2009.06.14 13:00 - A few friends talking

The Guardian for this meeting was Maxine Walden. The comments are by Maxine Walden.

We had a very nice conversation with a few PaBers: Pila, Ari, Nymf, a newbie who disappeared when asked if he minded being included in the log, and me.  Topics ranged from the weather, to native healers and traditions involving the notions of breath and breathing in various cultural contexts.  Perhaps especially we thought about the Aloha spirit, as Pila described to us, and he spoke of his thoughts about native healers. And toward the end of our talk we thought about authority, authoritarianism and the hatred of the new.  The newbie came just after I left and so, and I moreless deleted the conversation involving him which had to do with introductions to PaB. 

Maxine Walden: hi, Pila
Pila Mulligan: hi Maxine
Maxine Walden: nice to see you
Pila Mulligan: yes, nice to see you also, how are you?
Maxine Walden: I'm well, thanks, yourself?
Pila Mulligan: fine thanks
Maxine Walden: good, how's the weather where you are? Has been warm but today marine overcast here
Pila Mulligan: it is overcast here after several really beautiful days -- summer almost is upon us
Maxine Walden: do you like summertime in Hawaii?
Pila Mulligan: yesterday was an excellent lawn mowing day :)
Pila Mulligan: yes, since I am 2300' up on a mountain it does not get really hot here
Maxine Walden: ah...wonderful!
Pila Mulligan: but some summer days in town, at sea level, are better spent at a beach than shopping
Pila Mulligan: hot :)
Maxine Walden: yes, can imagine, hot and humid perhaps. it is getting that way some days here in Seattle as well during summertimes
Pila Mulligan: usually the trade winds keep things comfortable, but some days we have what are called Kona winds (from the south) and some days calm winds and those days can get humid
Maxine Walden: I see, yes trade winds must be important for overall moderation of the climate...the Pacific currents are so important here, think it is the Japanese current that moderates our state
Pila Mulligan: yep -- the ocean currents and the prevailing winds seem to be quite important
Maxine Walden: right...wondering if we are talking in metaphor about winds and currents and moderating forces...not sure but sometimes underlying topics can be not far away...
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: as in, could these phenomena be the collective unconscious of weather and culture :)
Maxine Walden: something like that...:)
Pila Mulligan: well, it is evident to me that the climate here is part of the culture -- warm and welcoming
Maxine Walden: that is interesting, the impact of climate/weather upon culture...as if mother earth is very influencing, inviting us to do as she does for us
Pila Mulligan: my understanding is that in pre-contact Hawaii (before Capt Cook) the population was about 1 million, as it is today, and the general population's necessary work was done by the end of the morning
Pila Mulligan: fishing, famring, etc all done in a few hours each day
Maxine Walden: so lots of time for leisure and development of the arts as it were?
Maxine Walden: of just enjoying the surroundings
Pila Mulligan: yes, so arts and dance and sports thrived
Pila Mulligan: hula, weaving and surfing for example
Pila Mulligan: and singing -- oh wha tsinging :)
Maxine Walden: were people kind to one another, or was tribalizm an issue as has been nearly everywhere?
Pila Mulligan: there was a genuine aloha spirit -- the conflicts were generally among the chiefs or ali`i, as I understand it, and theirs could get fierce
Pila Mulligan: the best infromation I've gained says that before the Tahitian system of chiefs was established here, Hawai`i had a social organization based on extended families, or ohana, and that it was the most peaceful of the several documented layers of social systems
Maxine Walden: very interesting...
Pila Mulligan: yes, even today there are lingering contentions between those whose ancestors held the ohana system and those of the ali`i class
Maxine Walden: ah...but maybe the welcoming climate invites a softening of those ancient differences? Or maybe not
Pila Mulligan: I think so -- the overall sense of commnity seems permeated with aloha
Maxine Walden: and aloha means...welcome?
Pila Mulligan: aloha means love, welcome, hello, goodbye ...
Pila Mulligan: the best etymology I've seen says it is composed of the words for share (alo) and breath (ha) :)
Maxine Walden: the greetings that cover salutations...sharing of breath of a sort...nice
Pila Mulligan: isn't it :)
Pila Mulligan: hence the polynesian greeting of touching foreheads and noses and breathing gently together
Maxine Walden: wonderful, reminds me of 'inspiring' which of course comes from 'inspirer" (sp?) to breath in
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: breath is the most important personal thiing
Maxine Walden: and trade winds, winds as the breath we all share...
Pila Mulligan: yep
Maxine Walden: you have more thoughts about breath/breathing as the most important thing?
Pila Mulligan: Hawaiian traditions are full of what we amy call magic, also -- including the art of setting borken bones so that they heal completely in a few days
Pila Mulligan: most of these invovle some aspect of ha or breath
Maxine Walden: oh, really, ahh...
Pila Mulligan: part of it is that the healer breaths through the skin and flesh tot he bone
Pila Mulligan: to cleanse it so it will heal
Maxine Walden: very interesting
Pila Mulligan: I saw this in a dreamone night actually
Pila Mulligan: a Hawaiian healer did it to me in a dream :)
Maxine Walden: what did the healer do in the dream?
Pila Mulligan: I was laying down and she was sitting beside me ... she would reach into my thigh for example and pull out the thigh bone ... whole, just as a bone
Pila Mulligan: then she would hold it up and I could see it had a few dark smudges on it
Pila Mulligan: she would wipe the bone with a cloth and then breath on it so it was clean, then put it back in my thigh
Pila Mulligan: she did this for several bones
Pila Mulligan: and when I awoke I felt remarkbely refreshed :)
Maxine Walden: powerful imagery
Pila Mulligan: yes, it was
Maxine Walden: did you feel refreshed from the inside, as it were?
Pila Mulligan: indeed :)
Maxine Walden: had you been feeling ill or poorly before this dream?
Pila Mulligan: hi Ari :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Ari, nice to see you
Arisia Vita: Hi Maxine and Pila
Arisia Vita: nice to see you both
Pila Mulligan: no, Maxine, I think I may have been tired from overwok, but not particularly ill -- the healer was a Hawaiian woman I had been working with on some leghal issues
Pila Mulligan: legal*
Maxine Walden: we are talking about the healing breath of Hawaiian healers
Maxine Walden: ah...
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: or ha as they say (breath) :)
Arisia Vita: breath?
Pila Mulligan: yep
Arisia Vita: they blow on you?
Pila Mulligan: gently
Pila Mulligan: more like a sigh
Pila Mulligan: it is like what the Japanese call ki and the Indians call prana and Chinese call chi :)
Pila Mulligan: a common denominator in old traditions
Arisia Vita: what are words but controlled breath? and words have the power to heal
Pila Mulligan: yep, thus also :)
Pila Mulligan: now, Ari, here is my theory: breath contains photons
Pila Mulligan: this relates back to the physics topic we touched last week
Maxine Walden: I was just thinking that...
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: all of these old traditions associate breath andlight
Arisia Vita: breath contains light?
Pila Mulligan: so they say
Pila Mulligan: our breath energy of course has vital oxygen, but to the ancients it also had light
Arisia Vita: it is true, for a breath is warm, and warmth can be sensed as infrared radiation
Pila Mulligan: and that was the nature of the circulating energy in the body
Pila Mulligan: yes
Arisia Vita: I work with infrared sensors
Maxine Walden: yes, Ari?
Pila Mulligan: aloha Nymf
Nymf Hathaway: Good day everyone, thank you Pila :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Nymf, how nice of you to drop in
Arisia Vita: Nym....what a delight to see you
Pila Mulligan: please join our discussion of breath energy
Pila Mulligan: etc. :)
Pila Mulligan: I love the idea of ocrrrelating ancient ideas with scinece
Pila Mulligan: oxygen in breath with the idea of light, etc
Maxine Walden: hmm, it is intriguing, mixing some intuitions in with more scientific ideas
Maxine Walden: or ancient science with more current science
Pila Mulligan: for example, just recently it dawned on me that trying to find answers to old philosphy in the brain is looking in the wrong place, as the yoga based theories related more to the spine
Pila Mulligan: but if we compare the autonomic nervous sytem with chakras, there are soe coreelations
Nymf Hathaway: well ancient and current met at Cambridge where a professor concluded Socrates was rightfully accused to the hemlock.... odd conclusion :(
Pila Mulligan: subversive old Socrates?
Pila Mulligan: some people will say anyhting :)
Nymf Hathaway: 2009
Nymf Hathaway: unbelieveble
Maxine Walden: important toget a sense of the perspectives being used...but what is this about Socrates?
Nymf Hathaway: well read it online a Cambridge prof did a research and according to Athens law he was rightfully accused
Nymf Hathaway: pfff
Maxine Walden: he was a threat to the state? or something like that? Realize you are not agreeing, Nymph, just trying to see what the Cambridge prof is trying to say
Nymf Hathaway: yes
Nymf Hathaway: because he didn't acknowledge the athens gods
Maxine Walden: reminds me of the authoritarian fear of the new idea...
Maxine Walden: ah,, yes, undermining the 'authority' of the gods
Nymf Hathaway: :)
Nymf Hathaway: we should kill a lot of people nowadays
Pila Mulligan: so i guess that closes any hope of appeal the old fellow amy I have had -- until the next professor, at least
Nymf Hathaway: Smiles at Pila :)
Pila Mulligan: "we should kill a lot of people nowadays" sound sun-Nymfian, could there be an mistype?
Pila Mulligan: un-Nymfian
Nymf Hathaway: a joke Pila, you know me :) but it just doesn't sound as a good enough reason to me to shut up a great thinker... as far as we know the first who did discussions in public
Pila Mulligan: :)
Maxine Walden: and that may be the issue, Nymf, that authoritarianism hates public discussion, hates openness to new ideas and questioning
Nymf Hathaway: sure
Nymf Hathaway: look at china...or iran
Maxine Walden: precisely!
Maxine Walden: wondering how those regimes will fare with so much openness (internet, cell phones, eager young people)
Pila Mulligan: the first truly radical thing Bush did was to exclude protestors from his presence in public places
Nymf Hathaway: it only shows weakness in a person
Maxine Walden: ah...his fear/hatred of protest perhaps; agree with Nymf
Pila Mulligan: this was when they first made what they called 1st amendment zones -- little cages half a mile from the place where Bush was
Arisia Vita: the regimes may try to fight change, to hold on to their old ways, but it will be like trying to a wave upon the sand...
Arisia Vita: to keep
Maxine Walden: agree, Ari.
Maxine Walden: It seems that the mind which cannot really think, but is tied to traditions of 'how it must be' may be what those with authoritarian bents are lumbered with
Nymf Hathaway: sounds plausible Maxine
Pila Mulligan: that and plain old self-absorbed greed :)
Nymf Hathaway: :)
Maxine Walden: exactly, Pila, greed is big there
Maxine Walden: greed and narcissism, perhaps, ie the world must agree with my view
Maxine Walden: I have to go in a minutes, another meeting. Nice conversation. I will post the chatlog...
Nymf Hathaway: hmm maybe thats also due to the fact that for over the last 100 years the usa was powerful...they forgot there is a world outside the usa
Arisia Vita: be well and happy Maxine...
Maxine Walden: might be Nymf...
Nymf Hathaway: wishing you a friendly evening Maxine
Pila Mulligan: bye Maxine
Pila Mulligan: nice to see you as always
Maxine Walden: thanks Ari, and best wishes as well all around.
Maxine Walden: see you all soon I hope
Pila Mulligan: nice outfit Ari :)
Pila Mulligan: are you going also now?
Nymf Hathaway: still 4 minutes left :)
Arisia Vita: ok, I'll stay...
Nymf Hathaway: Only if you like
Arisia Vita: I like... :)
Nymf Hathaway: :)
Arisia Vita: with two such friends as you
Nymf Hathaway: yes feeling the same
Pila Mulligan: the outfit reminds me of Charles Dickens :) what is it exactly?
Arisia Vita: I have no idea, Dickens works for me... :)
Nymf Hathaway: Smiles, it should :)
Nymf Hathaway: Itsme found a dvd for me...from http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-G.../9780716731443 this is a book but it originally is a series on tv
Nymf Hathaway: was a series
Pila Mulligan: what is it about?
Nymf Hathaway: hmmmm everything about life
Nymf Hathaway: Oliver Sacks is in it and Rupert Sheldrake, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Toulmin...in conversation with each other about life :)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Nymf Hathaway: smiles
Nymf Hathaway: This is why I didn't like newbis anymore...on the sims I got really tired of spending time with them :)
Pila Mulligan: his yes was ambiguous to me
Pila Mulligan: afew have arrived here and just picked tight up with it
Pila Mulligan: most don't thoough
Pila Mulligan: there is one of the newbie ports not far from here
Pila Mulligan: so as they wander they tend to pass by PaB
Nymf Hathaway: This is because newbies do not know what sl has to offer yet.... when they find things of their interest they are gone
Pila Mulligan: picked right up*
Pila Mulligan: :)
Nymf Hathaway: ah thats why
Pila Mulligan: and usually those interests are not here :)
Nymf Hathaway: indeed, dancing :)
Nymf Hathaway: we danced once Pila, remember?
Pila Mulligan: ah, yes, Nymf -- the good old daze :)
Nymf Hathaway: Really dancing I mean :)))
Pila Mulligan: hmm, in a dream?
Pila Mulligan: I was thinking SL :)
Nymf Hathaway: Trying to make our avi's look ugli and see the reactions of others :)
Arisia Vita: I will leave you two to your memories... :)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Arisia Vita: thanks for the chat
Pila Mulligan: bye Ari, it is not as intimate as it may sound :)
Nymf Hathaway: Have a good time Arisia :)
Arisia Vita: be well and happy...
Nymf Hathaway: Indeed :)
Arisia Vita: ok if it was
Pila Mulligan: aloha `oe
Arisia Vita: I don't judge... :)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Arisia Vita: cya...
Nymf Hathaway: was a fun project
Pila Mulligan: well, I do remmeber now that you mention it Nymf
Pila Mulligan: the ugly project
Nymf Hathaway: yes :)
Nymf Hathaway: and how true it was
Pila Mulligan: have oyu seent he dance script for here?
Nymf Hathaway: shocking really
Nymf Hathaway: no
Pila Mulligan: it is fun, as a group just a sec
Pila Mulligan: wear it :0
Pila Mulligan: onigokko
Nymf Hathaway: hahahhahahha
Pila Mulligan: stop
Nymf Hathaway: great :)
Pila Mulligan: you ought to see it with 10 people :)
Pila Mulligan: did oyu hear the music?
Nymf Hathaway: Yes funny :)
Pila Mulligan: it gives you avi a little tail, so I take it off between dances
Nymf Hathaway: Q is watching footage from Iran :( doesn't look good
Nymf Hathaway: yes I saw
Pila Mulligan: will they have more riots?
Nymf Hathaway: seems so...its harsh
Pila Mulligan: if they get very repressive it will get worse, probably
Nymf Hathaway: Iran is shutting down youtube but the footage is spredding of course
Nymf Hathaway: yes, poor people
Pila Mulligan: and it would not be beyond the CIA to stir things up there, also
Nymf Hathaway: I hope they do not...better let things work themzelfs out
Pila Mulligan: the question is what was the real vote, and I hope some day we can find out, but it may never be known
Nymf Hathaway: z=s
Pila Mulligan: z=s?
Pila Mulligan: oh, selfs :)
Nymf Hathaway: themzelfs must be themselfs
Nymf Hathaway: :)
Pila Mulligan: yes :)
Pila Mulligan: I thought it may be sicence :)
Nymf Hathaway: hahhahah
Pila Mulligan: zong = sebelzedts or popular uprising are a ntural thing in repressive regiemes
Nymf Hathaway: well people themselfs need to be wanting the change...we have seen Irak, that went wrong
Pila Mulligan: yes -- but as you know the CIA has a history of meddling in Iean, so even if they are not they are reasonably suspected
Nymf Hathaway: well the guy is a fanatic, meaning amedinejad or something like that
Pila Mulligan: yes, and I do not know much about his political opponent
Pila Mulligan: but it would seem to e better, hopefully
Nymf Hathaway: it is said he is more liberal, mostly students and higher educated people voted for him
Pila Mulligan: yes, I read that also -- urban vs rural
Nymf Hathaway: yes old politics versus new politics :)
Pila Mulligan: rural people came to town to rally for amed***
Nymf Hathaway: well the footage was horrifying
Pila Mulligan: I have not seent he videos -- police repression?
Pila Mulligan: or riots?
Nymf Hathaway: yes
Nymf Hathaway: heavy
Pila Mulligan: ah, well I'll take your word and not watch then
Nymf Hathaway: fights between police and people
Pila Mulligan: been there, done that :)
Nymf Hathaway: yes, everyday the same
Nymf Hathaway: I was here earlier today and we discussed our planet in the universe...nice discussion
Pila Mulligan: the cosmic view is a better prespective :)
Nymf Hathaway: yes :)
Pila Mulligan: well, Nymf, today is a domestic chore day here,laundry, clenaing and cooking (it is now11:30 am)
Pila Mulligan: so I will need to be going
Nymf Hathaway: Wishing you a beautiful day and see you soon, thanks for the TP :)
Nymf Hathaway: I will log off and go to bed :)
Pila Mulligan: thank you, and always fun to chat with you -- see you next tie
Pila Mulligan: aloha `oe
Nymf Hathaway: bye bye friend :)