Jenn

Barney is never extinct, he lives in our hearts and minds forever . . . . Or at least that annoying theme song does .

I feel like we lost the ability for true inspiration, as a species we are supreme at optimizing existing things, but not very skilled at recognizing whether what we optimize is really opportunity we should be pouring all our efforts into or if we should have looked around at all the other potential options before diving single-mindedly into the first idea we find - which usually the one with the most killing or control potentials. But really science and innovation will rarely be truly beneficial because the motivation is corrupt now. We have moved away from solving survival challenges and exploring what is possible and the world around us, to money. If money is the motivation, the results are only ever going to be crappy. Heck you don't even need a good product to make a lot of money, you just need something people will think is good long enough to get investment, build your house of cards, and exit. Speculation is more profitable than the thing being speculated on.

Just make sure it is the right kind of spirit

To thine own self be true. Not Christian, but that popped into my head reading this. I am finding this series on the stele of revealing extremely fascinating, thanks for sharing it!

geese visit, fly south blessed bird, hissy friend, of cobra and chicken

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I haven't had any impressive improvements in my prescription but possibly slight improvement (can't say for sure it was qigong) I have gone from -4.0|-3.75 to -3.75|-3.25. I don't do anything specifically for eyes, tcm, qigong, or otherwise. I will say I'm not convinced qigong can fix one of the major causes of near or farsightedness - As far as I'm aware your eyes develop in childhood and stabilize into a permanent shape around late childhood/early adulthood when you stop growing. If you eye was elongated (or shortened) before then (ie you had glasses as a kid), all the structure around your eye would already be formed and that shape will be more or less permanent. And since that shape is the cause of the vision issue, it's likely there to stay without medical intervention to reshape the lens to compensate for the the eye misshape. I am not a tcm or optomotrist, but it seems to me age/stress related vision decline or issues caused be disease could be a promising to see real improvement in though as those are not really structural. But again, I'm just throwing out my thoughts, I am not any kind of eye doctor or anything.

I have seen this outside martial arts communities often as well, falling into ego, power, desires, etc. I wonder if it is because the path taken is wrong, the student attempted things beyond their skill, or because the right path was taken but the student went astray. Perhaps our shadow parts amplify significantly not because the path or skill was wrong, but so those aspects of ourselves become loud enough to hear, loud enough for us dumb-dumbs to finally see and thus process. But if one does not recognize this and overcome them successfully, it would be easy to find oneself wandering off the path and falling into them like traps without realizing it.

Then greed came along and made them McMansions

A work event of all things haha. Although... I worked for an Indigenous organization so our work 'functions' were a bit more spiritual than your typical office team-building.

I think whether censorship is a form of violence depends on the situation. It can be, but it can also be argued a lack of censorship can be a form of violence. Many places intended to be safe (especially online), for example, can become unsafe very quickly if people who want to spread hate or express toxic views infiltrate those spaces and are not booted promptly. Go to literally any forum online intended for women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, etc - sadly it is a very common problem. But the world is a big place, if those are someone's views, without a doubt there are more appropriate places for that person to express those views without consequence. Everything needs balance between what it is intended for and the diverse views of individuals, and the right balance can be a bit of time to workout because it can be different in every space.

I don't use visualization in practices, but this is a very lovely description of how it could be useful.

This is an interesting topic and one that is very relevant to what I have been exploring in my life and practice right now. As much as it saddens me as a recovering chronic daydreamer who probably would not have made it in life without being able to spend most of my formative (and later) years lost to imagination, I think unchecked imagination is actually at the heart of a lot of personal and societal problems. Illusion is a huge problem, and our ability to imagine is at the root of illusion. Without an ability to imagine, you can't fall to illusion, it's just not possible. Now from a cultivation standpoint, looking at what you tend to dream and day dream about is an excellent window into the psyche and where you have unresolved issues. We often daydream for comfort / self-soothing so what we see is often a reflection of what we need or feel is missing. For example, all my daydreams involve me doing something "impressive" and always with other various other people real/imagined/from media that I respect present and helping. I still struggle with my ego, needing to be SEEN, and to be GREAT. It is helpful to know where my issues are, but those daydreams just soothe things I feel I lack, rather than dealing with the root of why I feel that way in the first place. I guess if I were charged with supercharging the collective imagination of the world I would wait for a time when society was less lost to illusion and better equipped to handle the responsibility of enhanced imagination. Don't get me wrong, I prize my imagination over almost everything, but I am also in the process of recognizing that to really move forward in my journey I probably have to let it go. And I don't say that lightly. In my life I spent time homeless living in a car that didn't run with literally not a single person who would even notice if I died, and would I go back to that in a heart beat vs giving up my imagination, my lifeline, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that it is also what is holding me back. And much to my fortune and dismay, the universe has assisted this process by making my imagination duller and less enticing, despite how desperate that still makes me feel. Oh well, one day I will get there. Hopefully someday I will find a healthy balance of creativity and reality. IMO our issue isn't creativity or lack of solutions/imagination, we already have the means and technology to end most of our problems, world hunger, stop climate change, build a society of equality and kindness, end most diseases - we just choose not to. At its root, for various reasons, we don't WANT to do the things it takes to fix our problems. I mean we can put a person on the moon and carry all the worlds knowledge in our pocket, and we yet can't figure out how to see people who look different than us truly as equals. I mean, guess there is no money in being kind, but geez. We say we need to care for the planet before it is too late, but then we build huge data centers and servers for crypto and AI that are quickly becoming the most resource draining and damaging activities over even manufacturing, oil production and shipping, and neither of those are necessary for our survival or ability to thrive as a species or as individuals. IMO we don't need more ideas or creativity, we need more authenticity, we need to be less caught up in illusion, we need to learn how to face and accept the hard things about ourselves and reality that we would rather destroy ourselves than admit exists. We need to let go of "needing" to be the best or most important, and instead make space for everyone else around us to be just as great. We need to recognize that we already have everything and we are squandering it by thinking we need more and more.

If only we could find a panel of scientists and a video camera to film those bears DOING magic. Oh, and the bears will need to be naked to make sure they aren't faking anything. Although if memory serves we would also need to spend the next 10 pages of comments discussing which scientists, and how naked, which seems excessive.

New threats and diseases often get past the immune system, it takes time for the organism to recognize the threat and build an appropriate defense. Probably why we are just now starting to see the inflammation symptoms kicking it. Early defense usually involves raising temperature, reduced ability to recover / bounce back, fatigue, reduced activity - while the "TCell army" amasses for a more targeted approach. < This was a lame joke I'm not sure landed. You are Lairg were discussing the EM as an organism, I was adding in that if we are cells within an EM organism, that doesn't necessitate that we are a part of her, we might in fact just be invading cells. Does a virus know it is a virus, or does it just act according to its own nature? >

I think "sin" can only really be judged by intention. Is killing someone a sin? Would you say the person who invented seatbelts is a sinner? Or the person who put their use into law? People have died because seatbelt use, but far less than would die without seatbelts. The intention was to save lives, the outcome of a smaller number of people dying from that intervention was one of the many outcomes. It's not a sin to sell your own belongings generally, but what if you do so to intentionally get revenge on a family member? Is the sin the action, the result, or the intention behind it all? We have control of our intentions, but how our actions actually play out is up to the divine.

Not all cells in the body are part of the animal. Some are there for their own benefit. Like the cold cells I am currently fighting off. Bastards can stay away from both my energy and my breath (in the few intermittent moments I can get air through all the mucus...)

I think in a roundabout way you usually defeat yourself, even if your "demise" is seemingly at the hands of others. Oppress, cheat, scam, manipulate, extort, seize power, exploit, abuse, horde resources, flaunt, harm, etc. Create a lot hate, don't be surprised if one day that hate brings you down. No one really invests effort into destroying a some nobody that keeps to themselves. But the more that hate you, the more "enemies" you have, the more people and energy that build up against you, better hope you don't waver or become overwhelmed by what you created. One might be defeated by an enemy - but why do you have enemies in the first place? You can't control a lot of things that might bring about your "end" - those are risks everyone carries, but you can absolutely decide to not add more fuel to your pyre by choosing a little decency.

Where do "regular people" fit in? Edit: I didn't notice the link which goes into more detail. I was being a bit cheeky as a big chunk of the planet doesn't fit into tribal, puritan/extreme (although definitely feels like a lot of extreme right now haha), the rich and famous, a spiritual guru, or a hermit. Like where does Dave in accounting fit?