The Hexagon in Urban Planning

     Today I read that when spatial science was first adopted by geographers, it was the Nazis who led the charge in city planning.  They correctly forecasted that planned cities should take on a hexagonal shape, with a central area coordinating movements.  The hexagon optimizes area because of the way it evenly distributes the ideal number of communities around a larger central one.  Here we infer that we have more in common with bees than first realized, for as they organize honeycomb into optimal hexagonal shapes, so do we tend to design our civilizations that way.

The Franks

     "Franks" is an essential chapter from Power and Thrones, the most comprehensive book on Medieval history that I've read.  It completely explains how Europe was shaped into the geopolitical continent we see today.  

    It began with the Carolingian Empire, which occupied more land in Europe than any other in 800 AD.  It was weakened by Viking invasions from the north, involving some conquerors who were paid off by the empire just to stop.  One faction was granted land in the north of France- the Normans- just as a plea bargain to stop invading.  The Normans diffused more readily with continental cultures than other Vikings, adopting Carolingian dialects and, more importantly, converting to Christianity, which thanks to Charlemagne was able to grant a holy blessing from the Pope to Christian emperors.  As the Normans invaded England, the land that was left- Normandy- became a battleground for centuries between Britain and France, both who had valid claims to it.  After the Carolingians, France itself was split into a western half, which largely made up modern France, and the larger eastern half, which came to comprise the enormously influential Holy Roman Empire, father of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and other modern countries.

    This essential Medieval picture of Europe is the missing link I've been seeking that connects Ancient Rome to modern Europe, for other than Byzantium, the Franks most clearly sought to emulate it.  So it was the Viking obstruction that truly led to bifurcations in Europe, along with a geography that posed no natural barriers, constantly bringing tribes of people into conflict.

Hey Idiot, Slow Down

     Last night my wife and I discussed the idea that I am too efficient.  It was brought up by me.  Yes, there is such a thing as being too efficient.  Those who are too efficient become lifeless, always concerned with saving time, cutting into the quality of life they would otherwise have.  It's not unlike the march of efficiency that capitalism has pledged over the centuries, rendering many processes in modern times robotic.  I don't feel dead, however I have always felt something was missing from my personality (perhaps there are others?).  Today I am trying to slow things down and focus on quality of time rather than quantity.  Because life is short, it is easy to forget.  Not so with my wife, who isn't trying to impress people with how prolific she is, though motherhood itself is the most admirable of occupations.  It's time to take a step back, focus on what's in front of me.  Perhaps re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Gilead.  Both books helped me see how it was possible to find joy in adulthood.  But even if I fail, my family still gives me enough of it.

Buddhism, the Only Migrating Religion

     Among the major world religions, Buddhism has the distinction of being the only one capable of migrating from its foreign land and blending in with indigenous beliefs.  It began in India, yet the country largely practices Hinduism.  It migrated to China and Japan, where it diffused with earlier religions like Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto.  Only in southeast Asia does it seem to have completely uprooted native beliefs.

     Other religions are incomparable.  Hinduism never made out of India.  The three monotheistic giants all maintain a strong presence in their homeland, despite the diaspora of the Jews, the holy mandates of the Muslims, and the gospels of Christ which entice one to spread the faith.  Though these religions have scattered widely, they usually maintain a powerful influence in any territory that accepts them, completely eradicating the previous faith, such as Zoroastrianism in Persia, or any of a number of pagan beliefs in the New World and beyond.  Only does Judaism seem to diffuse the way Buddhism does, but it has never managed to claim the majority of a population.

    While Christian and Islamic strangleholds can easily be explained by political congruence, Hinduism can't.  There was abject stubbornness in India to cling to its original mythology, which is unique among religions itself.  Buddhism though has such widespread appeal that its diffusion becomes inevitable in places where politics and religion aren't so intimately tied with each other.  Furthermore, Buddhism's toleration of other beliefs has done well for its survival in distant lands.  Thus it is the only truly migrating world religion.

Refresh Heart

Weeping heart consumed by petals,

Pink as the fringes of a rose,

It beats in tune with rejection and remorse,

Twin demons that haunt what it became.

Bloom of youth that lost its beauty

Retracted inward the utopian joy,

Shrank the wonder it once held sacred

Until the flower cocooned into a shell. 

The beating slowed, the world got smaller,

Turning inward the folds drew memory,

Fragments of art to imitate release,

Retreating from expressions of glamor.

The heart sunk soul-ward that ate itself,

Fanning flames that denied innocence,

Built a fantasy of scattered wishes

That burst forth to the other side.

Only then did it realize how important

It was to be true, courageous in battle,

Unfrightened of the consequences,

Glowing fiercely in the solar nursery.

Butterfly Monsoon

Through the trees they swoon you like a monsoon,

Covering the valley in blue-winged snowflakes.

They're everywhere, flapping and fluttering,

Glazing the land in delftware, or Santorini steeples,

Blown through the mistral past the lost horizon,

The light distorted, senses failing, a wonder summoned

By your weary eyes of fortune, young one,

My son, my sleepy son, laying lazily in my arms.

Entering darkness they come into your eyes,

Obsidian gateways to an enchanted heart,

Draining into a phantasm you stole from the world,

Butterflies wrapped in bows and ribbons, trapped

Behind the shutters when you closed them,

As they stole your soul from me,

Off into some inaccessible oblivion.

Now beneath the water you see them,

Wings ripped by currents, shadows severed,

Ambient imperium of heaven alight,

Contrails of the sky train you took last night.

Swarming your thoughts, you only see blue,

Softly swaying in my arms holding you tight,

Bathed in blue, the curtain parting,

You see my face as you wake with a start,

Purified breath of change, becoming blue.

Sheikh Zayed

Glorified marble of the Middle East,

How elegant you stand on the Arabian heel.

Your bubbling domes kiss the sky,

A whiteness so pure, to resemble where they reach,

Heaven's protection over a porcelain sea.

Your columns stand on a milky sheet

Lacquered in bejeweled patterns,

An overflowing of beauty flooding the courtyard

From the golden angles of your interior.

Gold, white, gold, white,

Say your prayers to the light,

Praise be to Allah and all that's right.

Swarm Intelligence

Bloated CPU of starchy threads,

Slime of ancient earthen inheritance,

Community of woven entanglement,

Capturing memory, observation, inference,

Each portal a digital vault

Reckoning the matrix of behavior,

Threads of necessity gluing the axons,

Mark of Thoth projecting patterns,

Submission to Nature, the eternal seamstress.

The mind is a hive, an insectile construct,

Meninges of beeswax that molds wrinkles,

Honey of synapse that cables signals,

Quantum receptor of dendritic hexagons

Stimulating consciousness, a collective awareness,

The whole rendered superior to its parts,

Each neuron a soldier for survival,

Like a bee, unable to do so on its own.

The Method

Alone he fingerprinted the logos,

Patented a discourse on discovery, 

Rejected suspicions for doctrines of certainty,

Elevated his science to godhood.

From complexity the simplest forms

Analyzed by deduction of proofs

Converged into a tireless whole,

A grand machine of the cosmos,

A kaleidoscopic program built from smithereens,

Each operation a heartbeat for the rest.

Those inherent proofs, those silver certainties,

Unstained by skepticism, sturdy by reduction,

Obvious to any sensory system-

The digit, the line, the circle-

Grafted the gears of higher operations,

These tools of math aspiring construction,

Metaphysical forms becoming real

From each hidden connection.

A design was clear, a universe of spirals,

Everything in harmonic movement,

Built on foundations of geometry-

Reason the holy token for attainment,

Truth derived from a mechanical gospel.

Now he can rest, his life complete,

The world turning with his system,

Fragmented coordinates ejected from a dream,

An algebra that distorted the shapes,

Bending time, space, energy, to the will of man.