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Ten ways to love your body more
— Rachel Fleischman http://dancingyourbliss.com |
23 August 2011
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Habit and surprise “We are creatures of habit...If we were not such creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn’t have reason to be astonished half so often...It’s this same habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of better things, in Lucifer’s own pride and stubbornness—that confirms and deepens others of us in villainy—more of us in indifference—that hardens us from day to day, according to the temper of our clay, like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions and convictions... “How will many things that are familiar, and quite matters of course to us now, look, when we come to see them from that new and distant point of view which we must all take up, one day or other? ” — Mr. Morfin of Dombey & Son, speaking words put in his mouth by Charles Dickens |
22 August 2011
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The source of all that is The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that any isolated system becomes more and more disordered over time, until the available energy spreads out and animates every particle therein with its equal share. This state of undistinguished uniformity is called ‘thermodynamic equilibrium.’ How can it be that the universe started out in thermodynamic equilibrium with a maximum entropy, and yet entropy has grown larger and larger as the universe expands? In fact, the process of creating new entropy (in a universe that started out having as much as it was possible to have) is responsible for everything that’s interesting in our universe: stars, galaxies, chemistry, life... The topic may sound too esoteric for you to be interested, but it is, in the end, the subject that offers deep insights into what is, and suggestions about the long-term future. Physicists can’t agree on how to apply thermodynamic ideas in the presence of gravity. (This was the subject of a famous bet between uber-physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne.) The essential issue (as this unter-physicist sees it) is that the science of thermodynamics was developed in the context where there is a fixed total amount of energy. This is, in fact, called the ‘First Law of Thermodynamics.’ But with gravity, you can get more and more energy, the closer things approach to each other. The expansion of the universe is continually creating opportunities for things to come (back) together and create new, usable energy for free. If classical physics held sway, the amount of this energy source would be infinite. Once any body of mass collapsed under its own gravitation beyond a certain point, there would be no force that could resist its further collapse, down to a point of zero size, yielding an infinity of free energy in the process. But with the modified law of gravitation discovered by Einstein, the collapse is to a black hole of finite size, and the total energy released is enormous but finite. What is the entropy of a black hole? Can the mass/energy tied up in a black hole ever escape? And if it ever does, does it retain any memory whatever of its history before it fell into the black hole? These questions have become subject for obsessive rumination and meticulous computation by the dazzling and increasingly isolated mind of Stephen Hawking. — Josh Mitteldorf |
21 August 2011
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Blessing May we reveal our abundance without shame. — Lisa Colt |
20 August 2011
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George Enescu born this day in 1881, composed passionate, mysterious sounds characteristic of Romanian folk music. Listen to his student, Yehudi Menuhin, and Menuhin’s sister Hepzibah play the Violin Sonata #3, Op 25. |
19 August 2011
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Computer searches for drug applications ‘Bringing a new drug to market typically takes about $1 billion, and many years of research and development,’ said Rochelle M. Long, Ph.D., who directs the NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network. ‘If we can find ways to repurpose drugs that are already approved, we could improve treatments and save both time and money.’ For the first time ever, scientists are using computers and genomic information to predict new uses for existing medicines. They’re using a database of gene expression associated with various diseases, matching that against the gene expression profile in response to known medications. Where the two are nearly complementary, there is a good chance a new use will be found for an old drug. So far, Long and her team have produced some candidate uses for drugs that pan out in animal tests and petri dishes. ‘This work is still at an early stage, but it is a promising proof of principle for a creative, fast and affordable approach to discovering new uses for drugs we already have in our therapeutic arsenal,’ Long said. |
18 August 2011
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Born on a mountain top I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized. — Davy Crockett, born this day in 1785, was not re-elected to Congress after he opposed President Andrew Jackson’s program of “removing” Native Americans from lands that American settlers wished to colonize. I leave this rule for others when I’m dead: |
17 August 2011
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Hierophany Definition: an eruption of the sacred into everyday realms (thanks to Wendy Babiak) |
16 August 2011
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Song of a man who has come through Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! * The Hesperides are three nymphs who tend a sacred garden at the edge of the world in the West. Their garden has a tree that produces magical golden apples of immortality. The three nymphs are usually associated with night, the mystery and magic of night. They embody all that the imagination envisions at the precipice of existence, the edge of the world, the edge of the night, the edge of life and death. It would take a heroic journey just to reach their garden, but it might open us to wonders. |
15 August 2011
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Conviction 40 years ago, Thomas Nagel responded in an essay The Absurd to the thrust of the French Existential movement. Life’s absurdity is the passion and inventive energy with which we go about pursuing temporary escapes from our mortality, or following the dictates of a logic built on arbitrary premises. Camus maintains in The Myth of Sisyphus that the absurd arises because the world fails to meet our demands for meaning. This suggests that the world might satisfy those demands if it were different. But now we can see that this is not the case. There does not appear to be any conceivable world (containing us) about which unsettlable doubts could not arise... In other words, every conceivable world must be absurd. This seems to me to be a failure of imagination. Would we feel life
was meaningless if our minds were engaged with multiple others in a
never-ending intellectual expansion, merger and discovery? Would we take
time to worry about absurdity if life served us continual orgasmic
pleasure? Would we complain about insubstantial logical foundations if
our intuitive faculties were continually being trained and developed to
sense new dimensions of reality and ever finer subtleties of existence? So, let’s get to work building community. — Josh Mitteldorf |
14 August 2011
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We are all together, but walk like orphans. |
13 August 2011
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The Varieties of Secular Experience I have a friend, an analytic philosopher and convinced atheist, who told me that she sometimes wakes in the middle of the night, anxiously turning over a series of ultimate questions: “How can it be that this world is the result of an accidental big bang? How could there be no design, no metaphysical purpose? Can it be that every life—beginning with my own, my husband’s, my child’s, and spreading outward—is cosmically irrelevant?” In the current intellectual climate, atheists are not supposed to have such thoughts. We are locked into our rival certainties—religiosity on one side, secularism on the other—and to confess to weakness on this order is like a registered Democrat wondering if she is really a Republican, or vice versa. These are theological questions without theological answers, and, if the atheist is not supposed to entertain them, then, for slightly different reasons, neither is the religious believer... — read more from James Wood, writing in the New Yorker this week |
12 August 2011
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Words for departure Be together; eat, dance, despair, — Louise Bogan, born this day in 1897 (Entire poem here) |
11 August 2011
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Adapted to take shark bites in stride Dolphins have frequent encounters with sharks, it turns out, and they are well-adapted to recover from them. They don’t lose much blood, they don’t suffer a great deal of pain, and their mauled and mangled bodies recover within weeks to smooth, un-scarred perfection. We associate this kind of ability to regenerate new and healthy tissue with axolotls and zebrafish; but here is a ‘higher’ animal that can recover quickly and fully from devastating injuries.
World Science article ...meanwhile 61-year-old Diana Nyad has abandoned her 104-mile swim across the Caribbean after swimming ‘only’ 52 miles. |
10 August 2011
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“The People demand social justice.” That’s the slogan, the chant of more than 300,000 people in dozens of
sites across Israel. And just maybe, the State of Israel is now entering
the third chapter of its history as independent. |
9 August 2011
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‘A
man’s thoughts is like the winds, and nobody can’t answer for ’em
for certain, any length of time together.’ Quite often we find ourselves with many negative thoughts going
through our mind. These trains of thoughts can become very powerful as
we endlessly repeat them in our mind. The problem is that that the more
we focus on the thoughts, the more powerful they become. Therefore, it
can become very difficult to stop these endless cycles of thoughts. |
8 August 2011
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The limits of reason Does reason possess innate validity, or is it merely a human faculty among others, evolved for its usefulness in a historic domain of experience? What gives us confidence that correct reasoning about the world will lead to correct conclusions? The story of science is that we have sought to apply our intelligence far outside the realm in which it was evolved to function, and it has served us unaccountably well. This has encouraged us to extend its application yet further, and well we might do so, full of hope and optimism until that day on which its limits become all too obvious. At that point we may be glad that we have simultaneously nurtured within ourselves an appreciation of mystery. — Josh Mitteldorf |
7 August 2011
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The Fifth Precept Do not accumulate wealth while millions are hungry. Do not take as the
aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply
and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in
need. This is an area of my life in which I have little clarity and much ambivalence. I have a sense that not all the confusion is my own, because the rules and social organization around wealth in America are not conducive to peace of mind, and they complicate the cultivation of personal virtues. I give you Thich’s words without comment, and invite you to write and share stories of what has worked for you. All of Thich’s precepts have the potential to be all-consuming if they are taken literally, but I don’t believe that they were written simply to hold out an unattainable ideal. |
6 August 2011
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The Real Work It may be that when we no longer know what to do To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart. - WB |
5 August 2011
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Holding for takeoff - turtles on the runway On June 29, more than 150 diamondback terrapins scuttled across Runway No. 4 [at JFK airport], delaying landings, halting takeoffs, foiling air traffic controllers, crippling timetables and snarling traffic for hours... The myth of our sprawly, paved-over cities and towns is that we’ve
driven native animals out and stolen their habitat. Not entirely true.
We may drain the marshes, level forests and replace meadows with malls,
exiling some animals. But, because we also need nature, we create a new
ecology that happens to be very hospitable to wild animals. In some
ways, it’s more inviting than wilderness. We install ponds, lawns,
groves of edible trees. We leave garbage on the curb and design
flowerbeds that are well-watered and well-fed, serving a smorgasbord of
delicacies. — from an
Op-ed by Diane Ackerman |
4 August 2011
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Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s’avisa de dire: Ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile. Que de crimes, de guerres, de meurtres, que de misères et d’horreurs n’eût point épargnés au genre humain celui qui, arrachant les pieux ou comblant le fossé, eût crié à ses semblables: Gardez-vous d’écouter cet imposteur; vous êtes perdus, si vous oubliez que les fruits sont à tous, et que la terre n’est à personne. The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying: This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
3 August 2011
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Primary Wonder Days pass when I forget the mystery. ~ Denise Levertov |
2 August 2011
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Why is it so hard? We may be stuck forever trying to appreciate the voice of Marian Anderson or Caruso through noisy, wobbly recordings. But for piano masters of the past there is, in theory, a remedy. A human voice carries a continuous range of subtle inflection, tone color, intonation and volume from one moment to the next. A clarinet or violin voice is able to express with just as much control and continuity. But a piano sound, in theory, can be simply represented. For each note there are just three numbers (1) the time of the attack, (2) the velocity of the hammer when it strikes the string, and (3) the time of the release (when the damper falls back to the string, stopping the sound). If a typical 4-minute piano piece has 2,000 notes in it, then any performance with all its subtlety should be completely captured in a computer file of just 6,000 numbers. For comparison, an mp3 file of this 4-minute performance might contain a million numbers. Zenph is a company that has tried to take this idea and run with it. There are many thousands of scratchy, noisy old mono recordings of the great pianists of the 20th Century - Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rubenstein, Dohnanyi. With computer analysis of the sound, it should be possible to extract from these recordings the times and velocity for each note, and to play them back on a modern Diskclavier, exactly as the original artist had performed them. A recording can be made of a 1920 performance, perfectly recreated in a modern sound studio. The results are pretty good — but not perfect. When I read Edward Rothstein’s review in the NYTimes, I thought his complaints must be at a finer level of nuance than I was capable of hearing. But no — he’s correct. There’s still something missing in the original pianist’s artistry that is not captured in these recordings. Rothstein suggests that it is the feedback between artist and acoustic environment that is missing: every competent pianist — let a lone a master — continually adjusts his pressure on the key based on what he hears. He automatically plays a piano more lightly when it is too loud, and shortens notes if the instrument and room are too resonant. Could it be that this is what we are missing? Watch Joshua
Bell on YouTube, accompanied by ‘Rachmaninoff’ |
1 August 2011
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Was die mode streng geteilt Every day we navigate dozens of commercial interactions, ritualized negotiations with strangers that enable us to buy a quart of milk or turn left at a crowded intersection. More complicated is the tact required at work: avoiding the wrath of a vindictive boss or the subversion of a jealous colleague. We’ve learned well the rules of engagement, and we survive reliably, even when we grumble. What happens when we get home and we long to reach out and touch someone? The rules that keep us from strangling each other in utilitarian interactions have become a habit, and they tend to insulate us from the deeper interactions that nourish our souls. Social relationships float comfortably on the surface. We need help breaking through a formality that has become all too comfortable, and we need encouragement to trust and to drop our façades of courteous but shallow expression. Inviting intimacy without exposing those around you to discomfort is an art.
Inevitably, there will be times when you frighten people inadvertently.
Experiment. Keep laughing. Find ways to be vulnerable yourself without imposing on your
invitee. Be aware of signals from people around you, however awkward, that suggest they may be open to a deeper level of connection. — Josh Mitteldorf |
31 July 2011
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The art of whimsy meets the art of recycling Leo Sewell grew up near a dump. He has played with junk now for fifty years and has developed his own assemblage technique. His works are collected by corporations, museums and individuals throughout the world. Leo continues to cull the refuse of Philadelphia out of which he fashions pieces of all sizes, from a lifesize housecat to a 40 foot installation. His sculptures are composed of recognizable objects of plastic, metal and wood. These objects are chosen for their color, shape, texture, durability and patina; then they are assembled using nails, bolts, and screws. The outdoor sculptures are constructed of stainless steel, brass, or aluminum found objects which are welded together. |
30 July 2011
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“Pray as though everything depended on God.
— Saint Augustine |
29 July 2011
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Moonrise I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk
of the morning: — Gerard Manley Hopkins, born this day in 1844 |
28 July 2011
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Mindfulness meditation Among the meditative practices I’ve explored, Vipassana seems the one that is most easily seen as a principled way of exploring the structure of one’s experience and the one most easily separated from a religious or soteriological context... The general principle in Vipassana is to train one’s attention through focus on a particular object and, once this is well-trained, to use it to observe the unfolding of experience. It’s effectively a systematic way of noticing experience. The breath is typically the chosen focus. As far as I can tell, this choice is semi-arbitrary but has a number of advantages. Apart from the comforting stamp of tradition, the breath is both ever-present but also changes with emotional and mental state, giving a good starting ground both for training concentration and for training mindfulness of the multiple aspects of one’s state. — from an article by Richidev Chaudhuri |
27 July 2011
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Details, details... What if all that mattered in a life, all that stuck in the mind or pulled at the heart, were the well-defined events and decisions: where to live, what to do for a living, when to get married, whether to go to war? What would we miss? Almost everything that makes a life worth living. We want not just actions and consequences, victories and defeats, but dragonflies and paperclips, daydreams and counterfactual syllogisms. And perhaps poetry—that verbal art form without obvious consequence, whose shapes are not the shapes of events and plots—best suits those apparently negligible phenomena: if it cannot preserve them, it can at least show how we care. — Stephen Burt, reviewing Alan Peterson’s poetry in Boston Review |
26 July 2011
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Fundamental benignity The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity. Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother’s own heart. — Paul Brunton (Hermit in the Himalayas: The Journal of a Lonely Exile) |
25 July 2011
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Affirmation Suggest to your subconscious the changes that you consciously seek. Affirmations can be repeated aloud with the encouragement of a friend; or they can be repeated during meditation, as a mantra; or they can be written out longhand, over and over, with or without verbal reinforcement. A good affirmation will contradict your conditioned, pessimistic beliefs. As you say or write it, you will feel silly, and think the opposite. Notice that that is happening, without letting it get in your way. You can create affirmations for yourself, but it is best to get help from a friend whose hang-ups are quite different from your own. Devising your own affirmation, it might come out, My leg is healing quickly. while a friend who is completely outside your mode of thought might suggest instead: I am dancing, light and free! Affirmations about the outside world may seem a bit more mystical, or even superstitious. The truth is that the line between inside and out is not so clearly defined, and affirmations about outside circumstances — even political events — are well worth a try. Think big. Think broadly. Go beyond what will ‘solve your problem’ to what will provide lasting satisfaction and deep fulfillment Perhaps not I will win the lottery. but rather I am engaged and effective. People everywhere appreciate my contribution. Don’t be careful to limit yourself to realistic goals, but stretch your imagination instead. People everywhere are realizing their shared vision, finding their common destiny in peace and cooperation. — Josh Mitteldorf |
24 July 2011
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A message from the emperor The emperor—it is said—sent to you, the one apart, the wretched subject, the tiny shadow that fled far, far from the imperial sun, precisely to you he sent a message from his deathbed. He bade the messenger kneel by his bed, and whispered the message in his ear. So greatly did he cherish it that he had him repeat it into his ear. With a nod of his head he confirmed the accuracy of the messenger’s words. And before the entire spectatorship of his death—all obstructing walls have been torn down and the great figures of the empire stand in a ring upon the broad, soaring exterior stairways—before all these he dispatched the messenger. The messenger set out at once; a strong, an indefatigable man; thrusting forward now this arm, now the other, he cleared a path though the crowd; every time he meets resistance he points to his breast, which bears the sign of the sun; and he moves forward easily, like no other. But the crowds are so vast; their dwellings know no bounds. If open country stretched before him, how he would fly, and indeed you might soon hear the magnificent knocking of his fists on your door. But instead, how uselessly he toils; he is still forcing his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he overcome them; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to fight his way down the steps; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to cross the courtyard and, after the courtyard, the second enclosing outer palace, and again stairways and courtyards, and again a palace, and so on through thousands of years; and if he were to burst out at last through the outermost gate—but it can never, never happen—before him still lies the royal capital, the middle of the world, piled high in its sediment. Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead. –You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes. — Kafka, in a new translation by Mark Harman |
23 July 2011
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Exultation Who among us hasn’t had this experience? A moment of clarity, a transcendent vision, the sudden realization that life is an unexpected, stupefying wonder, and that everything requisite for bliss is already available to us. - Ed
BEHOLD, I walked abroad at early morning, — Emma Lazarus, born this day in 1849 Give me your tired, your poor, |
22 July 2011
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Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. — Ralph Waldo Emerson |
21 July 2011
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A time to dance Some set out to explore |
20 July 2011
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Language is not unique to humans We have known for a few years that dolphins, and probably whales as well have individual names. Specifically, these are unique sound utterances, chosen by the parents, with which the individual animal identifies himself to others. Now we learn that parrots, too, are given names by their parents that they use through a lifetime. Evolutionary game theorists tell us that if individual animals can positively identify one another, a whole range of cooperative enterprises can evolve that are probably impossible if they remain anonymous. With anonymity, cheating is just too tempting. Learning to recognize other individuals by their appearance or their voice has big evolutionary rewards. Complexity of human speech may or may not be unique. Wouldn’t we love to know what dolphins say to each other?
Wired Science article |
19 July 2011
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Feng shui for the ear Practitioners of feng shui seek to create physical environments that are conducive to peace and harmony and flourishing creativity. Raymond Murray Schafer suggested more than 30 years ago that it would be worthwhile to pay as much attention to our sonic environment. The World Soundscape Project has been a lifelong engagement for Schafer. He also composes
music. R. Murray Schafer, beloved Canadian composer and philosopher of aesthetics is 78 years old today. ‘Still the noise in the mind: that is the first task - then everything else will follow in time.’ |
18 July 2011
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To look on our world from a vantage of humility, mystery, and wonder Remember how smug were the intellectuals of the European Enlightenment. They were proud to have discovered a rational framework for dispelling superstition and agreeing on scientific truth. But these people knew nothing of atoms or galaxies or evolution, let alone quantum mechanics. They could not have conceived the changes in our circumstances that would be wrought by jet travel or television or email, and their faith in Christianity appears to us naive. Think how impoverished their world view appears to us from a twenty-first century vantage. It is likely that during the next two centuries, our fundamental understanding of the world will be re-conceived at least as radically as in the past two. Imagine ourselves from a crow’s nest in the twenty-third century. When we allow a sense of wonder and humility to wash over our perceptions, we may be closer to Truth than when we look out from a vantage atop the impressive understandings amassed since the dawn of science. — Josh Mitteldorf |
17 July 2011
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Free From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines. Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute. Listening to others, and considering well what they say. Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating. Gently but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. —Walt Whitman |
16 July 2011
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Understanding fear When a deer in the meadow notices you approaching, it instantly stops grazing and looks at you motionlessly. The white tail, used to signal danger to other deer, twitches slightly now and then, ready to flash at any time. If you come too close or move too abruptly, up goes the tail like a torch and the animal bounds gracefully into the woods for cover. For us humans no presence of genuine physical dnager is needed for the whole body to be flooded by waves of anxiety. All it takes is one scary thought, one fearful memory, one threatening image to trigger physical light or fight or freeze reactions. Imagining we are alone and isolated, abandoned, causes immediate pain and sorrow. Deer most likely don’t ruminate about being separate creatures – it spares them a lifetime of mental grief! — Toni Packer, from Being Bodies - Buddhist women on the paradox of embodiment. |
15 July 2011
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