Start the Year with Some Perspective

The United States of America constitutes 5% of the world's population. We use:

• 25% of the world's oil (China is next highest at 8.3%)


• 159 gallons of water per person per day (world average is 25 gallons)


• 31% of all nuclear energy (France is next highest at 16.5%)


• 23.3% of the world's coal (China is higher at 28.7%, India follows the U.S.A. at 7.4%)


• 123 kg of meat per person per year (Germany is next highest at 86 kg)

Happy New Year!

I'm away on vacation until January 5th. I do not think that I'll have internet access. I did update my movies and books in the righthand, though.

If "Blue Star" is "New Star" and "Red Star" is "Dead Star", what is our yellow sun?

Writing the previous post got me to thinking about other potential characters for a story. One particular cluster immediately came to mind: The House from Hell. I'll post about them soon.

Right now, I'm flat out (12-hour days) trying to put all of my hypnosis and shelter work in place so that I can take a vacation next week. I plan to leave on Tuesday for a Christmas holiday in IN.

They say to write about what you know.

If I were to write about a circle of friends, the characters would include:

A 20-year old boy who has a vasectomy so he can have sex without worrying about adding to the world’s population.

A 29-year old woman who moves in with the 20-year old for a very passionate relationship that they agree up front to end within a year. The 20-year old is a huge fan of Ghandi and waxes poetically about world peace…but his relationship with the woman ends when he joins the US military to become a special operations sniper. He still espouses to not believe in governments or bureaucracy and will not participate in electing the commander-in chief. (Great personal conflict for a protagonist, eh?)

A married woman whose husband she talks a lot about, but no one ever sees. She contemplates going to school for a few years in a state other than where he lives. They end up living in separate countries while he works for the military and she stays at home attending peace rallies. (Hmmm…more great conflict.)

A married couple whose wife brings sex into every conversation and rails with deep bitterness against religion. The husband tries to do what Jesus would do. He speaks strongly of peace and how he believes Jesus would be against war; he says that war is evil. His day job? A recruiter for the US military. (Is there a theme developing here?)

A professor who is best friends with the woman whose husband she talks about but is never there. The prof works at and builds this relationship. Then, suddenly and completely, the professor ends the relationship with her. He says that he never wants to talk with or see her again. She does not know why.

A 27-year old man who works at and builds a relationship with another man. Then, suddenly and completely, he ends the relationship saying that he never wants to see or speak with him again. He is friends with the professor.

The 27-year old is a poster boy of gay stereotypes (he loves musicals, he is immaculately groomed, he does not like professional sports, he would rather sip tea or coffee with friends, he has never had sex with a woman, he obsessively cleans his home). He dates a woman for over 9 months before introducing her to the circle of friends.

The military recruiter says that he does not like drama. (Which adds another layer of literary intrigue because he and his wife concoct the most elaborate and dramatic interpretations of situations and other people). He might be right in some way. I am glad not to have this cast of characters so central to my life now. It was much more drama than the return I got from it.

But maybe I will write that book.

Let's take it as truth for the moment that emotions are just thought plus physical experience (see earlier post). We know that in meditation we can see thoughts just as they are: thoughts only. So, when we set the thoughts aside (which can be learned to do), all that is left of "emotion" is that which we feel in our bodies.

We know that pain can be controlled through hypnosis. That is, with hypnosis we can increase and lower sensation, we can isolate physical experiences in the body and manipulate them.

So it follows that, using similar dial and dilution techniques from hypnosis, we can increase and lower our emotions (the physical experience separated from the thought), so that we control emotions instead of being at their beck and call and controlled by them.

Anyone know why birds always group together on telephone wires and why they tend to do so near the poles? Is it some group communal thing, or are the wires just frayed and emitting some warmth?

What I Did This Weekend

El Cabezon

The Ojito Wilderness

Me Playing on the Rocks

Some Really Cool Stones
Sparkle Like Shattered Glass

Jeff or Eric, Do you know what these are?

A Friend Joined Us for Lunch

While Guantanamo seems ripped right out of the pages of Kafka's The Trial, don't the automaker bailout discussions feel reminiscent of Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand?

(Etching at left by Elke Rehder. Check out this artist.)

We Can All Live in Peace

Bigger Than the Rocks I Found

The largest golden statue since ancient Egypt, when they depicted gods and the like. Kate Moss?! I had never heard of her until this was unveiled recently by artist Marc Quinn. The statue is in the British Museum in the hall with ancient Greek statues.

Does this say something about our culture?

Today:

• 2 hypnosis sessions.
• 1 annual appeal.
• Lots of email.
• 1 stack of paperwork.
• 1 Kirtan.

Some finds from Sunday. Note the purple manganese glass (pre-1915). Didn't find the hoped for galena.

Been out rockhounding. More soon, I hope. Posting to this blog, I mean. Not rockhounding. Though I wouldn't mind more rockhounding. Maybe I'll discover how to hunt rocks and simultaneously post.