$120 per usable image for headshots. That’s about my cost to finally arrive at a set of usable headshots for posting at on-line casting sites. This does NOT INCLUDE ANY PRINTING - ‘Errr - that would be extra Sir ’.
Oh, let’s mention here we are not talking about what it takes to get good photographs. We are talking about GREAT photography. There is a huge difference getting that last 10%. EVERYONE can get the first 80-90%.
So. Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I was in Newport Beach. Vox clamantis in deserto.
AN INVITATION TO EMPTINESS
Life is ultimately empty and beyond meaning and meaninglessness. There are no good deeds we can ever do which will bring us any favor from God and no bad deeds which will ever cause anything other than God's love to shine upon us. God has created this universe as His play and the sagest of all prayers is "God, thou hast created us against our wills. Free us!"
Most of us resist emptiness by doing things, being things, and having things. This resistance to emptiness can produce marvelous worldly results. Some of us begin to see that we are embracing only one side of the dualities of creation. True seekers persistently embrace the opposites in which we are immersed and in this embrace the opposites collapse into nothingness. To maintain this embrace is to come to the presence of emptiness and it is to this presence I strongly invite you and through which I will support you.
EMPTINESS PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED
It occurs to me many will think these writings are a fine exposition but don't apply. I pass on to you some practices of emptiness. See what happens. It can't possibly be worse than what is happening now. No one can practice for you.
.Don't eat or drink anything for three days
.OK. Just don't eat for three days and drink water
.Too long for you? Try it for one day
As a result of this practice I no longer believe I need to eat to live. Many things happened to me during the time I was practicing this. Have times of your own.
. Take a long period of time, by your definition, and travel without any particular destination in mind. See what happens.
I could tell many stories of my experiences doing this. This, in fact, may be my favorite practice. The word fakir in Sanskrit describes a type of wandering ascetic in India. The actual practice of a fakir is to stay no longer than three days in any one place because they will inevitably begin to become attached to things.
The first time I went camping as an adult I took $2200 and put it in my pocket and went to the airport and flew to San Jose from Newark, N.J. I was headed for Yosemite which I had heard of but never been to. I had no idea how to get there so as we began the descent I got out the California map and began to conjure. The fellows next to me in the aisle borrowed the map and I managed to get a ride with them all the way to Merced. Many adventures followed and when it came time to leave I went to the gas station at the Tuolumne Meadows campground and the first person I asked for a ride took me and the car full of Girl Scouts she was shepherding all the way to the San Jose airport. I was headed for Vancouver. I had a friend there and knew the name of the place he was staying but nothing else. I ended up living at a Chinese Buddhist temple for two weeks before traveling on to other adventures.
. Walk, hitchhike, bicycle, bum rides or take the bus everywhere you go for a week.
. Make a commitment to meditate for one hour a day for one week and keep it.
. Take a moment to ponder your emptiness each day for a while. "How am I doing on my emptiness?"
. Throw away, sell or give away everything you haven't used in the past year.
. Move. Just for the heck of it.
Back when I was a computer consultant I kept extensive files from periodicals on new developments because the field moved so quickly that was the only way to keep current. This was the idea base that I brought to the next job. I finally threw all this 'stuff' away and was forced to create or recreate what I then needed. I acknowledge anyone who is willing to operate in these lands of not knowing because I know the courage it takes. I will support you in travel to these places. I might even buy you a ticket.
. Stop helping other people - especially people who haven't asked for help.
. Don't talk to anyone for 24 hours.
. Engage three strangers a day in conversation.
One thing I discovered somewhere along in these practices is that my desire to be free was interfering with my freedom. I saw that I was free but was bound by my desire to be free. All I had to do was to be free because I was and stop desiring it. Wanting and having are two different things. Stop wanting what you want. You can never get enough of what you don't really want. Stop wanting and start having.
DON'T ATTACH MEANING TO EMPTINESS
Its important to distinguish emptiness from other things and this is best done by not attaching meaning to emptiness. The power of emptiness comes from simply nonjudgmentally allowing it to be, acknowledging it and standing before it. To label emptiness depression or aloneness or even feelings of suicide disempowers emptiness. Be empty.
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Arise! Awake! Oh brothers and sisters of immortality. Think not that God exists in one place more than any other place.
All the Gods and Goddesses that ever were live now in the core of your heart as your very own Self.
They, as us, were never born and will never die.
Give birth, therefore, to this knowing of your own immortality.
The Mount Everest of Philosophical and Spiritual Publications
An oracle for the wise
Vox clamatis in deserto
Interminable subscriptions $25 and up – the more you send the more you get!
"The best philosophers are useless to the world, but that is the fault of the world, not of philosophy." Plato
Skin Cancer
Lately I’ve run into several people my age and older who’ve had basal and squamous cell carcinomas removed. Since I’m in heavy sun a lot due to my long hikes in the mountains I’ve ramped up my sun protection a lot. I am currently using SPF 70 Neutrogena sun block in a waterproof cream and a convenient spray. I am particularly careful to put lots on my nose – where the two people had ops, and my ears, where one friend has had a topical chemotherapy done. The ear is so thin that if conventional chemo is done it frequently burns holes. Be warned.
Let me remind you that the world class dermatologist I once worked for thought aloe was one of the absolute best healers for the skin. He grew his own aloe in the yard, ran it through a juicer and froze the untreated juice. This was then used directly on the skin of patients who had had dermabrasions and heavy chemical peels. I have been using an aloe vera based moisturizing lotion for 35 years. I usually lather on bunches of it every morning and let it soak in. The best real aloe you can purchase may be this.
My girlfriend, who was educated at all Catholic schools in the NY area in the 50’s and 60’s, has reported that the girls she met who went to the Ursuline high school in the Bronx, send email to each other in Latin. Given the current dumbing down of America, Latin is probably as good as the best of NSA’s codes.
I know, it’s more of my radical ideas and to my knowledge no one has alleged this BUT it seems clear to me the LA basin was created by a meteor strike. It became obvious to me a week ago or so as I hiked to LA through the mountains and descended into Brentwood. I have a sweeping view of the LA coastline from Santa Monica south to the Palos Verges peninsula. Clearly, the bay is round. And I was suddenly struck with remembering that the LA basin has lots of oil. In my opinion, or theory, oil has been created by meteorstrikes[1].
Don’t believe the BS by media types who deride Twitter. I was going to write this up earlier but demurred thinking even my subscribers might not be able to wrap themselves around the concept due to stodgy thinking. Increasing hype on the general uselessness of Twitter abounds in the recent press. All these commentators are older than 40. I first heard of Twitter 2 years ago when there were protests by bicyclists in NY and the NY Times article mentioned the pole-isse couldn’t keep up with the organization of the ‘mob’ who were following protest orders on something called Twitter. Twitter allows one to post short messages to one’s Twitter account. BUT if you have a Twitter account you can FOLLOW other people – get their posts sent to your account stream AND you can have posts from selected people you follow sent directly to your cell phone. Here are some example uses;
A reverse 911 that actually works. You have a photo shoot with maybe 50 staff and cast members. The director sends tweets to the film’s account which everyone on the set is following.
You have a family of 5 – you and 4 kids. You all have cell phones – RIGHT? Everyone follows everyone else in the family account so everyone knows when the soccer practices end etc.
You have a small company with 200 employees. …..get it.
I am in the TV commercial and theatrical acting business in LA. That’s how I am going to Mt.Everest! Variety magazine and all the other entertainment rags have been supplanted by Nikke Finkes blog on Hollywood. It is HUGE news that the Endeavor agency has merged with the Wm. Morris agency. Endeavor was started by Ari Emanuel – who is huge in the ‘Wood – AND he is Rahm Emanuel’s brother. Is this important? No – not unless you want to make predictions about how the entire film and TV markets are going. I follow Nikke on Twitter, getting cell phone updates when she tweets. She tweets stubs to recent blog posts of import.
As an inducement, people who are following my Twitter stream can make requests for ‘stuff’ from Kathmandu on this trip I’m about to take. You can make the request by direct email if you have my address, as a tweet, or by email to the name on my Twitter account at gmail dot com.
The above was written in May 2009. Clearly recent events show how important Twitter can be. Don’t be as dumb ass like Hillary –"I wouldn't know a Twitter from a tweeter," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "but apparently, it is very important." Geometry was hard also. Just because you’re older does not mean that you are somehow absolved from having to learn new things.
The Tenth Trip of a Lifetime
I mentioned to one person at a meeting I was on the waitlist for Kathmandu. Her comment was, “Oh, a trip of a lifetime.” True – but this will be my 10th trip of a lifetime to Kathmandu.
At a very important conference on Elderhood a few years ago one of the seminarians suggested that her most important contribution to other people, especially children, was ‘the creation of significant memories’. If that is true, then the most important function I can perform for myself is the same – even if it does not always feel comfortable.
Here’s a compendium of tweets from the twip.
·I’m back – if there is such a place. It implies there’s an ‘away’ which, if the world is your home, doesn’t exist. Jun 18th
·I’m outta Kathmandu today – taxis are running - God is the travel agent – air here pregnant with revolt Jun 15th
·Where there is a will there is a Tweet – Maoist bandh (closure) in Kathmandu today Waited Inet shop for 10 mins and – joila Maybe fly manana Jun 14th
·I’m dizzy from reading the Upanishads and then just returning from Swayambhu – the Monkey Templehttp://bit.ly/17WgGf3:26 AM Jun 13th
·Soooo if my pharts are air now I MUST be well from the trots here in Kathmandu – thanks ayurveda green pills - found new veg restaurant!!!! Jun 12th
·There is no joy in the finite, only in the Infinite is there joy - Chandogya Upanishad - Here in the finite I am twiddling around KathmanduJun 11th
·early AM flight from Lukla – 10 days in the land of the Sherpa - Honored guest at big wedding - taxi direct to http://mikesbreakfast.com/Jun 9th
·Oh yeah – God is the travel agent! Jun 9th
·Lukla waiting flight to Kathmandu 7 manana. 2 weeks in Himalayas – Namche, big Sherpa wedding in Phakding. Maoist protest shut flights today Jun 9th
·tweet from Namche -huge problem of how to get a wedding cake down 4000’ and 5 hour walk to Phakding – rescue heli overhead as we tweet Jun 4th
·clouds lifted in Namche - Tibetan next to me at breakfast wood blocking prayer flags - got wish list Kunde hospital meds will post later Jun 3rd
·Hand sanitizer works great under my arms! even better than Listerine. End of the trail in Namche – food is too good. Day hiking from here Jun 2nd
·the cloudless day has changed to slight rain and mist - a few wild Tibetans have stopped by - all watching a music video w/Sherpas Jun 2nd
·Cloudless day in Namche. Taking a rest day to acclimate at Zamling Hotel Jun 1st
· “Eternity is made up of todays. Glorify the hour.” Christopher Ruess
Travel tips for Asia
Water purifier – I have not yet gotten sick purifying my own water in India or Nepal. The only real alternative is to buy bottled water or drink boiled water. At 10000’ altitude water boils at 193.6 degrees – not high enough to knock out all bad stuff. At all altitudes boiling water is energy consumptive. The filter I use is a First Need XL. Even in 5 star hotels I purchase a bottle of water or many times bring my own. I just had a bout of stomach upset drinking one glass of some kind of ‘filtered’ water with dinner at a 5 star hotel in Kathmandu. Also, NEVER brush your teeth under tap water – even at 5 star hotels. What I do is take the water the locals drink and then purify/filter that. I usually keep two or three liters of good water in my hotel room at all times.
I have a special Indian anti-dysenteric ayurvedic medicine I cannot be without – either overseas or in the US. June 2008 I contracted a case of that salmonella virus from tomatoes that hit the US. I knocked mine out in hours with my magic green pills. As I am attempting to get FDA approval to import these I don’t want to give my source. If you think you need or want some let me know. I have had about 25 successive full recoveries from diarrhea and dysentery with these with NO failures in 20 years. The best thing is there are no side-effects such as knocking out all your intestinal flora. I could never travel to all the destinations I go to without these pills.
Listerine is a very strong anti-fungal, anti-odor, disinfectant, and a superb hand sanitizer. At a minimum you can splash some under your arms if you haven’t been able to bathe for a while. Only the original works, not the CVS and other knock-offs. Great for taking the smell out of latrines. I put it into a spray bottle. Sample usage – I have a 40 oz. stainless steel water bottle. One of the bottle’s uses is to fill it at night with hot water and put it into my sleeping bag. I was at a Sherpa lodge for a few days and the bathroom was outside and far away. At night I peed into the s/s bottle, emptying it in the morning. Before using it again for drinking water I rinsed it out several times with Listerine.
My girlfriend works as a nurse R.N. in one of the US’s most prestigious hospitals. She reports that most of the infectious problems in the hospital are from not washing hands by hospital staff – including doctors. This trip I took with me several small bottles of CVS hand sanitizer and used them a lot, especially before eating.
I have a theory that oil was created on our planet by asteroid strikes not the supposed decomposition of organic matter as is commonly and unthinkingly purported. I haven’t looked over the geography of oil in detail but most of the large fields occur in areas that are clearly shaped like huge circular depressions – like the Gulf of Mexico. There is a recent theory that the dinosaurs became extinct due to a large strike that created the Gulf of Mexico and drastically changed the earth’s weather. I note that the significant deposits in Texas, Oklahoma and Venezuela and the huge reserves in the Gulf could all be the result of this strike. I have not thought yet about the geo-alchemy that could directly create huge hydro-carbon deposits underground from the extreme conditions that would exist upon a meteor or asteroid striking the earth. from BIM40, 2005
The Origins of Oil and Gas
Happily, I can report the ready furtherance of my theory that the origins of oil
and gas on the planet come from meteor and asteroid strikes. Significant
corroboration has come to me in the past month as I have explored the Red
Desert Basin here in Wyoming. The basin appears totally the result of a strike
and is a 100-mile in diameter depression loaded with natural gas whose
extraction the conservationists here in Wyoming are attempting to limit. Without
having looked closely at the map, I suggest that the large asteroid strike that
created the Gulf of Mexico and caused a global cooling from the immense dust
cloud killing the dinosaurs, had large fragments that struck ‘nearby’ such as here
in Wyoming and also the PermianBasin in West Texas, site of huge hydro-carbon
Abstract: The ancient I Ching is a set of 64 hexagrams which are all the possible unique combinations of the binary numbers 0 and 1 taken as sets of 6. I have renumbered the hexagrams using an octal numbering system. Instead of the classical decimal numbering 1 through 64, the hexagrams are numbered 0 through 77 in the octal numbering system. Since the hexagrams take their new octal numbers from the binary, and octal, digits of which they are comprised, the actual make-up of any hexagram can be ascertained by its octal number alone.
Brief Introduction:
Each six line or binary digit hexagram is composed of two, three line trigrams;
_____
_____
_____
(7)
____
____
____
(0)
____
____
_____
(4)
____
_____
____
(2)
_____
____
____
(1)
_____
_____
____
(3)
_____
____
_____
(5)
____
_____
_____
(6)
each line of which can be represented by the numbers 0 and 1, where _____ is 1, and ____ is 0.
The binary representation of each octal number is;
0, 0, 0 = 0
0, 0, 1 = 1
0, 1, 0 = 2
0, 1, 1 = 3
1, 0, 0 = 4
1, 0, 1 = 5
1, 1, 0 = 6
1, 1, 1 = 7
Because the lines of I Ching hexagrams are constructed from the bottom up to the top line, the numbers beneath the trigrams above are the octal digit of that trigram.
Table of hexagrams
legend –
the number in the upper left of each square denotes the octal number of that hexagram. These numbers are 0-7, 10-17, 20-27, 30-37, 40-47, 50-57, 60-67, 70-77
the number in the lower right of each square denotes the ancient and still used decimal number of that hexagram
The text in each square gives the English name for the hexagram along with the ancient Chinese name
The lower legend gives the hexagrams lowertrigramfor the vertical column of hexagrams
The left side legend gives the upper trigram for that horizontal row of hexagrams
The octal numbers of the hexagrams are constructed from the binary digits from the bottom up in the same way the coins or yarrow sticks are thrown in the classic method of determining each 3 binary digit, octal digit, or trigram.
A few examples;
The lower left hexagram Standstill, Stagnation, P’i, ancient number 12 above has the octal number 07. It is comprised of the following lines;
_____
_____
_____
____
____
____
where _____ is one and ____ is zero. From bottom to top the binary digits of this hexagram are 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1. Octally, that is, arranging each set of 3 binary digits as one octal number, the octal number of this hexagram is, therefore, 07.
In the lower left the hexagram octal 07, Standstill, Stagnation, P’i, ancient number 12.
Further study;
Marie-Louise von Franz, in 1968, was the first to publish that the mathematical structure of DNA is analogous to that of the I Ching. She cites the reference to the publication in an expanded essay Symbols of the Unus Mundus, published in her book Psyche and Matter. --Marie-Louise von Franz Psyche and Matter (Shambhala, 1992) p.39-62. The reference is cited on page 44; she cites the reference as number 16 of the article: Dialog über den Menschen: Eine Fetschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Wilhelm Bitter (Klett. Stuttgart, 1968).
I have the thought that because the Chinese language is pictographic and because the I Ching isa set of binary, or octally based diagrams that study of the I Ching might elucidate the seemingly different brain functioning of the classical Oriental mind.
If there is no relatively direct use of or numerological significance of the classical I Ching hexagram decimal numbers an octal numbering scheme presented is much more easily workable.
The Mount Everest of Spiritual and Philosophical journals
An oracle for the wise
Subscriptions $25 or more – the more you send the more you get. Available only by email .pdf
An inter-episodal recovery
I am at present unable to work much on BIMming so I thought I’d so a short wrap and send it out with just a small amount of accumulated stuff. LA’s creative forces seem to have entangled my malleable personality – the part that has the whim of iron. I’m finishing up my book, auditioning for some screen work, and publishing photos in the most accessible form I can find for sale – Picasa 3 by Google. By a multiple set of inter-locking flukes I have a commercial acting/modeling agent who told me face to face I am, mostly due to my age, in demand for screen work.
So what actually happened??????? I was 4 months behind in my storage locker fees so I was just going to abandon it and let the stuff go to auction. I talked to my main psychic advisor and she said borrow the money, sell the one thing I grieved losing as it seemed to be of value, my panoramic slide of Mt. Everest, and then pay back the moola. So I got my stuff out of hock, sold enough valuable trinkets on eBay to pay back the fees and have posted the Everest and all the other saleable photos I can readily come up with on this new Picassa program, which appears to obsolete all the photo agencies out there. I currently get 50% of the commission on photographs I have posted with an online agency that is somewhat hard to work with.
I still have the problem of the one scumbag in Laguna who sells my work as his own – he re-photographed a large photograph I sold him. Problem is – I am subject to legal fees, for starters.
I’ve also taken to blogging some here. It’s possible my newsletter of 20 years may become a blog although the enforced coherence of editing smoothes out my thoughts some instead of caffeine inspired blog blitzes, like this one.
It appears on-line publishing is the wave of the future, as is online movie downloads, so I’m doing both. To use Kay Jameson’s phrase – I appear to having a full inter-episodal recovery[1]. LOL
I am acting out my interpretation of est technology – KEEP CREATING NEW PROBLEMS FOR YOURSELF [or you will become subject to old problems over and over again]. So - I need new headshots!
Many people seem shocked by ‘the economy’. Get over it – this are going to get MUCH worse. Although it’s a bit like talking about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, the best single reference I’ve found is Naked Capitalism. Some of its commenters are right in the middle of the decision making process and others carry the frustrated brilliance of those deeply involved in the financial industry who rue their golden handcuffs. I know, I used to meet them, went to prep and Ivy League schools with them, AND I hear the frustration of the seemingly secure and excessively normality filled lifestyles I long ago left behind. Most of the truthful economic information now comes from blogs.
Some of the more memorable recent posts or references include this, this, although many others are worthy of reading or perusing – if you like following the economy or preserving your purchasing power. I know a number of typical real estate investors who, like most Americans over the past 60 years are used to a slowly and persistently inflating economy. Many have 401-Ks down 50% in the past 12 months. What is one to say – sell all your real estate NOW and buy silver, any kind of silver – coins, bullion [if you can find any], put it in your closet or store it in Dubai or Singapore.
If I get a large managed account, a possibility as I keep getting questions, I’d probably fly to Singapore and open an account there. The two accounts I now manage now are in non-US gold and silver. It’s likely the US will seize the gold and silver in the two large funds open to investors – GLD and SLV.
You’ll know when we are getting close to, not at, market bottoms when the price of an ounce of gold equals the DOW. Think maybe 5000 from my current vantage point. This, if you believe the historic means, SHOULD have investment consequences for you.
The US is in the beginning stages of an epochal Depression and the main problem is it has no way to EARN its way out of this one. The current situation is a reaction to the Panic of 1907, as I’ve noted in my Astro Alert. When I get a round tuit I’ll look further into the astrology of the end of the American Empire, especially the possibility of a large military defeat. America has staked ALL its projections of imperial power on the aircraft carrier, an outmoded, WW 2-ish strategy, that in turn came from about 1900. History has proved that real dominance can only come from boots-on-the-ground. The US has an armed force of maybe 300,000, most of whom are support – China 2.7 million. Recall also the strategic ineptitude of the US since WW 2 – it has FAILED TO PREVAIL in ALL THREE of its large scale military ventures. If you’re having a hot flash, I used the word STRATEGIC – our mostly capable individual soldiers are TACTICAL forces, unfortunately increasing subject to the micro-management of draft dodging mental midgets like George W. Bush and septuagenarian jerk offs [I have never been able to arrive at the correct plural] like Donald Rumsfeld. By my classification though, the single most destructive influence to America, and the world, has been Alan Greenspan.
Do I sound angry here? Not really. It’s just that I vowed to no longer be an active supporter of the US government when I got a 7 year IRS tax audit 3 weeks after writing a letter to the then head of the FBI, Louis Freeh, complaining about not prosecuting their sharpshooter who gunned down an unarmed woman. I had no tax liability but a variety of nefarious things were done by the IRS. During this time I wrote to Sen. Arlen Specter and was somewhat the impetus for the famous IRS Senate hearings. More recently I wrote to then Chmn. of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, about the lack of progress in Iraq and a few weeks later found my name on some kind of website which I suppose to be a construct by some part of our government to justify further monitoring or legalized harassment. My assessment was correct in that Pace was the only CJCS in recent memory to not be nominated for a second term. I also have a case of one of my trading accounts begin accessed in a way the on-line broker could not duplicate.
Our founding fathers suggested that liberty can only be secured with eternal vigilance – and we all have failed at that. Then again, this is the historic progress of the rise and fall of empires. If I had the time I’d write up my now more coalesced thoughts on the progress of human nature and that the fractal which describes it is a torus. Some time ago I wrote an introduction to the mathematics of chaos[2]. The chaos and turbulence we will experience is normal for the healthy unfoldment of the human conscious – in the long term. In the shorter term, I’m waiting for the desert to warm up so I can escape.
"No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart." Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit from http://www.janemac.net/
My Amazon review of Evangeline Adams – “Merely America’s greatest astrologer
Probably her best book. The section on the mythology of the planets is particularly good. The example horoscopes are now a bit dated – who knows the personality of Samuel Gompers or Rudolph Spreckels?
The prediction section using the rulership of the Sun sign decants should be mastered by anyone with more than a newspaper - make that Internet - column interest in astrology. Learn the alphabet of astrology here.”
". . . his gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that was hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet - or seem likely to do it, in this state of existence - and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered." Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, also from Jane above
The SEC is in the position of the old British Foreign Service official who after a career spanning 1903-1950 recalled, "Year after year the worriers and fretters would come to me with awful predictions of the outbreak of war. I denied it each time. I was only wrong twice." Rich Lowry in the NY Post
"That's what the gods are! An answer that will do! Because there's food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is not time for big, complicated, and worrying answers! Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be." from Nation, by Terry Pratchett
‘While all human personality is probably, at bottom, in a kind of chaos, and only compelled into coherence by the necessity to act in the outer world, it has been the tradition of biography, in all its forms to impose a, more or less, Newtonian pattern of linear intelligibility on this turmoil of an individual’s nature.’ Jesse, the biography of Jesse Jackson by Marshall Frady
“It was by far the most content I’ve ever been,” he said. “My bike was a piece of junk. I had nowhere to go, no place to be. Didn’t have anyone telling me what to do. If I felt like lying on the side of the road, I did.” Svein TuftCanadian Rider Has Made Unorthodox Climb to the Tophttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/sports/othersports/08cycling.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
“Climb the mountains and get their glad tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and storms their energy, while cares will drop like autumn leaves.” John Muir, 1898
The disease which the experience of death cures is the rage to live. pg. 71
Until the soul gets what it wants it must fall ill again and another iatrogenic[3] vicious circle of recurrent illness begins.
For it is not the therapist or any actual person whatever who is the keeper of my soul beyond all betrayals, but the archetypal persons of the gods to whom the anima acts as bridge. The shaping of her amorphous moods, sulphuric passions, bitter resentments, and bubbles of distraction into distinct personalities is the main work of therapeutic analysis or soul-making. pg. 86-87
Projections occur between parts of the psyche, not only outside into the world.
Neither trust nor forgiveness could be fully realized without betrayal. pg. 281
Lately, I most like the Dalai Lama’s suggestion we should fall at the feet of our enemies and bless them as our enemies reveal parts of ourselves we could never otherwise see. This has caused me to think that beyond forgiveness should be gratitude. Gratitude that we experienced the betrayal in the first place as not only did it cause us our induction into forgiveness and re-contextualizing our concepts of trust, BUT ALSO the realization that the seeds of our experiences of betrayal lie within us. Those who we experience as betraying us, in fact, act out parts in our own psyche’s carefully scripted drama for our soul’s development.
Due to a variety of factors currently not fully under my control, LOL, I have a mean and fractious streak. I have come to believe that beyond gratitude is NOT CARING or forgetting. That is, the betrayer who has led us to forgiveness, trust then gratitude becomes like everyone else.
“Forgetting, that marvel of the old mind, may actually be the truest form of forgiveness, and a blessing.” Hillman, Force of Character, pg. 93
Simplistically then – FOUGEDABOWDIT
A vertical person in a horizontal world
The puer therefore, understands little of what is gained by repetition and consistency, that is, by work…in proceeding step by step through the labrynthine complexity of the horizontal world. These teachings but cripple its winged heels, for there, from below and behind, it is particularly vulnerable. It is not meant to walk, but to fly. pg. 228
Lately, I’ve been hiking up to 25 miles a week here in LA. I recently found a new hiking shoe which is the best I’ve worn in 35 years of extensive walking and trekking – Salomon XA Pro 3D Ultra Shoes. The main attraction is they come in an optional wide width which I need. For years I have been wearing shoes and boots up to two sizes larger than I actually need in and then putting on two pair of socks to accommodate the problems of getting my feet comfortable in the shoes. I bought my first pair of Salomons 2 sizes larger and they worked great but my feet were moving around a lot in the shoe. On my second pair I am now down to one size over and was able to wear them for a 12 mile hike right out of the box – no break in – with only one light pair of CoolMax socks. These shoes are available at REI and, hence, are subject to periodic large discounts, like the 20% twice a year member’s discount.
The only other sort of berserker hiker I know in LA, a lesbian friend who hikes 5 to 12 miles a week to relive the stress in her life, also wears this identical shoe. I am doing about 20 miles a week, walking from Sherman Oaks all the way down to Santa Monica on fire roads. I came about one foot away from being bitten by a large black rattlesnake on my last hike as I was daydreaming meandered off to the side of the trail where the snake was coiled in the grass.
Dear Mr. President
Are you going to be locking us up in the camps Bush constructed when we riot in the streets over YOU stealing our wealth??????????????????
David Axelrod was right. You have sold out to those Wall Street sons-of-bitches. All this economic posturing and purposeful obfuscation is a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer and average citizen to ‘the banking interests’. You’ve blown it listening to those assholes like Ben Bernanke and that misogynist Larry Summers. God save us from a bunch of academic know-nothings who have never been short a contract of soybeans in their lives but suck up the public teat. Congress which has voted itself the most generous health care plan in the US and an over-the-top retirement package.
I have yet to see the political contributions FNM and FRE made to Congress published – my 2 ‘senators’ refuse to release them to me citing …….
Read the Naked Capitalism blog if you want to know what’s really going on economically instead of those assholes in YOUR administration who are lining the pockets of GS, AIG, MS et. al.
People are just beginning to understand why I began saying years ago that Hank Paulson, Frank Raines, Hank Greenberg, Sandy Weill and others belong in jail.
Carlos Ballantyne
I posted this on my blog and got the following comment - OOOOH! I HAVE NOT SEEN OR HEARD YOU SO EXCITED? OR ANGRY? HARLEY
to which I replied whith another post
Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for the comment. My highly intentioned letters sent to the right persons have effected MANY changes. I can only estimate each of my carefully thought out and carefully addressed letters expressing my strongly held opinions has the effect of 100,000 or more opinions equally strongly held but not effectively expressed. When you see me envision a swath of 100,000 ardent, involved citizenry.
My opinions about the bailout stem from my belief that the current economic crisis is still in the beginning stages, and that the US, due largely to the malfeasance of Congress and the lack of vigilance of the American citizenry, will experience its first real economic collapse. Don’t forget, looking at the broad sweep of history, the USA is a very young nation. This is why other nations, with longer histories, attempted to act much more conservatively during the bubbles Alan Greenspan created. It is not just a random oddity that conservative Islam disallows usury – paying dividends on loans. Simplistically, interest leads to fractional reserve banking, paper money and eventual economic collapse.
“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value ---- zero.” Voltaire (1694-1778)
One of my recent campaigns has been to expose the pay-to-play financial hookups between Congress and the Federal mortgage giants FNM and FRE. Essentially, FNM/FRE made large numbers of campaign donations to Congress members in return for continually watered down oversight provisions. I personally had a number of prospective financial management clients some years ago who were seemingly safely invested in FMN stock which traded as high as $70 a few years ago and paid a seemingly safe and reliably conservative dividend. JUST YESTERDAY it was revealed that Rahm Emanuel Was Director Of Freddie Mac During Scandal. Both Sens. Barb Boxer and Diane Feinstein have refused to reveal to me campaign contribution received in the past 7 years from FNM and FRE despite my repeated direct requests.
I still cannot believe there is no outrage that Franklin Raines, CEO of FNM before and during its implosion, has managed to keep his huge performance bonii AND lives on a $120,000/month FNM pension, largely outside the US financial jurisdictions, in Bermuda.
1. My letter about 6 years ago to the head of the California State Tourism Dept. proposing a Tour of California bicycle race suggesting that since there was so much controversy over drug use in the Tour de France, that many of the top riders were Americans, and California has an international allure, such a race was a sure winner perhaps capable of equaling or supplanting the original Tour in importance.
2. My letter to Senator Arlen Specter about the IRS which contributed to the huge televised hearings about 12 years ago. One of the phrases from my letter was quoted directly by Specter during the hearings.
3. I have had a long running controversy with Citibank ever since they treated me badly as a computer networking design consultant some time ago. I wrote a letter to the head of one of their then largest shareholders, a hedge find in Greenwich, CT suggesting Charles Prince was acting incompetently as CEO and further suggesting the bank had laid off one of their most competent strategists, Louise Yamada, whose advice, if they had followed it, would have extricated them from much of the financial stress they were in. C stock began seriously tanking soon after I wrote this hedge fund.
4. In a campaign lasting MANY years I contributed to the ascendancy of true democracy in Nepal. The problem has been that the US militarily supported the now deposed corrupt former king of Nepal and his army and for many years, suppressing democratic and economic reforms in my fav little country. I attempted for years to get the US to stop this aid. During the Clinton administration Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations committee directly supported Colin Powell’s large $12M military aid package to Nepal. This military aid to Nepal led to the pro-democracy protestors on the streets of Kathmandu being shot with AMERICAN M-16s.
FINALLY, I wrote to Sec. of State Rice suggesting the US was impeding true democracy in Nepal and that the US had the power to bring the factions to the table. This seemed to happen. During the last presidential campaign I wrote to McCain, on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, speaking once again about stopping American military aid to Nepal and it has apparently stopped. What most people do not know is that the US has a number of military training arrangements with Nepal. The Nepalese are part of the little military go-fers the US military uses for its ‘missions’ around the world.
5. I have written a number of other letters about a variety of things I should not talk about due to the possibility of retribution. I am now listed as a contributor to a mid-East aid organization here after writing a letter to the Chmn. of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military. Among my several comments was that the US, since it began keeping a standing military force after WW 2 has failed to prevail in the three major conflicts in which it has been involved. Interesting, soon afterward, Gen P. Pace was not re-nominated for a second term as CJS – a first in recent history.
I’m off to my next adventure for the day and could say more, I have many stories to tell and could have written this better given more time.
I suspect Mr. President and David Axelrod were reading or discussing my letter at the time I scared up the rattlesnake. LOL
Joseph Stiglitz’s Op-ed in the NYT 4/1/09 greatly simplifies the purposely complicated ‘recovery’ package. “But Americans are likely to lose even more than these calculations suggest”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01stiglitz.html
Sure, go ahead, sit around and do nothing – it’s YOUR money.
SAGed
or the inter-episodal recovery continues!
My agent gave me a bunch of papers to sign and demanded I sign up on a variety of casting related websites as a requisite for actually signing a contract with me. The paperwork finally bubbled up to the top of my stack, I did everything AND THEN studied astrology to ascertain an auspicious time in which to sign the contract. I determined the moment and drove over to the office un-announced about an hour before. They waylaid me, as I expected, since I didn’t have an appointment, and the LA ‘thing’ is all that sort of stuff. At almost the exact minute I determined I signed the paperwork.
A day later I get a hurried call and a text message to go for an audition. I go in - the casting director likes me immediately as I’m different than the other guys. “Where are you from”, he asks. “Ecuador”, I reply. LOL I say a few lines and leave. Later that day a hurried call from my agency – “they booked you” – meaning they want me for a part in a huge corporate commercial. I get another call. “Since the production company is union we have to Taft-Hartley you into SAG.” That means I am, due to unique qualifications, made eligible to join he Screen Actors Guild, an otherwise laborious process of 3 paying gigs, etc.
The shoot itself was quite remarkable – huge set in downtown LA at a mostly closed shopping complex, most highly acclaimed commercial director of all time, hair and makeup, etc. I scoped out the LA subway system the day before as there was a station right at the location. I finally go in front of the camera. The volatile director begins yelling at me about my lines. This goes on for some time. We get through that, I have to change my wardrobe during the shoot as it’s incorrect. We go on. The director says “Beautiful” a couple of times to my later lines. As far as I know, my pieces will be used in a continuing set of commercials for one of the world’s largest corporations. Apparently I get residuals every time my part appears on TV.
One of my psychic friends says I’ll be cast for an upcoming large commercial campaign and ‘my face will become known all over America’.
On the problem of headshots - “Don’t take out a single line. I paid for each one.” Anna Magnani as quoted in ‘The Force of Character’, James Hillman, Random House.
[1] manic depression is characterized by “excessive involvement in pleasurable activities.” “full inter-episodal recoveries” Diagnostic and Statistical manualDSM IV, from An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison
Sounds sort of like me in that brackish time between adventures. Jamisondescribed diffidently going to the head of her department at JohnsHopkinsMedicalSchool to reveal her treated manic depressive condition and he said, “My God, Kay. I know you are manic depressive. If we got rid of all the manic depressives on the faculty here we’d have a much smaller school and, I would say, a much more boring one.” I really like that one though. Imagine! “So how are you?” “Oh, I’m having a full inter-episodal recovery, thank you.”
D. Preliminary Conclusions and Intermediate Thoughts
It is not easy for me to share with you what appear to me to be unorganized and sometimes disjoint thoughts. It offends my sense of order. I think a better purpose is served by ignoring my inner resistance.
TRIBAL CONSCIOUSNESS
We human beings are at the end of a long age of tribal consciousness. Ever since mankind began he gathered in familial and tribal groups for protection and to further the species as represented by that group. In time, this consciousness led to inter-tribal warfare that is still with us in the form of seemingly senseless conflicts between tribes, countries, regions and races.
The paradigm shift that will occur is that soon we are to become ONE tribe as it were. I see (literally, at times) the flux of human consciousness coalescing into a single unified stream. It is as though rivers of different colored water commingle and thoroughly mix into another larger stream of a single color and consistency. Thinking about the human consciousness in this way makes for use of the mathematics of chaotic systems.
I liken the shift in consciousness from tribal to universal as being like the quick evolution of a point to the opposite side of a strange attractor. Thinking about the human consciousness in this way may lead to conclusions about what human being will be like after the shift. Then, perhaps, I can better make inquiries into or better, design a schema for, the spiritual consciousness of humankind. I mean, you don't want it to just be random, do you?
SYMBOLS
The study of symbols is useful because symbols are the projections of our consciousness. Therefore, it seems to me that if the consciousness of human beings is going to change then its symbols will change also. So I'm thinking about what some of the new symbols of mankind might be in order to better ascertain the nature of that consciousness.
Fractals may be a good possible candidate for a new type of symbol. Fractals have non-integer or fractional dimensionality. A point has 1 dimension, a line, 2 and a cube, 3. A fractal, however, has dimensions like 2.3, 3.5.
So, using the ideas of mathematics some questions I have come up with are; What is the fractal of the human consciousness? In other words, what are some of the bounds to which human beings will be confined over a large period of time? Or again, what is the shape that contains all that human being can ever be? Knowing that shape it might be possible to predict where human being is going in the future.
WAVES
I think it is useful to think about waves in the human consciousness. I see that species have many of the properties of solitons such as stability and capacity for self-organization. See, for example, Arguelles’s definition of consciousness.
Medons look interesting also. I am daymaring about things like what happens when strange attractors cross or coincide. Could one jump from one strange attractor to another? Would it hurt to go from dimension 2.3 to 3.2? Could WW II be viewed as a medon? If our civilization encountered another civilization would that be like our strange attractor intersecting another strange attractor? If the universe were viewed as a wave then would the astronomical bodies be seen as medons or coalesced vortices of energy expressed as matter?
E. A Few Quotes
James 1:5 - If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, ... and it shall be given him.
James 4:14 - Whereas ye know not what will be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appearth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) - Oh, how many of them there are in the fields. But each flower in its own way. In this is the highest achievement of a flower.
Mandala - Consciousness is the power of an organism to order, integrate and transform itself.
Mandala - Man is a transition, an agent of transformation as well as the material to be transformed. This transformative operation can only occur through the focusing power of some new symbol or image of the whole process in which man now finds himself involved.
C. Jung - That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.
C Jung - It is only under ideal conditions, when life is still simple and unconscious enough to follow the serpentine path of instinct without hesitation or misgiving, that the compensating function of the unconscious works with entire success. The more civilized ... and complicated a man is, the less he is able to follow his instincts. His complicated living conditions and the influence of his environment are so strong that they drown the quiet voice of nature. Opinions, beliefs, theories, and the collective tendencies appear in its stead and back up all the aberrations of the conscious mind.
Tucci - Thus, even when the worlds at last are consumed in the cosmic fire, the force of karma, the sum of the individual experiences, acts as though thrust forward for the creation of a new universe. The latter then is not initiated ex novo but conforms itself according to the predisposition which survive destruction, so that it begins where the old world ends and inherits from it all its characters and possibilities.
M. Planck - A new truth does not triumph from convincing opponents and showing them the light but thanks to the fact that opponents are dying off and a new generation matures within the surroundings of the new truth.
Kellert - Recent investigations ... indicate that aperiodic or chaotic dynamics are typical of the healthy functioning of the human neurological and metabolic systems.
F. Bibliography
Mandala, Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Shambala, Boston
The Theory and Practice of the Mandala, With Special Reference to the Modern Psychology of the Subconscious, G. Tucci, Rider, London
Man and His Symbols, C. Jung, Aldus Pub.
Scientific Genius - A Psychology of Science, Simonton, CambridgeU. Press
In the Wake of Chaos, Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems, Kellert, U. of Chicago Press
Solitons, A.S. Davydov,
Chaos, From Theory to Application, A. Tsonis, Plenum Press
Does God Play Dice - The Mathematics of Chaos, Blackwell, OxfordU. Press
[3] The terms iatrogenesis and iatrogenic artifact refer to adverse effects or complications caused by or resulting from medical treatment or advice. In addition to harmful consequences of actions by physicians, iatrogenesis can also refer to actions by other healthcare professionals, such as psychologists, therapists, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, and others. Iatrogenisis is not restricted to conventional medicine and can also result from complementary and alternative medicine treatments.
“Eternity is made up of todays. Glorify the hour.” Christopher Ruess.
The unfolding adventure is on Twitter as Carlosjii. Subscribe also to my Irregular Musings newsletter BIM - $25. Sample issue: http://ballantynesinspiredmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/bim-54-randomly-published.html
