nancysway

It's been awhile

2006-05-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

since I posted because, gosh-darnit, things have been going well! In a way, that proves the point of starting my blog to begin with. You get what you concentrate on. If you want to change the world, change your perspective. Thinking about the things I would like to post about means I've changed my focus, my perspective, and therefore my life. "My life is the poem I would have writ,/if I could have both lived and written it." That's in "Walden Pond," I believe. Happy living "til I post again!

There's more!

2006-04-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

X-ray telescopes have discovered vast clouds of multimillion degree gas in clusters of galaxies. These hot gas clouds increase the mass of the cluster, but not enough to solve the mystery. In fact they provide an independent measurement of dark matter. The measurement shows that there must be at least four times as much dark matter as all the stars and gas we observe, or the hot gas would escape the cluster.http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/dark_matter2.html

Cosmology - the study of the beginnings, formation, and evolution of our Universe - is currently in a badly confused state. At the moment, scientists don't know what makes up 99% of the Universe. This, needless to say, is a rather embarrassing situation. Although much of what is visible in the Universe is becoming comprehensible, with great recent strides in understanding star formation, galactic structure, and spectacular events such as supernovae, it would appear that there is another component of the universe - possibly making up most of its mass - which we cannot see, and we do not understand.
http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/dm0.html

Gosh, this is much easier! Now all I need to do is find all my favorite books on line!

Dipping in my toes

2006-04-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

OK, here goes.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tze. Translation by Witter Bynner.
Chapter 14
What we look for beyond seeing
And call the unseen,
Listen for beyond hearing
And call the unheard,
Grasp for beyond reaching
And call the withheld,
Merge beyond understanding
In a oneness
Which does not merely rise and give light,
Does not merely set and leave darkness,
But forever sends forth a succession of living things as mysterious
As the unbegotten existence to which they return.
******************************************************************************* The Over-Soul by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has no prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will i call mine.
As with events, so it is with thoughts. When I watch that flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come.
**********************************************************************************
The Holy Bible King James Version
Ecclesiastes 1:8
All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
********************************************************************************************** The Tao of Physics by Friyjof Capra

Mystical knowledge can never be obtained just by observation, but by only by full participation with ones whole being. ... Thus the Upanishads say:
Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another.... But where everything has become just ones own self, then whereby and whom would one see? Then thereby and whom would one smell? Then whereby and whom would one taste?
********************************************************************************************************* Henry David Thoreau Walden, Chapter II

I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be.
**************************************************************************************************** Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra Part 1 Chapter 7

In essence, the quantum world is but another step down on the scale of invisibility. Unlike the tiniest bacteria or viruses, a single photon, electron, or any other object in the quantum world can never be seen using any extension of sight and touch. They are truly everywhere and no where at the same time.
*************************************************************************************************** A Course in Miracles Foundation for Inner Peace Book I Text Ch. 1;vii:7

I have said before that what you project or extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is a law of the mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look in and see his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in yourself you make manifest, and you will accept it from the world because you put it there by wanting it.
************************************************************************************** The Nature of the Psyche by Jane Roberts

Whatever your scientists think, your body and your consciousness and your universe spring constantly into actualization. Therefore, through cultivating the clear experience of your own consciousness and being with time and with the moment as you feel it, you can draw upon the greater vitality and power that's available.
To do this, rely upon your immediate sense data, not secondary experience as described. That primary sense data, while pinpointed in the present, providing you with the necessary stance in time, can still open up to you the timelessness from which all time emerges, can bring you intuitive intimations, hinting at the true nature of the ever-present coming-to-be of the universe.
****************************************************************************************** http://www.metaparticles.com/

Creation of matter in the form of fundamental particles demands as source a non-material substratum or Dynamic Field in a non-dimensional, permanently enduring space. This "abstract space" underlies and sustains the universal space which contains all that exists. Such Field consists of homogeneous motion whose dynamic energy remains in a single state of intensity. Laws intrinsic to the Field cause different but balanced points of energy to be instantaneously translated into objectivity. Thus unity of being becomes variety of existence.
*******************************************************************************************
Wow. This is harder than I thought. Anyway, there's my first shot at something other than mental meanderings. You may respectfully disagree.
Now I have to do some laundry.

Create

2006-04-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

There's a bunny nibbling my sox. (That's not how I intended to start this entry.)
My new job seems to come complete with a "hazing ritual" that military academies would envy. No, I haven't had to chug a liter of scotch and get locked in the trunk of a car in 20 degree weather (yet), but at lest if I had, it would be over by now. It seems to be more of a trial by abject humiliation. I haven't been called to the "office" this many times since Jr. High when I was feuding with my cousin and we slimed each others' lockers. Oh well.
I've noticed an uptick in spiritual contents in blog the past few days, people quoting Lao Tze for Matilda's sake! I do think it's true that you get what you concentrate on, and I intend to concentrate on spirituality more. If other people say the words I've been thinking (hat tip to R W Emerson) and I'm forced to take others' words as my own, I can get jiggy with that. You get more done if you concentrate on getting the job done, not on getting the credit.
Hopefully, as time goes by, I will get around to gathering up my musty, busted-up paperbacks with all the references that I intend to use to draw a picture. The picture will be how religion, physics, transcendentalism, new age, spirituality, and whatever else I'm not remembering to list right now, all point in the same direction. There is a connection. We are all part of the same thing.

Sorry, but

2006-04-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

I just had an idea. We can make the tax cuts permanent, but only if they get paid out in the same Treasury Bonds that are being used to secure the SS Trust Fund.

To blog...

2006-04-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

or not to blog. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler blah blah blah... Or blog blog blog. I'm tired. I'm not sleeping well these days. I think "stressed out" in my normal mental/emotional set-point. I promise myself I'll blog something insightful NEXT week-end, but there's always so much to get done. I WILL blog something insightful THIS week-end. I promise (myself).

Hummingbirds

2006-04-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

I just hung out my hummingbird feeder because I don't expect the world to end soon, Bush or no Bush! Why are people so afraid of death, anyway? We are as dead now as we ever were, just as we are as alive as we will ever be both before and after entering/exiting this time-space continuum. We are protected, or we wouldn't exist in our own minds to begin with.

Information

2006-04-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

I just heard something on NPR on "Science Friday" while I was driving home from work. I heard that, when atoms or molecules collide, they "flip" information between them. Could this be part of the explanation for how inspiration gets to our side of the time space continuum? I'm glad it's Friday. I have so much I want to explore, but I've had so little time to do so.

Do I believe in God?

2006-04-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't a better question be, "Does God believe in me?"
After all, what difference should it make to omnipotent God if impotent I believe in Him/Her/It?
The existence which has the most to gain in the bargain is me. It is in my best interest to believe that God believes in me.
When I get caught up from this useless DST thingy, I will elucidate.

Immigration

2006-04-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

Watching the news talk shows go on about immigration, I picked up on two key points:
1.) We can't put 12 million people on buses and send them back to Mexico.
2.) Large numbers of people outgrow their resources on a regular basis.
So now what? We know even better that natural disasters show up on a regular basis, too. But instead of factoring that in in our over-all planning, we always ask surprised when it happens. Why do we choose to remain so willfully ignorant? What need does it serve? I don't have an answer. But every question, by virtue of its very existence, comes with an answer.

"Where I lived and what I lived for" Thoreau

2006-04-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

I start with the title from the 2nd chapter of "Walden" because it says it all. (Not literally, of course. Otherwise, why blog?) It says in "A Course in Miracles" in Chapter 6 "You can't be anywhere God does not put you." It also says in Chapter 4 and others "Where you look to find yourself is up to you." WTF does that mean? How can everything be both preordained and a matter of choice?
Emerson pulls it all together quite nicely in "Self-Reliance:" "There comes a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the whole wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his own toil bestowed upon that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It maybe safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it may be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved gay when h has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope."
This blog is my effort to testify of my particular ray. Even if no one else ever reads this, I will have forced myself to arrange my thoughts in a coherent manner, and arrange my thoughts around that which has the most meaning to my being, rather than frittering away my precious brain molecules on "stuff."
Wish me luck.

"The sun is but a morning star."

2006-04-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

Holy Matilda! I did it! I joined the 21st century and created my own blog. I chose a quote from Thoreau's "Walden" for my title because "Walden" is one of the first links in a long chain of events, books, and people that led to who I am today. But right now I'm so excited I took that first step (Lao Tse is a VERY important link in that chain) in a journey of a thousand miles into the next part of my life that I must take time to collect my thoughts. Bye for now.