Who knows and is able to healyour body better than you?

Flu Shot? Let Plants Protect You!
by Anne Salazar Dunbar, Master Herbalist

"With all the [recent] hysteria over flu shots, I stand in wonder over our complete dependency on the medical community for something as common as the flu. Everyone is all stirred up and frightened that somehow, if they don’t get this shot, they will be completely vulnerable to any and all infection. What happened to our self-reliance and our own ability to stand in our power and solidify our own strengths? Of course, if someone is excessively vulnerable to immune disorders, then perhaps the shot is the answer. But for everyone else there are many other options...

"Plants have been our protectors, teachers, and healers for time immemorial. If we just take the time to honor them and learn from them, we can stay strong and allow our bodies to do their work -- staying healthy and capable of recovery when necessary. This is not a fad or a trend; plants have been used very successfully for as long as humans have been on this planet. From where do you think modern medicine originated?

"That being understood, let me share some plants that have been proven to be effective in protecting us from external invasion and that assist us in fighting infection once it has set in. When the season changes and the temperatures drop, there is more damp in the air. We must adjust our behavior to these changes. This may include adding some protective, tonic herbs to our diets, as well as changing some of our eating habits from cool foods (for summer heat) to warming foods (for winter cold). This is about creating homeostasis, or balance. This is our job, to keep ourselves in balance..."



Herbal Alteratives
by John Finch

"Most natural healers agree that when the blood is pure, no disease can reside in our bodies. Blood purifiers get rid of toxicity by stimulating the release of toxins, mostly via the skin, kidneys and colon. The liver is also an integral part of the elimination process. So herbs that stimulate these organs to exercise their elimination functions can help the person with pimples, as well as someone with cancer.

"Besides eruptive skin conditions and eruptive anger, physical symptoms indicating the need for blood purification include dark circles under the eyes (weak liver function), bags under the eyes (weak kidney function), nervous disorders, digestive disturbances, loss of hair, eyesight and hearing, stiff joints, low vitality and frequent infections. A familiar picture?

"Actually, the modern world we live in is quite a challenge for our processes of elimination. Besides the natural toxins that are byproducts of our own metabolism, we ingest a load from our Standard American Diet. Junk foods and even processed 'health foods' contribute to the problem. The air and water [can be] loaded with toxic materials. When we get so toxified, we lose our natural ability to manage pathogens in our system and we get an infection, which generally makes us feel sick. Much of the awful experience of being sick is from the incredible amount of toxic material produced by an overrun of pathogenic microorganisms in our system in an infection...

"Herbal blood purifiers don't release blood, but clean it up (recycle it). The herb preference would depend on which part or parts of your elimination process needed help. An herb like dandelion would be great for almost anyone. It helps digestion, stimulates both the liver and kidneys, and helps alkalinize the system.

"To stimulate elimination through the sweat, diaphoretic herbs such as elder and sassafras are normally taken in hot teas. For eruptive sties and boils, burdock is recommended. Red clover is of great benefit in the process of assimilation. Its usefulness in cancer has found it a place in all the modern cancer teas with the exception of Essiac.

"Other common Western blood purifiers include alfalfa, mallow, nettles, plantain and echinacea. When taking blood purifiers, remember that when releasing toxins a "cleansing cycle" sometimes occurs, producing symptoms resembling the flu. Skin rashes may even temporarily become aggravated. The more toxic a person is, the more slowly the elimination must proceed.

"Those with serious health concerns should consult a health professional before endeavoring to cleanse."

Added in Sept. 05:

"If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. This especially includes your health care."

A secondhand present

Move the mouse around the object...
(Follow this link to see it full-screen)


lfs.nl: exercise 002

Rolling color

Move the mouse around, why dontcha?
(Follow link to see this full-screen)


lfs.nl: rollover [square]

Number|lines

Click on object to begin.
Use numeral entries to change forms.
Spacebar changes resolution.
(Follow this link to see this full-screen)


lfs.nl: my favorite is no. 4

The Sun shinesand strengthensThe Spirit

Updated: 24 Oct 06:

OK, a year and half after posting this, I've seen enough of the Cassini images to agree that this is not the Sun. Still, it's captivating.

For an actual (and quite dramatic) view of the Sun from Saturn, please peruse this post and visit its cousin before you go. Thank you.

Enter the Dragon Storm

"The Dragon Storm was a powerful source of radio emissions [on Saturn] during July and September of 2004. The radio waves from the storm resemble the short bursts of static generated by lightning on Earth. Cassini detected the bursts only when the storm was rising over the horizon on the night side of the planet as seen from the spacecraft; the bursts stopped when the storm moved into sunlight.



"This on/off pattern repeated for many Saturn rotations over a period of several weeks, and it was the clock-like repeatability that indicated the storm and the radio bursts are related. Scientists have concluded that the Dragon Storm is a giant thunderstorm whose precipitation generates electricity, as happens on Earth. The storm may be deriving its energy from Saturn's deep atmosphere.

"One mystery is why the radio bursts start while the Dragon Storm is below the horizon on the night side, and then end when the storm is on the day side, still in full view of the Cassini spacecraft. A possible explanation is that the lightning source lies to the east of the visible cloud, perhaps because it is deeper where the currents are eastward relative to those at cloud top levels. If this were the case, the lightning source would come up over the night side horizon and would sink down below the day side horizon before the visible cloud. This would explain the timing of the visible storm relative to the radio bursts.

"The Dragon Storm is of great interest for another reason. In examining images taken of Saturn's atmosphere over many months, imaging scientists found that the Dragon Storm arose in the same part of Saturn's atmosphere that had earlier produced large, bright, convective storms. In other words, the Dragon Storm appears to be a long-lived storm deep in the atmosphere that periodically flares up to produce dramatic bright, white plumes that subside over time.

Enter the Dark Galaxy

"Astronomers have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter. The team, led by Cardiff University in Wales, claims it is the first such object to be detected.

"Very little is known about 'dark matter,' even though there is much more of it in the cosmos than the 'normal,' or baryonic, matter that constitutes the visible material from which stars and planets are built. Astronomers say the discovery marks an important breakthrough because, according to cosmological models, dark matter is five times more abundant than the baryonic matter.

"We only know of dark matter's existence because of its influence on ordinary matter. Scientists can infer its presence by looking at the rotation of galaxies and measuring how fast their visible components are moving.

"Astronomers have seen galaxies where the material is moving so fast that they should fly apart -- as they don't, there must be a stronger gravitational force acting than can be accounted for using visible matter."


The ellipse in the left image shows the region of space where the dark galaxy (VIRGOHI21) was found. The right image shows the type of galaxy that astronomers would have expected to see, based on the measurements taken.

"In the Virgo cluster of galaxies, the research team found a mass of hydrogen atoms a hundred million times the mass of the Sun. Dr Robert Minchin of Cardiff University said: 'From its speed, we realised that VIRGOHI21 was a thousand times more massive than could be accounted for by the observed hydrogen atoms alone.'

"'If it were an ordinary galaxy, then it should be quite bright and would be visible with a good amateur telescope.'"


From the Cardiff research team:

"Without any stars to give light, VIRGOHI21 could only be found using radio telescopes. It was first seen with the University of Manchester's Lovell Telescope in Cheshire, and the sighting was confirmed with the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The unknown material that is thought to hold these galaxies together is known as 'dark matter,' but scientists still know very little about what that is.

"Dr. Jon Davies, one of the team of astronomers from Cardiff University, says; 'The Universe has all sorts of secrets still to reveal to us, but this shows that we are beginning to understand how to look at it in the right way. It's a really exciting discovery!'


See also:
Ghostly galaxy: Massive, dark cloud intrigues scientists
First invisible galaxy discovered in cosmology breakthrough
Dark matter clouds may float through Earth

We're jammin'...

"In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. The electronics industry has little incentive to address this complaint. I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. Both devices were designed and prototyped with reference to the culture-jamming “Design Noir” philosophy. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a user’s personal space. By building functional prototypes that reflect equal consideration of technical and social issues, I identify three attributes of Noir products: Personal empowerment, participation in a critical discourse, and subversion."

And what might be under that Martian ice, eh?

A U.S. scientist claims to have thawed out a new life form, which he said raises questions about possible contemporary life on Mars.



The organism froze on Earth some 30,000 years ago, and was apparently alive all that time and started swimming as soon as it thawed, said Richard Hoover from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

The life form -- a bacterium dubbed Carnobacterium pleistocenium -- probably flourished in the Pleistocene Age, along with woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers, said Hoover.

Hoover discovered the bacterium near the town of Fox, Alaska, in a tunnel drilled through permafrost -- a mix of permanently frozen ice, soil and rock -- that remains at a constant temperature of 24.8 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celcius).

"When they cut into the Fox tunnel, they actually cut through Pleistocene ice wedges, which are similar to structures that we see on Mars," Hoover said in a telephone interview.

The ice wedges contained a golden-brown layer about a half-yard (half-meter) thick, and this layer contained a group of microscopic brownish bacteria, Hoover said.

When he looked at a small sample of this bacteria-laden ice under a microscope, Hoover said, "These bacteria that had just thawed out of the ice... were swimming around. The instant the ice melted, they started swimming. They were alive ... but they had been frozen for over 30,000 years."

Pix of pack ice on Mars

"A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5° north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps.

"Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express show raft-like ground structures -- dubbed plates -- that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles, according to an international team of scientists.



"But the site of the plates, near the equator, means that sunlight should have melted any ice there. So the team suggests that a layer of volcanic ash, perhaps a few centimetres thick, may protect the structures...

###

"A huge, frozen sea lies just below the surface of Mars, a team of European scientists has announced.

"Their assessment is based on pictures of the planet's near-equatorial Elysium region that show plated and rutted features across an area 800 by 900km. The team think a catastrophic event flooded the landscape five million years ago and then froze out...

"The water that formed the sea in the southern Elysium, five degree north of the equator, appears to have originated beneath the surface of Mars, erupting from a series of fractures known as the Cerberus Fossae.

"Many of the features seen by Mars Express have also been pictured by the Mars Orbiter Camera on the US Mars Global Surveyor probe. Further data is now required to support the initial observations, but already other scientists think the interpretation is reasonable."


Now, of course, I'm more intrigued by those dome-lookin' landforms... Or are my eyes being tricked by craters?

Escape from the Drama Triangle

This is the subject of a post from April. Its content is always relevant, and I was reading it over again as I prepared to engage in some dysfunction-bustin' of my own:

The Drama Triangle

"Most of us unconsciously react to life from a position of victimhood. Anytime we refuse to take responsibility for ourselves, we are opting to play victim. This leaves us feeling at the mercy of/done in by/unfaired against, no matter what our situation might be.

"Victimhood consists of three positions outlined by Stephen Karpman, a teacher of Transactional Analysis, on what he called the Drama Triangle. Having learned of it some 30 years ago, it has been one of the most important tools in my personal as well as professional life. As my understanding of the Drama Triangle has expanded, so has my appreciation for this simple but powerfully accurate instrument. I call it the Shame Machine, because through it we unconsciously re-enact our vicious cycles, thereby creating shame.

"Every dysfunctional interaction takes place on the Drama Triangle! Until we [consciously discern] these dynamics, we cannot transform them. Unless we transform them, we cannot move forward on our journey toward reclaiming our spiritual heritage.

"Karpman named the three roles on the Drama Triangle as those of Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim. He placed them on an upside-down triangle that represents the three faces of victimhood. Even though only one is called victim, all three originate out of and end up back at that position. Therefore, they are all stopping places on the road to victimhood. We each have a most familiar, or what I call "starting gate," position..."

"In order to get off the triangle, we must first decide to take responsibility for ourselves. We then begin to allow ourselves to acknowledge and express our true feelings, even when doing so is uncomfortable. As we explore our core beliefs and starting-gate positions, we become better able to recognize when someone is attempting to hook us, and refuse to allow it...

"Ironically, the doorway off the triangle for all players is through the persecutor position. This is because when we decide to get off the triangle, we are often seen as persecutors by those still on it. Once we decide to take self-responsibility and tell our truth, those still aboard are likely to accuse us of victimizing them. 'How dare you refuse to take care of me!,' a victim might cry. Or 'What do you mean you don't need my help?,' says a primary enabler when a victim decides to become accountable.

"In other words, to escape the victim grid, we must be willing to be perceived as the bad guy. This doesn't make it so, but we must be willing to sit with the discomfort of being perceived as such..."

"We live in a victim-based society. In the United States, we like to think of ourselves as rescuers. For many years, we identified Russia as the persecutor with Third World countries being the identified underdog, or victim. Several years ago, USSR's President Gorbachev was said to tell President Bush, 'I'm about to do the worst thing imaginable. I'm going to take away your enemy!' Here was a man who innately understood our country's need to have a scapegoat, providing us the chance to say, 'It's those bad communists [now, jihadis] again.' Otherwise, we, as Americans might be forced to take responsibility for our own perpetrator tendencies.

"Of course, Russia does perpetrate, as witnessed by the doings of their KGB. But hasn't our own CIA shown similar tendencies? Our very history is built on persecution. Within a few years of arriving in America, our forefathers began to systematically oppress and subjugate the native peoples who had lived here for centuries! It seems a wearisome task for this country to be willing to be accountable for the ways we have persecuted. Instead, we seem bound and determined to hold onto the idea of being the world's good guy. It is always difficult for persecutors to perceive themselves as such, however. It is much easier to justify persecutor behavior than it is to own the oppressor role."

See also:
How not to talk: Conversational terrorism

And might I also add:
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
(which will be insightful in regard to "adult' discourse, as well)

Finding one's center, in the galactic sense

"These are the orbits of stars within the central 1.0 X 1.0 arcseconds of our galaxy. While every star in this image has been seen to move during the past nine years, estimates of orbital parameters are only possible for the seven stars that have had significant curvature detected. The annual average positions for these seven stars are plotted as colored dots, which have increasing color saturation with time. These orbits provide the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole [at the galaxy's center], which is projected to have a mass 3.7 million times that of the Sun."

from UCLA's Galactic Center Group

Too late, but right on time

I picked up "From Senegal to Senatobia" by Otha Turner and the Afrossippi All-Stars at the library. The title was intrguing enough, but when I flipped the case over and saw a motley band of players holding drums, guitar and a kora, I knew it had to come home.



The album ended a few minutes ago, and I went to the Googacle to find more info to post about Turner and his music... and soon enough I found out that Otha Turner died almost exactly two years ago, 26 Feb 2003. His daughter and fellow band member, Bernice, died the same day.

Otha Turner recorded for the Birdman Records label.

Saturn's auroral display

"The dancing light of the auroras on Saturn behaves in ways different from how scientists have thought possible for the last 25 years. New research by a team of astronomers led by John Clarke of Boston University has overturned theories about how Saturn's magnetic field behaves and how its auroras are generated...

"The observations showed that Saturn's auroras differ in character from day to day, as they do on Earth, moving around on some days and remaining stationary on others. But compared with Earth, where auroras last only about 10 minutes, Saturn's auroras can last for days.



"Astronomers combined ultraviolet images of Saturn's southern polar region with visible-light images of the planet and its rings* to make this picture. The auroral display appears blue because of the glow of ultraviolet light. In reality, the aurora would appear red to an observer at Saturn because of the presence of glowing hydrogen in the atmosphere. On Earth, charged particles from the Sun collide with nitrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, creating auroral displays colored mostly green and blue.

*Images were made with the Hubble Space Telescope
and the Cassini probe in January 2004.

Saturn's moons, waxing and waning

A growing archive of
Saturnian system imagery
can be found here.

The mandala is the message.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. In order to change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Chiron enters Aquarius, 2.21.2005

"Chiron enters Aquarius, on Monday, February 21st, joining Venus and Neptune there, and it is possible that some pattern of wounding may shift." --Henry Seltzer in his February AstroGraph report

That shift, I think, is about taking a personal or collective sense of -- or attachment to -- hurt, transgression or abuse of authority, and transmuting its energy/function from "What was done to me; what he, she or they did" to "What I will do for myself; what I or we will do" in order to function in line with the role and purpose we know we are capable of fulfilling. Chiron is regarded as the archetype of the wounded healer who, familiar with personal suffering, seeks to bring aid and empowerment to others.

Ah, yes, precisely: "In the birth chart, Chiron reflects the archetypal energies of the shamanic wounded healer and teacher who potentially lives within each one of us. It reflects an accidental wounding we received most often in early childhood. This Chironian wounding is an injury to our instinctual nature and is a wounding of trust.

"The wounding was generally brought about as the result of a stupid, careless, thoughtless accident... so there is normally no one who can be blamed with purposely, intentionally, maliciously wounding us. The wounding was generally done by someone close to us, someone we thought well of and trusted.

"Further, a Chironian wound is an injury that [might not ever] totally heal. We learn, suffer and grow from dealing with this sensitive area of wounded instinct and trust, but the wounding will never totally go away. This Chironian wounding can, later in life and after much personal struggle, become a special area where we can help others by sharing our healing and teaching powers with them." --Ellie Crystal makes it crystal-clear.



What isn't mentioned at the top is that "Chiron moves into Aquarius until 2011, energizing the need to shift our rebellious spirits from being against the old order to creating the new." --from the Aquarius overview at Moonsurfing

"When Chiron is in Aquarius, there is a crisis over being grounded, over existing on Earth in a balanced way. Higher consciousness has no place without a body, and as we move into Aquarius, we are being taught about bridging [the consciousness and the body] by the ecological crisis that exists on our planet.

"Chiron, represented by a centaur, embodies this issue with its horse/human body. We have to have animal/human, Earth/sky, body/soul, or we will perish." --Barbara Hand Clow, "Chiron: Transforming Bridge between the Outer Planets"



"An object cataloged as an asteroid when it was discovered in the 1970s, Chiron was discovered to be a comet by D. Tholen, D. Cruikshank, and the Planetary Science Institute's William K. Hartmann (who created the image above) when they observed it brighten in 1988 during observations at Mauna Kea Observatory. Orbital studies show that it passes Saturn about every 10,000 years, which may deflect it into the inner solar system, closer to Earth."

Martian methane might be emittedby living organisms

The latest development in some Mars research
that I previously noted in November

"A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting in Washington, D.C., that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.

"The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.

"What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, meeting, which took place Sunday, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.


This image was made by the Spirit rover, and the question
is whether its drilling tool created this shape, or if it
was there already (in the form of lichen, perhaps)

"Stoker and other researchers have long theorized that the Martian subsurface could harbor biological organisms that have developed unusual strategies for existing in extreme environments. That suspicion led Stoker and a team of U.S. and Spanish researchers in 2003 to southwestern Spain to search for subsurface life near the Rio Tinto river -- so-called because of its reddish tint, the product of iron being dissolved in its highly acidic water.

"Stoker did not respond to messages left Tuesday on her voice mail at Ames.

"Stoker told SPACE.com in 2003, weeks before leading the expedition to southwestern Spain, that by studying the very acidic Rio Tinto, she and other scientists hoped to characterize the potential for a 'chemical bioreactor' in the subsurface -- an underground microbial ecosystem of sorts that might well control the chemistry of the surface environment.

"Making such a discovery at Rio Tinto, Stoker said in 2003, would mean uncovering a new, previously uncharacterized metabolic strategy for living in the subsurface. 'For that reason, the search for life in the Rio Tinto is a good analog for searching for life on Mars,' she said.

The little spot you see hereis likely twice the size of Earth

"Greg Piepol took this picture of the sun [with a hydrogen-alpha filter] in Rockville, MD, on February 16. Sunspot 735 is in the middle, pointing directly at Earth."

Not-as-hot spots on the Sun

"On February 15, 1564, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy. Galileo was an important person in the history of space weather. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't discover sunspots. He was one of the first to observe them using a telescope.

"In Galileo's day, many people believed sunspots were satellites of the sun. Galileo proved otherwise. By drawing sunspots every day, he discovered that the sun spins and that sunspots are located on (or very near) the sun's surface. Galileo thought sunspots might be clouds.



"Now we know what sunspots really are: magnetic islands. Sunspots consist of magnetic force-fields poking through the sun's surface from below. Sometimes these magnetic fields erupt, producing a solar flare. With a temperature of 'only' a few thousand degrees Celsius, sunspots are cooler than their surroundings and, thus, they appear dark. Sunspots are as big as planets."

Goro goro (rumblings)

So yesterday I saw listed on MetaFilter a brief bit about a woman in South Africa who has predicted that a major earthquake will occur in the Western US next week (Feb. 23rd, the full moon day).

She formulated this statement after a dream that she had in mid-January, and the linked website provides more context for her and her associates' thinking on the matter.

I made note of this and kind of dropped what else I was doing because this was the third (actually, now that I think about it, it's the fourth) item about an impending, high-level Earth change that I've read about since the beginning of the year. I also want to point out that in each of those cases, I wasn't seeking out such information.

One was included (indirectly) in an email sent from a friend with whom I shared sun and hummous in Qatar. That message came to her from a friend in Sri Lanka who lived in the ashram run by Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma). As detailed in the message, Amma had told people "the sea was going to come in" well before the tsunami arrived; she'd also told her students that other events like that would soon affect the US.

Another example was a news story about the tribespeople on the Nicobar or Andaman islands who escaped the tsunami with little injury*. In effect, their representative said that the great sea creature that sets such events in motion "ain't done [my language -- Ed.]," though their concerns and rituals were focused on the local environment, not some other part of the world. Strong (6+) quakes have continued to roil under the Andaman Sea basin since January. They have also popped off around the Philippines, Japan and Polynesia.

The most recent mention of Earth change [before yesterday] came by way of Shelly Wu in her Rooster Year forecast, which I shared last week**.

And then there was the item I read yesterday. SilverJade, the main author, gave particular attention to Mt. St. Helens, though as a trigger that might set off shifts that could then reverberate and endanger California (on a scale comparable to what occurred around Indonesia last year).


A graphic from a Hawai'i Online story
about current volcanic activity

The MSH element, more than anything, piqued my interest because I've known that the volcano has been percolating steadily since October, with an explosive exhalation in mid-January. These assertions about radical change also captured my attention because in the last several days I've looked toward Mt. Rainier -- or caught myself in an internal dialogue about the mountain -- and thought of a stirring from dormancy. That, and thoughts of being here in the apartment as a quake rumbled through.

This has gone through my mind for several days, here and again. But as I said, I hadn't gone fishing for information for the purpose of confirming my feelings. What I'm detailing here has come before my eyes in the last five weeks along with everything else I've read.

Here, I will also mention that yesterday's item was the first to make mention specific places and dates. And then I found out that on Sunday and Monday, there were three stories in the Post-Intelligencer about tsunami and earthquake preparedness around the Sound***.

So... what to do? Live and focus; communicate. Be aware of what signals and senses you receive. Nothing might happen between now and next week... except for what goes on every day.

The night before I read the prediction, I told a friend a quote from a Cascades Volcano Observartory scientist. Verbatim, he said of the Mt. St. Helens' recent activity: "We've learned an awful lot about what we don't yet understand." The same thing can be said to apply here. As always, it will pay to be conscious and creative.


*
"Are there myths or legends that have been passed down through the generations that help the people explain this disaster?"

"The spirit god Pulga is said to live on North Andaman Island, at the summit of Saddle Peak, at 2,418 feet (737 meters), the highest point of the archipelago. The Andamanese tribes fear him, because he punishes humans, causes storms, and "has a way with ancestors," according to Mustafa. In Andaman mythology, Pulga caused the cataclysmic flood that separated the Andamanese from their relatives on the mainland."

**
"If the Rooster year cycles of the past remain consistent, 2005 may go down as yet another uncustomary weather year. Aside from both extreme temperatures and the setting of new precipitation records in various localities; according to statistics, Rooster years are marked by an unusual number of great earthquakes throughout the world. The geophysical phenomena of plate-shifting and release of tension along the Rim of Fire/North American faults remains a concern."

***
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/59911_faultzone.shtml

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211158_tsunamiseattle08.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211473_tsunami10.html

About the moon...

Down below, in the post about assorted moons, I mentioned the thin crescent that Earth's moon displayed on the evening of the 9th. This is an example, taken by Howard Eskildsen in Ocala, FL:

Something else that's quick and simple

Four views of Saturn

Circumpolar stellar rotation

"Physics professor Jimmy Westlake took this picture on February 9th. 'After a one-hour exposure, I covered the lens for three minutes and opened the aperture for a final, 30-second shot,' said Westlake. This creates the effect of star trails punctuated by the stars themselves.

"'The volcanic rocks called the Yampa Buttes are silhouetted against the lights of the little town of Phippsburg, CO. The "W" of Cassiopeia is visible in the left side of the photo. Polaris marks the bull's eye at top right.'"

via Spaceweather, 11 Feb

A new view of Mars

"This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, shows Claritas Fossae, a series of linear fractures located in the Tharsis region of Mars."

Chromatic gas clouds in Lyra

Otherwise known as the Ring Nebula

The Moon does not revolve around the Earth

At least, not in the manner that you might have been told that it does. Even the orbit diagram posted earlier doesn't show the real deal... but it is, of course, only two-dimensional.



The Moon and Earth revolve around a common center of gravity. The image above came from the 13 Moon Calendar website, that calendar having been derived from Mayan (and other cultures') time systems that were based on the 13, 28-day lunations that take place each year.

13 x 28 = 364, by the way. The 365th day (July 26, I think) is considered "a day out of time;" a new year's day, during which festivals and ceremonies were (and are now) held. This is the day of Sirius' heliacal rising -- the day it rises above the horizon with the Sun.

The benefits of going beyond what one knows

"Tyler Thompson isn't much different from other 9-year-olds in his neighborhood. He likes basketball and comic books. But Tyler has a talent that sets him apart from his peers: he performs Chinese opera.



"Growing up in Oakland, a city more notable for its tough streets than its touches of culture, Tyler is bringing crowds to their feet around the San Francisco Bay Area with his uncanny ability to sing in Mandarin Chinese. It's a language he doesn't speak but sings like a native.

"'It's shocking for the Chinese. Here's an African-American kid learning an art form that even the Chinese, for the most part, rejected or misunderstood,' said David Lei, chairman of San Francisco's Chinese Performing Arts Foundation. He first saw Tyler perform last year at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.

"'He had a good voice and was very accurate in his singing,' Lei said.

"Tyler quickly became one of Northern California's most popular Chinese music performers, wowing audiences at Oakland City Hall, the Herbst Theater in San Francisco and HP Pavilion in San Jose.

"The San Jose event was filmed by China Central Television, which will broadcast his performance during its annual Lunar New Year extravaganza, a program seen by hundreds of millions in China and elsewhere around the world.

"On Saturday, Tyler [was] a featured performer at the San Francisco Symphony's annual Chinese New Year concert, just four days before the Year of the Rooster [began] on Wednesday. He [was to] sing a Chinese folk song accompanied by a Chinese instrument ensemble.

"'Chinese singing has gotten me this far, so I'm going to stick with it,' Tyler said.

"Tyler learned how to sing Chinese songs as a student at Lincoln Elementary, a public school in Oakland's Chinatown, where 90 percent of students are Asian.

"It's one of the nation's few public schools with a Chinese music program, started 10 years ago by teacher Sherlyn Chew, who was born in Oakland and attended Lincoln as a child. She teaches students of all backgrounds to sing Chinese songs and play traditional Chinese instruments.

"Chew said she first recognized Tyler's talent and his 'angelic' voice when he was a spunky kindergartner.

"Tyler's mother, Vanessa Ladson, said he always loved music. Not long after he learned to speak, he'd sing with his father when they drove together in his truck. He grew up singing whatever music his mom played at home, from gospel to jazz and R&B.

"Ladson was driving Tyler home from school one day when she first heard him sing in a different language. She couldn't believe it, and asked him to sing the song three times.

"'I went home and said to his father, "Do you know Tyler is singing in Chinese?"' Ladson said.

"Tyler doesn't speak Mandarin, but Chew taught him and other students who didn't speak Chinese by spelling out the words and teaching them how to sing with the correct pronunciation and intonation.

"'Each syllable is clear. His tones are very good,' Chew said. 'He doesn't speak the language, but he knows the meaning of the song. He knows what he's trying to convey to the audience.'

"At Tyler's first performance, during Lincoln's annual spring concert, he sang a Mongolian folk song about a young man who misses his friend in winter. 'When the spring comes and the snow melts, I wonder if she will remember me?' Tyler sang in Chinese.

"'He sang so well that people were moved to tears. Then I said I'm going to teach him Beijing opera,' Chew said, referring to a steadily declining form of Chinese opera that blends highly-stylized dancing, acting, acrobatics and pitched singing that Westerners might find jarring. 'It's a lot more complicated, but I thought he was ready.'

"Tyler said learning to sing in Chinese has helped him solve one of life's biggest questions.

"'Before, I never knew what I was going to be when I grew up,' he said. 'But now I know what I'm going to be ... a Chinese music singer.''"

Imagine you're a wizard!

"There are some wizards who are young and good-looking. There are some wizards who are old with long beards. There are thin wizards, girl wizards, tall wizards, chunky wizards and little wizards.

"All wizards are clever and bossy and they love showing off. This is why they wear such peculiar clothes."

I probably found this book all the more pleasing
since I was born under the tone and the seal
of the Overtone Wizard.

Something quick and simple

via Antipixel

True security and stability comes through investment in and care for every person in your community.

If you extend "community" to include everyone in the world, then it will be clear that we all need to care for each other in order to cultivate and enjoy prosperity, peace and harmony.

It also stands to reason that each government should work in the interests not only of its consituents, but also in the interests of cooperation and constructive action with other members of the world community.

Every person -- and animal, and nautral resource -- must be afforded the same importance and protection from abuse, misuse and exploitation.

Just something I'm riffing on after responding to a campaign to reject the latest federal budget plan.

Aspects of assorted moons

Saturn's moon Enceladus

Our moon displayed
an even thinner crescent
last night...



Saturn's moon Herschel

"The crater is Herschel's
most prominent feature,
and the impact that formed it
probably nearly destroyed Mimas."



Pythagoras Crater on the Moon,
photographed by SMART-1 probe

A moon in blue

"Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn's northern latitudes in this true-color view {The raw version of this image is located in my Saturn stash}. The long, dark lines on the atmosphere are shadows cast by the planet's rings {I posted a similar configuration in November}.

"Saturn's northern hemisphere is presently relatively cloud-free, and rays of sunlight take a long path through the atmosphere. This results in sunlight being scattered at shorter (bluer) wavelengths, thus giving the northernmost latitudes their bluish appearance at visible wavelengths. At the bottom, craters on icy Mimas (398 km/247 mi across) give the moon a dimpled appearance."

And as the Cassini probe cast its gaze upward:


"Saturn's northern hemisphere is presently a serene blue, more befitting of Uranus or Neptune, as seen in this natural color image from Cassini. Spots of bright clouds also are visible throughout the region. This view is similar to an infrared image obtained by Cassini at nearly the same time. The infrared view shows a great deal more detail in the planet's atmosphere, however."

Enter the Wood Rooster

The moon will be new (in Seattle) today at 2:28 p.m. PST. That phase will occur on February 9 in East Asia, which explains previous indications that Wednesday is the beginning of the Wood Rooster Year.

Among the many insightful bits you'll find at Shelly Wu's Chinese astrology site, there's this gem: "The motto for 2005 may very well be 'Don't do the crime if you can't do the time...'"

Further along:

"During Rooster years, we will also see the improvising of difficult situations. Rooster years straighten up and put life back into order, including rebuilding, reconstructing and beginning from scratch. We must all take special care of our nervous systems and emotional well-being, as Rooster years tend to bring out extremes in emotions (both fiery and frigid) and everything in between. Do not allow disputes to linger -- find a harmonious compromise. A year when it is especially important to exercise tolerance, channel inner energies into creativity and release our souls of any resentments or bitterness.

"Effort, hard work and application are rewarded; on the other hand, sloth can easily result in unemployment. Seek emotional solace by surrounding yourself with nature and the natural beauty of the Earth. In appearance-conscious Rooster years, we all will seek to be admired, but we must remember that "Pretty is as pretty does."

The Esoteric in 2005

"The 16th hexagram of the I-Ching, YU (Enthusiasm), represents preparation and contains the wisdom for the first four months of 2005 (February, March, April, May). It is the picture of a farmer sowing seeds and planting saplings into moist soil. Planning for the future, reviewing one's resources and taking decisive action bring best results now. Carefully scrutinize all options but DO make a plan. Take actual steps and watch your groundwork bloom.

"The ninth hexagram, SHIAO CH'U (The humble power of the smallest), represents gradual accumulation and is the astral signature of the second four months of 2005 (June, July, August, September). It is an image of a small trickle of water flowing from the rock as the container below slowly accumulates the flow. The harvest is not quite ripe, developing slowly but surely.

"Your own power is yet to be mastered. Spend time in meditation, self-evaluation and continue to accumulate resources. Resist burning your bridges behind you no matter how extreme are differences. Document everything this year! Keep all verifications, proofs and receipts.

"The 61st hexagram, CHUNG FU, represents inner truth and will set the stage for the last four months of 2005 (October, November, December, January 2006). It is the image of a familiar merchant greeting his eager buyers on the shipping dock of a bay. Trust and good reputation are achieved through sincerity, humility and the ability to compromise. Evidence is not proven by words, but proclaimed by actions. Don't shout at the darkness; put on the light."

Overviews for each animal of the zodiac are listed at the bottom of the page. Follow this if you don't know what animal you're associated with.

I also want you to note Wu's content about climate and the Earth. "According to statistics, Rooster years are marked by an unusual number of great earthquakes throughout the world. The geophysical phenomena of plate-shifting and the release of tension along the Ring of Fire/North American faults remains a concern." That concern is based in part on the activity of the preceding Monkey year. Wu had noted the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 as evidence of what kind of force can be unleashed during such a period... and look at what the the mountain started to do last year, in a subsequent Monkey year... not to mention the Indian Ocean tsunami.

This isn't the first portentuous advisory I've read in regard to geophysical disturbances yet to come this year.

But all that remains to be seen, and the most important thing for one to do is to act, adapt and acknowledge purpose in regard to change.

"Subiyay was and remains a giftgiven to us by the Creator."

"Bruce [subiyay] Miller, a Skokomish spiritual leader whose teaching nourished a renaissance of Salish art and culture in the Northwest and beyond, died on Saturday, 5 February.


"On Sunday morning, family, friends and admirers kept arriving from around the country and the region to share songs, prayers, memories and stories of the man who dedicated his life to learning and passing on the gifts of his ancestors' knowledge and artistic skills."

[The librarian at the school where I work had gone to a storytelling workshop that Bruce Miller was going to co-lead on Saturday. Word of his death came during the workshop and, as related by the librarian, the other tribespeople simply acknowledged the fortune they'd had in learning from him and his example, and they continued.]

"As a young child, Miller would go to his great-grandmother's house 'and she would relate the family traditions and stories in oral recitations the old people talk about. That was the sprouting of the seed of curiosity that lie within me at that point.'

"He worked in the theater in New York and in 1967 was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served two tours in Vietnam, earning the Army Medal of Commendation.

"Miller was appointed the tribe's cultural and educational director in 1971 and earned stature for his traditional knowledge, including a repertoire of more than 120 Skokomish tribal stories, some of which take days to tell. MIller was a master of Skokomish basketry, weaving and cedar-mat making. In 1974, he founded the Twana Dance Group, which has performed for thousands of people throughout the Northwest.

"Mr. Miller helped bring back several ceremonies that were once banned by U.S. government agents and missionaries. He also developed a substance-abuse program for the tribe based on Skokomish and Salish legends, and he created an herbal and medicinal garden visited by ethnobotanists from around the world. He compiled and illustrated 12 books based on his family's stories.

"He was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004."

[A parent of one of the schoolchildren had produced a video on Miller, which we saw today. He narrated at one point: "Don't teach the children all the same thing. If you do that, then they think that they don't need each other, and the world will fall apart."]

"A celebration of Mr. Miller's life and a time for remembering will be held Saturday, 12 February, from noon to 6 p.m. at Skokomish smokehouse, N. 170 Tribal Center Road, Skokomish Nation. The event will be open to the public. Donations can be sent to the Twana Seowyn Society, N. 170 Tribal Center Road, Skokomish WA, 98584."

Kansas science students:Hairless monkeys in the middle?

"For the conservative forces engaged in the struggle for America's soul [my soul is my own, thank you, and they should focus on taking care of their own --ed.], the true battleground is public education, the laboratory of the next generation, and an opportunity for the religious right to effect lasting change on popular culture.

"Officially, the teaching of creationism has been outlawed since 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled that the inclusion of religious material in science classes in public teaching was unconstitutional. In recent years, however, opponents of evolution have regrouped, challenging science education with the doctrine of 'intelligent design,' which has been carefully stripped of all references to God and religion. Unlike traditional creationism, which posits that God created the earth in six days, proponents of intelligent design assert that the workings of this planet are too complex to be ascribed to evolution. There must have been a designer working to a plan -- that is, a creator.

[and i'd be inclined to agree with that... the problem is that i don't believe that these people's god is that creator (and that their holy text is the manual). i definitely don't think that any such implied (much less overt) assertion belongs in public education. --ed.]

"In their campaign to persuade parents in Kansas to welcome the new version of creationism into the classroom, subscribers to intelligent design have appealed to a sense of fair play, arguing that it would be in their children's interest to be exposed to all schools of thought on the Earth's origins.

"'We are looking for science standards that would be more informative, that would open the discussion about origins, rather than close it,' said John Calvert, founder of the Intelligent Design Network, the prime mover in the campaign to discredit the teaching of evolution in Kansas...

"In Kansas, as in the rest of America, it would seem a slim majority continue to believe God created the heaven and the earth. During the past five years, subscribers to intelligent design have assembled a roster of influential supporters in the state, including a smattering of people with PhDs, to lend their cause a veneer of scientific credibility. When conservative Republicans took control of the Kansas state school board last November, the creationists seized their chance, installing supporters on the committee reviewing the high school science curriculum.

"The suggested changes under consideration seem innocuous at first: 'A minor addition makes it clear that evolution is a theory and not a fact,' says the proposed revision to the eighth grade science standard.

"However, Jack Krebs, a high school maths teacher on the committee drafting the new standards, argues that the campaign against evolution amounts to a stealth assault on the entire body of scientific thought. 'There are two planes [upon which] they are attacking. One is evolution, and one is science itself," he said.

"'They believe that the naturalistic bias of science is in fact atheistic, and that if we don't change science, we can't believe in God. And so this is really an attack on all of science. Evolution is just the weak link.'"

The carnival at the edge of space

One of several images
at nmazca/fractalism

wood tree flowers path

Four thumbnails (from my walk in Boulder CO from among hundreds that you can peruse by way of the recently updated Google image search for "nmazca."

Saturn's polar vortex:Not exactly the "hot spot"indicated in the news

"This is a mosaic of 35 individual exposures made at the W.M. Keck I Observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawai'i, on Feb. 4, 2004 {I thought I'd seen something like this before --Ed.}. The prominent 'hot spot' at the bottom of the image is located at Saturn's south pole. The warming of the southern hemisphere was expected, as Saturn was just past southern summer solstice. The abrupt changes in temperature with latitude were not expected. The tropospheric temperature increases toward the pole abruptly near 70 degrees latitude from 88 to 89 Kelvin (-301 to -299 degrees Fahrenheit) and then to 91 Kelvin (-296 degrees Fahrenheit) right at the pole."

Rock walls offer more than malls

"It seems so utterly naive that landscape is not considered of 'social significance' when it has a far more important bearing on the human race of a given locale than the excrescences called cities." --Edward Weston

I came across this quote again while browsing through the latest images at photoforum.ru. It reminded me of an exchange with a pair of restaurateurs/gallery owners about three years ago. I had arranged a visit to show them my portfolio of images, and while they thought the images were alright, they wanted to include others or alter mine? in order to have content that was "more relevant" to an urban audience.

[for more landscapes, check Fotos on Foot or CMHSEA]

We're at the opposite end of the lunar cycle...

...but I thought this would be a nice photo to post.

Current events in the cosmos

A couple of days ago, I was pleased to see this photo spread across, what,
four or five columns on the front of the Seattle Times:



"The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002.

"The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a pulse of light three years ago, somewhat similar to setting off a flashbulb in a darkened room. The dust surrounding V838 Mon may have been ejected from the star during a previous explosion, similar to the 2002 event."

Meanwhile, near Saturn...

...the closeups continue.

Heliocentric Worlds, a primer

"The heliocentric (sun-centered) diagram above, drawn by Prof. Robert A. Hatch, is rather more complex than the standard illustration (seen below) usually taken from Copernicus' 'De revolutionibus.' Several points worthy of notice include the bi-epicyclic model used for the Moon, and, perhaps second, [indication of] several different centers of motion, a different center for each planet.




"Technically, the Sun is not at the center of the Copernican model. Each planet had its own center of motion, which was neither a geometric nor a physical center of rotation (rotation of the line, revolution of the planet). For further details about Copernicus' system, see the links below, which focus on Copernicus' models for the superior and inferior planets, and the Earth-Sun and Earth-Moon relations."

Diagrams of the Earth & superior planets
Diagrams of the Earth & inferior planets
Diagrams of the Earth-Sun relation
Diagrams of the Earth-Moon relation

Speaking of heliocentric worlds...

...here's an old favorite that shows one of them
with an orbiting moon (Io).



If this one isn't indexed at the Planetary Photojournal,
then perhaps you can find it at the Hubble site.

Greenhouse gases threaten Earth's atmosphere. So Earth people devise a plan to inhabit Mars after infusing its atmosphere with greenhouse gases.