Unknown Unknowns - Donald Rumsfeld testimony

“There are known knowns – 

these are things we know we know. 

There are known unknowns….

these are the things we know we do not know. 

But there are also unknown unknowns; 

these are the things we don't know we don't know.” 

Donald Rumsfeld

Former United States Secretary of Defense [1]

---

[1] Engineering: A Very Short Introduction. David Blockley. Oxford University Press. © 2012. Page 98. 

Playfulness

Horses - Cave Painting

(source unknown)

Body-Mind-Spirit

We can create many models of the human experience. 

Here's a model based on three concepts:

body, mind, and spirit. Here presented in the form of a Venn diagram*.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

War and Peace

Everything and Nothing

Where do we start counting? Is it at number one? Not really. It starts at nothing; i.e. zero. The number zero is between the positive and negative numbers on the number line. This is quite beautiful. Zero is neither negative or positive. Most people usually begin with the number “one” - they also don’t think of negative or positive numbers. Zero and negative numbers had to be in invented to deal with the mathematical mapping of our daily reality.  So, we start with nothing and move on to more or less than nothing.

Everything has a beginning within imagination. Something may happen. Energy changes forms, shapes and states. Energy can be everything and nothing. Out of a mysterious void something emerges. Here and now we are!  Amazing, amazing. The way up and the way down are the same. To have a beginning implies that there will be an end. Today, begin by being here now!

Sometimes in the middle of the night

Sometimes  

     in the middle of the night  

     or in the daytime   

     when all is quiet   

     including the mind  

Comes  

     a glimpse of immortality  

     between in breath and out breath   

     between thought and vision  

Fields of light and love  

     endless, deep, safe, eternal 

Encased in Technologies

We're encased in technologies of our own making.  I knew a man who took his satellite dish and television on camping trips. 

It's the "age of technology".  We're encased in technologies of our own making.  If you are reading these notes, you're already embedded in a world of technological objects - some of which may even be embedded in you.   Two or three hundred years ago you'd likely be living on a farm or small village. In a short walk, you'd be out in "nature". Now we use transportation machines to get "out" to nature.  So, we drive (not walk) out to the country or the woods.  The automobile may be there near the camp site.  I knew one man who took his satellite dish and television on camping trips.  

Nature has always been a problem to overcome - so as to make ourselves more safe and comfortable.  Because of our soft-wired brains, we keep inventing and transmitting new ways to make life more comfortable and safe.  We use one device after another (i.e., telephones, cell phones, cars, elevators, etc.) We’re embedded in an ocean of devices of our own making.  The quest for the perfect life via technology is an ever receding horizon. 

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Holo Sutra © by Americ Azevedo,  2014.05.04 (final unedited draft)  Page 54

Buffalo Dusk 

BY CARL SANDBURG

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.

Source: The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt Brace Iovanovich Inc., 1970)
As sited by The Poetry Foundation.

Cave Paintings

The Inbetween

I have heard and read that Tibetan Buddhists believe that upon death the body’s spirit goes to an in-between state called the bardo. This is a period after death when consciousness is disconnected from the body. The soul’s disembodied state while awaiting rebirth. It is a time of potentially frightening visions. Eventually the spirit or consciousness finds a body to enter - rebirth occurs. A new incarnation that may reflect the development and lessons learned in previous lifetimes.

   Even within our current embodied lives we experience mini-bardo states such as being between jobs, between morning and afternoon, between life partners, between home and workplace, etc.

   These in-between places give us deep insights into reality.

Seventh Day

Street Deer

Saw this deer (and its shadow) walking the street.

Teaching Engineering Ethics

I was the instructor for an Engineering Ethics course offered by the Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley. The first day of class was a "disaster". No one talked! Miraculously, on the second day everyone engaged in non-stop talk. Some students stayed after class, to continue the dialogue. They where phenomenal. Bright young people with so many great ideas for improving the world. These young people gave me faith in the future.

Why the change in student response. Well, the first day I was "the expert". But on the second day, I treated the students as experts. I wanted to listen to them, rather than myself. That was all the difference in the world. We learned what we needed to learn, but we did it together. I stopped acting like the center, and allowed everyone to be "at center". It worked!

Freedom

Embrace Life

Start your day in wonder

be like a child again

embrace life

Naomi Klein: How to Resist Trump's Shock Doctrine

Summer Flowers

(source unknown)

I'm excited about who I really am!

I'm excited about who I really am!

     No, I didn't just find out

     I am Bill Gate's daughter,

     or win a prize,

     or graduate with honors;

It's much more subtle than that.

I found out, well,

there are no words to express it.

I found out I am happiness

     through and through,

     except when I forget it.

    

I found out I can love

     more and more

          and more and more

                     and more.

Yes, there are no words;

     and I am eternally grateful:

     Grateful that I,

     Grateful that I am that I am,

     Grateful I am that,

Grateful I am God's Love Shining.

                   ~ Diane Shavelson

Al Franken On God

Always Remember

always
remember
who you
really
are.
sit...
... wait
for "instructions."

Ocean of Faith

New Words, New Worlds pt 3

Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Can You Remember

I have arrived

Glenn Matson Remembered

I knew Glenn Matson for 40 years. He was my best friend. Recently found this photograph taken at Peet's Coffee near Lake Shore in Oakland, California. We maintained contact everyday by phone; even during his yearly travels across the country from California to his summer home base in Minnesota. He was a man of few words, but deep spirituality. Many people where influenced by him. He passed away last year on January 8th, 2017. He was in his eighty's  Still saying goodbye. 

Life Is A Mystery To Be Lived

Life is a mystery to be lived. 
Day by day, the task is to 
stay awake to this present moment. 
Be quiet inside - and notice 
the "sound of stillness". 
Be at peace.  
Now, now, now ...

Eric Burdon and The Animals - Sky Pilot [Video original]

Original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP0IXOr9O8U  

Real Philosophy

Vast Unknown

Most of life is spent discovering where we are. It’s not easy - parents try to tell us, but we don’t listen. Of course we are is always “here” in this vast universe of details and mystery.

Years pass, our focus changes. When we were a babies, the focus is mother. Later the focus begins to slowly shift to wisdom in preparation for our demise. When young we are building up our life story; when old, letting go. We prepare for the end of the story. Many poor souls continue to hold onto to youth as hair grows gray and muscles weaken. Nature will take us back to the earth. Dust to dust.

Life is mystery presenting the “unknown” to us.

The Second Coming

The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep 
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)

"Expression" Americ + Red Cardinal + Jw

Writing and Speaking

Spontaneous Mindfulness

Impermanence

turning around

turning around the
world so easy babbling
free in time's eternity
moving here and there
singing of places long gone 

Gold. Seriously, it will change your entire day

Share.

New Words, New Worlds Pt 2

Slow Walking

Everything Changes

Darkness

It's Not How Long You Live

Arising and Falling

The Great Charlie Chaplin

The speech from his movie The Great Dictator hit me like a truck. The relevance is amazing and eerie.
This is the link to watch it!
Click on it and be moved by the words and the music. The passion.

New words, New Worlds pt. 1

Anxiety And Faith

Learning To Talk

Pomorskie Province - Poland

Pomorskie Province in northern Poland

Pulled Over ...

Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROSS GAY

It’s the shivering. When rage grows

hot as an army of red ants and forces

the mind to quiet the body, the quakes

emerge, sometimes just the knees,

but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck

until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs

and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped

to squeeze words from my taut lips,

his eyes scanning my car’s insides, my eyes,

my license, and as I answer the questions

3, 4, 5 times, my jaw tight as a vice,

his hand massaging the gun butt, I

imagine things I don’t want to

and inside beg this to end

before the shiver catches my

hands, and he sees,

and something happens. 

 

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Copyright details:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/92118#poem

When you talk

All that is gold

Cat Tax

National Geographic

First Amendment Broken

A great flame follows a little spark.
 Dante Alighieri

Be the Love Generation

Official Version with Music Video

This song is perfect at this point in our drastically changing lives since it speaks about a new love generation, the legacy we want to leave behind for the children. 

Full Version

This version is the one i like the best because he begins to talk more about spirituality then he was able to on his offical radio edit due to the previous time constraints. 

Keep faith and inspire a new love generation

Standing Rock Native Indian Camp

Native American leaders want the protest camp near Cannon Ball, N.D. 

cleared so a major highway can re-open. Credit: Getty Images

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23012017/standing-rock-dakota-pipeline-protest-camp

Rufus Wainwright singing Hallelujah

Live in Concert 2013
Here is the link

I'd heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well, it goes like this
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to the kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips, she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well baby, I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Lanterns

Time Crisis

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

The Second Coming by Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    

Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know

    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Breakfast for Thought