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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 14, 2014 - 05:03pm PT
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I love Christmas time. A few years back I repatriated a plastic nativity scene (one of the internally lit ones) from an apartment complex in July, stuck in on the roof of my car (lit up), brewed up some hot spiced wine, and went around to my friend's houses. I'd pull up, blasting Christmas carols, serve up the wine - 15 minutes at each house. Wassailing - American style.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 06:40pm PT
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Thanks again Bushman. And Happy Festivus to You!
did you erect a silver pole? i bet DMT did! (insider Seinfeld joke).
regardless of all the religious trappings of the modern american Christmas holiday there is one true benefit that can be had from the whole affair.
Your story sounds a tad like mine. Cept when i was around 9 i starred as the Little Drummer Boy in a play in front of the whole church. In so many ways that role embeded into me the most profound meaning of Xmas. in the ensueing yrs, maybe cause of maturation, or maybe cause of lack of better experiences. i don't know why, but i felt more and more let down? Until my 20's when i finally raised my voice to the situation which brought greater distance between me and Xmas and now my family. So i spent the next 20yrs detatched from both. Over that time i spent some Xmas's with friends. That was nice! Then some in Vegas, acting like i was ruling the world. Then for some Xmas's, the goal was to get laid. Then to get laid in Vegas. Till another year when i found myself ontop of Levitation 29. This was one of my favorite Xmas's ever. Maybe it resurged inside me the meaning of Xmas was to give without the notion of receiving? You see, when we started Levitation i had just come from the Valley with a fine season of learning crack climbing. But the sum of that season was getting benighted on the Steck-Salathe. Not for lack of technique, but for being slow. Or as i like to say,Methodical. Anyway, while racking up for Levitation, i had no real expectations for a summit bid. Only the usual open-minded, no expectations, looking for fun climbing, and everything is good, expectation. Once "ON BELAY" was confirmed, the bizness started. And didn't let up! That climb, on that day, took all i could give precluding my last breath. It was everything i could do to match adversity and not let my partner down. i was literally climbing for my partners wishes more than my own. i truely believe this is what brought my climbing acomplishments up to onsighting 5-11 crack! Not practice. That day, standing on the summit was one of the best gifts i've ever received!
And we had a jolly'ol time walking and talking down in the sunlight, and sneering at the glow which is Vegas!
Merry Xmas Partner!!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 14, 2014 - 07:25pm PT
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Sorry fructose, you're way too mystical for me. No idea what you are inferring here from the number 46. Is it supposed to be the opposite of 666?
Meanwhile, I just came back from a performance of the Messiah which I attended with a good friend who is an atheist Jew who has her house decorated with beautiful Christmas lights. Part of the modern global culture is appreciating the past and not being tied down to any one tradition.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 14, 2014 - 08:39pm PT
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And for randisi-
Cordyceps sinensis is the actual fungus on the caterpiller which is the larva of the ghost moth, most of which are classified as hepialus.
I love this description from Wiki - "The larva is whitish and maggot-like and feeds underground on the roots of a variety of wild and cultivated plants".
If you go to Tibet or China, they sell the whole caterpillar and people eat the whole thing.
Nowadays the fungus can be grown in a lab, though it's not specified what medium they are growing it on (trade secret) and they generally refrain from calling it a parasite, though biologists still think of it that way. In order to grow it, they had to lower the oxygen pressure to make it similar to 12,000- 18,000 feet where its found in Tibet and keep the temp just above freezing.
Here's the best site I could find describing the organism and the process.
http://www.alohamedicinals.com/cordyceps.html?source=google&gclid=CJyrg6OlxMICFQVafgodoqMAdA#.VI0xtydCbV1
It has shown some remarkable properties when tested in western labs. It helps sensitize the body to insulin lowering blood sugar count, it increases the flow of blood which helps athletes and old men, and it has anti viral properties.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:23pm PT
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To my surprise, I found this in my clients garden last week.
To her surprise she stomped on the many tiny white worms when I pulled it out.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:29pm PT
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Jgill:
Let’s just look at it purely methodologically . . . you know, scientifically.
What would you or anyone need to do to prove that an absolute of any sort exists?
Given that (whatever that would be), do you believe you could say that “you know?”
Absolutes are a specific or particular category. I don’t think you have to go that far, that narrowly. Just say what you can know without a doubt.
This must get tiring for you, no? ("Geez, that MikeL guy says the same damn thing over and over again.”)
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:35pm PT
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i swear i jus esaid somewhere else "december is the month for miracles"!
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:37pm PT
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that is the nature of gibberish. it all sounds the same.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:45pm PT
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"esaid" i know, that was a type-o.
gibberish
but don't you think there could be a trademak in there?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:49pm PT
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What sa Yee Largo the Linquistic?
To Sell
or
Won't Sell
that is the question
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:50pm PT
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Richard Dawkins stunned by stupidity.
If you don’t see this response as a dramatic call for attention to the speaker’s righteousness, then you are not seeing things dispassionately. You are involved and hooked. Although it feels good, it suggests an illusion, a delusion.
One of the things about science is that it simply looks at the data. Let the data do the talking. Drop the interpretations.
Were anyone to do that purely, they would find themselves witnessing equanimity and emptiness.
Data don’t talk. They are just data, just inputs, just experience, pure empiricism, what James saw as the “blooming buzzing confusion” that assails one at any time.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 14, 2014 - 09:50pm PT
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Journalist Zoe Davenport, a known socialite from "old money" was recently asked about her climbing - what was it all about, anyhow?
"Simplicity, passion and playing for keeps, with real stakes and old school guts. No spin. No posing. Where we remember the sun and magnitude, and the fear of God, and are restored by wildness.”
Just saying.
JL
PS: And I'm with Mike on the whole ritiousness thing. We often see this in meditation halls. The teacher will generally treat the person like a simpleton till he (inevitably a he) wakes up. But feeling superior and that everyone else is speaking gibbering - but me - is a powerful vortex IME.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 14, 2014 - 10:00pm PT
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^^^Zoe made money for that right?
Naw Naw i'm not baggin you directly about it!
i'm jus becomin enlightened about it
i prolly should be thankin you for it
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 14, 2014 - 11:15pm PT
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Remember, the Sydney terrorist has nothing to do with Islam. Now, can someone please translate this flag he's using?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 15, 2014 - 01:24am PT
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Per the universe not being material - as our sense organs suggest, I was given this quote:
"According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the particles that make up an atom—quarks and electrons—are point particles: they do not take up space. What makes an atom nevertheless take up space is not any spatially extended "stuff" or material that "occupies space," and that might be cut into smaller and smaller pieces, but the indeterminacy of its internal spatial relations."
You'd have to know a hell of a lot more about physics than I do to explain what "the indeterminacy of its internal spatial relations" actually means, but rooting for some basic material stuff upon which reality rests is seemingly a long shot by most any measure, including the Standard Model - if the above is true.
Perhaps the larger questions is: How would this matter to our moment to moment lives?
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 07:04am PT
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I love non-stamp collector! (cf: non-astrologer, non-theist)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o&feature=youtu.be
.....
No Jan, the 46 is no "mystical" number though I can see how you might think that way. Instead it refers to the 46 thumbs down for the video - out of 181,000 views. (Sadly I guess you didn't view the video from Youtube or read any of its comments, they can be quite entertaining sometimes if not informing.)
For ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Eb7k87gO0
Alright who here was among the 46?! Jan?
I should confess something more... When I saw the 46 out of 181k views, I thought of MikeL though, too.
......
Btw, how does this guy do this...
???!!! Wow!!!
He must have done the hard work. ;)
.....
Retweet of the day...
"To say we should focus on good Muslims and good parts of Islam is like saying we should focus on the part of the house that isn't on fire." - Athar Khan
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 15, 2014 - 07:36am PT
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JL,
Look up Max Planck in Wikipedia and check the section on Black Body Radiation. There you find an explanation of how energy came to be viewed as existing in packets, or quanta. Most of us can understand that story. It is much harder to see where the Pauli Exclusion Principle came from.
In trying to confront materialism, or physicalism, with examples from physics, it is hard not to be like a person trying to navigate Paris using their knowledge of London, to use one of your own analogies.
How do such matters affect our day-to-day lives? The iPhone comes from our understanding of physics, whether for Good or Bad.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 15, 2014 - 08:16am PT
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MH2 said:
In trying to confront materialism, or physicalism, with examples from physics, it is hard not to be like a person trying to navigate Paris using their knowledge of London, to use one of your own analogies.
Most of my observations and here come from butting heads with my riding partners who are at CalTech and JPL do hard core science. My observations come from meditation practice and pertain to the emptiness one encounters in "mind." An objectifying model will be left to attribute emptiness and all else to some physical brain property that they believe gives rise to, sources, or somehow produces consciousness, etc. My science friends, all younger and progressive, have always been quick to point out that attributing consciousness strictly to matter is a proposition that runs into huge problems using standard reductionistic science, since that model finds at bottom that matter itself dissolves into that which occupies no space - though they say it much more elegantly. So I'm not actually trying to navigate Paris using The English, rather we're casually looking at that place where the objective and subjective possibly merge into no thing. Or something equally slippery.
No one really knows how to frame this or talk about it or postulate it other than using the old models. But they haven't given us much so far.
JL
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