Fleet-Footed Flyer

Hey fleet-footed flyer, running up the broken hill, let me follow you through the frozen forest, down the windswept valley of timeless lore, up the curdled frame of the mountain forlorn.  We'll hurdle the fences, squeeze through the branches, drag the miles out of the bygone era behind us.  If I can't keep up with you, if the forest should prove too thick, if the snow should fall too fast, the wind in my face too ferocious, the fractals of the branches too dense, the distance immense, the minutes condensed, my legs powerless to keep churning this machine of a body, do find it in your heart to slow down, and wait up for another tired soul. 

Hey fleet-footed flyer, running up the broken hill, where do you find the endurance to keep going?  Where will your body go when it finally breaks down?  How many men and women will you leave in the dust, rusted over by the dirt-smoke that kicks off your heals?  Does the wind turn with you after each change of direction, an instrument of your fate designed to compromise ours?  How fast can you really run, with all that latent strength of yours hidden in the form, never to be seen at full throttle, the fraction of it withheld for the sake of longevity? 

Hey fleet-footed flyer, running up the broken hill, you are like Pheidippides on the oily plains of Greece, shirtless and shining with sweat, without constraint and without hesitation, just the fierce will of a spirit possessed, moving forward, angling through the field, charging down the runway, drifting through the air like a peregrine in flight, carefully avoiding the flowers at your feet.  When night closes in, when the sun paints the sky red, and all the monks retreat inside the sanctuary to meditate; that is your finest hour, when your muscles are as loose as bullets, your hair like an aileron in the mist, your face hammered by the alpine updrafts yet entirely unaffected by them, gliding freely upon the marbled terrace of a forgotten temple. 

Hey fleet-footed flyer, running up the broken hill, take me with you past the abandoned houses of old, down the hopeless alleys of loss, far up the winding river that sings you spacious hymns, propelled by Gregorian Chant through the invention of distance, to a remote vista at the rim of the galaxy, 'round a secluded lake resting at the basin of twilight, the water cast in velvet from a strobe of stars, a place removed from all the rest, where time stops and the day is suspended, my legs sputtering 'round each bend of the trail, my arms losing control with each heave of breath, my soul giving itself back to the forgotten skies above, surrendering to the air aloft, lift me off the ground, onto the trail of a new day. 

 

Radio Waves, The Future of Universal Communication

The idea of making first contact with an alien species is one of the most cherished ambitions of mankind.  Such a discovery would revolutionize the way we think about the universe and our place in it.  We would no longer be alone in our grand quest for understanding the mysteries of the cosmos.  It would completely dispel any lingering belief that we are the center of the universe, that everything revolves around us, even the attention of our gods.  

Communication would be the deciding factor, for we wouldn’t get anywhere in understanding our galactic neighbors without some form of it.  Radio waves are thought to be the only form of communication possible between extraterrestrials and humans.  This is because they are the only wave-form that can penetrate all the debris in space that would otherwise block less subtle waves, such as sound and light.  Unlike sound, radio waves move at the speed of light.  Theoretically, nothing would allow for interstellar communication better than these sneaky vibrations. 

In the future, we could end up participating in a cosmic network of radio waves that alien species already use to communicate with each other across the whole universe.  Should a first contact happen, it’s likely the extraterrestrials who discover us will already be part of such a network.  By transference, we could possibly discover that there are a great many more species involved, and that there is a shared language among the vast number of them participating.  

What should really blow your mind is the potential for a cosmic internet operating on this grand scale.  If that were to occur, the radio waves would act like electrical signals between computers on distant planets, allowing for an infinitely large, albeit slow connection.  Surely any species that can communicate with extraterrestrials by radio probably has the technology to build computers as well, much less have an internet connecting them all.  But even if they didn’t have an internet, species that did would probably share this revolutionary tool for learning among the less insightful. 

Aliens could then share content with each other via downloads, provided their operating systems are similar enough.  The trade of information would be essential between species.  As our globe is getting smaller due to a more globalized community enhanced by internet use, the universe could also get smaller thanks to the sharing of information by this cosmic radio-internet.  

In the 100+ years that we’ve had radio waves, we still have yet to detect any extraterrestrial signals.  This can only mean one of three things: intelligent species like ours don’t exist, which is unlikely; they already searched our corner of the universe and found nothing; or they are intentionally avoiding us for reasons we’re better off not knowing.  Our own radio broadcasts have traveled about 200 light years through our galaxy- enough to reach about 1/20th of its size.  This is enough time for any local listeners to realize they are not alone. 

 

Recalculating the Economy: How the October Effect Causes Market Crashes

The U.S. stock market may be going through what is called the October Effect, a phenomenon that has caused many of our market crashes.  If you look at the market's history, crashes tend to happen within the same monthly period (mid-September to mid-October every 10-15 years).  It usually takes a couple years after this for the economy to return to normal before spiraling out of control again, culminating in a crash that mysteriously tends to take place in early Autumn.  Just for fun, let's point out that this time period astrologically coincides with the "balance" sign Libra, symbolizing a stabilization of the market to moderate an overly productive economy. 

It happens because the market is cyclical.  There comes a point when it is so strong that people become overconfident in their budget.  They lend, borrow, buy, and hire more than they should during these bear market bubbles.  Market crashes have nothing to do with the political party in control, or the president in office, as I once believed.  The role of a crash is to reset the economy, to recover it from the massive influx of invisible moneys pouring through the cracks in our system.  If you follow the money trail, it leads right to the Federal Reserve's interest rate, a limitation our government makes to central banks on what they're able to lend.  But it's important to realize the Federal Reserve was designed to curtail crashes like these, not to design them itself.  This is not a worldwide conspiracy for bankers to garner profits (as I also once believed).  If it doesn't outright prevent crashes, it at least helps make them less severe.  Without lending restrictions, a second Great Depression would likely be imminent, as the banks would lend with reckless abandon money they don't have. 

A more important measure indicating that a crash is imminent is the strong correlation between crashes and the unemployment rate.  A correlation implies a contributing factor, not necessarily a cause.  The unemployment rate right now is extremely low, similar to all the rates they were at right before massive layoffs caused them to skyrocket.  All you have to do is look at a graph of historical unemployment and line up the well-known market crashes with it to notice that a big dip in unemployment tends to occur before a crash. 

So why do the vast majority of market crashes happen in Autumn?  The time between summer and Christmas is a nice little window of opportunity for people to save money.  People tend to spend more in summer (vacation, home improvement) and Christmas (gifts, year-end sales), leaving early fall vulnerable to massive selloffs.  Based on this, one might surmise that doing away with mass-consumerism during Christmas might prevent the effect entirely.   

Events happening in the world also pay a role, though to a lesser extent.  September 11 was thought to contribute to the 2001 downturn, while currently it is the trade war with China being blamed for shaking up investors' confidence.  To me these are incidental; the market is far more influenced by the ingrained cycle than some idiot's Twitter feed.  Events and fears are certainly critical to the severity of panic, but the core is in cyclical confidence based on our seasonal structure.  The October Effect is a psychological one, but it's not based on fear of the past reoccurring, as many analysts believe.  It's based on the runaway confidence that a bear market exudes, and the need to save a few dollars in between the massive spending sprees of summer and Christmas. 

Admittedly, my worriment is probably a symptom of this October Effect- a fear of losses causing an initially massive sell-off, which snowballs into greater sell-offs once other people catch on.  In that regard it's like a virus in the way it spreads as a contagion to stockholders, and it seems I have caught it.  But this isn't the only symptom.  October would be too random of a month if it were merely a psychological effect.  It's literally like saying the star sign Libra is causing people to "return balance" to the market.  The bane of my sign! 

 

Fasting May Help Cure Cancer

    Mom's going under the knife tomorrow.  She's had some bleeding in her urine and wants a hysterectomy in case a cancer is growing there.  A year ago, some polyps were removed from her ovaries.  These are some signs of the beginning stages of that pesky disease which runs prolifically in our family.  Of the four deaths that I know of, three were the result of cancer. 

    There are many success stories about the triumph of fasting over cancer.  Most cancerous tumors grow from sugar, others from fat.  Starving oneself therefore starves the cancer as well.  The reason this isn't well known is because of what I call the Medical-Agro industry, a hybrid of two economic powerhouses that the government would see fasting as being a threat to, like the much-maligned Military Industrial Complex, which is an actual thing.  The medical industry makes so much money off chemotherapies, surgeries, and other operations that it would be a major economic obstacle if the practice of fasting to cure cancer ever got out.  I think that's why there is no regulation or promotion about the benefits of fasting, at least by the government. 

    To those who would question the success of this remedy, there are two things to consider.  How often do you see very skinny people undergoing cancer treatment?  Very few, I'd imagine, at least in the United States.  This would indicate that cancer is mainly a source of over-eating, though other factors obviously contribute (radiation, carcinogens, smoking, and possibly genes, though this is not yet proven).  Secondly, water fasting helps to detoxify the body in so many ways; it assists in flushing out toxins through the digestive system, it resets the immune system, and makes non-cancerous cells more efficient.  The only time it wouldn't work is if it was too late: if the cancer had already done too much damage to be destroyed by simple water fasting.  In such cases, a combination of fasting with chemotherapy is probably more effective. 

    I tried explaining this to my mother, but I don't think she understood it.  Her biggest problem is her sugar addiction.  Even at her age, I still find her binging on it sometimes.  The mere fact that depriving cells of food, which supplies them with ammunition to grow, would stifle cancerous cell growth should make sense enough.  But for the sake of our national pride as bottomless gluttons, we aren't even open to considering fasting as a mainstream treatment, which is often used in the east with great success.  Gluttony triumphs over death, at least in this part of the world. 

 

A Cosmic Symphony: Molecules as the Chords of Music

In my father's latest email, he shared with me his theory that molecules have a set of vibrations that are determined by their atomic arrangements.  While she has told me a fair share of her fringe ideas, some of which are ludicrous to the point of me feigning interest, this one is actually revealing, and explains something fundamental about chemical theory that I never considered.  A student of chemistry might ask, "Why do atoms share electrons in arbitrary valence shells when they bond?"  The shells follow strict rules in bonding, but nobody asks why the numbers two and eight are such important numbers when it comes to keeping molecules together. 

My father's idea likens the atomic structure to a musical instrument, with the electron arrangements as its chords.  Certain chords from different instruments resonate with each other, like they would in a song, creating a structure of sound so aesthetically pleasing that it's easy to see how one false note would collapse the music.  And since electrons are known to behave like waves, per Young's double-slit experiment that proved they behaved like particles and waves simultaneously, I agree with him that special vibrations must be occurring between atoms in molecules that are undetectable by our instruments.  The only explanation we can think of is that the quantum element in their duality is extending to a higher dimension that we can't see, allowing all the atoms in molecules to vibrate and bond with each other. 

To be clearer, harmony between atoms means they would bond, while dissonance means they wouldn't.  Harmony causes attraction, disharmony repulsion.  Only a special few sounds in nature will ever harmonize to create a pleasing rhythm, while a great many won't harmonize at all, just like the many elements that don't bond with each other in a given arrangement.  Loose ion radicals are what cause the acidic destruction when elements can't find a bonding partner, resulting in chaos, catastrophe, cacophony. 

Furthermore, there is a relation in Pythagorean Tuning stating that aesthetical harmonies are the result of mathematical ratios, similar to the valence ratios of the periodic table.  There is also an association that relates the periodic table with the ratios of a Golden Spiral.  The atomic numbers of all the elements of a given group in the periodic table tend to follow phi, the ratio of the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Ratio culminating in the Golden Spiral, as harmonically pleasing an image as you will ever find.  This application to sacred geometry is the only thing that gives the periodic table a meaningful structure, at least to me. 

Perhaps this is all metaphorical, but the idea makes a lot more sense than particle-based valence shells causing elements to bond.  One has to admit the particle-based rules are arbitrary without a "cosmic symphony" orchestrating things.  Since it is arbitrary, a chord-based theory may be more appropriate for explaining the resonance between the elements. 

 

Jesus Mythologized as the Ancient Adonis

 The Jesus story has a striking similarity to the much older Tammuz/Adonis myth of the ancient Near East.  These were the original fertility Gods of spring, known for their exceptional beauty and perfection, who were slain by jealousy and resurrected by stronger Gods.  The Jesus story is similar in that Easter, the celebration of his crucifixion and resurrection, is our primary fertility festival for the spring.  The crucifixion borrows Adonis' slaughter at the hands of those who envied him, while his resurrection relates to him being reborn by a God after traveling to the underworld.  Note that we are only relating the events in Jesus' story and not his personality or teachings. 

Tammuz and Adonis festivals were celebrated in the spring and summer.  The spring festival celebrated the growing of crops, while the summer one celebrated the harvest.  In the Adonis myth, he spends a third of the year in the underworld, represented by winter; another third with his father in "heaven", represented by summer; and the other third with whomever he chooses, most likely a fertility goddess of spring since the thirds mark the two festivals above.  These "thirds" are related to the number of days it took Jesus to return after his crucifixion: three. 

The real meaning of this extension to Jesus is subtle but revealing.  Man crucifying Jesus when spring began is likened to the season of agriculture ending rather than starting.  It coincides with Adonis rising from the ground to begin his earthly fertilization.  Later in summer, Adonis' return to the underworld was understood as the violent harvesting of crops, which could be interpreted as a sacrifice for the benefit of mankind.  Jesus dying for the sins of humankind resembled vegetation (Adonis by extension) dying for the natural sin of hunger.  Therefore, the shearing of crops in summer was symbolic of the slaughtering of both Adonis and Jesus.  His resurrection three days later suggested another year would come, despite being a much shorter period than his predecessor's whole year. 

The result is an archetypal compression of older myths that taught the importance of the seasons.  As for Christmas, I find it convenient that our other major Jesus holiday- this time celebrating his birth- symbolizes a wider return to the underworld, where crops lay dormant before spring.  It says to me that the extension is better summarized by both major holidays being involved in the Jesus version, not simply his death and resurrection.  It's totally backwards that his birth would celebrate the death of life and his death would celebrate rebirth, but it fits the timeline better.