over your head, hopefully not

"Well, if human existence is the opportunity of good, then anything that contributes to this opportunity is good as well"

(Click Title)

Imaginary Creatures

...there are more things

in heaven and earth Horatio

than are dreamt of in your philosophy

...Hamlet...

EYE COLOUR - A FAMILY STORY

Isn't that a creepy picture? Gives me the willies every time I look at it.

I was reading through my personal blog, sometimes - 2, reading random old posts, when I came across this one. It made me laugh, so I thought to share it with you who haven't read it before.

Just a very short explanation about the people mentioned. Mani was my first husband and Sandeep was our son. Both were killed in the antiSikh Pogrom in Delhi in November, 1984. Simon is my second husband.

Here is the post:

Eyes come in all sorts of colours from the lightest blue to the blackest black. Most eyes are some shade of blue or some shade of brown. Not all, though. Elizabeth Taylor is famous for her violet eyes.

My eyes are strange. I have no idea what colour to call them because they are a combination of blue, green, grey, gold, amber and brown. If they were just green and brown, they would be hazel, but they have far too much blue for that. Near the iris is a mosaic of brown, gold and amber flecks. Farther out, green melts into blue which then becomes grey at the whites of the eyes. Actually, they look rather like relief maps. For practicality, when I need to list eye colour on a form, I always wear green, since that makes them look green and makes things easier for me.

But this post is not about my eyes; it's about Mani's. We all know Indians - either variety actually, but I'm talking about the ones from India - have brown eyes in varieties from light brown to very dark brown.. Except, of course, Aishwarya Rai, who is famous for her green eyes.

Mani had clear steel grey eyes, as did his mother, as did our son Mandeep. His mother was from Kashmir, and this is not all that rare in Kashmiris, although it is not the norm.

Our story takes place when Mani was to get his first driver's license. He had passed the written test - 100%, I'm sure, after all, he was Mani - and he had passed the driving test - no one scores 100% on that, but I wouldn't bet against him. He had filled out all his papers and was waiting while the DMV bureaucratic lady checked them over. Of course, he was very happy and excited.

All was well until she said, 'Mr. Singh, your eyes are brown.'

He answered, politely, 'No, ma'am, my eyes are grey.'

She repeated, 'Mr. Singh, your eyes are brown.'

He repeated, 'No, ma'am, my eyes are grey. I really do have grey eyes.'

'Don't lie to me, young man, if you want to get your driver's license. Singhs have brown eyes.'

'This Singh has grey eyes. I'm right here. Why don't you just look?'

'Young man, I can tell when someone is toying with me. Please, just change the colour here on the form.'

'Ma'am, please just look at my eyes.' By this time he was annoyed, but he really wanted to get his license.

'I don't need to look at your eyes! Now quit arguing and I'll change the form for you.'

'NO!!!!!! I DO HAVE GREY EYES!!!!'

And every eye in the place was on him.

The startled clerk looked up and saw those big, GREY eyes, opened wide and staring at her.

In a very small, but startled voice, 'My God! You DO have grey eyes!'

Of course, he got the licence , clearly stating he was Singh and he had grey eyes.

I suppose in these days of self-conscious diversity and political correctness, this could not happen. Too bad. We'd be missing a great family story, which was always fun to dramatise! Of course, Mani always played the clerk and it was best when a giggling Sandeep played Mani, although my Dad did a good job, too.

This last picture I put in for three reasons.

It shows that what 'everybody knows' can be dead wrong

I like the picture and it DOES concern eyes

The young lady is a Kikuyu, the same as Simon's father.

--
WHY TRY TO FIT IN WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT?

Premonition

Look at it

don't think

just look at it


Salvador Dali-1936
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
(Premonition of Civil War)

administrative costs

Health and education should not be debt producing concepts,
in the Service Era of the Information Age. . .

Get Busy

He not busy being born is busy dying

...Bob Dylan...

The End Is Near

...kiss your ass goodbye...

The Winner

A friend wrote today asking for the secret of always being a winner. (Remember, I never lose, ie, I always win. I realise that in English never losing and always winning have different meanings, much as not guilty does not imply innocence. Read "never losing" and "always winning" in a mathematical sense, however, and you will find the meanings equivalent, if not equal. There, now that I have lost all my readers, let me continue.)

Times are very difficult right now. Wars, torture, worldwide recession (depression?), taliban making inroads into West Pakistan...I could go on, but that's enough to make my point. I think we can all use this little story to remind ourselves of our own individual greatness.

I actually wrote this little piece as an e-mail to a depressed friend a few months ago. Today seems a good time to share it with all of you. The story is not original, of course, it has been floating around for a long time. And I should probably warn you that, OK, I bring up the subject of sex in this post. I know that among my generation of Sikhs, sex simply doesn't exist; little Sikhlings magically spring into existence with no action from their startled parents.

I think, however, the younger generation, being highly educated and very realistic, can handle this. As can my nonSikh readers.

We Sikhs are supposed to always remain in chardi kala. This isn't easy; we are not only plagued by all the problems of every other segment of humanity, we also have a few problems of our own. Sometimes it gets overwhelming. Like other people, sometimes we can start feeling depressed and stop feeling like winners. For when that happens (and I guarantee it will), here is a little story:

A long time ago, your father and mother had sex. Your father distributed millions of sperm into your mother.

On and on they swam, their goal: your mother's egg. As they swam, more and more fell behind, until, reaching the egg, the weaker ones had all dropped out of the race. Only a few very strong ones reached the egg.




Now, the bravest and strongest of all those millions of sperm reached the egg first and penetrated the membrane and fertilised the egg.





That winning sperm and that winning egg...became [enter your name here]



YOU! You are already not only a winner, you are THE WINNER.


You have nothing to prove. Now, go out there and win. (Whatever winning means to you)

--

Why try to fit in? You were born to stand out.

"Creation"

God created man in his image

....but then....

man created god in his image

Conscious Deprivation

He has a fear of dying, though

Even in this land

Feels the sea tide pull him wider

Dreads his death upon the sand

With roosters ca-ca-crowing in the distance

He’s still afraid to die

And cannot wait to hold his children

But he’s terrified to fly

The warmth absorbs his love in pulses

He eagerly awaits the sun

Mornings tell him all is well

He’ll die and rot when day is done

I cannot fathom what he thinks

Before he falls to sleep

Thanks Anybody? Counts his Who’s?

And promises to keep

But, here, look again!

I think I saw a spark

His smile says today is different

I’m questioning the mark

Then sunny mountainside is shaded

Dark speck upon the land

His gaze is drawn; his heart stops cold

He doesn’t understand

A fleeting moment fantasy

He files it away

Too much to dream, to big to plan

Just work another day

Music hidden in Rosslyn Chapel

Cymatic resonances carved into stone and unknown for centuries. The better videos have been removed from the net...

3.Music hidden in 'Da Vinci Code' chapel
by neverknwo

One of my daughters-in-law sent this to me, and I think it's appropriate to share it here:

Some years ago, on a hot summer day, a little boy
decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole that was behind his
house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back
door, leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he went.
He flew into the water, not realising that as he swam toward the
middle of the lake, an crocodile was swimming toward the shore.

In the house, his mother was looking out the window. She saw the two
as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear, she ran toward
the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could.

Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed, and made a U-turn
to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the
crocodile reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed her little
boy by the arms, just as the crocodile snatched his legs. That began
a very incredible tug-of-war between the two.

The crocodile was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was
much too passionate to let go.

A farmer happened to drive by, heard her screams, raced from his
truck, took aim, and shot the crocodile. Remarkably, after weeks and
weeks in the hospital, the little boy Survived. His legs were
extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. On his arms,
there were deep scratches where his mother's fingernails dug into his
flesh, in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.

The newspaper reporter, who interviewed the boy after the trauma,
asked the boy if he would show him his scars.

The boy lifted his pant legs. Then, with obvious pride, he said to
the reporter, 'But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms,
too. I have them because my Mom wouldn't let go.'

You and I can identify with that little boy.

We have scars, too. No, not from an crocodile, but the scars of a
painful past. Some of those scars are unsightly, and have caused us
deep regret. But, some wounds, my friend, are because God has refused
to let go. In the midst of your struggle, S/He's been right there,
holding on to you.

Gurbani* teaches that God loves you.

You are a child of God. S/He wants to protect you, and provide for
you in every way. But, sometimes, we foolishly wade into dangerous
situations, not knowing what lies ahead. The swimming hole of life -
the terrifying world ocean - is filled with peril ~ and we forget
that anything can - and does - happen. That is when the tug-of-war
begins.

If you have the scars of His/Her love on your arms, be very, very
grateful. S/He will not ever let you go.

Never judge other persons' scars, because you don't know how they got them

(A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the
bricks that others throw at him or her.)

*Gurbani is a Sikh compound word from Guru - the dispeller of darkness - and bani - word. These are the writings of our Gurus. You can read it as "sacred scriptures" of whatever religion you believe in. If you don't believe in any religion, that's OK, too. Just consider "God" as whatever positive, loving force - personal or impersonal - that you find in this universe. If you can't find a positive, loving force in this universe, I'm sorry. But, even then, please don't give up the search.

Chardi kala!

now

"the angels are corrupt with power, the heavens are upside down where does the justice lie?


these ephemeral circumstances sting so much, as if pain and pleasure were everything,
this is the human curse"

Take Me

When asked if he were on drugs

Salvador Dali replied,

I am the drug, take me.

Alice in Talibland

Alice in Talibland-1
By Anwaar Hussain

Alice fell straight down the rabbit hole. Suddenly she landed on a heap of sticks and dry leaves and the fall was over. She saw a Talib running in front of her through a long labyrinthine passage. It looked like some underground cave system. Alice started to follow the Talib. He appeared to be in a great hurry.

She almost lost sight of him but caught up with him near a bend. Fearful that she would lose him again, she caught his shirt tail to make him stop. At this the Talib came to an abrupt stop pushing her hand away.


“You cannot do that,” said the Talib, “You are a female!”


“But I am only 12 years old!” replied Alice. “That’s old enough,” retorted the Talib in a gruff voice. Alice blinked, failing to understand the Talib’s meaning.


“Now here is the deal,” the Talib said in a commanding voice. “You follow me while I attend to a few urgent chores and stay quiet. When I am done, I will answer any questions that you have. Agreed?”


“Agreed!” said Alice meekly and started following the Talib a respectful distance behind.


Presently they entered a hall where they found a group of Taliban holding a miserable looking old man in shackles. In a corner, a Talib was sharpening a butcher’s knife. The smell of blood was every where. From his looks, he appeared to be a poor farmer.


“What is his crime?” asked the Talib with Alice. He behaved like the group’s leader.



“He saw us beheading a man and said something blasphemous,” said one from the Taliban group.


“What did he say?”


“He said that if we were doing what we were doing in the name of God then we could not be worshiping the same God. He said that his God was merciful, loving and forgiving.”


“Ah! That’s blasphemous indeed. But why was the man being beheaded?”


“He was being beheaded for saying exactly the same thing when he saw us digging a dead man’s grave.”


“And why were you digging a dead man’s grave?”


“Because he had escaped beheading for saying the exact same blasphemous words when he saw us beheading yet another man for a similar blasphemy but died a natural death before we could reach him. We wanted to dig him out and behead his dead body to correct the lapse.”


“That seems reasonable,” said the Talib with Alice. “Off with his head then!” said he and motioned to Alice to continue with him.


Soon they approached a dark cave from which heart rending shrieks of a girl were coming. Trembling slightly, Alice peeked from behind the Talib and saw a strange spectacle. Three men were holding a girl face down while a Talib was flogging the girl mercilessly. With each lash, the girl would beg for mercy at an even higher pitch. That in turn would urge the flogger to whip her with ever greater fervor.


Seeing the Talib and Alice, the group at once stopped the activity. “What is her fault?” the Talib asked.


“She loved,” said one from the group.


“What? Loved? How evil. Continue the punishment,” said the Talib. “But who are the men holding her down? She cannot be touched by every one.” He asked.


“Oh, the ones holding her arms are her brothers and the one holding her feet is her father. We took care that every thing is done according to the word of God.”


“God is great. That is good then. Carry on.”


With that, the Talib led Alice out of the caves to a dark, unlit opening. A pale moon was visible in the sky. Under the eerie light, the Talib turned towards Alice and said, “Now you may ask your questions.”


Gathering her nerve, Alice asked her first question, “Is it possible to have a religion that makes me happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled?”


The Talib thought for a while and then replied, “Well! I am afraid your very first question is a loaded one. You see religion is all about morals. Happiness is just an idea. Balance and intellect are twin-evils born out of lack of faith. Some far gone devils call it reason and rationality too. When one has faith, it doesn’t matter whether he has balance or intellect or any thing else. I hope I have made myself clear.”


“Quite clear, I guess,” said Alice. “My next question then is why a religious belief is necessary in order for us to have acceptable morals? And if that indeed is the case then why not cut out the middlemen and go straight for the moral choice without the religion?”


The Talib looked stumped for a while. He blinked a few times as if trying to comprehend the real import of the question. Then he shook his head and simply said, “Told you that religion is all about morals. And you cannot cut out the middlemen because that is US. And WE are ordained by God to carry out his will. So we are told and so I am telling you. That was really a stupid question.”


“I am sorry!” said Alice. “Well let me ask you this then. Why when a single person is superstitious, we call him sick, delusional, schizophrenic etc. but when millions suffer from a mass delusion we call it their religion and are asked to respect their religious beliefs?”


“Because there is not only safety but sanity in numbers too, that’s why.” the Talib replied tersely. He seemed to be increasingly getting angry with the turn the questions were taking.


“What is God?” asked Alice abruptly.


The Talib looked at her with glazed eyes.


“God is all around us. HE is in every thing. HE is nature. That is why my religion is the closest to nature….the truest and the best religion.” the Talib intoned with zealous fervor.


“Ok. Have you ever heard of Carl Sagan?” asked Alice.


At this apparently disconnected question, the Talib looked at her with a bemused look on his face and said, “No, but from the sound of his name he seems to be some infidel heathen.”


“Oh, well! Carl Sagan once said, ‘. . . if by “God” one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying . . . it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.’ What do you say to that?”


“Be careful girl. You cannot ask questions about God or how He does things. You are only to believe, to have faith. You are getting dangerously close to being blasphemous.” The Talib warned without answering the question.


“Oh ok! I am sorry. I thought that was an innocent query. But then you have to answer another question that is far more important.” said Alice


“I want to know why it is perfectly possible to question who made a watch and how he made it but not who made this universe and how he made it?”


“Be careful girl!” the Talib growled in a menacing way.


Alice continued without stopping, “I want to know how to answer people blaming your’s as a violent religion when in the protests in the wake of Danish cartoons demonstrators were photographed in Britain bearing banners saying, ‘Behead those who say Islam is a violent religion’.


“Be careful girl!” the Talib hissed.


“I want to know what to make of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quotation in which he says, “The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next”, can you?”


“Be careful!” the Talib growled. But Alice had lost all control of her emotions. She went on recklessly.


“I have seen your killings and your beheadings of fellow human beings in the name of God and I say we could not be worshiping the same God. My God is merciful, loving and forgiving. Your’s is not.”


“May you rot in hell!” shouted the Talib with foam flying from his mouth and his eyes narrowed down to mere slits.


“Off with her head!” he ordered a group of approaching Taliban.

.creative certification..?

..deny the problems aren't amplified by lack of governmental response-ability & predict how much longer? How obvious is bail-out "socialistic begging rights pointing to who REALLY created it?" WEALTH-fair-game?
Socialized medicine is the only alternative (assurance) to costly victimizing reflexes...and banks represent trust stability? Questions ARE the best answers NOW..or tomorrow?
Have "They" known what 'They' (Might) be doing in the past?

Planet of the Apes

We......

......are the apes.

The truth is a bit of a shock

The truth is hard to swallow.

The Tether Experiment

Don't believe that UFO's exist?



Watch this NASA video.

Will Rogers

All I know is what I read in the papers

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

...a very sad piece of truth, once we know



...are we supposed to do nothing about it?

A Brief, er, Short History Of Time

Oh, damn! That title is already taken. OK, I cannot compete with Dr. Hawking, nor do I wish to. My approach is less knowledgeable, less scientific than his. Mine is primarily experiential.

First, if I'm to talk about time, a definition might be helpful.
From an online dictionary:

TIME:
1. A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

2. An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration: a long time since the last war; passed the time reading.

3. A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval: ran the course in a time just under four minutes.

4. A similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes: checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 a.m.

5. A system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned: solar time.

Is that helpful?

I thought not.

When I was a kid, I used to lie awake at night speculating on what time was. Dad said that would drive me bonkers, no one understands time. He might have been right. I read H. G. Wells science fiction classic, The Time Machine. (As an aside, that opened a lifetime love of the science fiction genre) He called time a dimension


OK, definition time again.

DIMENSION:

1. A measure of spatial extent, especially width, height, or length.

2. Mathematics The least number of independent coordinates required to specify uniquely the points in a space.

3. The range of such a coordinate.

4. Physics A physical property, such as mass, length, time, or a combination thereof, regarded as a fundamental measure or as one of a set of fundamental measures of a physical quantity: Velocity has the dimensions of length divided by time.

I think the one from physics is most operative here. Now I am in deep waters. You probably know much more about physics than I do, so please just humour me, dear friend.

After reading The Time Machine, I started picturing time as a line, a number line. Could it possibly gain another dimension and curve on itself, with the intersecting points making present and future, or present and past into a single point? Does it maker any sense at all to reference time in terms of spatial dimension. Or is this a gross misuse of the venerable number line?

Somewhere along the line, I came to think of time as having three dimensions, past, present and future. This set the stage for what I experienced in an altered state of consciousness, which I will refer to as a Spiritual Experience (SE) for lack of a better term

Now, back to the mundane. Look at some object that has three spatial dimensions, say your dominant hand. It occurs to me that I don't know if you are right-handed or left-handed, so I'll picture both below. When you look at, you see those dimension, length, width and depth, but you do not - cannot! - see them as three separate properties, you see them as one organic whole, the length, width and depth each distinct and yet inseparable. Are you following me so far? Of course you are, we haven't gotten to the difficult part.

Now we get to the difficult part.

You most likely see your hand in only one dimension of time, the present. Now you need to use your imagination. Imagine looking at your hand and seeing it as it was when you were a foetus, a baby, a child, a teenager. Now, return to the present and, in your imagination, travel in the opposite direction, see your hand in ten years, then as an old person. If you have the nerve, see it as dead and decaying.

If you are following me now, we can move on to the really hard part.

Imagine seeing those three dimensions of time as an organic whole, each distinct and yet inseparable, past, present and future all existing together, so when you look at your hand, you are not seeing our usual three dimensional hand, but rather you are seeing a six dimensional hand.

Now imagine seeing the entire spacetime continuum in that way. That is my view of maya - when I am aware of maya at all - during a SE.

I am aware that this must sound science fiction, and I suppose it is. It is also something I have experienced and continue to experience occasionally.

And that is my explanation of the three dimensions of time, as best I can give it right now.

My Amazon parrot is screeching now, telling me it's time to feed her, preferably pizza, the 'Zons' favourite food.

Before I go, as I don't want to disappoint, here are parts of my three favourite time
songs, with links to the complete songs.

A Hazy Shade of Winter: (edited)
Simon and Garfunkel


Time, time, time, see whats become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, its the springtime of my life

But look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

TIME IS ON MY SIDE: (edited)

The Rolling Stones (OMG! I remember buying this single - on vinyl, in the 1960s)
(Meade)

Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is

You're searching for good times
But just wait and see
You'll come running back (I won't have to worry no more)
You'll come running back (spend the rest of my life with you, baby)
You'll come running back to me

Yes time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
I said, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side
Yeah, time, time, time is on my side

Time In A Bottle: (edited)
Jim Croce


If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that Id like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
Id save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
Ive looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

Reported comment

"There's a secret government,

inside the government...

and I don't control it."

...Bill Clinton...

Co-exist-ence

It doesn't matter to me

what you believe...

...as long as you give me the freedom

to believe what I want

oops!

They are here

Was Jesus an alien?

The Travis Walton experience is unequivocally
the best documented account of alien abduction yet recorded.
During his ordeal, Travis reported that he encountered
human beings aboard the alien craft.

Some people think they "know"....

....what if everything you "knew" was wrong?

I would rather say that "I don't know"....

....when you realize you "don't know" you begin to observe.

When you observe, you begin to see the truth.

I have seen the truth....

....they are here.


The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.
...Harry S. Truman...

(The Disclosure Project)

Ghost Rider

You can't live in fear


Johnny Blaze

The Spy

I'm a spy in the house of love

I know the dream, that you're dreamin' of

I know the word that you long to hear

I know your deepest, secret fear

(The Doors)

Check out ~Freelove

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net