The Cat's Eye Nebula

"Though the Cat's Eye Nebula was one of the first planetary nebulae to be discovered, it is one of the most complex such nebulae seen in space. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers that form bright nebulae with amazing and confounding shapes.

"In 1994, Hubble first revealed NGC 6543's surprisingly intricate structures, including concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas, and unusual shock-induced knots of gas.

"As if the Cat's Eye itself isn't spectacular enough, this new image taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys reveals the full beauty of a bull's eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings around the Cat's Eye. Each ring is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky — that's why it appears bright along its outer edge."

Nighttime rainbows, Part Two

"It was around 2 o'clock in the morning on April 27th when Jonathan Logan snapped these two pictures, 20 seconds apart, in Great Falls, Montana.

"Behind the photographer's back, a nearly-full Moon was shining brightly. Moonbeams illuminated raindrops beneath the crackling thunderhead, forming a rare and beautiful rainbow in the night."

Nighttime Rainbows, Part One.

Loose

Has become loose -- Ekaterina Poliashova

Back to Saturn

"N00033116.jpg was taken on April 28, 2005, and received on Earth on April 29, 2005. The camera was pointing toward PROMETHEUS at approximately 2,041,406 kilometers away."

Yet, in spite of the climate changes mentioned in the previous post, a written-off species has re-emerged.

"Scientists have rediscovered one of the great birds of America, feared extinct for 60 years - a find hailed by scientists as being comparable to the reappearance of the dodo.

"The ivory-billed woodpecker, believed to have disappeared along with the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet, has been seen in the Big Woods region of Arkansas by at least eight people. The woodpecker was one of six American species thought to have disappeared in the past 125 years. The last confirmed sighting had been in 1944.

"A team of ornithologists and conservationists report in the online edition of Science that they have drawings and video footage of the bird's unmistakable plumage... The woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, lives in a habitat of mature and dying trees. It all but vanished as vast swaths of the southern forests fell to the axe and the plough in the 19th century."

"The world is getting warmer --and US scientists now know precisely how much warmer."

Global warming rate discovered
By Tim Radford
The Guardian

"They calculated the radiation from the sun, the heat reflected back into space, and the rising temperature of the seas, and say the extra warmth is equivalent to a 1 watt lightbulb shining constantly over an area of 1 sq metre everywhere on the planet.

"That would raise average temperatures by 0.6C before the end of the century, they report in Science today. Warming at that level, maintained over 10,000 years, would melt enough ice to raise sea levels by a kilometre.

"'This energy imbalance is the smoking gun that we have been looking for,' said James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. 'It shows that our estimates of the human-made and natural, climate-forcing agents are about right, and they are driving the Earth to a warmer climate.'

"Most of the world -- with the exception of the US and Australia -- has signed up to the Kyoto protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions and [increased] global warming. The US government has repeatedly argued that scientific opinion about global warming is divided. With this new research, US government-funded scientists have once again told the US administration that they believe global warming is real, and inexorable."

Sights in the sky above Seattle

Muted gold sunset


Square sunset moon


Cloud veil


The Moon and muted fuschia


Dusky sunset

Mixed-media multiverses

On my birthday, I offered y'all a view of a recent painting:


The Heart of the Universe

Today, I present a section from another painting,
which will soon be sent to my Ohio hometown:

A Universe for Kyra (in detail)

Open season for volcano close-ups

"The Johnston Ridge Observatory, home of the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam, will reopen for the 2005 visitor season on Friday, May 6, 2005. Summer hours will be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily, until October 30, 2005.

"The Johnston Ridge Observatory brings visitors within five miles of Mount St. Helens. This vantage point north of the volcano offers spectacular views of the new and old lava domes, the volcano crater, and the pumice plain. This facility focuses on the geologic history of Mount St. Helens.

"Daily admittance to one visitor center for those 16 or older is $3 per person. Admittance to all three centers will be $6 per person. May 18 will be a free day at the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in remembrance of the 25th anniversary of the 1980 eruption. No fees will be charged at the volcanic monument, including the visitor centers on State Route 504.

"Each evening, Washington State DOT will close the road between Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center and Johnston Ridge Observatory from 9:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. the following morning for safety concerns."

"No bucks, no Buck Rogers."

"Less than one month after announcing an ambitious plan to send Japan's first astronauts into orbit and set up a base on the moon, the head of Japan's space agency said Wednesday that budget cuts are pushing the program to near collapse.

"'If the present rates of decline continue, the space program will collapse,' said Keiji Tachikawa, a former private sector executive who assumed leadership of the space agency, known as JAXA, four months ago. 'We are almost in a crisis situation.'

"Parliament has cut the agency's budget each year since 2003 by merging three government space programs. JAXA currently operates with an annual budget of some 200 billion yen (US$2 billion, euro2.6 billion), about one-tenth the annual budget of NASA in the United States.

"Hoping to pump new life into its operations, the agency announced a major policy initiative earlier this month -- saying it wanted to send Japan's first astronauts into space and set up a base on the moon by 2025.

"The agency sent the plan to a government space panel for review, asking for a budget increase to roughly US$2.6 billion (euro2 billion) a year, up from US$2 billion (euro1.6 billion) last year. Tachikawa acknowledged that funds were hard to come by with Japan's economy still trying to rebound from more than a decade of stagnation."

Nighttime rainbows

Yes, nighttime rainbows.

By J. Paul Longchamp in Tahiti

"Rainbows require a source of light and some water droplets. In this case, the light came from the full Moon, with moist, island air providing the prismatic droplets."

Aquatic biochromaticism

A fancy way to draw your attention
to Yellowstone National Park's
Grand Prismatic Spring...

...which I saw for the first time
(I think) while I flipped the pages
of Through The Lens.

A big check for some tiny tech

"NASA will pay Rice University $11 million over the next four years to develop an experimental power cable made from carbon nanotubes, the agency announced Tuesday.

"Under the agreement with NASA, Rice's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory is to produce a 1-meter-long prototype of quantum wire by 2010. To date, scientists have been able to produce wires no longer than several centimeters.

"The cable, also known as a quantum wire, would theoretically conduct electricity up to 10 times better than traditional copper wire and weigh one-sixth as much. Scientists believe quantum wires could make spacecraft much lighter and more powerful, and may lead to faster computers and other commercial applications [not to mention, of course, how the weapons industry might nut up over such technology --Ed.].

"Discovered in 1991, carbon nanotubes are tiny, molecular cylinders formed purely of carbon atoms. They are created by shooting high-powered lasers at a carbon target. Each nanotube is just one nanometer in diameter, or 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

"Currently only two percent of all nanotubes can be used as quantum wires, and sorting these -- called 'armchair nanotubes' -- from the rest is nearly impossible, according to Richard Smalley, director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory."

The director of a nanotech lab is named Dr. Smalley?

And what's the connection between nanotubes and Snoop Dogg?

Hubble presents: The Eagle and The Pixie

"Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula [see photo below]. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 57 trillion miles high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star.

"Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that reside in [dynamic] neighborhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas. The tower may be a giant incubator for those newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from a band of massive, hot, young stars [off the top of the image] is eroding the pillar...

"Inside the gaseous tower, stars may be forming. Some of those stars may have been created by dense gas collapsing under gravity. Other stars may be forming due to pressure from gas that has been heated by the neighboring hot stars.

"The first wave of stars may have started forming before the massive star cluster began venting its scorching light. The star birth may have begun when denser regions of cold gas within the tower started collapsing under their own weight to make stars.

"The bumps and fingers of material in the center of the tower are examples of these stellar birthing areas. These regions may look small but they are roughly the size of our solar system..."


"This wide-field image of the Eagle Nebula was taken at the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak with the NOAO Mosaic CCD camera. It shows the areas seen in greater detail with Hubble's Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1995 and Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2005."


These images were released in conjunction with Hubble's 15th year of operation, as you might [or might not] have known. So to wrap up this post:

"In its 15 years of viewing the sky, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken more than 700,000 exposures and probed more than 22,000 celestial targets as represented by the different colored dots in this map of the sky. All data from April 1990 through March 2005 are represented here."

Spin cycle

"N00032911.jpg was taken on April 25, 2005, and received on Earth April 25, 2005. The camera was pointing toward SATURN-RINGS at approximately 2,411,925 kilometers away."

Dark matter seems to be as pervasive as all get-out.

"In a kind of belated birthday present to Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity is 100 years old this year, astronomers say they have confirmed an essential but previously unconfirmed prediction of general relativity: namely, that the entire universe can act as a magnifying lens.

"The light from distant quasars, enigmatic and violent galaxy-birthing events on the shores of time, some 10 billion light-years away, has been magnified by the gravitational force of lumps and irregularities in the structure of the nearby cosmos. So the quasars appear slightly brighter in telescopes than they actually are, according to a multinational team of researchers led by Dr. Ryan Scranton of the University of Pittsburgh... The astronomers said that cosmic magnification gave them a new way to weigh the universe and to investigate its evolution.

"They reached that conclusion after sifting a mountain of data about 13 million galaxies and other celestial objects, obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a continuing effort to remap the heavens.

The magnification, they said, confirms the dark picture cosmologists have built up in the last few years, in which the atoms that make up stars and people are overwhelmed by clouds of mysterious dark matter. That dark matter is in turn overwhelmed by something even stranger: so-called 'dark energy,' which seems to be wrenching space and time apart faster and faster, taking the galaxies for a potentially fatal ride into endless cold and loneliness."

[Thank you, NYT, for that exceedingly bleak and dismal summation.]

Light

XXX -- Ekaterina Poliashova

Turn TV off for a weekand you might leave it off for good.

"TV Turnoff Week is no ordinary social ritual. The goal is simple: to shake up routines and get people questioning the role of TV in their lives.

"Sure, it’s a statement against dead-end, couch culture. But it's also about cleaning up the mental environment. Like our oceans and air, our shared mindscape is littered with pollutants: distorted news, manipulative ads, violence and top-down culture."

CAUTION: This post might make you a little dopey...or assume that you're a dope.

E-mails 'hurt IQ more than pot'

"Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows..."

The first half of this story has nothing to do with the header. In fact, it points to what is the actual story: "Constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic."

The second half is simply half-baked: "In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day. [How did Dr. Glenn do this? Did he have them hooked up to the IQ-ometer?]

"He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana."

How might an IQ test, say, at 2 p.m., when brain chemistry levels out; after a dull meeting; after lunch; after a copier snafu; after tackling some staff conflict or getting a call from your sick child; or after having been 'monitored' some number of times earlier (all on top of these "multitasking" issues) reflect one's mental sharpness?

Was this test done during a Mercury Retrograde period? What kind of work did these test subjects do? What was their average IQ before the testing? Were they satisfied with their work lives?

How might the typical, electromagnetically saturated office environment {perhaps the real story} affect the subjects' mental and physical stamina? Did these people have breakfast that day? How much sleep had they been getting? Do they smoke pot? How many pints did they have the night before (or over lunch)? And again, what kind of test was administered? Where can I go to find the actual report?

CNN doesn't say. The story only offers up this bit of advice: "Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working."

Aha! New Scientist has the hookup.

Institute of Psychiatry, University of London
Hewlett-Packard Bristol Research Labs
Computer Science, The University of York

So where was I...?Oh, yes: looking at stars from the sidewalk.

This is the belated continuation
of my post on public astronomy.

April 16th was National Astronomy Day, an event that's received more and more promotion during the last few years. It's usually scheduled for the Friday or Saturday closest to the first-quarter moon in late March or early- to mid-April. By that time, the weather has turned and people are out more often; the Sun shines warmly, and the Moon provides an easy, highly textured surface to observe. Astronomy Day, in some venues, is the culmination of a weeklong series of events meant to increase public interest in the worlds beyond this world.

I hadn't been out to do my "public outreach" for many months. The previous session was in October 2003, when I focused on the Sun near the University of Washington campus. I ambled through California, New Mexico and Ohio a couple of months later [and Qatar, after a few months more], and the telescope was stowed in Ohio from last May until this January.

Since January (and before last Saturday), I could count on three fingers (or less) the number of times I've taken the telescope into a public setting. I have taken it to one of the schools where I work, but that's different because children are more open to this experience.

I sat in front of this terminal on the afternoon of the 16th, intending to write about some of my earlier interactions and astronomical observations. I got lost in reminiscence about some of those observing activities, and then I realized how warm and sunny it was outside. My Lady Friend returned soon afterward, and we went out to the corner so that she could be in the Sun's light while I had people observe the star.

We had a person here and a person there take a look. One guy came by, on break from Pagliacci, and he mentioned how often he checked out the SOHO pix. I think it was about then that we heard some pomp and clatter from down the street [on Broadway between Republican and Harrison]. "It's a parade," my Lady Friend said. And indeed it was. It was the same group of a dozen or so people who'd held their own parade on Broadway the previous weekend. And they were coming our way.

A few of the revelers had filed by before one of the young women asked what we were looking at. When she stopped, several others did. The music stopped and then we had the whole corner occupied. I explained that there was one large sunspot to observe, and then I fiddled with the knobs in order to get the Sun back into view.

One of the young men asked if I had seen objects floating in coronal haze, or if I had ever listened to the music produced by the Sun's vibration. I wanted to talk about some of that some more {since I have heard the INSPIRE feed from Earth's atmosphere and I had an idea what he meant}, but then a very pleasant woman with her sleeping toddler came up and asked what we were seeing.

And then it was all about people management: The young guy began to talk to my Lady Friend about all of this esoterica; his companions searched for the rest of the parade-makers, who'd crossed to the other side of Broadway; a co-worker of the guy from Pagliacci came out, still in his apron, excited to check out the Sun on his own; the appreciate young mother wanted to know how often I came out to the corner; and there was that older gentleman who'd been thinking about getting his own telescope.

Afterward, as I prepared to go see Auntie M, my Lady Friend told me that just before the paraders arrived, she'd been thinking that a documentary could be made of me interacting with people on the sidewalk. And then, as if to point out what kind of antics could be captured, a small parade walks by... [Before we set out that afternoon, I'd told her about the experience of having a family of 10, some of my sister's neighbors, and some passers-by looking at the Christmas eclipse in 2000 in two or three inches of snow. This was close to that kind of spectacle.]

I went to do some web design work with M, and then returned to the corner of Republican and Broadway around 8 p.m. (an hour later than I'd told some people that afternoon). As I mentioned, Astronomy Day is scheduled near the first-quarter moon phase. It's a rich target, with deep craters, shelved ridges and mountain peaks, all in high relief because the Sun is at a 90-degrees angle.

It was awhile before anyone stopped to ask what I was looking at. One young woman expressed slight astonishment that "you could that" from the city. But she didn't want to take a look. Another young woman, on the way back from dinner with her parents or grandparents, was the first to take in a view of the Moon (while some guy commented "Come over to Vashon, you can see it better there." As if.).

Another 15 or 20 minutes passed, and I was just about to pack it in (because it was chilly) when a couple stopped and asked what I could see. I'd just viewed Saturn and told them about it while I tried to get a bead on the planet again. I managed to do that after some work (they were patient, fortunately) and they were each astounded, which is always nice to see. I gave them a view of the Moon soon afterward.

When the young woman mentioned its dimness, I looked up and noticed that the clear sky we'd had all day was being enveleped by a high, opaque cloud layer. Saturn was gone. And the Moon was about to be shrouded, also.

So that night's show was over. And although only a few "attended," it felt good to have shared the view from our Earthbound stage.

Moondance

"W00006328.jpg was taken on April 22, 2005 and received on Earth April 23, 2005. The camera was pointing toward SATURN-RINGS at approximately 2,410,703 kilometers away."

Searching for Buddha on the network,I found the Fifth Noble Truth.

"I was born and raised in Germany, and, as long as I remember, I was drawn to art and loved to paint, take photographs and write poetry. After finishing school, I wanted to go to the art school (Kunstakademie) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Though I was admitted, I did not choose that path.

"More than the serious resistance of my family, the argument of a good artist friend of mine was responsible for this decision: "If you want your creativity stifled and bent to the ideas of other artists, go [to art school]."

"I didn't. Instead, I studied Indology (Eastern Indian languages, religions and philosophy) and received my Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1979. More than 13 years of post-graduate research in India followed, which brought me in contact with spiritual masters and many, great Indian musicians and artists..."

Hans-Georg Türstig

Rising

A photo by Ekaterina Poliashova

Sister Sitka

"Hello. My name is Wahkeena Sitka Tidepool Ripple -- you can call me Sitka, for short. It is a chosen name, as I consciously choose every moment to be in the moment and live fully. I embrace who I am as a creative choice. I am a mystic/dervish by nature -- the art and work on || Sister.Resister || is an outpouring of my natural creative energy, and is a byproduct of simply existing."

A late-night treat from Auntie M

Sun-Eclipse-Moon... and Saturn{i've got real work to do,so i must be brief}

By Greg Piepol





Three by Barry Kierstein aboard a Pacific cruise ship



By Larry Koehn

"There will be a lunar eclipse on April 24th. It's a penumbral eclipse, which means that the Moon only skims the pale, outer fringes of Earth's shadow. Penumbral eclipses are notoriously difficult to observe. Nevertheless, a subtle yet distinct shading should be visible across the northern half of the Moon during greatest eclipse, around 09:55 UT. For North Americans, that's Sunday morning at 2:55 a.m. PDT (5:55 a.m. EDT)."

See "Eclipses in 2005" for more on that last paragraph.



"W00006293.jpg was taken on April 19, 2005, and received on Earth on April 20, 2005. The camera was pointing toward SATURN-RINGS at approximately 1,994,825 kilometers away."

Plants are power tools.

Stirred and shaken
The Guardian
March 12, 2005

Faced by difficult choices both in his life and fiction, and encouraged by the examples of Peter Matthiessen and Allen Ginsberg, Henry Shukman tried ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic, Amazonian vine.


"...In spite of its being one of the strongest hallucinogens known to humanity, ayahuasca is now officially legal in New Mexico...

"...So, five days later, ravenous and already light-headed with fasting, I found myself standing outside a dance studio in Santa Fe, along with about 40 others, as another watery, New Mexican twilight lingered beneath a high, glassy sky. We filed in and sat around the walls on blankets.

"The 'ceremony' would go on all night. The shaman and his white-robed helpers went round the room with incense and holy water, and everyone was given a small plastic bowl for the anticipated purge. After that came a glass of a disgusting, gruelly, riverine potion -- the [ayahuasca] tea itself. The lights went out. Some of the assistant shamans started to sing songs. Others mimicked the calls of Amazonian birds so well that the room seemed to echo like the rainforest, and I wondered if the drug was already taking effect.


See footnote at end of post

"The first effect was the appearance out of nowhere of geometric, multi-coloured patterns forming and re-forming in time with the songs. I could 'see' them whether my eyes were open or closed. They were embarrassingly hippie-kaleidoscopic, but there they were. The 'eye of the soul opening,' apparently: seeing in the dark.

"Then suddenly everything vanished. No singing, no kaleidoscope, no nothing. I felt that I had shot up out of my body and was floating in the midst of black, silvery space. It was silent and still, and I was completely calm. I needed nothing, never had and never would.

"Then I somehow became aware of a ruinous, exhausted tangle of four human limbs far, far below me, slumped on a wooden floor. Alas, I knew that somehow I was committed to that body, I had a responsibility to it, and it was drawing me back...

“'First time?' a silver-haired old hand asked me afterwards, as I stood blinking in the cold dawn, wondering where I had just been.

“Yes."

“Did you die?" he asked me.

"So that was what had happened. 'I thought I’d given birth to an asteroid,' I explained seriously. 'Except I was the asteroid.'

“'Uh-huh,' he nodded. 'That’s good. We are asteroids.' Right.

"Be that as it may -- and good or not -- that afternoon, the novel I was stuck on opened up like an Ordnance Survey map, and I could see the whole plot at last. I covered a giant sheet of A2 with notes and plans.

"Are there shortcuts in this life? Do those ancient tribes of Amazonia know things we don’t? The only things I could be sure of were that, with or without ayahuasca’s help, there would be months of hard slog ahead if I was ever going to finish the book. And that I hoped very much never to touch the stuff again."

Via Magpie {Ayahuasca and problem-solving}


Footnote

"The Americas are to the rest of the world a literal Garden of Eden, in the sense that the vast majority of truly hallucinogenic plants originate from there or were discovered and used there. This is somewhat of an irony for human culture, and [it has led] to a paradoxical situation in which the most powerful spiritual agents in nature have become accursed by an inexperienced, alien culture of conquest, only to become nearly lost to civilization as true endowments of nature for the betterment of humankind.


"In the Americas, psychedelic power plants have been, without exception, the object of veneration and worship in virtually every culture that has had access to them. This includes a spectrum of the most potent agents known, including sacred mushrooms from the ancient Mayas to the modern Mazatecs; peyote from the Toltecs to the Huichols; San Pedro cactus from the Chavin culture to Eduardo Caldero; ayahuasca, the vine of the soul from the Genesis of the world; morning glories; and even the frankly uncontrollable plants of the Datura family. We should take a lesson from these cultures' experiences, and try to understand why they held these plants in such spiritual esteem.


"Despite their powerful nature, the religious and shamanic use of these [plant] allies has served to place a natural care and respect in their use. This turns what could become an unhinged occasion into a carefully guided one, which happens only on ritually appointed occasions, over which the group and its leaders keep a watchful eye on all the participants and strict protocols operate. This, in turn, serves to unite the participants in a bond that is both shared with one another and with the infinite."


Here's just one example of cultural veneration of specific, sacred plant species, as detailed in an earlier post on ancient earthworks [like the Great Serpent Mound, which I mentioned earlier today].

Please refer to this link in order to read more
about shamanism and sacred plants.

Supplemental info for the "plants as power tools" post

Posts from the past related to shamanism,
ayahuasca, cosmic serpents, and the like.



15 April 2005
"The objective of [the documentary Other Worlds] is to impress upon viewers that these little-known native peoples developed veritable, cognitive technology through their own sciences of the spirit, thousands of years ago. To me, these men {and women} are warriors in the battle to unlock the mysteries of consciousness.

"Shamans consider the greatest ally and the worst enemy of every individual to be one and the same: himself or herself."

From "Excursions to Other Worlds (while one remains on Earth)"


13 March 2005
"In the mid-1800s, a 16th century Aztec statue of Xochipilli was unearthed on the side of the volcano Popocatapetl near Tlamanalco, Mexico. The statue is of a single figure seated upon a temple-like base.

""Both the statue and the base upon which it sits are covered in carvings of sacred and psychoactive flowers including mushrooms (Psilocybe aztecorum), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), morning glory (Turbina corymbosa), sinicuichi (Heimia salicifolia), possibly cacahuaxochitl (Quararibea funebris), and one unidentified flower. The figure itself sits crosslegged on the base, head tilted up, eyes open, jaw tensed, with his mouth half-open. The statue is currently housed in the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia of Mexico."

From "While I poked around for info about the Elohim."


27 February 2005
"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..."

From "Who knows and can treat your body better than you?"


7 September 2004
"Shamanism comes in many styles and many traditions. With the advent of the awakening, people of the non-shamanic cultures have discovered that they too hear the voices of the Totemic spirits. Among those of European descent, there are several paths to follow.

"The first is the Way of the Land. It is a path that follows the cultures native to the land. So the non-Native follows Native American practices and usually studies under a Native elder of the same or compatible totem. The shaman adopts native ways and beliefs, and usually is adopted into the tribe of his or her teacher."

From "The Many Dances of Shamanism"


27 March 2004
"In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, Pablo Amaringo, a former vegetalista (Amazonian shaman) discovered painting as a way of expressing his visionary experiences while using the fabled plant medicine, ayahuasca. Inspired by the brew, he developed techniques to teach painting to others, especially children, and established the Usko-Ayar school."


26 December 2003
"The revival of shamanic rituals found a fertile ground, particularly in areas where wealthy plantation owners and multinational corporations displaced peasants from the land. For these poor and desperate people, ayahuasca was a gift that helped them cope with the expansion of the market economy into the frontier.

"As their subsistence society unraveled, so, too, did their sense of sanity and well-being. Consequently, a growing number of mentally ill individuals and uprooted wage-laborers sought out curanderos, who were forced into a new role. In addition to curing the sick and communicating with the spirit world, many witch doctors began using ayahuasca to mediate class conflict. As one Putumayo medicine man told Taussig, 'I have been teaching people revolution through my work with plants.'"

From "Shamanism versus Capitalism"


20 October 2003
"Shamans of the Amazon is a personal account from filmmaker Dean Jefferys, who returned to the Amazon with his partner and one-year-old daughter. They journey deep into the heart of the Ecuadorian rainforest in order to meet two Amazon shamans and learn about and experience the ancient ayahuasca ritual.

"Featuring: Terence Mc Kenna, Rick Strassman, Yatra De Silvera Babosa, Enrique and Raphael, shamans from Ecuador, and Pablo Amaringo from Peru."



16 October 2003
"According to Dogon [Malian tribespeople] mythology, Nommo was the first living being created by Amma, the sky god and creator of the universe.

"He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. [This is a metaphor for our original 12-strand DNA. Our present physical DNA contains 2 strands, which hold the genetic codes for our physical evolvement.]

"The Dogon say that their astronomical knowledge was given to them by the Nommo. The Dogon elder, Ogotemelli, describes them variously as having the upper part as a man and the lower portion as snake; or as having a ram's head with serpent body."

I hadn't read from The Cosmic Serpent [by Jeremy Narby] in a week, but because I had gone through Narby's correlations between DNA and its narrative and symbolic presence in Amazonian + Australasian creation myths... Wow!

What's more, in relation to the specific (and pre-scientific) knowledge the Dogon had about the Sirius binary star system: "The Dogons have described perfectly the DNA pattern made by this elliptical orbit created by the two stars as they rotate make around each other. They believe Sirius to be the axis of the universe, and from it all matter and all souls are produced in a great spiral motion."

From "Ah yes... Well, I tried to keep this short."


And finally:
Reality check: Exploring the contours of mind & consciousness through magico-spiritual techniques

Serpent Mound=Meteorite Site

Hints of cosmic crash at Serpent Mound
By Bill Sloat
Cleveland Plain Dealer
April 12, 2005

"Sifting through rocks snagged from twin boreholes punched deep into the planet’s crust, scientists have detected an unearthly substance hidden for eons in Ohio’s basement.

"And its presence 1,412 feet beneath the forests and farmlands near Serpent Mound in south-central Ohio — already on par with Britain’s Stonehenge and Egypt’s pyramids as one of Earth’s most mysterious man-made structures — adds to a puzzle shrouded in legend and lore for centuries.



"When scientists peered into the geostrata that emerged from beneath the mound, they were confronted with pure, weird data. Under their microscope, they saw quartz crystals with flaws like those found at nuclear test sites and in moon rocks brought back by astronauts."

[A picture of my face when I read that: 8-O]

"{This discovery} pointed toward a massive energy burst that left behind tell-tale traces of a cosmic crash. Those findings are now rattling through the world of geology, shaking up long-held conceptions and misconceptions about Ohio’s distant past.

“'I think we can say with authority, today, that this is an impact from a meteorite,' said Mark T. Baranoski, a state geologist. 'It affected the region in a spectacular way.'

"Rock samples from beneath the mound contain significantly higher than normal concentrations of iridium, an extremely rare metal. Because it is so heavy, iridium seldom shows up anywhere but near the planet’s molten core. At Serpent Mound, the levels of iridium measured were 10 times beyond what is usually present in the Earth’s crust.

"Occasionally, volcanoes bring up iridium in lava. But there are no lava fields in Ohio [Indeed.]. So the questions started. Where did the iridium-rich rocks come from? While iridium is scarce on Earth, the silver-gray metal is common in asteroids and comets... {The researchers} have reported that the heavy metal find is 'good evidence for an impact origin' and that dark, stony material recovered from the deepest borehole has a 'significant enrichment' that must have come from outer space...

"Geologists, including researchers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, describe the recent discovery as powerful new evidence that Serpent Mound sits upon a slightly oblong crater created when a massive extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth. The crater touches portions of Adams, Pike and Highland counties, about 200 miles southwest of Cleveland in the state’s rolling Appalachian countryside.

"The mound, built about 1,000 years ago, straddles land near the crater’s southwest edge and may have had a religious function, although nobody knows for sure what philosophy and beliefs shaped its origin.

"Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from speculating about Serpent Mound’s builders and what they were up to. Some say they were mystics and priests. Others say magicians and soothsayers. Still others see them as prophets. There are those who claim that the builders were shamans who practiced human sacrifice, while some believe that they were ancient astronomers who were the intellectual caste of woodland tribes."

[Well, while the reporter spins wheels, I'll mention: "The head of {Serpent Mound} is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the coils also may point to the winter solstice sunrise and the equinox sunrise."]

"Doyle Watts, a geophysicist at Dayton’s Wright State University who worked on the international team that studied the core samples, said the impact theory explains why so much of the terrain around Serpent Mound appears jumbled. Some rock formations rise 1,000 feet above the ground. Others look like they have slid straight down.

"John Locke, a geologist who explored the area in the 1830s, thought he had found a 'sunken mountain' and reported that 'a region of no small extent had sunk down several hundred feet, producing faults, dislocations and upturnings of the layers of the rocks.'

"Even more weird was the 1,348-foot-long Serpent Mound, which looked like an undulating snake atop a plateau overlooking Brush Creek. Watts said he believes that the native peoples saw the strange features in the land and were moved to build the mound, perhaps as a sacred monument. He said the native peoples were deeply attuned to the natural world [Again: "Indeed."].

“'It just begs the questions: Why would Native Americans lug tons of soil and shape it into a slithering serpent? Why would they choose to do so on the scar of an ancient impact when they had all of Ohio and the Midwest?' Watts said.

“'My guess is that they could have noticed something strange about the rocks. It has to be more than coincidence.'"



"Serpent Mound is located east of Cincinnati, off of highway 73. It is placed atop a ridge that over looks the Ohio Brush Creek. It is located in the Serpent Mound State Memorial and is accessible to the public."

Main text via Magpie, which followed up this Serpent Mound story with a long piece on the ayahuasa churches in Santa Fe, NM. Refer to my post about plants being the ultimate power tools to know more.

"Every roof under the Sunshould be covered with trees."

That was a quote from a book about Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

I've had that on the mental backburner since Saturday, and I just came upon a related eco-brief at Gapers Block. So let's consider how Hundertwasser's directive is being realized in Chicago... and what can be done in other major cities.


Chicago: The Green City
[as featured in Metropolis]

"Majora Carter writes a piece for New York Newsday, citing Chicago as the leader in the 'green city' movement." An excerpt from Carter's article follows:

"'Behind environmental innovation, there must be policy innovation; and behind policy innovation, there must be a strong mayor. Mayor Daley ensured that the dream of a greener Chicago became a reality because he charged his administration to come up with policies that actually have teeth.'

"Carter is the director of Sustainable South Bronx, which seeks a bicycle/pedestrian greenway along the South Bronx waterfront to provide open space, waterfront access, and opportunities for mixed-use economic development." Again, Carter wrote:

"Chicago has shown that the [environmental sustainability] debate isn't theoretical. Whether or not one believes that global warming is a serious threat, or that new landfill sites and fossil-fuel sources always will be available, those of us in communities like the South Bronx, southeast Queens and Greenpoint have to deal with these issues now. That's why grassroots activists have taken into our own hands the modeling of environmentally sound policy.

"We are advocating for green and cool roofs on top of our buildings; alternative transportation systems, such as greenways, that promote healthy lifestyles without polluting the air; and recycling industrial parks, in which one business' waste is another's raw material. These projects would save energy -- reducing the need for more and bigger power plants -- and prevent pollution and reduce waste."


See The Greening of The Windy City [PDF] for more about Chicago's environmental plan.

I'm huge (rather, my files are huge] in Europe

Lately, this image from my Fractalism archive has driven the daily bandwidth stats to all-new heights... because a DVD pirate in Europe has used it as his forum icon.

So while I had to cut that out, I wanted to let y'all see the image in question. There are two Fractal Domains images layered together, with some limited-palette color work done for good measure. It had been called Robot Avatar, but now I've given it the title Celestial Avatar. And that's that.

Reflections on the Observationof Planetary and Stellar Motion[Or: What I did on and beforeNational Astronomy Day]

"Saturn is the planet with the most rings.
Saturn has 30 moons.
Nine Earths could fit across its diameter."

With that last stat in mind,
contemplate the depth
of this image:



Five years ago, on the way to have dinner with some friends in Columbus, OH, I took my three-inch Celestron 'scope along for the ride. It was the early spring of 2000, probably a few weeks before Saturn and Jupiter's arcminutes-wide conjunction.

I had taken the telescope with me because I was quite interested in getting people to look up at the objects in the sky. The highlight that night was Saturn -- even though the Moon was out as well.

While we waited outside for our seats, I set up the tripod and set the sights on the pale dot that I knew was the planet. I recall being satisfied with myself for being able to get a bead on Saturn pretty quickly. At times, I have a problem catching sight of the Moon.

I gave my companions a look-see and enjoyed being a witness to their wonder. A young couple left the restaurant around that time, and they asked what we were looking at. When we replied Saturn, they were of course curious to know if the rings were visible. "Oh yeah..." might have been casual response.

The guy took a look first. I began my over-the-shoulder guidance: "Now, you'll need to tell me if you don't see anything, because it can go out of view pretty fast. The focusing knob is right below the eyepiece. You'll see the planet, and then you should make out the rings..."

[Even though I think it's obvious that there are rings around the planet, I've come to appreciate that for someone who's never looked through a telescope, what's there to be seen is quite unfamiliar. The size, contour and color of the planets aren't comparable to anything else in memory. Even when the object is the speckled Sun, people sometimes remark: "I just see a yellow circle... and I think there's something on your lens."]

The guy pulled up after a pause, and he looked at me with a little surprise. "Wait, did you put that in there?" He wanted to be sure that I hadn't pulled a joke on him; that I hadn't inserted a picture inside the lens.

"No, that's really it!" That he could actually see the rings of Saturn [not in the manner depicted in the linked photo, mind you] through a thin, aluminum tube that was set up in a parking lot probably did seem improbable. But, still, that's what he saw. His companion took a look and they seemed amazed. My friend Mary commented: "Wow, now I see how you can make so many friends doing this!" And then off we went to eat.

---

I began this practice of public planetgazing because, one night in 1998, on the corner of 4th Avenue and Clement Street in San Francisco, I saw two gentlemen with Dobsonian 'scopes asking people if they wanted to look at Jupiter.

The notion that two people would spend their time doing this in the middle of one of the largest and brightest cities in the country was novel, entertaining and (ultimately) instructive.

I read an article about John Dobson and the SF-based Sidewalk Astronomers a couple of years later. I don't remember that either one of the gentlemen mentioned that group, but I have little doubt that they weren't devoted to Dobson's ethic of sharing the wonder of space with the people.

[See: "I'm allergic to the Big Bang."]

I bought my own telescope -- the same one mentioned at the beginning -- when I moved back toNew Mexico in 1999. I had lived near Sedona, AZ, several months earlier, but I hadn't used anything more powerful than binoculars to scan the stars... and that UFO near the airport mesa [a whole other story].

I bought the telescope because I had enrolled in a couple of continuing-ed astronomy classes at Santa Fe Community College. There, I became reacquainted with the scientific aspects of the field, and I met many other enthusiasts. Living in the southewestern desert and reawakened my awareness of the cosmic environment, and having a telescope to peer into those dark skies was a revelatory experience. As I wrote in the text of my Skychurch page: "...I understood that I was not looking 'up' into 'the sky.' I was, in fact, gazing out across a planar surface that ran parallel to the Earth's equator."

It was during the time of my informal studies that I made arrangements to go to France to see the total solar eclipse that took place on August 11, 1999 [at 11:11, local time]. I remember talking with my instructor about getting proper solar filters, and he was a little aghast that I hadn't done that with only a few days before my departure. But I was living on a bit of an edge in those days...

Anyhow: I left New Mexico to return to Ohio in November -- maybe the day after observing Mercury's transit of the Sun. My instructor and I had our telescopes set up in the college plaza so that students and administrators who were walking about could have a look. I still have the contact timings sheet, somewhere...

I began two years of service with AmeriCorps a few months later. Since it was a K-5 afterschool program, you have to that know I often brought in my equipment.

One of the most meaningful memories comes from the end of my first year. I brought in the telescope because Jupiter was going to be just above the horizon around the time that the kids would be leaving. I had not had the chance to show them an actual planet.

There were four of us out in the front lot in the chilly air, trying get a look at Jupiter (and perhaps Saturn) through the branches and wires and streetlamp glow. They were patient, and I want to say that I heard them concocting tales of getting in spaceships and heading out into the expanse. I do remember that, at other times, a couple of them laid down knowledge and contemplation about the Sun and planets that showed how absorbent and sharp their minds were, despite the rote schooling they received.

The children's ready interest in these endeavors reminds me of an aspect of this "public outreach" that often leaves me bemused. And that is: I often have to invite people over -- work the crowd -- in order to get them to gaze across space. I told my Lady Friend that I might hang a sign from the tube to indicate that people are free to look [and that looking is free].

The observations one can make (and the reactions that one can receive) in these situations are almost as captivating as those to be made of the planets and Moon. The one that still gets me is when someone flatly says "No," without looking at me, the 'scope or the sky.

But I'll have to get into that later, because my time has run out.

"I'm allergic to the Big Bang." -- John Dobson

Dobson was mentioned in my earlier post on sidewalk astronomy.

"Today, as an old man with a strong constitution and an even stronger sense of purpose, John Dobson lives humbly and is supported by friends, in the style of an ascetic. He has shown immense care for life: once, he spent all his money supporting a friend who had contracted cancer, driving her regularly to Mexico for treatment. He also exhibits thoughtfulness for bugs and plants. His treatment of his students is a kind of tough love.

"No amount of exhaustion could take away John's contribution to amateur astronomy. He has inspired telescope builders worldwide, and greatly increased the power of telescopes used by amateur astronomers.

"His cosmology theories, [which counter conventional models], have also attracted a following. His theories blend Vedanta spirituality with his experiences watching the sky.

"I'm allergic to the Big Bang," he said.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Considering the completely uncommon rhythm of his name -- much less the style and breadth of his work -- I am really quite surprised that I had not heard of Hundertwasser until October. And I only yesterday came to have a higher appreciation for what he produced, after I browsed through a friend's book about him.*



"Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born in Vienna in 1928 as Friedrich Stowasser. He initially gained acclaim for his paintings, but is currently more renowned for his unique architectural stylings. His revolutionary ecological stands with regard to architecture earned him the nickname 'Architecture-Healer.' His works have been used for flags and stamps, coins and posters, schools and churches.

"In his youth, Hundertwasser attended a Montessori school in Vienna, which influenced both his affinity for vibrant colors and respect of nature. He collected pebbles and pressed flowers as a child, demonstrating an interest in items that are precious and small at an early age, which later manifested itself in his collections of Venetian glass and Japanese fabrics.

"Hundertwasser's only formal artistic training was during a three-month study at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna in 1948. The next year, he changed his name to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, which means "Peace-Kingdom Hundred-Water." Both names are uncommon in German-speaking countries."

Now back to the paintings...








* "The rigid, straight line is fundamentally alien
to humanity, life, and the whole of creation."

"Hundertwasser applied this philosophy not only to the famous Viennese buildings for which he was renowned, but all the media and artforms he experimented with during his wild and crazy career [He died in 2000 -- Ed.]. Whether it be painting, sculpture, performance art or designing a kindergarten, Hundertwasser's works are multi-coloured, organic, and shot through with a sense of the magical or fantastic.

"However, there are principles operating behind these joyful bursts of gold and silver. Hundertwasser's art always contained a political shade. He consistently rebelled against rationalist or determinist ideas, promoted ecological awareness, and mantained a passionate belief in the anarchy of the imagination."


This just in from Auntie M!

Hundertwassers regentag
[Hundertwasser's Rainy Day]
"The essence of the art of Friedensreich Hundertwasser captured on screen... Through subtle cross-fades, the painter's life and oeuvre merge in a magical, visual unity. Oscar nomination for Best Documentary in 1973."

An earlier take on totality

This image is from my fractal archive.

Dinner served with a dash of awakening

"Imagine walking into an upscale Indian restaurant, its menu filled with delectable-sounding choices like Malabar avocado and coconut soup (made with plain yogurt, cumin, and lemon juice and served with fresh cilantro chutney and whole wheat chapatis) and drinks like the Saffron Sandalwood Fizz (lime juice and pure water, cooled overnight by the light of the moon). You sit down with friends and enjoy a delicious, Ayurvedic vegetarian meal, served with a smile. Then you finish, feeling satisfied, and signal for the bill — but none comes. This scenario is not merely a fantasy: At Annalakshmi, you decide what to order and how much to pay.

"Inspired by Swami Shantanand — a Hindu monk from Rishikesh, India, who came to Southeast Asia in the early 1970s — the small international restaurant chain operates with an uncommon trust in humanity: that people will pay what is fair because we are inherently good and because it is in our own best karmic interests to give. Although its concept may sound too idealistic to stand a chance, Annalakshmi has been in business for 19 years, and has thriving outposts in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and India. And now it’s geared up to open its first eatery in the United States — in an as-yet-undetermined spot in San Francisco.

"Behind the scenes is a 35-year-old Marina District woman named Lalitha Vaidyanathan, who, late last year, quit her job as a co-founder and vice president at SquareTrade, a company that facilitates fair online sales, to pursue the restaurant’s local development full time.

“'I always felt like Annalakshmi has so much to offer people beyond just food,' she explains. 'It really provides a whole new way of seeing the world and its possibilities. I felt that San Francisco would be a perfect place to open one. Why not? I figure if it’s meant to happen it will. I have complete trust in whatever’s meant to be.'"

"One of the reasons Annalakshmi — named after the Hindu concept of abundance — has succeeded is because it is run mostly by volunteers, themselves called Annalakshmis. 'People naturally want to volunteer because it allows them to tap into something divine within themselves,' says Vaidyanathan. 'The human heart and its inherent generosity is the secret force behind Annalakshmi. There is nothing wrong with making money, but it’s also nice to give in a way that does not seek returns.'"

Liquid moonscapes... maybe

"The first object in the night sky most of us ever saw, the Moon remains a mystery. Haunted by poets, looked upon by youngsters in love, studied intensely by astronomers for four centuries, examined by geologists for the last 50 years, walked upon by twelve humans, this is Earth's satellite.

"And as we look towards the Moon with thoughts of setting up a permanent home there, one new question is paramount: does the Moon have water? Although none has been definitely detected, recent evidence suggests that it's there."

Context-Free Design Grammar[You know: words as image data]

Says Chris Coyne: "CFDG is a very simple programming language I made for generating pictures. You write a text file as an input (a .cfdg file), and it spits out a graphic (usually a .png file)."

Hybrid eclipse '05: a few more views

By Harry Martin in St. Croix, USVI


By Bren Harrison in Auckland, New Zealand


By Kenji Karasaki in David, Panama


See "Eclipse stylistics, the real deal" for the rest of the story.

Turning back to Saturn, we find...

"N00032099.jpg was taken on April 13, 2005 and received on Earth April 14, 2005. The camera was pointing toward SATURN F-RING at approximately 1,081,479 kilometers away."


"N00031214.jpg was taken on April 12, 2005 and received on Earth April 13, 2005. The camera was pointing toward PANDORA [really? where?] at approximately 1,472,417 kilometers away."


"W00006052.jpg was taken on April 12, 2005 and received on Earth April 12, 2005. The camera was pointing toward SATURN RINGS at approximately 1,496,744 kilometers away."

New insights about Earth and its people

"Two new lines of evidence bolster the claim that the oldest known member of the human-evolutionary family lived in central Africa between 6 million and 7 million years ago."


"A project spanning five continents is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA. The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised."

Meanwhile...
"Perhaps petroglyphs might be a way (besides linguistics and genetics) to trace the migrations of ancient peoples."


Finally:

"A tiny speck of zircon crystal that is barely visible to the eye is believed to be the oldest known piece of Earth at about 4.4 billion years old."