Monday, April 26, 2004
8am Sunday Morning.
A beautiful morning, a beautiful day, drove over the downs towards the bluebell wood.
On this very quiet road on this Sunday morning I saw bunch of cars in this field and some hippy vans, and then three crazy people standing in the road - flagging me down in the road.
I thought, oh, could be trouble, I'll slow down they'll drag me out and whatever…
But no they need a lift into town, been had an outdoor all night party. So I said yes, dropped my plans. I drove a few hundred feet so I could turn around. They looked kind of worried and it transpired that they'd been told that Brighton was the other way by a very naughty woman… they obviously had no sense of direction or didn't think about the position of the sun or anything. Had they walked that way they would have reached Ditchling beacon and been even farther from home…
One English and two Colombians, the girls worked in a restaurant INDIAN SUMMER a cool Indian restaurant that serves Southern Indian food sounds good.
Indian Summer
www.indiansummer.org.uk
Victoria Terrace,
Kingsway, Hove,
Tel: 01273 773090
http://www.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk/brighton__hove/leisure/eating_out/indian/indiansummer.html
www.indiansummer.org.uk
A beautiful morning, a beautiful day, drove over the downs towards the bluebell wood.
On this very quiet road on this Sunday morning I saw bunch of cars in this field and some hippy vans, and then three crazy people standing in the road - flagging me down in the road.
I thought, oh, could be trouble, I'll slow down they'll drag me out and whatever…
But no they need a lift into town, been had an outdoor all night party. So I said yes, dropped my plans. I drove a few hundred feet so I could turn around. They looked kind of worried and it transpired that they'd been told that Brighton was the other way by a very naughty woman… they obviously had no sense of direction or didn't think about the position of the sun or anything. Had they walked that way they would have reached Ditchling beacon and been even farther from home…
One English and two Colombians, the girls worked in a restaurant INDIAN SUMMER a cool Indian restaurant that serves Southern Indian food sounds good.
Indian Summer
www.indiansummer.org.uk
Victoria Terrace,
Kingsway, Hove,
Tel: 01273 773090
http://www.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk/brighton__hove/leisure/eating_out/indian/indiansummer.html
www.indiansummer.org.uk
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Great news from Matt 'that another boat has joined the Flotillas of Hope for our journey to Nauru for World Refugee Day, June 20th 2004.
The Malahini II and her crew with Alison Buchanan, recognised Aboriginal artist have decided to join the Flotilla heading to the island gulag on Nauru. More news coming soon.'
The Malahini II and her crew with Alison Buchanan, recognised Aboriginal artist have decided to join the Flotilla heading to the island gulag on Nauru. More news coming soon.'
In 1520 the murk of the native fires along the coast caused Ferdinand Magellan, to chart the place he had found as Tierra del Humo -- the Land of Smoke. Magellan's King Charles V of Spain, preferred Tierra del Fuego - the Land of Fire.
When Magellan's large sailing craft moored in what we now call the Magellan Strait the indigenous people only saw the small landing craft that came ashore. It is said that only the shaman could vaguely make out the larger vessel. For the rest of them the horizon was unbroken.
In their culture they only had small canoes, they had no language, no metaphor or analogy for a larger vessel. It seems that their language was describing their reality, which was based on their environment which didn't include large sailing boats. Likewise the Inuit surrounded by snow, have many words for different from of snow, slush, ice and so on, which was for us is just snow.
'To think is to speculate with images.'
Giordano Bruno
Frances Yates
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
It is well known with anthropology that language affects perception, so in relation to correction our perception of selfhood little things may help like saying 'anger is arising' rather than 'I am angry'
It is one thing to know that by 'holding' or 'grasping' I create the illusion of self, it is another to feel it, to know it at a deeper level, to actually be aware of our greater connection with the 'web of life' as Chief Seattle allefedly described it. It is the difference between first order and second order change.*
The sense of self, of a separate identity is so embedded in the culture and language of the West that it is difficult to shake free from it. various practices the Buddha taught help to free ourselves, he likened it using a raft to cross to the other shore.
In other cultures and other species it is different. Scientist speculate that dolphins have a 'group mind'** or 'pod mind' as their communication and perceptual system is of a public nature being based on sonar, echolocation broadcasts and echoes…
*
http://www.thenationalacademy.org/Ready/change.html
**
'…given the intraspecies independence of cetacean life (due to voluntary breathing and protection), sophisticated representation of one's self in a group may have developed.
…the public nature of echolocation broadcasts and echoes may result in sharing of perceptual information to such an extent that self-nonself boundaries in dolphins become fuzzy or functionally useless. A perceptual world constructed of shared raw data could permit intense group cohesion (and subsequently a different kind of individuation). A dolphin may include other members of his group as part of his "decision-making unit" or self (a so-called "group mind", Jerison, 1986). This could help explain widespread observations in cetaceans of reciprocal altruism and inter-species altruism, a phenomenon believed by many to be specific to humans
http://home.onemain.com/~dk1008206/html/dolph1.htm
http://whales7.tripod.com/policies/levasseur/levass2f.html
Hive Mind
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-a.html
Kevin Kelly - Out of Control
When Magellan's large sailing craft moored in what we now call the Magellan Strait the indigenous people only saw the small landing craft that came ashore. It is said that only the shaman could vaguely make out the larger vessel. For the rest of them the horizon was unbroken.
In their culture they only had small canoes, they had no language, no metaphor or analogy for a larger vessel. It seems that their language was describing their reality, which was based on their environment which didn't include large sailing boats. Likewise the Inuit surrounded by snow, have many words for different from of snow, slush, ice and so on, which was for us is just snow.
'To think is to speculate with images.'
Giordano Bruno
Frances Yates
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
It is well known with anthropology that language affects perception, so in relation to correction our perception of selfhood little things may help like saying 'anger is arising' rather than 'I am angry'
It is one thing to know that by 'holding' or 'grasping' I create the illusion of self, it is another to feel it, to know it at a deeper level, to actually be aware of our greater connection with the 'web of life' as Chief Seattle allefedly described it. It is the difference between first order and second order change.*
The sense of self, of a separate identity is so embedded in the culture and language of the West that it is difficult to shake free from it. various practices the Buddha taught help to free ourselves, he likened it using a raft to cross to the other shore.
In other cultures and other species it is different. Scientist speculate that dolphins have a 'group mind'** or 'pod mind' as their communication and perceptual system is of a public nature being based on sonar, echolocation broadcasts and echoes…
*
http://www.thenationalacademy.org/Ready/change.html
**
'…given the intraspecies independence of cetacean life (due to voluntary breathing and protection), sophisticated representation of one's self in a group may have developed.
…the public nature of echolocation broadcasts and echoes may result in sharing of perceptual information to such an extent that self-nonself boundaries in dolphins become fuzzy or functionally useless. A perceptual world constructed of shared raw data could permit intense group cohesion (and subsequently a different kind of individuation). A dolphin may include other members of his group as part of his "decision-making unit" or self (a so-called "group mind", Jerison, 1986). This could help explain widespread observations in cetaceans of reciprocal altruism and inter-species altruism, a phenomenon believed by many to be specific to humans
http://home.onemain.com/~dk1008206/html/dolph1.htm
http://whales7.tripod.com/policies/levasseur/levass2f.html
Hive Mind
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-a.html
Kevin Kelly - Out of Control
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
'I try to remember that it's not me... trying to protect the rainforest.
Rather, I am part of the rainforest protecting itself.'
John Seed, Australian rainforest campaigner
Stavros left a lovely voicemail message yesterday, he is on Eureka doing groundwork on communications, high frequency radio, laptop, satellite phone and so on. And he just try phoning me, Sydney to Brighton, England and was gobsmacked that it worked!
He was so enthusiastic - it was very sweet and funny.
I have been scaring myself and activating my catastrophic side by reading my LONELY PLANET Health Guide for Oz, NZ & the Pacific.
ISBN 1 - 86450 - 2. A very interesting read. I need to stay healthy on the voyage. So yesterday I bought some 'health boosters' it recommended on page 60:
Acidophilus - a probiotic to develop an ecological balance of bacteria in the gut
Glutamine - an amino acid for immune system functioning.
Grapefruit Seed Extract - in fact I was given Grape Seed, but its an anti-oxidant so should be good
L-arginine - an amino acid involved in immune function and promotes wound healing
Echinacea - immune booster.
Vitamin C, and I still need to get:
Cats Claw, from the Rain Forrest it has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties
Aloe Vera - immune enhancer
And now for something completely different;
My thoughts have been stimulated by a question from a Buddhist about rebirth. Once again the wave rears its head before me.
'I have read that according to Tibetan Buddhism when a sentient being dies he/she may take another rebirth in the time frame from 3 days up to 49 days.... being maximum time 49 days.' And so on…
This has led me to look deeply at this question anew for myself. Below is how I have clumsily groped towards an answer, I hope you get my drift.
Is it possible that it is the wrong question that is being asked because the question makes an assumption; it posits a self to be reborn. At a deeper level the other thing to consider is what is it that dies? What identity, which 'I' or 'self'****?
Is it our clinging to the conception of a self that needs to die?
You throw a stone into a still pond, the concentric ripples surge out and then dissipate. Our life, our identify, is as the wave rolling toward the beach. Are we as the wave, that undulation through the sea, what dies as it crashes on the shore? Physics describes a wave as:
'a phenomenon that does not have mass and therefore does not occupy space. Waves travel through space.'* Is the wave our action, do our acts - our karma - make us what we are?
'For the Buddha taught, in his central doctrine, the dependent co-arising of all things… The Buddha said "She who sees the Dharma sees dependent co-arising, and she who sees dependent co-arising sees the Dharma." Thus, when he taught, he was said to turn the Wheel of the Dharma.'**
Five centuries later the second turning occurred at the beginning of the Mahayana tradition, the Wheel of Dharma turned again to redeem the Buddha's core teaching. With this new phase came new terms like EMPTINESS - 'the other face of dependent co-arising is emptiness of own being**'
So as we break down outmoded ways of thinking, the old dichotomy of self and world practising INTERBEING*** we realise that all our actions impinge on all beings.
The Buddha's doctrine of 'paticca samuppada'**** 'represents to him a dynamical process of interdependent factors' 'In early Buddhist view, a person's identity resides not in an enduring self but in his actions (karma) - that is in the choices that shape these actions. Because the dispositions formed by previous choices can be modified in turn by present behavior this identity as choice-maker is fluid, its experience alterable. While it is affected by the past, it can also break free of the past.' Sankharas: memories and habits "which stock the mind" and impel us onward.
Systems-theologian William Everett puts it as 'the self is a decision centre', we are our actions (karma) our actions (karma) are us.
As Macy puts it '…the behaviours we choose and the goals we pursue take root in the psyche. They affect the ways we interpret experience (emptiness) - and these ways constitute who we are. Doer and deed co-arise. Hence our continuity of character, bearing the stamp of repeated choice and habit. Hence also our freedom, for the causal flow of co-arising is altered by each present act of will.
Here then is the answer to the question, "does it matter what we do?" It matters to the extent that WE matter. Indeed, our acts matter-incarnate-IN us, for they make us what we are.'
So then what is 'it' that is 'reborn'? Are we like holograms that contain the whole, each piece of a broken hologram contains the whole. So do we all contain the Buddha, the Dalai Lama within us like a dharmic strand of DNA?
Any one baby is a buddha…
'The Dharma Wheel, as it turns now, also tells us this: that we don't have to invent or construct connections. They already exist.
We already and indissolubly belong to each other, for that is the nature of life. So, even in our haste and hurry and occasional discouragement, we belong to each other. We can rest in that knowing, and stop and breathe, and let that breath connect us with the still centre of the turning wheel'**
"My actions are my possession,
My actions are my legacy,
My actions are the womb that gives birth to me."
----Anguttara Nikaya spoken by The Buddha
So I found that thinking about what a wave was helped me,
I find metaphor and analogy helpful in my thinking, for me the definition of a wave summed it up nicely.
I live by the sea, and often practice on the edge of the beach.
Oftentimes these meditations are my deepest, or should I say just deepest. Deepness arising.
It is truly exquisite when the sense of self drops and there are just waves crashing on the beach, light glinting on the water, wind on skin; world as lover, world as self. Truly conscious of the connections to the web of life. All too briefly I am one with the web of life. I savour those glimpses.
I love practicing outdoors, especially since a long retreat a couple of years ago in the foothills of the Pyranees, meditating in a barn open on all three sides, the view the snow capped mountains.
Very Ryokan*****
If your hermitage is deep in the mountains
surely the moon, flowers, and maple trees
will become your friends.******
Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
_________________
* chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/glossary/w.html
**World as Lover, World as Self
Joanna Macy
Isbn 0-938077-27-9
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0938077279/104-5118948-1887919?v=glance
***Interbeing: The Heart of Understanding. Thich Nhat Hanh calls earth ethics "interbeing" and uses a sheet of paper from the book to explain what he means.
"If you are a poet," Thich Nhat Hanh begins, "you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.... You cannot point out one thing that is not here [in this sheet of paper] - time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper.... This sheet of paper is, because everything else is." Thich Nhat Hanh can thus conclude that when we say something with our whole being, and not just with our mouth or our intellect, we can transform the world [3-4,50].
http://www.uua.org/ga/ga99/306earthethics.html
****
Upádánapaccayá bhavo; bhavapaccayá játi; játipaccayá jarámaranam...
(With holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death... )
The fundamental upádána or 'holding' is attaváda (see Majjhima ii,1 -M.i,67-), which is holding a belief in 'self'. The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahat has altogether got rid of asmimána (not to speak of attaváda), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is játinirodha and jarámarananirodha. (See, in Kosala Samy. i,3 -S.i,71-, how the words birth and death are avoided when the arahat is spoken of.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9366/noteps2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9366/noteps1.htm
*****
http://www.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/ryokan.htm
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Campus/4178/Ryokan.html
******
http://www.hermitary.com/articles/ryokan.html
_________________
I try to remember that it's not me...
trying to protect the dharma.
Rather, am I part of the dharma protecting itself?
Rather, I am part of the rainforest protecting itself.'
John Seed, Australian rainforest campaigner
Stavros left a lovely voicemail message yesterday, he is on Eureka doing groundwork on communications, high frequency radio, laptop, satellite phone and so on. And he just try phoning me, Sydney to Brighton, England and was gobsmacked that it worked!
He was so enthusiastic - it was very sweet and funny.
I have been scaring myself and activating my catastrophic side by reading my LONELY PLANET Health Guide for Oz, NZ & the Pacific.
ISBN 1 - 86450 - 2. A very interesting read. I need to stay healthy on the voyage. So yesterday I bought some 'health boosters' it recommended on page 60:
Acidophilus - a probiotic to develop an ecological balance of bacteria in the gut
Glutamine - an amino acid for immune system functioning.
Grapefruit Seed Extract - in fact I was given Grape Seed, but its an anti-oxidant so should be good
L-arginine - an amino acid involved in immune function and promotes wound healing
Echinacea - immune booster.
Vitamin C, and I still need to get:
Cats Claw, from the Rain Forrest it has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties
Aloe Vera - immune enhancer
And now for something completely different;
My thoughts have been stimulated by a question from a Buddhist about rebirth. Once again the wave rears its head before me.
'I have read that according to Tibetan Buddhism when a sentient being dies he/she may take another rebirth in the time frame from 3 days up to 49 days.... being maximum time 49 days.' And so on…
This has led me to look deeply at this question anew for myself. Below is how I have clumsily groped towards an answer, I hope you get my drift.
Is it possible that it is the wrong question that is being asked because the question makes an assumption; it posits a self to be reborn. At a deeper level the other thing to consider is what is it that dies? What identity, which 'I' or 'self'****?
Is it our clinging to the conception of a self that needs to die?
You throw a stone into a still pond, the concentric ripples surge out and then dissipate. Our life, our identify, is as the wave rolling toward the beach. Are we as the wave, that undulation through the sea, what dies as it crashes on the shore? Physics describes a wave as:
'a phenomenon that does not have mass and therefore does not occupy space. Waves travel through space.'* Is the wave our action, do our acts - our karma - make us what we are?
'For the Buddha taught, in his central doctrine, the dependent co-arising of all things… The Buddha said "She who sees the Dharma sees dependent co-arising, and she who sees dependent co-arising sees the Dharma." Thus, when he taught, he was said to turn the Wheel of the Dharma.'**
Five centuries later the second turning occurred at the beginning of the Mahayana tradition, the Wheel of Dharma turned again to redeem the Buddha's core teaching. With this new phase came new terms like EMPTINESS - 'the other face of dependent co-arising is emptiness of own being**'
So as we break down outmoded ways of thinking, the old dichotomy of self and world practising INTERBEING*** we realise that all our actions impinge on all beings.
The Buddha's doctrine of 'paticca samuppada'**** 'represents to him a dynamical process of interdependent factors' 'In early Buddhist view, a person's identity resides not in an enduring self but in his actions (karma) - that is in the choices that shape these actions. Because the dispositions formed by previous choices can be modified in turn by present behavior this identity as choice-maker is fluid, its experience alterable. While it is affected by the past, it can also break free of the past.' Sankharas: memories and habits "which stock the mind" and impel us onward.
Systems-theologian William Everett puts it as 'the self is a decision centre', we are our actions (karma) our actions (karma) are us.
As Macy puts it '…the behaviours we choose and the goals we pursue take root in the psyche. They affect the ways we interpret experience (emptiness) - and these ways constitute who we are. Doer and deed co-arise. Hence our continuity of character, bearing the stamp of repeated choice and habit. Hence also our freedom, for the causal flow of co-arising is altered by each present act of will.
Here then is the answer to the question, "does it matter what we do?" It matters to the extent that WE matter. Indeed, our acts matter-incarnate-IN us, for they make us what we are.'
So then what is 'it' that is 'reborn'? Are we like holograms that contain the whole, each piece of a broken hologram contains the whole. So do we all contain the Buddha, the Dalai Lama within us like a dharmic strand of DNA?
Any one baby is a buddha…
'The Dharma Wheel, as it turns now, also tells us this: that we don't have to invent or construct connections. They already exist.
We already and indissolubly belong to each other, for that is the nature of life. So, even in our haste and hurry and occasional discouragement, we belong to each other. We can rest in that knowing, and stop and breathe, and let that breath connect us with the still centre of the turning wheel'**
"My actions are my possession,
My actions are my legacy,
My actions are the womb that gives birth to me."
----Anguttara Nikaya spoken by The Buddha
So I found that thinking about what a wave was helped me,
I find metaphor and analogy helpful in my thinking, for me the definition of a wave summed it up nicely.
I live by the sea, and often practice on the edge of the beach.
Oftentimes these meditations are my deepest, or should I say just deepest. Deepness arising.
It is truly exquisite when the sense of self drops and there are just waves crashing on the beach, light glinting on the water, wind on skin; world as lover, world as self. Truly conscious of the connections to the web of life. All too briefly I am one with the web of life. I savour those glimpses.
I love practicing outdoors, especially since a long retreat a couple of years ago in the foothills of the Pyranees, meditating in a barn open on all three sides, the view the snow capped mountains.
Very Ryokan*****
If your hermitage is deep in the mountains
surely the moon, flowers, and maple trees
will become your friends.******
Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
_________________
* chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/glossary/w.html
**World as Lover, World as Self
Joanna Macy
Isbn 0-938077-27-9
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0938077279/104-5118948-1887919?v=glance
***Interbeing: The Heart of Understanding. Thich Nhat Hanh calls earth ethics "interbeing" and uses a sheet of paper from the book to explain what he means.
"If you are a poet," Thich Nhat Hanh begins, "you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.... You cannot point out one thing that is not here [in this sheet of paper] - time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper.... This sheet of paper is, because everything else is." Thich Nhat Hanh can thus conclude that when we say something with our whole being, and not just with our mouth or our intellect, we can transform the world [3-4,50].
http://www.uua.org/ga/ga99/306earthethics.html
****
Upádánapaccayá bhavo; bhavapaccayá játi; játipaccayá jarámaranam...
(With holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death... )
The fundamental upádána or 'holding' is attaváda (see Majjhima ii,1 -M.i,67-), which is holding a belief in 'self'. The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahat has altogether got rid of asmimána (not to speak of attaváda), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is játinirodha and jarámarananirodha. (See, in Kosala Samy. i,3 -S.i,71-, how the words birth and death are avoided when the arahat is spoken of.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9366/noteps2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9366/noteps1.htm
*****
http://www.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/ryokan.htm
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Campus/4178/Ryokan.html
******
http://www.hermitary.com/articles/ryokan.html
_________________
I try to remember that it's not me...
trying to protect the dharma.
Rather, am I part of the dharma protecting itself?
Sunday, April 18, 2004
"Agir pour le meilleur, se préparer au pire et accepter ce qui vient"
An interesting juxtaposition of a film about
Katsushika Hokusai’s print The Great Wave - which I have always loved - and an article in today's Observer magazine about 'catastrophic thinkers'.
The film was fascinating as it talked about artists of the 'floating world' school in Japan and Hokusai’s growing fascination with waves.
In fact modern science has shown that such big waves - other than tsunami - do in fact exist in the Pacific Ocean.
This is one of my worries about sailing aboard the Eureka - fueled by watching the film PERFECT STORM - is being overwhelmed by a freak wave in shark infested waters. So when I read the article today on 'catastrophic thinkers' it made me pause for thought.
Am I a 'catastrophic thinker'? I do think that I might die youngish or indeed not grow to a ripe old age.
A few years ago when my para-glider instructor crashed and broke his spine I gave up para-gliding because I thought that could happen to me, yet I am considered a reckless fast driver…
I am also a risk taker, a 'catastrophic thinker' who takes risks perhaps?
__________________
Relevant links
Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE
BBC Two, 8.10pm
April 17, 2004
Television: Saturday, April 17
BBC Two, 8.10pm
Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave is the most recognisable image in Japanese art, depicting a towering wave about to overwhelm three boats. This accessible programme provides a gripping lecture on the woodcut, discussing the background and explaining why it is so important. For many Japanese, it presents an image of courage and perseverance. In the West, it provides a vision of implacable nature that taps into an age of anxiety — the sense that we are all about to be engulfed by catastrophe. Hokusai painted it having been driven out of retirement by poverty. "Until the age of 70," he wrote, "nothing I drew was worthy of notice." David Chater
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7946-1075096,00.html
Do you feel lucky? -
'catastrophic thinker'
"Whether you're an 'unrealistic optimist' or a 'catastrophic thinker', our failure to properly evaluate risk is a hazard. Jo Carlowe considers the perils of living dangerously"
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1192555,00.html
"Floating World Anita Schillhorn van Veen
In Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868), the shogunate heaped together all things immoral - gambling, theater, prostitution, bars – into districts separate from the rest of the city in an attempt to both provide and control licentious activities. These areas came to be known collectively as the "floating world," a heady terrain of sex and art, an island of hedonism in a balancing act with strict patriarchal morality and social code. Tokyo’s district, called Yoshiwara, or "happy fields," was the most famous."
www.substancezine.com/issue5content/ i5pdfs/floating.pdf
www.lost-in-translation.com
www.demonlovermovie.com
www.substancezine.com
An interesting juxtaposition of a film about
Katsushika Hokusai’s print The Great Wave - which I have always loved - and an article in today's Observer magazine about 'catastrophic thinkers'.
The film was fascinating as it talked about artists of the 'floating world' school in Japan and Hokusai’s growing fascination with waves.
In fact modern science has shown that such big waves - other than tsunami - do in fact exist in the Pacific Ocean.
This is one of my worries about sailing aboard the Eureka - fueled by watching the film PERFECT STORM - is being overwhelmed by a freak wave in shark infested waters. So when I read the article today on 'catastrophic thinkers' it made me pause for thought.
Am I a 'catastrophic thinker'? I do think that I might die youngish or indeed not grow to a ripe old age.
A few years ago when my para-glider instructor crashed and broke his spine I gave up para-gliding because I thought that could happen to me, yet I am considered a reckless fast driver…
I am also a risk taker, a 'catastrophic thinker' who takes risks perhaps?
__________________
Relevant links
Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE
BBC Two, 8.10pm
April 17, 2004
Television: Saturday, April 17
BBC Two, 8.10pm
Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave is the most recognisable image in Japanese art, depicting a towering wave about to overwhelm three boats. This accessible programme provides a gripping lecture on the woodcut, discussing the background and explaining why it is so important. For many Japanese, it presents an image of courage and perseverance. In the West, it provides a vision of implacable nature that taps into an age of anxiety — the sense that we are all about to be engulfed by catastrophe. Hokusai painted it having been driven out of retirement by poverty. "Until the age of 70," he wrote, "nothing I drew was worthy of notice." David Chater
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7946-1075096,00.html
Do you feel lucky? -
'catastrophic thinker'
"Whether you're an 'unrealistic optimist' or a 'catastrophic thinker', our failure to properly evaluate risk is a hazard. Jo Carlowe considers the perils of living dangerously"
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1192555,00.html
"Floating World Anita Schillhorn van Veen
In Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868), the shogunate heaped together all things immoral - gambling, theater, prostitution, bars – into districts separate from the rest of the city in an attempt to both provide and control licentious activities. These areas came to be known collectively as the "floating world," a heady terrain of sex and art, an island of hedonism in a balancing act with strict patriarchal morality and social code. Tokyo’s district, called Yoshiwara, or "happy fields," was the most famous."
www.substancezine.com/issue5content/ i5pdfs/floating.pdf
www.lost-in-translation.com
www.demonlovermovie.com
www.substancezine.com
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Although this morning was overcast and cold the afternoon brightened. Went for a walk to Firle, classic English country house, a folly, sheep, bluebells, primroses and cricket. Shetland pony's the colour of rocking horses, one came right over.
A house had free-rang eggs for sale, 50p pence for a half dozen bantam eggs, 70 pence for full size. A brilliant yellow yolk made a gorgeous fritjatta with spanish onions and potatoes.
A house had free-rang eggs for sale, 50p pence for a half dozen bantam eggs, 70 pence for full size. A brilliant yellow yolk made a gorgeous fritjatta with spanish onions and potatoes.
There is a very interesting and relevant article in the RAND REVIEW* called
Transcendental Destination.
It discusses the notion of "noopolitik" as a "new form of statecraft for the information age. noopolitik would seek instead to advance national ideas, values, laws, and ethics across the "psychic terrain" of the noosphere that envelops the planet. Noopolitik represents an evolutionary leap in statecraft made possible by the information revolution."
And that the "leading practitioners of noopolitik are neither nation-states but human rights and other activist groups and NGO's (Non Government Organisations)
Using electronic communications and other strategies ; the transnational defense of Zapatista insurgents of Sub-commandant Marcos who forced the hand of the Mexican government on behalf of the Mexican indigenous communities in Chiapas. "Greenpeace forced Shell Oil to change its policies with respect to the North Sea and Nigeria. Other groups induced the sportswear maker Nike to promise compliance with child labour standards."
It also mentions the campaign to ban land mines; the Greenpeace-led campaign against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific; and the Internet-based efforts by Burmese and Chinese dissidents.
Human rights, activist groups and NGOs "have the capacity to organize quickly and transnationally in ways that avoid the bureaucracy and rigidity of conventional international institutions"
It goes on to talk about the "development of "truth-seeking teams of "special media forces" armed with the weapons of the media" and that they "would be dispatched into conflict zones to help settle disputes through the discovery and dissemination of accurate information."
Information seeking is one of element of the "Flotillas of Hope" campaign.
Relevant links
*
Transcendental Destination:
Where Will the Information Revolution Lead?
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.00/transcendental.html
The Information Revolution and the Destiny of America http://www.fathom.com/feature/121989/
Transcendental Destination.
It discusses the notion of "noopolitik" as a "new form of statecraft for the information age. noopolitik would seek instead to advance national ideas, values, laws, and ethics across the "psychic terrain" of the noosphere that envelops the planet. Noopolitik represents an evolutionary leap in statecraft made possible by the information revolution."
And that the "leading practitioners of noopolitik are neither nation-states but human rights and other activist groups and NGO's (Non Government Organisations)
Using electronic communications and other strategies ; the transnational defense of Zapatista insurgents of Sub-commandant Marcos who forced the hand of the Mexican government on behalf of the Mexican indigenous communities in Chiapas. "Greenpeace forced Shell Oil to change its policies with respect to the North Sea and Nigeria. Other groups induced the sportswear maker Nike to promise compliance with child labour standards."
It also mentions the campaign to ban land mines; the Greenpeace-led campaign against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific; and the Internet-based efforts by Burmese and Chinese dissidents.
Human rights, activist groups and NGOs "have the capacity to organize quickly and transnationally in ways that avoid the bureaucracy and rigidity of conventional international institutions"
It goes on to talk about the "development of "truth-seeking teams of "special media forces" armed with the weapons of the media" and that they "would be dispatched into conflict zones to help settle disputes through the discovery and dissemination of accurate information."
Information seeking is one of element of the "Flotillas of Hope" campaign.
Relevant links
*
Transcendental Destination:
Where Will the Information Revolution Lead?
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.00/transcendental.html
The Information Revolution and the Destiny of America http://www.fathom.com/feature/121989/
