Tag Archives: perspective

A deep image of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS captured by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South at Cerro Pachón in Chile

TENUOUS: what will be?

Is tomorrow guaranteed? What will the future bring? What song should we sing?

Interstellar object I3/Atlas is currently at its perihelion, or closest point to our Sun at approximately 1.36AU. Among the anomalies associated with this comet-like object, its approach is unlikely: It has been hidden from Earth’s view by the Sun’s glare throughout October (though some scientific reports in review claim to have observed the object’s emissions despite solar glare). This occulted segment of its long trip is also its most opportune time to make orbital adjustments to its own direction or for any probes it could dispatch, using the gravity of our Sun to assist. All this and other unmentioned anomalies to say: while unlikely, there is some cautious speculation that this is a technologic object, directed by an Alien Intelligence (AI).

And I say that to ask: If an alien vessel were in our backyard today and, perhaps at this moment, sending probes our way – for what purpose, one can only speculate – what would one do? Even if that were a fact, there is still much uncertainty.

Top view of 3I/ATLAS's trajectory (blue) through the Solar System, with orbits and positions of planets shown
Image via CSS, D. Rankin; Video recorded and edited by User:Renerpho – https://neofixer.arizona.edu/css-orbit-view, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=169627869

Not commenting on likelihood, but hypothetically: If it were the case that alien intelligence was in our backyard this moment, close and unseen, then these moments would feel tenuous. What would one do? Savor, I suppose. It is risky and significant enough that squandering time would be easier to recognize as foolish. But it would be uncertain and inspiring enough to not throw one into despair and defeatism.

If one was known to have only a week to live, unlike in this uncertain scenario, then I imagine ‘savoring time’ would look uniquely scarce and conclusive: skipping chores, saying goodbyes, focusing fully on favorites. In contrast, with uncertainty of what the world two months later looks like, it is wise both to savor and also to steward. Take care of one’s future but also do not expect one’s future is guaranteed. Do the dishes, while remembering the precious ephemerality of it all. Savor, and also steward.

This kind of tenuousness, a liminal existential space, could be healthy. A reminder, a reorientation, that we only ever exist Here Now.

How will one Be when it arrives,

What’s Next

Moment by moment
Building momentum
What's the best next step?
May peace be up on you!

#BeHereNow #BreatheEasy #OneLove

AND FOR MY LAST ACT

What if this was my final act?
This moment, this action
What’s happening at this breath?
Reading this post?
Well, at least you’re not listening to an Exxon advertisement
If that is the kind of thing you’re exposed to

How we spend our time is affected by the systems around us
Where we are, when we are, much of that beyond us
Under the stars
Here now
Spinning mightily on this big beautiful blue planet

Evolving alongside fellow lifeforms,
It does appear we have some choices within our purview
For if this was my final act,
It was I who chose to be typing at this moment, isn’t it?
Chose in that it arose in my clothes and genes and experiences
And it will be I who lives with, and ends with, that moment
Each moment a new beginning, potentially
Moment to moment
To momentum and beyond

(What’s the best next step?)
(What’s the f(x)?)
With love

What if this was my final act?
Practicing qi’gong, East or West
Perhaps singing a song
Or listening
~ ~ ~
שְׁמַע
~ ~ ~
Taking It All In
One Self
Actualizing
Actual I’s in the vicinity of
Temple

Peace, peace, peace, One Love

red lily flower in bloom

Will Today

Will today be repeated, relived, endlessly as in Nietzsche’s eternal reoccurrence?

Or will today be a last, a final day, bursting with meaning as if facing death (or not) at dawn, as in Dostoyevsky’s story?

…

Either way, today one’s present self is the most able accomplice for the wellbeing of one’s future self.

“Whatchya gonna do today?”

Time is of the essence. A few practices seem rarely wasteful, whether one has lots or little time: meditation, physical fitness, when in doubt tidying up.

With this precious gift – these fleeting grains of time we are given generously and with no certainty – how can we reciprocate?

No doubt we can spread our time too thin, there’s only so many…

Or we can squander time, “casting pearls to swine” (or attension to IT)

May we cultivate

Gardens, discernment, and peace

Balance and gratitude, to apply our times treasures and talents

Forestablishingaliveablefuturity

Winter setting

The nights are cold

Days short, nights growing longer

Darker, deeper,

What is the adjective that would describe what the trees are doing now?

Are they relaxing? Are they cold? Are they panicking? Are they feeling old?

Are they feeling new, already longing and looking forward to the days ahead?

Trees like Jews seeing evening as emergence, night as new beginning

I don’t know what adjective would describe trees in these dark times

Where does their sap go?

Does it freeze? Actually, I beleafs it is sweetened to reduce its freezability, but for the most part deciduous trees dehydrate in winter to avoid frost damage.

What is the underground part of trees’ character? Is it alike the subconscious of the you’s and the me’s and the like? What memes and patterns might we see, below the knees of the trees?

What is at the foot, the root tips, the forefront of the trees, underground and above ground?

And what is the answer to that question, for your own slice of life?

What is one growing towards? What is my goal, for this day or this week or this month or this year or this lifetime or this <cycle>?

As the seasons change, mad things rearrange,

May the force of forest succession be with you, and may peace be up on you

Northern lights of Jupiter shown from Juno spacecraft, 2021

Jovial present potential

“There is no limit to what one can do who does not care who gains the credit for it.“

via https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/21/doing-good-selfless/

“All the Power that ever was or will be is here now.“

via https://bota.org/resources/index.html

There is immense possibility in the present. Ultimately we are guided by a mixture of drives and inner voices, and what we are capable of is greatly expanded by the consciousness of limitlessness and wholeness. May oneself be guided by love of oneself and one another, and by the light and life that calls up. “Peace, peace, peace, One Love”

Storied Pasts

https://www.lionsroar.com/magical-emanations-the-unexpected-lives-of-western-tulkus/

“If I died in a month would I be satisfied with my life, and the answer was ‘no’.”

“I don’t have to be a reincarnation. It’s not the most important thing. If my existence has meaning, it’s because I’m doing good in this world—I’m helping people. I don’t have to be a tulku in order to do that.”

“We don’t need all those complications,” he says. “We’re all humans. We’re all struggling. We’re all learning from each other.”

“Yesterday, I was talking to one of my tulku friends who is in New York, happily driving for Uber.”

Storied Selves

Highlights generously provided by a YT commenter:

– We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives.
– To tell a story is inescapably to take a moral stance.
– Stories are the way we make sense of our lives.
– The way we narrate our lives shapes what they become.
– Change, even really positive change, involves a surprising amount of loss.
– What would happen if you looked at your story and wrote it from another person’s point of view?
– Life is about choosing which stories to listen to, and which ones need an edit.
– There’s nothing more important to the quality of our lives than the stories we tell ourselves about them.

O Sol, InsPHIre I

Sunday: It is all about our unique individuality and what we do with it.

“All that survives of these solar hymns are an altered version of Proclus’ Hymn to the Sun, and the 9th hymn in the Nomoi … the Sun is ruler of the other planets, and with them governs all terrestrial things. …The theory of prayer with which Pletho introduces his hymn is remarkably like the theory of magic behind Ficino’s astrological music; Pletho addresses the gods thus:

‘May we carry out these rites in your honor in the most fitting manner, knowing that you have no need of anything whatever from us. But we are molding and stamping our own imagination and that part of us which is more akin to the divine, allowing it both to enjoy the godly and the beautiful and making our imagination tractable and obedient to that which is divine in us.’

Pletho’s hymns and rites, like Ficino’s do not aim at any objective effect on the deity addressed, but only at a subjective transformation of the worshiper, particularly his imagination.” -(p.61)

Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella by D.P. Walker

via Mark Stavish of the Institute for Hermetic Studies