Relationships

Our relationships with our families and friends are among the most important things we are put on this earth to experience.
This may seem obvious , even trite, to some but it bears further examination here.
In the movie The African Queen Katherine Hepburn's  character says to Bogart "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put on this earth to rise above."
It is certainly in our nature to take care of our families needs in a physical sense even so far as to ensure that our children and other family members are happy and have a healthy state of mind. How many of us give any consideration at all to the spiritual well-being of our loved ones. Sure many of us take our spouses and children to church or even send the little ones to religious schools. How many of us step back and look at our families with true objectivity and assess their spiritual development.
I'll give you an example. I have an acquaintance who has a 13 year old daughter. She is dutifully taken to church every Sunday and attends a parochial school. She is showing signs of becoming quite materialistic and nearly obsessed with the trash celebrity culture that is so heavily promoted by the media. My acquaintance has acknowledged this and is in some mild distress over these developments yet feels powerless to do anything about it. I am sure most people reading this know at least one boy who spends an inordinate amount of time playing violent video games.
I should stress here that there is not a lot wrong with having an interest in pop culture or in playing most types of video games. There is something very wrong with allowing these pastimes to take the place of real, honest relationships with living, breathing people.
I am asked often "What is wrong with society these days?" Particularly after we have been subjected to some horrific event in the news. The answer is deceptively simple. Most of the real deep 'truths' of the universe are deceptively simple. We have become a fractured society. We are all becoming increasingly compartmentalized. I am astonished at how many families relate to one another on a level no deeper than they would to co-workers or fellow commuters on a train. We recognize them, communicate with them on a cursory level but do not know them at all.
In order to know someone you need to have knowledge of the following:
What do they think?
Who do they admire?
What do they want for themselves?
What do they want for others?
Who do they find attractive?
What do they find beautiful?
What do they find ugly?
What are they afraid of?
Who are they afraid of?
Who do they admire?
Who do they disdain?
What do they consider an adventure?
What do they consider a punishment?
The list could go on and on. I suspect most of us cannot answer all of the questions on this short list with regard to most of their immediate family, let alone extended family and friends.
In the next post I will further explore these issues and how they relate to the tremendous changes we are all to experience in the next six months.
As always, sleep well Apocalyptoids.

Silent Masters

Tall, thin, sparse

Jack Pines straining, attaining

Spindly heights

Crackling dry and spaced like dominoes

Arranged by a child

Red needles acrid and desiccated tumble

On waxing expirations of August

The wood of the Pine

Is it the true medium?

North and South; a million miles of matchstick sentinels

East and West; an eternity of needles, sap and peeling, scaly bark

The hills are less compelling than the trees

The timber is the thing

An aggregate that overwhelms the matter that sustains it

Trunks, branches, needles

All

Air becomes unimportant

Soil figmental

Water but a nebulous presence today

A random stone just an arbitrary intruder

Irrelevant

Only these solemn stanchions matter now

They are everything

Spiking their way into this world

From a dimension unseen

Silent masters

Robert Gallagher

Boo-who:

Boo-who:

Comic strip with a supernatural slant.
Daily with stand alone panel cartoons.
Smile! It ain't all doom and gloom. CLICK THE LINK BOO-WHO ABOVE

This Was Posted The Day Before The Massive Japanese Earthquake

Space.com space.com – Thu Mar 10, 10:15 am ET

On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.

Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon."

When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)

But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon? [Photos: Our Changing Moon]

The question is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades. Even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to Earth to make its weighty presence felt: It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.

The moon's gravity can even cause small but measureable ebbs and flows in the continents, called "land tides" or "solid Earth tides," too. The tides are greatest during full and new moons, when the sun and moon are aligned either on the same or opposite sides of the Earth.

According to John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, particularly dramatic land and ocean tides do trigger earthquakes. "Both the moon and sun do stress the Earth a tiny bit, and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned," Vidale told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com.

At times of full and new moons, "you see a less-than-1-percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higher response in volcanoes."

The effect of tides on seismic activity is greatest in subduction zones such as the Pacific Northwest, where one tectonic plate is sliding under another. William Wilcock, another seismologist at the University of Washington, explained: "When you have a low tide, there's less water, so the pressure on the seafloor is smaller. That pressure is clamping the fault together, so when it's not there, it makes it easier for the fault to slip."

According to Wilcock, earthquake activity in subduction zones at low tides is 10 percent higher than at other times of the day, but he hasn't observed any correlations between earthquake activity and especially low tides at new and full moons. Vidale has observed only a very small correlation.

What about during a lunar perigee? Can we expect more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on March 19, when the full moon will be so close?

The moon's gravitational pull at lunarperigee, the scientists say, is not different enough from its pull at other times to significantly change the height of the tides and thus the likelihood of natural disasters. [Infographic: Phases of the Moon Explained]

"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."

Vidale concurred. "Practically speaking, you'll never see any effect of lunar perigee," he said. "It's somewhere between 'It has no effect' and 'It's so small you don't see any effect.'"

The bottom line is, the upcoming supermoon won't cause a preponderance of earthquakes, although the idea isn't a crazy one.

"Earthquakes don't respond as much to the tides as you'd think they would. There should actually be more of an effect," said Vidale.

Most natural disasters have nothing to do with the moon at all. The Earth has a lot of pent up energy, and it releases it anytime the buildup gets too great. The supermoon probably won't push it past the tipping point, but we'll know for sure, one way or the other, by March 20.