Winter solstice moon

"good" and "evil" play a role in all our lives on a daily basis.

Our growth from infancy to adulthood usually helps to define our internalization of these two concepts. Family, religion, friends and the culture we live in form our divisions and help us maneuver through the realms of daily life.

We knock up against "good" and "evil" daily.

But what do these terms really mean?

Some philosophers claim that "evil" is based upon ignorance of truth and that
"good" is the harmony of love, friendship, the ordered human soul of virtues, a just political community and the right relation to the Divine and to Nature.

Some also claim that "evil" is the taking advantage of one person by another.

i think "evil" is cloudy vision, that kind of behavior that does intentional harm to another, that is dishonest and could potentially bring about suffering and maybe even death.

Some older cultures(indigenous) didn't have a term called "evil" they termed it "wrong doing" for "evil" was not a human quality. The gods that represented "wrong doing" were more chaotic than "evil", and those cultures believed that humans were naturally "good".

i'm going to stop here because i think we are all naturally "good".

Everyone has his or her unique and irreplaceable role. By playing a role, we become other than ourselves. By momentarily taking the role of the other we lose ourselves in another and experience harmony, beauty, and sacredness that stays with us, as we return to the confusion of our ordinary lives.

Without good ethical behavior, ritual is worthless. Religion should not be used to inflate communal pride and self-esteem, but to encourage the abandonment of egotism.

Our goal should be to look forward to a period of universal peace and compassion.

Truth must be addressed.

For the universe is the same at all times and in all places. It is unchanging, uncreated, and immortal.

There is no final answer.

Truth can be a reality only in our life.

Friendship, piety, courage and justice are not empty fictions.

Knowledge is morality.

If you understand the essence of goodness, you will act properly. But if you are confused, or your understanding of goodness is self-serving your actions will not achieve the life you felt destined to live.

If you don't examine your life it is not worth living. For we should not retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from them.

i think it is possible to persuade human beings to love instead of hate. It must be all embracing and exclude no one. We should regard another's state as we regard our own, another's family as we regard our own, and another's person as we regard our own. If people don't cultivate benevolence toward the whole human race, family love and patriotism will degenerate into collective egotism.

We should be more interested in doing good than being good.

One crucial aspect of life is that living morally means living for others.

belt

Orion aligns tonight and the sun stands still.

Questing for information concerning the countries that observed the winter solstice i was amazed by the long list of celebrations when i searched Wikipedia.


The winter solstice is when the three stars in Orion's belt align with Sirius to show where the sun will rise tomorrow. This marks the darkest and shortest period of daylight of the year. Winter Solstice marks the end of the wanning days and the beginning of the progression of the sun to its highest and brightest in mid summer.

Cultures all around the world mark this time of year with celebrations and observances.

Observances
Amaterasu celebration, Requiem of the Dead (7th century Japan)
Beiwe Festival (Sámi of Northern Fennoscandia)
Choimus, Chaomos (Kalash of Pakistan)
Christmas, Natalis Domini (4th century Rome, 11th century England, Christian)
Deuorius Riuri (Gaul)
Deyga-n (Zoroastrian)
Do-ngZhì Festival, To-ji Festival (East Asia, Vietnam, and Buddhist)
Goru (Dogon of Mali)
Hogmanay (Scotland)
Inti Raymi (Inca, Peru)
Junkanoo, Jonkonnu, John Canoe (West Africa, Bahamas, Jamaica, 19th-century North Carolina)
Karachun (Ancient Western Slavic)
Koleda, ??????, Sviatki, Dazh Boh (Ancient Eastern Slavic and Sarmatian)
Lenæa, Brumalia (Ancient and Hellenistic Greece, Roman Kingdom)
Lucia, Feast of St. Lucy (Ancient Swedish, Scandinavian Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox)
Makara Sankranti (India and Nepal, Hindu)
Meán Geimhridh, Celtic Midwinter (Celtic, Ancient Welsh, Neodruidic)
Wren day (Celtic, Irish, Welsh, Manx)
Alban Arthan (Neodruidic)
Midvinterblót (Swedish folk religion)
Modranicht, Modresnach (Anglo-Saxon, Germanic)
Perchta ritual (Germania, Alps)
Rozhanitsa Feast (12th century Eastern Slavic Russian)
Shabe Celle, ???? , Yalda- (2nd millenium BC Persian, Iranian)
Sanghamitta Day (Buddhist)
Saturnalia, Chronia (Ancient Greek, Roman Republic)
S,eva Zistanê (Kurdish)
Sol Invictus Festival (3rd century Roman Empire)
Soyal (Zuni and Hopi of North America)
Tek.ufat T.ebet (Jewish)
Wayeb (Maya)
Yule, Jul, Jól, Joul, Joulu, Jõulud, Géol, Geul (Viking Age, Northern Europe)
Yule, Yulefest, Jul, Jól, Joulu (secular, Anglospherean, Northern European and Germanic cultures)
Jul (Germanic Neopaganism)
Yule (Wiccan)
Zagmuk, Sacaea (Ancient Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Babylonian)
Ziemassve-tki (Latvian, Baltic, Romuva)

i wish all of you a happy winter solstice tonight. Go out and try and find Orion's Belt.

the "right way" and "their way"

flutter

Aren't we all

waiting for

a flutter?



You may not have heard about the Butterfly Effect. It is used in chaos theory but can be applied to human interaction just as easily. Wikipedia has a very long definition which i have condensed.

"The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position."

"The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different."

i have this belief in mankind that holds that a simple flutter of the tongue by one of us can ensure that the message of peace continues to move around the world. i believe that my lowly self can encourage others to try and understand that a tsunami of peace can result if we just keep fluttering our tongue's.

A fish tale

angles depend on context

Could making a decision to have less
material goods actually increase happiness? Would it mean one would have more time, fewer distractions, fewer decisions, less stress and anxiety but more time to interact with other human beings?

Triangles have three sides, three points but can contain a perfect circle. My triangle has Peace at the top Cooperation on the left and violence out in the cold on the right. The equilateral triangle is the only one where the three aspects have equal roles. All the other triangles have one pushed out.
i realized on my walk this morning(12-13-07) that labeling the triangle the way i did implied that the left cooperates and the right are violent. So, i decided not to delete my mistake, but to change the parameters and make violence reside on which ever side extrudes the most.

This morning i had an e-mail from a woman i don't know but who is on a mailing list i am on. The topic of the original e-mail(from an attorney friend living in Colorado) concerned the mixing of god and guns there. i had responded to his original e-mail that the best response to a society being completely armed was one that set up the following scenario:

You walk into a store and shop. You have picked out all your items, rolled your cart over to the check out stand, and wait in line. An obnoxious person cuts in front of you and you protest. Instead of a verbal fisticuff, that person pulls out their gun and just blows you away.
This is what a completely armed society would look like.

The woman, who had uy at the end of her e-mail address(where is that?)wrote the following.

guns,killings,useless violence,religious fanaticsm......

what can men and women of good will do about it?

can anything be done to protect our children from increasing violence?

i refuse to think that there´s no hope

i was so warmed by her response that i wrote her back to tell her i also have hope.

She and i are on one side of a triangle, the peace and cooperation side with violence being left out in the cold.
Are more people wanting to get away from the violence or am i delusional?

feet

i was watching friends surf today. Granted, these guys are really lucky not to have to share their spot with the hoards. They hardly ever have to share a wave, but today they did because of the way the sets were coming in. Watching them made me think that if these guys could allow a buddy the chance to get his own wave, why couldn't that be extended into society as a whole.

Surfers have better experiences catching waves if they co-operate with one another. If they are newly arrived and surfing at a spot with awesome waves and local surfers they quickly learn the etiquette for that spot. If they want to surf there, if they want to catch waves, if they want to have fun they watch for a while before trying to catch a wave. But, if they don't watch and they irritate the locals their fun time can be miserable because if they don't learn the ropes the locals literally come down on them from overhead.

Although mankind continually believes that force is the final arbiter of dispute. We, of the more peaceful persuasion, believe that learning what the local customs are plays to our favor. If we take the time to discover how to maneuver, learn what to do and what not to do, our experience in a new place can be full of positive interactions and fun. If we don't learn, and use aggression to get our way the experience can be miserable.

We interact with and rely upon others even when not intended. Our interconnectivity describes humanity at its best.

Digression:
i wanted to say we are connected through our feet, but i didn't. Just imagine, all of us are connected to the earth because we have to walk on it, and move around on it. So by that definition we are connected even if we don't want to acknowledge the human contact. i started imagining all sorts of feet all over the world and what they did every day. i had to bring myself back from the billions of feet living on earth, i might have been gone for years thinking about all those feet.

We have two camps existing on earth at this juncture in time. Those that believe annihilation is inevitable and those that don't.

It is time to make a choice concerning which camp you belong to.
The choice is easy if you value family, community and the future of the earth.

The choice is also easy if you don't.
If you want power and believe greed is an asset then eventual annihilation of mankind is inevitable. The seeds for this are already planted, i'm trying to get rid of them by failing to water and fertilize. You can help.

Reminding mankind that new seeds can grow into full blown requirements for dispute resolution in the future is imperative. Someday using force to accomplish goals will be so abhorrent no one will dare attempt it. Some think it will take us thousands of years to evolve to that point. Others, like myself think it could happen in a few generations, if the seeds get planted properly.

bits and pieces

Like Jefferson, i pared the teachings of the church down to the salient points Jesus made about conducting yourself with your fellow man.

i never went to the trouble of cutting up a bible, but writing down quotes and thoughts over the years has made for lots of bits and pieces of paper floating around. This is a genetic pass down from my father, whose tidbits we would find all over the house.

i've been rounding up my own scratchings that have found homes in baskets, drawers, around the computer etc. Here are a few:

All are brothers and sisters but of a different faith.

Every word atheists speak, speaks of faith.

The heart, the soul, the mind leave the robot behind.

When we went to use the word "spin" that is when our power over events world wide lost their significance.

Write a letter, a secret that no man knows.

Ask and find, speak and listen, the soul is in exile here, it is an aspect of light stranded in matter.

God is understood as existence, action and mind and morality as rational and benevolent conduct.

"Social Infection" defined as the use of words that denigrate.

I've been waiting my entire life for a "Peace" God to materialize.

"Criticism is the lifeblood of scholarship" Toni Morrison

i have no idea if i just wrote down things i was thinking about.
Maybe i copied some of those little quips from some other writer. The only one that had a name attached was the last one.

Blurry

This image is blurry for a reason.

Before I get started, here is a link for the Biblical Curse Generator, use it on me if you like.

http://www.shipoffools.com/curses/

There is no "true" Christian religion.
i say this because i have no idea which Christian church is the "true" one.
i'm so confused because they all say, all 1500 different varieties of Christianity,
that they are the "true" Christian church.

There is no "true" Jewish religion.
i say this because i have no idea which Jewish temple is the "true" one.
i'm so confused because they all say, all 14 different varieties of Judaism
that they are the "true" Jewish temple.

There is no "true" Islamic religion.
i say this because i have no idea which Islamic mosque is the "true" one.
i'm so confused because they all say, all 47 different varieties of Islam,
that they are the "true" Islamic mosque.

i'm confused, don't they all worship the same God?

In my confusion i have learned that all the rest of the worlds religions including the three main ones above believe in the term "AllOne". They just have different methods for joining up with the "AllOne".

So this one belief, amongst all the world's religions can be added to mankind's basic necessities.
For it seems, we are all hardwired for spirituality as well as aggression and peace.

OK....i'm increasing the human necessity list from 4 to 5 things we all need.

Water
Food
Shelter
Clothing
"AllOne"

That is it for today.
It is pretty simple.
A short list of humanities basic necessities.
But it is kind of blurry.

Brakes

Smell

i was reading an article about the difference between Chimpanzees and Bonobos, by Frans De Waal.

These monkeys are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. Strikingly, their warlike and peaceful attributes are very much like ours. Chimpanzees being the warriors and Bonobos the lovers.

Since the 1700's Chimpanzees have been studied. They exhibit many characteristics humans have, which has led researcher's to claim that our violence towards others is hardwired. The theory that violence is hardwired into humanity comes up against a dilemma when the Bonobos, who are also being studied and who are also closely related to us, demonstrate a come-day-go-day nature. Peaceful and erotic they lead lives with little violence.

In studies mixing the animals together, Bonobos can teach Chimps how to wage peace, which they can then take back to their troops and demonstrate.

Some social scientists claim we are hardwired for aggression, that our DNA demands it.
Only, as luck would have it, our DNA has us hardwired for peace as well.

So here is the problem.

Aggression has dominated, it has successfully killed off those we wanted to control. It has been supported(by various empires, religions, and false beliefs) throughout mans existence by focusing on our differences. That empires have failed, that beliefs have been exposed, and that religion can't bring about peace, hasn't gone unnoticed.

What has gone unnoticed is that peace has always existed in concert with war. That peace, in fact, is more predominant than war and that peace is desired by all of humanity, while war is not.

In the past few hundred years there has been a clarion call to change. To move away from aggression and towards diplomacy.

Just as i was finishing typing the above, a plate of recently warmed Danish waltzed into my space on a plastic plate. It passed by my nose on a trip to another room, but its smell didn't catch up to me until after the plate had left the room I was in. It was such a delicious smell, lingering long after the pastry had passed.

Humanity hasn't caught up with our ability to wage peace instead of war.

i

Oh!

This morning while swimming, thoughts of this web site were running through my mind. I was communing with the light beams, thinking all was well with the world. Wondering how I was going to incorporate the lower case i I had seen in the sky while walking in the dark.

My friends and I walk three times a week, meeting in the dark at the ungodly hour of 5:30am.

Now, that lower case i was displayed in the eastern morning sky. It was created by the moon's light shining upon some clouds from behind. The i was beautiful and dominated the darkness.

So, making a long story shorter.

I also swim with another set of friends on the same days that I walk. We do open ocean swimming and we have one stretch that goes out over the abyss. While swimming in the abyss I started wondering about the lower case i. Should I write about the all powerful eye that is displayed on so many things, should I write about the light that funnels into a kind of eye?

You know, those random thoughts that run through a persons mind.

Anyway, while I was concentrating on thinking about the i, a piece of jelly fish tentacle nailed me right above the heart on my breast.

It took my breath away.

It was so painful I had to stop swimming, but, it made me recognize where my thoughts were running.

We humans are all lower case i's, but we forget that in our quest for domination.

This blog isn't about me. It is about all of us lower case i's...and i will have to do battle daily to remember that.

A beginning

Squares the relationship before you settle anything, giving all the dignity to allow it to happen.

Just before falling asleep the other night I had this dream about a lamp post that had fallen over.
It was an old time lamp post with a globe surrounding the light.

Amazingly the light inside didn't break.

Maybe starting a conversation about human interaction, using some humor, can be one more seed in the ever evolving building blocks of change.

This is humanity multiplied by itself.