Retreat from Noise

The experience of a hour or so in a floatation tank gives one a perspective on being, existence and noise in our urban din. One hears the rush of sound of the internals of being: the heart beating and flow of blood, the measured breathing, and other mentally-derived orderings of the chaos of thought and bio-electro-chemical activity. The tragedy of modern planning and it's soul-crushing barrage of meaningless trips for entertainment services and socio-economic enslavement duties fills our pathological desertified intellectual and spiritual landscapes. If one could massively restructure our daily routines, what might be the new goals and where would we end up? How far can one detach from the modern infrastructure of interdependent commodified subsistence living?

A First Experience in the Floatation Tank

After a description of the experience and techniques for dealing with the basic physical setup, I was left alone to float in the tank. It is virtually dark black inside and completely silent, with about 18 inches of very saline water at body temperature. The air is also body temperature, creating a dissolution of boundaries. My body was floating easily and I experimented as suggested with several variations in position of my arms, palms up/arms down, palms down/arms down, palms up/arms up, folding my hands behind my head, crossing my wrists behind my head. I found that my neck needed some support, but I might have been uncomfortable in my neck and shoulders from the unusual floating position after habitually bad slouch poster developed from the poor ergonomics of using laptop computers with the screen too low. I gradually found the positions to eliminate the discomfort. I was able to float in my local universe with no significant disturbance and ponder my inner landscape. I of course could not really get very far because I had all kinds of preconceptions about who I was and what I was doing there. Thoughts of my lover come to me frequently as she is away and I'm floating in this space without her guidance and love. I think of my physical being floating in the water, in the hillside of a forest on a continent on a planet in a solar system in a galaxy and so and and so forth, and I think about my body, and the organs within that make my mobility such that it is as a terrestrial primate, and this web page is part of my exoskeleton or superstructure of my being.

The goal of the floatation tank experience seems to be to eliminate sensory input, in other words, sensory deprivation. Once sensory input is minimized, one can observe the actions of the mind, as in meditation. Catalog the types of thoughts, and one will see the results of inputs, stimuli from the recent routines and experiences. I found myself somewhat bored with myself, perhaps because I expected something extraordinary, but found myself with a stream of mundane thoughts. I was in the tank 1-1.5 hours, but didn't reach the critical point of exhausting the supply of typical thoughts. I do spend a lot of time reading international news on the web everyday, and dealing with a lot of practical issues on myriad projects. I am generally one who does not remember sleeping dreams these days; I have not developed a habit of documenting my dreams, so I think that may have something to do with my current thought patterns.

Transportation Waste

Woke up one morning to catch a bus back home. Waiting by the bus stop I counted over 200 cars passing by with only a driver, and an average of 3 empty seats. This is an extreme underutilization of transportation capability, and a waste of 75% of the fuel. Many large vehicles, 'sport utility vehicles' as named by the marketing departments of the dominant earth-destroying transportation cartels.

Caught the 15 bus at 10:15am. Talked to a musician from Mill Valley on the bus. Tuma? is a Tibetan Buddhist technique of controlling body heat. He recommended this for people living in cold areas when the oil runs out. We talked a lot about growing vegetables in the micro-climates of the San Francisco Bay Area. Tomatos don't do well in the fog. Lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower don't mind a bit of clouds and fog. Corn needs full sun.

Conversation about existense and realization of potential.

Faustin talks about infinite inflation, and how could visual displays help people understand reality? If you look at all the different ways spheres and bubbles form and the dynamics of surface and the edges of the space, the tensor, Buckminster Fuller, Arthur Young, cosmologies coming into being, so inclusivity is more useful than exclusivity. Quantum packates can aggregate into greater bodies of knowledge, each person is in the middle of their universe, each person can only think out as far as they can think inward. Computers allow us to hold only lots of information in networks. Yoga keeps the body and the brain and the ethereal in tune with potential and health, full realization of being in universe.

Where does one put there attention when the video camera is the primary device of communication? We can include the resources of animation, text, graphic diagrams, complex mathematical and topological constructs of mind, and interpretations of reality.

Is it a mistake to associate the color green with photosynthesis? Perhaps that is too limiting. The components of life, shiva and shakti energy united, include all colors and forms of reality.

Perhaps the words that flow here are like energy particles flowing through the sap of a plant, nourishing the consciousness at either end,

Synergized, tell me something interesting.

People's Park Gardens

Mints are blooming, chocolate mint, peppermints. Strawberries, blackberries, clary sage blossom nectar said to be powerful, sweet, be careful. A strange tasting leaf near the tule grasses, said to be enjoyed in Vietnamese cuisine. So much to tell... built some catches to slow water flow and prevent erosion. Watered many old dry areas to keep down the dust. The datura and other scrub in the northwest corner was all clear cut to bare dirt, so now is covered with straw mulch to keep the moisture. Studied the intense blue geometry of the cardoon blossom at dusk, wondering what bee, bug or bird likes that particular flower. The cardoon is a relative of the artichoke. The young leaves are said to be edible, fried in butter. Pasta pesto at Cafe Mediterraneum with fresh rosemary and green beans, picked today from plants I grew from seed that I collected two years ago from the beans I planted in Erica's yard. I am water man, but still have a lot to learn about efficient use and protection of the soils from sun and erosion.