Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

THE SONG OF THE EARTH

Scientists say the Earth is humming. Not just noise, but a deep, astonishing music. Can you hear it? [Mark Morford]

".....The Earth is humming. Singing. Churning out a tune without the aid of battery or string or wind-up mechanism and its song is ethereal and mystifying and very, very weird, a rather astonishing, newly discovered phenomena that's not easily analyzed, but which, if you really let it sink into your consciousness, can change the way you look at everything.

Indeed, scientists now say the planet itself is generating a constant, deep thrum of noise. No mere cacophony, but actually a kind of music, huge, swirling loops of sound, a song so strange you can't really fathom it, so low it can't be heard by human ears, chthonic roars churning from the very water and wind and rock themselves, countless notes of varying vibration creating all sorts of curious tonal phrases that bounce around the mountains and spin over the oceans and penetrate the tectonic plates and gurgle in the magma and careen off the clouds and smack into trees and bounce off your ribcage and spin over the surface of the planet in strange circular loops, "like dozens of lazy hurricanes," as one writer put it.
.....
Indeed, all the spheres do it, all the planets and all the quasars and stars and moons and whirlpool galaxies, all vibrating and humming like a chorus of wayward deities singing sea shanties in a black hole. It's nothing new, really: Mystics and poets and theorists have pondered the "music of the spheres" (or musica universalis) for eons; it is the stuff of cosmic philosophy, linking sacred geometry, mathematics, cosmology, harmonics, astrology and music into one big cosmological poetry slam.

Translation: You don't have to look very far to understand that human beings — hell, all animals, really — adore song and music and tone and rhythm, and then link this everyday source of life straight to the roar of the planet itself, and then back out to the cosmos.
.....
At some point we'll probably figure it all out. Science will, with its typical charming, arrogant certainty, sift and measure and quantify this "mystical" Earthly hum, and tell us it merely comes from, say, ocean movements, or solar wind, or 10 billion trees all deciding to grow a quarter millimeter all at once. We will do as we always do: oversimplify, peer through a single lens of understanding, stick this dazzling phenomenon in a narrow category, and forget it.

How dangerously boring. I much prefer, in matters mystical and musical and deeply cosmic, to tell the logical mind to shut up and let the soul take over and say, wait wait wait, maybe most humans have this divine connection thing all wrong. Maybe God really isn't some scowling gay-hating deity raining down guilt and judgment and fear on all humankind after all.

Maybe she's actually, you know, a throb, a pulse, a song, deep, complex, eternal. And us, well, we're just bouncing and swaying along as best we can, trying to figure out the goddamn melody."

The M & M strikes again!

How To Gag On 'The Passion'
Nine fun-filled ways Mel Gibson's brutal snuff film makes a mockery of true belief. Clip n' save!
[by Mark Morford, SF Gate]

“Perhaps you, like so many across the planet, are more than a bit baffled by the runaway success of "The Passion of the Christ." . . . You are not alone.

I have seen the movie. I have endured the spectacle so you don't have to. Here, then, are some counterthoughts. Nine random points of spiritual contention and pointy perspective check, a small pile of juicy karmic stones to toss at the next utterly depressing screening of 'The Passion' and perhaps at Mel Gibson's very sad and deeply tormented ego.

Why? Because he deserves it. Why? Because this is not a movie. It is a sad phenomenon. It is a gross spiritual emetic. It is, clearly, a cry for help.
. . .
8) This is not Christianity. This is not a message anyone needs. This is the exact opposite of spiritual progress or insight or gentle divine heat and if Jesus came back right this minute and was made to sit through this film, he would sigh gently, shake his short, shaggy hair (long hair was forbidden by Jewish law -- wrong again, Mel), and, you know, hold a nice seminar or something.

You think this is how I want to be remembered? This is what he'd say, calmly and lovingly and more than a little sad. You really think this was my message? You believe this is what I want the world to focus on, two hours of deranged apocryphal torture and close-up butchering? Is this really where humanity is still stuck, in bloodlust and shallow emotional manipulation and cheesy movie tie-ins and $17 popcorn?”
. . .
For the entire revelatory article, hie thee to SF Gate

And in my imaginary ancient archeological diggings I uncovered the faded sign heading this posting on a wall near the doorway of a recently unearthed Roman dwelling indicating that they too had problems with the loonies back when they first began their incoherent babbling and feverish proselytizing. “Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione” [I'm not interested in your friggin religious cult]. And the familiar ‘NO thumpers’ logo.

Another catchy Latin phrase that may come in handy, perhaps while bantering with Catholic clergy [???], “Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant” [May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy]. But don’t expect Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons or ‘thumpers’ to grasp your humor, they seem to be lacking in humor, and logic for that matter.

Bit of gossip. Rumor has it that Mel, traditionalist that he is, has a solid gold engraved sign on his desk with another of those catchy phrases in Latin:

Vidi Vici Veni [I saw, I conquered, I came]