week 13

Acupuncture and Energy Medicine
Acupuncture is an effective form of energy medicine. (it seems). Personally, I enjoy swirling qi down the needles and sending Reiki symbols around the room before the patient arrives. Energy is an essential component of TCM, if not the entire base of the practice. Even in herbology the energetics of plants are studied.

Kirlian photography seems to be a potentially effective form of diagnostic medicine. It has had an impact on changing cultural beliefs in a one-dimensional world of sorts. We don't need it to prove the aura exists, however. Many beings sense or see auras. Either way, proving things is not one of my favorite activities.

Human intent affects health. Our attitudes and emotions shape our bodies, from our posture to how our organs function. Intent, however, is not enough to stay healthy. One needs action along with it. The warrior aspect. One could be intent on being healthy, but if one's spirit is in exile, s/he knows her organic wish, holds the truth of it, but often does not act on it. From actually being in the jewel organic higher self consciousness, ones inent is felt from a deeper place, and then intent is enough for transforming health.

week 12

Just how tenuous is our existence.
The short answer is very. I mean, any day one could die. For example, we could get really sick, be hit by a car, be struck by lightening. Bam. Consciousness as we know it is over. On the other hand, one could say we never really die as we are all one and though our bodies may pass on to other realms existence may continue yet on such a vastly different level that we have no memory or much ability now to understand it.

I know I’m a “living system” because I move and breathe and feel and live. Perhaps there is a scale of being alive. Sterile dead things such as plastic not, (although that has a vibration too), then crystals and the like have more aliveness, and then plants and fish and animals and people. Perhaps it is more of a scale than a black and white situation. Even in a human being, we can be more alive or less alive, have more of an ability or sensitivity to feel or less. When we’re sick and don’t feel so alive, or those peak experiences where we really feel our aliveness and wild selves. Scientific definitions for a living system probably need to include autopoisis in them.

Biophysics and me
Our bodies function on physics and are biological. The way our muscles move our bones is physics. The way our red blood cells are shaped (physics) that allows them to bend and move through extremely tiny vessels. This to me is a way in which biology and physics overlap on a most fundamental level. Biophysics relates to our studies of acupuncture in the above ways as well. As far as understanding, for example, how the blood moves through the body, or even on a more basic level how a needle is inserted into the skin.

week 9

Newton's 3 laws and me
First law. Yes, applying the laws to my own life. . . now, i feel a general gravity slowing me down as if a planet being slowed down gradually by friction. School creates a certain friction. but perhaps this is the essential force being aplied to change the state of motion I was prevously under before starting school.
Second law. the amount that I will accel in school is in direct relation to the amount of effort I put into it and the quality of the teachers and the program and the general state of teh chool I study in . How I do is directly proportional to the force I put into it and the forces acting on me.
Third law. Often collisions occur. With my patients, students, teachers. We collide on many levels and the outcome of this collision is a reflection of the force exerted by each of us.

Our Energy Efficient Culture
It is hard to call our culture energy efficient. I mean I get how we like to use fancy gadgets and computers and the like to expend less energy and get more done. But we are wasteful and abusive to our natural resources.

week 10

My E-Prime day.
It seemed to be that I woke up this morning. I remember getting out of bed and noticing the day as cold, yet clear. It came to me as a good idea to work out for a few hours after this. I behaved in a centered, yet determined way as I went about my morning. I remember it being the afternoon when I found myself back at home and looking for something to eat. I think I found to go in my belly before my evening classes began. It appeared to be a complicated night at school and I remember looking forward to my bed.

Synthesizing east and west
Ultimately I think I am working on this idea. I would like to synthesize the psychology of the west with the sophisticated medical system of the east. I aim to bring a sort of alternative psychiatry to my patients.. This ability to bring together these worlds seems very significant. That something deep in the psyche of the planet could be healed if we can synthesize east and west without losing the beauty of each of these parts.

“We need to understand the software the brain uses.” We do if we want to program it on a certain level. Like in neurolinguistic programming. Or if we want to brainwash someone, or not be brainwashed. Or if we want to know how to memorize something, or work with patients, or use language, such as E-prime, that will be conscious of the impact of our words on others.

“To build a rocket and send it to the moon, you need only measure space, not define it.” I really like this idea. This statement assumes that measuring something is not defining it. Which is contrary to the old views that we can define things by dissecting them and the whole is simply a sum of the parts.

“Eastern thought, and more generally, mystical thought, provide a consistent and relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science.” It seems that more and more, the deeper we get into science, the more eastern it becomes. Western science continues to “prove” concepts the east has had mapped out for centuries.

week 7

Ordered chaos.
it does sound like a bit of an oxymoron. isn't the very definition of chaos, in a sense, that without order? that chaos theory is the "qualitative study of unstable aperiodic behavior in deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems." fractals attempt to demonstarte an ordered chaotic pattern of system behavior.

Fractals
Fractals are a praticular manifestation of chaos theory. I love the idea of fractals as patterns of complex systems. They seem to jump levels. to demostrate how life repeats itself, over and over, despte the chaos.


consciousness out of chaos
Chaos is a profoudn and beautiful concept. it expouses on mystical themes of wholeness that for centuries have been alive in so many spiritual traditions. Patterns repeating themselves in such diverse arenas bring together the idea that all is one and one is all and this concept in itself shifts our awareness to an expanded state of consciousness.

week 6

are all vibrations good?
I guess that depends on if one believes in evil as a concept or not. was the earthquake that created the tsunami good? i have a hard time believing that. yet i'm not sure i would call it evil either. It was certainly a vibration. Perhaps it's like tantra, beyond the bounds of good and evil. but just a practice that creates change. an alchemy.

resonance in my world.
i use resonance when working with my clients/patients a lot. If they say something and I notice it "resonates" with me, -makes me feel more a live and present- then i often will question them further about it. where as when the speech is lifeless or i notice i'm bored i use that as a method to track for meaning as well. resonance. a prayer, again, tantra, a practice in which one can bring ones own self to resonate with a certain vibration, or a mantra wil resonate in one's being. resonance, when i dance contact improvisation, i must resonate with my partner at least on some level or i fall. . .

Energy and Qi,
I notice i usually use these words pretty interchangeably. And I use them a lot - which brings a smile to my face. I like the idea of focusing on qi a lot in my life. it "resonates" with my values. that I would be operating in an energetic realm much of the time. But i still go with the original idea that qi or energy is on a scale, of matter and ether. that when the qi condenses, it creates matter, and visa versa. I like the idea of differentiating them as well. that one is the mother of the other. like blood being the mother of qi, and qi moving blood. I really see energy as being the closest word in the english language to qi.

week 5

symmetry
perhaps the symmetry of our world is so infinatly complex that we fail to be able to describe it mathmatically. or with physics. I like the idea of karmic symmetry. the idea that ultimatly "what comes around goes around". like the yin yang theory, and that everything is in constant flux. Yet at the same time, we are reflections of each other. and we see qualities in other's that so often are our own.

CP parity
if there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe. then it becomes a matter of assymetry, or a symmetry we simply don't understand, the way the Tao is, something that the harder we try to understand it the further from it we go. maybe it's not something for understanding.

sacred geometry and physics
Sacred geometry is all around us. In a sense it represents the fractal like nature of the universe. that our bodies make up is so similar to that of the ocean, and the earth, and women's cylces reflecting the moon's cycles. Sacred geometry ultimatly can be used as a tool to contemplate the meanign of life. If all things are connected reflections of each other, thn sacred geometry reflects this interconnectedness of the web of life. physics is a way of explaining how sacred geometry opperates. a way of mapping mathmatically the interplay and relationshp of things.

week 4

unification of energy and matter
yah, i mean Qi is often spoken of in this regard. as a force that unifies energy and matter in a sense. When the qi condenses it forms matter. as it expands it becomes more like energy. In this sense it is a link between the tangible and the intangible.

a comparison of the four forces
The idea of objects not directly interacting with each other but rather generating a field which affects the behavior of distant objects is profound. it explains a lot the effectiveness of prayer and intercondectedness.

gravity is different from the other three forces. although it may not be as powerful, it's effects are so tangible by us. Gravity is no longer considered a force as it is composed of the gravitational time dialtion and the curvature of space.

the function of gravity
Gravity is a cosmic idea as well. especially if one explains it by the curvatures of spacetime. But also as it being the tendency of masses to move towards each other. My bias in the human realm, is that we have a tendency to move towards each other to connect. that we have hands taht touch to generate more interconnectedness. Gravity may echo this same tendency.

week 3

synchronicity
can we explain it. well, to explain uses the cognitive brain. the one that rationalizes. perhaps rationalizes synchronicity away. lke the scarab beetle incident. synchronicity seems to exist in a different realm. the physical realm, the psychic realm? it can effect all the realms however, wether cognitive, sensational, emotional, energetic, generative, erotic, or spiritual. When something synchronistic happens it is as if it awakens all the realms, brings aliveness to one's entire being in a certain sense.
Evidence for synchronicity comes from my own experience. again, evidence can bring one into the cognitive realm. to prove something. I don't know about proving synchronicity. it is more of an experience. i think of someone and the phone rings, I have a song in my head and turn the radio on and that song is playing. that sort of things. dreams that seem to be echoed in the awake realms.

connectivity
Before we incarnated into this realm it seems that we were connected. that there was a deep well from which we all emerged. - and proceeded to incarnate this creating a world based on form and duality. ying and yang. this and that. the five elements. duality evokes the possibility of experience. and our perception of reality is determined by the quality of our experiences- such as our preference for pleasurable over pain. Like Yin and Yang, in this dualistic world everything is in relationship. What we do effects everything else. We know it is impossible to observe with out effecting change on that being obseved.Rather than an "observer" we are "participators" shifting from an I to a We consciousness. We are all connected.

Meditation
I think it may be good to include meditation in any class where it is unlikely that the general student body has been significantly exposed to it. Meditation unlock secrets that are beyond understanding -opening to an experiential realm. In a community of physicists where most of the material covered is cognitive, to not exercise a more experiential felt sense to understanding the universe would most likely lead to a warped perception. If one only excercises the muscles of cognition then most of one's understanding would tend to stem from that realm. which seems it would paint an incomplete picture of the world physics is trying so hard to explain.

week 2

Uncertainty and Measurement
The universe is uncertain in the sense of how we define it. As we change what we are attempting to measure or define by our presence there. However, if it exists free of observation. if a tree falling in the woods still makes a sound even though no one is there to hear it then the universe exists in a certain fasion even though we may not be able to observe it objectively. on the other hand if we can not observe it objectively then how could we even know that it certainly exists.
The only certain thing is uncertainty. In the same way that we cannot count on any one person. or trust that any one person is going to be there. they could be killed or change their minds or whatever, but we can trust that SOMEone will be there. that somehow something exists beyond rationalistic thought.

Causality
causality implies some relationship of dependency between the cause and the effect. To me it implies that we all exist on the same planet and effect each other.
"Causality is the centerpiece of the universe and so the main subject of human knowledge; for comprehending the nature, meaning, kinds, varieties, and ordering of cause and effect amounts to knowing the beginnings and endings of things, to uncovering the implicit mechanisms of world dynamics, or to having the fundamental scientific knowledge."
with out the concept of causality there is complete chaos. and even in chaos theory chaos leads to or in some sense causes order.

The Wierd Universe
Now that we are on the whole Heisenberg uncertainty principle tip: wierd according to who. the observer? myself? if the universe is wierd surely some of that is to do with my own wierdness in my account of it. sure the universe is super wierd. very strange, there are wierd coinsidences that happen. people who seem wierd but are not. others who seem normal but are super wierd. strange pheonomenas, inconsistencies, tragic occurences that simply shouldn't happen no matter how one looks at it. like Sudan. a very wierd universe, more wierd than fair, that's for sure.