THE BEST REASON
Friday, December 6, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Synchronistic Event Of The Verbal Kind #24
Just now I was reading an internet article. As my eyes moved over the word 'plastic', I heard a co-worker say "plastic" behind me.
I was going to say that there has been a long gap since the last one, but then I remembered there were a couple that I did not bother to record. So there has still been a fairly steady stream of them.
Related Post: Synchronistic Event #23
I was going to say that there has been a long gap since the last one, but then I remembered there were a couple that I did not bother to record. So there has still been a fairly steady stream of them.
Related Post: Synchronistic Event #23
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Another Hummingbird Today
At least I think it's a different one from the bird I photographed a few weeks ago. But again, on a cold, overcast day.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
A Landscape In Tartarus
The dismal, barely-glowing body that is hell's counterpart of the Sun, which floats above the desolate floor of hell's deepest caverns. Or so I imagined this image to be on this occasion. After all, my motto for this blog is "Forever seeking Beauty and Terror in all things everywhere".
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Last Week's Worm Rescue
For a long time I had not run across any stranded worms on my walks. My schedule has not changed, so maybe the lawn sprinklers are on a different schedule now? Either that, or the neighborhood worms have been getting smarter^
Anyway, last Monday morning there were an unusually high number of dead worms drying out on the sidewalk. Among them there were two that were still alive. They were barely clinging to life, but when I picked them up they had strength enough to writhe a little in response, so maybe they were able to recover once I put them back in the earth.
Anyway, last Monday morning there were an unusually high number of dead worms drying out on the sidewalk. Among them there were two that were still alive. They were barely clinging to life, but when I picked them up they had strength enough to writhe a little in response, so maybe they were able to recover once I put them back in the earth.
ONE WAS DESCRIBING AN ELEGANT, CALLIGRAPHIC SQUIGGLE
THE OTHER ONE WAS REALLY FAT
Number of worms rescued: 69
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Sand Mandala
MUSINGS ON IMPERMANENCE
Saturday I went to watch the dismantling of a sand mandala. A group of Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Karnataka, India, had constructed the mystic figure at the county library in nearby Rosemead, and while I was unable to attend the opening ceremony, I was determined to witness the closing.
The mandala in situ:
A mandala is a kind of cosmogram -- a drawn or painted image that serves as a symbolic map or diagram of a universe or realm. Being a very visual-arts oriented person, I myself like to think of them primarily as visual aids in meditation and contemplative focus, but there are many different mandalas, representing different 'buddhaverses' or states of mind, used for different purposes.
A near-overhead shot of the mandala:
Considering that the medium used to create the 'painting' is fairly gross by nature -- grains of sand -- it's pretty amazing the level of fineness the monks manage to obtain. The photo above was uploaded without downsizing so it can be expanded to full size (after clicking on the image, you may need to right-click and 'open image', or whatever, to get the full expansion). To obtain this image I stepped right up to the edge of the table and extended my camera arm as far as I dared -- I actually thought it would be a perfect 'Seinfeld moment' if someone tried the same thing, craned too far and fell over the sacred image, sending multihued sand flying everywhere^ (later I found out that such accidents have actually happened in the past).
The monks file in and make preparations:
The Ven. Geashe Lobsang Tsetan, the leader of the group, spoke briefly about what mandalas are and why the monks travel the west creating and destroying them (he mentioned that this is the mandala of the Medicine Buddha, which would be the Buddha Bhaisajyaguru -- written སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ། in Tibetan and 약사여래 in Korean); then those who had been instrumental in making the event possible were recognized.
At last the ceremony proper commenced in earnest. Here began the solemn and mysterious chanting that I had previously only heard in recordings. Here is a short video clip of it:
Then, without any special announcement, the actual dismantling of the mandala began.
The initial 'crossing-out' of the mandala, followed by a spiraling sweep toward the center:
Finally, the sand was divided up into little portions, to be given away as reminders of a very special experience.
After I came home I poured some of mine into a tiny bottle (which I purchased years ago without any special purpose in mind -- everything finds a use, or a reason is found for everything, eventually) so I could carry it around with me, as a kind of rainbow-colored charm.
Saturday I went to watch the dismantling of a sand mandala. A group of Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Karnataka, India, had constructed the mystic figure at the county library in nearby Rosemead, and while I was unable to attend the opening ceremony, I was determined to witness the closing.
The mandala in situ:
A mandala is a kind of cosmogram -- a drawn or painted image that serves as a symbolic map or diagram of a universe or realm. Being a very visual-arts oriented person, I myself like to think of them primarily as visual aids in meditation and contemplative focus, but there are many different mandalas, representing different 'buddhaverses' or states of mind, used for different purposes.
A near-overhead shot of the mandala:
Considering that the medium used to create the 'painting' is fairly gross by nature -- grains of sand -- it's pretty amazing the level of fineness the monks manage to obtain. The photo above was uploaded without downsizing so it can be expanded to full size (after clicking on the image, you may need to right-click and 'open image', or whatever, to get the full expansion). To obtain this image I stepped right up to the edge of the table and extended my camera arm as far as I dared -- I actually thought it would be a perfect 'Seinfeld moment' if someone tried the same thing, craned too far and fell over the sacred image, sending multihued sand flying everywhere^ (later I found out that such accidents have actually happened in the past).
The monks file in and make preparations:
The Ven. Geashe Lobsang Tsetan, the leader of the group, spoke briefly about what mandalas are and why the monks travel the west creating and destroying them (he mentioned that this is the mandala of the Medicine Buddha, which would be the Buddha Bhaisajyaguru -- written སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ། in Tibetan and 약사여래 in Korean); then those who had been instrumental in making the event possible were recognized.
At last the ceremony proper commenced in earnest. Here began the solemn and mysterious chanting that I had previously only heard in recordings. Here is a short video clip of it:
Then, without any special announcement, the actual dismantling of the mandala began.
The initial 'crossing-out' of the mandala, followed by a spiraling sweep toward the center:
Finally, the sand was divided up into little portions, to be given away as reminders of a very special experience.
After I came home I poured some of mine into a tiny bottle (which I purchased years ago without any special purpose in mind -- everything finds a use, or a reason is found for everything, eventually) so I could carry it around with me, as a kind of rainbow-colored charm.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Halloween-Themed Cloud
'GHOST RISING NEXT TO SKULL'
Posted a day late, but I think the image works, and that's the important thing.
Posted a day late, but I think the image works, and that's the important thing.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
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Last Week's Hummingbird Photos
Surprised and delighted to see this little guy in late October. And on a chilly, overcast day, too (maybe that's why he/she stayed put on that perch instead of darting off just as I was ready to click, as these critters are apt to do)
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Monday, October 28, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
Random Hellish Sky Photos
Just some random cloud images, filtered through me. If hell has a sky and clouds, it might look like this. A nice follow-up to the previous entry, I thought.
Another Glimpse Of Hell: An Amusing Bit Of Auto-Suggestion
PRONE TO NIGHTMARES? DRINK BEER
One who is very dear to me gave me her ring.
It's not a particularly valuable ring. It's one of those inexpensive one-size-fits-all ornaments and was probably bought at low cost, although she'd had it so long she didn't remember how she came to have it. It is, however, quite attractive and I like it very much, so I've been wearing it continuously, only taking it off to take a shower.
In fact, it's become such a part of me that I feel a bit incomplete when I'm not wearing it. Which probably accounts for the fact that I've gradually come to regard it as a kind of amulet, one that provides an invisible layer of protection around me as an 'emanation' of the loving closeness that exists between her and myself. That's how my mind works^^.
Anyhow, last night as I was getting ready for bed I realized I was not wearing the ring. I knew where it must be -- there is a designated place in the bathroom where it goes when I take it off to shower -- and I started to go to fetch it, but then a thought struck me.
I had been going to sleep wearing the ring every night, feeling secure and protected by the feel of the ring around my finger and knowing that no ghosts or closet-monsters could disturb my sleep while I wore it. So what if I suddenly went to sleep without it one night -- would spooks be alerted to my sudden defenseless state and take advantage of it? Would I be haunted by ghosts and monsters this night if I did not put the ring on?
Feeling rather mischievous and adventurous, I decided to try the experiment. I got into bed without the ring and covered up securely right up to my chin (because, as everybody knows, closet monsters cannot touch your head or your blanket, so you're safe as long as you're covered up like a burrito with only your face peeking out -- it's a universal rule), hoping against hope that some kind of encounter would take place.
Well, as it turned out, my sleep actually was disturbed. Not by a monster as such, but by a nightmare. One that resembled a typical teenager-friendly horror movie^^. In the dream I was walking down a corridor in what appeared to be a hospital, along with a couple of companions -- one male, one female. It was painted all white, and starkly lit by livid flourescent lights on the ceiling. We were going toward the parking lot exit that we knew was some distance ahead and down a right fork. Even though there were no windows, I knew it was night outside, and fittingly, there were no other people as we walked on. But then, we were joined by someone -- or rather, half of someone -- moving alongside us. It was the upper half of a man -- head, arms and torso -- sliding alongside us on some kind of wheeled platform. That was startling enough, but what made it extra disturbing was the fact that whatever device he was riding on was not working very well, and like a shopping cart with a defective wheel, he could not move straight ahead but kept veering into the path of my female companion and tangling with her legs. We just walked on quickly, afraid to stop or speak to him. But then a second character appeared that was even more disturbing: this one may have been a custodian, because he was pushing what looked like a giant squeegee in front of him as he walked, sweeping up a quantity of crumb-like debris as he went. The debris was pink and some of it was red and wet; it turned out to be little bits and pieces of a human body, and all the pieces were still alive and moving. An eye was among them. The man handed the 'squeegee' to me and I had to take over as the sweeper. We were now totally panicked and began to earnestly sprint toward the exit. Along the way I saw a large clear plastic box crammed full with the human crumbs; an eye inside it blinked at me. As we ran toward the parking lot, where my car was waiting in the darkness (the image that flashed in my dream mind was that of my actual car in waking life, bless 'er), more scary creatures appeared and started to chase us, and among them may have been the lower half of the half-man on a platform, but these new characters were just vague extras in the background and I don't remember them clearly. As we ran pell-mell toward the exit I awoke. With a full bladder. Was I glad I'd drunk a bottle of beer that evening!
So that's what happened with my experiment. Doubtless it was the suspicion/expectation of something happening because I did not have the protection of the 'amulet' that caused the monsters that were expected to appear, appear. In a dream, if not in waking life. Actually, I can see where some of the elements of the dream came from. The half-man bore a certain resemblance in both face and size to Peter Dinklage, the dwarf actor whose photo I had seen earlier that day in an online blurb about the new X-Men movie. The hospital setting was probably inspired by the fact that on the day before this I'd been informed of a friend being hospitalized. As for my car loyally accompanying me into the dream, surely it's due to the fact that it's just a few months old and I feel very secure and comfortable driving it. The rest feels like a hodge-podge of any number of horror movies I've seen that have a claustrophobic feel and a body-horror theme -- Jacob's Ladder, Silent Hill, and Dead Girl, to mention just three.
Or it might be that my lack of protection did attract a spook after all... and that while I slept there was a spectral monster squatting over me like in the painting by Fuseli, making me have a bad dream.
Related Posts: Custom-made hells; More musings on hell
One who is very dear to me gave me her ring.
In fact, it's become such a part of me that I feel a bit incomplete when I'm not wearing it. Which probably accounts for the fact that I've gradually come to regard it as a kind of amulet, one that provides an invisible layer of protection around me as an 'emanation' of the loving closeness that exists between her and myself. That's how my mind works^^.
Anyhow, last night as I was getting ready for bed I realized I was not wearing the ring. I knew where it must be -- there is a designated place in the bathroom where it goes when I take it off to shower -- and I started to go to fetch it, but then a thought struck me.
I had been going to sleep wearing the ring every night, feeling secure and protected by the feel of the ring around my finger and knowing that no ghosts or closet-monsters could disturb my sleep while I wore it. So what if I suddenly went to sleep without it one night -- would spooks be alerted to my sudden defenseless state and take advantage of it? Would I be haunted by ghosts and monsters this night if I did not put the ring on?
Feeling rather mischievous and adventurous, I decided to try the experiment. I got into bed without the ring and covered up securely right up to my chin (because, as everybody knows, closet monsters cannot touch your head or your blanket, so you're safe as long as you're covered up like a burrito with only your face peeking out -- it's a universal rule), hoping against hope that some kind of encounter would take place.
Well, as it turned out, my sleep actually was disturbed. Not by a monster as such, but by a nightmare. One that resembled a typical teenager-friendly horror movie^^. In the dream I was walking down a corridor in what appeared to be a hospital, along with a couple of companions -- one male, one female. It was painted all white, and starkly lit by livid flourescent lights on the ceiling. We were going toward the parking lot exit that we knew was some distance ahead and down a right fork. Even though there were no windows, I knew it was night outside, and fittingly, there were no other people as we walked on. But then, we were joined by someone -- or rather, half of someone -- moving alongside us. It was the upper half of a man -- head, arms and torso -- sliding alongside us on some kind of wheeled platform. That was startling enough, but what made it extra disturbing was the fact that whatever device he was riding on was not working very well, and like a shopping cart with a defective wheel, he could not move straight ahead but kept veering into the path of my female companion and tangling with her legs. We just walked on quickly, afraid to stop or speak to him. But then a second character appeared that was even more disturbing: this one may have been a custodian, because he was pushing what looked like a giant squeegee in front of him as he walked, sweeping up a quantity of crumb-like debris as he went. The debris was pink and some of it was red and wet; it turned out to be little bits and pieces of a human body, and all the pieces were still alive and moving. An eye was among them. The man handed the 'squeegee' to me and I had to take over as the sweeper. We were now totally panicked and began to earnestly sprint toward the exit. Along the way I saw a large clear plastic box crammed full with the human crumbs; an eye inside it blinked at me. As we ran toward the parking lot, where my car was waiting in the darkness (the image that flashed in my dream mind was that of my actual car in waking life, bless 'er), more scary creatures appeared and started to chase us, and among them may have been the lower half of the half-man on a platform, but these new characters were just vague extras in the background and I don't remember them clearly. As we ran pell-mell toward the exit I awoke. With a full bladder. Was I glad I'd drunk a bottle of beer that evening!
So that's what happened with my experiment. Doubtless it was the suspicion/expectation of something happening because I did not have the protection of the 'amulet' that caused the monsters that were expected to appear, appear. In a dream, if not in waking life. Actually, I can see where some of the elements of the dream came from. The half-man bore a certain resemblance in both face and size to Peter Dinklage, the dwarf actor whose photo I had seen earlier that day in an online blurb about the new X-Men movie. The hospital setting was probably inspired by the fact that on the day before this I'd been informed of a friend being hospitalized. As for my car loyally accompanying me into the dream, surely it's due to the fact that it's just a few months old and I feel very secure and comfortable driving it. The rest feels like a hodge-podge of any number of horror movies I've seen that have a claustrophobic feel and a body-horror theme -- Jacob's Ladder, Silent Hill, and Dead Girl, to mention just three.
Or it might be that my lack of protection did attract a spook after all... and that while I slept there was a spectral monster squatting over me like in the painting by Fuseli, making me have a bad dream.
Related Posts: Custom-made hells; More musings on hell
Saturday, October 19, 2013
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