Maebius Musings

You know those shirts and posters with “you are here” and an arrow pointing to some speck in the galaxy or some-such?

Here’s a better look at the place we all live, care of NASA’s newest satellite composite images.
Animated: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4401845574/

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Interesting article from LiveScience hints at a “brain location” for spirituality.

Technically, it is more related to a personality trait called self-transcendence. Self-transcendence “reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one’s self as an integral part of the universe as a whole.“

http://www.livescience.com/health/spirituality-brain-link-100211.html

My thoughts on this study are a bit divided. On one hand, it’s always kinda interesting to me how Science keeps tapping away at the walls of our unknown in search of the hollow passages and studs behind them.

On the other hand, while the physiology is described here as a deficit, could it not be that lessened Ego is actually better, and those unspiritual types are less adapted? (like having webbed feet, which are cool, but not most efficient at perambulating around town?)

I still think there’s not enough details here to really base a potential-filled claim like “Brain Bits that cause Spirituality” so I’ll simply choose to ignore and gloss past that particular facet of the headline. The study itself holds some nugget of muse-worthiness at least.

Food for thought, but I’m not sure of there’s empty calories here, or whole grains.

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Been busy with sleep, work and seasonal decorating.   More better blog postings soon. ( bad grammer[sic]  intended)

While I recover and re-focus, here’s some holiday song lyrics to put you in the mood.    Not sure if it’s the mood youwant, after trying to say them out loud, but take it for what it’s worth. 

Oer yw’r gwr sy’n methu caru,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Hen fynyddoedd annwyl Cymru,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Iddo ef a’u câr gynhesaf
Ffa la la la la la la,
Gwyia llawen flwyddyn nesaf,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.

2. I’r helbulus oer yw’r biliau,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Sydd yn dyfod yn y gwyliau,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Gwrando bregeth mewn un pennill,
Ffa la la la la la la.
Byth na waria fwy na’th ennill,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.

3. Oer yw’r eira ar Eryri,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Er fod gwrthban gwlanen arni,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.
Oer yw’r bobol na ofalan’,
Ffa la la la la la la.
Gwrdd â’i gilydd ar Nos Galan,
Ffa la la la la, la la la la.

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I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday, and for those outside the US of A, I hope the last few days have been likewise Thankful and Blessed as well.

I’m recovering from the turkey-day feasts (we ate at our house, with Chef Maebius presiding over the bird and associated sides.) and the back to a normal day-shift schedule of work, so it’s nice to enter December with a fresh outlook on things.

In place of a real muse-worthy post, I’ll redirect you to this one from around this time in years past.
http://everthorn.net/musings/2008/12/monday-muse-countdown-to-christmasolstiyule/?p=312

We hung the ‘Advent’ tree and started filling it with treats for the kid starting tomorrow.   This tree needed soem serious repairs as mice or other furry critters found their way into the plastic storage bin it was kept in (chewed a hole through the side?!) and thus some parts of it were eaten up.   Soem deft green felt patches later, and its’ at least suitable for this year.    Sadly, this probably means I’ll be re-designing another big crafty one for next Yule.   Any suggestions, or should I keep the general festive-tree theme?

Enjoy, and I’ll see you all again shortly once I get back in the swing of things.

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Title says it all.

As a foil to my Mornings suck, musing, here’s a cheery one for you. 

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I am not a morning person.  Morning people confuse and confound me.  Yet I am becoming one in the very near future due to my job.

In general, I have long maintained that my perfect “work shift” is 4pm-midnight, with the option to sleep in until around 10:00am.  If left to my own devices in one of those sleep-study caves, this is generally the time-frame Iwould gravitate to with my schedule.   I feel most productive just around dinner time, and early evening.

The quiet of the evening, with darkness settling in like a comfortable blanket of non-light, helping to focus my attentions and remove distractions of daily life.  That is zen to me.   Lamplight or candlelight with the soft glow of a monitor is comforting.

Yet soon, within a month or so, I will be adjusting to a completely different sleep cycle.   I had a taste of it these past two weeks.   4am-noon.  Blech!

I understand, intellectually, the concept of waking with hte sun bringing a promise to a new day, and all that.  I admit I’ve heard the “whole day before you” inspirations.  But I found I still don’t like it.

Mornings are when everything bustles up, revs into gear, and starts moving.  The birds sing, Life Happens, and folks start their day.    With this new shift, those things mean I’m halfway through and get to go home soon.

If I want to spend any time with my family on this new shift, I try to stay awake until dinner time, to join in on board games, book reading, and such.    I’m finding that this also means I get around 5 hours of good sleep, and taking a short nap from 1-3pm just makes me over-tired and washed out during dinner.

So if this blog starts to ramble a bit or sound slightly incoherent in January, blame early mornings.

I plan to. 

I’ll take the sunsets any day. [pun intended]

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Recently, I sent a series of short emails to a number of friends, ex co-workers, and other acquaintances to say hello.  The emails (and letter in one case) all said something like:

This is just me, coming out of his hermit cave and saying hello before another week of “I should email you” passes and Life gets distracting again.   Hi!  Hope you and your family is doing well.

I sent these out in the spirit of the season, where Thanksgiving, and post-Samhain, and pre-Yule all draw us to reflect on friends and family.   I meant nothing more than a hello, and expected nothing really in return.

Granted, the anticipation of a reply even like “Hi to you too, bye!”  did spring up in my head, but if silence was given, I still would not be offended. The message, and the vaguely cheery energy attached to it was sent out to the E-ether, and thus completed in my thoughts.

What surprised me, and still stings a bit, is one particular reply stating “Oh hi.  Just because it’s the holiday and we haven’t talked all year doesn’t mean you can be all happy now and expect to start exchanging cards/gifts all the sudden because we emailed. Don’t bother.”

I’m not even sure how to react, and without going into details, I figure this means that person will be taken off my email contact list for good now.   This individual isn’t even one who I last communicated with harshly, or had any sort of “falling out” with.

It is a distant relative, for whom the sum total of our relationship mainly consists of cards at holidays.  I haven’t physically seen them in years.

I’m guessing I touched an unknown nerve, or they are going through some sort of emotional experiences recently that I an not privy too.  Did my unexpected hello touch off some hidden feud, as family sometimes harbors?   I don’t think I’ll ever know the details, nor do I want to pry.

Yet, should I react to this with hugs, or a cold shoulder?   The cynic in me says “To heck with them, and Life’s too short for Drama.“, but then the striving-to-be-better Spiritual side of me wants to reach out again to acknowledge their concern and offer warmer wishes regardless.  This of course gets the cynic all fired up to counter “why stir the coals?“.

Interesting, how the unexpected conflict can throw our own soul-searching into clarity and help us redefine ourselves, or at least highlight the efforts of our hearts.

Any thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

(Advice on how to deal is not necessarily requested, more-so I’m after the musing on how such an incident would make you ponder things/people/Life)

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Well, I am shifting my schedule at work, to one which brings me no real joy, other than that of continued employment.   This is one reason I hadn’t blogged yet this week, and most likely will be a bit light on the ‘daily post’ challenge I made myself earlier in the month, until I get my sleep patterns coordinated again.   4am-noon is a horrible timeframe to be awake, which leaves me two chunks of 4 hours by which to get my regular dream-time accomplished. To whit: before kid gets home from school, and after he is asleep before I go to work, since I want to have some awake-time with him in the afternoons.  Wish me luck!

This somewhat foul-mood-towards-corporate-employment made the most recent XKCD comic (hotlinked below) strike a cynical nerve, and rings all too true for me. Enjoy!

However, in other news, I read this article on TreeHugger blog, about an artist who visited both the ‘dirtiest’ most polluted city in the world, and one of the cleanest/purist.   The observation that stood out to me is how people there lived.  Interesting read -> right here.

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**edit: still  trying to fix formatting. Blog exploded again.  Must be a weekend thing….

I have been reading an interesting book, which I referenced in a prior post, called “Dies the Fire“, which describes a post-apocolyptic world where humanity is struggling to survive after an Event causes technology to fail.

After finishing the first book in the series, I vividly recalled the poem by Robert Frost, pertaining to the end of the world.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Now, the physisist in me always reads this and thinks the poem relates to how the universe will end, either collapsing upon itself in a reverse Big-Bang, or expanding forever into a cold infinity.

Then, I realize that in speaking of desire and hate, perhaps it relates to how the earth itself will end for us.  Either in the cold calamity of a Nuclear Winter, or some unknown firey ending that has to do with passions overwhelming rationality?

Yet, then beyond these things, the Druid in me realizes that the poem itself is slightly flawed.  The world will not really end, not really.

It may be absorbed into the churning inferno of our star, which may in turn collapse within the Universe itself, or we may explode it with a Doomsday Device, but it will not end.  No more than the leaves that fall on the ground each autumn are gone.   They merely transform and rejoin the bio-stream as compost and creature.

A wise man once said, “We are all Star Stuff”, and I agree.  To stardust we will all return, and when the stars fade, we’ll still be Universe-stuff.   We just might not recognize it as ourselves.

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No deep musing today, as I am recovering from night-shift-day-shift-night-shift schedule this week at work, but I wanted to mention a cute inspiring comment I heard this morning.

I’ve been reading ‘Dies the Fire‘ recently and was briefly explaining “The Change” that happens at the start of the novel. This Change is a plot device essentially causing electricity and gunpowder to stop functioning, leading to a return to a bronze-age level of technology.

This morning, as I drove my son to school, he started excitedly telling me that some Changes use a different magic, and cars still work.

I was a bit confused, since he was “asleep” when my wife and I were talking, but he followed with this observation:

“The melting frost on the car window is going UP, and the sky’s all white instead of blue! I wonder what else can magic change?!”

His eyes were shining and a grin brightened his face. I had to simply look outside and smile, with a slight awe-tingle on my neck as well.

Aren’t kids amazing?

What can’t magic, and the hope that drives it, change?!!
So mote it be.

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