Vibrations

"Everything is energy and that is all there is to it." Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can't help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics. ~ Albert Einstein

My good friend Randy Hoel posted this on Face Book and it reminded me of a topic that was floating around in my mind. This is the concept used with "The Secret". This is the concept that gets results in sports, sales and all winning activities. After all Einstein is the one who said that all matter is energy so then all matter is composed of vibrations. The kids said it best when they identified with "good" vibes and "bad" vibes.

Consciousness may be thought of to consist of cognition and perception. The senses touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste bring to the brain the things of what we call the real world. And they do this by taking the vibratory signals and sending them through the nervous system to the receptors in the brain. At that point the cognitive part of the brain gives meaning and purpose to those signals and the whole process can be considered a mental chemistry. And in a very simplistic way the brain can be looked at as a radio station... one that receives and interprets vibrations while at the same time the whole body for example is sending its own set of vibrations out into the cosmos for the benefit of the rest of us receiving stations as well.

In a sense, so to speak, we each serve as reality for each other.

The statement by Einstein above illustrates the practice of the athlete with his 'zone', the denizen of the corporate world with his 'goals', the occultist with his 'meditation' and the devotee of the Secret with his 'collages' and the like. The Astrologer can define ones 'soul mate' if you like by finding these resonances when comparing the horoscopes of two people. Perhaps this works and perhaps this doesn't, but it sure does give explanation for the instant rapport some people show for each other.

A Blend of senses

My good friend Melody K. says in a comment to the last blog....

According to "See What I'm Saying, the extraordinary powers of our five senses" - Lawrence D. Rosenblum, we can hear shapes, hear spaces, smell fear, touch speech, taste odors, touch flavor, hear faces and so on. It's an interesting book and found it pertinent to our group in exploring "a thing is what it does". As you stated the importance of that the perceptual brain relies on multisensory perception and makes sense of things by way of that information. How the senses are used appears to be quite plastic, for example when it comes to recognizing speech the brain doesn't know if it's seeing or hearing. Additional senses maybe subsets of the five, such as echolocation and proprioception. We have and make use of senses of which we are not readily aware far more expansively and fluidly.

In a very interesting signature, the Lesson on Aristotle, entitled "Aristotle's Psychology V, Potentiality" studied by those students of the Sabian Assembly, which was dated 11/14/11 but written originally by Marc Edmund Jones in the 1950's, included a statement as such....

"Thus there are the objects or particular senses as illustrated by Aristotle in seeing a color, hearing a sound or tasting a flavor. Then there are movement, rest, shape and size which are shared by several senses."

Two things are interesting to consider. (1) Melody could not have read the above-quoted Lesson because it hadn't been available much before 11/14/11 and (2) Marc Jones' original commentary was published some 60-70 years before the book which served as her source.

So when you have a conversation with a woman and she continually taps your arm while she is talking to you.... it is not necessarily a sign of intimacy ... it's just that she hears you better that way.

It is vibes after all .....

Barbara and I were having lunch together and she made the comment that she just realized how precious our senses were. She became aware of some of our friends who had trouble seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting. My answer to that was that our senses are what make us conscious of our time and space reality. In controlled experiments, people deprived of their senses, all five at once, undergo strange and bizarre reactions in their minds and perhaps if left would have become insane.

Our senses all respond to vibrations, but vibrations of different frequencies. Our sense organs act like receiving stations for these vibrations and the neuronal system transmits these signals to the brain for processing. It would appear that all living organisms process these signals in the same way. This then activates the chemicals, perhaps in the reticular activating system(RAS) and calls for the organism to an action of flight or fight. Except in the case of humans.

Humans appear to have a higher level way of processing these experiences to give them meaning or value. In other words, not all pain is "bad" but that the pain may serve a higher purpose. For example the process of giving birth. The mother tolerates the pain with full knowledge that (1) it will be over soon and (2) that it will result in the goal of the process started, in most cases deliberately, nine months ago. And (3) humans can choose not to undergo this pain at all with the use of birth control. Animals respond to their hormone systems and have at least limited choice in the matter to say the least.

So it is in the areas of creativity, imagination and intuition where humans are better at processing the vibrations from the surrounding environment even tho the basic sensory machinery is the same.

The thought occurred to me that if we are receiving stations for vibratory phenomena then perhaps we can also be broadcasting stations as well. We run into this in Astrology quite a bit. Folks want to know (1) what is my purpose in life and (2) who or where is my soul-mate. Purpose in life is something that Astrology can help with most assuredly, but soul-mate.... well that is another proposition. When the Astrologer compares the horoscopes of two people the points of resonance can certainly be identified if they are there at all. And that information can then be used to explain any attraction between the two.

The $41,000 Man

Reminiscing on the eve of my 80th Birthday, I thought of the things that I used to do and can't and the things that I used to do and still can, but it takes much longer. My mind slipped over to the idea that I am worth much more now than I used to be. Now that doesn't mean that I my net worth financially is 32 times more than it was when I was in my twenties(as the rule of 72 would imply). But what it does mean is that the additions to my body have made me more valuable physically.

For instance, stainless steel knees in both legs($10,000), hearing devices in both ears($4,000), two by-passes in the heart($20,000)

cataract surgery($3,000), two teeth implants($4,000) and an undisclosed amount for Viagra and I am as good as I was when I was 20 years old.

So life does not begin at forty, it begins at eighty. After all, I am the President of the Sabian Publishing Society, an Elder in the Sabian Assembly, I write a blog reasonably frequently, a member of the West Chester Senior Center and I am giving a class in Astrology at the Second Reading II Bookstore.

Somewhere during the last forty years, I learned from Marc Jones on a quote from Aristotle that "a thing is what it does". So it got me to thinking that I should GOYA. This is another bit of advice that I got along the way when I decided to be a Financial Advisor. It stands for "Get off your ass." So I did. I repaired my body, got interested in things and now my ass is not sore anymore but my feet are from all the running around that I do....but then again Life Does Begin At 80.

There definitely is nothing new under the Sun.

There is an old saying in Astrology and in the old alchemical books and things... "as above, so below". What is actually meant here is that the astrologers of thousands of years ago were excellent observers. And in fact their observations laid the foundation for modern Astronomy and Cosmology. But what they observed was the rhythms and cycles of the heavens and reasoned that if they were privy to the actual workings of a living organism which was nature itself then why couldn't that mirror the outworkings of nature here on earth. And since mankind was part of nature that perhaps those rhythms and patterns and cycles could give clues to the complex nature of man in his everyday existence here on earth.This is seen in the ancient literature, the Bible for instance, with the reference to "a wheel within a wheel" as in Ezekiel and the many references to the numbers four and seven in the mystical Revelations of John. Could it be that these were references to the science and teachings that they encountered as they were initiated into the priesthood? If that is true then there should be many more instances of astrological references in the Old Testament in books like Job and Daniel and the like.

I have already remarked on how the evolution of philosophical thought could be traced from the beginning when God told Adam to go forth and name all the things of the earth. Then the Hebrews numbered their tribes. Following that, they apportioned the land amongst the tribes. And always the number twelve(12) shows up.

Now in my Science News magazine I see that some physicists think that the universe is not infinite but finite instead and it is in the shape of a soccer ball. And all you soccer moms know... a soccer ball has twelve sides. So here we are back to the number 12 so often mentioned in our ancient literature. Oh well to quote a phrase... perhaps "there really is nothing new under the sun".

Quantum Physics in the Bible

Our good friend Sherry passed on a reference to a blog that is very interesting. A thought-provoking artical from a blog by J. Douglas Bottdorff who is a minister in the Unity movement.

The blog was entitled "The Grasshopper Mentality". The gist of the article is that if one thinks like a grasshopper they will create the reality of a grasshopper. This is very remeniscent of the trend of thought expressed by some quantum physicists who believe that we create our own reality at least on the sub-atomic level if not on the macro-atomic level that our consciousness exists. And this was taken from Numbers, chapter XIII whenever that was written so many centuries ago.

Marc Edmund Jones during the last century in his textbooks on Astrology identified a similar process when he wrote about Basic Attitude as described by the planet Mercury. For the unitiated, the position of the planet Mercury in the Horoscope identifies the nature of the Basic Attitude. The understanding of conscious reality is based on this position. But how can we change this reality if it is not to our liking. We certainly cannot change the position of Mercury in our Horoscope. That has been determined as a consequence of our birth. So what can we change? We can change the thing that Mercury symbolizes and that is our Basic Attitude.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So if one can visualize a pendulum, with the basic attitude as the fulcrum, and the outcome or reality, if you will, as the plumb bob, then the lowest point of the swing represents this outcome or reality. Since this pendulum figure is consistent in its configuration, that is fulcrum, plumb bob and swing, the only way to change the point of lowest swing is to change the position of the fulcrum, which is the Basic Attitude. This will change the outcome or the reality as the case may be.

For those who had trouble following my little example, what it said was that if you are unhappy with the life you are leading, look to your attitude. Because if you change your attitude you will change your life. In other words stop thinking like a grasshopper unless you like eating grass.

This blog is dedicated to Viki Blakley who has been there and done that....

Curiosity killed the cat...or did it?

After a long and harrowing week, like I am sure you had too, I finally kicked back and watched a new program on the Science Channel. The program was called "Curiosity". It featured Stephan Hawking and his subject was that science had come to the point where it did not need God to explain the creation of the Universe.

Science could explain the what, the how, the where and the when. But the Theologians retorted that it was God that provided the why and we have not gotten an answer for that as yet.

The great Albert Einstein, who had laid the foundation for all of science as we know it today, said that "he wanted to know the mind of God". That is he wanted to know what God had in mind when He created the Universe or why did He do it. And this the scientists have not been able to do. This also brought into focus the question of life after death which science has a hard time getting its head around. And what about quantum physics where particles keep winking in and out of existence? What about the Cosmos where Stars are blowing up in spectacular supernovae and then re-forming as matter accretes with matter? Science has a perfect description of these phenomena and even has crafted mathematical language to describe it so that they may predict these events. But to ask what is the purpose of all this leads to a dull dead silence.

One scientist even invoked consciousness saying that he did not know what happens to consciousness after we are dead. The same scientific mind espouses the idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed as a universal law. But more and more of our research on the brain has shown that consciousness is an energetic process. So then can we conclude that consciousness too can never be destroyed? And if so where does it go after we die? Perhaps to another universe to be born again since another scientific point of view takes the position that there are a multitude of universes in existence.

And Justice For All

Once upon a time.. mankind existed in small isolated clumps and when the hordes came upon them they got ripped, raped and robbed. So they banded together for protection: protection of life, limb and property. And a whole new industry was born called "government". Now then Government said we need to consider the safety of our people so they invented the police and fire forces. And we need to protect our people from the ravaging hordes. So they invented the military. At each one of these steps it took money or the equivalent thereof. And the people gladly paid these newfangled things called taxes. So the people got to keep less and less of the rewards of their daily toil. Then the Government said "let us help you keep more of the fruits of your labor". And they invented banks. Banks who would lend you money or its equivalent. But you could pay it back at a small interest. At the same time the banks would pay a small interest on the balance in your account.

Let us do the math. On an average daily balance of $3000 the interest rate would be on the order of 0.3% annual percentage rate or APR. That same amount of money would be lent back to someone as a mortage at let us say 3% to 5% APR as the cost of borrowing on your mortage. That is a factor of ten(10) in favor of the bank. So the bank gives you $9 and gets back $90 on the mortgage. This gives them a net of $81. Now comes the Federal Government who allows them to charge as much as 30% in the case of credit cards. So the yield on your $3000 goes to $105 to the bank for the crummy $9 that they gave you in your bank account.

The banks take part of that money to lobby Congress to pass laws like the above. There is no way for the average citizen to compete with the power of the banks. When I was growing up we had usury laws whereby if a lender charged more than 8% he would go to jail. Oh well, maybe that is why we are becoming more polarized as time goes on.... the rich get richer etc. Look what it did for Rome... look what it did for Great Britain. And we are on the way.

Evolution revolution

Today, I watched a program on the Science channel based on the era of the dinosaurs. The program went from the beginning of animal life as it evolved from the original slime with its one-celled bacteria to the organisms that eventually evolved into the huge giants that we have come to know. In the beginning the dinosaurs appeared to be plant eaters. But the plants of that time were ferns, conifers, cyclads and the like. They reproduced by shedding seeds in great abundance and the climate certainly encouraged that. The dinosaurs needed to evolve long necks to reach this abundant food supply, And those that didn't, either survived on the seeds that were on the ground or, became meat eaters of the smaller mammal species that lived in the holes and burrows of the earth.

The small animals themselves showed signs of a similar evolutionary pattern since their food supply was insects. This food supply also became more abundant in the lush tropical environment that existed at that time. And of course the insects themselves became more abundant with the evolution of plant life from the gymnosperms to the angiosperms or flowering plants as it were. So perhaps we are seeing a pattern here which is driven by the cyclic rise and fall, if you will, of the earth's climate or environmental conditions.

The same program, mentioned above, described how now the Paleontologists are reasonably sure that the dinosaurs, the meat eaters that is, hunted in packs. And the evolutionary strategy to ensure an adequate food supply was to co-operate and this meant the banding together into families or clans or tribes and the like. The younger dinosaurs were leaner with longer legs and greater speed. The older ones like us humans, were slower but stronger and much more able to bring down and kill the prey for all to feed on. So the younger chased and herded the mammals into an ambush by the larger stronger adults. An example of similar strategies in the insect world is the bee's combining into hives and developing a sophisticated division of labor as seen by the Queen Bee, the drones, the workers et al.

The pattern that appears to emerge for survival and perhaps even beyond that to evolution is based on a co-operative activity. Since we choose to live in a monogamous society then the co-operation must be between the families, the communities, the states and even the countries of the world. The Global economic system works this way perhaps. It doesn't make sense to totally defeat a nation who you depend on to be the consummer of your products. So war makes no practical sense unless one intends to support and re-habilitate the defeated country so that they can continue to be the consummer.

So perhaps we should take advantage of the Global warming that seems to be occuring and ignore the shifting of naturally grown resources. And concentrate on the advantages that continuing co-operation would provide to our own mental and spiritual evolution. Let the fruit and vegetables come from South America and Mexico etc. and let our educational and technical interest supply elcctronic devices that would allow more efficient communication as well as production of those things that represent the food supply so necessary to our survival and evolution.

Experience is where it all starts

Today I read a letter from Marc Jones that was probably posted to the students of the Sabian Assemby some sixty-seventy years ago. This was entitled "Experience is its own existence". This got me thinking. How do I think about experience? And this took me down a long and winding trail to the 1960's when I was a young and aspiring supervisor with the great DuPont company.

God bless the corporate mentality that decided that we should be trained in subjects other than science and chemistry. So we were sent to courses, seminars, workshops and the like on subjects involving problem solving, decision making, and industrial psychology. And perhaps the best training session of all was the Dennis Whaitely program called "Goal Mind". It was when taking this program that I learned of the Reticular Activating System of the brain. Or RAS as Dennis referred to it. He described it as the receiver for all the sensory inputs from the environment which were then routed to the various parts of the brain for processing and storage as well as action if required. Like the good Gestalt mentality that I was given at birth I carried it around for all these years until all of a sudden the pattern took hold and I began to understand where all this was leading.

The objects of our time and space reality are taken in through the senses and processed by the RAS and sent to the proper place in the brain's cortex. Somewhere from here the signal is evaluated as to whether or not it is something to be embraced(pleasure) or avoided(pain) and this is the basis of experience. But, it does not stop just there. This is the animal level of being and we as humans have a capacity beyond that.

In humans there is a further processing of that stimulus that takes place in what we have described as mind, soul, spirit, psyche and the like. It is here where the experiences created by the stimulation of the sense organs are given meaning and value. Not all pleasure is favorable to the sustainment of the organism and can lead to its destruction as well in the case of some known addictions. Not all pain is a threat to the continuation of life as in the case of an operation to remove an encroaching cancer. So it is the mind, the psyche, that measures the trades-off that determine the continuation of existence. And this after all is Choice. And so it can be seen that even in that Garden so many millennia ago mankind was given a choice... the ease of life and pleasures of the Garden or to eat of the tree of Knowledge and go forth and multiply.

And you all know how we chose.

To the Muse Erato

Well Hello again Folks.

An injury to my foot and the pressure of other activites have slowed me down and I was not able to come up with a post for awhile. So I was unable to prepare anything for Father's Day, but the Cosmos works in very strange ways. My very good friend, Darlene, sent me an email with a poem which I will share with you. This is a poem which I am sure some of you may have seen before with the usual message to send it to so many people and good luck will follow. So I neglected to file it among the many items that were keepers for follow up later. Then stimulated by my travels through the world of poetry I found that my attraction for poetry extended to a piece that (1) rhymed and (2) told a story or had a moral as such. So fortunately out of the invisible world of the internet came another chance to capture this very moving poem. If anyone knows the author, I would certainly like to know.

So I dedicate this offering to all the Fathers who were once sons too. And of course to the daughters as well since they too represent the bloodline. Enjoy it as I did and if by chance it does bring a tear to your eye.... then maybe there is hope for you yet.

Author Unknown, title unknown...

A drunk man in an Oldsmobile they say had run the light

That caused the six-car pileup on 109 that night.

When broken bodies lay about and blood was everywhere,

The sirens screamed out eulogies, for death was in the air.

A mother trapped inside her car was heard above the noise;

Her plaintive plea near split the air, "Oh, God, please spare my boys."

She fought to loose her pinned hands, she struggled to get free.

But mangled metal held her fast in grim captivity.

Her frightened eyes then focused on where the back seat once had been.

But all she saw was broken glass and two children's seats crushed in.

Her twins were nowhere to be seen, she did not hear them cry.

And then she prayed they'd been thrown free, "Oh God don't let them die".

Then Firemen came and cut her loose, but when they searched the back,

They found therein no little boys, but the seat belts were intact.

They thought the woman had gone mad and was traveling alone.

But when they turned to question her, they discovered she was gone.

Policemen saw her running wild and screaming above the noise

In beseeching supplication, "Please help me find my boys."

They're four years old and wear blue shirts, their jeans are blue to match.

One cop spoke up, "they're in my car and they don't have a scratch."

They said their Daddy put them there and gave them each a cone.

Then told them both to wait for mommy to come and take them home.

"I've searched the area high and low, but I can't find their dad.

He must have fled the scene, I guess, and that is very bad."

The mother hugged the twins and smiled, while wiping at a tear.

"He could not flee the scene you see for he's been dead a year.

The cop just looked confused and asked, "Now how can that be true?"

The boys just said "Mommy, Daddy came and left a kiss for you.

He told us not to worry and that you would be all right.

And then he put us in this car with the pretty flashing light.

We wanted him to stay with us because we miss him so,

But Mommy, he just hugged us tight and said he had to go.

He said someday we'd understand and told us not to fuss.

And he said to tell you Mommy, he is watching over us."

The mother knew without a doubt that what they spoke was true.

For she recalled their Dad's last words, "I will watch over you".

The Fireman's notes could not explain the twisted mangled car.

And how the three of them escaped without a single scar.

But on the cop's report was scribed in print so very fine,

"An Angel walked the beat tonight on Highway 109.

If I dood it... I get a whipping. I dood it.

In the words of the immortal Baby Snooks " If I dood it I get a whipping... I dood it."  Out of the vast past, back in the days of radio even, came a lesson perhaps we should all take to heart.  As I said before in my posts, we were born with two things in common.  Every human being was born naked.  And they were born with the ability to choose for better or worse.  So on this Sunday evening I reflect on the choices I made over the years.  In baseball when you hit a foul ball you get a chance for another swing, but in golf when you hit it off the course you have to play your mistake as it lies.  But as I have come to believe, everyone chooses the best they can based on the experience that they have at that time.  And that is what builds what we call maturity.

Anyway, since I chose to agree to attend a class in poetry, I thought that I might write about choice.  Now this will never win a Pulitzer prize, but it does rhyme and it has a halting but noticeable meter. 

The gist of the poem is that we are born with choice even if one of the options is death.  Which reminds me of my Sicilian heritage.  I tell people that we are extremely reliable and "when we give our word you can count on it.... even when we say that we are going to kill you".  So choice is hard-wired into the human psyche and perhaps the proper way to handle it is to always make a choice for better or worse and never look back except to incorporate it as part of experience.

And with that.. here is my burnt offering to the muse Erato.

                                   Choice 

As you go thru life brother, you will come to a fork in the way

Will it be pleasure or strife brother, only you can say. 

Original sin was also a choice as the snake was heard to say.

Live in bliss or see the light and I will show the way. 

That sneaky snake never said a word about our free will.

As that first delicious bite doomed us to this day still. 

So make your choice brother whether blessing or a curse

Because we took that bite  back then brother for better or for worse. 

You must turn left or you must turn right there is no other way

Was it a good choice or a bad choice, only you can say.

Are we there yet

Ah yes.. it has been awhile since the last time the walrussez...  A number of things needed attention.  Barbara and I decided to take a class in poetry.  Yes I said poetry.  Along with the usual minutiae of everyday living we decided to go back to school.  That, along with preparing the necessary slides for a class in Astrology that I will present at the Chester County Night School, has kept me busy busy busy.  But all these activities served to center my buttoned-down mind on my favorite subject, science.  So while the instructor was extolling the virtues of free verse, which conflicted with my expectations of rhyme and rhythm as in "Jack and Jill went up the hill" and "There once was a man from Kent" I got a sense that I was watching a transition.

The world was speeding up.  The old leisurely rhythms and frequencies were being replaced by the younger generation speaking at a faster pace.  They were using a language that didn't make sense to me like OMG and BTW and LOL.  They were texting at a rate that was impossible for human fingers to perform.  And they were doing it everywhere.
The public was looking for convenience and I don't mean only in the foods they eat.  Cars that park themselves, 3G and 4G networks that promised greater speed and ease of communication everywhere one went.   And all of a sudden it hit me.  We are in the Quantum Age.

 And how can you say that is so?  Just look at how we passed through the Atomic Age.  When the atomic bombs rained death and destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II, that was not the beginning of the Atomic Age.  The Atomic Age began when the Greeks first conceived of a particle so small and so fundamental as the atom.  The Race has added to that conception piece by piece over the millennia until shortly after WW I even, the Germans came very close to unleashing the power of the atom before it was actually done underneath the football stadium at the University of Chicago.

The Quantum Age perhaps was started by Alfred Einstein himself when he got the Nobel prize not for his great mathematical contributions to the laws of gravity and the like but for an experiment he ran on the power of light.  Einstein and his team focused an intense beam of light onto the surface of a platium sheet and kicked an electron out of one of the platinum atoms on that surface. This experiment more than any other was the flag-bearer for the quantum scientists when they realized two things.  One that the Experimenter was not only able to observe the experiment but to participate in it by changing the properties of that electron.  And two, to do it at a distance.  So now our worldview changed from an objective functioning to one of a subjective function.  And this, folks, was perhaps about 100 years ago.  So now there is more substance to that old piece of advice... "we create our own reality".

Perhaps if there is enough interest we can continue in this vein in the next installment.  Oooops oh yeah my first burnt offering to the muse Erato..  originally titled "Time Travel" has been re-named..."The Phantoms of My Mind".


                                   The Phantoms of My Mind


I toss and turn, I cannot sleep, I wrestle with the phantoms of my mind.
The things i did of yesteryear, were they reality?
Or were they just shapes and wisps of fog and shreds of memory?
Did I say this , did I do that as I go back in time?
And every night I lay me down with the phantoms of my mind.
Now all were not shadowy, the things that I had done.
Nor did every battle give me reason to atone.
As my black horse gallops through the halls of space and time,
And every night I battle with the phantoms of my mind

A trip through the wormholes of my Mind.

I was reading a book the other day by Ken Wilber, titled "No Boundaries".  His thesis appears to be that we set up boundaries when we make distinctions and discriminations (my words, not his).  In other words, when we think of something that we call 'black' we immediately conceive of some other thing which we call 'white'.  Now perhaps there is a boudary or rather that a barrier is created when these two complementary opposites are considered.  As any student of high school physics knows, black is the absence of color and white contains all of the colors of the spectrum or rainbow as the case may be.  And there is no apparent barrier between the two but rather a continuum as one proceeds from one end to the other.  But Wilber is not talking about color as such, he is talking about consciousness.  He is talking about removing those distinctions in conscious thought and achieving what he calls unity consciousness where the individual consciousness can be aware from one end to the other perhaps even simultaneously with no boundaries or barriers.  And this would be like the Buddhist nirvana free of restrictions, free of pain and suffering.  But the best part for me was his description of the development of philosophical thought from the beginning of time perhaps til the current thinking of today with its quantum influence on modern science.

Wilber mentioned that in Genesis God told Adam to go forth and name the beasts of the field, the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky etc. etc. etc. and he did.  And that set up the boundaries, the barriers that caused the distinctions as the first bastion of philosophical thought.  What is it? And what is it not?  Today we still say... "it's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Superman." 

The next in the development of philosophy I got from my mentor Marc Edmund Jones.  He told his students that the next step in evolution came when we realized the difference between "how many and how much".  We can see this next step, again in the Bible, where the tribes of Israel had to number themselves in order to divide up the promised land.  From that point on, we can see the great contributions, of the Sumerians, the Greeks from Pythagoras to Aristotle, the Arabs including  Al Gibara(sic) et al and the like, to mathematics and the process of measurement.  And now we can indeed say 'how many'.

At this point, the torch was passed on to the likes of Gallileo, Kepler and Newton.  Since many believed that we came from the stars and would pass back to them when death closed our eyes, these pioneers used our ability to count to bear on the stars of the cosmos.  And they were able to determine how much of things did our universe contain.  Of course there were developments like the telescope and the calculus that Newton himself developed, but it was the organization of things and the development of the laws of physics that shaped the age of determinism.  By naming and counting and measuring we could determine everything in our universe absolutely and even predict the future perhaps.  Or could we?  The Church seemed to think so but reserved that right for God.  Then along came Einstein.

Einstein's contributions were huge.  Not only did he show how time was combined with space to give us the four dimensions of our world but he gave a new vision to gravity as well as an awareness of the relativity of reality.  In other words, our perceptions are dependent on our point of view, our reference point.  So an observer looking at an object from the northeast for example will see that object differently than another observer looking at it from the south for example.

Einstein also laid the ground for the newest outpost in philosophical thought.  Curiously enough, with the contributions to cosmology and philosophy and the like, Einstein's Nobel Prize resulted in his research on the effect of light on metal surfaces.  For instance, when a beam of light of sufficient intensity is shined on the surface of a metal, an electron is ejected from its place in the lattice of atoms of that metal surface.  This lead to a demonstration of the new science of Quantum mechanics which is now known as Quantum Physics. The torch is now handed over to the likes of Bohr and Heisenberg.

The classical experiment in Quantum Physics was to use Einstein's technique but to eject two electrons from a metal surface and levitate each of them at a distance apart.  Electrons in this state spin on their axis much like our earth spins on its axis.  And they spin in the same direction since that is what they did when they were in the atoms of the metal lattice.  But when the experimenter changes the direction of spin on one electron, the spin of the other electron immediately also changes direction in like manner.  This is called 'entanglement' and it served to show the validity of the Quantum laws.  So now the Experimentor is not the observer anymore as he was in the Deterministic age of Newton but he is the participant.  He is the creator of his own reality and we have passed from pre-destiny to free-will in our philosophical thought.

So what is our evolution?  Where do we go from here?  Only God can predict the future.  But the Quantum world requires that I am God.  Thou art God.  We all use the same process of creation but since we have free-will we do it differently but we get to the same place eventually.  So collectively we all together are God.

The next step according to the String Theory boys is the discovery of many worlds, many dimensions and the possibility of simultaneous existences in these worlds.  How exciting that could be as the matter of my body turns to energy at death and I would visit these other existences to see the effects of different choices and their different outcomes.







 

Astrology as a Science... finally.

I am pleased to report that so far I have had two comments on my thoughts on "Astrology as a Science".  And I will comment on those comments to further illustrate the points I made in my last two posts.  The first one is a comment on the use of Vedic or Hindu Astrology, as the case may be.


Vedic Astrology is an ancient Indian science which explains planetary motions and positions with respect to time and their effect on humans and other entities on earth. Vedic astrology can be traced thousands of years back. Early Vedic astrology was only based on the movement of planets with respect to stars, but later on it started including zodiac signs as well.

By Vedic Astrology on Astrology as a Science continued on 5/6/11



 My source for this as in most cases is Wikipedia.  The Hindu have made many valuable contributions to the observation of stellar phenomena, but the fact that the Vedic material came forth written in sanskrit does not necessarily give it credence as "ancient" nor justification in its ability to predict the future of any human being.  And the basis for this is the fact that when human beings are born, they are born with the gift of free will.  That is the capacity to make a choice between more than one option.  In the Western world this becomes a subjective point of view where the individual takes the information under advisement and then makes the decision on his own.  In the Eastern world, the tradition is from an objective point of view where the decision is based largely on the inputs of a Guru or some other outside agency and he has no other course but to obey.  This has a tendency to support a self-fulfilling prophecy and encourage the belief that the stars compel a specific result.


Take for example the urban legend about births, accidents, arrests and comittals to insane asylums during the full moon.  Police and medical personnel will affirm that there is more activity during the full moon than at any other time of the month.  Statistics supposedly have been kept on both sides of the discussion with very little mathematical resolution.  But Astrology offers no explanation for that other than to say that if the Moon is opposite the Sun in a horoscope, the native might be seen as one who could have difficulty between a logical or rational approach to a problem and its intuitive or emotional counterpart.


The second comment that was submitted was....

The previous article left me with a sense that you were describing astronomy but with human interpretation. This one gave me more insight by your phrase '(cannot) occuppy the same space at the same time'. I am Sagitarrian, but know many other Sagitarrians who portray diversly different personalties, not at all as I percieve myself. But none were born at the exact moment 'and place' as I. But I question how one can assign or attribute personlity traits to a person based on the time and place of birth when there are so many other factors influencing life, perhaps many that we cannot begin to comprehend? I remain dubious, but curious. Thanks for continuing to stimulate my mind!!!

By nutmeg45 on Astrology as a Science continued on 5/5/11

Well Nutmeg.. you are right in the respect that there are many factors that go into the understanding of the personality and character of a single human being.  The newspapers and magazines would lump you in with all the other people born on the days when the Sun appears in the zodaical sign of Sagitarrius.  And this casts doubt on the validity of those articles that would suggest that all those Sagitarreans, for example, would benefit from that particluar advice.  It is difficult to conceive that 1/12 th of all the people of the world would respond in the same way or that the advice would be applicable to roughly one half billion people at the same time.

What the horoscope does is to chart the character traits that we all have in common.  For instance, we all have a sense of responsibility(Saturn) and a zest and enthusiasm for life(Jupiter) and so on.  Many millennia of experience has allowed the Astrologer to assign the different planets to these different character traits in the combinations that make up the mosaic of any one individual.  The other factor is the circumstances in which the individual character traits might be expressed.  And this comes from the environment.  In other words an indication of leadership might be expressed under circumstances where the individual could be the president of the United States or perhaps a large corporation.  Whereas in different circumstances this character trait of leadership could express as the leader of the local "gang" or PTA or some lesser organization of people.  But it still expresses the trait of leadership.  And then there are others who have no interest or aptitude in leadership at all.

As I said earlier, it is not my intention to give a course on Astrology.  But having gone through a long period as a scientist and an equally long period as an Astrologer, I wanted to show how the training, the application and responsibility are the same for the Astrologer as counselor as they are  for any scientist.

Astrology as a Science continued

Let us continue the discussion on the case for Astrology as a science.  The last time I showed how the Astrologer just as any other scientist deals with observations, in this case the stars. And he makes correlations between the patterns that he is dealing with and the personality and character of the person whose horoscope is in consideration.  The horoscope of course is the tool that provides insight into that personality and character.  Since human beings are a part of nature then the same rhythms and patterns shown by the stars can be used to  determine the unique pattern for that individual.  So it is the birth of the individual that creates the horoscope and not the otherway around.  It is unique for two reasons.  The pattern of stars at the time and place of birth will not be repeated for another 25,600 years roughly and no two things can occupy the same space at the same time.  That is a well-known fact in main-stream science known as the Heisenberg principle.  So the Astrologer has a tool just as precise as those available to the Scientist.  

There are some questions that still remain.  Philosophical thought has evolved from the standpoint of determinism to the idea of relativity.  We have seen this in modern times when we went from the predictable world of Copernicus, Gallileo and Newton to the relativistic reality of Einstein and we may be even now seeing another shift as we enter an Age of the Quantum world as introduced by Planck and Bohr.  But the Science of Astrology remains constant as it has for several millennia.

Differences of opinion on Astrology have existed since way before biblical times for that matter.  Perhaps this may have been brought to a head by the Hebrew.  Some interpreters of the Hebrew law absolutely forbade use of Astrology and lumped it in with the likes of Witchcraft and emphasized the use of Astrology to predict God's word.  Others said that it was ok for the Hebrew to use because he was elevated by God and allowed the privilege of Choice. 

These two ideas... God's will (determinism) and Choice are the two factors that generate the most discussion about the worth and validity of Astrology.  The idea of determinism suggests that things are predictable.  And I agree with the point of view that only God can know the future.  As far as Choice is concerned I have mentioned in a previous post that we are all born with two things.... we are all born naked and we are born with the prerogative of Choice.  It is Choice which creates the ambiguity in Astrology as in other things such as politics or religion.  An individual can be exposed to information in his very best interest but in the end it is his choice on what he will do with it.

So I leave you with perhaps a little better understanding of the validity and utility of Astrology and summarize thus.  I have spent 40 years as a bona fide Scientist and 40 years as a qualified Astrologer with an over-lap of 20 years in the middle.
My own position is that Astrology as such does a poor job in predicting the future.  If so we would all be able to share in the benefits of a winning lottery.  But Astrology does a very good job in defining character and personality so that one can get a good discription of what their potential is as a human being.  Most people come to Astrologers and the like because they are unhappy with their lot in life.  They usually ask two questions.  What is my purpose in life?  And where is my soulmate?  The Astrologer can certainly give light on both questions as he compares the Horoscope, which is the potential, and the life itself which is the actual.  And this can lead to a plan for the native to progress from where he is to where he wants to go.

Let me have your questions and comments since my Horoscope suggests that I teach and counsel and this coming season I hope to present at Chester County Night School with a much more pertinent and detailed discription.  Any personal questions please contact me at richard.charles.degeiso@gmail.com  I respect your privacy .

Is Astrology a Science, a pseudoscience or just plain Bunk?

The other day, while I was surfing the net, I came to a discussion on "Is Astrology a Science?".  In this article were comments by philosophers, cosmologists, psychologists and many other men of science.   And most of them if not all of them took the position that there was nothing of interest or validity in Astrology as a science.  But is that true?

Science depends on observation and correlation.  And then the mind takes over and organizes these facts into a pattern which can be measured and repeated from anywhere on this earth.  The repeated observation, correlation and conclusion is what makes the 'experiment' a scientific law.  We are, to this day,  trying to prove Einstein wrong.  But Relativity still rules.

Now let us look at the case for Astrology as a science.  From a time of long ago, the shepards tending their flocks were probably the first observers of the stars in the night sky.  And they noticed the fact that some stars always appeared at the same place night after night.  Others of the 'stars' seemed to move from night to night and they were called 'wanderers' or later on planets.  But the movement of these wanderers was a regularly observable phenomenon and later on their path could be predicted with great accuracy.  This was easy in the case of the Sun and the Moon but the other planets were much more difficult.  The original others were of course Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.  The advent of the telescope added Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.  So we have observation of a consistent pattern of things.  Now we need correlation of these observable facts.  This we do by first assigning names to the planets as gods in most cases, i.e Jupiter, Saturn and the like.  To the fixed stars which represent the signs of the Zodiac we assign the names of animals or perhaps even human functions like Virgo, Gemini etc..  And to the Houses of the Horoscope we just assign numbers.   I did not intend to make this a class in Astrology but merely to show how these parameters are reproducible, measurable and knowable in a language that could be a useful tool for us to understand complex things such as human character and behavior.

So far I have shown that the Scientist and the Astrologer approach things in virtually the same way when dealing with complexity.  And perhaps next time we can look at some other comparisons that might allow us to say something about the applicability of these two tools of the mind.

Odds 'n Ends ... or are they?

As I wandered through the minefield of my brain, careful not to set anything off that might blow it, I touched some subjects that might be of interest.  I thought of the females of the world and the pain and fear that challenged them  at least at three points in their life.  I thought of Hermeneutics which is a technique for understanding complex things through, let us say, geometry.  And I thought of sharing with you the pleasures of knowing that ones offspring have grown to the point where they too are creators of their own destiny.

So the first topic on my list won my attention and I focused on the three  key  points in the life of a female.

The first time reveals the role that women are to play in the life of the race.  And that is the onset of the first ovulation.  The pain, perhaps, the emotions evoked at the sight of ones own blood and all the other physical, mental and spiritual changes that mark this event require the comfort and support of those around.  Younger girls can only look on in awe, older woman can empathize because they too have come down that path.  Men can only sympathize because there is no way to share those feelings other than vicariously.  So at this point, the female, the woman, becomes the protector of the future of the race.  The male, the man, becomes the protector of the woman as his part in this drama.

When the female ovum is joined by the male sperm, the process leads to the next key point in a woman's journey.  And that is the birth of the offspring.  There is no question of the fear and concern about the outcome.  Hormones are changing to accomodate the process.  Since this is the first, the fear of the unknown hovers over like a shroud.  And finally the birthing itself is accompanied by considerable effort and perhaps even physical pain to make it happen.  At this time the female, the woman, needs to be sourrounded with support and protection especially that of the male who shared in this from the beginning.  She has been the major contributor in a living breathing example of a contribution to the race and a perpetuation of the gene pool.

The final node in the journey occurs when the female recognizes the end of her role in this pageant of life.  This occurs when the ovulation stops and the dread process of menopause sets in.  To some this may be a relief from the responsibilities of bearing and rearing children.  To others this may be a melancholy time because it symbolizes the end of the vital role that the female, the woman had to play in this drama we call life.  Either way, the hormones again change with the resulting upheaval in physical, mental and spiritual responses.  And it becomes another time when a female needs support and sympathy and special comfort.  Again the male cannot but sympathize with this by comort and protection and understanding of those changes.. the hot flashes, the realization that the once strong and attractive body which was the temple and the home of the race has now softened as time has taken its toll.

I realize that not all females choose, or for some physical reason perhaps, to have children.  But the nature of femaleness brings them all together in a universal sisterhood.  And I include them in my salute to the female, the Mother, the real protector of the race.  So it is the egg which did come first after all.  

I have written this as I reflect on the up-coming Mother's Day... on May 8... that would have been my mother's ninety sixth birthday had she chosen to stay in this incarnation.

A Book Review

Hello again folks... this time it is Sunday morning.  Perhaps it is a more convenient time for me to write since Barbara and I have returned from our ritual breakfast at Panera Bread.  And we have had opportunity to get into some stimulating discussion.  So in the glow of that mood, let me tell you of a fascinating book that I read just recently.

The book is entitled "Down the Rabbit Hole" by Peter Abrahams.  This is a modernized version of the original Lewis Caroll story of a young girl who falls down a hole chasing a rabbit.  Alice, in this case,  is a just-turned thirteen year old who rises to the challenges of everything from teeth braces to the complications of her first romance and the more complicated drives and perhaps evil passions of the adults around her.

The setting is the small New England town of Echo Falls.  This appealed to Barbara since she grew up in Hubbertston, which was just down the road a piece from the thriving metropolis of Gardner, Massachusetts.  A town where one could walk from one end to the other in an hour or perhaps jog through in a half hour.   A town where everybody knew everybody and better than that they knew what everyody was up to.  Or did they?

Ingrid is our protagonist in this story and she shows all the characteristics of a teener as she interacts with her friends at school.  But at the same time shows some very mature responses as the story enfolds.  Ingrid has read everything that Conan-Doyle has written about Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Doctor Watson.  And this stands her in good stead when she tries to understand the whacky world that she has been thrust into as a freshly-minted teeny bopper. 

Ingrid/Alice shows that she is also well-read since one of the clues toward the end is based on a portion of the poem "Xanadu" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  This helps her reveal the true identity of the antagonist who tries to kill her in the end.  But to tell you any more would spoil the story for those of you whose interest has been kindled at this point.

Side tracked by Opening Day

I got sidetracked this week... was going to write on some profound scientific topic but it was opening day of Baseball.  And the Phillies came up with 6 hits and 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth to win their first game this year.  soooo

I got this comment from Peg so let me give a brief update on our latest journey into the weight-loss world.

Good for you! Barb too! I haven't seen much mention of the exercise program in the past couple of posts. Do you want to say anything about that? Anyhow, I'm proud of you two for sticking with it. Peg

As you will remember we started this 17-day diet the Wednesday after fat Tuesday.  It is now the 13th day of the second cycle so we have been asea for almost a month now.  In the beginning we lost about a half pound a day but that tapered off as time went on.  By actual talley when I strained the scale this morning I was 255 for a net loss of 12 pounds and I circumnavigated my circumference at 53 inches for a net loss of a modest two inches.

As for the exercise program... that has been a casualty of war.  I mean... it is really an imposition to ask a man of 79 winters to diet and exercise at the same time.  I swing the dumb bells sporadically and I seem to have difficulty in putting the treadmill into operation.    Must be an electrical problem somewhere.  But anyway we are almost finished with phase II and eager to see what phase III brings for us.
   

OMG Do We Really Wanna Do This?

Well now Peg wrote a comment congratulating Barb and I on our weight loss program.  But she raised the question of "what about the exercise program?"  Well dear friend, the exercise program is something else indeed.  We went out on a beautiful Spring day and (ahem) drove around the neighborhood to map out a one mile course.  And we did find a nice route that measured somewhere between 0.9 and 1.0 miles .... close enough.  The weather turned mean and snarly so that has been put on hold.  We do have a treadmill at home and that represents another tale to tell.

Since we both have knee problems... I with both mine replaced and Barb with a split meniscus in her knee, so you can see that we want to ease into anything of that kind.  Me, being the older, decided to test the treadmill first.  So I decided to take it in 5 minute bites.. after all Romans weren't built in a day ya know.  I got onto the tread and turned the machine on at the slowest possible speed.  I looked and felt like Gary Cooper walking into Dodge at High Noon.  Anyway that proved to be toooo slow.  I only walked something like a quarter mile and burned all of four calories.  The next time I cranked it up a notch as Emeril says and got a slight bit further and burned all of 10 calories.
Sooo I have got to ease this baby up to where I am walking for a half hour and covering a real honest-to-god mile.

In the meantime, I am swinging my dumbbells around like a champ.  The first day I did three sets of 5 reps each for the waist, chest, arms and shoulders.  This way I can re-build those muscles that I originally awakened some sixty years ago.  The idea being that they will help me burn calories even when I am sleeping.  At least this is what the internet Gurus tell me.  The second day I increased to 3 sets of 10 reps and I died.  Too fast, too soon.  Luke tells me that I should do stretches before I made that comitment to kill myself.  He is right I was so sore the next day that I decided to start all over at 5  reps per set... aaaah much better.

Anyway to sum it all up.... after 21 days on this diet and so-called exercise program I have lost
12 pounds and an inch or so around my... circumference.  Too soon to call it a waist for now.

And the beat goes on....

Well folks... the beat goes on.. I hope you notice the larger darker print... cousin weak-eyes here is getting weaker.  And that is probably because I have been working on my financial records over the last week or so.  Now that the weather is getting warmer and I can spend more time out-doors I suspect that my sight will improve since I will be able to focus on things over a long distance.  Right now I can't tell male from female at a hundred paces unless they stand sideways and I remember where the bumps are supposed to be. 

During that same period, we have been on a diet program from a book titled something like..."The 17 Day Diet" by a guy named Mike Moreno.
I couldn't tell you what was in it because I just eat what Barb puts in front of me.  And you can bet I eat it all because it isn't much.

As I have said more about this in the previous two posts, I won't beat this into the ground.  But I would like to report that following this diet restulted in a loss of 10 pounds for each of us after the 17 days.  This is interesting in itself because when we tried the south beach diet, we lost a different amount for each for the same number of days.  Anyway, the diet is working well and I can safely say that I am down just about 12 pounds now for twenty days and I will definitely take the half pound a day rate for the time being.  Of course I don't want this to continue forever or my forever will be up in about a year and a half.  And I will disappear....poof.. at zero pounds.

Today

Well folks... I did not lie, I did not die but I did not try to write a post for about almost two weeks.  My whole consciousness was taken up by this diet and my adventures in preparing for income tax time.  More about that later. 

Since I promised to report on the progress in the modern Battle of the Bulge, I can proudly report that  this adventure began on Mar. 3, the day after Mardi Gras... appropriately known as 'Fat Tuesday', I registered 259.  Now this is a modest 8 pounds in eleven days, so I was beginning to become a believer.  Actually, I have to use weight as a measure because I never measured my waist size ... at the time it wasn't a waist it was a girth and we didn't have a tape measure large enough.  But anyway, I have cut my way though so much vegetation that I feel like George of the Jungle. 

Aha but we have made concessions already.  On Sunday, we drive, not walk or run forbid, to Panera Bread where we sit in plush easy chairs beside the gas fire log in the neat fireplace they have for good customers like us.  We luxouriate by slowly consuming a bacon, cheese and egg sandwich on chiabatta bread.  This is then washed down by a large cup of their good coffee with hazelnut creamer... just visualize that.  This allows us to forget the boa constrictor of a diet that had us in its clutches all week.  And with this downtime we can solve all the problems of the universe.. in our heads that is.

During that same time, I decided to put all the financial data that I had for last year into "Quicken" which is a financial software spread sheet.  But that may have to be a story for next time since I hear the dinner bell and I don't dare miss my turn at the table...  little things mean a lot.

The Real Battle of the Bulge

Well folks..  I have decided to write on the fitness craze that is of interest at least to us here in the United States by telling you my own personal tale of...."The Battle of the Bulge".  I have mentioned here and on my Facebook page the amazing job that Luke has done with his interest in the BeachBody program.  In the first 90 days he has lost over 70 pounds and reduced his body fat to a meager 7%.  So when Barbara came home and announced that we were going on a 17 day diet to lose weight I agreed, of course, since there are only two of us and she was the cook.   So for approximately the next 3 weeks I will report on the progress that I have made in this insane battle to do more with less.

First, I had to take stock of myself.  Most people take a before and after picture.  I considered that and immediately rejected the thought because there was no way to touch up the picture and flatter myself as motivation to keep on with this silly idea .....so I just decided to go with the numbers.  At age 79 after both knee replacements and a double by-pass this didn't seem like a good idea but anyway... Onward and Upward 

First step was the scale... ugly really ugly.  The 'survey said'  267 pounds buck naked.  Now that wouldn't be too bad if I were 6' 2" but unfortunately I am 5'2" with eyes of blue so I just knew that I had a long way to go and 17 days wouldn't do it.  But I decided to be a good soldier and GO FOR IT.  My body mass index would put a Texas steer to shame so I plain ignored whatever my % body fat would be.  And I started day number 1.

Breakfast consisted of two eggs and an orange along with the juice of one half lemon.  The eggs must have come from a pigeon or a bantam rooster at least but the lemon originally was of good size.  I squeezed the lemon into a cup of green tea and it wasn't  half bad... the half that was green tea that is.  I followed that up with a cup of water and two cups of coffee with a little milk and a packet of Stevia.  The rest of the day was green tea(3 more cups) and finally a cup of water before bedtime.  That's 7 cups of liquid and that was as close as I got to the obligatory 8 cups.  But ah then the lunch and dinner.

Lunch was a salad.... a wonderful medley of greens and reds and yellows and the like.  But it seemed to be endless.  I was lost in a forest of lettuce and fetta bits and other nameless items that must have tested Barbara's cullinary skills to the limit.  But that was nothing compared to dinner.

The good news was a nice chunk of salmon.  The bad new was those hairy green hunks of vegetables along side it.  But with grit and determination and Barbara looking over at me from time to time I managed to get it down and turned around to look for mycongratulatory scoop of ice cream.  Viola!  nothing.  Somehow I will survive.

Now on to the exercise program.  Fortunately I decided to start with 3-pound weights.  This seemed like a piece of cake since I used to work out with 15-pound weights and lift barbells in the 100-200 pound class.  But that was 60 years ago.  Thee pounders as it turned out were more than enough challenge.  But the real obstacle was the treadmill. 

I decided to start slow.  I put the motor on the lowest setting and started up the platform.  It was like a Texas gunfighter walking into town at high noon.  After 5 minutes of this torture, I shut it down and realized that my legs had been really strained after years of sitting on my ... computer chair.  I managed to burn 4 calories and progressed  a whole .01 mile in that five minutes.  So I decided to call it Day One and crawled upstairs on four limbs and immediately crashed.

The next day dawned with the sun shining and all that and I weighed myself.  Yippee I had lost 2 and a half pounds.  Somehow it seemed all worth it as I plodded down the stairs to another breakfast of eggs and mushrooms.  (to be continued).

Guilty or Not

Hello again Folks.  I have been out of town enjoying some down time with my friends in the Sabian Assembly.  When I got back, I felt guilty about not writing something up in my Blog.  So as I sat down to correct that and I reflected on the idea of Guilt or Guiltiness as the case may be.  Where did that idea come from?  Is it born in us or did we invent that concept perhaps to flagellate ourselves to better effort(whatever that may be).   So I did some research.

The dictionary definition which was traditional  sent me to the Bible and Numbers, chapter 5.  And here there was the old idea of sin being a missing of the mark or a deviation from some standard.  Moses was to instruct the priests who in turn elaborately laid the guilt on the sinner and extracted a material penalty from the sinner.  Which incidentally became the property of the priest since after all, God could have nothing to do with material things.

Next I asked myself... is there any survival value to something like a sense of guilt?  Because if there were survival value then the sense of guilt would be innate and it would have evolved over the millenia.  But guilt, unlike fear, did not seem to have survival value.  So I had to conclude that guilt represented a survival value only to the community and not necessarily to the individual.  For example.  If I stole something from some other man, or woman for that matter, it would give me pleasure or satisfaction of some sort.  However, it would cause a sense of loss in the other person.  Soooo the sense of guilt and the state of guiltiness appears to be a man-made concept to protect man's property.

While I had my nose in the Bible, I looked at the  Ten Commandments as a whole.  And I thought I saw a pattern.  It appears that the first five commandments describe the existence and omnipetence of God and the second five describe the respect for man's property.  In biblical times property consisted of a man's women, his children, his animals, his tents wagons and other equipment.

Curiously enough, in today's lexicon this concept extends to women, children, animals, the environment and the like.  In other words a respect for the personality of all living things.

Home Alone... and I am not 5 years old either

Well Barbara has left me alone for about nine days.  When people ask, I blythely say "she has gone to Heaven".  But before they can express their sorrows, I tell them that heaven is Palm Springs and she is having the time of her life.  She is visiting her daughter, Mary, and my old friends Phyllis and Dan Reynolds who have been living there for about 3 years are planning on showing them all the good spots.  After a harrowing 11 hour trip due to delays in connection at LA, Barb has settled in to the delights of fruit trees scattered around for anyone to pick and real snow-capped mountains only a couple of miles away.  And best of all temperatures in the 60's and 70's which are no challenge to a gal whose blood has been thickened in New England most of her life.

With all the conditioning of a lifetime as mother and wife, Barb left me with a refrigerator full of packaged food for the next nine days.  She made sure that three jugs of green tea were cooled in our outside refrigerator, namely the garage and finally a can of coffee and filters should I get a hankering for a fix of caffeine.  But this lead to a series of adventures for this old city boy.

Now there have been times in my life when I had to resort to frozen dinners for my sustenance.  But pre-cooked and packaged in aluminum foil and whatever are a challenge I was not prepared for.  So this is what happened step by step and up the learning curve we go.

Removing the aluminum foil and the Saran wrap was merely child's play but now I come to find that the food was firmly stuck to the paper plate that it was placed on.`
Brute force did no good because that just resulted in more or less paper shreds sticking to the pile of food itself.  So then let me just put it in the microwave and heat it for a few minutes....  result..  a smaller snowball and the paper still stuck on but more peelable.  Ugh.. remove more of the paper and flip the food and back into the microwave for another couple of minutes...now it is fairly pliable but still pretty cool.  Ok so it is a real challenge.  Back into the microwave for five minutes this time.  Wallah!  Now it is completely heated, in fact hot as hell.  But that is what the very cold ice tea is for.. to keep my tongue from blistering.
Now I can sit down to dinner.  No problem except this one long shred of paper I kept chewing on before I realized what it was and also the lesson that meat tends to get very well done even in the microwave.

This is what I learned on the second day.  I left the uncovered plate on the counter for a half hour before I attempted to unbuckle the food from the paper plate.  Aha this time most of it came off.  And there was only a golf ball sized snowball in the middle of the food.  So I put it in for three minutes and stirred it when I took it out... looked pretty good so I put it back in for another three minutes.
Success at last except that the broccoli didn't taste the same somehow as when Barb makes it for me straight up. 
But the paper was kept to a trifling minimum.

Now today I plan on unwrapping the meal and placing it on a towel on the counter for about a half hour... this should do a better job of defrosting and allow the paper to peel off 100% and result in a consistency that will allow for stirring or mixing at an earlier stage.  Then I can put it in the microwave for only three minutes and eat a warm meal with out making it into shoe leather.  If that does not work then Burger King here I come...

Out with the old... In with the new

Well folks along with the snow and ice and the responsibilities for year-end financial duties for the Sabian Publishing Society my usual weekly pattern of posts has become bi-weekly during the month of January at least.  So as a result I received a "get with it" poke in the butt by my good friend Peg along with a couple of questions on Astology.


Since your "WalrusSez" has been pretty quiet, could I suggest:

Why don't you editorialize on the recent changes they have -- or are trying to -- foist upon us? I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the new number of planets and the new number of astrological signs.


OK, I figure at least you can put into words I can understand just what these things mean. The planets really don't impact me all that much (and probably that astrology wouldn't either) but I'd be interested in knowing how you feel about it. If you put it out there, the subject(s) might get some comments and we'd see how others interpret them.


What Peg is referring to is two recent comments..(1) the declaration that Pluto is not a planet, but considered a dwarf planet and  perhaps maybe not even of the solar system and (2) that the stars which made up the constellations identified as signs of the zodiac are not in the same locations as they were thousands of years ago due to the precession of the equinoxes.  And these are scientifically correct observations as our technology has allowed us to make more precise and refined observations of the universe that we live in.  But this matters not in the system of Astrology which divides the sphere of the sky into 12 parts and comments on the relationships of the planets of the solar system as they travel around the sun in their orbits.

It is not my intention to write a book on Astology in this blog.  But Astrology when it is done in the proper fashion is just as deterministic and follows similar protocols as any scientific discipline as I have ever studied.  The purpose of Astrology has always been to solve problems and understand situations more complex than just plain human conjecture can accomplish.  So then the main use for Astology and its primary tool, the Horoscope, is to understand human character and personality.  To depend on any one or group of stars for that purpose is not necessary to divide the celestial orb into twelve sections. So the prcession of the equinoxes has no bearing on the insight into character and personality that is revealed to the Astrologer by the Horoscope.  And by the way, it will return to the way it was orignally in only a paltry 25,600 years roughly.

In the beginning, as the ancients used Astrology some 5 to 6 thousand years ago there were only seven planets in the horoscope.  The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.  These were the planets seen by the naked eye.  Later on after the telescope was invented, the planets Neptune and Uranus were added and finally around 1930 Pluto was added to the lexicon of horoscopy.  So for about 80 years, Pluto was considered a planet symbolizing the higher mind or a quality of personality which shows enlightenment or intellectual expansion.

But alas and alack, perhaps being technically correct is akin to being politically correct but Astrologers will still include Pluto in their horoscopes and use it to signify probity or some other higher values of character inherent in us human apes.

Thank you Peg for your question.

I Get Big by Making You Smaller

Well folks ... I have been away for awhile attending a family spat with my favorite group... The Sabian Assembly.  But before I get started I want to pass along a comment that I got to help some of you who would like to make comments but have found it difficult to do on Google.  I hope that this is helpful and that we can get some comments to discuss back and forth... that might be fun.

When I signed up for google account I seem to have neglected to link it to this site. I went to blogspot home and logged in. Now I can respond!!!
By nutmeg45 on Happy New Year... let's start the New Year Right on 1/12/11

The last week or ten days have been spent in lending my 40 some years experience in solving some problems within our group.  And it seems that sometimes when one problem is solved another one is created.  The situation brought out something that I had learned many years ago that I called Dick DeGeiso's Law of Social Relativity... or "I get big by making you smaller".  This I learned from watching kids play in the schoolyard and the like.  They call each other names that refer to some peculiarity of the person to make them feel "smaller" so that the name caller becomes "bigger" in his mind at least.  This gives rise to "fatty", "bow-legged", "big nose" and the beat goes on and on.  This gets more sophisticated as the combatants get older and more experienced.  In fact it is a juvenile form of the tactics sometimes used in debates or arguments known as 'Sophistry'.

To see such tactics used by adults in a discussion is disheartening and is in no way a testimony to their maturity.

Obligation will save the Nation

In the beginning God created man and from man's rib he created women.  And once they ate of the tree of life they procreated and started something that resulted in what is now a population of over 6 billion and growing.  The first thing that man was aware of was himself.  Perhaps he was aware of the cradling and protection of the womb, but certainly he became aware of his mother since she was vital to his emergence into the world.  Then as he stretched his senses in all directions he became aware of the existence of others.  But from this he developed the sense of "me" and that which is "not me".  So this then lead to the idea of owning property.          

From millenia ago everything became "mine" and in the harsh environment of the stone age man had to protect his property, his mate, his offspring, his cave, his tools and the list goes on.  A rich man had many wives, many children, large flocks of animals etc..
This presented a problem because, then as well as now, people generally tend to be of two persuasions.. those that build of their own sweat and blood and those that take by force or guile.  So when the "raiders" came, the men of property were forced to defend their property.  The raiders would come in and kill the men and take the women, the children, the animals and now they became wealthy by possession.

Tribes were the defense against this outside aggression and what began as "me" versus "not me" became "we" versus "they".  So men banded together to defend themselves against the others in the form of clans, tribes and the like and eventually built cities with walls and decided amonst themselves who would come in and who would be excluded.  And this was the beginning of law.

The law determined the property rights of man.  The collection of men who got together to determine the laws formed the first governments.  So that the existance of government was in a sense to protect man's property.  Then as well as now, the right to belong to a group and to share in its protection was dependent on the obligation to obey its laws.