I Must Be Allergic To The Media

I've noticed that since I stopped watching television (except for the occasional CSI or Mythbusters) there have been major improvements in my overall mood and mental health. I'm less stressed, more social, and more optimistic. It's even possible that the change is partly responsible for my recent "excellent" blood pressure reading, since I'm not seeing the deceptive advertisements and sensational news stories that always get my temper up.

Unfortunately, the television isn't the only route for such aggravations. Because of my interest in the presidential race (this being my first presidential election as a voter) I have been regularly visiting CNN.com for their political coverage. While there, I often look at other news items that catch my eye, avoiding videos in favor of text articles because I'm often listening to music. So I have become emotionally invested in ongoing stories like that of a man who was seen kicking and stomping on a baby by the side of a road, and refusing to stop until a police officer shot him.

I was happy to read that California is allowing gay marriage now, but not surprised to see news about protests. I followed a link to "iReport," which as far as I can tell is like youtube specifically for news. A story about protests at gay weddings sported a warning that it had been "flagged" as having "material that may be in violation of community guidelines."

Interestingly, on the upper corner of the same screen was the iReport logo with the words "Unedited. Unfiltered. News." It struck me as odd that an "unedited," "unfiltered" site would have guidelines restricting content. I looked up those guidelines, hoping for a simple explanation - after all, a little moderation is often necessary to stem the flow of idiocy that inevitably rushes in to sully any potentially beneficial institution.

It turns out there are rules against certain things on iReport. These include "obscene/lewd" content, anything that "poses a reasonable threat to personal or public safety," "Hate speech," and of course that old standby, "sexually explicit content."

Though I never actually got around to watching the video about the gay marriage protests, I suspect it might have been flagged for the "hate speech" rule. Interestingly, that particular rule doesn't specify the context of the speech that is prohibited; any hate speech is banned. If there's a story about, say, a drunken celebrity going on an anti-semitic tirade, or a politician expressing homophobic attitudes at a dinner party, or a man getting harassed in public by a mob of racists shouting slurs, any videos of these stories aren't allowed on this "unedited, unfiltered" news site, if the rules are interpreted literally.

I may have to quit my CNN political surveillance; it's just too stressful to be in such regular contact with the real world. Besides, I wouldn't want all those polls and commentaries to ruin the ending by telling me who's going to win.

I'm a comic character

Frankie and I had been planning to support each other in the creation of our own webcomics. It seems, contrary to early forecasts, that he has beat me to the punch in actually getting something done. Here's the result: http://it-takes-all-sorts.smackjeeves.com/

I'm not sure what I find more amusing in panel 2: how slim he drew himself, or how slim he drew me. In reality, that plaid shirt isn't nearly as flattering

Theistic Thoughts of a Religious Nature

I like to take note of different ways people use to express the cross and other important symbols. It can reveal things like their creativity and visual mindfulness, and what they value (or at least wish to appear to value). A few days ago I encountered this simple but elegant structure above the entrance to a church.

At first I assumed the figures below the cross were an abstract design, but then realized that it was made up of the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, symbols of the all-encompassing presence of the divine as both beginning and end. Upon trying to speculate why those particular symbols were chosen for the entrance (which is also, presumably, the exit) of a church, it occured to me that among Christians the two events most celebrated, most talked-about and argued over, are Jesus's birth and death/resurrection, the beginning and the end of his time on Earth. Nothing in the middle is so emphasized - not his teachings, not his miracles, not his personal relationships. The two most important holidays are Christmas and Easter, which would seem to indicate that the two things most worthy of celebration were the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ, among Christians anyway. Interestingly, both events were said to be miraculous - his birth of a virgin, and his resurrection after death. Since we know the cross symbolizes the death part, could it be that the colors red and white could have been chosen to symbolize the blood of his birth and his mother's virginity, thus combining the two sacred events as integrally as the two intertwined Greek letters?

At the time I had these thoughts, I had been reading The Woman in the Shaman's Body, a book about the relationship between womanhood and shamanism and the role of female shamans throughout the world's cultures. In particular I was reading a chapter about rituals and attitudes regarding birth, and came across the statement that "While the masculine traditions focus on a shaman's symbolically dying into shamanhood, the feminine traditions focus on the shaman's being born into it." That a crucial part of shamanism is the idea and practice of traveling between worlds, and the interactions between the soul and the body, the heavenly and the earthly, it makes sense that birth and death are particularly important as the most complete transformations a person undergoes: from purely spirit into carnal form, and from living body to eternal spiritual existence, and it also makes sense that a life-changing transformation such as a calling to become a shaman (or priest or healer or lover or parent) can be described as a death or a birth, depending on your attitude. Converts are said to be "born again," and a dream about giving birth can signify a huge life change.

The fact that in Christian theology, god was born and killed in human form says a lot about its ideas of the divine. God really is "one of us," as the popular song suggests, though not affected by the imperfections of everyday life - the spaces between the great transformations that remind us of what is really important. If you want to really turn your priorities upside-down, watch a baby being born - or better yet, have one of your own, though obviously only if you're in a position to raise it. When such transformations occur, the barriers are broken, and all becomes clear for a short time. That's why those events are chosen as the most godly, not because god is most present for them, but because we are more ready to experience him then.

Of course it is also important to remember that, though god may be alpha and omega, he's also the rest of the alphabet. Keeping godly ways and attitudes throughout our everyday lives is the difficult part, maybe even impossible, but no less essential.

(Now may be a good time to acknowledge that our friends Clare and Bryan have finally had their baby, Greydon, this past May Day. Congratulations!)

Holy #$%@ Bunnies?!

As I was digging a hole near my mom's vegetable garden to plant a fig tree (which is awesome in itself), I happened across this tiny puffball:


A tiny baby bunny, small enough to fit in my hand. He didn't seem to mind being picked up and carried, so my mother, who wanted his nibbling teeth far from her garden, suggested I bring him inside and keep him as a pet. Soon afterward we discovered his brother nearby, and it was decided we would keep that one too. So I set up a cage.


This was yesterday, and they already seem to have gotten acclimated to their new surroundings. They are energetic and strong for their size, and tend to hop for the darkest, tightest corner they can find, though they're also quite content sitting on a lap or chest for some time. They appear surprisingly fearless, considering their species is so known for being skittish.


My friend Frankie was kind enough to fetch me some pet formula (for kittens, but some experienced friends advised it would be good for bunnies), and they have managed to drink a little of it. They have shown no interest in solid food, but they don't seem to be starving.


Frankie, above, strikes a Shakespearian pose.

I have just been informed that an acquaintance from church would like to come over with her small daughter and visit the bunnies. I was surprised word had spread so quickly; I would guess Ahmie was the informant (she said as she eyed her friend suspiciously). I certainly hope I don't become an attraction for all the neighborhood children. There are only two humans under ten that I can tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time.

Another case for luddism

My esteemed sibling (whose blog is linked to the right) has written in favor of luddism, and noted the irony that he, a habitual internet-user, is decrying the influence of technology in our lives. My belief is that it is crucial to remember that technology - whether it's a car, a computer, a microwave oven, or synthetic fibers - is only a tool, not a crutch, and should only be used when the energy and expense is really worth the help that it gives. People should not be whipping out their calculators to add 34+43, and we shouldn't get in the car and use GPS to go to the corner drug store when we have perfectly good legs. I sew by hand even though my mother's sewing machine is right down the hall, because the speed and neatness it would offer is often not important to me. However, I type more often than I write by hand because it's much faster and easier, and the ability to reproduce many copies of my writing in various places (email, websites, print, backup disks, et cetera) is important to me. The key is to be mindful of the purposes of the tools we use, and see if they're really as necessary or as helpful as we think.

For instance, today I was faced with the task of creating a chart for recording the work I do for my mother, so we both know how much she owes me for it. She had created a chart which was very impractical, with very little space for data, and I had promised to come up with a better one. I envisioned a page with collumns and lines. My first instinct was to get a ruler, pen, and paper and hand-draw some lines, but then I thought, "Why, when I have a computer right in front of me with many programs capable of producing lines on paper?"

After only a few moments fidling around on the computer, I realized how pointless it was going to be. A computer-generated chart would be useful if we needed many copies that would be used by many people, but this would only be used by me, and I only needed one copy for now. I grabbed my ruler and a pen and had my chart done in just a few moments.

As I worked on it, some really significant advantages came to mind. I already knew how to do it, and my artist's hand and eye helped to avoid the crooked lines and too-small spaces that sometimes arise from hand-drawn charts. It took no electricity - there wasn't even a light on in the room, just sunlight from the window. There was no need to calculate whether the size of my lines would be the same in real life as on the screen, and I had perfect control over what it would look like without having to worry about pushing a wrong button, running out of tonor, or any other problems that arise from working with computers and printers. I even realized that I could draw my lines all the way to the edges of the paper - no need for space-wasting margins.

I think it's quite prudent for anyone to know how to do such tasks by hand, and not depend on computers for everything. Not that I think we'll have some apocalyptic event that wipes out our modern technology and sends us back to the dark ages. But blackouts happen all the time, and I think it's foolish not to know how to use your hands for something other than pushing buttons, and your feet for something other than pushing pedals.

Peace out y'all.

Yet another tattoo design

This is unique as my ideas go, in that it's the only design I've come up with that can't be fully appreciated from one direction only. Here's my crude five-minute sketch as viewed in a dirty mirror:

In case you can't see, that's a tree with its roots on the foot and branches reaching around the calf. I'd been trying to think of a way to pull this off on an arm, but then I realized that the contours of the leg are much more appropriate. The final version would be much better, of course, possibly with leaves and blooms and such. Though this version came out better than I thought it would.

(And yes I do realize that tattooing on the foot would be considerably more painful and less likely to come out picture-perfect. I can live with that.)

Why Astrology Matters Even Though I Don't Believe In It (there are no pictures in this one, because I don't feel like it)

I'm really not that impressed with personality types, such as the ever-popular Myers-Brigg system or the Enneagram. I honestly think I like Horoscopes better as a way of putting people into categories. Why? Because it's got no real basis. If a Capricorn trait doesn't apply to me, I can ignore it with the excuse that it isn't real. Legitimate, scientific personality types carry an expectation of accuracy which some people take as gospel truth, letting it affect their decisions, their relationships, their perceptions of themselves and others. How often has my identity as an introvert kept me from exposing myself to social situations, for fear of being overwhelmed? It wasn't until recently that I began to actively seek such situations, because I discovered that they filled a need that I had been denying myself: the need for friendship and fun. Knowing my zodiac sign gives me something to identify with, and a name for some of my traits, but it does not define me, and I can interpret it in whatever way feels right.

Moreover, there are so many other signs on my chart – rising sign, moon sign, planet positions and such – that I can claim almost half the zodiac as my own. It leaves plenty of room for a complex, contradictory character, a level of complexity that I know everyone has the capacity for, whether they know it or not. My turbulent feelings are accounted for by my moon in Scorpio; my appreciation for art and beauty, by my Libra rising. Such a wealth of possible traits would be useless in a legitimate, scientific system, because a given combination could be interpreted to fit almost any person on earth; it's not an effective way to divide people into neat categories. But as we know, human character is not as tidy as sociologists may prefer. That's why it's so difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a system that fully and accurately describes different types of people without reducing them to flat, simplistic, clinical statistics. Often, the cost of accuracy is vividness and humanity, and a system that only identifies a few major categories, or even several, is ultimately more stereotyping than an astrological profile.

I think it's also a good social tool. If I meet a new person and identify myself as a Capricorn, and if she is at all familiar with zodiac lore, she will (at least subconsciously) have a set mental image of my personality before she knows me very well. Is that so bad?

The effect is that my new acquaintance will think of me as having that ready-made personality, rather than no personality at all. It's an automatic icebreaker, a way to relate to each other and help combat shyness. As she gets to know me better, she will alter her perception of my personality to accommodate the parts of me that aren't covered by the stock profile of a Capricorn, and even use those discrepencies to form an individual identity for me, saying things like "She's not as perfectionist as most Capricorns." I don't see anything wrong with this, especially considering that we all naturally make assumptions of each other based on clothing, speech patterns, or even the circumstances in which we meet each other; the eventual correction of false assumptions usually isn't much of a problem.

The interpersonal aspect of the zodiac system is nothing compared to the intrapersonal aspect. Self-discovery is a journey, and a journey must start somewhere. In order to determine who you really are, it helps to have a template, a point of reference, to compare yourself to. Legitimate personality types can be awkward starting points in this respect, because just determining your type requires some self-knowledge before you even begin. If the only things you're sure about are the things on your birth certificate, then you can use that information to find a detailed, vivid picture of who you might be, much of which is probably true. Once you have that, it's not too hard to find which parts feel right for you, and which parts were just an unlucky roll of the dice.

And if nothing else, zodiac types are so much more fun than Myers-Brigg or Enneagram types. The possibilities of art, poetry, tattoos, and even creative description are endless. Which paints a prettier picture: the letters "INFP" or the words "Water-Bearer," "Archer," or "Sea-Goat?" Would you rather be a number between 1 and 9 - or a mighty, steadfast bull, a venomous scorpion, or a beautiful maiden? Zodiac descriptions are virtually baseless, but personality types are virtually devoid of glamour, and can't match the zodiac in terms of depth and complex symbolism.

Unreality hasn't kept mythology from enriching our culture and our collective identity. Star Trek and Harry Potter are no less relevant to our perceptions because they are fictitious. Yes, Astrology is fake, but so is much of what we value in our lives.

That's why I still read my chart, and why I wonder what my friends' signs are. I've yet to find a good reason not to.

Three Ways to Oneness

Nirvana, salvation, enlightenment, truth – whatever you call it, most people are in search of a way to resolve the disparate parts of themselves and of the universe, to find the one truth, the common thread, or the ultimate reality. For good or ill, countless methods, or paths, to this oneness have developed; whether any of them is more valid than any other, I cannot say. But I have noticed three basic ways – a trinity, if you like – that transcend religious and cultural differences, three methods of finding truth which I believe everyone uses to an extent, through most people personally favor one dominant method.

The first is what I call the scientific, atheistic, or "one world" way. I call it "one world" because this method discards all but the observable world: no spirit world. It's not that "one world" believers don't accept the possibility of a non-observable force or entity; they just have the attitude that if we can't observe it or its effects, then there's really no point taking it into account – and why should we?

It's true that science has resulted in vast improvements in our lives, but what many people lose sight of is the much greater thing science can help us find: an explanation of the world and how it works. Evolution science traces all people and all creatures to a single common ancestor, while the principle of uniformitarianism maintains that the same natural forces are at work throughout the world and througout time to create the diverse geological formations we see around us. As scientists bring theories into harmony with each other, they come closer to the grand unification of all scientific knowledge, a way to resolve the contradictory theories of relativity and quantum physics. Though it may have no practical applications, the grand unification is as ambitious a goal as nirvana.

The second way to oneness I have come across is the pattern-finding, symbolic thinking, or "one web" way. This method finds meaning and synchronism in the observable world as evidence of a guiding hand in the cosmos or in history. Ordinary events become omens, and the microcosm of the pattern-finder's life becomes interconnected to the macrocosm of the universe through a vast system of symbols and codes. In its least respectable form this method manifests as superstition or conspiracy theories, and some people will always see it as such.

Skeptics acknowledge that humans are predisposed to find patterns where there are none. Ancient people looked on a random arrangement of stars and found detailed pictures there, constellations which now affect many people's thinking in the form of astrology. Other people, noticing striking patterns in history, conclude that certain events are being orchestrated by an unseen "illuminati" or conspiracy. Bible Codes and DaVinci codes also result from this kind of thinking. One of the most extreme examples that I have found is one Jake Kotze, who coined the term "synchromysticism" and has created an impressive collection of blogs and videos devoted to finding connections between history, mythology, art, pop culture, and current events, ultimately combining mystical symbolism with secular conspiracy theory.

While reading the work of Jake Kotze and others of his ilk, I have noticed that once I delve deeply enough into these systems of code and meaning, everything becomes connected to everything else in a vast, overarching web, usually centering on one pivotal symbol – the Kevin Bacon of the universe. Kotze has been able to connect almost everything to what he calls a "stargate," ultimately the same as the "world gate" that this blog is named for. Further delving connects these gates to the historical beginnings of monotheism… which brings me to the third of the trinity of ways to oneness.

The third way to oneness is the theistic or "one god" way. This designation does not exclude polytheism, as many polytheists believe that their many individual gods are different expressions or portions of one supreme divinity, much as monotheistic Christians acknowledge a trinity, three aspects of one god. Theistic seekers find oneness by fostering a relationship with the divine, becoming in harmony with god, and ultimately becoming one with god. Christians find salvation by residing in Christ, and Buddhists find enlightenment by merging with the cosmos.

It's up to you to figure out which of these ways is most valid, or which is most dominant in your way of thinking. There may even be other methods that I have overlooked, but I suspect that any other methods could be interpreted as a combination of the three I have described. As for myself, in my most ambitious search for oneness I have sought to unite the three paths seamlessly and completely. That's what the world gate is to me.