Luca–Days Of The Week–Condensed

[Click here for the unabridged version]

Tuesday

Jon Kabat-Zinn says, ‘from the very beginning [of MBSR] … the idea was to transform the world.’ He wants to introduce ‘the full spectrum of the dharma. Mindfulness is just the start. Then there’s compassion…. JeanVanier 2 Jean Vanier, known for his compassion, the nourishment and love of others, writes that ‘to be nourished by the love of others is a call to become a nourishment for those who suffer and are alone in distress.’

• 2014-02-18–moose to the east, moose to the west on a park for all seasons (terra nova) and great canadian rivers (the stikine). brian cox tells of the wonder of life’s origins giving rise to ‘endless forms most beautiful’. all life can trace its lineage back to luca, the last universal common ancestor.

Wednesday

What is ‘transformational evolution‘? Physicist Eric Chaisson gives some examples: ‘Mountains sprouting in response to tectonic forces, fertilized eggs developing into mature adults, and normal stars swelling.’ However, ‘the second law of thermodynamics demands that as any system complexifies [for which he proposes ‘energy rate density’ as a measure] — even a human social system — its surroundings necessarily degrade.’ He notes that ‘technologists use an energy rate density … that is several times greater than that of traditional commercial society (perhaps, epitomized by astronaut-elites who individually enjoy energy shares … 500 times more than each of us actually consumes as food daily). Symbolized by the most heavily energy-using countries such as the United States, Canada, Bahrain, and Qatar, technological societies have distinctly higher [energy rate density] values than the average global citizen on Earth today or even than those living in the developed countries of Europe.’ He observes that natural selection likely pertains to physical and cultural events as well, whether for stars or humans.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says ‘that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow…, identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove.’ (thanks to bb)

• 2014-02-19–honey badgers are fast, smart, and fearless. meanwhile, joanna lumley continues down the nile.

Thursday

Richard Rohr knows ‘we have to leave the garden, so to speak. It is this movement out and back between the loneliness and desperation of the false self and the fullness of the True Self that is the process of transformation.’ Joseph Campbell (pictured) called this the hero’s journey, to leave (or fall) and return. Each of us is a hero. Each of us has left the womb, and that’s just the start of a lifelong journey. Rohr says these ‘are journeys away from the center, where we literally become “ec-centric” and off balance.’

• 2014-02-20–cb and i talked about mark’s good news. smashing the mould ended with andrei molodkin, who creates art with russian oil (such as ‘KI$$’, pictured). when we burn it in our cars, he reminds us, we burn hundreds of millions of years of history — not good news for us.

Friday

How old are you? ‘The galaxy, named Abell2744 Y1, was formed around 13.2 billion years ago when the universe was extremely young.’ — ‘Extremely young’? What’s a few hundred million years? Nevertheless, this is cool, whatever your age. (thanks to jwl)

Saturday

• 2014-02-22–reading about buddhist dharma, which ‘within a western context can be seen as an applied system of natural mental health and well-being.’ dharma contains the wisdom of buddhism. ‘One of the central tenets of Buddhism, is the denial of a separate permanent “I”, and is outlined in the three marks of existence’: suffering, change, and non-self.

we watched ‘that shouldn’t fly‘. afterwards, ‘coast‘ hopped across the channel to france.

Sunday

• 2014-02-23–up at seven to watch the men’s hockey game.

Monday

Cosmogony by Björk from Biophilia. Another song from Biophilia, Hollow, was inspired by her ancestors: ‘The grounds open below you and you can feel your mother and her mother, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother’–perhaps all the way back to Luca. (thanks to lb)