The Sunday Morning Muse, August 11, 2013

I'm back!  It's taken a little longer than I had anticipated but I'm here.  I missed you all. Summer is flying by at an alarming rate.  It's already time for the Perseids meteor shower.  Now you can "listen" to the meteors, courtesy of Spaceweather radio. When you head outside to look for shooting stars, put your earbuds in and plug into into the internet and there you go. Personally I would prefer some kind of trippy music. The kind they play in places where you get massage or Reiki.  But it's a cool thing.

In other news, lately I've found myself returning again and again online to Andy Warhol's grave. Usually a graveyard livecam would be pretty dull. What could you see in a graveyard? But someone tied balloons to the grave for his birthday and they flutter around, so you are aware it is a live cam and not a still shot.  Also, I've seen people come to visit. They sometimes put things on the grave, or take pictures. One idiot was on a cell phone and mugging for the camera so I suspect he was more interested in having his friends "see" him at the grave on their computers than showing respect for Warhol.

Which brings me to my feelings on this whole thing. I feel sorry for the families of the other dead people around him. I wonder how they feel knowing that the eternal resting place of their loved one is monitored 24/7 on the internet? Also, how would Andy view this?  Is this parade of visitors better than no visitors at all? Does this all matter anyway because he is dead? Is it a tribute to his life or an invasion of his death?

You can turn up the volume and "listen" too. I hear birds mostly. And the muffled voices of the gawkers and picture takers and occasional car motor noises. Then the sounds of silence. Peace.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 29, 2012

Musing the moon today...pondering moon colonies, moon pies... and it all makes me want to spoon.... by the light of the silvery moon.

When the moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars.....peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.It's is a marvelous night for a moondance, and a fantabulous night to make romance.

 Did it take long to find me...I ask the faithful light? Did it take long to find me...and are you gonna stay the night?

I'm being followed by a moon shadow. I have been since second grade when I had to write a poem about what I want to be when I grow up. (I want to fly to the moon and be back by noon.)

 Do I want to live on the moon?  No. I'd be pretty claustrophobic in that space suit. But the moon is sure nice to look at, and dream upon.  And it would be a great launching point someday to other places. So, as much as it sounds like we can't afford it right now, and I have to stipulate I do not support Newt Gingrich for any office higher than dog catcher.....he's onto something here. I say let's go for it. To the moon, Alice!  To the moon.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 8, 2011

Today is Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday. What a remarkable man.  I used to have this CD- ROM that went along with The Brief History of Time. It has this little of graphic of him in his wheel chair sort of guiding you through the universe.  I read that the way he communicates now is through a willful movement of his cheek to select words. Sometimes it can take several minutes to form a sentence.  Amazing. Yet somehow he has found a deep sense of life in the present moment. When he could no longer move his hands to figure equations, he trained his mind to think them through.
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(from Wikipedia)


In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved.

The Pale Blue Dot, Again

Once again I find myself fixated on Voyager I. I can't get the image of the earth, taken from 4 billion miles away in 1990 out of my mind. Just a speck. Now Voyager is approaching the end of our solar system...the edge between the system and what is really the space that exists out there among the stars. The camera onboard was turned off years ago...because there is nothing to see. Voyager is measuring the solar wind and still sending back useful information. Because until now, we could only guess at where the "outer" space really begins.
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This little man made contraption has travelled about 33 million miles a year, since 1977 and is out THERE further than anything has ever been. Ever. And everything we ever were, are and maybe ever will be...is that little speck.

Easter Rabbit Super Moon

I got the right day now for the Super Moon. So I thought, what a great once in twenty year opportunity....go out and get a decent picture of the city with this huge moon hanging over it.

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I took 35 pictures and they sucked. I used fancy camera settings in low light, which means you have to hold down the thing longer.... and I shook so bad the moon light looks like demons flying over the city. Humph. Switched settings and all I got was a normal looking white spot. The city was so dark by this time all I had was Kaliedoscope-type lights...unrecognizable as any city on this planet.

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So I gave up. Came in and pointed the camera out the front window where there is far too many Easter decorations for my taste, (not my doing), and I shot it without any creative thought or planning. Came in here and prissed it up with PhotoShop and here you have it. My mediocre attempt to participate in this Super Moon thing.

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Oh I would love to be on a beach somewhere planning these shots of people you see on the internet...with the moon as a ball they are holding in their hand, etc. Neat stuff. I admire the work.

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For now, I'm left with Easter Rabbit.

Big Moon Risin' Out My Window

Moon pictures tonight taken from my desk at home.

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Tonight's a big night for the moon. It won't be this big in about 20 years and it will be 30 percent brighter.

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(left) Moon Glow

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(right) Moon Over Chopstick

Update: Oops. The "big" moon is actually Saturday night. I will get to try again. (I thought it didn't look much bigger! Oh well.)

Pale Blue Dot

400 Years of the Telescope

If you are home Friday night, don't miss the PBS Special 400 Years of the Telescope.

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(from the Post Gazette) - Watch the Video Trailer Here.

Since Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) first turned his primitive spyglass on the heavens in 1609, it has moved the Earth from the center of the universe. A new PBS documentary, "400 Years of the Telescope: A Journey of Science, Technology and Thought," is poised to shed light on the telescope's contribution to our understanding of the cosmos. It will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Friday on WQED-TV.The film is part of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 that commemorates the anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope for astronomical purposes in 1609. Subsequent telescopic observations disproved the widely held belief that Earth was the center of the universe; rather, our planet is one of eight major bodies that orbit the sun with a congregation of other objects that include minor planets, asteroids and comets.

Look Up in the Sky Monday

Alert! Get the binoculars out Monday December 1st at twilight... or just look toward the moon just after sunset... you will see Jupiter and Venus and a crescent moon all together in a beautiful little group! Read more about it. -
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Also on Monday evening, you may be able to see the full globe of the moon, its darkened portion glowing with a bluish-gray hue interposed between the sunlit crescent and not much darker sky. This vision is sometimes called "the old moon in the young moon's arms." Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first to recognize it as what we now call "earthshine."

Solstice Moon

Neatorama has a great post on the Solstice Moon that will be out tomorrow night. (Two days before the Solstice)





They are saying it will be the "biggest" moon you will see in a long time!

Happy Earth Day

I Remember the Red Barn, Not Much Else

It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything. ----Unknown

There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good.
--Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, March 10, 2008

On the news the other night was a story about this guy who could remember EVERYTHING. He could tell you what he ate for lunch on a specific day, 40 years ago at the Red Barn. (He also knew what the weather was like, who he was with, and what else he did that day. )
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It wasn't quite clear what disorder he had, but they showed him on a call in radio show where people would try to "stump" him.

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To me, forgetfulness is a blessing. Everyone has days they would rather forget. Things that were said that ought to be forgotten. People who enter your life and then pass out of it, usually for a very good reason. Forgetting the past is part of the healing of old wounds, too. I try to remember the good times I had with some people and not all the crap. If I could remember every hurtful word or wrongful act, well, I'd just rather NOT.

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But then again there are times you would love to remember and cannot. I've kept a journal since I was a teenager. When I go back and read a page here or there it is amazing - it's like reading about the life of a stranger. There are names I would never recognize, let alone recall on my own. And there is always a lot of emotion when you come across something that really meant a lot to you at the time... enough to write it down, and now, all these years later you can re-live that brief moment, feel those same feelings, and maybe even remember just a little bit, like a little journey back in time.

Eclipse from My Yard

Really cool..... the reddish tint is too hard to capture with my camera. This is already magnified 8 times when I took it and even more when I put it in Photoshop.But still can't see the red.

9:20 PM

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But it's my moon. :)

The Sunday Morning Muse, February 10, 2008

Last night's moon was really strange....a bottom cresent that was really bright and was in an unusual part of my view from my yard. So unusual that a neighbor, who didn't even recognize the moon through the bare, winter trees that obscured it somewhat, came over and asked me if someone put a tower in the woods up on the hill. The point here, is that the moon wasn't where it normally was, looking as it normally should....albiet, the spooky, dark woods played a part in it too. This caused concern.

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It is with this in mind that I read this story at Space.com about how a lunar eclipse saved Christopher Columbus and his crew who were starving at the time, stranded in Jamaica. Knowledge is a powerful thing. And Columbus had enough wits about him to use his knowledge.... in the form of an almanac of astrological tables.... to dupe the God Fearing natives into providing food for his men.

Columbus, of course, had a copy of the Almanac with him when he was stranded on
Jamaica. And he soon discovered from studying its tables that on the evening of
Thursday, Feb. 29, 1504, a total eclipse of the moon would take place soon after
the time of moonrise.
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Armed with this knowledge, three days before the eclipse, Columbus asked for a meeting with the natives Cacique ("chief") and announced to him that his Christian god was angry with his people for no longer supplying Columbus and his men with food. Therefore, he was about to provide a clear sign of his displeasure: Three nights hence, he would all but obliterate the rising full moon, making it appear "inflamed with wrath," which would signify the evils that would soon be inflicted upon all
of them.

The story gets even better as Columbus's God.... not only "follows through" with his sign, but on cue, returns the moon to normal afterward:

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"His god" was a sandglass that Columbus turned every half hour to time the
various stages of the eclipse, based on the calculations provided by
Regiomontanus' almanac.
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Just moments before the end of the total phase Columbus reappeared, announcing to the natives that his god had pardoned them and would now allow the moon to gradually return. And at that moment, true to Columbus' word, the moon slowly began to reappear and as it emerged from the Earth's shadow, the grateful
natives hurried away. They then kept Columbus and his men well supplied and well
fed until a relief caravel from Hispaniola finally arrived on June 29, 1504.
Columbus and his men returned to Spain on Nov. 7.

I call it a triumph of science.

Chariots of the Gods

Remember this book? I do. As a kid my father and uncle both read it and talked about it. Unsolved mysteries.... the pyramids, cave paintings and such. Something clicked in my head and I remembered the book as I was listening to Coast to Coast AM. Giorgio Tsoukalos was being interviewed early Monday morning about ancient astronauts and I heard him mention some cave art that pictured more than just buffalo hunting.

Wikipedia:

Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past is a book written in 1968 by Erich von Däniken. It is centered on the hypothesis that many ancient civilizations' technologies and religion were given to them by space travelers who were welcomed as gods.

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The types of evidence he cites can be categorized as follows:

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Artifacts have been found which represent higher technological knowledge than is presumed to have existed at times when they were manufactured. Von Däniken maintains that these artifacts were produced either by extraterrestrial visitors or by humans who learned the necessary knowledge from them. Such artifacts include the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, the head statues of Easter Island and the Antikythera mechanism. Further examples include a medieval map known as the Piri Reis Map, allegedly showing the Earth as it is seen from space, and the Nazca lines in Peru, which he explains as landing strips for an airfield.
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In ancient art throughout the world themes can be observed which can be interpreted to illustrate astronauts, air and space vehicles, non-human but intelligent creatures, and artifacts of high technology. Von Däniken also points out details that are similar in art of unrelated cultures.

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Wall painting: Val Camonica, Italy
Source: http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientastronauts.html

As We Begin the Holiday Season. . .

This is a great message right now. Thank you Suki for sharing it with me. It speaks volumes. I searched around to find out the explanation for the various symbols that make up the COEXIST bumper sticker. Here goes:

(from www.stampandshout.org)

Every letter has a symbol that represents a system of thought: The crescent and star for Islam; the pentagram for Wicca; the relativity formula for science; the star of David for Judaism; the Karma Wheel dotting the i for Buddhism; the Tao symbol for Taoism; the cross for Chrisitianity.

Here Comes the Sun... la la la la la..

Sometimes you find some pretty neat things looking up other things. Remember a while back I posted about the Death Clock? Well, get out, there is a Life Clock, that shows Earth's clock of life in a way that even Huckabee (who is running for President) can understand it. You see, he believes the Earth is 6 thousand years old. I wish I was kidding about that. You can easily Google him yourself if you don't believe me.

Anyhow, in a nutshell, Earth is about 4.5 BILLION years old. And some scientists calculate that the death of Earth is about 7.5 BILLION years away.

snip

"The last life may look much like the first life – a single-celled bacterium, survivor and descendant of all that came before," the authors write. Finally, even the surviving microbes "will be seared out of existence."
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The Life and Death of Planet Earth" is like its predecessor, "Rare Earth," in that the authors collected and distilled some of the latest scientific ideas about the Earth's place in the universe, Brownlee said. He hopes the new book, like "Rare Earth," will spark widespread discussion, and give people a fundamental and realistic view of the past and future of their planet.

"It's a healthy thing to think of the place of Earth among the other planets, and its place in the sun. The sun gave life and ultimately it will bring death."

Well.... so much for a happy ending.

If Man is Still Alive... If Woman Can Survive

What will the human race, if it still exists, look like in the year 3000? Or even further out... say 10 thousand years? For some reason, I see us living back in caves. I'm not sure why. Maybe my fear of some future destruction.... caused by asteroids or maybe weapons of mass destruction. I'm not sure.

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Something to think about as we continue on this path of evolution. It has been suggested that we will have reached our peak in selection for physical characteristics in the year 3000.

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A report commissioned for TV Channel Bravo goes on to say humans will live up to 120 years and be 6 - 7 feet tall.

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"Physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates, says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic surgery and other body modifying techniques will effectively homogenise our appearance.

Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises...

Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts...

Racial differences will be a thing of the past as interbreeding produces a single coffee-coloured skin tone. "

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The rather silly study borrows a theory from H. G. Wells that eventually we will split into two different races. This is way out, though. Tens of thouands of years. An "attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures."

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Given that we don't lose all our hair because of radiation when the nukes fly, I wouldn't mind the future... with smooth, naturally hairless, tanned skin. No more shaving! Oh, and I look pretty good with that glossy hair! I can see my New Year's Eve 3000 date now.... his name will be Lurch. He's the tall, symmetrical- faced guy with the low voice who poses for Playgirl Magazine.

We can go back to my cave for drinks.

Some Sage Advice from Carl

Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. - Carl Sagan

Something to think about today.

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In this crazy world of talk radio idiots, Fox News, and any other TV programs that focus on the day's tedious and boring arguments---like who owes an apology to whom, which religious group claims the high moral ground that day, and all the brain numbing shouting and name-calling that goes with it-- it is easy to get discouraged.

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No one seems to be focused on the big picture anymore. I salute the scientists out there in their labs late at night, quietly plugging away at their numbers, doing experiments, and seeking real answers to the big questions here in our part of the universe. We could sure use more Carl Sagans.

Past Life Regression - You Decide

I found this picture in a photo album here at the house. I thought it was just perfect for my post tonight about past life regression. An unidentified woman following a dark figure down a path. As with anything that has no definitive explanation, there are several theories about what occurs during past life regression. You can choose to believe it is reincarnation, genetic "memory" passed from cell structures through generations, or even just a fantasy. Nevertheless, something does happen during a regression, and the belief is that it can bring a person an emotional release.

When I had it done many years ago, I experienced the strange sense of being under a sort of hypnosis. It would be easy to shrug it off as simply that, but I felt as if the person who led me through the regression sort of took me down a path by asking open ended questions and I filled in the blanks. It was blissful to just let your mind go.

The way it worked, I was in a group lying on the floor of a classroom and the leader, for lack of better word, put us into a very comfortable, relaxing state and gently pushed us back through our current life's memorable moments. (Graduation, 16th Birthday, First Day of School, etc.) Eventually we went back to the very earliest thoughts we could think of, and then.... the suspension of belief, as the questions led us to the most important moment in the life before this one. All this time we "answered" the questions in our own minds instead of aloud, but every once in a while he would walk over to someone and ask what that person was "seeing" or "hearing" at the moment and it quickly became apparent that some people were having no success at all... some seemed to be making up things or showing obvious frustration at not being successful. Or quitting altogether.

Coming in as the skeptic, no one was more shocked than me to find I was experiencing, quite out of my own control, an unexpected sequence of events in this 'past life' I had entered. When asked to 'look around" and say aloud what I saw.... I saw nothing but a pair of yellow boots on my feet, and water below, as if I was on a bridge. I couldn't look up, or side to side or really anywhere. I had no idea what was going on.

The leader was fascinated by that, and came over for a more personal intervention. We 'exited' that particular 'moment' in this past life and he asked me to go to another 'important moment' in that life to see what we could learn. A series of questions revealed that I was 12 years old and living in 1902. My parents were dead and, as I sat in a wooden windowbox seat looking at a stone bridge over water out in the distance, I could hear relatives arguing over what they were going to do about me. It seemed no one wanted me. I started to cry at this point and was quite embarrassed, so the leader asked me to let this go, and instead we would go to the very last moment of this life to see how it ended.

All of a sudden--- all I could see was those yellow boots again, and the water below. This was where I had entered this life the first time....and by chance, it happened to be the last moment in that life! I had never looked up again. And those boots were the last thing I saw before I went under the water and drowned!

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Strange stuff, huh? You can't make this up. Or maybe you can. I don't know.
Past life? Fantasy? You decide. I haven't.