2009.05.10 19:00 - Dreamtime

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

I was joined by Tarmel Udimo, Pila Mulligan, Adelene Dawner, and Threedee Shepherd

stevenaia Michinaga: hello tarmel

Tarmel Udimo: Hi Steve, seems like I haven't seen you for a while

stevenaia Michinaga: yes, this isn't your usual hour

Tarmel Udimo: no I am having to make changes

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Pila

Pila Mulligan: hi Steve and Tarmel

stevenaia Michinaga: are you in Europe?

Tarmel Udimo: the 1:00pm which I used to go to is like 6:00am for me

Tarmel Udimo: hi Pila

Tarmel Udimo: no Australia

stevenaia Michinaga: aww

Tarmel Udimo: so sometimes getting up that early is Ok

stevenaia Michinaga: what time is it there now?

Tarmel Udimo: 12:07pm

stevenaia Michinaga: lunch

Tarmel Udimo: how you doing Pila?

Tarmel Udimo: almost:)

Pila Mulligan: fine thanks -- that's Monday in Australia, Steve :)

stevenaia Michinaga: nods

Tarmel Udimo: yep!

Pila Mulligan: just came in from planting and fixing a garden bed -- dirty but fun

Pila Mulligan: hi Threedee

stevenaia Michinaga: I was planting today too

Pila Mulligan: hi Ade

Tarmel Udimo: Hi ThreeD and Ade, long time no see

stevenaia Michinaga: hi Three, it;s been a while

Adelene Dawner: hiya :)

Threedee Shepherd: Hi folks. It was a busy week :)

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Ade

Pila Mulligan: is the new sim done now?

Pila Mulligan: the university project?

Threedee Shepherd: Pretty much except for details

Threedee Shepherd: It's being used.

stevenaia Michinaga: congrats

Pila Mulligan: cool, I'd like to see it

Adelene Dawner: ^.^

Tarmel Udimo: was that the one you showed me a awhile back Ade?

Threedee Shepherd: Yes, Miami Dade College Virtual Campus

Pila Mulligan: thanks, I'll visit it soon

Adelene Dawner: I think so, Tarmel.

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Pila Mulligan: are they using it for classes?

Adelene Dawner nuzzzles Steve. "Hiya"

stevenaia Michinaga: smiles

stevenaia Michinaga: I see the auto recorder has been enhanced to send the log via email now... very nice

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Tarmel Udimo: it was kind of doing that before but intermittently

stevenaia Michinaga: I only received it via local chat, so had to log on to get the web address of the log

stevenaia Michinaga: this will make it one step less

Tarmel Udimo: nods

stevenaia Michinaga: one meeting we were talking about aboriginal dream-time, Tarmel, is there anything you can tell us about it from any contact with their culture you may have had?

stevenaia Michinaga: not to put you on the spot

stevenaia Michinaga: :)

Tarmel Udimo: Sorry just responding to an email

Tarmel Udimo: well its very complex

Tarmel Udimo: and some of the original culture got wiped out through colonization

Tarmel Udimo: but essentially the Dreamtime refers

stevenaia Michinaga: I understand there is not "one" culture

Tarmel Udimo: to the place where all their myths and gods reside

Pila Mulligan Googles a video of a didgeridoo

Pila Mulligan: http://video.google.com/videosearch?...8&sa=N&tab=wv#

Tarmel Udimo: it is not one culture or language

stevenaia Michinaga: there are nice ones on youtube

Tarmel Udimo: before the English came I think there were about over 60 Language groups

Threedee Shepherd: Wikipedia: In Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming or Altjeringa (also called the Dreamtime) is a sacred 'once upon a time' [1] time out of time in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation. Fred Alan Wolf opens chapter nine of The Dreaming Universe (1994) entitled The Dreamtime with a quote from The Last Wave, a film by Peter Weir: Aboriginals believe in two forms of time; two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity, the other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the "dreamtime", more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of Aboriginal society. It was believed that some people of unusual spiritual powers had contact with the dreamtime.

Tarmel Udimo: Hi Moyra

Moyra Ares: oops sorry

Pila Mulligan: Hi Moyra

Threedee Shepherd: more wiki: "Dreaming" is also often used to refer to an individual's or group's set of beliefs or spirituality. For instance, an Indigenous Australian might say that they have Kangaroo Dreaming, or Shark Dreaming, or Honey Ant Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their "country". However, many Indigenous Australians also refer to the creation time as "The Dreaming". The Dreamtime laid down the patterns of life for the Aboriginal people. "The Dreaming" was the time of creation.[

Tarmel Udimo: Moyra is a friend of mine, a great builder in SL

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Moyra

Moyra Ares: hello everybody

stevenaia Michinaga: will it be ok to record your comments for our log

Tarmel Udimo: Threedee and Adelene are great builders too and actually do it for a living in RL

Moyra Ares: wow building for a living would be a dream of mine

stevenaia Michinaga: well it;s almost a living for those who do it in Rl...grins

Tarmel Udimo: Well after living in Australia for 20 years I can finally say I am just begging to understand their culture

Adelene Dawner: It is pretty awesome ^.^

Tarmel Udimo: beginning

Tarmel Udimo: the difficulty is that a lot of the intiations from the tribal elders have not been passed down

Tarmel Udimo: so there are parts of the culture that are dying out

Tarmel Udimo: there are very complex family linage

Tarmel Udimo: who you can and can't marry etc

Moyra Ares: one question...who said that the dreaming is a relict of a past?

Tarmel Udimo: not me?

Tarmel Udimo: Moyra is in OZ too

stevenaia Michinaga: no one, we explore it here at one of our more structured meetings

Moyra Ares: ~scretches her head~

Moyra Ares: i read it up there in the wiki comment

stevenaia Michinaga: we meet 4 times a day

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Bacon

stevenaia Michinaga: please join us

Bacon Hellershanks: Hi. This is my first time here.

Moyra Ares: welcome bacon

Threedee Shepherd: Wiki was being quoted by me. I did not put it all in.

Pila Mulligan: hi Bacon

Tarmel Udimo: hi bacon

Tarmel Udimo: sorry folks on the phone in RL

Moyra Ares: what was this fellows name who translated dream time stories

stevenaia Michinaga: I'll give bacon the background in IM

Moyra Ares: Reid

Moyra Ares: i think

Threedee Shepherd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime

Threedee Shepherd: I found Chatwin's book, "Songlines" to be an interesting perspective on the culture

Moyra Ares: i was reading some stories and i have the impressions that most people treat those stories about something in the past and a finished story

Moyra Ares: do you think that dreamtime stories are a finished closed thing?

Threedee Shepherd: I suspect, Moyra, it depends on how many of the aboriginals still live the "old way", which is probably diminishing as current elders die.

Adelene Dawner: Does whether or not people are living that culture even matter, in the answer to that question?

Moyra Ares: maybe not when we see it it as the dreaming of the land

Moyra Ares: the land is always here

Threedee Shepherd: Complex implications to that question, Ade, it seems to me.

Adelene Dawner: ^.^

Moyra Ares: "old way" means people who believe in the dreaming or dream time...?

Threedee Shepherd: Yes, not only believe but live it, I am suggesting.

Moyra Ares: ~nods~

Moyra Ares: really fascinating stuff

Tarmel Udimo: Hi I'm back

Threedee Shepherd: If The Dreaming is analogous or even homologous to what we call "Being" in Play As Being, then it lasts no matter what. However, if a particular *Way* is needed for experiencing Being from the Dreamtime perspective, then it matters. Of course there is no perspective when Being is experienced, but that is still another level.

Tarmel Udimo: still talking about indigenous culture?

Pila Mulligan: welcome back Tarmel

Tarmel Udimo: ty

stevenaia Michinaga: yes, quite a different perspective on consciousness and what is RL

Moyra Ares: when I'm sitting in the bush on a rock i have the feeling being close to some sort of dreaming or dreamtime

stevenaia Michinaga: from a very old culture

Tarmel Udimo: I have two step kids that are half aboriginal

Tarmel Udimo: its been fascinating connecting to their heritage

Tarmel Udimo: which is still very much alive for them

Moyra Ares: ~nods~

Tarmel Udimo: they come from up North where the tradition is still strong unlike kids that have no kinship or only know city living

Tarmel Udimo: Northern Territories which we call the top end

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Pema

Tarmel Udimo: but the culture is much more about kinship and family ties

Pila Mulligan: hi Pema

Adelene Dawner: hiya Pem ^.^

Tarmel Udimo: hi pema

Pila Mulligan: "The Hawaiian word for dream, moe`uhane, means 'soul sleep.' But rather than sleep, spirits roamed through the nights of old Hawai`i and had great adventures in dreams. While sleeping, people communicated with the aumakua, their ancestral guardians, and this important relationship was kept alive through dreaming." http://www.carenloebelfried.com/book3.html

Threedee Shepherd: One aspect I have read about (I lived in Canberra 1969-71) is that the extremely close connection with the earth, animals and elements that is part of the Dreaming and the Songlines, has a practical application in terms of adapting to living in the harsh environment that is the outback

Pema Pera: Hi everybody!

Tarmel Udimo: going for a splash pema?

Pema Pera: :-) I'm on a slooooow connection

Pila Mulligan: :)

Tarmel Udimo: sooooooooooooooooory to heeeeeeeeeear that:)

Pema Pera: :)

stevenaia Michinaga: perhaps if we type louder he will hear us better

Tarmel Udimo: yes ThreeD Songlines are actual lines on the earth that the follow for hunting and also mark out territories

Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm

Tarmel Udimo: so how's japan pema?

Pema Pera: oh, fine, keeps me busy :)

Pema Pera: (just snuck out of a meeting room, but have to leave for lunch in a few minutes -- just wanted to say hello)

stevenaia Michinaga: we won't tell

Tarmel Udimo: missing the Old Pagaoda?

Threedee Shepherd: I will wear my skeptical hat and note that it is interesting to note that humans of all cultures attempt to deal with the mysteries of daily lived experience by positing a deeper, or parallel or different way of knowing/being that I might characterize as something on the "other side" of the mystery.

Pema Pera: scientists also posit that the world is quite different than meets the eye :-)

Threedee Shepherd: Or to put it another way. this life is not enuf, we want heaven, too.

Pema Pera: and in both cases, the claims are reported to be backed up by experiments

stevenaia Michinaga: heaven?

stevenaia Michinaga: backed up by experiments

Pema Pera: of course, you could call science wishful thinking if you didn't have access to the experimental evidence

Threedee Shepherd: Perhaps, Pema, depending on how we define experiments AND reproducibility, but that goes in a different direction.

Pila Mulligan: I've been to heaven many times :)

Tarmel Udimo: Just listening to Caroline Myss online, her first statement that there is no religion when thinking about 'Being' that these are just stories to help us bridge the gap

Threedee Shepherd: Well, Pema, to me dark matter and the big bang are still closer to wishful thinking than experimentally proven. *I* will not be surprised if the Higgs Boson is never observed;>

Pema Pera: yes, I prefer to focus on experience, rather than stories -- though it can help to then talk about experience, in order to share

Pema Pera: I will be, Threedee

Pema Pera: but perhaps I know too much about the Higgs boson :-)

Pema Pera: I worked on that topic as a grad student . . . .

Tarmel Udimo: Higgs Boson?

Pema Pera: what gives us all mass

Pema Pera: without that, all elementary particles would be massless

Pema Pera: and it is supposed to be discovered any day (year) now . . .

Pila Mulligan: would there still be energy ,Pema?

Pema Pera: it has been predicted a few decades ago

Threedee Shepherd: I am not trying to be an expert, just someone who notes that it is always "just" a few more MeV (Million Electron Volts) away ;>

Pema Pera: yes, Pila

Pila Mulligan: thanks

Pema Pera: not always, Threedee, but yes, discoveries cannot be forced, nor the timing predicted

Pila Mulligan: with the Higgs Boson, does energy somehow become mass then?

Pema Pera: a photon is a particle that has no mass, meaning no rest mass; it can't sit still

Pema Pera: an electron has a mass, a rest mass that is

Pila Mulligan: I've met some of them :)

Pila Mulligan: photons

Pema Pera: a photon to has mass, equivalent to its energy

Pema Pera: but no rest mass

Moyra Ares: ~

Pema Pera: but perhaps this is going too far afield :-)

Pila Mulligan: what roles does the Higgs Boson play there, please -- with photons and electrons

Pema Pera: Three brought up wishful thinking

Pila Mulligan: this is an interesting thing

Pema Pera: which is always mixed with experimental evidence

Pema Pera: in science as well as spirituality, both

Pema Pera: and in both cases, ideally, further experiments then serve as quality control

Pema Pera: Pila, it's through the interactions with Higgs bosons that electrons acquire their mass; photons don't interact with them

Tarmel Udimo: so are you saying someone has come up with a statement as to why things are the way they are but it hasn't been proved yet?

Pila Mulligan: thanks

Threedee Shepherd: As one who calls himself a scientist, I am not ashamed to say, with a bit of distain, that scientists usually *find* what they are looking for, until they occasionally stumble over what is "really" there to be found. ^.^

Tarmel Udimo: sounds like Life

Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm, Tarmel ^.^

Tarmel Udimo: hehehehe

Pema Pera: research is hit and mss, dirty, complicated, full of pitfalls

Pema Pera: just like life

Pila Mulligan: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy...icle/higgs.htm

Tarmel Udimo: yes well I am researching archetypes at the moment

Pema Pera: but with a large enough of scientists, peer interactions somehow seem to guarantee enough quality control

Tarmel Udimo: thanks pila

Pema Pera: at least for the last few hundred years that has been the case, a pretty good track record.

Pema Pera: Well, I'm called away for lunch time!

Threedee Shepherd: I agree, Pema

Pema Pera: guess I have to increase my mass :-)

Pema Pera: sorry to have to leave!

Pila Mulligan: sayonara Pema-san

Tarmel Udimo: hehehe see you pema

Pema Pera: bfn

Threedee Shepherd: bye

Moyra Ares: cya pema

Threedee Shepherd: Tarmel, I think (and it is hardly an original thought) that the various cultural architypes reflect the way human consciousness interacts with daily experience, which accounts for the deep common aspects of architypes

Pila Mulligan: Threedee, do you remember my asking you to remember a scientific subject about certain patterns that appear in nature? I cannot remember what the name was

Pila Mulligan: like vectors, but not

Pila Mulligan: patterns with mathematical significance

Tarmel Udimo: yes and in fact the reason why I am listening to the Caroline Myss vidoes

Tarmel Udimo: is because it links archetypes to the 12 parts of the brain

Threedee Shepherd: fractals

Pila Mulligan: thank you

Pila Mulligan: Tarmel, I'm interested in the similarity between fractals and arcthypes

Tarmel Udimo: how do fractals relate to that?

Pila Mulligan: there was a recent New York Times theorizing an extension of fractals

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Pila Mulligan: it did not say archetypes -- but I heard arcjtypes

Pila Mulligan: in reading it

Tarmel Udimo: meaning different fractals had different meanings?

Pila Mulligan: looking for it :)

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Pila Mulligan: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

Pila Mulligan: Can fractals make sense of the quantum world?

Pila Mulligan: "Take the mathematics of fractals into account, says Palmer, and the long-standing puzzles of quantum theory may be much easier to understand. They might even dissolve away."

Tarmel Udimo: thanks i'll have a read

Pila Mulligan: the relationship is that an archtype is a pattern

Pila Mulligan: in essence

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Pila Mulligan: "According to mathematics, the invariant set of a chaotic system is a fractal."

Tarmel Udimo: OK

Tarmel Udimo: does not quite compute, but I am sure it will

Pila Mulligan: "According to Palmer's hypothesis, the invariant set contains all the physically realistic states of the universe"

Pila Mulligan: "What makes this really interesting is that it gets away from the usual debates over multiple universes and hidden variables and so on," says Bob Coecke, a physicist at the University of Oxford. "It suggests there might be an underlying physical geometry that physics has just missed, which is radical and very positive."

Tarmel Udimo: ok

Pila Mulligan: cultural architypes that reflect the way human consciousness interacts with daily experience may have a connection with even deeper patterns in the universe

stevenaia Michinaga: nice that it relates to some"thing"...geometry

Pila Mulligan: even dreams can have patterns :)

Tarmel Udimo: yes essentially that's what Myss is saying

Tarmel Udimo: she takes about managing power which is always archetypes

stevenaia Michinaga: I see Power-management as overrated in terms of affecting change

Tarmel Udimo: OK

Tarmel Udimo: well I am just starting to listen to the video

stevenaia Michinaga: but everyone has their approach, I should watch more of her videos

Pila Mulligan: hi Paradise

Tarmel Udimo: I am hoping to hear more about the 12 aspects of the mind, there might be something there

stevenaia Michinaga: perhaps I well understand the basis of her focus better

Paradise Tennant: hello :))

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Paradise

Tarmel Udimo: Hi paradise

Paradise Tennant: :))) hello everyone

Tarmel Udimo: well its just what I'm doing at the moment:)

stevenaia Michinaga: thanks for joining is Bacon

Bacon Hellershanks: Hello, Paradise. Goodbye, all. RL calls.

Pila Mulligan: bye Bacon

stevenaia Michinaga: interesting, there was a Batmobile out there when I arrived, it; gone now

Tarmel Udimo: bye bacon

Paradise Tennant: good nite bacon :))

Tarmel Udimo: no still there

stevenaia Michinaga: I must be off, long week ahead, thank you all for joining me

Pila Mulligan: bye Steve

Paradise Tennant: thanks steve .. sorry I arrived so late .. hope everyone has a great week :)))

stevenaia Michinaga: great to have you join us Tarmel

stevenaia Michinaga: nice meeting you Moyra

Tarmel Udimo: thanks I'll be back

Moyra Ares: cya steve

Paradise Tennant: well >>>> I think I will step back into Rl too. be well all :))) big wave from Toronto :))

Pila Mulligan: bye Paradise

Tarmel Udimo: bye toronto

Tarmel Udimo: we have several sessions a day

Paradise Tennant: where is the schedule posted ?

Tarmel Udimo: so you may want to come back

Tarmel Udimo: did steve give you a notecard?

Paradise Tennant: ahh kk

Paradise Tennant: several

Pila Mulligan: schedule: 1 am, 7 am, 1 pm and 7 pm SLT, here

Paradise Tennant: yes :)) thank you I should have looked :))

Paradise Tennant: well see you all again :)))

Pila Mulligan: earlier Ade whether a culture requires that people be living and practicing it to continue to exist -- Hawaiians find a significant part of their cultural existence is vested in their deceased ancestors and their relationship to physical places, so the sense is that even if the culture submerges for a while, it will survive

Threedee Shepherd: Well Pila, tell that to the Babylonians or the Pharaohs

Pila Mulligan: :) who can say where to find them today

Threedee Shepherd: That is my point

Pila Mulligan: Sadaam rebuilt Babylon as a Disneyland theme park, I recently read

Pila Mulligan: hey there hi there ho there

Pila Mulligan: I'm not saying people should let go of their culture, just that cultural influences may not be superficial or fleeting

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Pila Mulligan: .. and haven't you met a whole flock of former Queens of Egypt? ... they sure appear around here frequently :)

Pila Mulligan: now that was a bad joke

Tarmel Udimo: hehehehe

Pila Mulligan: I once had a vision/dream that showed me the idea better than anything I had read or heard could express it ...

Pila Mulligan: it related to a place where some radio stations wanted to build big antennas and support buildings

Threedee Shepherd: Well, Pila if the Archeaopterans had a well developed culture and world view that is now totally lost because no one knows they even existed and they left no records, what does that matter?

Pila Mulligan: but it was on a pristine part of a mountain, with several cultural relics nearby

Pila Mulligan: one morning after having been there with a group opposing the development, I had this lucid dream

Threedee Shepherd nods

Tarmel Udimo: what was the dream Pila?

Pila Mulligan: it was an old Hawaiian man in a loin cloth stadning by a relic

Pila Mulligan: I was kind of hovering out of the scene nearby, but he saw me

Pila Mulligan: he pointed at a rock where there was some bird doodoo

Pila Mulligan: then he looked dup and me and projected an image ...

Pila Mulligan: the image was of giant metal birds with fixed wings flying over Hawaii, dropping big globs of doodoo

Pila Mulligan: it was easy to see ... then it started raining

Pila Mulligan: and he pointed back at the rcok

Threedee Shepherd: sounds a bit like the cargo cult

Pila Mulligan: and the rain was washing away the bird doodoo

Pila Mulligan: the message was, it only lasts for a while

Pila Mulligan: except the cargo cult *wanted* the biud metal birds

Pila Mulligan: big* metal birds

Pila Mulligan: the doodoo image is not entirely similar :)

Pila Mulligan: since then I have had a better appreciation of the profound apteince of Hawaiian elders

Pila Mulligan: patience*

Pila Mulligan: their cultural roots are deep

Tarmel Udimo: meaning their culture will raise again;)

Pila Mulligan: some day

Pila Mulligan: naturally

Pila Mulligan: just as it arose before

Pila Mulligan: almost archetypally :)

Pila Mulligan: but meanwhile, we beat the antenna plan :)

Pila Mulligan: hi doug

Tarmel Udimo: hi doug

doug Sosa: i've got graphics problems so can't see anything, need to comeback later..

Pila Mulligan: ok, see you later

Pila Mulligan: well, it's time for Pila to think about making dinner

Adelene Dawner: Enjoy it, Pila.

Pila Mulligan: thanks Ade

Pila Mulligan: nice to meet you Moyra, and nice as always to see you Tarmel, Ade and Threedee

Tarmel Udimo: yes i am going to have to leave sooninsh

Threedee Shepherd: enjoy, Pila

Pila Mulligan: bye

Tarmel Udimo: bye Pila

Tarmel Udimo: well folks I am going to log out for a while

Tarmel Udimo: I need to attend to some RL stuff

Threedee Shepherd: bye Tarmel, we are discussing "business" via IM

Tarmel Udimo: yes understand, Moyra and I have been too:)

Tarmel Udimo: check out some of her builds and textures at some point when you have time

Tarmel Udimo: she's great!

Moyra Ares: ok...cya tarmel

Threedee Shepherd: already have

Tarmel Udimo: ahhh

Tarmel Udimo: bye for now

Moyra Ares: :)