2012.06.05 19:00 - Venus in Transit

The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Eos Amaterasu: Venus transit in progress: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120605.html

Eos Amaterasu: the face of the sun
Eos Amaterasu: across it transits venus
Eos Amaterasu: sic transit gloria
 

Eos Amaterasu: framing: [  ]
 

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: [ ! ]
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Wol!
Eos Amaterasu: homage to venus in transit
Wol Euler: hello eos
Wol Euler: nice to be here, if extremely laggy
Eos Amaterasu: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120605.html
Eos Amaterasu: hmm
Wol Euler: I've been watching it on their live stream
Wol Euler: which is quite an amazing thing to be able to do, really
Eos Amaterasu: it's so weird, all our ideas about that black dot slowly crossing the golden orb
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: hello stevie
Eos Amaterasu: hi stevie
stevenaia Michinaga: waves, welcome to this hemisphere
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: thank you
Wol Euler: nice t be here
Eos Amaterasu: wol crossed the corpus callosum
Wol Euler: heheh
stevenaia Michinaga: I see you acclamated to the time already
Wol Euler: oh yes, going westwards is easy (for me)
Wol Euler: I get the jetlag going east
stevenaia Michinaga: nods
Eos Amaterasu: true, that direction is easier
Eos Amaterasu: (westwardsO)
Wol Euler: longer days seem easier to adjust to htan a short day
stevenaia Michinaga: try, no one wants to go to bed earlier
stevenaia Michinaga: true
Wol Euler chuckles.
stevenaia Michinaga: it was starangely empty here last night, no one here
Eos Amaterasu: hmm, yes, I saw the log
Wol Euler nods.

Eos Amaterasu: has there been any action on the memory topic (whenever two or more were gathered?)
Wol Euler: very odd for a 7pm to be unattended
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, I haven't scourered the logs yet
Wol Euler: not that I know of
Wol Euler: we might make a start?
Eos Amaterasu: for some reason that line from TS Eliot comes to mind: "mixing memory and desire"
Eos Amaterasu: (April is the cruelest month)
Wol Euler: ah yes
stevenaia Michinaga: ponders memory and time, which came first
Eos Amaterasu: maybe the memory rouses an energy, or the energy opens a memory
Wol Euler: no memory without time, surely
Eos Amaterasu: is there personal time without memory?
Wol Euler: I do not remember "now", I am in it
Wol Euler: which I guess is a way of saying that there's a difference between remembering and experiening
stevenaia Michinaga: doesn't experienceing create the memory
Eos Amaterasu: experiencing myself: am I more than all my rememberings?
Eos Amaterasu: what is it about experiencing that is so....?
stevenaia Michinaga: ....memorable
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: heh heh
Wol Euler: experience is usually multivalent, involving many senses
stevenaia Michinaga: + time
Eos Amaterasu: and motor tensions
Wol Euler: I can enjoy the aftertaste of hot chocolage i my mouth as I hear the humming of the laptop fan as I write this
Eos Amaterasu savors that
Wol Euler: but when I remember the taste of Beef Wellington I probably don't remember the feeling of the leather chair under my legs
Wol Euler: or whether my shoes pinched that day
Eos Amaterasu: the present tense experience
Eos Amaterasu: not a memory?
Wol Euler: not part of htat memory, though they would have been part of the experience (insofar as they existed at that time)
stevenaia Michinaga: I am always amazed how much I forget, yet so many other remember more of my past than I do sometimes, a nice way to re-experience yourself through the words of others

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: sometimes I think of how dreams just vanish
Eos Amaterasu: and this lifetimes, or parts of it, vanishing the same way
Wol Euler nods to Steve
Wol Euler: and to Eos :)
stevenaia Michinaga: nods to eos
stevenaia Michinaga: but when you write them down, the memories of dream stay clear
Wol Euler: do they, though, or do you remember what you wrote?
Wol Euler: I think personally that the act of writing falsifies to some extent, I remember thereafter waht I wrote down
stevenaia Michinaga: sometimes I ahve a hard time reading wht is scrawled at 3:00 am
Eos Amaterasu: the words can help bring some of it back
Eos Amaterasu: but soon it becomes memory of memory
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, but how can words possibly desctibe an entire dream
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: true
stevenaia Michinaga: not like a picture
Wol Euler: true
Eos Amaterasu: not even like machinima
stevenaia Michinaga: but hard to take a picture nof a dream
Wol Euler: writing about a dream turns its symbols into very specific pictures
Eos Amaterasu: emotional atmosphere may be hard to convey
stevenaia Michinaga: dream descriptions usually take longer to write than when you experiance the dream, like writing a movie script
Wol Euler nods.
Eos Amaterasu: one question may be how to be free of memory without having no memory
stevenaia Michinaga: dreams add an entirely new fleeting richess to memories, like smoke
Wol Euler: say more about "free of memory"?
Eos Amaterasu: one way to talk of it is as a kind of naive state (like sometimes we talk of children)
stevenaia Michinaga: how would you know if you don;t remember?
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: but sometimes you do!
Eos Amaterasu: but I think that naive idea is , naive
Eos Amaterasu: it's like Blake's innocence and experience
Eos Amaterasu: after a while if you cling to innocence, and don't give in to experience, you lose the innocence
stevenaia Michinaga: wouldn;t you loose the experience, not the innocence
Eos Amaterasu: so similarly clinging re idea of "no memory" as literally not thinking of anything past or present
Eos Amaterasu: innocence without experience becomes corrupt, I think
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Wol Euler: perhaps it means not being bound by memories, not being attached to them
Wol Euler: view them as experiences that flow through you
Eos Amaterasu: within you and without you
Eos Amaterasu: (gad, i can hear the sitars :-)
Wol Euler: heheheeh
Eos Amaterasu: (talk about memory!)
stevenaia Michinaga: smiles
stevenaia Michinaga: dificult to let go of memory while experiencing, it colors everything
Eos Amaterasu: helpfully so, usually
Wol Euler: can we agree what "let go" means in this contextß
Wol Euler: ?

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: let be, let alone
Eos Amaterasu: one approach: you let, it goes
Wol Euler smiles.
Eos Amaterasu: I think "let go" can be very precise
Eos Amaterasu: the context only arises when some "it" arises
Eos Amaterasu: so you can't prevent its from arising
Eos Amaterasu: can't push or wish them away
Eos Amaterasu: so you let them be, one by one,
Eos Amaterasu: and that's it
Eos Amaterasu: they go by themselves
Eos Amaterasu: nothing necessary to do
stevenaia Michinaga: reminds me of breathing during meditation... it takes over everything
Wol Euler: … but that happens by itself, anyway; how do we "do" that?
stevenaia Michinaga: no memory there
Eos Amaterasu: humoring "it"
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: finding yourself in its humor

Eos Amaterasu checks in on Venus in transit...
Eos Amaterasu: a whole planet watching another planet :-)
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: probably more people have watched this tonight than were alive on earth at the last one
Eos Amaterasu: hmm
Wol Euler: well, maybe not last, but certainly at the last-plus-two
stevenaia Michinaga: only on youtube for em
Eos Amaterasu: sometimes it feels that "me" is an ongoing cloud of memories and anticipations intersecting with some kind of experiential thisness
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like that is enough :)
Wol Euler smiles.
Eos Amaterasu: then you think of that as your lifetime
Eos Amaterasu: and how many lifetimes there are across the time span of the known (supposedly) universe
Eos Amaterasu: one of many little bubbles
Eos Amaterasu: eos bubble dawns
Eos Amaterasu: eos bubble babbles
Eos Amaterasu: pop!
Eos Amaterasu: :-)

Eos Amaterasu: funny how this virtual place feels like such a warm place
Wol Euler smiles and nods
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, but only when others are near
Eos Amaterasu has read recent short logs

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: thank you, warm virtual beings!
Eos Amaterasu: good night!
stevenaia Michinaga: night dear Eos
Wol Euler: goodnight eos, take care
Wol Euler: dream well
stevenaia Michinaga: a quiet week here so far
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: it's taken me this long to get inworld
Wol Euler: couldnt get a stable wifi connection at first
stevenaia Michinaga: sad
stevenaia Michinaga: glad you made it
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: thank you, it's good to be here
Wol Euler: feels like home
stevenaia Michinaga: at times wifi is like the wind
Wol Euler: I missed being this "me" :)
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Wol Euler: it makes me realize how fortunate I am at home, with my doublespeed connection
stevenaia Michinaga: nods
stevenaia Michinaga: strange wifi is so slow where you are
Wol Euler: such reminders are good
stevenaia Michinaga: seems pointless if it doesn;t work
Wol Euler: well, my parents probably got a minimal-rate package
Wol Euler: since my mother on.ly uses it for e-mail and checking her stocks once a day
stevenaia Michinaga: how unfortunate
Wol Euler: it works a lot better now that I've rebooted the cable modem and wifi router
Wol Euler: but still slooooooooowwwwwwwww
stevenaia Michinaga: just don't move and you will be fine
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: actually I think I will move on, I want to drop in on a party before bed
stevenaia Michinaga: night Wol
Wol Euler: see you anohter evening :)
Wol Euler: goodnight, stevie, dream well
stevenaia Michinaga: :), you too