Getting a "Handl" on things?

[Megan]

I read somwwhere (forget where) about the Tuatha de Danaan leaving their name in the prefixes of places they lived, such as Danube and Danmare (Denmark).

The Key, perhaps?

[Soluna]

I've been reading this thread on and off - and one on-going theme or idea comes to me. I keep getting interrupted when I try to post about it though! The phone rings or my internet has a hiccup, then I get sidetracked and don't get around to it.

It's possible you've come to these conclusions and I haven't understood what has been said very well, but I'll lay it out with my limited understanding.

Alfalfa fields in Rhineland yield as of yet undreamed of treasures

A: We do not mean Rhinelander, Wisconsin...  Or do we?!? Who
  is to tell?
Q: Who?
A: The searcher, the sepulcher, the one who carries the staff
  in constant search for greener pastures.

It was mentioned by Galaxia

What made think that nitric oxide can be involved,  is the connection with lightning as Muxel pointed. The NOx gases formed by lightning are processed by bacteria in soil to form nitrates, nitrites and ammonia that feed plants. Who have plants knows that when there is a nitrogen deficiency they turn yellow and if you add nitrogenated fertilizer they turn greener.

Perhaps the Staff refers to a lightning rod?
And it is being used to add nutrients to Alfalfa fields in Rhineland - in order to yield as of yet undreamed of treasures?

Perhaps the vibratory frequency of light has something to do with the lightning?

Need a better "handl" on it

It was mentioned 'he' (refering to the German) may have found something on the Island where he purchased the mining permit? Perhaps the volcanic eruption had thrown up some crystals or other geological artifact that works (speculation of course) as a better type of lightning rod? A crystal atop a staff perhaps!



This is just the direction where my mind took the information gathered. Hope it might be helpful in terms of fresh eyes.

[Muxel]

It was mentioned 'he' (refering to the German) may have found something on the Island where he purchased the mining permit? Perhaps the volcanic eruption had thrown up some crystals or other geological artifact that works (speculation of course) as a better type of lightning rod? A crystal atop a staff perhaps!

Possibly! Volcanic eruptions are Electric Universe phenomena. That's why they happen with lightning.
Pyrolitic carbon is the strongest diamagnet at room temperature.

Lightning-induced magnetism

Where the lightning current path passes through rock, soil, or metal these materials can become permanently magnetized. This effect is known as lightning-induced remanent magnetism, or LIRM. These currents follow the least resistive path, often horizontally near the surface but sometimes vertically, where faults, ore bodies, or ground water offers a less resistive path.

(Ground water... I wonder if crop circles are manifested through lightning?)

[bngenoh]

About the one who carries the staff and illumination:

A: Alfalfa fields in Rhineland yield as of yet undreamed of treasures.

Q: Where are these alfalfa fields?
A: Near tracks well worn.

Q: Another clue, please?
A: Nope, that is enough for now!!

Q: You guys are gonna drive me crazy!  Do you mean Rhineland as in Germany proper?
A: We do not mean Rhinelander, Wisconsin...  Or do we?!? Who is to tell?

Q: Who?
A: The searcher, the sepulcher, the one who carries the staff in constant search for greener pastures.

Q: Oh my!  You are being VERY obscure tonight!  Just the fun things I like, too!  Now, I think I will be pretty busy this week on this, but is there anything that can be expanded, or any additional clues for me or Ark?
A: Last clue for tonight: Look for the vibratory frequency light.

Q: You previously talked about 'undreamed of treasure in alfalfa fields of Rhineland.' Is this a physical, spiritual or knowledge based treasure?
A: It is all three.

A:  The sexual center is in direct contact with 7th density in its "feminine" creative thought of "Thou, I Love."  The "outbreath" of "God" in the relief of constriction.  Pulsation.  Unstable Gravity Waves.

Q:  Do the "centers" as described by Mouravieff relate at all to the idea of "chakras?"
A:  Quite closely.  [...]

[...]

A:  ... The "sexual center" corresponds to the solar plexus.

Lower moving center - basal chakra
Lower emotional - sexual chakra
Lower intellectual - throat chakra
Higher emotional - heart chakra
Higher intellectual - crown chakra

Q:  (L) What about the so-called seventh, or "third eye" chakra?
A:  Seer.  The union of the heart and intellectual higher centers.

{Laura's note:  This would "close the circuit" in the "shepherd's crook"

Note that 7 is a prime number, i think of traversing all densities:

Q: One thing I do want to understand, since it is involved in all of this, is the idea of the 'Shepherd.' All of the ancient legends and stories and myths lead, ultimately, to something about the 'shepherd,' or the 'Shepherd King.'
A: Shepherd is most likely to be struck by lightning, due to staff, and thus "enlightened," or "illumened!!"

Q: (T) Now, when those who move into 4th density make the move, will they experience a completeness or merge with all other densities of their being, at that point, even if it is for a short time?
A: For one immeasurably small instant, this is what is meant by "illumination"!

Q: (T) But, for that small instant, because there really is no time, maybe an instant or an aeon, depending on how any individual might measure it, we might experience oneness with ourselves?
A: It may seem to last "forever."

Remember the C's have said that 7th density is "union with the one." Don't forget about this:

The Universe is merely a school, and a school is there for all to learn. That is why everything exists, there is no other reason. Now if only you understood the true depth of that statement. You would begin to SEE, and experience for yourself, all the levels of density that there are to experience, all the dimensions that there are to experience, all awareness. When an individual understands that statement to its greatest possible depth, that individual becomes illumined, and surely you have heard of that. And for one moment, which lasts for all eternity, that individual knows absolutely everything that there is to know

Factor all the above with this quote from Gurdjieff from ISOTM:

"The work itself of schools of the fourth way can have very many forms and many meanings. In the midst of the ordinary conditions of life the only chance a man has of finding a 'way' is in the possibility of meeting with the beginning of work of this kind. But the chance of meeting with such work as well as the possibility of profiting by this chance depends upon many circumstances and conditions.

"The quicker a man grasps the aim of the work which is being executed, the quicker can he become useful to it and the more will he be able to get from it for himself.

"But no matter what the fundamental aim of the work is, the schools continue to exist only while this work is going on. When the work is done the schools close. The people who began the work leave the stage. Those who have learned from them what was possible to learn and have reached the possibility of continuing on the way independently begin in one form or another their own personal work.

"But it happens sometimes that when the school closes a number of people are left who were round about the work, who saw the outward aspect of it, and saw the whole of the work in this outward aspect. Having no doubts whatever of themselves or in the correctness of their conclusions and understanding they decide to continue the work. To continue this work they form new schools, teach people what they have themselves learned, and give them the same promises that they themselves received. All this naturally can only be outward imitation. But when we look back on history it is almost impossible for us to distinguish where the real ends and where the imitation begins."

Strictly speaking almost everything we know about various kinds of occult, masonic, and alchemical schools refers to such imitation. We know practically nothing about real schools excepting the results of their work and even that only if we are able to distinguish the results of real work from counterfeits and imitations.

"But such pseudo-esoteric systems also play their part in the work and activities of esoteric circles. Namely, they are the intermediaries between humanity which is entirely immersed in the materialistic life and schools which are interested in the education of a certain number of people, as much for the purposes of their own existences as for the purposes of the work of a cosmic character which they may be carrying out.

The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and schools; and if there were not these pseudo-esoteric schools the vast majority of humanity would have no possibility whatever of hearing and learning of the existence of anything greater than life because the truth in its pure form would be inaccessible for them.

By reason of the many characteristics of man's being, particularly of the contemporary being, truth can only come to people in the form of a lie— only in this form are they able to accept it; only in this form are they able to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be, for them, indigestible food.

"Besides, a grain of truth in an unaltered form is sometimes found in pseudo¬esoteric movements, in church religions, in occult and theosophical schools. It may be preserved in their writings, their rituals, their traditions, their conceptions of the hierarchy, their dogmas, and their rules.

[...]

"The idea of initiation, which reaches us through pseudo-esoteric systems, is also transmitted to us in a completely wrong form. The legends concerning the outward rites of initiation have been created out of the scraps of information we possess in regard to the ancient Mysteries.

The Mysteries represented a special kind of way in which, side by side with a difficult and prolonged period of study, theatrical representations of a special kind were given which depicted in allegorical forms the whole path of the evolution of man and the world.

"Transitions from one level of being to another were marked by ceremonies of presentation of a special kind, that is, initiation. But a change of being cannot be brought about by any rites. Rites can only mark an accomplished transition.

And it is only in pseudo-esoteric systems in which there is nothing else except these rites, that they begin to attribute to the rites an independent meaning. It is supposed that a rite, in being transformed into a sacrament, transmits or communicates certain forces to the initiate. This again relates to the psychology of an imitation way. There is not, nor can there be, any outward initiation. In reality only self-initiation, self¬presentation exist. Systems and schools can indicate methods and ways, but no system or school whatever can do for a man the work that he must do himself. Inner growth, a change of being, depend entirely upon the work which a man must do on himself."

About the staff or rod, it is a symbol that in times past, were only given to those who merited it, osit. Let me give an example, in my tribe young boys are given a staff after they're circumcised, then they are called "men." As if being mutilated somehow magically makes one mature. This is an example i think, of a practice which has lost its meaning to the people who practice it. The practice i speak of is the acquisition of a staff, the circumcision thing is just ponerization, osit. Of course we see the outward imitation as regards the staff, with various royal families, the pope, etc. The ones who have really merited the staff, will be self evident for those who have the eyes to SEE, refer to The Odyssey Thread, ie the recognition theme.

An interesting excerpt from Gurdjieff in Views from the Real World, comes to mind, that ties in magnetism, and light:

"To undertake a voluntary aim, and to achieve it, gives magnetism and the ability to "do."

Question: What is magnetism?

Answer: Man has two substances in him, the substance of active elements of the physical body, and the substance made up of the active elements of astral matter. These two form a third substance by mixing. This mixed substance gathers in certain parts of a man and also forms an atmosphere around him, like the atmosphere surrounding a planet. Planetary atmospheres are continually gaining or losing substances because of other planets. Man is surrounded by other men, just as planets are surrounded by other planets. Within certain limits, when two atmospheres meet, and if the atmospheres are "sympathetic," a connection is made between them and lawful results occur. Something flows. The amount of atmosphere remains the same, but the quality changes. Man can control his atmosphere. It is like electricity, having positive and negative parts. One part can be increased and made to flow like a current. Everything has positive and negative electricity. In man, wishes and non-wishes may be positive and negative. Astral material always opposes physical material.

In ancient times priests were able to cure disease by blessing. Some priests had to lay their hands on the sick person. Some could cure at a short distance, some at a great distance. A "priest" was a man who had mixed substances and could cure others. A priest was a magnetizer. Sick persons have not enough mixed substances, not enough magnetism, not enough "life." This "mixed substance" can be seen if it is concentrated. An aura or halo was a real thing and can sometimes be seen at holy places or in churches. Mesmer rediscovered the use of this substance.

To be able to use this substance, you must first acquire it. It is the same with attention. It is gained only through conscious labor and intentional suffering, through doing small things voluntarily. Make some small aim your God, and you will be going toward acquiring magnetism. Like electricity, magnetism can be concentrated and made to flow. In a real group, a real answer could be given to this question."

Taking G up on this line of thought, and accepting as true the premise that magnetism can flow, ie there can be a magnetic current, currents have frequency do they not? and if, just if this frequency becomes energetic enough, will it not radiate light.  So, "Look for the vibratory frequency light" indeed.

If we are really dealing with illumination," thought made manifest" comes to mind, and all that implies, ie infinite wealth. So it is only natural that it would "yield as of yet undreamed of treasures."

This is truly an adventure, the most awesome adventure i have traversed in this life.

[tschai]

I've been reading this thread on and off - and one on-going theme or idea comes to me. I keep getting interrupted when I try to post about it though! The phone rings or my internet has a hiccup, then I get sidetracked and don't get around to it.

It's possible you've come to these conclusions and I haven't understood what has been said very well, but I'll lay it out with my limited understanding.

Alfalfa fields in Rhineland yield as of yet undreamed of treasures

A: We do not mean Rhinelander, Wisconsin...  Or do we?!? Who
  is to tell?
Q: Who?
A: The searcher, the sepulcher, the one who carries the staff
  in constant search for greener pastures.

It was mentioned by Galaxia

What made think that nitric oxide can be involved,  is the connection with lightning as Muxel pointed. The NOx gases formed by lightning are processed by bacteria in soil to form nitrates, nitrites and ammonia that feed plants. Who have plants knows that when there is a nitrogen deficiency they turn yellow and if you add nitrogenated fertilizer they turn greener.

Perhaps the Staff refers to a lightning rod?
And it is being used to add nutrients to Alfalfa fields in Rhineland - in order to yield as of yet undreamed of treasures?

Perhaps the vibratory frequency of light has something to do with the lightning?

Need a better "handl" on it

It was mentioned 'he' (refering to the German) may have found something on the Island where he purchased the mining permit? Perhaps the volcanic eruption had thrown up some crystals or other geological artifact that works (speculation of course) as a better type of lightning rod? A crystal atop a staff perhaps!



This is just the direction where my mind took the information gathered. Hope it might be helpful in terms of fresh eyes.

I believe "one who carries the staff in search of greener pastures" could be a  reference to a shepherd-the staff would be his sheperd's staff... now the first references-how does that tie in?

I see this connection has already been made-in my excitement to finally figure something out, I hit the post button... but the sepulcher-a tomb-something buried...searcher-still trying to tie these together some how-somehow I am not sure the alphalpha or chemistry of the soil is what the C's were getting at-where's Indiana Jones when you need him? 

[Galaxia2002]

I believe "one who carries the staff in search of greener pastures" could be a  reference to a shepherd-the staff would be his sheperd's staff... now the first references-how does that tie in?

I see this connection has already been made-in my excitement to finally figure something out, I hit the post button... but the sepulcher-a tomb-something buried...searcher-still trying to tie these together some how-somehow I am not sure the alphalpha or chemistry of the soil is what the C's were getting at-where's Indiana Jones when you need him? 

Hi Tschai, we don't know. We are just see patterns and try to connect things. Remember don't take things too much literally. This series of clues also seems to be something structured layer by layer.  The  Alfalfa clue  could be a reference  to something that we already  know or  are practicing and likely we didn't realize so.  Maybe Laura address this subjetc in the second volume of Secret History. Are you acquainted with the concept of green language?

The reference to chemistry soil have to do with


Q: (L) What about the clay and the montmorillonite, and the connection of the clay TO the montmorillonite, and what you once said about trace minerals unlocking secrets in some way?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Yes what? (A) How much should we drink?

A: No.

Q: (L) We shouldn't drink it?

A: Be vague, we vague.

Q: (L) Is this montmorillonite the objective of the clues about tritium? The fact that tritium pointed to this clay, and that this clay is situated in the Rhineland, among other select sites, and alfalfa possibly grows there. Is this where the clue was supposed to lead us?

A: The question is about the mind, spirit and body, and what happens hence

[tschai]

I believe "one who carries the staff in search of greener pastures" could be a  reference to a shepherd-the staff would be his sheperd's staff... now the first references-how does that tie in?

I see this connection has already been made-in my excitement to finally figure something out, I hit the post button... but the sepulcher-a tomb-something buried...searcher-still trying to tie these together some how-somehow I am not sure the alphalpha or chemistry of the soil is what the C's were getting at-where's Indiana Jones when you need him? 

Hi Tschai, we don't know. We are just see patterns and try to connect things. Remember don't take things too much literally. This series of clues also seems to be something structured layer by layer.  The  Alfalfa clue  could be a reference  to something that we already  know or  are practicing and likely we didn't realize so.  Maybe Laura address this subjetc in the second volume of Secret History. Are you acquainted with the concept of green language?

The reference to chemistry soil have to do with


Q: (L) What about the clay and the montmorillonite, and the connection of the clay TO the montmorillonite, and what you once said about trace minerals unlocking secrets in some way?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Yes what? (A) How much should we drink?

A: No.

Q: (L) We shouldn't drink it?

A: Be vague, we vague.

Q: (L) Is this montmorillonite the objective of the clues about tritium? The fact that tritium pointed to this clay, and that this clay is situated in the Rhineland, among other select sites, and alfalfa possibly grows there. Is this where the clue was supposed to lead us?

A: The question is about the mind, spirit and body, and what happens hence

Strange-I know this is really out there-but there was a reference in Timothy Good's book "Alien Base" where a woman was supposedly visited by ET's and they told her that they were here (on Earth) to mine tritium-her husband thought she was mistaken and meant titanium-but here it is again...interesting, if true. Tritium is a radioactive isotope-I wouldn't think ingesting it would have pleasant effects...

[bngenoh]

Let's synthesize some more, but first a little recap:

Now read this:

Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.

Devices that connect with the human body's processes are being explored for biological sensing or for prosthetics, but they typically communicate using electrons, which are negatively charged particles, rather than protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms, or ions, which are atoms with positive or negative charge.

"So there's always this issue, a challenge, at the interface – how does an electronic signal translate into an ionic signal, or vice versa?" said lead author Marco Rolandi, a UW assistant professor of materials science and engineering. "We found a biomaterial that is very good at conducting protons, and allows the potential to interface with living systems."

In the body, protons activate "on" and "off" switches and are key players in biological energy transfer. Ions open and close channels in the cell membrane to pump things in and out of the cell. Animals including humans use ions to flex their muscles and transmit brain signals. A machine that was compatible with a living system in this way could, in the short term, monitor such processes. Someday it could generate proton currents to control certain functions directly.

[...]

"So we now have a protonic parallel to electronic circuitry that we actually start to understand rather well," Rolandi said.
Applications in the next decade or so, Rolandi said, would likely be for direct sensing of cells in a laboratory. The current prototype has a silicon base and could not be used in a human body. Longer term, however, a biocompatible version could be implanted directly in living things to monitor, or even control, certain biological processes directly.

Now, from the standpoint of biology as technology. What would need to interface directly with the machinery that we call biology? hmm, i wonder, i wonder 

Keep in mind the idea of a proton current, it will be very important.

So we have nanotechnology, biology as technology and proton currents acting the same way electron currents do with our present day technology in biology:

Had Amin Rustom not messed up, he would not have stumbled upon one of the biggest discoveries in biology of recent times. It all began in 2000, when he saw something strange under his microscope. A very long, thin tube had formed between two of the rat cells that he was studying. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before.

His supervisor, Hans-Hermann Gerdes, asked him to repeat the experiment. Rustom did, and saw nothing unusual. When Gerdes grilled him, Rustom admitted that the first time around he had not followed the standard protocol of swapping the liquid in which the cells were growing between observations. Gerdes made him redo the experiment, mistakes and all, and there they were again: long, delicate connections between cells. This was something new - a previously unknown way in which animal cells can communicate with each other. Gerdes and Rustom, then at Heidelberg University in Germany, called the connections tunnelling nanotubes. Aware that they might be onto something significant, the duo slogged away to produce convincing evidence and eventually published a landmark paper in 2004

At the time, it was not clear whether these structures were anything more than a curiosity seen only in peculiar circumstances. Since their pioneering paper appeared, however, other groups have started finding nanotubes in all sorts of places, from nerve cells to heart cells. And far from being a mere curiosity, they seem to play a major role in anything from how our immune system responds to attacks to how damaged muscle is repaired after a heart attack.

It has long been known that the interiors of neighbouring plant cells are sometimes directly connected by a network of nanotubular connections called plasmodesmata. However, nothing like them had ever been seen in animals. Animal cells were thought to communicate almost entirely by releasing chemicals that can be detected by receptors on the surface of other cells. This kind of communication can be very specific - nerve cells can extend over a metre to make connections with other cells - but it does not involve direct connections between the interiors of cells.

The closest animal equivalents to plasmodesmata were thought to be gap junctions, which are like hollow rivets joining the membranes of adjacent cells. A channel through the middle of each gap junction directly connects the cell interiors, but the channel is very narrow - just 0.5 to 2 nanometres wide - and so only allows ions and small molecules to pass from one cell to another.

Nanotubes are something different. They are 50 to 200 nanometres thick, which is more than wide enough to allow proteins to pass through. What's more, they can span distances of several cell diameters, wiggling around obstacles to connect the insides of two cells some distance apart. "This gives the organism a new way to communicate very selectively over long range," says Gerdes.

    "It is a previously unknown way in which cells can communicate over a distance."

Soon after they first saw nanotubes in rat cells, he and Rustom saw them forming between human kidney cells too. Using video microscopy, they watched adjacent cells reach out to each other with antenna-like projections, establish contact and then build the tubular connections. The connections were not just between pairs of cells. Cells can send out several nanotubes, forming an intricate and transient network of linked cells lasting anything from minutes to hours. Using fluorescent proteins, the team also discovered that relatively large cellular structures, or organelles, could move from one cell to another through the nanotubes.

The first clue to how membrane nanotubes, as some researchers prefer to call them, might be used by cells came from the US. Simon Watkins of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his colleagues were studying dendritic cells, the sentinels for the immune system. When a dendritic cell detects an invader, it gets ready to sound the alarm. One sign of this activation is a change in calcium levels in the cell.

While Watkins was poking a dendritic cell with a micro-needle filled with bacterial toxins, he noticed a calcium fluctuation in a dendritic cell far away from the one that was touched. "Wow, that's pretty cool," thought Watkins. Information about the toxins was somehow being passed from the cell being poked to a distant cell. Nothing in his experience could explain the phenomenon.

When Watkins dived into the literature, he discovered Gerdes's paper. His team then took another look at the dendritic cells. Sure enough, they found the cells were connected by a network of tunnelling nanotubes.

[...]

Stefanie Dimmeler of the University of Frankfurt in Germany and her team have been studying how so-called progenitor cells can be transformed into heart muscle cells. In mice at least, progenitor cells injected after heart attacks seem to turn into new heart muscle cells, replacing dead tissue.

When Dimmeler's team mixed heart muscle and progenitor cells in a dish, they found that the two populations established connections via nanotubes. They even observed the transfer of organelles such as mitochondria (Circulation Research, vol 96, p 1039). Dimmeler suspects that the transfer via nanotubes of signalling molecules and proteins called transcription factors helps to transform the progenitor cells.

There may be several reasons why nanotubes have eluded notice for so long. For starters, they are extremely fragile: merely shaking a dish of cells or changing the medium - as Rustom failed to do - can rupture these tubes, as can certain chemicals used to fix cells for observation, including those used with electron microscopes. Even prolonged exposure to light can destroy them. (This extraordinary susceptibility to chemicals and light may one day provide a means to selectively destroy nanotubes.)

In addition, when biologists observe cells in culture, they usually focus on the bottom of the dish or slide, where delicate structures such as nanotubes will be obscured by debris. Finally, although nanotubes are elusive, many researchers have spotted them over the years without realising it.

At the University of Western Australia in Crawley, for example, Paul McMenamin's team has been studying dendritic cells in mouse corneas. McMenamin's graduate student Holly Chinnery kept seeing something unusual. "She kept noticing these cells with big, long processes," says McMenamin. "She'd show me the pictures, and I'd say, 'Gosh, I haven't seen anything like that before'." And so it went until a colleague told Chinnery about nanotubes. "That immediately set us off," says McMenamin. "We realised that we had the first evidence of them in vivo."

Their work, published in May, shows that nanotubes are not just an artefact of the methods used to grow cells in culture, as some have suggested. And what they have seen is spectacular: some of the longest tunnelling nanotubes ever observed, more than 300 micrometres long, connecting dendritic cells in the cornea (The Journal of Immunology, vol 180, p 5779). "We can see them their whole course, spindling all the way through the cornea," says McMenamin. "It's fantastic."

"I'll bet you that within weeks to months, people will start noticing them in other tissues. It's just a case of how you look," he adds. "You've got to know what you are looking for. It's a bit like being a good bird-watcher. A hundred people will see a flock of seagulls, and it's only a very good bird-watcher who will spot this one tern flying in that flock."

Gerdes, meanwhile, continues to marvel at what is unravelling before his very eyes. "Whatever one can think of has been done by nature," he says. "It is unbelievable what the cell is able to do."

It pays to network

The discovery of tunnelling nanotubes (see main story) has led to speculation about just how far their influence extends. Some think they might play a crucial role in development. One of the key outstanding questions in biology has to do with how cells communicate with each other as an embryo develops. We know that some cells release molecules called morphogens, which diffuse through the intercellular medium. The resulting concentration gradient tells cells where they are in the embryo and they can then develop accordingly. But this does not explain everything. For instance, two very distant cells can show similar patterns of gene expression while other cells nearby do not. If a morphogen gradient is responsible, then surely the cells closer to the one releasing the morphogen should also be responding. Such observations could be explained if morphogens are distributed directly to certain cells through a network of nanotubes, speculates Hans-Hermann Gerdes of the University of Bergen in Norway. "It would be much more appealing for nature to have this direct line," he says. Plants cells are known to use their version of nanotubes, called plasmodesmata, to transfer microRNAs that influence gene activity from one cell to another during embryogenesis. "These microRNAs lead to certain expression patterns in adjacent and also very remote cells," says Gerdes. Mammalian cells could also be doing the same. Even more speculative is the idea that the development of organs could be influenced by tunnelling nanotubes. It is not well understood how organs "know" how big they should get, or the exact shape to take. "These are all open questions," says Gerdes. He speculates that if the cells in a given organ were connected by nanotubes, then these connections could help establish a feedback mechanism that provides the necessary information for the organ to grow to the right size and shape.

Is not a network a grid? That the discovery was set of by Calcium fluctuations in a dendritic cell is interesting and I will tie it in because Calcium exists as a cation in the body, but first:

Stunning new visuals of the brain reveal a deceptively simple pattern of organization in the wiring of this complex organ.

Instead of nerve fibers travelling willy-nilly through the brain like spaghetti, as some imaging has suggested, the new portraits reveal two-dimensional sheets of parallel fibers crisscrossing other sheets at right angles in a gridlike structure that folds and contorts with the convolutions of the brain.

This same pattern appeared in the brains of humans, rhesus monkeys, owl monkeys, marmosets and galagos, researchers report today (March 29) in the journal Science.

"The upshot is the fibers of the brain form a 3D grid and are organized in this exceptionally simple way," study leader Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, told LiveScience. "This motif of crossing in three axes is the basic motif of brain tissue."

"We've had fixed ideas about what cells are for a little too long," he says. "We haven't thought hard enough about cell plasticity."

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in Science that it appears astrocytes - named for their stellar form - provide nerve cells (neurons) with the energy they need to function and communicate with one another, by signaling blood to deliver the cell fuels glucose and oxygen to them.

Study coauthor Mriganka Sur, a neuroscientist and head of MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, says his team saw astrocytes in action while examining brain activity in ferrets.

Using technology called two-photon microscopy, Sur and his colleagues observed that astrocytes in the visual cortex (part of the brain responsible for vision) activated and blood flow increased to nerve cells just seconds after the neurons had fired or sent out signals.

Sur believes the astrocytes - which are as plentiful in the brain as neurons - may control the strength and length of nerve cell communications. Consequently, he says, if astrocytes fail, so, too, may nerve cell connections, potentially leading to still largely unexplained neurological disorders.

"A great many genes that have been linked to autism and schizophrenia are likely to be active in astrocytes," Sur says. "We believe astrocytes will have a huge role in understanding certain brain diseases."

He says astrocytes may also shed light on brain activity captured on scans such as fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging), which measure blood flow allowing scientists to diagnose strokes (areas that are deprived of blood or oxygen) and regions activated during tasks and activities from solving problems to daydreaming.

The reason, according to a Science editorial by neuroscientists Fred Wolf and Frank Kirchhoff of Germany's Max Planck Institute: the findings indicate fMRI "reflects the responses of both cell populations [neurons and astrocytes] in the brain."

Sur says that when the team blocked astrocytes, blood flow did not increase to firing neurons. That means, he says, that "[fMRI is] really measuring astrocyte activation. Thus, anything that influences astrocytes is likely to influence fMRI readings."

In a finding that has the potential to change the way researchers think about the brain, scientists at Rockefeller University have found dendritic cells where they've never been seen before: among this organ's neurons and connective cells. The immunity-directing dendritic cell had previously been seen in the human nervous system only after brain injury or disease. But the new study shows for the first time that the brain has its own, resident population of dendritic cells that may serve as a line of defense against pathogens that sneak past the blood-brain barrier.

The brain is packed with different types of microglia - cells that perform a variety of immune functions in the central nervous system. Until now, however, no one had identified dendritic cells among them. Research associate professor Karen Bulloch and her colleagues made their discovery using mice bred to have a fluorescent marker attached to a dendritic-cell specific protein. Originally developed by Rockefeller scientists to help them visualize dendritic cells in immune tissues, Bulloch reasoned that the mice might be helpful in determining whether dendritic cells are also in the central nervous system.

[...]

Once they had confirmed that the brain seems to develop its own population of dendritic cells, the researchers, with the help of graduate student Melinda Miller, mapped the cells' locations. "They ended up in places I just didn't understand," Bulloch says. So she did a bit of digging and discovered that the protective dendritic cells appeared in areas of the brain associated with postnatal neuron formation, as well as along nasal-associated pathways through which viruses, bacteria and toxic chemicals can gain direct access to the brain. "The dendritic cells serve both as shepherds of newborn nerve cells and as gatekeepers, which police intruding molecules that may come into the brain through these pathways."

The discovery that some dendritic cells that are native to the brain, rather than just infiltrating during traumatic events, comes with a wide range of implications. "Their location suggests a multiplicity of functions, ranging from surveillance to participation in a number of events in the brain," says Bruce McEwen, Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, where the work was conducted.

Now as a refresher of how neurons work, watch this & this

The fact that threshold is reached when the internal environment of the cell becomes sufficiently electro-positive is interesting, proton current anyone?

[bngenoh]

Now, neurons only fire an action potential when they become sufficiently electro-positive, from the information in the above we can see the possibility of proton currents being conducted through the network of tunneling nanotubes throughout an organism, this paves the way for selective stimulation of various cells, groups of cells (tissues) and groups of tissues (organs) therefore the network of nanotubes may function as a kind of nervous system, but allowing for direct communion or direct knowing of a biologic organism about its condition, ie itself:

The immune system is designed to protect the body from infection and injury, but an overactive immune response can damage organs or lead to inflammatory diseases. The vagus nerve connects the brain to the body and controls inflammatory response. One molecule in particular, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, is released by the vagus nerve to slow the immune response before it causes collateral damage. In the spleen, for example, acetylcholine is necessary for blocking the production of dangerous amounts of inflammatory molecules like cytokines, but the details of how it worked was unclear.

Kevin Tracey an immunologist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, discovered the "missing piece" for how the vagus nerve orchestrates immunity. Tracey and colleagues found that T cells in mouse spleens are actually releasing acetylcholine themselves after receiving a signal from the vagus nerve, playing a critical role in blocking inflammation. Though T cells are part of the immune system, in this context they're essentially functioning as a neuron, Tracey said. "It's remarkable." Though the idea that immune cells can make neurotransmitters is not a new story, Tracey added, no one has ever shown that nerve signals initiate their release, and in turn play a protective anti-inflammatory role against disease.

Since many cells in the body can act as neurons, the question then becomes what kind of perception would an organism whose cells are functioning in this manner experience? Would it be a greatly expanded perception than its former state? And what of the synchronization that is seen during meditation and the self control that is demonstrated by experienced mediators. Is this not indicative of greater command-ability over self, and what would be the physical basis for such ability? More neurons, greater connectivity between neurons or both? Just a thought. 

[Yozilla]

Mr bngenoh, although i found myself repeating myself  again and again - great excerpts and comparison work indeed!  Few days ago i enjoyed reading about human magnetism & priests who could heal people with words and hands and now i found this articles about nanotubes very interesting... And remembering some info about Morgellon's disease from this forum i cannot help myself wondering if there is connection: could it be that symptoms of that illness are deviations in formatting of nanotubes connections? ...or that cells through nanotubes are trying to reach 'something' out there that our 3D consciousness is not aware off

[tschai]

Mr bngenoh, although i found myself repeating myself  again and again - great excerpts and comparison work indeed!  Few days ago i enjoyed reading about human magnetism & priests who could heal people with words and hands and now i found this articles about nanotubes very interesting... And remembering some info about Morgellon's disease from this forum i cannot help myself wondering if there is connection: could it be that symptoms of that illness are deviations in formatting of nanotubes connections? ...or that cells through nanotubes are trying to reach 'something' out there that our 3D consciousness is not aware off

Interesting-I got that same "flash" while reading the article...may be something to this

[bngenoh]

Let's break some more rocks, ie magnetism:

Dr. Edwin Robertson and Dr. Daniel Cohen from the Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston investigated whether it is possible to prevent interference between memory tasks.

"For the last 100 years, it has been appreciated that trying to learn facts and skills in quick succession can be a frustrating exercise," said Robertson in a press release. "Because no sooner has a new memory been acquired than its retention is jeopardized by learning another fact or skill."

Robertson and Cohen recruited 88 students to learn a simple motor skill task and then a word list rapidly after. The following day, the students were tested and had already forgotten some of their new skills.

"As predicted, their recall for either the word list or the motor-skill task had decreased when they were re-tested," Robertson said.

Next, half the subjects received transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) just after learning, and the other half received sham stimulation. TMS creates a magnetic field that can stimulate a current to flow in the brain. The researchers found that those students who received TMS to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (associated with "word-memory") and the primary motor cortex (associated with "motor skill memory") could remember much more the next day.

"Because brain cells communicate through a process of chemical and electrical signals, applying a mild electrical current to the brain can influence the signals," Robertson said.

"Our observations suggest that distinct mechanisms support the communication between different types of memory processing," he added. "This provides a more dynamic and flexible account of memory organization than was previously believed.We've demonstrated that the interference between memories is actively mediated by brain areas and so may serve an important function that has previously been overlooked."

This is interesting especially in light of threshold in neurons:

If someone said you can understand rain patterns and the dynamics of the atmosphere by studying magnets and magnetism - and therefore make better predictions of the effects of global warming - would you think he's crazy? Brilliant? The atmosphere spans the entire globe, while a magnet fits easily in your hand; can they really be so similar?

Ole Peters, a 27-year-old physicist with expertise in "critical phenomena" and "self organized criticality" - which he acknowledges is "a bit of a rogue field" - doesn't sound the least bit crazy.

[...]

"We studied properties of that relationship that are also observed in equivalent quantities for systems with 'continuous-phase transitions' like magnets," said Peters, a research scientist with UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and a visiting scientist at the Santa Fe Institute.

"The atmosphere has a tendency to move to a critical point in water vapor where the likelihood of rain dramatically increases. The system reaches a point where it's just about to rain; it's highly susceptible. Any additional water vapor can produce a large response."

[...]

"When a magnet is near the critical temperature, a slight perturbation can cause it to switch north and south," Peters said. "When the system reaches the critical point and is so susceptible, a slight change - one more grain of rice, one more coin - can produce a massive response of the system. This phenomenon can be studied using statistical mechanics and critical phenomena."

The sun slowly evaporates water from the oceans, pumping water into the atmosphere. Much of that water vapor is stored and transported in the atmosphere before there is any rain, Neelin noted.

[...]

Complex interactions among the cloud motions organize the rainfall into clusters in space and a cascade of smaller and larger rain events. And these share the same mathematical structure as systems that physicists have studied.

[...]

"Whenever you find different systems that are governed by the same mathematical laws, you are hitting on something fundamental. You have found a thread in the mathematical fabric of reality. This study raises the concept of 'self-organized criticality' to a higher status. It's not just a far-fetched possibility."

An international team of physicists has for the first time observed magnetic behaviour in an atomic gas, addressing a decades-old debate as to whether it is possible for a gas or liquid to become ferromagnetic and exhibit magnetic properties.

[...]

Ferromagnetic materials are those that, below a specific temperature, become magnetized even in the absence of a strong magnetic field. In common magnets, such as iron and nickel that consist of a repeating crystal structure, ferromagnetism occurs when unpaired electrons within the material spontaneously align in the same direction.

[...]

"We assumed that ferromagnetism did exist for a gas, and then asked what its properties would be," explains LeBlanc. "Surprisingly, we found there were simple energetic signatures of ferromagnetism - that were eventually observed at MIT."

Argonne, Ill. - Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have reached a milestone in the study of emergent magnetism.

Studying simple metallic chromium, the joint UC-Argonne team has discovered a pressure-driven quantum critical regime and has achieved the first direct measurement of a "naked" quantum singularity in an elemental magnet. The team was led by University of Chicago scientist Rafael Jaramillo, working in the group of Thomas Rosenbaum, and Argonne scientist Yejun Feng of the Advanced Photon Source.

The sophisticated spin and charge order in chromium is often used as a stand-in for understanding similar phenomena in more complex materials, such as correlated oxides proximate to a quantum critical point.

"Chromium is a simple metallic crystal that exhibits a sophisticated form of antiferromagnetism," said Jaramillo. "The goal was to find a simple system."

Quantum criticality describes a continuous phase transition that is driven by quantum mechanical fluctuations, and is thought to underlie several enigmatic problems in condensed matter physics including high-temperature superconductivity. However, achieving a continuous quantum phase transition in a simple magnet has proved to be a challenging goal, as the critical behavior in all systems studied to date has been obscured by competing phenomena. The discovery of a "naked" transition in simple chromium metal therefore paves the way for a more detailed understanding of magnetic quantum criticality

At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship. Superconducting materials repel a magnetic field, so to create a superconducting current, the magnetic forces must be strong enough to overcome the natural repulsion and penetrate the body of the superconductor. But there's a limit: Apply too much magnetic force, and the superconductor's capability is destroyed.

This relationship is pretty well known. But why it is so remains mysterious. Now physicists at Brown University have documented for the first time a quantum-level phenomenon that occurs to electrons subjected to magnetism in a superconducting material. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Vesna Mitrovic, joined by other researchers at Brown and in France, report that at under certain conditions, electrons in a superconducting material form odd, fluctuating magnetic waves. Apply a little more magnetic force, and those fluctuations cease: The electronic magnets form repeated wave-like patterns promoted by superconductivity.

[...]

When a magnetic field is applied to a superconducting material, vortices measured in nanometers (1 billionth of a meter) pop up. These vortices, like super-miniature tornadoes, are areas where the magnetic field has overpowered the superconducting field state, essentially suppressing it. Crank up the magnetic field and more vortices appear. At some point, the vortices are so widespread the material loses its superconducting ability altogether.

[...]

"These funny waves most likely appear because of superconductivity, but the reason why is still unsettled," Mitrovic said.

Passive alignment of animals to magnetic fields has been reported in honeybees and termites. It requires some type of special sensory organ to detect the magnetic field.

"If they have evidence suggesting that mammals are using magnetic fields to orient their movements, this is very cool," said Mark A. Willis, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet been able to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests that birds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field. Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois, proposed forty years ago that some animals - including migratory birds - must have molecules in their eyes or brains which respond to magnetism. The problem has been that no one has been able to find a chemical sensitive enough to be influenced by Earth's weak geomagnetic field. Now Peter Hore and colleagues at the University of Oxford have found one.

[...]

Hore suggests that dusk might activate the birds' magnetic sense, producing the radical pair. The concentrations of each free radical would be controlled by the Earth's magnetic field, which is known to vary with latitude. As a result, he speculates, the radicals would bind in varying degrees with other signalling molecules, depending on how far north or south the animal is.

How birds decode their "magnetic sense" is another topic of debate. Mouritsen believes they have an additional layer to their vision, which when switched on allows them to visually "see" the Earth's magnetic field. The situation would be similar to "head-up displays" in fighter jets and some cars, where transparent screens displaying information are built into windscreens.

"Having that on all the time would be distracting, so you can see why it would be desirable for the system to switch on and off," says Hore.

It sounds like something a guided missile would do. Foxes seem to zero in on prey using Earth's magnetic field. They are the first animal thought to use the field to judge distance rather than just direction.

That palm tree magnet commemorating your last vacation is programmed for a simple function - to stick to your refrigerator. Similarly, semiconductors are programmed to convey bits of information small and large, processing information on your computer or cell phone.

Scientists are working to coax those semiconductors to be more than conveyers, to actually perform some functions like magnets, such as data recording and electronic control. So far most of those effects could only be achieved at very cold temperatures: minus 260 degrees Celsius or more than 400 below zero Fahrenheit, likely too cold for most computer users.

However, researchers led by a University of Washington chemist report on Aug. 21 in Science that they have been able to train tiny semiconductor crystals, called nanocrystals or quantum dots, to display new magnetic functions at room temperature using light as a trigger.

[...]

"This provides a completely new approach to microelectronics, if you can use spin instead of charge to process information and use photons to manipulate that process," Gamelin said. "It opens the door to materials that store information and perform logic functions at the same time without the need for super cooling."

[...]

We're exploring how to manipulate spins in these nanostructures and perhaps opening the door for some exciting new technologies."

Magnetism is cool isn't it? It can be used to store and process information simultaneously, hmm what else stores & processes information simultaneously? 

In many migratory animals, the light-sensitive chemical reactions involving the flavoprotein cryptochrome (CRY) are thought to play an important role in the ability to sense Earth's magnetic field. In the case of Drosophila, previous studies from the Reppert laboratory have shown that the cryptochrome protein found in these flies can function as a light-dependent magnetic sensor.

A light-sensitive protein in the human eye has been shown to act as a "compass" in a magnetic field, when it is present in flies' eyes.

The study in Nature Communications showed that without their natural "magnetoreception" protein, the flies did not respond to a magnetic field - but replacing the protein with the human version restored the ability.

[...]

Although humans, like migratory birds, are known to have cryptochrome in their eyes, the idea of human magnetoreception has remained largely unexplored since pioneering experiments by Robin Baker of the University of Manchester in the 1980s. Dr Baker used a long series of experiments on thousands of volunteers that suggested humans could indirectly sense magnetic fields, though he never definitively identified the mechanism.

[...]

At the heart of the current study is a molecule called cryptochrome - an ancient protein present, in one of its two major forms, in every animal on Earth. The protein is implicated in the regulation of circadian rhythms - the "body clocks" of humans and other animals - and in the navigational skills of several species including migratory birds, monarch butterflies, and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The above reminds me of this:

December 5, 1998
Laura, Ark, Frank

A: What is behind your temples?

Q: Behind, in a general sense? The creators, the instigators? The church?
A: Place your fingers upon...

Q: What do you put your fingers on that has to do with a temple? Place your fingers on your temple? On your head? What is behind your temple? Your brain...
A: Which part?

Q: Well, the TEMPORAL lobe... the part of the brain where magnetite is found.
A: Yes....

Q: So, what are you getting at here?
A: We are not, you will.

Q: So, the instructions or clues found in this place, may, in fact, apply to some other location? Is that it?
A: Or to a grid.

[...]

Q: What grid are we talking about? An EM grid...
A: Yes. Meridians...

Q: In response to your remark from last week, 'ever feel that you are dancing around in circles?' Mike wanted to know if this was a reference to crop circles?
A: No, not directly!

Q: Then, you also said: 'quite simply we would say, where is Arcadia?' Arcadia ...
A: You need to work on that one. The answers to these mysteries are not easily solved, but well worth it!

[...]

Q: Okay, I am done. (A) I want to ask about this grid business. I have this book with this 'sacred geometry' business, Bruce Cathie and all that. These people draw these grids with geometric shapes that differ from simple meridians. I would like to know how to find out what is the true geometry of this grid? Is it as complicated as they draw it, or is it as simple as longitude and latitude? Can I have some help with this?
A: Seek answers in the pyrotechnics.

Q: (L) Do you mean having to do with explosives or fireworks?
A: All that is related to the root. For example: lightning.

Q: (L) Yes, but what we are asking is how to SHAPE, to construct a correct grid! Is there a particular geometric figure that applies, and are there particular locations ...
A: No, no, no. You are assuming, and you are not being patient.

Q: (A) I don't understand what this pyrotechnics is about, but first question: at some point we were asking about this magnetic grid, and we were told that the grid lines are located about every 200 miles, and that it is a regular pattern of lines...
A: Yes, but those are primary. What happens at the poles?

Q: (A) At the poles, these lines converge, and the pattern becomes more complex, I suspect.
A: Convergence.

Q: (A) Okay, they converge at the poles, and probably go inside.
A: In atmosphere, there is undulation. At core, there is primary convergence, and that is also your doorway/bridge.

Q: (A) Core of the Earth?
A: Yes.

Q: (A) These lines that are being drawn, are they just one dimensional lines, or are they a plane that crosses the Earth along these lines?
A: Latter.

[...]

A: ... Magnetic power grid physics . EM utilization. Crystals, and the like. Seeking paths to the interior? The "Poles" know best!

Q: (A) ) Okay, now we have been brought to electromagnetism, and that was my next question. I got some very old papers by Whittaker...
A: EM generators usually employ a grid. 'Tis for field creation.

Q: (A) When you say this, you mean A grid, not THE grid?
A: Yes. Looks like a waffle iron.

Q: (A) You mean like a waffle iron that is used in transformers?
A: Okay. Why? To duplicate nature. Earth has a web, and so doeth thee!

Q: (A) Now, Earth's grid is just an imaginary grid related to field, or just a mathematic grid... no, it must really exist....
A: Yes.

Q: (A) If it really exists, is it a field of grid, or is it a grid made out of some matter, like these waffle irons? Just field, or matter?
A: The iron is attracted, not attractive.

Q: (A) I wanted to know if the grid is a material grid, or if it is just a grid of field and nothing more, or if there is something material in the earth relating to it?
A: Both.

A:  Classical negates consciousness, regarding the mind as merely a function of chemical functions and electrical impulses occurring within a vacuum, rather than being interfaced with the rest of creation at all levels of density and all dimensions, which is of course, the case.  Gravity is the "glue which binds all aspects of reality, physical and ethereal.  Nothing would exist without consciousness to perceive it.  Classical physics assumes, among other things, that consciousness and "the brain" are one and the same, or that one exclusively facilitates the other.  In actuality, the brain is merely that  conduit which facilitates conscious expression in the physical state of human 3rd density states and similar manifestations. 

The brain has a grid architecture, and if the earth's grid exists, then there is also the possibility of actually SEEing it.

Q:  (A)  What is the relation between the fourth density that we know and the fifth dimension of Einstein and Bergman?
A:  Identical.

Q:  (A)  Why don't we know about this fifth dimension?
A:  Barriers to concept imposed by 4D STS.

Q:  (L)  Are these barriers to the concept part of what I have been approaching in my writing - the imposition of the idea of linear time by the monotheistic philosophy and religious controls - which is resulting in so much attack?
A:  Yes.

Q:  (L)  Indeed.  It terrifies people "religiously" to even think about it.  (A)  We know what it means that I am distant from you by 20 inches in space.  I know what it means to be distant from the future by 20 minutes in time.  What does it mean to be distant from something in the 5th dimension?  I can't think of it...
A:  Distance is a 3rd density constraint of consciousness energy grid structure.

Q:  (L)  Are you saying that consciousness energy is extruded into a grid structure?  I don't even know how to ask.  (A)  Einstein, Bergman and Bargmann, were using distance to measure distance in the 5th dimension.  They were not using consciousness, they were not using a grid, but they were using distance.  And it was supposedly a good theory because they had to abandon it.  So, none of them said anything about consciousness, yet they were using distance.  So, my question is, is distance an expression of consciousness?  Is there a distance from one point to another point expressed as, say, 2 million atoms?  Is that a distance?  What does consciousness have to do with this?  How to model atoms in this 5th dimensional world?
A:  As Grid.

Q:  (A)  Grid of what?
A:  Energy.

Q:  (A)  What is the 5th dimension role in this grid?
A:  Rim of Cylinder.

Q:  (A)  What is rim?
A:  Surface of loop.

Q:  (A)  Loop.  Loop in 3 D or loop in 5th?
A:  5.

Q: (A)..., if space-time was kind of a grid or lattice. And...
A: Indeed it is.

Q: What is a window?  (L) Now, I realize that we have all assumed that we know what a window is, but we have never really asked for a definition.  Could you define for us a 'window?
A: Convergence; opening to alternative states via energy grid points.

Q: Are windows where you can pass back and forth?  Moving between realms?
A: It is possible.

Q: How does a window differ from a 'portal?'
A: Window is open, portal is crafted.

Q: A window is naturally occurring portal?
A: Close.

Q: Does a window remain open all the time, or does it open and close for various reasons.
A: Closer to latter.

Q: What determines its opening and closing?
A: Frequency.

Q: Frequency of what?
A: Energy patterns.

Q: Frequency patterns of the area itself, or of people, or of people in interaction with the area?
A: Former.

Q: What could occur to change the frequency of the area?
A: EM pulse.

Q: Where do these EM pulses originate from?
A: They are transmutable.

Q: Transmutable from what?
A: Not online.

Q: What?
A: Your assumptions get you lost.

Q: What does it mean when you say 'EM pulses are transmutable?'
A: We will not answer these rapid fire inquiries as they abridge learning.

Q:  I suggested that one of the things you may have meant by suggesting, last week, an investigation of pyrotechnics, might be as simple as finding where, on the planet, are the highest number of lightning strikes, and that these might indicate foci of grid points.  Would this be, in fact, a good line to follow?
A: One of them.

(J) Is that like the concept of adding additional dimensions to the 3 we normally experience?
A: Yes. 4th level density implies and additional dimension of experience, doesn't it?

Q: (T) The first dimension is a single point, the second is the movement of the point into a line, the third is the movement of the line into a plane and the addition of time gives solidity. What is the fourth?
A: Discover!

Q: (T) Is time frequency also as we perceive time?
A: Not as you perceive it.

Q: (T) We perceive it linearly, but is it a frequency that our sense organs do not interpret correctly?
A: Maybe.

Q: (L) They have told us before that time is an illusion or a deception imposed at the time of the "fall." (J) I've seen, we have all seen, the light spectrum. What we are able to perceive with our eyes is only a limited section. Is reality like that? What we are able to perceive is only a small section of the spectrum of vibrations?
A: Close.

Q: (T) When we move into 4th density will we be able to perceive more of this electromagnetic band?
A: Much.

Q: (J) So, it expands our awareness?
A: Yes.

The brain is the conduit, channel, or the window through which the soul SEEs. What determines how much the I SEEs? Is it the architecture & other properties such as magnetism, of the window through which it peers maybe?

[Saieden]

Q: (A) Hmmm....
A: Pyramids inverted upon one another.

Q: (A) Where to put these pyramids?
A: Hexagonal representation of flat plane...

Q: (A) What is hexagonal representation?
A: What does a hexagon look like when converted to three dimensional representation?

Q: (L) Well, a 'flat pyramid' is a triangle, and a triangle has three points, and two triangles inverted becomes a sort of Star of David, and that has six points and is a sort of hexagon... (L) Well, this hexagon business... two dimensional inverted pyramids make a Star of David. But, what if these pyramids were really tetrahedrons? They LOOK like a hexagon in a plane, but in 3 dimensions... (A) They are octohedrons... Octonions... hmmmm....
A: Vortices... this is what your "wormhole" would look like.

I think that symbol looking like triangles inverted upon one another was found in one of Pyramids in Visoko, Bosnia (the 8th photo from top):

_http://matrixworld-hr.com/2012/01/10/nova-otkrica-povezana-s-piramidama-u-visokom/

or in video tube here:_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moPclPJ0Kp4&feature=feedlik

Not sure if this helps at all, perhaps someone more clued up on this could extend on it.
One way that a "flat hexagon" could be interpreted is as a cube, although not necessarily a regular one. In fact any cuboid (6 faces, all right-angles) will give a hexagon when projected onto a 2D surface. Furthermore, the mid-points of the surfaces of a cube form the vertices of an octahedron, or "double pyramid" if one is talking about the 4-sided-base pyramid, which also then fits the description of "pyramids inverted upon another".

[bngenoh]

Bear with me on this one, it will make sense in the end, at least I will do my best to make it so.

As we now know, we store & process information in a multiplicity of ways. Here we have evidence of the moving center and information processing through it:

In search of nectar, a honeybee flies into a well-manicured suburban garden and lands on one of several camellia bushes planted in a row. After rummaging through the ruffled pink petals of several flowers, the bee leaves the first bush for another. Finding hardly any nectar in the flowers of the second bush, the bee flies to a third. And so on.

Our brains may have evolved to forage for some kinds of memories in the same way, shifting our attention from one cluster of stored information to another depending on what each patch has to offer. Recently, Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick in England and his colleagues found experimental evidence for this potential parallel. "Memory foraging" is only one way of thinking about memory - and it does not apply universally to all types of information retained in the brain - but, so far, the analogy seems to work well for particular cases of active remembering.

[...]

Scientists who study animals have translated this kind of decision-making into mathematical equations called "optimal foraging models," which Hills applied to the lists of animals produced by the students in his experiment. Hills coded a computer program that first decided the probability that a student would name a particular animal, given what the student had already named. If someone started with "cat," for instance, they are much more likely to next type "dog" than "zebra." When the program encountered a pair of words that were unlikely to appear together, followed by a pair of words with a much higher chance of coupling, it interpreted the pattern as a jump from one themed cluster to another - such as from pets to savanna. Human jurors independently verified that the program identified jumps in the right places. Finally, the program compared its analysis of how the students navigated their memories with what optimal foraging models predicted the students should do, as if they were birds feeding on berries or bees in a field of wildflowers.

Most students jumped from memory cluster to cluster exactly as the optimal foraging models predicted - and the students whose mental acrobatics most closely matched the models' predictions named the most animals. Hills's program further revealed that the most successful students abandoned one category of animals for another when it took too long to name a new animal, just as a foraging animal leaves behind a patch of food when its time would be better spent at a more fruitful patch. The findings appear online in the February 13 issue of Psychological Review.

"My initial reaction was, "Wow, it worked!" Hills says. "It is pretty cool, and not that common, that some crazy idea works out. This particular line of reasoning seems to be producing some interesting things. A lot of previous research supports the hypothesis that higher-level cognitive abilities evolved from spatial foraging mechanisms. Before we had abstract thinking, we had brains that helped us get around physical spaces - some of those abilities may be co-opted to search in information space."

Of interest here is the idea that the way we move around in physical space affects the way we move around in mental or information space & is analogous to one form of information processing, ie cognition. Check out Daniel Wolpert's talk, for more information on the idea of the brain evolving to control movement.

Now we have this:

It's uncontroversial to say that thoughts trigger responses in your body but the research, published on Tuesday in the journal Cognitive Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, adds to growing evidence that our bodies can sometimes govern how we think and feel, rather than the other way round.

Okay, so the body can be looked at as a brain in it's own right. Therefore we can say that the head brain is the primary hub of information integration, because there is far more information going from the body to the brain than vice versa.

Generally speaking, it is not controversial to say that humans are 3 brained beings. The break down goes like this from oldest to youngest.

• Reptilian brain or R complex - fight/flight, sense of territory, breathing, heartbeat, etc, ie basic operations. Interestingly it is located at the center of the brain.
• Mammalian brain - limbic system, hormone & immune systems, emotions and is very important for long term memory and thus learning
• Neocortex - Basically what differentiates human from other primates and what distinguishes primates from other mammals. Also called "thinking brain."

More info about 3 brain structure: http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/triune%20brain.htm

A simple way to visualize this is to make a fist and wrap your other hand over the fist. If the wrist represents the reptilian brain, your fist is the mammalian brain and your other hand is the neocortex.

Gurdjieff's schema was intellectual center - head brain, feeling center - solar plexus, moving center - spinal cord. The parallels with the circuits in the neuroscientific break down are clear, if one views the head brain as a node, and I think the primary node. The functions of feeling and physical movement may be localized in different areas of the body, but they are integrated in the brain. For but one example think of quadriplegia where there are different degrees of sensory and motor control loss, whether though illness or injury, but yet they still retain their other faculties, they can reason, experience emotions, etc, note that the illness and or injury could also affect their abilities to reason and feel as well, the example was a simple one that did not take that into account.

Henry Molaison or HM, is a famous patient in neuroscience because of what was discovered through his brain. He suffered from severe epilepsy, and so chose to undergo surgery to remove his hippocampus. What happened is that he could no longer form conscious long term memories, but he could still remember stuff from before the surgery and into his childhood, but interestingly he could still form memories relating to motion ie he could learn new motor skills.

Here's more info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is46tScdKKo the pertinent part starts at 40:30

Now, we all have heard about mirror neurons and how they fire when we see another performing an action, basically a motor skill. A question comes to mind, does merely think about doing something, such as moving, have an effect? Apparently it does:

In a fascinating experiment, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation discovered that a muscle can be strengthened just by thinking about exercising it.

For 12 weeks (five minutes a day, five days per week) a team of 30 healthy young adults imagined either using the muscle of their little finger or of their elbow flexor. Dr. Vinoth Ranganathan and his team asked the participants to think as strongly as they could about moving the muscle being tested, to make the imaginary movement as real as they could.

Compared to a control group – that did no imaginary exercises and showed no strength gains – the little-finger group increased their pinky muscle strength by 35%. The other group increased elbow strength by 13.4%. What's more, brain scans taken after the study showed greater and more focused activity in the prefrontal cortex than before. The researchers said strength gains were due to improvements in the brain's ability to signal muscle.

That is a pretty clear example of mind directly affecting matter.

Muscle is for movement in spacetime, that it can be "tricked" into behaving as if it has traversed spacetime by movement in mental or information space is very interesting, because it indicates that there is little difference between the 2, think of the implications...... and then there is this:

For millennia, philosophers have debated whether or not the self exists solely in the mind, the body, or both. Well, it's unclear whether this will help clear things up or just muddy the waters further, but Swedish neuroscientists are now claiming that the human brain can add outside objects such as a third arm to one's physical sense of self, and that people can even mentally project their "self" out of their own body and into someone else's. If these findings hold up, the implications for virtual reality, robotics and prostheses could be substantial.

[...]

"What happens then is that a conflict arises in the brain concerning which of the right hands belongs to the participant's body," said Arvid Guterstam, one of the scientists conducting the research. "What one could expect is that only one of the hands is experienced as one's own, presumably the real arm. But what we found, surprisingly, is that the brain solves this conflict by accepting both right hands as part of the body image, and the subjects experience having an extra third arm."

Is there a limit to this? I don't think so. When you factor in the above, telekinesis is a very obvious and natural consequence. I would think that the only thing standing in the way would be the power & degree of brain or more appropriately, nervous system synchronization.

So, we've got grid architecture of the brain, possible grid geometry of spacetime, movement in mental space being basically the same as movement in spacetime, hmmm......

[candasiri]

This is not directly connecting with the latest posts--I apologize.  It might also be out in "left field" or in my case "right field" as I tend to be much more intuitive/right-brained rather than rational/left-brained. 
The puzzling:
A: Alfalfa fields in Rhineland yield as of yet undreamed of
  treasures.
Q: Where are these alfalfa fields?
A: Near tracks well worn.
Q: Another clue, please?
A: Nope, that is enough for now!!

-led me to think about alfalfa which led me to muse about "alpha" "α"
-alfalfa could be interpreted as "alpha alpha" or infinity: ∞ something without any limit
-put two infinity symbols together and get "Rose of four petals" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Topological_Rose.png
-which looks like alfalfa or a four leaf clover: http://www.alphabeticallistofflowers.org/uploads/allimg/120427/1040561247-0.jpg

-musing about "tracks well worn" made me think of the corpus callosum, the axons that connect the 2 hemispheres of the brain together.
-interestingly enough, professional musicians may have bigger ones: "Using in-vivo magnetic resonance morphometry it was investigated whether the midsagittal area of the corpus callosum (CC) would differ between 30 professional musicians and 30 age-, sex- and handedness-matched controls. Our analyses revealed that the anterior half of the CC was significantly larger in musicians. This difference was due to the larger anterior CC in the subgroup of musicians who had begun musical training before the age of 7. Since anatomic studies have provided evidence for a positive correlation between midsagittal callosal size and the number of fibers crossing through the CC, these data indicate a difference in interhemispheric communication and possibly in hemispheric (a)symmetry of sensorimotor areas. Our results are also compatible with plastic changes of components of the CC during a maturation period within the first decade of human life, similar to those observed in animal studies." From Increased corpus callosum size in musicians.
Schlaug G, Jäncke L, Huang Y, Staiger JF, Steinmetz H.
Source
Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany

-the pituitary gland resides right under the "tracks well worn"
-excerpt from 4/15/2000 re: the pituitary gland:
:  (L)  What?  Well, it's a curious word because it is composed of two words or even three: mer kaba or mer ka ba.  If we think  of it as three part word, we have the Egyptian  Ka, which is like the astral body, and the Ba which is similar to the Ka.  I guess you could think of them as the astral body and the genetic body.  Then there is the Ab which is the sort of principle element of the life in man - like the part that is of God or the soul.  The Ab was represented as a red stone.  It was the part of the man that expressed desire, lust, courage, wisdom, feeling, sense and intelligence.  So, all of them together sort of expresses an abstract creative principle Kaaba is Arabic for cube, and it is the square stone building in which the Black Stone is housed in Mecca.  It was supposed to have been built by Ishmael and Abraham.   So with Mer, Ka, Ab, and Ba, we have  a cube made up of the principle parts of the etheric self, and housing a stone.   Soul stone?  Mother stone?

A:  By god, she's got it!

Q:  (L)  Okay, we've got the soul or mother stone.  Or the mother of all stones.  Now that we have a definition, what was it?

A:  The Matriarch Stone.

Q:  (L)  Is the Matriarch Stone the one in Mecca?

A:  Symbolism reigns supreme here.

Q:  (T)  Is this also the Philosopher's Stone?

A:  "Stone" to those you perceive as ancients symbolized communication from "a higher source." 

Q:  (L)  What is it about a stone that made the ancients associate it with communication?

A:  Radio waves.

Q:  (L)  How did radio waves interact with the stone?  Were they recorded by the stone; transmitted by the stone?

A:  Transmission.

Q:  (T)  Crystals are stones.  Crystals are used for radio transmissions.

A:  Yes.

Q:  (L)  And it was said before that Stonehenge was a giant transmitter and receiver.  The original purpose of Stonehenge was to receive communication and to send communication.  It wasn't all that Druid HooDoo stuff that people talk about nowadays.  It was a machine, so to speak.  (Johan) Could it be that people who come in contact with a stone in one place, and then they go to another place and come in contact with another stone, transfer something from one stone to another?

A:  Well, one strengthens their abilities due to awareness channel grooving.

Q:  (L)  What gets strengthened from contact with the stones?

A:  Your abilities. 

Q:  (L)  When they are talking about this Mother Stone, are they talking about something similar to the Atlantean crystals that gathered, dispersed and/or transduced  energy?

A:  It is more symbolic.  But you are on the right track.

Q:  (L)  So, in talking about Merkabah, we are not talking about spinning tetrahedrons that enable  you to ascend or generate some kind of "astral vehicle."  They are saying that visualizing yourself inside of one of these enables you to ascend, or something.

A:  If you do that, it may help, though.

Q:  (L)  It may help what?

A:  We are going around in circles here.  You should use your own abilities to complete the answers to some of these.  But, then again, it is one form of "spinning," is it not?[/b]

Q:  (T)  Everything we have been doing here is all about gaining knowledge and increasing frequency in order to transit from 3rd to 4th density.  In ancient times, they would have had to do the same things.  But, there may not have been as many experiences available.  In order to get experiences, they may have had to travel.  So, by going to the stones, they might have increased their frequencies to transit from 3rd to 4th density. 

(L)  Or they used them as a direct machine or device to do it.  Archaeologists say that the people who erected the megaliths were barbarians.  They are defined as barbarians because they didn't build cities, they didn't have the wheel, they didn't have organized agriculture, and they left no written records.  Those are the defined elements of civilization.  Yet, this group of people, whoever they were, did things that we cannot duplicate today, and they did it all over the globe.  The groups who came along after them who DID have all the hallmarks of what we call civilization, also could not erect these gargantuan stones. 

I thought about this for a long time.  Archaeologists say they must have erected them as monuments to their gods, or heroes or whatever.  Some of them think they were calendars to tell them when to plant the corn.  Well, I think that is stretching it a bit.  If you can't cross off the days on the wall and look outside and see that it is time to plant the corn, you're in pretty sad shape.  You hardly need to haul stones as big as buildings across hills and valleys to set them up in special places to tell you to do that!   

The psychology of the human being cannot have changed all that much over the many thousands of years from then to now, and it is true that people do not do anything without a powerful motivation; what I call the "payoff."  What could be the payoff to haul these things around on greased logs as they are depicted?  To create a monument or to bury their kings?  To get naked and dance in the moonlight? 

(A)  Like they had a lot of time to do this while struggling to live the barbarian existence, too! 

(L)  Yeah.  They are supposed to be howling savages who must constantly hunt to get food, yet they are spending all their time, occupying all their strongest men, to push rocks around!   Meanwhile, according to the archaeologists and paleontologists,  these folks only live to about 40 years at max! 

(T)  They got a lot of mileage out of those 40 years! 

(L)  Exactly!  But, we are supposed to be thinking about the things they didn't have: cities, wheels, agriculture, and writing.

 (F)  Maybe they didn't need it. 

(L)  And why would that be?  Because the stones did it all!   

T)  Maybe they were 4th density STO beings who planted all those stones all over the place. 

(L)  Well, if you think about a group of people who are setting up these massive stones like they were pieces of styrofoam.  The stones collect energy and information.  They then transduce the energy or amplify it.  These people know things about movement, dances or spinning or something, that enables them to behave in concert with the stones so that they all become part of a grand machine that does things!  All of the legends talk about stylized dances and the oldest things about Stonehenge say that it was the Temple of Apollo and that Apollo danced there all night at certain periods of time.  Every 19 years, I believe.  When you think about that, and the other places Apollo appeared, the inversions and redactions of the legends, and we come to these magical stones that produce things.  Then we come to the head of Bran the Blessed which supposedly produced endless supplies of bread and fish or whatever else was desired.  Bran's head was the giver of all good things.  But more than that, it was an oracle.  It could speak.  And here we have the idea of a similar function for Stonehenge: both an oracle as well as a giver of blessings and bounty.  Anything you wanted or needed it provided for you.  If you wanted to go somewhere, it transported you as in the legends of the flying carpets.  It was magic transportation.  All of these things are associated, when you track them back far enough, with a stone.  The stones did everything. 

(Johan)  And it is funny that stones come up.  What I have been doing for the past 10 or 15 years is running around the globe collecting stones.  I've been to some of the most ancient places on earth, and I go from one to the other.  And from each one, I've collected stones.  Plus, Apollo: on Crete, there was an oracle of Apollo on Tara...

(L) And there was Tara in Ireland...

(Johan) I wouldn't be surprised if Tara meant stone too!  How is all this connected? 

(L)  Exactly.  This is what I have always thought about these megaliths.  They DID things.  All of the things we think are the "signs" of civilization were done by the stones.  Maybe Terry is right; these people were at some level of density where they could make this work.  At some point, something happened, the ability was lost, and then people had to build cities, engage in agriculture, invent the wheel, and develop writing  - because they could no longer do it the "easy" way. 

(Johan)  In talking about stones, would the mother of all stones be the navel of the earth; is that the same as Ayers rock?  It's the largest stone on earth and they call it the navel of the earth. 

(L)  Does Ayers rock have anything to do with this?

A:  No.  Stones were once utilized to provide for all needs, as the energies transmitted connected directly with the pituitary gland to connect spiritual realities with the material realms of 3rd and 4th densities.  So you see, the "stone" was viewed as Matriarchal indeed!

Q:  (L)  Were the beings involved in this type of activity 3rd density, 4th density or bi-density?

A:  Originally 4th when home was in other locators.

Q:  (L)  Could it be said that the pituitary gland itself is the body's own "mother stone?"

A:  If you prefer.  We suggest a new path now.

And from 2/22/1995
A) Which part of a human extends into 4th density?
A: That which is effected by pituitary gland.

Q: (L) And what is that?
A: Psychic.

Q: (A) Are there some particular DNA sequences that facilitate transmission between densities?
A: Addition of strands.

Q: (L) How do you get added strands?
A: You don't get, you receive.

Q: (L) Where are they received from?
A: Interaction with upcoming wave, if vibration is aligned.

Q: (L) How do you know if this is happening?
A: Psychophysiological changes manifest.

From Feb 23 2002 Session reminded me of "Handl"

Q:  (M) That's the second time they said that.  (R) Yeah, okay, so in essence, that means what we are doing now is assembling the orchestra before the concert, and tuning the instruments.  (L) Have you ever sat in the concert hall when they were getting ready, warming up?  (J) It's chaos.  (L) It is.  (R) But after awhile it starts getting tuned.  But that's what this is all about - the whole Cassiopaean Communication.  Were not playing yet.  We're just tuning.  (L) Yeah.  (JN) So if our level of consciousness creates the barriers of where this wave can go and how it behaves, can we...  (R) No, No.  No.  Excuse me for interrupting.  Our level of consciousness doesn't create the barriers, it's only aware of those barriers.  It can see, okay, what are the barriers: "oh these are the barriers.  I can see, okay.  So here's what I get to play."  But if your awareness grows, then you get to see an array of barriers.  "Okay I want to play with this bigger one.  I can play with the smaller ones if I want to, but I have the awareness to see other barriers that are more extensive."  (L) I think that the concept that we have a hard time grasping is that - going with the analogy - the musical selection is made, more or less.  We at some level - us in the future - have chosen what instrument to play, what part to play.  And so, the options that we really have now are: how well we play, how loud we play, how in tune we play with others; can we practice, can we stay in tune, can we do any numbers of these things?  And even if we find ourselves sitting next to some jerk who can't carry a tune, and whose instrument is all screwed up, can we still continue to play true?  Because even though the rest of the orchestra, being heard from a distance, may sound quite melodic, because we are sitting next to this guy who can't play, it is possible for us to be distracted - pulled off track - and then to distract the guy on the other side of us, leading to general chaos.  (R) It's about focus.  (L) Yeah.  I'm getting tired.  (A) I have still a question, because all the discussion around this computer modeling, whether it can be helpful or should be developed, or can lead to something; and all these spirals and barriers; they are all about, it's a standard, there are no events, there are no detectors yet.  My idea was that it is the detectors which make events which make the wave collapse.  Until now, in all our simulations, there is no collapse and no jumps.  And yet we speak about consciousness, while there is this other concept that it is consciousness that makes the wave collapse.  Okay.  So I see a contradiction and I don't know how to get out of this contradiction.  There is no collapse, and yet there was some encouragement that what we have relates to...

A:  The music is on the page long before it is played.

Q:  (R) So, when the orchestra starts playing you have the musical notes, the timing instructions.  Right.  So it's the same music.  You can play over and over again.  But the difference is how well the orchestra plays and how well it is tuned.  Okay, so one implication can be that...

A:  The FRE is the notes on the page.  It is the selection.  The "playing" constitutes "events."  Frequency resonant envelope: FRE.

Q:  (R) So when you're starting out, you have a small orchestra, you play simple notes.  (L) Kinda like 1st density.  (R) Exactly.  As you get better at playing you get the bigger orchestra, you get more instruments, you have to be more careful about having them in tune because otherwise...  (L) And you get more notes.  (R) And you get more notes.  But the playing constitutes events.  It's one thing to have an orchestra, it's another to have it tuned.  (L) Alright, let's think about this FRE idea and this application of it and then take it back to Violette's original questions about it.  FRE is emanated and maintained in concert with the environment and others...  (R) Well, it is also bonded to the perception through awareness, right?  (L) Okay.  [V reads back from the notes] "Your awareness maintains a frequency emanation in concert with your environment.  When there are fluctuations in bonding of another, the fluctuations create discontinuities."  (R) So a discontinuity would be a quantum jump, for example, yes or no?

A:  Yes.

Q:  (R) But this requires that you have an orchestra that is well tuned.  Because if you don't have it well tuned, it's not resonating so it doesn't matter if the...  (V) So the orchestra's not going to make the music in 4th density.  (R) Exactly.  So you have the concert hall, the audience is there, you have the notes, but the orchestra is not in tune, so you get bad music.  If the orchestra is not in tune, which is why it is important to...

A:  Sing "Goodnight Ladies," Yes?

My point feels like it's at the beginning stages but, perhaps, one facet of the c's meaning with their cryptic reference to the alfalfa fields is something to do with 1. the pituitary gland (crystal palace? mother stone?), 2. getting additional dna strands when the magnetic field changes with a change in the spin or gravity of the earth as 3. the wave arrives and 4. tuning our internal orchestra so one can play on a 4th grade level if that is one's destiny
A: ... Magnetic power grid physics . EM utilization. Crystals, and the like. Seeking paths to the interior? The "Poles" know best 

I'm ready for greener pasture although it's not a bad earth day today...