Ancient Spores May Disprove Comet Cataclysm

The presence of tiny balls of fungus and feces in materials dating over several millennia may disprove the theory that an exploding comet 12,900 years ago ignited a dramatic drop in earth temperature called the Younger Dryas.

The Younger Dryas has been associated with the extinction of mammoths and other Ice Age mammals in North America. But the theory that a comet or asteroid explosion is behind the cooling event is wrong, according to study leader Andrew C. Scott, a paleobotanist at Royal Holloway University in London.

According to National Geographic:

For years proponents of the impact theory have cited tiny spherules of carbon found in a layer of charred sediment throughout North America that dates to the Younger Dryas period. According to the theory, these spherules are organic matter subjected to intense heat after debris from an exploded meteor rained down on Earth, sparking massive wildfires. 

The new research, however, detected carbon spherules in soil layers from before, during, and after the Younger Dryas, making it hard to argue that the particles are products of a sudden impact.

"All these particles are of natural biological origin and are not related to either intense wildfires or cosmic impacts," Scott said in an email. "The press and public are very interested in catastrophic explanations. But it is important that when evidence stacks up to show the theory does not work, then it should be abandoned."

Scott said fungal spores have similar microscopic features to nanodiamonds, which some researchers have cited as evidence of a massive comet explosion above the earth’s surface nearly 13,000 years ago.

Click here for the complete National Geographic article.
Click here for earlier post on nanodiamond theory.

Meditation Lessens the Hurt of Chronic Pain

New research shows that people who meditate regularly find pain less unpleasant. According to the LiveScience website, scientists recently recruited 12 volunteers with a diverse range of meditation experience in mindfulness meditation, which emphasizes focusing on the present. 

The researchers used a laser to zap the skin on the right forearm and induce pain in each participant. They found those with more meditation experience found the pain less unpleasant than meditators with less experience, while no corresponding age effect was seen among non-meditators.

“The results suggest that meditation doesn't change the raw sensory experience of pain, but rather reduces the emotional response that occurs when pain is anticipated,” researcher Christopher Brown, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Manchester in England, told LiveScience. “This in itself appears to be enough to reduce the unpleasantness of the experienced pain, even though the sensory experience is unchanged.”

“Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events," Brown added. "This may be why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain considerably worse."

Click here for the complete LiveScience article.

Sunspots Remaining Scarce

Sunspots have occurred less frequently during the past two years than at any other period for nearly a century. “This is solar behavior we haven't seen in living memory,” according to David Hathaway, physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun's magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking, says New Scientist magazine. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun.

When sunspot numbers drop at the end of their typical 11-year cycle, solar storms die down. This “solar minimum” doesn't last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum.

What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. But computer models predicted that when the spots did return, they would do so in force. This hasn’t happened.

Click here for the complete New Scientist article.

Number 4 ~ YOUTHFUL FOLLY

Youthful folly has success.
It is not I who seek the young fool;
The young fool seeks me.
At the first oracle I inform him.
If he asks two or three times, it is importunity.
If he importunes, I give him no information.
Perseverance furthers.

In the time of youth, folly is not an evil. One may succeed in spite of it, provided one finds an experienced teacher and has the right attitude toward him. This means, first of all, that the youth himself must be conscious of his lack of experience and must seek out the teacher. Without this modesty and this interest, there is no guarantee that he has the necessary receptivity, which should express itself in respectful acceptance of the teacher. This is the reason why the teacher must wait to be sought out instead of offering himself. Only thus can the instruction take place at the right time and in the right way.

Exploring the Mysterious Portolan Maps

Section of the amazingly accurate 1559 map by Mateo Prunes.

One of the most mysterious topics in world history concerns a handful of maps depicting the world’s geography with a precision that far exceeded the tools and abilities of the day’s mapmakers. The Library of Congress this week convened a conference, “Re-Examining the Portolan Chart: History, Navigation and Science” to discuss maps originating about 1275. According to today’s Washington Post:

It is a rare representative of one of the world's greatest and most enduring mysteries: Where and how did medieval mapmakers, apparently armed with no more than a compass, an hourglass and sets of sailing directions, develop stunningly accurate maps of southern Europe, the Black Sea and North African coastlines, as if they were looking down from a satellite, when no one had been higher than a treetop?

The earliest known portolan (PORT-oh-lawn) chart, the Carta Pisana, just appears in about 1275 -- with no known predecessors. It is perhaps the first modern scientific map and contrasted sharply to the "mappamundi" of the era, the colorful maps with unrecognizable geography and fantastic creatures and legends. It bears no resemblance to the methods of the mathematician Ptolemy and does not use measurements of longitude and latitude.

 And yet, despite it's stunning accuracy, the map "seems to have emerged full-blown from the seas it describes," one reference journal notes. No one today knows who made the first maps, or how they calculated distance so accurately, or even how all the information came to be compiled.

While maps such as the Carta Pisana are indeed worthy of in-depth research, I’m also drawn to even more mysterious examples, such as the Piri Reis map from 1513, which has been the topic of a couple of books, the most fun ~ even if perhaps not the most accurate ~ being Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, first published by Charles Hapgood in 1966.

Click here for the Washington Post article.

Click here for more on the Piri Reis map.

Click here for a Wikipedia overview of ancient maps.

Brain Now Found to Better Distinguish Fear

New research into the brain’s capacity for storing fear holds promise for treating post-traumatic stress syndrome, among other fears that lurk in our minds and can haunt our lives.

The new study results appear in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience. According to PhysOrg.com:

The research focused on the brain's amygdala, which has previously been shown to store fear memories. However, prior studies have indicated that the amygdala does not discriminate among the different threats it holds and processes. In other words, whether you are afraid of dogs because you were once bitten by a dog or you are afraid of pizza because you once nearly choked to death eating it, all the amygdala remembers is that both of these experiences were scary. By contrast, other brain areas, such as cortex, ensures that all other aspects of these fearful events in your life are remembered.

New evidence, however, points to the amygdala being able to make distinctions among the fear memories it holds and retrieves.

Click here for the PhysOrg.com article.

Ram Dass

Spiritual teacher Ram Dass ~ earlier known as Harvard professor Richard Alpert (born 1931) ~ here recites a well-known anecdote that captures a universal truth in which I firmly believe. That is, you can’t really tell whether an incident is “good” or “bad” until its implications have played out over a period of time.

Is Life on Earth Merely a Cosmic Fluke?

Paul Davies ~ one of the scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) ~ says nothing in the laws of chemistry or physics indicate life is a cosmic imperative. Instead, he says we should consider the possibility that life on Earth is a fluke, a completely improbable event.

Davies runs Arizona State University’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, and chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, which has developed a plan for the day we do find life elsewhere. In his new book, The Eerie Silence, Davies provides an overview of various efforts to contact aliens, and he also notes how recent discoveries have led to the widespread belief that life must be common in the universe.

According to PhysOrg.com:

Hundreds of planets have been detected orbiting distant stars, and while these planets are more like Jupiter than Earth, that’s mostly due to our detection methods. Less massive planets will likely be found by newer telescopes, and the fact that we have already found so many worlds bodes well for the potential number of habitable planets in the galaxy. In addition, life has been discovered in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, including the deep subsurface where sunlight cannot penetrate. This suggests that life is possible in all sorts of unusual places, including planets we once would have considered inhospitable to life.

“If life started more than once on Earth, we could be virtually certain that the universe is teeming with it,” Davies writes. “Unless there is something very peculiar about our planet, it is inconceivable that life would have begun twice on one Earth-like planet but hardly ever on the rest.”

Click here for the complete article.

Viktor Frankl on Idealism and Destiny

I'm so excited to find this video clip from 1972 of Viktor E. Frankl speaking on idealism and what it means for the individual.
Frankl is the author of Man's Search for Meaning, an oft-cited, powerful book stemming from Frankl's experiences as a death-camp prisoner during Hitler's Holocaust. This clip is just over four minutes.

Frankl was a founder of "logotherapy," a form of existential analysis devoted to finding meaning in life and thus a reason to continue living. He lived from 1905 to 1997.

Terence McKenna

Here American metaphysician and author Terrance McKenna (1946-2000) delivers a scathing but profound analysis of American culture ~ far different from his usual anthropologically abstract and mild-mannered talks. "Culture and language tend to become traps," he says here. "And yet they can be the platforms for enormous freedom ... if you understand what it's all about."

[My plan for these "Wisdom" clips is to provide interesting teachings that run two minutes or less. On some, the audio may be bad, others may exceed two minutes by a bit. But I hope they'll still be worth your time.]

Calculus "Is the Language God Talks"

The physicist Richard Feynman said, "It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvellous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama." 
That's by the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Herman Wouk, whose new book "The Language God Talks" is due for release this week. 

Click here for a longer excerpt from New Scientist.

Mercury went retrograde at 12:06 this morning, Eastern time, and will remain so until May 11. Often abbreviated as "Mercury Rx," Mercury Retrograde ~ often abbreviated as “Mercury Rx” ~ is the three-week period when Mercury appears to move in reverse. This happens because Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun, and when it passes by Earth on its orbit, it seems to be going forward. When it loops back around the Sun, it appears to us be moving backward.

According to today's Tarot.com:

Since Mercury is the planet representing communication and motion, when it goes retrograde, there is a sense that movement-based things -- such as communication, travel, traffic, or business negotiations -- are interrupted and slowed. Cars break down, calls get missed, people say the wrong things at the wrong time. Energetically, it can feel as though the universe is blocking your efforts at progress.

 You can't demand life to flow more smoothly while Mercury's in retrograde. Double-check your work beforehand, set plans in advance and be willing to repeat yourself. Mercury Retrograde is a reminder that we're not as almighty as we think; peaceful surrender is the best weapon against Mercury Retrograde. Go with the flow and take each challenge as an opportunity to meditate on the unpredictability of life.

Astrologer Lynn Hayes says on her blog: “The recent air traffic problems caused by the Iceland volcano is an example of Mercury Retrograde reversals.”

A Musical Interlude ~ Lux Aurumque

Here American composer Eric Whitacre (born 1970) carries Internet communication to a heavenly level, combining 185 voices posted on YouTube clips to sing his Lux Aurumque.

The singers are from 12 countries around the world. Whitacre ~ who also is conducting this video ~ merged hundreds of individually recorded tracks to produce the beautiful finished rendition.

(If you want to see what just one of the hundreds of tracks is like, click here for Melody Myers of Tennessee.)

J. Krishnamurti

Here Indian sage J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) explains  individual responsibility for the condition of the world's people because "we are all one."

[My plan for these "Wisdom" clips is to provide interesting teachings that run two minutes or less. On some, the audio may be bad, others may exceed two minutes by a bit. But I hope they'll still be worth your time.]

Red Book Was Jung's "Numinous Beginning"

Recent publication of the Carl Jung’s Red Book ~ a 200-page manuscript also known as Liber Novus, Latin for new book ~ is regarded as a monumental event worldwide. Jung wrote it between 1914 and 1930 during a time of personal tribulation and enlightenment, composing it in calligraphic text and providing many symbolic paintings.

Of his Red Book, Jung wrote:

The years when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.

Click here for a link to a New York Times index of articles on Jung and on the Red Book itself.

On Forgiveness

"Jacob Seeking Forgiveness of Esau," Jan Victors, 1652.

[I believe forgiveness is one of the most important functions of our spiritual life. Recently reading an excellent book on remote viewing and associated psi activities ~ Limitless Mind by Russell Targ ~ I found his thoughts on the topic of forgiveness.]

"Carrying a grudge is like carrying a red-hot rock or giving the person who hurt you a lifetime of free rent in your mind. Why would you want to do that? In some families, grievances and resentment are held for years, even decades. We forgive people who we imagine have harmed us because, for our own mental health, we want to lay down the burden of the past rather than carry it into the present.

"…. It appears that forgiveness is an essential step on the road to peace. It is not forgetting, but forgiving and letting go that heals all separations.

"… The great Hindu mystic Shankara taught that the most important thing for us to learn is the discernment of reality from illusion. We then discover that most of what we thought we were experiencing was, in fact, illusion. Furthermore the Buddhists teach that there is virtually no objective reality to our judgments, so they usually lead to errors, and often to suffering. In our personal lives, our judgment of others always separates us from the loving connection with God."

A Celebration of Resurrection

For Easter, I'd like to offer this brief musical celebration of the Resurrection. It's performed by the Serbian orchestra Stupovi as part of an effort to raise funds for reconstruction of the Pillars of St. George medieval monastery. Some of the images of children, spring blossoms and joy are simply beautiful.

Fable Number 329 ~ The Beauty Contest of the Birds

A beauty contest was held and all the birds went to be judged by Zeus. Hermes fixed the appointed day and the birds flocked to the rivers and ponds where they shed their shabby feathers and preened their finer ones. The jackdaw, however, had no natural advantages to commend his appearance, so he decorated himself with the feathers that had been cast aside by the other birds. The owl alone recognized her own feathers and took them away from the jackdaw, and she incited the other birds to do the same. When the jackdaw had been stripped bare by everyone, he went before the judgement of Zeus naked.

Moral: Adornments that do not belong to you can lead to humiliation.

Religion as Defense Against God

"You have to break past the image of God to get through to the connoted illumination. The psychologist Jung has a relevant saying: “Religion is a defense against the experience of God.” The mystery has been reduced to a set of concepts and ideas, and emphasizing these concepts and ideas can short-circuit the transcendent, connoted experience.

"An intense experience of mystery is what one has to regard as the ultimate religious experience.

"… You have to go past the imaged image of Jesus. Such an image of one’s god becomes a final obstruction, one’s ultimate barrier. You hold on to your own ideology, your own little manner of thinking, and when a larger experience of God approaches, an experience greater than you are prepared to receive, you take flight from it by clinging to the image in your mind. This is known as preserving your faith."

~ Joseph Campbell

From The Power of Myth

1988

Number 5 ~ WAITING

Waiting. If you are sincere,
You have light and success.
Perseverance brings good furtune.
It furthers one to cross the great water.

Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal. Such certainty alone gives that light which leads to success. This leads to the perseverance that brings good fortune and bestows power to cross the great water.

One is faced with a danger that has to be overcome. Weakness and impatience can do nothing. Only a strong man can stand up to his fate, for his inner security enables him to endure to the end. This strength shows itself in uncompromising truthfulness. It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized.

This recognition must be followed by resolute and persevering action. For only the man who goes to meet his fate resolutely is equipped to deal with it adequately. Then he will be able to cross the great water ~ that is to say, he will be capable of making the necessary decision and of surmounting the danger.

Time Acceleration

The topic of "time acceleration" fascinates me to no end. In that spirit, I offer this 3-minute clip featuring the thoughts of Terence McKenna, who studied time acceleration from several vantage points, but most notably from the perspective of the I Ching.

I still puzzle over whether time ~ as in the space/time continuum ~ is in fact speeding up, or if time only seems to be passing by more quickly due to the phenomenal rate of change we're experiencing. The catalyst, of course, would be technology and its ability to process information at ever-faster speeds, which would create the sensation of time accelerating. I don't know the answer.

If you're unfamiliar with the late Terence McKenna, he was something of a phenomenon. To sum him up, here's the opening paragraph to his Wikipedia entry:

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was a writer, public speaker, philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, platonist and skeptic. He was noted for his knowledge, and the ability to articulate his knowledge, of the use of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, mysticism, hermeticism, neo-platonism, biology, geology, physics, astrophysics, media theory, linguistics, poetry, historical and civilizational timelines, the theoretical origins of human consciousness, psychedelic phenomenology, and his concept of novelty theory.

I want to thank the insightful Colorado astrologer Melody Scott Zindell for posting this a while ago on her blog, which is where I spotted it.

Good Guidance Regarding 2012

Readers of Quantum Spirit probably know I have great respect for physicist and consciousness-explorer Peter Russell, several of whose videos I've posted here before. Here are his recent comments and observations about the coming of the year 2012. The video features many beautiful nature images and I encourage you to listen to the entire 7 minutes. The key part ~ his advice and guidance ~ begins at about minute 4. Here are Russell's words regarding this video on his website, which is well worth visiting.

2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar's 5125-year cycle, leading many to prophecy this as a time of great change—for some the end of Western civilization, for others a time of transformation and renewal. Whatever may or may not happen in 2012, it is clear that we are living through a critical period of human history, and the need for a widespread shift in human thinking and values is becoming increasingly apparent. From this perspective, 2012 is a symbol of the times we are passing through. It represents the temporal epicenter of a cultural earthquake, whose reverberations are getting stronger day by day.

Peter Russell's website is an informed, fascinating and fun reservoir of articles, meditations, videos and more. I encourage you to visit it by clicking here.

A View of Our Rapidly Changing World

Nothing, I believe, has greater impact on our world today than the reach of web-based technology into our lives. If you doubt it, please spend 4 minutes viewing the statistics presented in this video. And if you're one of the many people who feel the world is racing by at incredible speed ~ that the so-called "Quickening" is here ~ this could explain why.

To avoid the cropped screen effect, you're better off going directly to this link.

Winter Solstice

Sunrise at Stonehenge on the Winter Solstice, 2003.

[Today is the Winter Solstice, one of the most venerated days throughout recorded history. Here, I’ve selected several paragraphs of interest from the relatively lengthy Winter Solstice write-up on Wikipedia.]

The Winter Solstice occurs when the earth's axial tilt is farthest from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. For most people in the high latitudes this is commonly known as the shortest day and the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest. The seasonal significance of the Winter Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

. . . The solstice itself may have been a special moment of the annual cycle of the year even during neolithic times. Astronomical events, which during ancient times controlled the mating of animals, sowing of crops and metering of winter reserves between harvests, show how various cultural mythologies and traditions have arisen.

. . . The winter solstice may have been immensely important because communities were not certain of living through the winter, and had to be prepared during the previous nine months. Starvation was common in winter between January and April, also known as the famine months. In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter, so it was almost the only time of year when a supply of fresh meat was available. The majority of wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking at this time.

. . . Since 45 BCE, when the 25th of December was established in the Julian calendar as the winter solstice of Europe, the difference between the calendar year (365.2500 days) and the tropical year (365.2422 days) moved the day associated with the actual astronomical solstice forward approximately three days every four centuries until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar, bringing the northern winter solstice to around December 21. Yearly, in the Gregorian calendar, the solstice still fluctuates slightly but in the long term, only about one day every 3000 years.

. . . Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun's ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures using winter solstitially based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated with regard to life-death-rebirth deities or new beginnings such as Hogmanay's redding, a New Year cleaning tradition. In Greek mythology, the gods and goddesses met on the winter and summer solstice, and Hades was permitted on Mount Olympus. Also reversal is another usual theme as in Saturnalia's slave and master reversals.

Click here for the Wikipedia entry.

Number 36 ~ DARKENING OF THE LIGHT

Darkening of the light. In adversity

It furthers one to be persevering.

One must not unresistingly let himself be swept along by unfavorable circumstances, nor permit his steadfastness to be shaken. He can avoid this by maintaining his inner light, while remaining outwardly yielding and tractable. With this attitude he can overcome even the greatest adversities.

In some situations indeed a man must hide his light in order to make his will prevail in spite of difficulties in his immediate environment. Perseverance must dwell in inmost consciousness and should not be discernible from without. Only thus is a man able to maintain his will in the face of difficulties.

A Meditation for Flu Season

Painting "The Philosopher in Meditation" by Rembrandt, 1632.

I’m gaining a greater appreciation for German-born spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle as I now re-read his landmark The Power of Now after putting it down several years ago. Today I read some easy instructions Tolle says can strengthen your immune system. So, in the spirit of the (flu) season, I pass them along:

There is a simple but powerful self-healing meditation that you can do whenever you feel the need to boost your immune system. It is particularly effective if used when you feel the first symptoms of an illness, but it also works with illnesses that are already entrenched if you use it a frequent intervals and with an intense focus. It will also counteract any disruption of your energy field by some form of negativity. However, it is not a substitute for the moment-to-moment practice of being in the body; otherwise, its effect will only be temporary. Here it is:

When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness. Close your eyes. Lie flat on your back. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head, and so on. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for fifteen seconds or so. Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. This need only take a minute or so.

After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Hold that feeling for a few minutes. Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice that this has happened, just return your attention to the inner body.

As for the “inner body” he refers to, I liked his explanation, which is something I believe we all experience at times:

Whereas the outer body normally appears to grow old and wither fairly quickly, the inner body does not change with time, except that you may feel it more deeply and become it more fully. If you are twenty years old now, the energy field of your inner body will feel just the same when you are eighty. It will be just as vibrantly alive.

Amazing Archival Footage

I find this video to be an amazing trip back through time. It was filmed on a trolley in 1905, traveling along Market Street in San Francisco. Seldom have I been able to view such an array of people, fashions, and vehicles in an everyday setting. It's particularly nostalgic when you realize that only a year later ~ in 1906 ~ this entire area was obliterated in the San Francisco earthquake and accompanying fires. (The musical accompaniment may not have been my personal choice, but it does seem to work in a strange way.)

Musical Interlude ~ A 17th Century Cantata

Don't underestimate the 1600s when it comes to incredible, spirit-lifting music. Here's a 4-minute chamber cantata from Luigi Rossi (1597-1653) joyfully played by the European group L'Arpeggiata that's guaranteed to thrill.

Does Shroud Contain Jesus' Death Certificate?

Medieval manuscript page depicting Jesus's burial with shroud.

The mysterious Shroud of Turin is back in the news this week, this time with an argument for its authenticity as the death shroud that covered Jesus from the period following his crucifixion until his resurrection.

In October, scientists pronounced the shroud as a medieval forgery after they duplicated an imprint onto linen using materials existing in the 14th Century. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth has dated it to the Middle Ages, when the initial forgery is claimed to have occurred.

Now, however, a Vatican scholar says she has deciphered Jesus’s “death certificate” from writing obscured on the shroud, by implication placing its origin back to the time of the resurrection.

"I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth," says Dr. Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives. She said she reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.

The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.

According to the London Times:

Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene." This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.

Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.

A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.

Frale ~ best known for her studies of the Knights Templar ~ said she had deciphered "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith.”

Click here for the London Times article.

Context: Follow Your Bliss

Medieval depiction of the Wheel of Fortune.

This morning I was re-reading a transcription of the landmark 1988 televised PBS series The Power of Myth where one of America’s leading mythologists, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), was interviewed by Bill Moyers ~ a series that helped popularize Campbell and his well-known advice to “Follow your bliss.”

Campbell’s original message has been subject to distortion over the years, so here’s a verbatim explanation from The Power of Myth. In a discussion on sacrifice and bliss, Campbell first uttered the phrase and then Moyers followed up:

Moyers: What happens when you follow you bliss?

Campbell: You come to bliss. In the Middle Ages, a favorite image that occurs in many, many contexts is the wheel of fortune. There’s the hub of the wheel, and there is the revolving rim of the wheel. For example, if you are attached to the rim of the wheel of fortune, you will be either above, going down, or at the bottom, coming up. But if you are at the hub, you are in the same place all the time. That is the sense of the marriage vow ~ I take you in health or sickness, in wealth or poverty: going up or going down. But I take you as my center, and you are my bliss, not the wealth that you might bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss.

Moyers: How would you advise somebody to tap that spring of eternal life, that bliss that is right there?

Campbell: We are having experiences all the time that may on occasion render some sense of this, a little intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depth.

A Startling Social Experiment on Beauty

In the Washington DC metro station one chilly morning, a young man played six classical pieces on a violin, with his case opened to accept donations.

During the 45 minutes he played, just over 1,000 people passed by.

He played for three minutes before a man paused to watch. After seven minutes, a woman dropped the first dollar into his case. After 10 minutes, a three-year-old boy stopped to listen but his mother tugged him away ~ an act repeated several times with children and their parents.

At the end of the 45 minutes, the musician had collected $32. He left without collecting a single applause.

The musician that morning was Joshua Bell, one of the world’s greatest violinists. He had been playing some of the most intricate violin music ever written ~ including the “Chaconne” from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor ~ on an 18th century Stradivari violin valued at $3.5 million. Two days earlier, the young virtuoso had sold out Symphony Hall in Boston at $100 a seat.

The metro-station performance was part of a 2007 experiment sponsored by the Washington Post about people’s perceptions and priorities. The question: In a commonplace environment, at a regular hour, do we perceive and appreciate beauty?

Click here for the complete Washington Post article.

Are Dreams a Tune-Up for the Coming Day?

For years I’ve been fascinated by our nighttime dreams and have researched the topic enough to know that, essentially, nobody knows much about what we dream or why we dream it. Still some theories ~ most of them stemming from psychological research ~ are more widely accepted than others.

Now, somebody’s really rocking the boat. Harvard psychiatrist and sleep researcher J. Allan Hobson contends the main function of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep ~ which is when dreaming usually occurs ~ is the brain warming its circuits in anticipation the sights and sounds of the coming day.

“It helps explain a lot of things, like why people forget so many dreams,” Hobson told the New York Times. “It’s like jogging ~ the body doesn’t remember every step, but it knows it has exercised. It has been tuned up. It’s the same idea here: dreams are tuning the mind for conscious awareness.”

According to the Times article:

These novel ideas about dreaming are based partly on basic findings about REM sleep. In evolutionary terms, REM appears to be a recent development; it is detectable in humans and other warm-blooded mammals and birds. And studies suggest that REM makes its appearance very early in life — in the third trimester for humans, well before a developing child has experience or imagery to fill out a dream.

Scientists have found evidence that REM activity helps the brain build neural connections, particularly in its visual areas. The developing fetus may be “seeing” something, in terms of brain activity, long before the eyes ever open — the developing brain drawing on innate, biological models of space and time, like an internal virtual-reality machine.

Full-on dreams, in the usual sense of the word, come much later. Their content, in this view, is a kind of crude test run for what the coming day may hold.
None of this is to say that dreams are devoid of meaning. Anyone who can remember a vivid dream knows that at times the strange nighttime scenes reflect real hopes and anxieties: the young teacher who finds himself naked at the lectern; the new mother in front of an empty crib, frantic in her imagined loss.

But people can read almost anything into the dreams that they remember, and they do exactly that, according to the Times. In a recent study of more than 1,000 people, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard found strong biases in the interpretations of dreams. For instance, the participants tended to attach more significance to a negative dream if it was about someone they disliked, and more to a positive dream if it was about a friend.

In fact, research suggests that only about 20 percent of dreams contain people or places that the dreamer has encountered. Most images appear to be unique to a single dream.

Click here for the complete New York Times article.

The Most Important Rule

Since I was a child, the “golden rule” has been important to me. Even at a young age I considered it the one rule of conduct that made perfect sense. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What could be clearer, less complicated?

But its simplicity is deceptive. Behaving consistently in accord with the golden rule is hard work, drawing upon deep reserves of compassion and humility. I have not always been successful in practicing it.

If you can take the time, please consider this 9-minute video to be a brief sermon by one of the world’s premier religious historians, Karen Armstrong. Right up front she notes that every major faith in the world has its own version of the golden rule, and then she adds:

“If we don’t manage to implement the golden rule, globally, so that we treat all peoples ~ whoever and wherever they may be ~ as though they were as important as ourselves, I doubt that we’ll have a viable world to hand on to the next generation.”

I fear she's right.

(Incidentally, the “Ted” she speaks of is the Technology, Entertainment, Design organization, helping the world’s foremost thinkers to get their message out to a broad audience.)

'Be Fruitful and Multiply'

Immaculate Conception by Francisco de Solis, 1682.

Researchers are finding strong correlation between teenage birth rates and the prevalence of religious beliefs in particular states within the US. The lack of contraception ~ not the lack of abortions ~ appears to be the reason.

"Our findings by themselves do not, of course, permit causal inferences. But, if we may speculate on the most probable explanation, we conjecture that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself," says Joseph Strayhorn, an adjunct faculty member with Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Researchers used data from the Pew Forum's US Religious Landscapes Survey and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine state-level effects of belief on teen birth rates.

"The magnitude of the correlation between religiosity and teen birth rate astonished us,” Strayhorn said. “Teen birth is more highly correlated with some of the religiosity items on the Religious Landscapes Survey than some of those items are correlated with each other."

The religiosity of a state was determined by averaging the percents of respondents who agreed with the eight most conservative opinions possible in the Religious Landscapes Survey, such as ‘There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion’ or ‘Scripture should be taken literally, word for word.’”

Click here for the ScienceDaily article.

Musical Interlude ~ "We Are All Connected"

This video strikes me as odd and yet beautifully meaningful, with the words of prominent physicists put to popular music. It’s part of the “Symphony of Science” being created by John Boswell using clips from Nova, Cosmos and other television programs. This 4-minute piece uses astrochemist Carl Sagan, quantum physicist Richard Feynman, “Science Guy” Bill Nye and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and is titled “We Are All Connected.”

Watch it, absorb it, and you won’t forget it.

World Peace Depends Entirely on "Know Thyself"

S.N. Goenka, now 85, here presents a familiar message that we all need to be frequently reminded of: Peace and harmony ~ even on a global scale ~ must begin inside of you, the individual. Goenka is one of the world's foremost teachers of Vipassana meditation and here is shown speaking at the United Nations in 2000. This is a much-needed, 4-minute reminder. If you like it, there's a deeper, 11-minute clip also on YouTube.

Number 58 ~ THE JOYOUS

The Joyous. Success.
Perseverance is favorable.

The joyous mood is infectious and therefore brings success. But joy must be based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth. Trust and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in social intercourse. In this way, one assumes the right attitude toward God and man and achieves something. Under certain conditions, intimidation without gentleness may achieve something momentarily, but not for all time. When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness, they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be, will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.

Is Rudeness the Legacy of Regional Disease?

If you travel much at all, you know some parts of a country are populated by mostly friendly people and some parts … well, you’re glad to be just passing through. Now, biologists are showing that a geographical history of disease has a big bearing on how welcoming people are to strangers.

According to Smithsonian magazine:

In a series of high-profile papers, biologists Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill, both at the University of New Mexico, and Mark Schaller and Damian Murray of the University of British Columbia argue that one factor, disease, ultimately determines much of who we are and how we behave.

... Consistently, in regions where deadly diseases are more common, people are more xenophobic, more strongly focused on the welfare of their group, and less likely to be nice to strangers. Where diseases are more prevalent, individuals are less open to meeting strangers and to new experiences. Where diseases are more prevalent, cultures and languages differ more from one another. Sure enough, all of the scientists' predictions seem to hold, or at least to not be easily refuted. If you meet someone who is wary or even openly hostile to you, who bows or shake hands rather than kisses and in general keeps their distance, chances are they come from someplace with a terrible prevalence of disease.

In writing the article, Rob Dunn ~ himself a biologist at North Carolina State University and the author of "Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys" ~ concludes:

In the meantime, we go on living our lives, imagining that we decide for ourselves who we are and how to act. But when the flu comes back this fall, watch your neighbors. Watch to see if their actions change. If Fincher and Thornhill are right, wherever the flu strikes, people will become more wary of strangers. Hands once extended freely will search for pockets. Where the disease is worst, the changes will be most rapid and extreme. Whole countries may even shutter their borders. Because while it is very hard to predict the evolution of H1N1 and the deaths it will cause, at least to Fincher the changes in our own actions may be more foreseeable. We are like small boats, pushed and pulled in the tides of disease.

Click here for the Smithsonian article.

Study Projects Some Evolutionary Traits

Human evolution remains in the news these days, and seems less to do with Charles Dawin’s 200th birthday than with some significant new studies being released by prominent biologists. For example, Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns recently led a team focusing on women’s fertility in Framingham, Massachusetts, including some interesting evolutionary predictions.

"Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection," Stearns says.

According to Time Magazine:

Stearns' team examined the vital statistics of 2,238 postmenopausal women participating in the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the medical histories of some 14,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., since 1948. Investigators searched for correlations between women's physical characteristics — including height, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels — and the number of offspring they produced.

According to their findings, it was stout, slightly plump (but not obese) women who tended to have more children — "Women with very low body fat don't ovulate," Stearns explains — as did women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Using a sophisticated statistical analysis that controlled for any social or cultural factors that could impact childbearing, researchers determined that these characteristics were passed on genetically from mothers to daughters and granddaughters.

If these trends were to continue with no cultural changes in the town for the next 10 generations, by 2409 the average Framingham woman would be 2 cm (0.8 in) shorter, 1 kg (2.2 lb.) heavier, have a healthier heart, have her first child five months earlier and enter menopause 10 months later than a woman today, the study found.

"That rate of evolution is slow but pretty similar to what we see in other plants and animals. Humans don't seem to be any exception," Stearns says.

Click here for the Time Magazine article.

Parallels with the Civil War?

Given the extraordinarily divisive political nature of our country today, I'm intrigued with this astrological reading on the United States by British astrologer Liz Greene. She’s one of the world’s most well-known astrologers, author of several best-selling books on the subject, a practicing Jungian analyst and co-director of the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London.

She based this 2005 reading on the Sibly chart ~ derived from eye-witness accounts of the signing of the Declaration of Independence ~ that puts the birth of the United States precisely at 4:50 p.m. on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. Greene's reading covers the period in the U.S. from 2008 to 2024.

Here’s what I found interesting:

In the horoscope of the United States, Pluto, as it moves through Capricorn, is opposing the Sun in the natal chart, reflecting major and irrevocable changes on many levels. This aspect has occurred only once before in American history, during the period of the Civil War. Although it is not intrinsically an aspect of war, it challenges the deepest definitions of what constitutes nationhood, and raises many issues of autonomy and the way in which the government is structured and how much authority it may or may not exercise.The deeper issues underlying the Civil War concerned not only human rights, but also the autonomy of the individual states comprising the nation, and these issues may once again rise to the surface as new ways of defining the national identity are proposed.

She goes on to describe some other astrological attributes of the U.S., then concludes with:

Whether or not you favour these changes personally, it would seem that a time has arrived when there is a great new opportunity to affirm the values and ideals of the original founding of the nation, applicable not only to government and to foreign relations, but also to the land itself and the resources inherent in it.

Click here to read the full chart.