Friday, June 22, 2007
GlobalIntelligencer.com
Carl Schroeder has gotten picked up for a monthly film review column at a cool new online magazine that covers a wide range of world news from the perspective of sustainability, innovation, and spirituality. Check it out and please subscribe for free (the signups are needed to measure readership for advertisers, they won’t spam you)
Carl reviews the amazing new dream sharing film “Paprika” at http://www.globalintelligencer.com/jun2007/arts
Subscribe to Global Intelligencer at http://www.globalintelligencer.com/user/register
Global Intelligencer started in Jan 2007 and continues to look for content, especially arts related, so if you want to submit article proposals you can contact publisher Cate Montana at global@fairpoint.net They are not able to pay yet, but it’s great exposure – they have 10,000 subscribers already and are working with lots of the big names like Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, etc.
Carl reviews the amazing new dream sharing film “Paprika” at http://www.globalintelligencer.com/jun2007/arts
Subscribe to Global Intelligencer at http://www.globalintelligencer.com/user/register
Global Intelligencer started in Jan 2007 and continues to look for content, especially arts related, so if you want to submit article proposals you can contact publisher Cate Montana at global@fairpoint.net They are not able to pay yet, but it’s great exposure – they have 10,000 subscribers already and are working with lots of the big names like Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, etc.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Story writing process notes
Just a quick update to say I’m continuing to develop my writing style, in bursts of inspiration and research. Just today I discovered what may be one of the most kindred spirit authors I’ve found yet: Charles Williams, British occultist mystical Christian, contemporary of C. S. Lewis and greatly admired in academia, among other things a critic, historian, theologian, poet, and novelist. He wrote weird tales about colliding realities, like the world of spirits and humans merging in “All Hallow’s Eve” (1945) or the world of archetypes breaking into and consuming our dimension in “The Place of the Lion” (1931) or the world of elemental magic controlling our reality through a perfectly drawn tarot deck in “The Greater Trumps” (1932). His “War in Heaven” (1930) may be a superior predecessor to all this Da Vinci Code hoopla. I’m impressed.
My own stories, which I call Consciousness Fiction, are continuing to surprise me. I set aside my novella about mystical Christian time travel and have been working on shorter themes that run in batches. More and more the topics are fantasias upon how to self-modify to perceive other realities. When I considered that really my stories were the illustrations of unconscious dialogues I’m having with nonphysical friends and teachers about the nature of reality, then I quickly wrote a story that involved a woman talking to a guy about how to join her and others in trans-dimensional thoughts experiments. When I realized she was talking to me as I wrote, I got kind of spooked and backed off for a week. Journaling and a blog entry like this help me to orient myself, and I’ve gone back to polishing it up. Another component of my stories is the sequence of names I get sent on for further research. Online references like Wikipedia are so helpful, taken with a grain of salt of course. The three stories I’m working on right now are associated respectively with: Julian Jaynes and Greek mythology, Garden of Eden and Mormonism, Sapir-Whorf and Wittgenstein. (I hope, I believe, I have been told in dreams, that such erudition has an audience). Thus my story writing is a garden path of self-improvement as well as a pursuit of extraterrestrial communication. Ha! It’s no wonder that my night dreams are full of being in classrooms and on campuses with various friends. (I suppose a breakthrough could be to lucidly inquire, so, which of you are the spirits of people I’ve been researching?)
My own stories, which I call Consciousness Fiction, are continuing to surprise me. I set aside my novella about mystical Christian time travel and have been working on shorter themes that run in batches. More and more the topics are fantasias upon how to self-modify to perceive other realities. When I considered that really my stories were the illustrations of unconscious dialogues I’m having with nonphysical friends and teachers about the nature of reality, then I quickly wrote a story that involved a woman talking to a guy about how to join her and others in trans-dimensional thoughts experiments. When I realized she was talking to me as I wrote, I got kind of spooked and backed off for a week. Journaling and a blog entry like this help me to orient myself, and I’ve gone back to polishing it up. Another component of my stories is the sequence of names I get sent on for further research. Online references like Wikipedia are so helpful, taken with a grain of salt of course. The three stories I’m working on right now are associated respectively with: Julian Jaynes and Greek mythology, Garden of Eden and Mormonism, Sapir-Whorf and Wittgenstein. (I hope, I believe, I have been told in dreams, that such erudition has an audience). Thus my story writing is a garden path of self-improvement as well as a pursuit of extraterrestrial communication. Ha! It’s no wonder that my night dreams are full of being in classrooms and on campuses with various friends. (I suppose a breakthrough could be to lucidly inquire, so, which of you are the spirits of people I’ve been researching?)
Belated Bee Update
For those concerned about the declining honeybee populations, I researched this a few weeks ago and have been meaning to share it. Hope it helps!
regards,
Carl
STATUS OF HONEYBEES
Hi Friends,
Many of you are concerned as I am with the disappearing honeybees problem. Bees are vital for the world’s agriculture, and since last fall many colonies around the world have been abandoned with no explanation ( “colony collapse disorder” or CCD )
Here are some less alarmist details I have collected. Points 3-9 are covered in the May 10 Diane Rehms show about bees, for podcasts/recordings go here: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/05/10.php#13178
1) on the spiritual front, many people have been praying and meditating for the bees. This is nice to know and you’re invited to join in anytime, by visualizing bees and feeling gratitude for their work. May 2 was a big day for this.
2) there has been a quote circulating that Einstein said without the bees mankind has only 4 years to live. He never said this, and the claim is debatable, for details see: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp
3) bees have been in trouble for decades, recently from varroa mites, so further declines are very serious but people are also somewhat prepared. Beekeepers have gotten good at replacing their stocks, and last winter’s losses are already replaced.
4) cellphones are not the problem. Electromagnetic pollution may be a contributing factor to bee stress, but colony collapse disorder is not directly correlated to cellphone regions, and anyway CCD is more recent than cellphones
5) colony collapse disorder is not universal, it has been reported around the world but there are also areas that don’t have it around the world. So it is not a death warrant, and it may be that the bees that are already stressed suffer it the most. Scientists have a lot of contributing factors to sort out.
6) GMO crops are not the problem. I was afraid of this one, since there has been little restraint on corporations designing crops that produce their own insecticides, and they are already widespread in the US. But experts said the GMO “natural” insecticides target worms and do not penetrate the bee gut.
7) colony collapse disorder may be caused by some sort of bacteria. Abandoned hives stay abandoned until they are sterilized with radiation, then bees move back in. This indicates some kind of living disease, and teams are working on the problem around the world.
8) new hardier bees are being bred. There’s a Russian honeybee which grooms itself and others continuously, removing the varroa mites and some other threats. African bees are not desirable in themselves but show disease resistances that may be crossbred.
9) native bees have not been studied as much as the commercial honeybees, but they are also important for pollination and many reports show they are suffering declines as well
So don’t give up hope, as we continue to care about the bees that are nature’s pollinators and indicators of environmental health.
regards,
Carl
STATUS OF HONEYBEES
Hi Friends,
Many of you are concerned as I am with the disappearing honeybees problem. Bees are vital for the world’s agriculture, and since last fall many colonies around the world have been abandoned with no explanation ( “colony collapse disorder” or CCD )
Here are some less alarmist details I have collected. Points 3-9 are covered in the May 10 Diane Rehms show about bees, for podcasts/recordings go here: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/05/10.php#13178
1) on the spiritual front, many people have been praying and meditating for the bees. This is nice to know and you’re invited to join in anytime, by visualizing bees and feeling gratitude for their work. May 2 was a big day for this.
2) there has been a quote circulating that Einstein said without the bees mankind has only 4 years to live. He never said this, and the claim is debatable, for details see: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp
3) bees have been in trouble for decades, recently from varroa mites, so further declines are very serious but people are also somewhat prepared. Beekeepers have gotten good at replacing their stocks, and last winter’s losses are already replaced.
4) cellphones are not the problem. Electromagnetic pollution may be a contributing factor to bee stress, but colony collapse disorder is not directly correlated to cellphone regions, and anyway CCD is more recent than cellphones
5) colony collapse disorder is not universal, it has been reported around the world but there are also areas that don’t have it around the world. So it is not a death warrant, and it may be that the bees that are already stressed suffer it the most. Scientists have a lot of contributing factors to sort out.
6) GMO crops are not the problem. I was afraid of this one, since there has been little restraint on corporations designing crops that produce their own insecticides, and they are already widespread in the US. But experts said the GMO “natural” insecticides target worms and do not penetrate the bee gut.
7) colony collapse disorder may be caused by some sort of bacteria. Abandoned hives stay abandoned until they are sterilized with radiation, then bees move back in. This indicates some kind of living disease, and teams are working on the problem around the world.
8) new hardier bees are being bred. There’s a Russian honeybee which grooms itself and others continuously, removing the varroa mites and some other threats. African bees are not desirable in themselves but show disease resistances that may be crossbred.
9) native bees have not been studied as much as the commercial honeybees, but they are also important for pollination and many reports show they are suffering declines as well
So don’t give up hope, as we continue to care about the bees that are nature’s pollinators and indicators of environmental health.
