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Monthly Archives: April 2018
Astrophysicist Janna Levin Reads Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Hymn to Time”
An ode to the eternal “let there be” between death and chance.
BY MARIA POPOVA (brainpickings.org)
“The moment is not properly an atom of time but an atom of eternity,” Kierkegaard wrote in contemplating the paradoxical nature of time half a century before Einstein forever changed our understanding of it. As relativity saturated the cultural atmosphere, Virginia Woolf was tussling and taffying with time’s confounding elasticity, the psychology of which scientists have since dissected. We are beings of time and in time — something Jorge Luis Borges spoke to beautifully in his classic 1946 meditation on time: “Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”
That riverine dimension of being is what Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929–January 22, 2018) explores with spare words and immense splendor of sentiment in “Hymn to Time” from her final poetry collection, Late in the Day (public library) — a poem embodying her conviction that “science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside, [and] both celebrate what they describe.”
In this recording created as a warmup for our second annual Universe in Verse, astrophysicist Janna Levin — who has written beautifully about the nature of time herself — brings Le Guin’s poem to life in thirty-five transcendent seconds:
HYMN TO TIME
by Ursula K. Le GuinTime says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.
Complement with Hannah Arendt on space, time, and our thinking ego, then revisit Le Guin’s feminist translation of the timeless Tao Te Ching and Levin’s splendid reading of “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich from the inaugural edition of The Universe in Verse.
SUNDAY NIGHT TRANSLATION GROUP — APRIL 29, 2018
Translation is a 5-step system of syllogistic reasoning using words and their meanings and histories to transform the testimony of the senses and uncover the underlying timeless reality of Being/Consciousness.
Translators: Hanz Bolen, Melissa Goodnight, Richard Branam, Mike Zonta.
Sense testimony: I desire to be more truly at home.
Conclusions:
1) I/Consciousness/Truth/God am the master of my domain and my domain/my home is Heaven.
2) One Infinite, Consciousness Beingness, That I AM, is unceasingly expressing the implacable Cosmic Intention that is always already present and dwelling in my Heart.
3) Truth is I am I Sound Androgynous intimacy Being Infinitely Consciousness Awareness, its own Kingdomly Paradisiacal enchantment, exponentially determined surety Estate of its own Home-Worthy affairs.
4) To come.
The Sunday Night Translation Group meets at 7pm Pacific time via Skype. There is also a Sunday morning Translation group which meets at 7am Pacific time via GoToMeeting.com. See Upcoming Events on the BB to join, or start a group of your own.
Translation Adventure — 4/29/18
What is Metacognition?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
Learning about what Metacognition is, is itself a form of Metacognition.
Learning about Metacognition is valuable to Prosperos students because “becoming aware of one’s awareness” is considered to be the foundation upon which the edifice of Metacognition is based.
The linked discussion about Metacognition in Wikipedia is a good start in understanding what it is, how it can be used, and its relationship to the foundational concepts and practices of The Prosperos.
Don’t Be Afraid to Teach Your Children Shakespeare
By , Epoch Times
(Courtesy of Ken Ludwig)
The Epoch Times: Your book reinvigorated Shakespeare for me, to see his work with fresh eyes. My experience of Shakespeare was dry and hard work at school. I related more to experiencing the play “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in Regents Park, London. How do you convince adults that Shakespeare is relevant to their child if their experience has been similar to mine?
Ken Ludwig: Yours is not an untypical journey. The title of my book is not just “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare”; the stealth title is “How to Teach Yourself Shakespeare,” because the fact is that most people are afraid of Shakespeare. They get a little exposure to it, and when they do, it’s confusing. It literally feels like a foreign language that they can’t understand, especially when they try to read it. It’s pretty intense reading for someone who doesn’t know how to go about it.
That’s why it’s especially good to introduce Shakespeare to kids: because their minds are open to everything. They’re like little sponges, and they’re not prejudiced against the idea of Shakespeare. This is especially true for kids at a very young age, like 6 to 12.
So what my book tries to do is expose both kids and their parents to the beauties and intelligence—and just plain fun—of Shakespeare, with no prior knowledge required.
I had a wonderful meeting recently with an Englishman who has become a very successful businessman. It was only later in life, in his late 30s, that he discovered and fell in love with Shakespeare for the first time. How did he do it?
He told me that he used to take a group of his employees to London once a year for a blowout day of fun, food, and entertainment so they could spend some real quality time together. First, they might have a fun pub lunch, and then they’d go to see a sports match or the like, then they’d have a great, rollicking dinner together, and that was that.
But about 20 years ago, they were on the South Bank in London and passed the Globe theater, and tickets were available. The performance at the Globe that day was “As You Like It,” and they bought groundling tickets (where you stand in the courtyard of the theater) and decided to give it a try. And for my friend and his companions, it was like a revelation. He said it was like a mist that disappeared from before his eyes. His experience of Shakespeare up to that time had been confusing and frustrating, and suddenly, “It was like the best afternoon I’ve ever spent.” Since that time, he’s become an enormous Shakespeare lover and advocate. Shakespeare has enriched his life.
Seeing a Shakespeare play performed by fine actors in a great production—like those at the Globe, the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company], or Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C.—these performances simply change your life. Good actors tell the stories clearly, in a straight line, so that the audience can understand every word.
The Epoch Times: Do you hear back from adults with similar revelations after reading your book?
Mr. Ludwig: I do. I do. And that’s the best part of it. I’m a playwright by profession, and that’s how I make my living. Writing this book was a labor of love. Believe me, no one has ever made a living writing a book about Shakespeare. But you do it because you love it so much, and you want to share it with the world. And the best part has been when people write to me and say, “Oh, my gosh! I was teaching it to my son and daughter and we all started understanding it together, and now we all love it!”
“Afraid” is the operative word they’ll say to me: “I was afraid of Shakespeare. But, oh my gosh! I just loved it. I understood it for the first time!”
And understanding it for the first time is really a matter of doing what the book says in those first few chapters: First, read a few lines—the ones I suggest in the first chapter—simple, beautiful lines from a simple, understandable passage. The passage I suggest starting with is one from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It describes a place in a forest where the magical Fairy Queen of the forest sleeps at night. The passage begins:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows.
There sleeps Titania, sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
We learn that these lines are being spoken by a hilarious, dangerous, wonderful character named Oberon, and that he’s telling his henchman Puck where his wife Titania sleeps—so that Puck can find her and enchant her with a magic flower. When my children first heard about all this, they were struck dumb with excitement. What could be a better story for a youngster than a story about a magic forest, a mischievous fairy sprite, and a beautiful princess?
Step two: As the book says, make sure that you and your kids understand every word in the passage and then memorize it, which you can do in about 10 minutes. With that start, things will begin to fall into place.
The third step is to take the time to watch a good production of Shakespeare. You can do it in person if you have a good theater nearby, or you can do it online. There are some very good Shakespeare movies on Amazon and Netflix, or you can watch the GlobePlayer, which records many of the best productions put on by the Globe theater in London.
Finally, go back to reading Shakespeare and learn new passages by heart, one after another. By doing this you learn the stories, you understand the moral issues that Shakespeare raises, you meet the characters, and you fall in love with the language.
Mr. Ludwig: As a playwright, I look at how, in play after play and time after time, Shakespeare ticks one box after another: interesting set of characters, terrific plot, fantastic language, turns our hearts inside-out, makes us laugh, and makes us conscious of our transience.
Every play is filled with characters that we remember forever. They’re almost shockingly vivid. Beatrice and Benedict, the bantering romantic couple from “Much Ado About Nothing,” you could live with them forever. They form the basis of our whole tradition of romantic comedy. Thanks to Shakespeare, we’ve seen couples like them in the movies for the past 50 years.
The Epoch Times: What inherent values does Shakespeare show us?
Mr. Ludwig: Shakespeare is especially interesting in that he tries very hard not to make moral judgments that he pushes on his audience. He is always open to interpretation. That’s why he’s lasted so long. We’ve read Shakespeare for 450 years because we can constantly reinterpret him and make him part of our own lives.
Just think: Here we are in the early 21st century, and the crises he describes resemble our own crises. [There’s the] political crisis of Richard III in the play of the same name. He’s a terribly corrupt member of the royal household who murders his way to the top just to sit on the throne of England and declare himself the ultimate ruler. In Antony, from “Antony and Cleopatra,” [is] a leader who abandons his wife and goes to Egypt and falls in love with the greatest courtesan of her time, Cleopatra.
And then there’s that wonderful moment in the comedy “Twelfth Night,” where a spoil-sport named Malvolio tries to stop other members of his community from having a good time. They’re having a party in the middle of the night, singing songs and disturbing the household, and this father-figure Malvolio marches angrily in and tells them to stop it. At which point, one of the revelers (an aptly named Sir Toby Belch) replies, “Shall there be no more cakes and ale?” And there, in a single short sentence, is a philosophy of living, one that carries right down to us 450 years later.
Those amazing moments, of which there are thousands in Shakespeare, where he can take an idea that has such profound resonance and summarize it in a few short words, speak to us today as they’ve spoken to generation after generation for century after century. There is no other writer who has ever lived who has had so much resonance or so much influence on all the other writers who came after.
That’s how Shakespeare teaches us. He makes us think. He lets us find lessons within ourselves. And by finding them that way, they stay with us forever.
The Epoch Times: You mention in your book that Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is like a teenage rite of passage. As your children went through life, did they resonate with different characters at different times?
Mr. Ludwig: Yes, yes, exactly. Somebody’s being grouchy (me) and they’ll turn to me and say, “Shall there be no more cakes and ale?” And I’m stunned and proud.
My daughter did it the other day. We were talking about someone who didn’t show his potential until later in life, and she turned to me and said:
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humor of your idleness.
She remembered those lines from “King Henry IV,” when young Prince Hal declares that he’s going to show the world some day that he’s better and wiser than he seems at the moment. Believe me, my kids are nice, ordinary kids with no special gifts. But we spent a lot of quality family time learning these passages from Shakespeare, and it has stuck with them. It has enriched their lives.
One of the people I talk about when I lecture is Alfred North Whitehead, a mathematician and philosopher, who defined art as the re-creation of patterns that we, as readers, recognize from our daily lives, from books and paintings that we’ve seen in the past. He says that our aesthetic joy in works of art—the gasp of joy we feel when we see a sculpture by Michelangelo or a play by Shakespeare—is tied up with our recognition of a pattern that is very human and one we have seen before, either in life or art. And that’s what Shakespeare does par excellence; he finds a way to remind us of parts of our lives that work underneath the surface. So that when we see one of his plays, we say to ourselves, “Oh, my gosh! I’ve been there. I know that feeling. I understand that impetus. I sympathize with that lover or that victim or that hero. And suddenly I don’t feel so alone.”
Those patterns of recognition are part of the way Shakespeare helps us understand life, and it’s why Shakespeare resonates so deeply with our children.
Interview edited for clarity and brevity
Scorpio Full Moon, April 29, 2018 at 5:38 pm PDT at 10 degrees
Wendy Cicchetti
The intensity and transformative potential of the Aries New Moon (April 15) peaks at the equally powerful Scorpio Full Moon. The New Moon sparked significant new beginnings, and now the Full Moon reveals what we need to release so that we can bring our ambitious dreams to fruition. Scorpio represents the phase in the creative process that looks more like destruction, but ultimately serves new life. The Moon is in fall in Scorpio, opposite Taurus, her exaltation. While Taurus the Earth Mother brings fertility and abundance, Scorpio is the Dark Mother who clears out what no longer serves us.
Scorpio rules the subconscious, and this Full Moon opens access to the deep inner workings of our psyches. Whatever we’ve been avoiding or suppressing is likely to surface, and we can see what’s undermining our intentions and efforts. This is not a comfortable Full Moon, and we might feel raw, vulnerable, and easily triggered. But the emotional truths and core desires that come to light open doors to greater aliveness and increased intimacy with ourselves, each other, and life itself. Where are we stuck in survival mode, instead of thriving? What is the risk we need to take?
The Moon is moving toward a conjunction with Jupiter, amplifying all Full Moon themes and feelings. We’re called to stretch our hearts wider to feel our full emotional range and love all of ourselves, light and shadow. Jupiter retrograde in Scorpio (March 8 – July 10) takes us on a quest to uncover and reclaim buried treasure — the parts of us that we’ve hidden and that hold our greatest power. Jupiter is almost halfway through its retrograde cycle and more than halfway through Scorpio. This Full Moon sheds light on what we’ve purged, regenerated, or healed during this transit and what we still want to transform.
Despite the discomfort, there are several signs that we can harness these Full Moon energies in a productive and positive direction. Mars and Pluto, the co-rulers of Scorpio, are conjunct in Capricorn. Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, is strong in its home sign and rewards us with material manifestation when we’re willing to take responsibility and do our work. Saturn forms a harmonious trine to the Sunand sextile to the Moon, helping us to stay grounded and focused on our priorities.
Neptune in Pisces is also a helpful influence at this Full Moon, trining the Moon and Jupiter and bringing in softer, gentler energies to balance the Martian intensity. Neptune opens us to greater love, compassion, and acceptance. When we accept what is and love ourselves exactly as we are, we facilitate the process of transformation. The ongoing Jupiter–Neptune trine heightens our sensitivity to the unseen and brings opportunities to advance our spirituality to the next level. The higher potential of Jupiter–Neptune is especially available now, as this is the Wesak Full Moon, when Buddha returns to the Earth with a blessing for humanity. We can increase our receptivity to this influx of healing and enlightening energies through meditation, prayer, or quiet time in or near water.
Written by Emily Trinkaus for the Mountain Astrologer Magazine
The HIV Life Cycle — Narrated
‘It’s the next big thing’ Male sex robots COMING in 2018 as demand SKYROCKETS
MALE sex robots will be “the next big thing” in 2018, a world leading AI cyborg maker has revealed.
By Joshua Nevett /
Now he hopes to bring these plans to fruition in 2018, alongside the female model of his sex robot, Harmony.
Describing how it will differ from Harmony, he said: “It’s the obvious, the gender; both in the personality and the voice then obviously the male physicality of the robot.
“There’s rebuilding that needs to happen on both fronts to create a male platform.
“We’re working hard on that and that’s one of the next big things we’re looking to get up and running.”
Full Moon April 29 2018 ~ Hungry Kali
The full moon April 29 falls at 9º Scorpio decan 1. The full moon April 2018 astrology is the most complex web of aspects I have seen in a long time! There is a T-square with Ceres conjunct the north node at 10º Leo. Two learning triangles connected in what the Hubers call a trapeze and the Moon forms the base of a Yod to Venus also. Not only that, but if you look carefully in the chart below, there is also a pentagram buried in that lot also.
This means there are many factors pulling the strings in most situations at present and there are no simple solutions to problems. Pull one corner of the puzzle and surprisingly another seemingly totally unrelated area will quiver. This Moon could re-ignite the effects of the Blue Blood Lunar Eclipse that occurred back in January. Ceres (now direct) revisits the North Node and the eclipse point once again. Ecological themes come to the fore, and with the Yod pointing to stormy Venus on Hyades, watch out for freak weather and geoengineering in the news.