Session 9 June 2018

[Yas]

So, I think this was a gentle wake-up call to remember that if we want to help, it has to be done honestly, because we feel it's right, and with faith in the process. And that can contribute to freeing up Laura to have the energy she needs as the "Queen Bee", instead of having to fix crises or taking on even more of a burden. I think it comes down to having a real sense of duty, like the worker bees. They don't go asking for instructions/a solution to petty problems/kudos/reassurance/etc. every time. They understand their role, and do their best.

I have been thinking about something similar while reading The Righteous Mind and after watching a documentary about Putin.

I was thinking about how Haidt puts it so bleak for us to be able to overcome our own tendency to be hijacked by emotional/addictive/mechanical thinking (the elephant) and was trying to conceive how would it be possible to do so.

So I thought that the only strong enough appeal to the elephant could come from a huge drive that is focused on others. By that I mean that the love within a group of people is probably one of the strongest forces that can set a new course for that elephant. Haidt also says that when speaking about groups and partisanship. It made me think also of the patriotism I see in Putin and the documentary.

I know that there's a danger to group-thinking and building an echo-chamber and all that. And "groupism" can also lead to terrible things, it isn't black and white. There's a healthy amount of individual development to be made and the ability to think individually is paramount. So I was thinking about this kind of love for a group of people, or our country, or even our species as human beings it's not a love that's fuelled by the fear of not being a part of it, of being rejected, but a love that IS already a part of it and therefore has the responsibility of doing the best so that this group/country/society will remain right and have the best outcome. In that way, love implies being able to be ruthless with any kind of corruption within the group and to take care of it too, and that can mean just saying what needs to be said even when the group seems to say another thing, expressing the doubts about a particular course of action, being willing to sort things out together, etc...

And that means taking care of one self in order to be a healthy and useful member of that group too. Developing oneself to highest possible standard, as Peterson puts it.

It makes think too about the rebellious attitude that comes from postmodernism which is basically based on resentment and therefore rejects any kind of real concern about the cohesion in all sorts of groups, be it the family, the country or "the majorities". Maybe they feel they're not part of anything and therefore feel constantly rejected and resented... and all the identity politics stuff brings a quick but false antidote to that unpleasant feeling by turning it into martyrdom and providing the entitlement to build a society with resentment as its foundation. It gives the satisfaction to think that everybody else is wrong and they are right, so whatever those different groups cherish, it must be attacked because it reminds them of their inadequacy.

Trying not to extend myself so much , I understand how being touched by love for what we do within a group/family/country/society (whatever calls you) is the thing that sets elephant in motion into the direction we decide is the best. And so we need to learn to love each other, in a very simple, but yet very difficult to apply manner; as Putin said in that documentary, by the attitude of being good (let's say excellent) to one another to the best of our ability, which implies a great deal of work so as to become more objective, considerate and aware. Ultimately, to understand that as part of that group/family/country/society, we are responsible of its outcome too, and what we do, our choices (the small ones, in our everyday life), do make a difference.

Just some thoughts...

 

[Laura]

IMHO sun doesn't just feel strange, it looks strange too. Its color is not yellowish anymore like it used to be a few years before. Now is more white and somehow more "laserlike" (if I can describe it that way) .It look like it should look like that from upper parts of atmosphere(or space) but not from a ground. Maybe part of cosmic conditions is its interactions with sun twin.
In this part of Europe weather is really really strange. It is about behavior of lighting(s) . The sheer number of cloud-to-cloud lightning and way it behaves is just ridiculous.For about 2-3 seconds it flashes 3,4 or more times,then pause for 5-6 seconds than again same. And it can go for hours like that. Especially in the night. I think I saw one from ground to atmosphere. I have never seen lightings behave like that before. Lack of thunder is strange too. This started 3-4 weeks before and is happening whenever is cloudy/rainy.

Yup. The night of the 9th, after the session, we had the strangest storm I have ever witnessed/experienced in my whole life; and that's saying something since I grew up in FLA, land of storms!!! It was exactly as you describe with the bizarre cloud to cloud lightning going on almost constantly, like a strobe, with almost no thunder at all, and no cloud to ground strikes. And then it began to hail like crazy. And after that, rain and all through it, that bizarre darn lightning! I have never seen lightning like that before.

 

[Laura]

The mention of not creating additional burdens and "no drama" probably has to do with interpersonal relationships. Basically, living a life and trying to do the best with what we have, including being of service to other people, is hard enough. Creating new burden is when instead of taking responsibility for our actions and our own inner c**p we either dump it on other people, or let it "color" our relationship with them in some way. Essentially, we should always try to be excellent to each other. But maybe they were talking about something else as well, don't know.

Nope, that's exactly it.

 

[Ocean]

Yup. The night of the 9th, after the session, we had the strangest storm I have ever witnessed/experienced in my whole life; and that's saying something since I grew up in FLA, land of storms!!! It was exactly as you describe with the bizarre cloud to cloud lightning going on almost constantly, like a strobe, with almost no thunder at all, and no cloud to ground strikes. And then it began to hail like crazy. And after that, rain and all through it, that bizarre darn lightning! I have never seen lightning like that before.

It's exactly like that here in Oman too. I was just having a conversation with someone recently, about there being no thunder accompanying the lightning! The lightning was constant and no thunder in between the lightning strikes. In the UK we used to count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder to calculate how many miles away the storm was. One second = 1 mile. Not anymore.
Pic is of lightning over the Bay of Muscat.

 

[Charade]

Yup, seems so. I think it is partly information overload plus the craziness of the world. We've had the Cs view on things for awhile, but I don't think any of us - including me - was able to imagine how it would all play out. Now we see it right before our eyes and, I don't know about any of you, but it is still shocking to me to see how insane it all is. I could NEVER have imagined what is happening now. And it sure is overload even when you have some idea of what it is, what is going on, and where it is leading. Just imagine what it must be like for people who have very little clue in respect of hyperdimensional driving of our reality?

I read an article the other day about people becoming mentally exhausted by the news, the constant back and forth, and so on. Well, yeah! No kidding!

Everyone is being assaulted on all sides by a confusing and seducing mass of slogans and ideology. Everybody is talking about "freedom" and "equal opportunity" and "diversity" and "democracy". The truth seems to be that both sides are being used to enslave humanity in the worst way imaginable. What we are seeing is people reacting to this based on their spiritual needs, but they don't realize that it is all twisted and propagandized: liberals and conservatives both are being induced to choose the same form of slavery from totally different angles.

The problem with the whole mess is the materiality of it - even the "Christian Conservative" materialism. Most people focus on the material aspects of things: freedom to do this or that (pick a side and read Haidt's book). People want significance in their lives either to satisfy their own ambitions or to at least be no worse off than anyone else. The liberals want to achieve significance by forcing some sort of "equality" that they can then control (i.e. power). The Conservatives want to be left alone to claw their way to the top without hindrance (i.e. money and power). But in BOTH cases, it is materialism that they think will set them free, ensure democracy, however they define it.

But what is true freedom? Not being controlled by any of this, to live each day fully aware of what is inside you and outside you (as much as possible) and thereby having the ability to choose wisely that which is good for your spiritual nature, your soul. And those choices come every day, every hour, every minute. True freedom is to CHOOSE to follow the path of soul enrichment and growth.

Thank you for a concise distillation of the current left /right conundrum . The middle ground is more recognizable.

Ark has recently been quite taken with the Anastasia books and asked me to read one of them that deals with history. So, I started yesterday. And, as it happens, very early on there is a description of a process that might be very helpful for you and everyone else who is dealing with "cleaning house" in physical and spiritual terms. It's a meditation and I think it is a good one so I'll just quote the passage here though I'm going to edit it down to the essential process and leave out most of the back and forth dialogue:

Dr. John E. Sarno notes in his book The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders that a lot of dermatological issues are psychosomatic in nature. His method is basically based on knowledge, awareness and journaling. It's very similar to Dr. Gabor Maté's When the Body Says No and Timothy Wilson's Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change.

His treatment program:



Here's a testimonial from one person that applied Dr. Sarno's method:

In this case, I think that it was related to the topic of the session. I can only speak for myself, but can tell you that I had been wondering about our "stagnation" too, but was forgetting the importance of "Being catching up with doing", and of being grateful for calmer periods too. So, actually putting pressure for things to change, right now, or for solutions that are not really productive, is not useful and adds a burden where none is needed.

Another way to add a burden would be if we don't do our homework and search for easy solutions from Laura or others. Or if instead of doing hard work to sort yourself out, you want others to tell you what to do, etc. etc. In the larger context of this group, everyone here removes unnecessary burdens when they help out in any capacity, and when they work as best as they can on themselves. That is something we can do. We cannot understand the scope of Laura's burden, really, or at least I would never claim to be able to. But we can imagine it and do our best not to add to it, and rather work on being a support. Sometimes this is easy to forget if one is caught up in self-created dissatisfaction, in thinking errors, in whatever else influences us (from neurophysiological changes to external influences to whatever.)

So, I think this was a gentle wake-up call to remember that if we want to help, it has to be done honestly, because we feel it's right, and with faith in the process. And that can contribute to freeing up Laura to have the energy she needs as the "Queen Bee", instead of having to fix crises or taking on even more of a burden. I think it comes down to having a real sense of duty, like the worker bees. They don't go asking for instructions/a solution to petty problems/kudos/reassurance/etc. every time. They understand their role, and do their best.

That's how I understood their answer, FWIW.

These quotes together are the essence of how to sort through some of my own mental and physical stagnation, at this time. I love the comment by Chu of “being catching up with doing”. I felt a light bulb being turned on in my brain and body. I am encouraged to keep on with The Work on understanding self. The meditation really strikes a positive chord for me. I can’t wait to see where it might lead. The journaling exercises will pick up where I have left off....

My heartfelt thanks to you all.

 

[JEEP]

When the KP is low or zero, cosmic rays reach earth.

Every three hours throughout the day, magnetic observatories around the world measure the largest magnetic change that their instruments recorded during this time. The result is averaged together with those of the other observatories to produce an index that tells scientists how disturbed the Earth's magnetic field is on a 9-point scale. This scale is called the Kp scale.
NASA - Space Weather Action Center

The Kp scale/index was new to me and I was trying to figure out what the K was in reference to. As noted above, it is a measurement of how disturbed the Earth's magnetic field is. Consequently, I would think it would have been the Magnetic field - Mf - scale. I still have no clue as to the Kp designation and I'm not finding an explanation so far.

 

[mrtn]

The Kp scale/index was new to me and I was trying to figure out what the K was in reference to. As noted above, it is a measurement of how disturbed the Earth's magnetic field is. Consequently, I would think it would have been the Magnetic field - Mf - scale. I still have no clue as to the Kp designation and I'm not finding an explanation so far.

I think it's explained on wikipedia here:
K-index - Wikipedia

The label K comes from the German word Kennziffer[1] meaning "characteristic digit".

 

[JEEP]

I think it's explained on wikipedia here:
K-index - Wikipedia

Ah, yes - Wikipedia ... didn't think to check there! Thanks mrtn!

 

[Esote]

...the big flaw: If everything is culturally conditioned or if there is no objective truth, then what a leftist says is equally culturally conditioned and as subject to the same conditions that what they say is not true either... ...

Not only what a leftist says, but what anybody says is culturally conditioned.
Only an objective truth could imply a truer meaning of life...

 

[AzarHyun]

A: To serve and protect.

When Cs say "protect", do they think that I should primarily protect others from myself? and personal "bugs"

And ... when are we talking about "protecting others", how to balance it with another principle of "free will"?

 

[Joe]

Yup. The night of the 9th, after the session, we had the strangest storm I have ever witnessed/experienced in my whole life; and that's saying something since I grew up in FLA, land of storms!!! It was exactly as you describe with the bizarre cloud to cloud lightning going on almost constantly, like a strobe, with almost no thunder at all, and no cloud to ground strikes. And then it began to hail like crazy. And after that, rain and all through it, that bizarre darn lightning! I have never seen lightning like that before.

Here's a pic of one of the lightning arcs in that storm.

 

[Joe]

God REALLY died on the cross, and that Jesus rose from the dead of the wholly spirit. Those aren´t just archetypal symbols, those ARE FACTS OF HISTORY."

And that's the problem with monotheism. Taking the material interpretation over the meaning!

 

[mkrnhr]

Jordan Peterson, citing a Jungian concept, popularized the expression "possessed by ideology/ideas". It's always sounded like demonic possession even when trying to take it intellectually as a mere metaphor. For Jung, it wasn't a mere metaphor. If we, as "soul units" and other manifestations in the universe are information agregates with different attitudes towards truth and existence itself, it could be that espousing such contractile attitudes as relativism and "I create my own reality" wishful thinking, does invite other manifestations of similar flavour like 4D STS, which have the same core worldview and attitude towards reality. It could be like a merging of similar essences through resonnance or something like that.
The saying "be careful of what you wish for" comes to mind, to which one may add "or you may become your own internal god, apart from the actual universe".

 

[luc]

And that's the problem with monotheism. Taking the material interpretation over the meaning!

Yes, although many reasonable Christians and theologians don't fall into the "literal" or "material" interpretation trap (see this video for example where Bishop Barron goes about it kind of like Peterson). But still, the problem remains that Christians have some deep dogmas that they simply refuse to question - the historicity of Jesus being one them.

But I must say I cannot help but being impressed about what some conservative Christians are up to these days (as opposed to fundamentalist Christians on the one hand and postmodern, protestant Christians on the other hand). For instance, see this bloodshed of a debate where IMO, Sam Harris is utterly cornered by William Lane Craig. Not that I think Craig is right about everything, but I think the level and deepness of his thought are in a different league.

It kind of makes sense though - we used to think about the church as this powerful, pathological institution, but times have changed - they are not really that powerful anymore in the west and they are largely excluded from public discourse. Think about it - if you want to become powerful in our society and "surf the postmodern zeitgeist", becoming a catholic priest for example isn't your best bet these days. So it seems to me those Christians who didn't fall for the postmodern zeitgeist or fundamentalism kind of hunkered down in relative obscurity while being ridiculed by mainstream society, sharpened their tools, and now they are ready to come back and make a splash in the culture wars. Very interesting to see how this all unfolds.

 

[Voyageur]

Cosmic rays and their secondary particles when they hit the atmosphere are modulated by Solar activity and Earth's magnetic shield. Both magnetic fields are collapsing, which exposes us more to cosmic radiation. So maybe when these rays are particularily "active", being in the sun makes us more aware of their effect and that sunlight's agressiveness is more like a proxy for the underlying process?

Not that I've got this worked out, yet perhaps this is so, and "aggressiveness" may have changes even deeper in our own chemistry - responses etc.

Going back to the ionosphere in general:

An Overview of the Earth's Magnetic Field

This regular fluctuation is caused by electrical currents high in the ionosphere, a region above about 100 km altitude. All currents, like those in wires, can only flow in materials that conduct. The copper used in wires conducts very well but the air is a poor conductor. However, in the ionosphere high energy ultra-violet rays and X-rays from the Sun displace electrons from (or ionise) the neutral (uncharged) molecules in the air to produce positive and negatively charged particles (see Figure 14, '+' and '-' represent the charged particles). These charges allow the air to conduct. At any point on Earth, the Sun is at its most intense around midday and is therefore generating the most charges in the ionosphere overhead, which allows the air to conduct better. After dusk, in the absence of ionising radiation, the charges begin to recombine into neutral molecules again and so the ability for the air to conduct is reduced. This cycle is repeated each day.

With "collapsing" fields (which modulate somewhat - "daily magnetic field fluctuations") there may be peaks that can be shown on a daily index to keep aware of (I don't have a good example and I looked a bit - maybe the UV index provides warnings enough?). So, as has been said, timing will be everything along with paying attention; which does not mean there are not times to be in the sun, just more critical times not to be and how you go about doing so - interacting. With the magnetic sheath pulled back, it seems there is now much less (or more variable) time to interact.

The sun's angle (as briefly discussed above and which plays out in seasons) will have bearing, and yet like Scottie was saying, it does seem piercing in the shoulder seasons more so of late. Latitude comes into play and the magnitude of dust loading and any imbalances between negative and positive particles would fluctuate and could add more uninterrupted UV/x-ray and any other wave lengths in the spectrum we don't even measure?

Recently, I've noticed that there have been intervals when the light appears very different, even as caught on camera. The only word that comes to mind is that it can be somewhat 'stark,' a difference from what seemed normal, yet I cant describe it other than being a certain strange brightness, sometimes diffused brightness even. Last year during the eclipse (not full here) the light was for brief time kind of like this.

Here is some discussion/illustration on the ionosphere (and magnetosphere) wherein interactions take place by variable degree at different elevations (regions).

Ionosphere and magnetosphere | atmospheric science

Below (bottom) is a basic charged particle illustration building to midday example - so maybe if the Ionosphere is dropping, the charge level is dropping closer to earth (and conduction is changing - greater interaction with earth/ground), as dust loading and cosmic rays makes it all the more intense? May be this lowered charge has some bearing on the cloud to cloud lightning you guys showed above, where before it was mostly to ground. And then there have been the red 'spirit' lightning that is more common in lower elevations, too.

Lastly, I wondered if there would be effects on photosynthesis or the changing magnetic fields on plants? Found something on the latter (greater and lower) magnetic fields (MF), and there is a paper on this whereby they state, as one example:

Magnetic field effects on plant growth, development, and evolution

In laboratory, low MF have been created by different methods, including shielding (surrounding the experimental zone by ferromagnetic metal plates with high magnetic permeability, which deviate MF and concentrate it in the metal) and compensating (by using Helmholtz coils). In general, developmental studies on plant responses have been performed at various MF intensities. Early in 1963, it was found that a MF of relatively low intensity could be effective in stimulating or initiating plant growth responses (Pittman, 1963). Since then, a few experiments evaluated the effects of reduced MF conditions if compared to those performed by using high intensity MFs.

I guess it's not just C02. ;)

They found greater growth or different growth in some plants - and surprisingly, this does not seem to be well studied.

General to peak midday.