Cycling

Monday evening, as I was driving home from work, I straightened my posture so that my head was balanced effortlessly atop my spine (rather than tilted forward as it is most of the time). That made me think about Kundalini, which is, as I understand it, a kind of energy that usually lies dormant at the base of the spine, but can be awakened through various means and caused to ascend toward the crown of the head--thereby causing a kind of spiritual illumination.

I then imagined picturing this energy flowing up the spine and exiting the body at the crown of the head and flowing out and around the body where it would re-enter the spine at the sacrum forming a kind of torus of flowing energy as a tool for meditation. I haven't tried it, though.

So today, while doodling, I did a rough illustration of the idea, and then refined the drawing a bit. Did you know that the human spine has 33 vertebra--which also happens to be the number of degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry, and the age of Christ at his crucifixion? Of these 33 bones, five of them are fused together to form the sacrum, and four of them form the coccyx, the remaining 24 form the bendy part of the spinal column. In my little diagram I noticed that the spine as I had represented it looked like the neck of a guitar, and it turns out that many guitar necks do indeed have 24 frets--giving each string a full two-octave range. But, I digress... So, I wanted to add some color, and since Kundalini played a part in my original thought process I decided to look up the 7 chakras and see what the color correspondences were. It turns out that they ascend from red to violet in the same order as the varying hues that appear when visible light is refracted through a prism.

So, I thought to myself, "Hey does that mean that our physical bodies are a kind of prism for the light of the spirit?" And, then I thought I was some kind of ultra-cool pioneering metaphysical sleuth when I googled "human body as a prism" and didn't get any results that pertained to what I was thinking.

Of course, I found that I wasn't very cool after all when I phrased my search query differently. Oh well.

Sleepless

Has anyone else been having trouble getting to sleep lately?

Oh Well.

Moody

I've been so moody lately! Cripes!

Disconnect

Here. We all need a laugh don't we? The news is all so gloomy and scary. We can laugh at this poor guy. Nice cartwheel, friend! Schadenfreude! Ha ha ha!

Jestruth

MANY A TRUE WORD IS SPOKEN IN JEST - "Some truths, too painful or too likely to provoke, can be spoken only when the listener has been disarmed by laughter. A proverbial truth known for centuries, this notion was apparently first recorded by Chaucer with the line, 'A man may seye full sooth (truth) in game and pley,' from 'Canterbury Tales' (c. 1387). In 'King Lear' (1605), William Shakespeare wrote, 'Jesters do oft prove prophets,' and some years later, essentially the modern version was rendered in the 'Roxburghe Ballad' (c. 1665): Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.." From "Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993).

There are Significant Gaps in my Knowledge

Some say (more and more it seems) that we're entering a big, horrible depression-- the likes of which we've never seen. I guess nobody knows for sure, but it makes someone like me, who hasn't spent his hours studying Economics, and gambling--um, playing the stock market-- pretty nervous. Like, where is the safest place to park what money I have saved? Should I just buy canned goods, rice and a shotgun?
Oh well. I guess this may not be the best place to solicit financial advice. Never mind.

Clip-Art Horror

First, let me explain that I did not draw this, and I have not altered it (other than adding the arrows, which are meant to emphasize the more horrific aspects of this image).

I don't even know what to say!

(Special thanks to Andy for finding this).

LUX

Our good friend Lux passed away yesterday. We're all shocked and upset by this, and our hearts go out to Ivy.

What can I say about him? He was one-of-a-kind. You probably know him as the lead singer of The Cramps. He was one of the nicest, most creative guys I've ever known. He was definitely the coolest.

I have a lot of memories of him that I'm going to treasure, and we'll always have their music.

Rest in peace, and "stay sick!"

Sales Pitch

Uh oh, Dick Cheney is talking about mushroom clouds again.

The last time he did that he was pitching the invasion of Iraq to us (buyer's remorse, anyone?). Hmmm...what is he trying to sell us this time?

Maybe he's just trying to salvage the image of the Republican party as your Big, Strong, Protective Daddy. Who knows?

Upper Crust

First off, please don't confuse this guy with the band The Upper Crust or maybe you should...Anyway, I'm not talking about them right now, as great as they are.

No, rather, let's talk about what I was thinking about as I stood at the urinal at work today.

OK, maybe I should back up a little--NO, not from the urinal! I mean, back up in the chronology of my tale...At work, above many of the urinals, there are cabinets in which are posted pages from various and sundry sections of the Los Angeles Times. In the cabinet upon which I had fixed my gaze, there was an article about how some doctor's offices are becoming linked electronically with insurance companies so that patients can be charged right there on the spot for whatever portion of the cost of their doctor's visit the insurance company will not cover. I thought to myself, "Gee, that will probably put some insurance company people out of work." Then, as I sometimes do, I extrapolated forward (If you didn't know what "Extrapolated" meant you might think I was doing something untoward as I stood at the urinal! Ho ho!) and I envisioned a day when computers and robots finally replace all human workers. At that point, the only human beings required to exist would be the heads of corporations--to rake in the dough. (Don't get all snippy with me and say, "Well, who will fix the robots?" There will be robots for that, fool! Stop interrupting...)

Well, now that you've brought that up, it occurs to me that those leaches atop the pyramid would ultimately become obsolete, too. I mean, the robots will figure that out a lot faster than we have, comrade... In the end, all that would be left are computers passing electronic "money" back and forth.

It really just boils down to a couple of computers playing "Pong" with each other, doesn't it? Why must it always boil down to PONG??? AAAAARRRGGH!!!!! Just kidding. I know why.



P.S. I see now that this drawing looks more like the robots are saying that they don't owe anyone a living, when my conscious intent had been to have the guy in the bathrobe saying it. Sorry. But it works better anyway with the way the text turned out. And, a few minutes ago I came across this article.

P.P.S. And, to make matters even more synchrolicious, a song by the band The Upper Crust just came up at random on my ipod!

Go. Fight. Win.

It's not a reference to the Superbowl.