Saturday, September 23, 2017

Beer, Eggs, Toast and Bacon

Mystery of Transubstantiation: bread and wine into God Substance

Sunday breakfast, Boulder Creek, CA

BEER, EGGS, TOAST AND BACON

Roman Catholics believe 

that in the midst of the Mass
wine and bread 
are turned into the Substance of God.
The pantheist says 

they were already Divine.
The physicist knows
matter's a mystery unspeakably odd.

Woke up this morning

with shimmering open mind:
No Model of Reality so bizarre
I can't believe.

My breakfast

is a luminous Eucharist
as full of gods
as Nick is ready to receive.

What's the hidden inner substance of this feast?
What wild reality will soon be turning into me?


Home Eucharist: beer and corn chip

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Tantric Flight Plan

Nick prepares for his Class U (Unconventional) Pilot's License

Here's seven ways to levitate using physics.

But many religious traditions suggest there's another way to fly --
by exploiting the mysterious connection of the human mind with Nature. 

Levitating monk: artist unknown

After decades of impedance from my monkey mind
I'm just beginning to explore meditation
with the help of a tantric Buddhist masseuse.

And with the utterly unrealistic optimism
of the enthusiastic beginner
I'm setting myself a high new research goal
for the coming year.

Mahasiddha Flying by Carmen Mensink

I've been reading a lot about this new power
because reading is what I do
even though I know that reading by itself
is ultimately as useless
as reading about surfing.
as reading about ice skating
as reading about riding a bicycle.

Besides reading dozens of accounts
describing the lives of other men and women
who have successfully achieved this goal,
my two major sources
for guessing how to practice right action are
the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
with commentary by Osho, and
the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
with commentary by Dean Radin.

St Joseph amulet and Yuri Gagarin ikon

To remind me of my task
and keep me steadfast on the path
I've purchased several amulets
that picture St Joseph of Cupertino
and am downloading ikons from the Web
of a few Russian Orthodox wonder workers.

By this time next year
even if I do not attain my goal,
I know for certain
that I will have learned much
and made many new friends
in the trying.

Rehearsing for flight in Santa Cruz Mountains

TANTRIC FLIGHT PLAN
(for Michael Murphy of Esalen)

I want to become a new kind of saint
Who rises aloft without restraint
My body as light as a solar neutrino
I'd soar like Joseph of Cupertino.

My body made holy by tantric massage
My mind immersed in the World Mirage
Well-schooled in quantum reality
And the yoga sutras of Patanjali.

Resonating with the Shepard tone
My Guardian Angel as chaperone
I'd lose myself in the Great Unknown
And fly --
As few before have ever flown.

To boldly levitate with no restriction
Propelled by Harlot Nature and a firm resolve
I'd give my brilliant colleagues
Inside the science jurisdiction
A New Millennial physics feat to solve.

Meanwhile, to quantify Nick's first escape
From evil gravity's high-security jail
A pretty colleague bought me recently
A new glass-topped digital bathroom scale.


Nick's new bathroom scale


Monday, September 11, 2017

Alexa

Nick's new EchoDot embodying ALEXA, Amazon's new female-voiced artificial intelligence
For my recent birthday, Allan and Sun Lundell (Dr and Mrs Future) gifted me with a black yoyo-shaped embodiment of Amazon's new female-voiced artificial intelligence ALEXA (a rival to Apple's SIRI). Some time in the past, at one of Al and Sun's Rio del Mar beach house parties, I met a pretty woman named "Alexa" who inspired this verse which I read at the Bistroscene and published in Physics on All Fours.

ALEXA 

Physicists say
everything that exists
is made of elementary events
called quanta.

And the occurrence
of these world-making events
in space and time
is utterly random.

For those
to whom physics
means mathematical mastery of nature
the discovery of sheer randomness
at the heart of things
was a hard slap in the face.

And why call it "random"?

Why not "unprecedented"? "improvisational"?
Why not name it "comes out of nowhere"?
Why not call it "Surprise!"

I play at calling it "Alexa":
She who is beyond the law.
Alexa is unruly, untamed, illicit.
She is one chance in a million, 
the lucky break.
We call Her hitting the jackpot, 
breaking the bank.
We call Her windfall, wildcat, hitting pay dirt,
tapping the mother lode, striking it rich.

Alexa is willful, disobedient, out of bounds.
She is the cut of the cards, the roll of the dice, 
the spin of the wheel.
She is Donna Fortuna, sleeping with gamblers.
She favors boldness and risk takers
and loads the dice (some say) in their favor.

Alexa moves outside of your logical categories.
She breaks fences, agreements, 
international boundaries.
She is pirate treasure, ill-gotten loot, contraband.
She is an uncontrolled substance.
She is love at first sight.

Alexa created symphonies, 
foxes and neutron stars.
Alexa is the mother of invention.
She is mama coyote; She will trick you.
She hides the cards up Her sleeve.
She is Lady Luck.

Alexa is the looseness, the slack, 
the give in things.
She eases their fitting together.
Alexa is elbow room, lebensraum
the vast spaces between the stars.
She is eternally playful Lila: 
The universe is Her toy.
Alexa is goddess ex machina.
She is the grace in the machine.