Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice
Perhaps my favorite photograph out of the way too many we took, maybe a couple thousand, digital allows profligacy, is this one. I took it at the command center for the 4 meter telescope at Cerro Tololo, the one which Brain Schmidt used, with two others, to prove the universe is not only expanding, but accelerating, an achievement for which the three together won a 2011 Nobel Prize. Polite, too.
Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice
Jon sent these two links. Wish I’d had’em when I owned that farm up near Nevis, Minnesota. I might still be up there, motoring around on some of these very clever inventions. They show what an ingenious mind can do when rethinking what appear to be over and done with ideas.
http://opensourceecology.org/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/
Makes me wonder what other ideas need a complete rethink. Computers have followed a pretty standard architecture up to now, one based on a central processing unit. I read an article in Scientific American last week about a neural computer which, in essence, gives each unit of a computer a cpu, allowing for massively parallel processing as an integral part of the design. It’s modeled on, but not attempting to replicate, the human brain.
How about housing? Cars? Or, my personal quest and long time obsession, religion? The family? Electrical generation? I’m interested in distributed generation where a cul de sac or an apartment building or a couple of blocks city residential units might get their electricity from, say, a combination of wind, solar and geo-thermal units sited in their immediate vicinity.
Here’s another one that could use a complete overhaul, reimagining: nations. The nation state is a relatively new phenomenon, most experts date its rise somewhere around 1800, perhaps a hundred years earlier in the instance of Portugal and the Netherlands. In the wake of the globalization of economic life national boundaries have much different meanings that they did, say, 50 years ago.
Let’s go back to religion for a second. Over the last several years, 23 to be exact, I’ve wrestled with the hole left by Christianity in my life and sought to fill it through what I call a tactile spirituality, one wedded to the rhythms of the seasons, of flowers and vegetables, of bees. This direction took its initial impetus from an immersion in Celtic lore while I sifted for writing topics.
Then, I began to follow the Great Wheel of the seasons, a Celtic sacred calendar focused on 8 seasons, rather than four. That led me to integrate gardening with my sacred calendar. In the wake of these two changes in my life, I began to see the vegetative and wild natural world as more than tools for food or leisure, rather I began to see that they were my home, that I lived with them and in them, rather than having them as adjuncts to my anthropocentric life.
This whole change, this rethink of what sacred and holy mean, what the locus of my spirituality is and where it is, has had a long maturation, much thought and experimentation. My hope is that my reimagining might provide a common religious base, a sort of ur-religion, which all humans everywhere can embrace.
As in times past this base religion could certainly have others layered on top of it, its essence after all is to be non-exclusive. What I hope further is that reasserting, inviting, even luring others to see the sacred and the holy in our planet and its other living beings, they will be more likely to join in to see it healthy and vital.
Fall Waxing Autumn Moon
I might have been a little hard on Kevan. Or, maybe not. Bankers, can’t live with’em, can’t live without’em.
These last few nights the sky has been glorious. Draco has his head pointed down at the 
northern horizon, his tail flicking up high toward the east and toward the celestial pole. Cassiopeia hangs above his head, her distended W a signature of the northern night.
Gertie, the Denver dog, escaped, twice today. She headbutted Pam and snapped at some kids. She’s not a safe dog with folks who are not in her head as family. We’ve got to keep her in the yard. The window washers left the grapeyard vine gate slightly open and that was enough for our Gert. She wriggled through and was on her own. Fortunately, she stayed in the yard.
We’re going to leave our dogs with Armstrong Kennels for forty days. That’s the longest we will have ever been away from them. It feels strange, but we’ve boarded dogs at Armstrong’s over the last 17 years and always had good experiences. The dogs become part of their family while we’re gone and are glad to see us when we get back.
Fall New Autumn Moon
A strange weather time. A storm system and winds blowing in from the east. Our weather systems almost always come from the west, following the planet’s rotation and the jet stream, but this raggedy storm system got stuck over Wisconsin and has begun to retrograde, head back west.
The quiet of night. A healing time, the darkness. A moment when the cares of the day can slide away and the still, small voice can speak. The body can collect itself, relax, replenish.
Think of sleep. Almost a third of our lives, maybe 25 years, think of that, 25 years asleep. We are all, in this sense, Rip Van Winkle, unaware as the world changes around us.
In the sleep time our minds create the worlds we inhabit, pluck scenes from stored memories, movie clips, fears and joys, wishes and needs. Vivid life, times of ecstasy and insight flow through our brains, a stream of cobbled together life, chunks of invention. We are each novelists while we sleep, drafting narratives with characters about whom we care deeply.
Here’s the tricky part. If I understand modern neurology, we do the same thing when we’re awake. Our minds take sensory data and create worlds. Narratives form so we can keep the world we create coherent, so we can remember the plot of our lives.
There are parts here that elude me, standing just outside my peripheral understanding. Who is that watches the movie? Who is the narrator? Where is the narrator? Is he a reliable or an unreliable voice? Can we count on this movie? By that I mean does it conform to what we, at least in a common sense way, take as real. True. Out there.
Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon
So. Yesterday I got up, got ready to go into the museum, got in the car and got no engine love. Click. Click. Click. Of course, I only had adequate time to get there since I never leave early. What to do? I put the charger on it and got back…wait for it. An error message meaning the battery won’t take a charge.
Anyhow we have that new Rav4. I hopped in it and made it on time. Or close enough.
Got home after a long stint at the museum in time that Kate could go to work in the Rav4.
What greets me at the kitchen table? A nice note from the IRS saying they had checked our 2009 return, 2009?, and now feel we owe the government an additional $45,000. Say what? The letter of “explanation” did not communicate in any language I understood. WTF? OMG. Well, a good thing we pay that accountant to handle this kind of stuff. Could ruin a perfectly bad day.
While I read this cheery note, Mark says, “Rigel’s bleeding.” Uh, huh. A small nick on the ear. Unimportant.
Earlier, I discover, the Saudi embassy wants Mark to take an HIV test. Good thing we have a doctor in the house. Kate circles the HIV results on the lab work already sent. Oh.
Also, some power of attorney for somebody for some purpose seems to be needed, requiring yet another communication back to Saudi, which will produce an e-mail to Mark, which he will then sign and Fedex to Travisa which will then hand it to the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Geez.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln…
Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon
An edible Docent luncheon. Whoa. Sat with Emily, Grace, Allison, Linda, Cheryl, Amanda, Katherine, then Sheila. The actual program contained as many boring bits as usual but the table companions more than made up for the dullness of the rest.
Afterward we all trundled over to the Pillsbury auditorium for Katherine’s speech outlining her vision for a new and improved volunteer experience at the MIA. Many of her ideas and initiatives sound useful and needed. The already changed rule that now allows volunteers in free to any museum lecture jumps the level of continuing education up a notch right away. A needed notch.
As a self-professed techno-geek, many of Katherine’s plans have some link or another to various technological ideas. The Docent lounge has been gutted and will undergo extensive remodeling to serve as a lounge and research area as well as, if I understood correctly, a center for Docents who want to moderate web discussions, write weblogs or blogs (I don’t understand the difference) and participate in digitalizing the collection in many different forms.
The intention is, too, to digitize all the object files and to first create streaming video of older continuing ed, then stream them live while creating video for later review.
Much of this comes under the guise of an NEH grant called the Extended Collection Project.
She had various other announcements, some related to the new structure of her department, Learning and Innovation, others to staff changes. Staff got shuffled around, some, like Sheila and Amanda, to totally new positions, others, like Debbie and Ann, to newly named positions within the same programs.
I did notice a while back that one thing Katherine has done is to flatten the entire organization. She took out the position that Sheila previously held, a middle level manager over all the guide programs and did not replace it, so all guide programs report directly to her.
A group of docents with which I spend time sent a list of suggestions to her and I’m not clear how many of them were addressed in this lecture. I thought there would be some obvious sign.
Perhaps I’m a bit starry eyed here, but I believe Katherine’s work heads in the same direction many of us have wanted, i.e. better access to better resources. I also believe she will work with us as we see the need.
There are elements still untouched and we’ll have to work on those some more.
Ancientrails in exile (I crashed my own website. Geez. Wrote this while it was down. Thanks againn to Bill S. who undid whatever I did.)
August 7th, 2011 5:05pm
Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon
Got a passport photo for my Brazilian visa. Looks like a booking photo. You can’t smile during these sessions. Why? Facial recognition software struggles with recognizing faces anyhow and anything that distorts the face makes their task even harder. A great article in Wired talks about this problem and argues that the solution (if we want one) lies in the work of the caricaturist, who emphasizes the unique aspects of a person’s face. This is the way our brain recognizes faces, but is very difficult for algorithms to master.
Now. If you’re a terrorist, please don’t smile for your passport photo because we may not be able to recognize you. Gives you confidence, doesn’t it?
Last night I made an attempt to increase my computer literacy by upgrading my WordPress software on my own. Note to self. Don’t do that again. The result has been a database connection error. As near as I can tell, I’ve succeeded in taking down my own website.
Mark and I have been rereading the Go handbook. It’s a bit confusing, at least to me, but we’re going to get to playing anyhow. This is a sophisticated, yet simple seeming game.
On to Tai Chi tonight. I feel like I’ve made real progress over the last week. Slow. But progress.
August 7, 2011 10:30 pm
Lughnasa Waning Honey Extraction Moon
We learned a new move tonight. The instructor, Cheryl, said I had the basics of it after our first independent practice. “Gotta be a first time.” I told her.
It felt good to get something other than correction. It’s been a tough slog so far, but I’m gradually pulling myself into the physical world, uniting mind and body. At some point I want to learn the Taoist thought behind it all. But not quite yet.
Not having ancientrails to post in feels pretty weird to me. I miss the familiarity of it. Posting on the blog remains one of the more steady tasks I have in my life. Fortunately, I don’t need the program to keep writing.
August 8 2011 1:55 pm
Ancientrails is still down though the error message has changed. That must mean Bill Schmidt, good friend and cybermage, has made some progress.
China scolded the US for “gigantic military spending and bloated social programs.” That roused a patriotic wait just a minute reaction. On several levels. The military spending is high, but it has been high for some time as the US, the current and still reigning world hegemon, has many enemies and self-interest spread over the globe. No matter what those of us who prefer peace or other foreign governments like China might want, the military spending reflects our status as the only ever global hegemon.
Bloated social programs. Only if you’re not poor, old, disabled, a veteran or a person who wants at least some security in old age. Bloated is the wrong word, a Chinese mimicry of our own Tea Party. How ironic is that? The Chinese Communist Party lining up alongside the Michelle Bachmanns and Ron Pauls of American politics.
Do they need reform? Oh, yes. Will it happen anytime soon? I hope so, even though the result might negatively affect Kate and me.
What the Chinese could have scolded us for, what would have bit harder than hackneyed bumper sticker critiques, would have been questions about our love of democracy. Democracy as it exists in this country today no longer solves problems. It creates them. Why does the nation of Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton find itself broken down into the politics of faction? Military spending and misshapen social programs are the not cause, they are the symptom of a nation no longer able to make its own form of government work.
Now, there’s a critique.
Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon
Though I follow the Great Wheel and feel as bound to this earthome as to my humanity, space exploration, either human or technological, still thrills me. Here’s another huge project, with some pics, a movie and the mission goals from NASA. Can you believe this is happening while we’re alive?
The rocket, the Atlas V, lifts off with the Jupiter probe. This is one big rocket, 19-stories.
Key things to know about Juno (NASA website)
Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.
Specifically, Juno will…
Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon
Ever go to a class, discover it was the last one and that your project report was due. Right then? Yup. I did, tonight. Fortunately no grades in this course.
Thanks to all the folks in History of Graphic Design at MCAD and instructor Nick Zdon. I got some great ideas for redesigning ancientrails. A strong idea was to move to a two or even one column design, a design that focuses on the content. The second, my idea, is to use icons at the top as navigation tools to pages that feature different kinds of content. I may also use images even more, perhaps as central content and/or as lead-ins to written content available by click.
I’m hopeful these changes plus a conscious one on my part, that is, blogging only about one topic per entry, will allow you who read this to easily find what might interest you.
The changes will be slow in coming and may, probably will, change during implementation. As always, your ideas are welcome.
Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon
Woke up this first day of Lughnasa to Knickerbockers playing 9 pins and throwing strike after strike after strike. A nap on a thundery summer day has a luxurious feel, velvet, cushy. Gertie spent the nap at the foot of our bed. Both she and Rigel have mild ceraunophobia, shrinking when the lightning tears a hole in the sky and air spills into the vacuum.
This morning I translated, sort of, an entire verse of Pentheus’ story. When I say sort of, I mean I’m reasonably sure about the translation in terms of Latin grammar, but not sure what it means. Greg will help me clear that up on Friday. I’ve taken almost three weeks off and it showed. The work went like slogging threw a marsh, progress, but with a lot of effort.
Speaking of effort, I’m now practicing Tai Chi with more regularity, something I’d also let slide over the last month or so. Tai Chi requires muscle memory so the practitioner can concentrate on the form, then become relaxed, totally part of the movement. Some parts have gotten laid down in my neuronal pathways, but, so too have some errors. Sigh. Yesterday’s practice, done in the same dance studio over the former Burch Pharmacy had characteristics of Birkam Yoga. Hot and sweaty.
Got a call from Carlson Toyota this morning. Our Rav4 will have to take a drive of 400 miles to get here, but it will be here tomorrow. The color, white, and the interior, beige, were not what Kate wanted, but they were available. The Tundra, Kate’s faithful companion for 11 years + will get sold to a scrapyard for $500. An undignified end for such a good friend, like the glue factory.