Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Medieval Music from Misericordia
Saturday, May 22nd, 2010Bach Keyboard Music
Sunday, June 21st, 2009Courtesy of http://wsww.magnatune.com:
Holocaust Museum Murder Redux
Thursday, June 11th, 2009My American history in high school: “We are really a nation of brutal vigilantes; there is a tug of war between one faction and another- to extend rights, law and liberty to all, or to limit to the select few”. I think that’s far more evil than detached terror from remote and foreign shores. Things like Bosnia, Uganda and Rwanda are really more American than many would like to think. Murdering neighbors is far worse than murdering strangers, although the victims are equally violated.
Google my pinochle buddy, Ben Stern, who led the charge against Nazi rallies in Skokie, if you want some reality on this.
Some of the worst horrors in all of Europe last century were familiar, familial and treacherous– very up-close. The mechanisms and motives still seethe and roil under the surface.
“Pray for peace, but watch your back!”
Green Toilet
Monday, February 2nd, 2009Greetings–
We all know that the decades-belated “Green Revolution” is spawning some bizarre and maybe really wasteful shit. Here’s a great one: the Green Toilet™. It will spectrographically analyze the contents of the bowl to decide when and how much to flush!
If it’s just pee, it notes the degree of coloration from clear, with adjustments for water hardness and the presence of Tidy Bowl™. Past a certain point of potential odor production, it will flush with a greater or lesser volume of water. Size of the enclosure and degree of ventilation may also be considered. Of course, it will always flush for poop; I won’t go into details about volume adjustments for all the varieties of stuff we may dump– one must always be at least a bit demure! Turd-Blossoms, however, will prompt a 911 call to the local Hazmat Team.
One may program it for aggregate degree of fastidiousness with regard to toilet paper usage in the household; it is strongly recommended that one cease the use of patterned, colored or quilted TP, as this could lead to excessive waste of water. Adjustment may be made, though, for non-bleached paper; some models will be programmed to play Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”; if you can’t catch that one, go smoke a joint with your grandmother.
One limitation, however: this toilet should not be installed in households that hold keggers or indulge in excessive consumption of tequila; after all, we must spare our fragile waterways so the salmon won’t swim sideways.
Greenly yours [and let's give Bush a whirly!]
Bill
Fifth Way Visits the Synagogue
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009OK–
Our Synagogue already has a Meditation Minyan, which I will join. I have a plan, inspired by our new Aron Kodesh, to begin to offer meditations that bridge my basic 5th Way training and expand into a formal Jewish setting. The time and place and my state are ripe for this. I may need or ask for some archival help for illustrations, etc., but I really can probably figure this out on my own. Still, I’d like permission to vet anything by anyone who may care.
Planned [so far] ideas:
Breath and the Body of Light, with some mild introduction to the 5 bodies. After all, Moishe melded Israelite, Midianite a Pharaonic magick into a transcendent melange that empowered a dislocated and disembodied uber-god to incarnate at will in a multiplicity of forms and functions.
Certain postures, attitudes and invocations really do have some absolute value and great potency.
Operating as the etheric double and manners of healing or just finding enough peace and stability.
The top of our Aron is a pyramid with a copper top and copper horns at the base: Ain Soph,Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Geburah– input welcome. I also need to look up Yetziratic scale colors.
Da’ath is for me the gateway to and from the higher worlds, but I’m going to find some dampers and cautions on that for beginners. My key inspiration is to to use the Sh’ma to mediate any connections there. It’s very safe and potent. I also have Mellel and Davka writer to use to cut and paste Hebrew.
Tiphareth is smack-dab in the middle. Torah lives there.
At the base we have Netzach, Hod, Malkuth and Grounded Kether at our feet.
Also, I will want to explain the inter penetration for the Etz Hayim in the 4 worlds. I have a pretty good grasp of this and will be trying to find a diagram.
Somewhere in the garage is my copy of The Golden Dawn, but I know there are many sources.
I have many other ideas:
Simple Sh’ma meditations: Sh’ma Israel YHVH Heinously YHVH had [want a rough translation? Hear Israel I am who I am your God I am the Eternal].
In text this is followed by the V’aHavta, which proscribes fringes at the corners of the garments and a device containing the prayer upon the door posts. I guess will will then operate with prayer shawls [tallitot, or tzititim] and head coverings. I really want to get a set of Tefillin, the leather boxes one binds to arms and head, but that’s a little bit fancy-schmancy.
Various God/Goddess name invocations and meditations.
Perhaps, if all goes well, modify and introduce LRP, SRP, Adam Kadmon and other fun things.
Any feedback? Ideas?
Am I nuts?
I can easily see taking this very slowly and gently.
Mr. Bill
Zach and Jake
Saturday, November 8th, 2008
Political Musing, post-election
Saturday, November 8th, 2008***In response to a thought-provoking e-mail from a long-time friend***
-At one time I sort of admired the system that a benevolent, intelligent and wealthy elite could gently guide and protect the populace, guarding the ignorant and volatile masses from hurting everyone. I think that lasted a few hours– then I realized that the only way that could work would be in a state so small that everyone could potentially interact with everyone else; it would also have to have enough resources to provide for all. Lovely fantasy.
-I just DON’T understand why so many folks seem to think that it’s OK, even good, for “others” to suffer, Social Darwinism be damned. What is WRONG with me wanting to live among folk who have a good chance of being happy, well-fed and satisfied?
-I also don’t understand, fear and am a bit angered by anyone who could support McCain for any reason, but especially so by those who smugly remain unconcerned and proudly apolitical. It reeks of, “and then they came for me.”
-I, too, am primarily concerned with the critical issues that concern you. Hell, twice a week I speak at length with this old rambling catfish kind of guy who is a New Orleans refugee. My work in the pharmacy keeps my nose in the stinking pile of shit that health care economics has become.
-I really despise the way the Silent Majority inspired southern former Democrats [Helms, Thurmond, etc] to jump ship and harness the fear and ignorance of white southern Christians for their votes while viciously screwing them. [at least use some lard or Crisco™]. Brings me to your point about why real issues get avoided, but my thoughts really need to be fleshed out with a long evening chat.
-You and I and others are, in part, patronizing patricians, in that we know that hard choices and deep sacrifices must be made to even partly get back to where we were in 2000. If Obama and others were totally honest about the scope of present crises and the fact that not everyone and everything can or even should be saved, he’d lose, I fear. To win this election requires a distasteful and somewhat unethical degree of sleight-of-hand, smoke and mirrors and our own brand of Voodoo; the real truth is too harsh and sobering, and Joe Six Pack will just tune us out if we try to tell him what’s really going on.
-Beat them at their own game; Kerry and Gore failed miserably by staying on the high road and getting mercilessly swift-boated [I need to develop this idea, but it's a phenomenon that's sunk many a Democrat since Humphrey].
-More later– I’m just getting wound up. I’ll re-read what you’ve written and see what I can contribute myself. You’re not needing to convince me of anything, but I’m glad to find some new ways to think about the whole damnable mess.
-One of the most thoughtful and sad things I’ve read lately was a piece swapping the Democratic and Republicans’ social, educational, military and political histories. The “liberal media” would eat the Democrats alive were any of them even one bit like McCain, Cheney, Palin, Rove, Bush, etc. You already knew that, but it makes me want to scream and throw things whenever some asshole Republican complains about unfair treatment in the media.
Shalom,
Bill
Zodiacal Earth Temple
Monday, January 7th, 2008Posted by: “Bill Stewart” BStewart172@comcast.net mrbill94115
Sat Jan 5, 2008 7:46 pm (PST)
Terri, and everyone–
I’ve enjoyed reading everything here lately. I’d read about the Times
Square Crystal Ball– wondered who else would notice [as if we wouldn't].
Can’t say as I watched more than an episode of “The 4400″; I have lots
of trouble meshing with TV schedules. Still haven’t seen the latest
Nostradamus/
liked for this reason: both the “true believers” and “true cynics” are
off base, the former for their naive determinism [a particular quatrain
they think they've nailed may be about something yet to happen], the
latter for their refusal to engage in creative conjecture. Neither of
them seem to have a grasp of the purpose of the quatrains, something
I’ve long felt but didn’t have good words for until Vincent stated
something to the effect that “they teach us how to respond to and
understand events around us.”
ZET: Did it work? I happen to think so. A magickal act once done can
never be undone. In the higher realms, too, such an act that has yet to
be done or experienced in Malkuth in Assiah is already “there” and can
be operative on some level. Example: I am going to perform some act in
the future, good or bad, with great impact; this act already “exists”
and I am on the path of preparing it. The act of conjuring archetypal
energies and embedding them into stones, then placing them and using the
Waz scepter and lunar and other energies to turn on the formation
created a wave in space-time. My primary recollection of the rite of
activation [besides the fact that there were at least two folks there
trying to keep it from happening] was the creation of a 4-D structure.
Best if the physical space and structure could still be there; the near
destruction of the Parthenon may have diminished Athena in some spheres,
but it DID lead her to manifest, however imperfectly, in Centennial Park
in Nashville.
Terri, I wish I could see the geometrics to which you refer. I also
wish I could take the 2D layout of the ZET and spin it up into 4D
wholeness, but that’s not a skill I possess, save to say that my visual
concept of it involved intersecting conical sections and projections and
also involved spheres, rotating circles, triangles, cubes, hexagrams,
icosahedrons… maybe I watched “Close Encounters” too often, though.
I’ve definitely felt it’s impact as I dive into the Zohar, and something
about the particular segment I activated has greatly helped me in facing
and navigating difficult interpersonal situations.
Enough for now,
