flowperson

Forsooth say I. Yea, verily I say unto you my brethren and sistern (the source of all that is surely sweet ?), the hammer hath spoken! flow....

JB A big fat YES to all that you said!! At least it's the process I visualize quite often. flow....

OA It makes sense to me now. Remember how upset Rudy Giuliani was when a young black artist had a picture of a black madonna and black baby Jesus hung in a Brooklyn art museum? They even took down the picture and closed the museum for fear of riots breaking out. It all looked pretty racist to me. As a father whose son does art with found articles and original acrylic painting combined, it wasn't unusual to me that the artist used , among other stuff, dried elephant dung, as a material in his composition, but it really pissed-off Rudy. Artists, by instinct, talent, and skill, are compelled to use whatever materials that best convey the textures of the subject matter to be depicted. It didn't seem odd to me that he would choose some sort of processed organic material for part of his composition that included depictions of organic material. Besides it is common knowledge that the late Pope John Paul II's favorite rendition of the madonna was the black madonna of Crackow. There's lots of such depictions in church art. And in the south of France where Mary Magdalene and the escaped Jesus were supposedly hidden by Joseph of Arimathea after their flight from Palestine (according to esoteric Gnostic sources) there are numerous depictions of that Mary as Madonna rendered in the color Blue! Maybe she was a relative of Lord Krishna! Since the baby Jesus's father was divine and of pure spirit and his mother was a fifteen year old earthling virgin, it makes sense to me that the baby Jesus was at least partly of the blood of the brothers. See how mixed-up things can get due to racist influences? Wonder why Rudy was so pissed anyhow? I don't ever remember that he explained his actions or opinions to any reasonable extent. But then there's talk now of his running against Hillary for President, and some politicians are known for behaving badly and doing highly illogical things when the hunger for more power drives their salivary glands into overdrive. It's just all so nuts!! flow....

As long as it doesn't contain citron I like it pretty well, especially if it has lots of pecans and cherries. The best one I ever had was one from a bakery in Colleyville, Texas (believe that's the right name). Evidently they're famous all over the world for their fruitcakes, and ship out huge numbers of them each year. flow....

Ummmm, I believe it was Manecheanism that was the heresy that was so despicable to the early church. Marcion was also considered to be a heretic, but I don't believe that he had a widely dispersed group of believers (Marcionites) as did the "M" word followers. The Manecheans were people who followed the thoughts and beliefs of an early Gnostic by the name of Mani. The Urantians were a late 19th century sect that believed that they migrated here in spirit from another place in the cosmos. They had a very strong group of believers in and around the Chicago area, with a place of education and worship on Division St. near the lake. There was also a large contingent in and around LaGrange in the Western suburbs. The late Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead was a sometimes believer in Urantianism, and read the Book of Urantia frequently. I tried to read it once, but it bored me so much I lapsed back into my habits of reading ancient texts and scientific publications. More reality and less pie in the sky bye and bye. flow....

HUH???? C'mon OA, I think you made that one up. flow.....

As observed elsewhere on this site, one of the hottest topics for discussion among some progressive theologians about a decade or so ago was whether or not God and His/Her messengers were shape-shifters. You can't have any more profound a change than that. Seriously, I too believe that the Tao Te Ching has more wisdom in it on this matter than anything else I've read. flow....

That in itself is a good enough reason to look her up! Jodie is just awesome. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There was an extensive article about Ms. Randall in The New York Times Science Times on Tuesday, Nov. 1st. The accompanying picture reveals her to be a genuinely foxy lady. flow....

MOW I believe it depended upon who was on top doing the work. To the rest of you, you are all hilarious beyond belief !!!! I plan to stick with the concept as stated in my own favorite song title, "Your Own Personal Jesus". To me that infers that my own personal heaven is a distinct possibility. But older movie buff that I am I prefer the scenario as sketched out in a favorite film of mine, Defending Your Life, starring Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks. I especially appreciated Rip ( what a great pun by the writers!) Torn as Brook's attorney. Rent it, it's real good. I own a copy and watch it every so often to freshen my belief system. flow....

Grrrr ! Snarl ! Snap ! Snap ! You all may create more monsters. I can't wait to devour this info when it's available. An almost endless number of metaphysical myths seem possible! flow....

PeterGabrielPeterGabrielPeterGabrielPeterGabrielBillyJoelBillyJoelBillyJoelBilly JoelBillyJoel I REALLY like these two poet-musicians. Bob Dylan's no slouch either! flow....

I've really enjoyed this conversation regarding the nature of God and the nature of this universe that we believe that he/she created. God creates, and does not micromanage events, even though much of religious ritual and dogma address the eternal task of the created to try and make human contact with the Creator for whatever the reason. This is also our oldest collective memory and species-wide goal. This defines our eternal longing to become a part of the transcendant eternal realm where He/She dwells. Probably physically impossible to ever do, but spiritually reasonable. I believe that the Jodie Foster movie, Contact, did about as good a job as anything to metaphorically represent what you have discussed since it took into account her conversation with her father in a relativistic nowhere that could well have been defined as a place that transcends our space-time. To get there she magically conceived of and travelled in a space-time contraption that I thought was really well-conceived and thought-out considering the realities of the space-time that we are confined to. In her brain the trip and the ensuing flow of events took a certain passage of time that only she and the little ball that she travelled in experienced. And yet, those who were left behind here on earth only observed the ball dropping down through the complex apparatus and landing in the water. To them she went nowhere fast, to her she became one with the universality of space-time and had special experiences unique to her quest. It should also be recalled that Spielberg taught us that the magically beautiful vehicles that the little people travelled in to Devil's Tower Wyo. were really space-time machines which communicated through the employment of musical tones. Watch these movies again, you'll love 'em even more now! There is a physicist at Harvard named Lisa Randall who is doing ground-breaking research on the nature of universal realities. It just may upend the current rage for string theory when all is said and done. She posits that our universe and we exist on a two dimensional brane (membrane) kind of like the surface of a soap bubble. And, further posits the we are probably presented with an "illusion of three dimensions" in space-time through the use of holographic trickery. She doesn't though have any answer as yet for where time comes into all this. The head of the physics department at Case-Western is also writing material along this line. Such physics researchers can mathematically configure a universal structure that satisfies the unification of the first three main forces, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force, but they are, like Einstein did, having trouble getting the fourth force, gravity, fit into the scenarios that they have so far mathematically devised. Although, Randall has proposed a model, called "the oreo cookie", that may be successful in doing this. The researchers all agree that the Large Hadron Collider being built under the Alps at CERN in Europe may give us some answers regarding gravity when it begins to run experiments next year. To top it all off Lisa Randall looks enough like Jodie foster to be her sister. The twilight zone again!! For more informattion on all this just search on Randall's name, and also on a guy named Krauss who is the Case-Western prof. There was also a book writtten in the 80's called, The Holographic Universe, by a man named Talbot (Michael?) that goes into the holography idea in great detail. Happy visualization adventures! flow....

I believe that if I could choose, I would sit around on clouds with a demure look on my face! That sounds like perfection to me, and isn't paradise supposed to be perfection? Maybe the technologies of heaven will allow eveyone to design and implement their own personalized versions of heaven. After all, the mansion has many rooms. flow....

I've got an authentic concert video of Pink Floyd at the Nassau County NY outdoor venue in the eighties. When I'm in the kind of funk that audio alone cannot cure, it always works. The late and great Phish works well, and then there is the best band that ever wuz, The Grateful Dead. Bitchin' Dudes!! flow....

I can only think of a few books that changed my total life's outlook after I had read them. Scott Peck's first two books would meet this qualification as would James Gleick's book, Chaos, Making a New Science. Vine DeLoria jr's book, God is Red, also makes my list. It totally changed the way that I viewed my beliefs in Christianity, and forced me to actively question the good intentions of my fellow Christians. And now Mr. DeLoria has left our little blue ball in space and time. My suggestion is to do whatever you can to obtain and read this book. You won't regret it. flow.... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/national/15deloria.html

I believe that the trick of reaching appropriate decisions as you age is to bring your experiences to bear on the process as much as possible. Considering how you acted in similar circumstances, and more importantly REALLY being honest with yourself regarding how you felt about the decision and its fallouts will always give you clues on how to proceed in the present. The key here is to actively engage your emotional equipment in the present situation and actively compare how you felt about aspects of similar situations in the past. Our memories are most strongly affected and imprinted through emotional reaction to the environment. An important part of our brain, the amygdala is the chief connector of experience, emotion, and memory. By actively pursuing this systemic approach to decision making one can help slide the odds for positive outcomes to your favor more often as time marches on. But that doesn't mean that you still won't get the tiger sometimes. And sometimes even the noble lady and wealth can serve as a tiger in dealing deadly circumstances. A proverb I always have appreciated seems to apply here. "The devil is subtle and malicious. G-d is subtle and not malicious." Making choices and living with the consequences is what living in a universe filled with lots of darkness and comparatively little light is all about; and, it is very difficult, but that is what we all are required to do everyday. flow....

Think of it all this way. G-d starts things and leaves the theater immediately. And, we have to try and provide support and maintenance for what he/she started and stuck us with. flow....

Lots of good technical terms, but I choose to think of it as the self-medication of choice to alleviate stressful life. flow.... And, these substances have beeen known to help prople smile when they might not otherwise be able to

YOU'RE RIGHT ON BROTHER, CHRIST WAS A REBEL, AND HIS SPIRIT STILL IS1 YOU SAID WHAT NEEDED TO BE SAID. GOD BLESS YOU. flow....

" We've seen the demiurge, and he is us " Pogo would love this. It is interesting to note that the ancient Sumerians ( following the Ubaidians as the beginners of civilization in what is now Iraq) believed that the hidden Gods were known as "the people". flow....

OA You are absolutely right. This is a woman's choice in the end and the law should support that right. flow....

Fred: I like what you said about symmetry being a universal characteristic of proving yea or nay to existence. We only need look at ourselves in a mirror (if we can stand that !) to know what an important part of the structure of the universe symmetry brings to the game. When studying fractal forms one runs into the same marvel. Indeed, artistic giants such as M.C.Escher thrived on the concept and taught us how important it is to the structures of an ordered reality. However the flip side of the coin, symmetry breaking, is also important to note. As far as we can tell this occurs in all orders of physical reality and through such breaking, singularities of creation self organize themselves into new agglomerations of ordered systems over time. It is this process of creation of new realities, seemingly from nothingness, that is the great mystery. How was this started? What energies drive it? What hidden structures automate the process at all scales that we may observe? That the process appears to be an ongoing intelligent format seems undeniable, but how did it come into being and how does it continue into infinity? Just thinking out loud.... flow....

AR One of the things I know enough about to be a little dangerous is the basic nature of complex systems and how they operate in the natural world. It's just that your description of the dance of opposites that makes-up the whole perfectly describes the phenomenon, as does the yin/yang illustration that you are so famous for out here in the wild, wild west. They are all constantly changing in dynamically rhythmic patterns; but, they writhe in concert with musical patterns. Protein structures, DNA, ocean currents, wind and weather patterns, plant colonies, herds of animals, flocks of birds flying in the air,; you name it, they do it. And what is needed for dancing? Music of course!! By the way there are some passages in the Gnostic writings that have Jesus dancing in a circle with his disciples. Kind of like Havah Na Nageilah (sp) I suppose? Or maybe the circle of life, hmmmm. Oh, and I am of the opinion that the best things of G-d are wild. That's what mother nature is all about. Our native brothers and sisters believed that it took the marriage of the sky god of time and the wild goddess of earth to make the earth whole and complete in the original time of creation. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with feeling and being mystical from time to time. Rock on dudette! flow....

AR Keep up the waxing. It makes alot of sense to me! flow....