Big Sis

Say hi to our big Sister, the Sun. And it is our Sister (or Brother if you like) and not our parent, as the Sun and the planets all formed from the same ginormous cloud of gas. The Sun took up most of that cloud, but every single planet, moon, comet and asteroid came from the same cloud. Even you, roundaboutly.

Like all "things" - stars and planets and you included - the Sun is the result of a series of reactions held in balance. In the case of a star, this balance is composed of the inward pressure of gravity, and the outward pressure of fusion. As such, the heart of a star is quite small compared to its overall size, thanks to this simple process:

Fusion. Just a couple of atoms bouncing off one another with enough energy (because of the inward pressure of gravity) and kabloom! Fusion, the heart of a star, and thus the heart of all life. Fusion releases enormous amounts of energy, and that energy is the star, and all its light, in all frequencies.

These frequencies are the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to microwaves to visible light - what we see - to ultraviolet, x-rays, and finally gamma rays. All seen here. Each frequency reveals different information, and thus astronomers use a variety of detection methods to learn not only about the sun, but everything.

We exist in a living miracle. It's pretty cool.

Another's Flag

I believe in these things, somewhat truly: The United Nations - shouldn't we all belong to the same nation? We're all the same people, let's organize and conquer Mars.

Control the water, control the planet.

Redshirt originals all, yeah.

Asymmetry

Incredibly, the entire metro area of Boston was on lockdown all day. No public transport, no cabs, no one supposed to go to work or go to school, no one supposed to leave their homes. Why? Because of two men.

This asymmetry intrigues/disturbs/bothers me. I'm not passing judgement on the actions taken by officials in Mass, but rather simply remarking on the imbalance of it all. Two men hold close to a million hostage in their homes.

Ever hear of the "80-20 Rule"? Also known as the Pareto Principle, it was first articulated for business concerns, but since has been found to apply in a wide variety of situations. To wit - 80% of the effects are caused by 20% of the agents. IE, 80% of crime is caused by 20% of the population. Or 80% of a company's profits are generated by 20% of their customers. I've long held that 80% of litter is generated by 20% of folks.

And so on. Asymmetry. Imbalance. It creates a condition where a general population can live in fear even though the vast majority of them are law abiding.

As here.

I'm not proposing anything by the way, except for the advice I've found holds true in 99% of situations: While you can rarely change reality, you can change your perception of reality.

We don't have anything to be afraid of, in other words. And yet, so much fear.

Lymonology

An apt illustration of the role color plays in taste. Consider even further if the yellow bottles on left contained lime juice, and the green bottles on the right contained lemon juice. I predict you would taste a limey lemon and a lemony lime in tasting each, even if they were pure samples of lime/lemon juice respectively. You see, your mind is as influential in taste as is your tongue. Color plays a huge role in how we perceive taste, as does smell obviously, but even too sound - the crisp snap of a chip adds to its flavor. To go further, since all external sensation is registered and perceived in the brain, than "flavor" only exists in the mind, and as with many other things, it is only Life that gives it reality. For, what would there be to taste if there were none to eat? Flavor would not exist, just as color does not exist without eyes to see light, and sound only exists with the hearer. Quantum reality, yo: Only by measuring does anything have reality.

 Also too, I wonder if this was the Stockboy's error, or someone at Concord Foods "Farm"?

To end - you should try and view mistakes through this prism: It is only through "imperfection" that anything happens in this world. If everything were perfect, than everything would be in balance, and nothing would happen. It's the imbalance that creates change, and change is the definition of time, and time is the river in which Life swims.

So don't sweat it, anonymous Concord Foods employee!

The Same Shape

A fire vortex. Wicked metal. And it is the vortex that repeats at all levels of our reality, from the very small to the large beyond comprehension. It is one of the, if not the, default shapes of reality. Gravity follows the vortex, and in it creates almost everything, via stars, and galaxies of stars. Here, heat rising rapidly in cooler surrounding air creates a vortex of fire whirling up the compressed space, as with all things: Imbalances creates motions, motions bring change.

The spiral is the symbol of the vortex, and should be our symbol of understanding.

We build for you to eat

Doozers build things for the Fraggles to eat and if the Fraggles don't, the Doozers move on to other clans of Fraggles willing to eat their tasty structures. True story!

And that's the Doozer-Fraggle Symbiosis, teaching us all a lesson about the balance of life. And appearances. And really cool miniature puppet sets.

How awesome. For shame that today this would all be binary code stored on magnetic mediums.  Think of all the puppeteers out of work!

Imbalance seeks balance

Premise: Nothing is ever created or destroyed; rather, all that we witness, all that we are, could know and ever will know, simply represents energy in a continual state of transformation.

Thus, everything - and I mean everything - can be described in very simple terms, as "imbalance seeks balance". For instance, the wind exists because areas of the earth achieve uneven temperatures - winds are the means for these imbalances to be evened out. For instance, Plutonium is radioactive because it has an imbalance of electrons, and sheds them, seeking out a balanced state (which is Iron, if you recall). Nature abhors a vacuum, they say. On and on....

However, balance, if it ever can be achieved, is a fleeting state, soon to be filled with more imbalances - the wind won't ever stop blowing, in other words.
Consider then, if you believe this, what this means for our lives, our existence, our very reality.
Finally, the spiral is THE symbol to describe this relationship - of unending transformations.

All things are scaled

By scaled, for example, imagine this picture represents the gravity wells of Blackholes, where the clouds represent our space/time, and the funnels represent gravity wells caused by the Blackhole.

At this point in time, we know the following about Blackholes:

- Giant versions of them exist at the center of every galaxy.

- At the center point of a blackhole, our physics breaks down and we understand nothing. This is the definition of a Singularity, just like the one that birthed our Universe. I don't think that's a co-incidence.

- They exist in microscopic form, coming into and swiftly exiting out of existence all around us.

- No one really knows what a blackhole is, other than a phenomena we observe defined by gravity in the extreme - extreme into the Singularity, where gravity is so dense there is no more matter, no more energy. Where it goes, what happens, no one knows.

Everyone's betting multiple dimensions, however. So, consider.

Spirals are Viral

The spiral shape appears everywhere in our reality - toilet bowl, galaxy, sunflower, seashell, so on and etc. You know this to be true, yes? How do you explain the fecundity of this pattern?

I have a crazy theory: The spiral is the result of gravity spread over multiple dimensions.


Seriously.

Also, seriously: The Spiral is Holy, as we humans understand Holy, or, as I understand Holy, which is the state of being in complete harmony.

We'll define Harmony later.

Iron!

Here's to Iron (Fe #26!), the most stable element in existence and the state to which all the other elements strive.

To the left is a nice looking Iron meteor hanging out on Mars. Expelled from some star, probably the same star that made the iron currently in your blood.