Gastrointestinally Yours

And now, a word (or two) about farts.

Why farts? If you really need some meaningful rationale, then you should probably just move on and come back another day. MY reason is that I came across some things about farts that I thought were fascinating and, by nature, I like to share these things. Ya know.

For instance, I recently came across a flatulence based good news/bad news scenario involving mice. It was a string of articles written by different scientists about how human farts lower blood pressure in mice. It has something to do with the hydrogen sulfide in farts, which is the chemical that makes them especially stinky. The only thing is, if mice, or other creatures, breathe too many farts, it can begin to disfigure and mutate their sinus cavities.

Of course, this makes me wonder, automatically, how they gathered this data, and also how the carefully regulated use of farts might be beneficial to human beings suffering with high blood pressure. Also, what might occur due to an accidental overdose. I’m sure it has you wondering as well...

Go ahead. Let your mind wander. I’ll wait.

Dum de dum de dum dum dum.

I also discovered (though I didn’t take time to verify it) that the average human being farts around 14 times a day. But these articles didn’t say how much of that expulsion was during sleep. They also did NOT chronicle the average length of said farts, nor did they present the sonic pitch of the farts, which has a tremendous impact, I’m sure you know, on the actual volume of release per second of any given period of flatulence.

So, there’s my daily bit of info presented for the general good of humankind.

Better out than in I always say.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Interplay

 I’ve been listening to a lot of different music lately and have been trying to pay attention to what grabs me while I’m listening.

You’d think the words would be the thing, but the words have more potential to push me away than draw me in. As long as the words aren’t so stupid or corrupt that they drive me away from a song, I find that I’m looking for something more complex.

Even in the simplest songs that have more than one instrument, there is a combining of rhythms and tones that are crisscrossing, moving and changing. And I find that this causes a really strong response in me both emotional and, I think, physical.

It can be something classical, like Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I have a recording by Dmitry Sitkovetsky where he arranges this keyboard music for strings. It is, in my opinion, some of the best music ever recorded. Hearing it on strings is almost like hearing it move from two dimensions into three. I always go back to listening to it over and over again because the interplay in the music is endlessly compelling and profound.

But it doesn’t have to be classical. The music of James Brown or Tower of Power, Thelonius Monk or Chick Corea. The complexities of the drum programming that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produce. David Crowder’s melodic twists, stringing out against changing patterns. The counter melodies that some country and folk and pop artists craft between the instruments and voice.

There is a math to all of this that rises above numbers on a page or musical notes on a staff. It’s like finding the answers to questions you didn’t even know you had.

There’s an old hymn from the 1800's called “This Is My Father’s World.” And there’s a line in the song that says, "This is my Father's world, and to my list'ning ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.”

This “music of the spheres” is a very old idea, basically that the planets and universe figuratively “sing” with their interplay throughout creation. And I find a similarity there, between how I feel when I look up at the night sky and see the stars and planets, and how I feel when I hear the interplay of music.

I don’t know if you can relate to any of this, but I felt like trying to express it. I think I have not done it very well, but some things are not done much justice with words.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Uninspired Empiricism

If you have any interest at all in science and the questions of how we “know” things, or just questions about what is “real,” then you really need to spend a little time getting to know Albert Einstein. I have been studying the life and work of Einstein for about two years now, and it is endlessly fascinating. For me, this interest has spiritual overtones to it because I’m interested for spiritual reasons in what science has to say about the nature of reality and what the material universe is composed of. But along the way I have learned a lot about Einstein and it is always intriguing.

I mentioned before that I’m reading a book called “Quantum” by Manjit Kumar. I’m nearly finished and it has been a very consuming read, though I’m going to have to read it again. I’m not quite getting everything. That happens to me a lot. But there are lots of quotes from Einstein in this book that keep me wanting to know more about him.

Einstein was determined to hang on to the belief that an objective reality exists. It just made sense to him, which seems like common sense. But some of the other physicists were drifting into the realm of what Einstein called “voodoo forces” and “spooky interactions.” And Einstein held on, to the end of his life, to the basic belief in objective reality.

Einstein wrote to a friend, saying, “I have no better expression than ‘religious’ for confidence in the rational nature of reality insofar as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.”

It seems to me that a lot of the sciences and maths have done exactly that: “degenerated into uninspired empiricism.” And a lot of people have allowed their lives to do the same thing.



Exodus 9:16
Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010