety. Dreams accompanied by strong feelings in general (without clear meanings though) are of this variety. I don't have these anymore, since little of my past (even the earliest part) is unconscious anymore. There's also the here-now "right meow" dreams that reflect what's going on in the non-dream world interfering with the dream. Example: an alarm clock in the non-dream room gets included into the sounds of the dream and interpreted as the mooing of the cow or the voice of god or whatever. Or you dream of eating a pickle and wake up to your cat licking your lips (true story ). But then there's dreams within dreams, you can go to sleep and have an "actual" dream where you might go to sleep and hey presto, have an "actual" dream from meta-dreamtime, revealing meta-nonordinary reality... Taoist classics are fond of these stories. I know many. I don't think I ever had one of these. Then there's the no-dream deep reality dreams, my favorite. They are the battery-recharging absolute dark nonexistence of True Yin full of all potentials, actualizing none. This form of dreaming is the healthiest. It is very different from merely "not remembering your dreams." This one you remember -- for what it was -- dark nonexistence. You know you've been there because you feel happy before you feel awake, that's the sequence: happiness first, consciousness later. Sages dream like that always I'm told, and that's how some of them (taoist classics again) can sleep for years, even centuries, without getting bored... I have these occasionally when I'm very, very good.

Crack! Crack! Crack! them bones! When I eat I am fast, smart, strong, shrewd, serpentine.

This is excellent, thanks. All the stretches shown are part of the regular TKD stretching routine, by the way, and are likely to aid any MA, not just peaceful meditation. Whoever said you can't kick any ass with yoga may have been wrong after all.

But there's ways to "get there" without upsetting the knees, and that's what I was trying to encourage. The half-lotus if I remember correctly (I might not... I mean I remember the asana but I'm not one hundred percent sure about its name -- did my last yoga with names eons ago --) is done with ONE foot fully in the qua, the other one on the floor, its instep touching the first one's knee or thereabouts. This is easy enough if you go about assuming this position by placing one foot -- e.g. the right one into the left qua -- with both hands, any which way -- the knee might be pointing to the ceiling in the process -- the other foot bent, just lying on the floor -- then twisting your body from the waist to the right, putting your right hand behind your back and grabbing your right big toe from behind! You may feel the eager opening of the qua -- then ease your right knee onto the floor (or a little cushion if it won't reach), relax and enjoy! It's not a difficult position once you get a feel for it. Easier than feet on thighs, and safer, plus conductive to the full lotus -- once you've trained your both legs, one at a time, in this manner, then one day -- with your one foot in the qua, you just twist your waist in the opposite direction and grab the other toe from behind your back and put the other foot in the qua too... and, arms crossed behind your back, hold both toes... this is full lotus in full bloom. Wonder if Drew can do it -- this one is a bit different from the "just full" -- sheesh, I should have asked him what happened to people around him when he was in full bloom (if he was) !