Serve all, Love all

Astronomy happenings: The Leonid Meteor shower is happening until Nov. 21, but it already peaked on the 17th. Mercury joins Jupiter in the evenings on Nov. 22. The phenomenon of the Northern Lights takes place throughout the year, but the lights can be observed only against a night sky. Look for faint vertical bars of light in the northern sky.

One of my new favorite djs, dj mar mar, click to listen to tunes and mixtapes.

Cool website for travelers, Lonely Planet.

One of my new favorite periodicals EnlightenNext. (I may have mentioned this magazine before...but I've been reading it more lately and falling in love.)

An artist performing at the 930 club on Monday, and whom I also read an article about in the Sky magazine on the plane: Bebel Gilberto. The daughter of Joao Gilberto, the "father of Bossa Nova".

Galilean Nights are here!

The latest International Year of Astronomy 2009 cornerstone project, Galilean Nights, is underway. This global celebration of the 400^th anniversary of Galileo's observations is taking place between 22 and 24 October. Find an event near you and learn more, click here! Also, for those in the DC area, there are a number of astronomy events around the DC region this weekend in conjunction with the IYA Galilean Nights. Take a look at this link which has a google calendar of public events in the region. Star parties, lectures throughout the weekend.

Harvest Moon

The Full Moon closest to the fall equinox (this weekend) rises soon after sunset on several consecutive evenings. During this period, the time between successive moonrises is relatively short. Traditionally, this bright moonlinght allowed farmers additional time after sunset to bring in their crops, hence the term Harvest Moon. The reason for the shorter-than-usual rising time between successive moonrises around the time of the Harvest and Hunter's Moon is that the ecliptic — the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun — makes a narrow angle with respect to the horizon in the evening in autumn.

JupiterMoon These two celestial bodies appear together in the evening and at sunset today and tomorrow.

MercuryJoinsMarsVenusMornings From about September 28 to October 23, Mercury can be seen in the morning sky.

PegasusSquare The fall sky is anchored by the large Square of Pegasus. Four bright stars make up the corners. On one side are two sets of diagonal stars; one set points to Markab, the other to Scheat. The other two stars making up Pegasus are Alpheratz and Algenib.

Hypnagogia + Fire the Grid : : Be Present

Image via Astronomy pic of the day: Few auroras show this level of detail. Above, a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta, Canada. With a shape reminiscent of a flower, the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail. The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.

Aquarids: The Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak tonight, the Moon's brightness may interfere with observation.

via wikipedia:
Hypnagogia (Greek ὕπνος, húpnos "sleep" + the root found in ἄγω, ágō "to lead away, conduct, convey", ἀγωγεύς, agōgeús "conveyor", ἀγωγή, agōgḗ "abduction, transport, leading away" etc.), often misspelled hypnogaia or hypnogogia, is a term coined by Alfred Maury for the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.

Seasonal Eating: Organic Blackberries
This week is the peak of blackberry season in our region. Don't miss out on sweet, juicy, luscious organic black berries bursting with ripeness!

"Let the beauty you seek be what you do." -Rumi

Fire the Grid: Tonight at 6:19 pm EST. I've posted a short summary paragraph from the website below, but for more detailed information just click on the "Fire the Grid" link.

To summarize, what we will do on July 28, 2009 at 19:19 Rio di Janeiro time — 18:19 (6:19 PM) in your time zone — is unite as one, sharing our purest intention to create a new world. As each of us as individuals see the earth in its true potential, collectively we will begin to create a world with untold possibilities. Hold that intention for an hour. During that time, the energy stored in the crystal beds under Brazil will be released and we will allow that energy to pass through us on its way back to Source.

The energy of Fire the Grid is ready to go back home. Please join us on July 28, 2009 at 19:19 Rio di Janeiro time — 18:19 (6:19 PM) in your time zone — for Fire the Grid II as we choose consciously to be present and accountable in the energetic creation of a new world.

Merging Galaxies

via Astronomy pic of the day

Elusive Jellyfish Nebula

via the Astronomy picture of the day

Virginia Bluebells

I searched out these images of Bluebells after seeing some during my lunchtime walk in the African American Heritage Park, behind our office building :) It's a beautiful day!

A peace meditation I just read, by Kathy Freston

Also just finished reading my monthly email from The Sun Magazine.

Quote of the day: "Knowing the truth isn't enough. You must also do something concrete to integrate what you learn with how you live your life."

Global Giving: donate to grassroots projects

Wiki of the day: Religion

18 Cool sites that teach you about space

Tongue Diagnosis in Traditional Chinese Medicine I was searching around some sites about the tongue diagnosis when Lia mentioned to me that she was looking at this last night. Since I'm doing the master cleanse I was interested in seeing how my tongue would be diagnosed!

The trailer for "Why Walk When You Can Fly?", a movie based on the book by Isha. She shares the secrets of her "Isha System", the path she followed to awakening.

April 20

Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta, 1960.

Current exhibition at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW:
Morandi: Master of Modern Still Life

February 21-May 24, 2009

Giorgio Morandi approached painting with the concentration of a Zen master. Working in the small apartment he shared with his mother and three sisters in Bologna, Morandi's carefully chosen collection of bottles, bowls, and jars served as his muse. He altered these objects by painting their exteriors, erasing their labels and reflections to expose their shape and volume, painstakingly creating still-life arrangements. Quietly mesmerizing and mysterious, Morandi's paintings hover between physical and spiritual, traditional and modern.

EFT World Summit 2009 Starts today, April 20th. Click on the link to register and learn more.

EFT stands for "Emotional Freedom Techniques" and is a simple and amazingly fast "tapping" technique. You just lightly but firmly tap on certain acupuncture/acupressure points on the face, head and upper body and astonishing events begin to take place. The process quickly and easily activates the body's own "energy meridian system" and has great potential for releasing virtually anything that's "wrong" with you.

Finally, via my calendar, in a clear sky the Lyrid meteor shower presents its nightly show from April 16 to 26. It produces around ten meteors per hour at its normal maximum, but on rare occasions tremendous bursts of up to 100 meteors per hour have been seen. The best views are in the eastern and northeastern skies between midnight and dawn. The Lyrid meteor shower is expected to peak on April 22. It occurs each year when Earth passes through the dust trail of Comet Thatcher.

On April 26, Mercury an dthe star cluster Pleiades can be seen together with the moon at sunset.

Moon and Saturn

Via Stardate,

The bright gibbous Moon has a bright companion tonight, the planet Saturn. It looks like a golden star, a little to the upper left of the Moon at nightfall.

Map of the Spring Sky

When we look into the sky on spring nights, we are looking away from the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. We see fewer stars; they are far beyond our galaxy.

Pranayama

Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering via wired -thanks David

One of my friends, Nicolle, recently returned from a stay at Plum Village, a lovely monastery in France led by spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. The Mindfulness Practice Center of Fairfax teaches mindfulness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. The link to their website includes a schedule and directions to the center.

Saturn At Opposition: On March 8, Saturn is directly opposite the Sun and can be seen from sunset to sunrise. It is also at its closest point to Earth for the year. Saturn begins to exit the morning sky around March 8. Beginning around March 8, Saturn can be seen in the evening sky until late summer.

Go Green America Expo! March 28-29, 2009 at the Montgomery County Agricultural Center in Gaithersburg, MD. "A tradeshow focused on the sustainablility movement: promoting an environmentally responsible lifestyle for consumers and businesses throughout the country. It is our mission to showcase the services, products, technology, information, and educational resources available today which will enable us to create positive change."

Via Slate, The Green Lantern. "Illuminating answers to environmental questions." -thanks Travis

Official Website for the National Cherry Blossom Festival, March 28 - April 12, 2009

Raymond Kurzweil is an inventor and futurist. He has been a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. -thanks Trent

Wiki links of the day:
Pranayama (yogic breathing)
Holotropic Breathwork (psychotheraputic form of breathing)

Quote of the day (via Philosopher's Notes):
If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart.” ~ Buddha from The Dhammapada

That makes it pretty simple.

If it’s worth doing (very important distinction) do it with all your heart (equally important distinction).

Decide what’s worth doing. (Seriously. Are you doin’ stuff that you shouldn’t even be doing? Because that’s the stuff you tend to do half-ass. Best solution? Stop doing it—either immediately or make a plan to stop doing it…)

Once you’ve decided to do it, give all your heart to it.

(Pretty, please.)

What I've been listening to:

Wale, a rapper from DC
Duffy, a singer from the U.K.
Lady Gaga, acoustic version of Poker Face.
Amorphous androgynous, I especially love their website's design.
The Best Hip Hop albums of 2008 - thanks Bloom

This link is a great resource for lots of excellent books on various topics, especially spiritually minded topics, the Gaia "Our Favorite Books" page. My favorite book is also the favorite of the Gaia community, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

What I'm currently working on, becoming LEED Accredited.

Secrets of Super-Healthy People, from WebMD.

Astronomical update: The winter sky has some of the brightest stars visible from Earth. Of the twelve brightest stars, seven shine in winter: Sirius, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, and Pollux.

Quote for the new year:
"The koan can do a miracle, although it is just a device. The question is with what urgency, with what totality you make your whole mind concerned with only the koan, twenty-four hours. It is not something you do for one hour and forget about it." ~Osho

Strengthening the Heart Chakra

Astronomical Updates:
The Geminid meteor shower is expected to peak on December 13 at 18:00 UT. The bright moon will interfere with viewing.

This Full Moon will be one of the brightest of the year, since it coincides with the annual perigee (the Moon's closest point to Earth for the year) on December 12.

I would like to include a "Yoga Pose of the Day" on this site, but I'm still learning the ins and outs of the most basic poses so I think I need to practice and learn more before I can add this info. :)

Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy - In Nature's Beloved Son John Muir's botanic samples are brought to life with compelling historical accounts and expert photography. This link includes a slideshow of images of restored botanical samples.

Links to a few interesting kinds of tea I was previously unaware of: Yiwu Green Beencha Pu-erh Tea and Matcha Tea. -thanks Marcus

Wine wands by Philip Stein. I'm not sure about the validity of these but I thought it was an interesting concept to possibly look into further. The wine wand claims to give more flavor to red wine by using natural energy to aerate the wine in minutes rather than hours. I came across this because I am considering getting a Philip Stein watch because the watches use frequency-based technologies which claim to "restore and improve the natural flow of evergy in our bodies which is disrupted by many of the pressures, stresses and disturbances present in our modern society and environment. By including technologies in the watches that replicate the Earth's natural frequency, as well as other natural beneficial frequencies, many wearers report positive benefits and an overall improvement in their well-being." I am curious about the actual effects of wearing the watch.

I love documentaries, and I am interested in seeing this one: Flow: For the Love of Water, which was recommended to me by Maya. The documentary investigates the world water crisis. Also, I came across this link which I thought was great, a "Geoscientists Without Borders" project by Clemson students working to solve the water crisis in rural India.


Quote of the day (to put all the other quotes in perspective) from "Real Advice Hurts":

A tip is like…what? A little scrap of a map. Not only is it not the actual destination, but the part you can hold in your hand will only make sense when you understand its place in a much bigger picture.

So, sure, you might get a kick out of gazing at the pretty colors and reading the funny names to your cat, and, heck, once you’ve collected enough little maps, you may even start fancying yourself a gifted cartographer.

But, never for a minute start fantasizing that being a map collector means you’ve visited all the locations on those pieces of paper. If you ever decided to attempt them, your actual travels would very much benefit from a competent (and whole) map of where you’re heading, but it necessarily requires movement, change, and enduring potentially long stretches in which you’ll have to find your own bearings in three tip-free dimensions.

At their best, “tips” are a fine way to incrementally improve a process that you’re already dedicated to practicing on a regular basis. And, in that context, tips work.

Photo: The Pleiades Star Cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters and M45.

Daily Links

These are some sites I like to check everyday, if I have enough time. Note that some of them I have already posted on previous blog entries.

My iGoogle page complete with National Parks picture of the day, Meditation quotes by Osho, Buddhist Thought of the Day, Ansel Adams Nature Photo of the Day, Nietzsche quotes, Aristotle Quote of the Day, National Geographic Photo of the Day, the current moon phase, and the weather.

My myGaia page with Horoscope and Feng Shui tip

The Wikipedia Main Page

Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA

News on NPR and BBC

Treehugger "the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream."

Stardate online...a daily stargazing tip

Weather Underground a great weather site including astronomy info

Zen Habits simple productivity

Think Arete concentrated wisdom for the busy self actualizer

Scientific American the magazine's website

SciCentral A collection of top science stories

Autumnal Equinox

Next Monday, the Sun will be directly over the Earth's equator at 10:44am, EST. The equinox marks a change of season for nature, and this is also an important time for your body and soul. Chinese medicine recommends a check up with every change of the season to see how your body is doing and what, if any, weaknesses need to be addressed to prevent illness or disease. Basically an alignment of energy, through acupuncture if necessary, to make sure you are healthy. This is also a good time to do a detox, no matter how small, even if it is just a day of drinking only water. It is also useful to set a few goals at the change of a season (maybe 1 to 3), to reflect on the past few months, and to get a fresh start on accomplishing your goals. The energy of the change and the start of a new season will be helpful.

It is always good to eat seasonally as well, so visit your local farmer's market or local organic produce section at the grocery store and fill up with different varieties of squash, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, sweet potatoes..

Astronomy in the fall: Saturn can be seen in the morning sky throughout fall. Also look out for the Harvest Moon which can be seen until the end of this week. The Harvest Moon is the Full Moon closest to Autumnal Equinox which rises soon after sunset.

Theme song for this post: Summer's Almost Gone by The Doors -thanks Bloom

Wiki link: Equinox

Greet the new season joyfully on Monday with an open soul and heart. Embrace your goals and amplify the energy of the Earth.

Various Links I have come across recently

DC Urban Hikers Group from Yahoo - thanks Jenny

Sadhana on wiki

Does time run backward in other universes? from SciAm

Becoming a LEED accredited professional from Treehugger

Portal to the mythical Mayan underworld - thanks Dave J

Lake Eden Arts Festival in NC

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Brain Food: How healthy eating makes you smarter - from Treehugger

Quote of the Day: All that you give to others you are giving to yourself.

Love your fate

Little ideas and quotes of wisdom: thinkArete

Arete in its basic sense, means goodness, excellence, or virtue of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function; the act of living up to one's full potential.

This weekend I saw the movies Cosmic Collisions and Black Holes at the Planetarium in the National Air and Space Museum. Both are highly recommended, the visualizations of entering a black hole, based on Einstein's equations, were beautiful. One fact that stuck out in my head was that we are one of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, which is one of 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

Art Beat with Stephanie Kaye is a daily one-minute update on arts and culture events in the DC region on the DC npr station.

Stardate Online: Daily stargazing tips. "The Milky Way arcs high overhead on August evenings."

The Witch's Broom Nebula

Superfoods, among other things, including the Eagle Nebula

I rode my bike this morning to work, as usual, and also included the superfood spirulina in my breakfast smoothie.

SciCentral: "The gateway to the best science news sources"

Brightest Young Things: A website for living in DC, whats going on in the city, ect. --Thanks Bloom!

Shenandoah National Park

Lunchtime quote: "SOBER - Son of a bitch, Everything's real"

Scratching the Surface

Tonight I saw my first Alexandria sunset since I moved here in January. I watched it from the 4th floor pool deck of my aunt's apartment building. It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a while, but nothing compared to Blacksburg sunsets.

Naqoyqatsi, a movie I watched last night with Scott. I watched another one of the trilogy a few years ago in college, I think.

Jazz in the Garden, every Friday at the Sculpture Garden in DC

"The world we live in is created by the visions we hold. By focusing our energy on what inspires us rather than what we fear, we manifest the world we desire. Gaia Community is an online space to share this intention with like-minded people, so that together we can make the world a better place. " Kind of like facebook because its a social networking site, but a lot different.

Some amateur astronomy...Venus joins Jupiter, Mars, Saturn Evenings: Beginning around July 16, Venus can be seen in the evening sky it will be visible for the rest of summer.
JupiterMoon: These two celestial bodies appear together at sunset on July 16 and 17.
(source: my Ecological Calendar).

Twenty-five of Hubble's Greatest Hits: Some of the best images from the Hubble over the past 17 years. There will definitely be more National Geographic posts--they have a great website. I really like the Veil Nebula, 1994, Omega Centauri, 1997, Swan Nebula 1999, Cat's Eye Nebula 2002, Hubble Ultra Deep Field, 2003, . The caption paragraphs for each picture are really informative. For example, the one on Gamma Ray Bursts:

"Gamma ray bursts (GRB),* as a result of GRB 971214, were determined to be the most energetic phenomena in the universe known to scientists. Prior to the detection of GRBs, supernovae were thought to be the most powerful explosions.
The energy a gamma ray burst releases is equal to all the energy radiated by our entire galaxy over a couple of centuries. Astronomers think the burst by GRB 971214 may have released several hundred times the energy of a supernova.
* Gamma ray bursts (GRB) are flashes of high-energy radiation that appear from random directions in space and usually last only a few seconds."