Taomeow

Quoting a FB friend. "After performing a random act of kindness, don't forget to pick up the shells." "Any fight for justice must first go through, and win, the preliminary stage of the fight against stupidity." Regarding the second assertion, I think we're doomed to never, ever see justice prevail.

And today is the day I was meant to finally find out, thanks to you, that it's not the douche after all. What a relief. I always thought the great Boss was totally not subtle enough with that douche line.

Ah, so native speakers experience the joys of misheard lyrics too! But probably not to the extent that I did early in the day. Sometimes I had to make up over half the lyrics. Often I was disappointed when I later learned the real ones -- I thought mine were better -- just as you were disappointed when you didn't find Manny of your auditory imagination. But I did feel relief when Lucy in the sky with diamonds and colitis ("A girl with colitis goes by") was replaced with the real version in mine.

Doing my best to act in sync with the times. A circumstance beyond our control, The phone, the tv and the news of the worldGot in the house like a pigeon from hell, Threw sand in our eyes and descended like fliesPut us back on the trainOh, back on the chain gangThe powers that beThat force us to live like we doBring me to my kneesWhen I see what they've done to youBut I'll die as I stand here todayKnowing that deep in my heart:They'll fall to ruin one dayFor making us part

I don't know about the starlings. People in charge of our world do many things to cause many creatures to die, every day. I can't keep up with all of them at once. Presently I'm here: And now I think we need to go back to the subject of this thread if nobody minds.

No, of the pandemic.

Cinchona, scutellaria, Siberian ginseng, panax ginseng, artemisia, sage, mint. Waiting on a shipment of rhodiola root and planning to gather some stinging nettles today.

Methinks 30+ years was enough time for me to get over the last hangover I ever suffered from, but if you are going to keep it down on account of me having one, I'm going to start working on it right now. I've a three gallon bottle of vodka within arm's length. I was using it to dilute 95% alcohol with, for herbal tinctures I'm making. This way it's cheaper to get to the 50% alcohol I need for tinctures made with dry roots than to dilute the 95% alcohol with water, and I also need to keep enough of the 95% stuff undiluted for tinctures made with fresh herbs. But for you, anything. Starting that vodka party right now. Makes sense. Same thing with taoism. Or anything for that matter.

Did I leave you speechless?.. I'm honored.

Neither does a thorn disown the rose's sweetness nor she the thorn's wrath

What's the size of the font about? He asked a question that wasn't clear. Is all. What's to stop you from just asking "what do you mean?" Ah, yes, maybe that. Thank you. Nope. When I said he primarily studies the Sun I meant that in addition to his astrological work he's got an education in solar physics, a branch of astrophysics studying the Sun. I don't think he ignores anything, he's obsessively thorough. As for the confusion with the constellations, astrological ages, etc., I have to agree -- it's a bowl of spaghetti, a fragmented convoluted mess if you ask me, Western astrology is. (As for astronomy, take a look at my latest entry in the "What books sit on your night stand" thread if you will.) Which is why I chose to stay clueless and invest the past 20+ years into the study of Chinese astrology, a unified self-consistent science that you can actually grok to any depth you dare to reach and not get lost -- if you invest time and effort -- rather than dislocate your brain trying to reconcile the contradictions of its Western counterpart.

The new one after the Age of Taurus, the one we all know and love as AD or CE, was the Age of Pisces. Fish equals Son of Man for reasons theologians might know better and I forget. As for the next one, the Age of Aquarius, much looked forward to in the famous song and hippie folklore, there's no consensus as to when exactly it's coming. Wiki pushes it all the way to 2600. But my Western astrology guru (I do my own Chinese astrology for the most part, but, being rather clueless in the Western variety, have to seek out who to trust), who calls himself an astrometeorologist, is mathematically gifted and studies, primarily, the Sun, asserts that it's just began on Thursday, March 19th, 2020. I pay attention to what he has to say because, among other things, he routinely predicts the weather (not the climate which I can't personally verify) with mind-blowing accuracy a couple of years ahead and then season by season, month by month, location by location. Whereas the official weather guys/gals are more often than not way off even with the next week's forecast.

I seem to recall that it actually referred to the constellations that were positioned at the time at the four cardinal points, 90 degrees apart. Precession alters the zodiac's relation to the seasons at a rate of one constellation every 2160 years (1 degree every 72 years). The cardinal points shifted from one constellation to the next in approximately 6540 BC, 4380 BC, 2220 BC, 60 BC and AD 2100. The system was used for creating and changing calendars -- and was thought of as corresponding to the changes of the ruling deities of the period, out with the old, in with the new. E.g. the worship of the Sacred Bull -- Golden Calf -- Taurus -- was in full swing everywhere where's anywhere when the constellation became visible at dawn, coincident with the Sun being in the constellation. I.e. circa 4480–2320 B.C.E. The biblical prohibition on the worship of the Golden Calf actually derives from this system and originally meant something like, the times, they are a-changing, the Bull no longer rules so stop worshiping it, move on... this is the age of Man, dude. That's what was reinterpreted as meaning something different by those who lost their astronomical/astrological roots and took great liberties with the fragments of knowledge they retained, as is usually the case with all experts who lose touch with the history of their field of expertise and start making shit up.

The tetramorph -- man, eagle, ox, lion. A Sumerian astronomically derived deity that later transitioned into the New Testament as the Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse. Have to agree that there's no apocalypse without heterochimeric creatures.

Щиро вітаємо. В мене знайомі росіяни теж в Гоа живуть вже півроку, але чула, що там дуже мало людей залишилося з ваших та їхніх країв, як ті країни почали з карантину своїх забирати. Але не всі, мабуть, улетіли.

正人用邪法，邪法亦是正。邪人用正法，正法亦是邪。 When upright people use crooked methods, the crooked methods are also upright. When crooked people use upright methods, the upright methods are also crooked. This saying, originally from a Chan source (The Platform Sutra of Huinen), has become proverbial. In the context, the meaning is this. When a practitioner of experience and appropriate transmission engages in an unorthodox practice, they transform the practice. When a person of no attainment or transmission engages in an orthodox practice, they will make the practice unorthodox due to the inappropriateness of their engagement. A master can set up the altar however she wants, a faker can make it perfect and go through all the motions and it will remain meaningless.

Getting back to you with the book report. It's excellent. I picked it up somewhere secondhand-books (as was my habit before the look-don't-touch times) based on nothing in particular except a shen qi feeling (physical books can have that, which is why I always prefer them, given a choice ), and now I finally read some of it all the way to the blurbs on the back cover and discovered there's one by Albert Einstein, who wrote a letter to the author in 1953 (the book first came out in 1952) praising it and expressing gratitude. So looks like we're in good company. It pretty much teaches one to orient oneself in the sky with clarity, simplicity and common sense I haven't seen in other books on astronomy, which mostly left me frustrated because the way constellations are presented therein for recognition, whether traditional or modernized, always seemed arbitrary, confusing and, with few exceptions, not particularly helpful. This one is different and fun. And has some surprises for a taoist too -- e.g. I knew (of course) that Ursa Major rotates around the Polaris and drags a good chunk of the overall taoist cognitive paradigm with it, but I had no idea that Cassiopeia rotates right across from it in the same pattern. Together they are like end points on the spikes that hold the umbrella of the sky open ('heaven is round' -- Ta Chuan) and the North Pole Star is like the leak-proof center point of that umbrella (wiki tells me it's called a ferrule) sitting on top of its shaft... which actually made the ancient concept of the axis mundi as clear to me as no amount of pompous mystical pronouncements ever did. So, if you like to look at the sky, this book can help you recognize and comprehend what it actually is that you're looking at.

This is pretty close to what lingbao bifa of the Longmen pai tradition works on. The initial/preliminary stage and, at the same time, one of the prerequisites for unifying your spirit is gathering back your dissipated ling, the part of your spirit that constitutes a special kind of intelligence, one might call it "supernatural intelligence." It starts dissipating, in a modern human, from early childhood, and in its "out-there," dispersed, lost from the bodymind form is neither available nor useful to the person who leaked it out into the universe. So we start out by gathering it and guiding it back in and down. And learning to control it, concentrate and move it at will, with intent, with all kinds of supernatural tasks for it to perform. Interestingly enough, when I was first instructed in how to do it -- you are supposed to "see" it with your celestial eye -- I recognized it. I used to see it as a child every night when I closed my eyes, right before going to sleep. I saw something like an infinite swarm of tiny golden bees flying in formation, in wave-like patterns, very slowly and calmly, and I could give this motion a direction at will. Seeing them was always very mysterious and oddly reassuring, it always made me feel good and quieted down all troubles of the day (which, in my childhood, were often many.) As an adult I lost touch with them -- and with this practice, started seeing them again. Only now they weren't as close or as bright or as many. I was learning to gather them together and bring them back, guide them toward "back home." Recognizing them (whatever they are, those specks of innate "supernatural intelligence" of the heart-mind) was the spiritual counterpart of... I don't know what compares... being a kid and finding your long-lost kitten?

Matter of fact, all of it. I remember that foreshadowing of nostalgia for the 20th century when it was only projected onto the 21st by these 1981 guys. "Remember the good old 1980s? When things were so uncomplicated?" How insightful they were... and how naive. "You stepped out of a dream believing everything was gone... return with what you've learned, they'll kiss the ground you walk upon." If only. Return with what you've learned and they'll do it all over again anyway.

A pure heart of dao, a heart of romaine lettuce, olive oil. Salad.

Here before landing, and there before taking off: Sun Tzu's strategy.

By Indo-European I mean native to India and Europe, which is what Indo-European means. It's quite a bit broader than Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Yoga and Buddism. It includes, among other things, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and modern science. What they all have in common is this idea -- you call it "dropping the sensory apparatus and the monkey mind" -- of dropping one's humanity toward something "bigger-better." Ultimate reality or paradise or nirvana or salvation or scientific objectivity (which also demands that you abandon your own sensory apparatus and your own mind in favor of someone else's which is posited as bigger-better.) Methods and theories may seem dissimilar, but fundamentally it's all about distrust/negation/elimination of all things human. In that, taoism takes the opposite stance -- in order to be "realized" in taoism, you seek "the real human," not something "above and beyond." "Above" and "beyond" is where you go away from "below" and from "right where/who you are." The disconnect between the mind and the body is Indo-European. The reconnection into one unified whole, taoist. But I think I had this conversation with Indo-European minded folks one time too many, and in 20 years of such conversations, not once did I succeed in getting even one of my theoretical challengers to examine my POV. Not once, Dwai. They rush to negate, dismiss, disprove, or occasionally take offense or get really angry. But ask me "what do you mean? Could you give an example? Where can I find out more?.. What could I do to better understand what you're talking about?.." Nah. You guys don't ride that bicycle. I, on the other hand, don't ride a high horse. I ride high and low, here and beyond, there's nothing to drop. My sensory apparatus, my monkey mind and my clarified mind are cool with each other. Neither one seeks to get rid of the other two. They seek full disclosure of each to the other two and full cooperation. No one is the boss. They are all the collective boss. Together they are tao, taken apart or selectively left out/dropped/abandoned/negated they are Indo-European. Hope you can live with that.

Please stay tuned then, it's still on my night stand. The other ones took precedence because of you know what. But its time is coming.