2009.10.14 19:00 - Honeymoon

The Guardian for this meeting was stevenaia Michinaga. The comments are by stevenaia Michinaga.

  I was joined by Pila Mulligan and Paradise Tennant. Eventually Storm joined us for a lovely meeting discussing a variety of topics (in no particular order), seems you can touch on alot in an hour

Meditation

Being

Homeymoons

Duality 

Notion of the ordinary

past and non-past

Tao Te Ching

Tolkien

Streaming audio in SL

Pila Mulligan: hi Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Pila
Pila Mulligan: how are you?
stevenaia Michinaga: I;m good, office mate may ahve the flu
Pila Mulligan: ahh, getting into the season, isn't it
stevenaia Michinaga: had an interesting one on one chat with Eos last ight, sort of directed 90 sec of meditation...
Pila Mulligan: this Chinese herbal pill actually works well for flu and cold symptoms -- http://onsaninc.com/index.php?act=vi...d&productId=56
stevenaia Michinaga: I work better as a sous cheif when it comes to meditation
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Pila Mulligan: I know nothing about the store, just got the product from Google
Pila Mulligan: I've stocked up on it in anticpation of providing it to freinds during flu season
Pila Mulligan: I get from a plac ein Oakland
Pila Mulligan: now, sous chef?
stevenaia Michinaga: I mean takign the lead from a meditation chief, mixed metaphor I;m sure
stevenaia Michinaga: I was trying to elude to how I senced things fro me when Eos was giving suggestions on what to meditatte on
Pila Mulligan: do you meditate?
Pila Mulligan: aside from tai chi
stevenaia Michinaga: last night... for 90 secs :)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: but as a practice?
stevenaia Michinaga: no, althoigh I seem to be in a meditative state when I work at times
Pila Mulligan: porbably you are -- and also during tai chi
stevenaia Michinaga: I call it drawing or design meditation
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: or cobbler meditation for those making shoes
Pila Mulligan: it is similar
stevenaia Michinaga: yes
Pila Mulligan: a contemplative state of awareness
stevenaia Michinaga: focused and internally consumed yet free and creative
Pila Mulligan: and also breathing :)
Pila Mulligan: a familiar situation
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, and happy
Pila Mulligan: this all leads to internal silence
stevenaia Michinaga: when you it at a desk and the world is before you, it could be a pillow in a field ar a pavillion
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: Gandhi encouraged his followers to spin cotton, both as a meditation and for the reuslting cloth
Pila Mulligan: http://cleantechnica.com/files/2008/09/image.jpg
stevenaia Michinaga: seems it's unusual for most when work isn;t "the place to be"
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: maybe that corresponds to the culutral implications of the question 'what do you do?' -- almost always expecting the answer to be an occupation
stevenaia Michinaga: do you meditat on a schedule?
Pila Mulligan: yes, daily -- usually at 4 am if I can
Pila Mulligan: hi Eos
stevenaia Michinaga: before you sleep or after you wake?
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Eos
Eos Amaterasu: Hi gang
Pila Mulligan: both
stevenaia Michinaga: I enjoyed last night
Pila Mulligan: 4 am is waking :)
stevenaia Michinaga: Interesting that Pema needs 6 hours of sleep but rests for 8 allowing for a gcreative 2 hour moment of rest, as I understand what he said
Pila Mulligan: yes, I also found that interesting -- good idea, but his travels myust challenge the plan sometimes
Pila Mulligan: hi Paradise
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like restful productivity
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Para
stevenaia Michinaga: yes
Paradise Tennant: hiya pila steve eos :)
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Paradise
Eos Amaterasu: Where does he say that?
stevenaia Michinaga: read it soemwhere, email perhaps
stevenaia Michinaga: or a posting
Eos Amaterasu: Being has a resting state
stevenaia Michinaga: or ...resting has a Being state
Eos Amaterasu: resting is not just empty
Eos Amaterasu: it's full
Pila Mulligan: people often seem to overlook how much time they spednin mundane time
Pila Mulligan: just chillin
Pila Mulligan: the more exciting things get more attention
Pila Mulligan: but less actual time, usually
Paradise Tennant: hmm rest is kind of necessary to balance ..when in gets out of wack ..nothing really works well :)
Paradise Tennant: *it
Eos Amaterasu: maybe it's like a mother's attention - watchful care, maybe nothin' happening
Eos Amaterasu: but still sense of life
Pila Mulligan: the Chinese seem to recognize a mundane constant, a kind of baseline of the ordinary that really defines most of a person's life
Pila Mulligan: I beleive I have read there is actually a word for it
Eos Amaterasu: not all life is woo-ing and wei-ling
Paradise Tennant: ;)
Pila Mulligan: lots of wooing among adolescents perhaps
Paradise Tennant: just like the sound of those words !
stevenaia Michinaga: lol
Eos Amaterasu: there is the notion of the ordinary
Eos Amaterasu: what's already there
Eos Amaterasu: all the time
Eos Amaterasu: but we speed by
Eos Amaterasu: Would anyone like to suggest a way to approach the next 90 secs?
Eos Amaterasu: (heh heh)
stevenaia Michinaga: hmm, "http://www.arch.columbia.edu/tags/-ordinary
Pila Mulligan: as ordinary?
stevenaia Michinaga: found it when googling "notion of the ordinary"
stevenaia Michinaga: thought there wold be a wiki page on it...grins
Pila Mulligan: :)
Paradise Tennant: hmm .. somehow ordinary is a misnomer .. in the most basic thing is on some level quite amazing .. quite worthy of attention..
Paradise Tennant: *even
Eos Amaterasu: extra-ordinary
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: yes, that is a perspective matter
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, I agree Paradise
Pila Mulligan: hi Storm
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Storm
Pila Mulligan: welceom to the 90 sec pause :)
Paradise Tennant: hiya storm ;)
Storm Nordwind smiles to everyone
Eos Amaterasu: <^_^>
Paradise Tennant: we are talking of the ordinary and the extra ordinary :)
stevenaia Michinaga: Nice to see you at this hour Storm
Paradise Tennant: :)
Pila Mulligan: this hour is now a little earlier for Storm than earlier this year
Storm Nordwind: Yes this is an extraordinary hour for me
Storm Nordwind: It is only 8:30pm since I emigrated
Paradise Tennant: ;)
Paradise Tennant: how do you like your new country :) your new hour :)
stevenaia Michinaga: I;ve ben drinking my scotch with water, you (and others) helped me with that
Pila Mulligan: later, actually i suppose, as it is early moring in Scotland
Storm Nordwind shudders at the thought of adding anything to a good single malt
Pila Mulligan: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: that will come next
Storm Nordwind: My country is wonderful, the mountain air is rarified, the city is great, and newly married life is blissful!
Paradise Tennant: ;) lovely
Pila Mulligan: sound slike a honeymoon :)
Eos Amaterasu: extra-ordinary!
Paradise Tennant: ;)
Pila Mulligan: may it last forever
Storm Nordwind: I have a feeling this will be a honeymoon that will never end :)
Storm Nordwind: Thank you Pila
Pila Mulligan: amen
Pila Mulligan: or perhaps aye, to be secular
stevenaia Michinaga: it;s something very easy to keep, speaking form 30 years of honeymoon
Pila Mulligan: :)
Storm Nordwind: Or och aye to be a throwback to my old home
stevenaia Michinaga: or is that honey dew?
Paradise Tennant: ;)
stevenaia Michinaga: either is sweet
Storm Nordwind: Does anyone know the (purported) origin of the word 'honeymoon'?
Storm Nordwind: I guess the silence means 'no'!
Eos Amaterasu: "the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest" (1546).
stevenaia Michinaga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeymoon
Pila Mulligan: The Oxford English Dictionary offers no etymology, but gives examples dating back to the 16th century. The Merriam-Webster dictionary reports the etymology as from "the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest"
Eos Amaterasu: - wikipedia
Paradise Tennant: ;0 is sure steve is wiki ing
Pila Mulligan: a ggole race :)
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: "the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest" (1546)
Eos Amaterasu: freshness
Eos Amaterasu: dew drop essence
Eos Amaterasu: mist rising from the pool
Eos Amaterasu: 9 secs
Pila Mulligan: In many parts of Europe it was traditional to supply a newly married couple with enough mead for a month, ensuring happiness and fertility. From this practice we get honeymoon or, as the French say, lune de miel.
Storm Nordwind: No one knows for sure, but one theory stems from Heathen and early Christian times in northern Europe
Storm Nordwind: Yes you have it Pila
Storm Nordwind: mead is fermented honey
Pila Mulligan: wiki gets credit :)
Storm Nordwind: About 15% abv
stevenaia Michinaga: it;s a short page
Eos Amaterasu: you get to the essence in the first month
Eos Amaterasu: the rest of your life you catch up
stevenaia Michinaga: and it lasts a lifetime
Pila Mulligan: Storm, did many traditional European culutres have dulaities comparable to yin and tang?
Eos Amaterasu: "starting at the end"
Pila Mulligan: yang
Pila Mulligan: pardon the typo :)
Eos Amaterasu: it's a good one!
Storm Nordwind: hmm...
Storm Nordwind: I'm a little tired and could be missing something, but I don't recall anything beyond male and female
Storm Nordwind: and light and dark
Pila Mulligan: Hawaiians had similar ideas charaterized as Ku and Hina
Pila Mulligan: I've thought the naqual and tonal in the Don Juan books were also similar
Pila Mulligan: just wondered about the European angle
Storm Nordwind: I think that is a far more recent confection :)
Pila Mulligan: yes, but the concepts are probably consistsent with some native american ideas too
Pila Mulligan: the nagual at least
Storm Nordwind: Many ideas were very different in ancient Europe
Eos Amaterasu: Tolkien is pretty European
Paradise Tennant: ") often presented as intertwined forming a whole
Storm Nordwind: For example we did not have threefold time, but twofold, and it was unexpectedly different
Storm Nordwind: It was past and non-past
stevenaia Michinaga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagual
stevenaia Michinaga: We?
Storm Nordwind: People saw the future as an opportunity to create a past they could look back on
Pila Mulligan: :)
Storm Nordwind: We as in north Europeans
Pila Mulligan: did Tolkien have a duality scheme, Paradise -- I don't rememeber
Eos Amaterasu: That sounds about right :-)
Eos Amaterasu: Mordor
Eos Amaterasu: lots of dulities
Pila Mulligan: darkness
Eos Amaterasu: dualities
Eos Amaterasu: Balrog
Eos Amaterasu: Gandalf the Grey => Gandalf the White
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: Hawaiians have different possessives for everything you have at the tme you are born and everything you have thereafter
Storm Nordwind: The closest to north European cultural ideals in LOTR are the Roharrim
Storm Nordwind: *Rohirrim
Paradise Tennant: yes the good bad .. light dark .. beast ..beauty .. weak strong .. it was full of duality
Eos Amaterasu: most knight-like?
Storm Nordwind: Ah but a lot is missing in his works
Storm Nordwind: Where is the spirituality beyond the fey-folk?
Pila Mulligan: only in the darkness as evil, perhaps
Paradise Tennant: it was in the quest it self
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Pila Mulligan: Hobbit Virtue :)
Paradise Tennant: the desire for the well being of all :)
Eos Amaterasu: there and back again
Storm Nordwind: Ethics, perhaps, without the need for spirit as such
Pila Mulligan: yep
Paradise Tennant: well ethics is the path to spirit .. not the only path .not even always a well trod path .. but .. a path nonetheless
Pila Mulligan: ethics is also a symptom fo approachng spirit
Storm Nordwind: I would possibly say "a" path rather than "the" path, but I take your point Paradise
Eos Amaterasu: Hmm.. that scene where Frodo and Bilbo are on the Morder border, despairing, and they see a star peeking through.... their spirits lift, they see through the clouds
Pila Mulligan: seeing beyond one's self
Eos Amaterasu: connection with light
Paradise Tennant: connection with a team .. it was quite a team
Paradise Tennant: of species.. temperments
Paradise Tennant: skills
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like what I see here
Pila Mulligan: let's not go looking for rings in the fountain then
stevenaia Michinaga: lifting the spirit
Storm Nordwind imagines Sam trying to do 9 second practice
Pila Mulligan: :)
Eos Amaterasu: imagines Gollum
Storm Nordwind: o_O!
Eos Amaterasu: (in the fountain)
Paradise Tennant: sam would be great at it
Paradise Tennant: a lesson in attachment
Paradise Tennant: gollum
stevenaia Michinaga: and letting go
Paradise Tennant: yes
Storm Nordwind: I can imagine Meri and Pippin as guardians!
Pila Mulligan: precious things lead astray
Pila Mulligan: VErse 12, Tao Te Ching

Twelve The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear. 
The five flavors dull the taste. 
Racing and hunting madden the mind. 
Precious things lead one astray. 
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. 
He lets go of that and chooses this.

Eos Amaterasu: What does the sage feel?
Pila Mulligan thinks Gollum calling for 'my precious'
Pila Mulligan: depends
Pila Mulligan: this, per the verse :)
Eos Amaterasu: this = being
Pila Mulligan: could be
Eos Amaterasu: it's not "this and that"
Paradise Tennant: ;)
Paradise Tennant: there is I think .. a rich .. understanding of reality in tolkien's story
Paradise Tennant: it took him 20 years to write it but he distill a great deal of life into it :)
Eos Amaterasu: and of finding reality in the story, and giving it reality through language, playing with that
Pila Mulligan: the context is also important, as I beleive he wrote stories for his son while his son was in WWII
Storm Nordwind: I must have thought so once too, as I must have read it many many times in the past
Eos Amaterasu: he started way before WWII
Paradise Tennant: me too .. use to read it every year for a long time
Pila Mulligan: I've enjoyed them all at least half a dozen times, they consistently make good reading
Eos Amaterasu: Read it to each of our kids
Storm Nordwind: I alywas started in the middle (always from the same place), read to the end, and then from the start to the middle
Paradise Tennant: curled up ..immersed in another world
Eos Amaterasu: then they read it - multiple times
Pila Mulligan: interesting approach Storm, why?
Paradise Tennant: lovely thing to be able to share with your kids.. a wonderous story :)
Storm Nordwind: Because what perks my interest was to read about a favourite character
Eos Amaterasu: great language
Eos Amaterasu: language makes alive
Pila Mulligan: :)
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: turning into pumpkin time.... good night, all!
Paradise Tennant: yes getting late .. nite nite Eos :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night Eos
Storm Nordwind waves
Eos Amaterasu: ciao ciao!
stevenaia Michinaga: I must be off too
Storm Nordwind: Bye Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: a lovely evening
stevenaia Michinaga: thank you
Paradise Tennant: nite nite steve :)
stevenaia Michinaga: do the pillows reset themselves Storm?
Storm Nordwind: Yes they do
Pila Mulligan: bye Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Storm Nordwind: When all have gone
Pila Mulligan: bye Eos
stevenaia Michinaga: wish my LR wold do that
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Paradise Tennant: :)
Pila Mulligan: well, Storm, I met breifly with Fox, Arabella and Mick about our common area and the idea that emerged was a zen garden
Paradise Tennant: would you like to do a quick mediation pila before we call it a night ?
Pila Mulligan: sue Paradise
Pila Mulligan: sure*
Paradise Tennant: sorry did not mean to interrupt
Pila Mulligan: maybe evena slow one :)
Pila Mulligan: np :)
Storm Nordwind: Lovely idea about the garden
Pila Mulligan: yep, now to figure out how to realize it :)
Storm Nordwind: You mean rocks and swirly sand?
Paradise Tennant: while we are on question storm .is it possible to hook up a land radio to the urls on the plots?
Pila Mulligan: I seem to recall someone saying 'ask Storm for help' :)
Storm Nordwind: Yes Paradise, if you have a URL just IM it to me. It depends though if you want to keep changing it or keep it static
Pila Mulligan: ah, nice -- I'd meant to find an appropriate music URL also
Pila Mulligan: forgot
Storm Nordwind: I think I have ambient something or other on mine!
Paradise Tennant: could just keep it static if it is easier
Storm Nordwind: That's fine. I can do it now if you wish
Pila Mulligan: is it difficlut to do Storm?
Paradise Tennant: okies one sec
Storm Nordwind: Very easy if it's static
Storm Nordwind: One moment
Pila Mulligan: maybe you can tell me how so when I find one I can do it
Pila Mulligan: please
Pila Mulligan: Storm may have gone to find you