Baba Ram Dass An evening with Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle – these two teachers engage in an open conversation about spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness, October 28, 2011 in Maui, HI.

By Maria Popova (brainpickings.org)

Hardly any scientific finding has permeated popular culture more profoundly, transmuted its truth into a more pervasive cliché, or inspired more uninspired college application essays than the fact that no two snowflakes are alike. But for the vast majority of human history, the uniqueness of snowflakes was far from an established fact.

In the early seventeenth century, while revolutionizing science with the celestial mechanics of the macro scale that would land his mother in a witchcraft trial, Johannes Kepler turned his inquisitive imagination to the micro scale with a rather unusual Christmas present he made for a friend — a booklet titled The Six-Cornered Snowflake, exploring in a playful and poetic way the science of why snowflakes have six sides. When one landed on his sleeve in the bitter Prague winter, Kepler found himself wondering why snowflakes “always come down with six corners and with six radii tufted like feathers” — and not, say, with five or seven. Centuries before the advent of crystallography, the visionary astronomer became the first to invite science into this ancient dwelling place of beauty and to ask, essentially, why snowflakes are the way they are. But it would be another two centuries before this intersection of science and splendor enraptures the popular imagination with the nexus of truth and beauty in the form of ice crystals — a task that would fall on a teenage farm-boy in Vermont.

Wilson Bentley (February 9, 1865–December 23, 1931) was fifteen when his mother, aware of her son’s sensitive curiosity and artistic bent, strained the family’s means to give him a microscope for his birthday. Over the next four years, while Walt Whitman was exulting a state over that “a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,” Wilson placed every curio he could find under his microscope: blades of grass, pebbles, insects. The day he managed to place a snowflake on the glass plate and to savor its microscopic perfection before it melted, he was besotted. Snowflakes became his life. “Miracles of beauty,” he called them. He began sketching what he saw through his microscope, but felt that his drawings failed to capture the full miraculousness before it vanished into liquid erasure. Although his father was already irate with the boy’s artistic deviation from farm labor, “fussing with snowflakes” rather than pulling potatoes, Wilson somehow persuaded him to invest in a camera.

Weeks before his twentieth birthday, he mounted his new 1.5-inch microscope eyepiece to the lens of his enormous view camera with its accordion-like body fully extended. On January 15, 1880, Wilson Bentley took his first photograph of a snowflake. Mesmerized by the beauty of the result, he transported his equipment to the unheated wooden shed behind the farmhouse and began recording his work in two separate sets of notebooks — one filled with sketches and dedicated to refining his artistic photomicroscopy; the other filled with weather data, carefully monitoring the conditions under which various snowflakes were captured.

For forty-six winters to come, this slender quiet boy, enchanted by the wonders of nature and attentive to its minutest manifestations, would hold his breath over the microscope-camera station and take more than 5,000 photographs of snow crystals — each a vanishing masterpiece with the delicacy of a flower and the mathematical precision of a honeycomb, a ghost of perfection melting onto the glass plate within seconds, a sublime metaphor for the ecstasy and impermanence of beauty, of life itself. A generation after the invention of photography recalibrated our relationship to impermanence, Wilson Bentley devoted his life to popularizing the uniqueness of snowflakes and helping others appreciate the ephemeral “masterpiece of design” that each snowflake is, its singular and fleeting existence never to be replicated, its beauty gone “without leaving any record behind.”

Wilson Bentley at work

In his later years, he reflected on the adolescent passion that would become his life’s work:

I became possessed with a great desire to show people something of this wonderful loveliness, an ambition to become, in some measure, its preserver.

And so he did. Wilson Bentley, who comes alive in Duncan Blanchard’s wonderful 1998 biography The Snowflake Man (public library), grew famous as Snowflake Bentley, establishing himself as the world’s first snowflake photographer and enrapturing vast audiences with nature’s masterworks of ephemeral perfection.

Half a century after he first grew enchanted with the photomicroscopy of snowflakes, in a 1922 article for Popular Mechanics, Bentley extolled the rewards of this art purchased by physical hardship in below-freezing temperatures:

Every snowflake has an infinite beauty which is enhanced by knowledge that the investigator will, in all probability, never find another exactly like it. Consequently, photographing these transient forms of Nature gives to the worker something of the spirit of a discoverer. Besides combining her greatest skill and artistry in the production of snowflakes, Nature generously fashions the most beautiful specimens on a very thin plane so that they are specially adapted for photomicrographical study.

Months before his death, his life’s work was finally published under the title Snow Crystals — a scrumptious monograph of 2,500 of his most beguiling photographs, which remains in print today as Snowflakes in Photographs (public library).

Complement with artist Rose-Lynn Fisher’s haunting photomicroscopy of tears cried under various emotions and these gorgeous vintage illustrations of scientific process and phenomena — including an early diagram of snowflake geometries — from a French physics textbook predating the widespread application of photography, then revisit the story of how, a generation before Bentley, the young photographer John Adams Whipple changed our relationship to impermanence with his pioneering astrophotography.

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

by Karen Armstrong 

Over 700,000 copies of the original hardcover and paperback editions of this stunningly popular book have been sold. Karen Armstrong’s superbly readable exploration of how the three dominant monotheistic religions of the world – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – have shaped and altered the conception of God is a tour de force. One of Britain’s foremost commentators on religious affairs, Armstrong traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one compelling volume.

(Goodreads.com)

Translators:  Mike Zonta, Melissa Goodnight, Richard Branam, Hanz Bolen

SENSE TESTIMONY:  Power leads to money which leads to covert acts of corruption.

5th Step Conclusions:

1)  Truth is the incorruptible flow of power, money, and ability, housed everywhere, hidden everywhere, the only way.

2)  One Infinite Consciousness, is the motivating agency of absolute dominion — limitlessly enabling unfathomable value, to express and be made visible, in every manifestation, that is an authentic realization of Itself.

3)  Truth, the Essence, Unlimited Guidance, Omni – All seeing Eyes of Authority, this Priceless Equivalent of Valuation, the Incorruptible Enactment, Force of entrance, Re- enforcing that All is Consciousness Aware of Itself as Consciousness Awareness, Principled in Universal Integrity.

4) The specific value of each and every individuation of All One Mind Truth is self evident, all powerful, all knowing, all present, able, clearly guiding each and every individuation of being and all agreement soundly strongly as well being. // Truth is Well Being, guiding all clearly, valuably, as the only power and agreement any individuation can express.

All Translators are welcome to join this group.  See Weekly Groups page/tab.

(Courtesy of Zai Gham)

Matt Orfalea The spirit of MLK on Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump. #Bernie2020#PoliticalRevolution#FeelTheBern Welcome to the Political Revolution. Matt Orfalea ▶https://twitter.com/0rf ▶https://medium.com/@0rf ▶https://www.youtube.com/orf ▶https://www.facebook.com/MattOrfVids

Please help me make more videos ▶https://www.patreon.com/Orf

January 23, 2020 (TheOnion.com)

THE HEAVENS—Reminiscing over how much time had passed since His days as a younger deity, God, Our Heavenly Father, expressed His nostalgia and delight Wednesday after stumbling on the old, beat-up planet He carved ‘Mötley Crüe’ all over. “Holy shit, I haven’t seen this in decades!” exclaimed the Lord, noting that He can still remember the hours spent scrawling every lyric from “Shout At The Devil” into the planet’s northern ice cap while daydreaming of one day fronting his own heavy metal band. “Oh, man, this is really bringing Me back. I used to stash all My Zippos and rolling papers under those mountains back there and just rock out. Good times. I suppose it is a little embarrassing to see how into Vince Neil I was, but hey, I was just a kid back then. I didn’t know any better. In my defense, I got super into Slayer and Megadeth just after this.” At press time, His Holiness was using a 4-track to finally record the demo album He had always planned on releasing.

By Matthew Stelzner – January 24, 2020 (stelz.biz)

Hey Everyone: We have moved into another portal, what I’m calling the Heart Chakra Portal of 2020, and I’ve got a new video about it, just released on YouTube. Some of you journeyed with me through the Heart Chakra Portal of 2019, and that portal really began a new phase of my approach to astrology. I started my course “Tarot and Flow” under that alignment, and it was an exploration of how the tools of astrology and tarot are ultimately self-love practices that are meant to help us open our hearts to receive loving messages of guidance. 

At that time I started to bring more focus to the conjunction phases (when two or more planets come within a close range in the same part of the sky) of the planetary cycles of time. It is the conjunctions of the planets that represent the ending of one cycle of time, and the beginning of a new cycle of time. These moments are opportunities for the integration of the previous cycle and also for visioning, and setting intention for the new cycle. These times can bring a fresh start with regard to the qualities and themes associated with the two planets in conjunction.

Some conjunctions happen often (like the conjunction of the Moon and the Sun each month at the New Moon), others happen yearly or bi-yearly (inner planet conjunctions) and others are much rarer, like our current Jupiter-Saturn conjunction which happens every 20 years. Other cycles of time begin even more rarely, like the Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto conjunction that I’ve been exploring in recent videos and blog posts, which won’t come into another powerful alignment for more than a thousand years.

The Heart Chakra Portal is a conjunction of Venus and Neptune and it happens approximately once per year. The last time they conjoined was in late March/early April of 2019, and the next time will be late April/early May of 2021. Now is a moment to reflect on the time period since last April and consider how you’ve done with the themes of the Venus-Neptune combination. These themes are explored in my new video, and I hope you will check it out.

Venus is the planet of love, beauty, art and music. It represents the human need for intimacy, friendship, and the pleasures of life. Neptune is associated with our spirituality, our imagination, and our relationship with the divine. It is related to consciousness exploration, moments of inspiration, our connection with the water element, and the dissolving of boundaries (with other people, with our higher selves, and with other dimensions of reality). Some questions to ask yourself as you consider this past year and start to set intentions for the year ahead:

“How am I doing with opening my heart to the love of the divine?”

“How am I doing with practicing loving kindness towards myself and others?”

“How much time have I devoted to prayer, and practicing loving self-talk?”

“How have I given myself the medicine of sweet waters, and how have I shared sweet waters with others?”

“How much time have I invested in experiencing and creating sacred music, sacred art, and sacred dance?”

“What are the heart medicines that I’ve found and received in this past year?”

In the recent posting on the Dragonrider Portal conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, I wrote about how I feel Kwan Yin is a great model for riding the dragon of 2020 and transforming the intense energies in the direction of peace and kindness. I feel like this Heart Chakra Portal can really help us develop intimacy with Kwan Yin as the Venus-Neptune cycle of time is sacred to her and is her natural frequency. This is especially the case when the Moon (the mother force of the universe and the planet associated with nurturing and caring for oneself and others) joins Venus and Neptune in a triple conjunction, as it will from the 26th to the 29th of this month (most precise on the 27th and 28th here in the US, and on the 28th and 29th in Europe and further east). I focus on this special triple conjunction in the videoand use chart software to illustrate it.

I really encourage you all to try to observe the Moon Venus conjunction, which will be visible after sunset close to the western horizon. On the 26th and 27th you will see a beautiful crescent Moon below a brilliant Venus, and then on the 28th and 29th the Moon moves above Venus. I hope you will go observe this alignment and do some sort of ritual, extending yourself out to the Moon and Venus, and then going further past them in your imagination, in a strait line all the way out to Neptune. I would encourage you to pray to these massive expressions of consciousness, to pray especially for guidance towards sacred love, sacred art, sweet waters, soul mates and awesome music. Extend yourself outward, raise your frequency to the heart chakra, and then turn within to receive loving messages of guidance.

I would love to help you make the most of the Heart Chakra Portal experience over the next couple weeks. My promotion with discounted fees last until February 7th, and I hope you will sign up for a consultation. Please follow this link to see my schedule of availability for these discounted sessions.

Sending blessings and love to you all, 

Matthew

The Aquarius New Moon brings a blast of fresh air, beyond the shadows of recent eclipses. However, with the Sun and Moon square Uranus, planet of the unexpected, some developments may arrive as searing bolts from the blue, not gentle breezes wafting away the cobwebs! While Aquarius is associated with fairness, we may be quite struck by how unfair a set of circumstances seems.

Whether or not we feel motivated or empowered to do anything about it is perhaps an issue for the longer-term future, since a New Moon often coincides with a situation that feels “too early” for clear and confident action. But we can still work on the seeds of a possible plan, with a “to be continued” storyline underpinning it.

Any fallout some of us may have to handle, around this Uranus square, could take extra time and energy to manage. With a Uranian-style lightning strike, there may be no denying that something has changed, but taking in all the details of the change requires inner and outer adjustments. These can involve levels of rebuilding, quite fitting for Uranus in Taurus, which is linked with construction.

With Uranus aspecting the Sun and Moon, it could seem as though there is some collective inevitability around any unusual activity we encounter, which may be accompanied by a sense of frustration over lack of individual power. There might be another way of seeing the situation, though. Whatever Uranus represents may have a protective quality, more akin to the well-meaning guardian than the despotic ruler!

Since this planet is associated with sweeping out the old, it could, for instance, be that circumstances force us to get rid of anything that has exceeded its use-by date. While we may have continued to hold onto something, we might have lost touch with the obvious rationale behind keeping it. Any lack of clarity is underlined by the Sun and Moon semi-square Neptune. And any such blurriness could soon be erased, as the more clear-cut Uranus focus takes over — bringing restoration to a fresh level of sanity with the introduction of something new.

If the tornado-like dynamism of Uranus seems too much to cope with at times, we can also take some comfort in knowing that, with the New Moon’s square to Uranus emphasizing early degrees of the fixed signs of Aquarius and Taurus, we are really just at the beginning of a new order. Things may be up in the air — even torn adrift — but this is just the start of a much-needed shakeup. With outer-planet activity, we can be fairly sure that nothing is purely personal; events are related to a force coming to the surface at a collective level, since what is afoot is best for the whole group.

This might not seem so easy to accept if we are experiencing private turbulence, but it may become so when we choose to connect more with others. We could soon realize that we are truly not alone, even if some of our circumstances have a uniquely individual signature. Again, this is part of the challenge of the Neptune semisquare: to be able to spot where there are similarities with and reflections in other people, rather than concentrating only on our individual trials.

This article is from the Mountain Astrologer, written by Diana Collis.

Michael Lucas Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda A Film by Michael Lucas As most of the world moves forward toward gay equality, Russia is seemingly heading backward. Antigay sentiment and legislation are spreading rapidly throughout the country. In 2013, the Russian parliament passed a ban on so-called “gay propaganda” that effectively makes nearly any public discussion of gay equality a crime. The city of Moscow has outlawed Gay Pride parades for the next 100 years. Adoption of Russian children is forbidden to citizens of any foreign country that permits gay marriage. And legislation is now being considered that would permit the Russian government to remove gay people’s children from their homes. The Kremlin has chosen the LGBT community as its scapegoat in a populist campaign against supposedly decadent “Western” values, and there are ominous signs of much worse to come. Violent attacks against Russian gays or suspected gays are more and more common. Videos of young LGBT people being taunted and tortured have been widely distributed on the Internet. Those are the stories that get the headlines, but there is much more to the Russian LGBT men and woman I have met. It is my hope that this documentary will educate viewers to their reality.