It's Been a Lovely Ride

Sometimes I ponder about just how long I can keep up my active lifestyle; and inevitably my thoughts turn to just how long I can stick around before my used up and abused body decides it has had enough. Today I learned about the world's oldest person, the only person still alive born in the 1800's. Quite amazing to think of someone who has experienced three centuries. Emma Moreno, of Vercelli, Italy was born in 1899, and is pushing 118 years of a good long life. I'm encouraged to hear her words of advice as to her longevity: “I eat two eggs a day, and that’s it. And cookies." I, too, eat more than my share of eggs, but I was glad that she mentioned cookies. The lesson I take from Emma and others is that systematic under-eating is the essential key to longevity, more than perhaps any other factor. Eat less and live longer. If I am blessed enough to live as long as Emma, I may add a few items to her list - whiskey, smiles, singing, and running, to wit. No matter, however long it lasts, it has been a lovely ride, so far. Think I'll go eat a cookie to celebrate, and maybe extend my life a bit.

The secret of life
Is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it,
There ain't nothing to it.
Nobody knows how we got
To the top of the hill.
But since we're on our way down,
We might as well enjoy the ride.

The secret of love
Is in opening up your heart.
It's okay to feel afraid,
But don't let that stand in your way.
'Cause anyone knows
That love is the only road.
And since we're only here for a while,
Might as well show some style.
Give us a smile.

Isn't it a lovely ride?
Sliding down, gliding down,
Try not to try too hard,
It's just a lovely ride.

Now the thing about time
Is that time isn't really real.
It's just your point of view,
How does it feel for you?
Einstein said he
Could never understand it all.
Planets spinning through space,
The smile upon your face,
Welcome to the human race.

Some kind of lovely ride.
I'll be sliding down,
I'll be gliding down.
Try not to try too hard,
It's just a lovely ride.
Isn't it a lovely ride?
Sliding down, gliding down,
Try not to try too hard,
It's just a lovely ride.
The secret of life
Is enjoying the passage of time.
Lyrics by JAMES TAYLOR

The Power of One, and Zero

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) is recognized as the father of calculus, but he also discovered kinetic energy, and transformed physics with his idea that the universe is a hologram, even though physically it is a fractal (in which each drop of water hanging from a tree in a garden contains another tree in a garden with a drop of water). Leibniz was an early and prolific inventor of mechanical calculators and believed that since all thought is symbolic, then symbols rather than language is the best representation of human thought. To this end he attempted to build an alphabet of human thought - a universal language based on algebra. For Leibniz, it eventually reduced to a binary system, that he figured out by age 20, that forms the basis for all modern computing. Leibniz himself saw binary less as a computational tool than as a means of discovering mathematical, philosophical and even theological truths. While working on his binary system, Leibniz was in correspondence with Joachim Bouvet, part of a Jesuit mission in China. Bouvet sent Leibniz a woodcut of the Fu Xi arrangement of hexagrams of the I Ching which proved enormously influential to the Leibniz to the extent that he titled his paper, “Explanation of the binary arithmetic, which uses only the characters 1 and 0, with some remarks on its usefulness, and on the light it throws on the ancient Chinese figures of Fu Xi”. This code is the basis for all current computing from iPhones to the Chinese Tihane-2, which remains the most powerful supercomputer in the world.

Aum

 

 Aum is the vibrational sound of the cosmic machine of creation and destruction.

Aum is the name of God in its unmanifested form.

Aum comprises all manifested and unmanifested worlds.

Aum means nothing and it also means everything.

Aum is the most mysterious word in the Universe. Aum is thought to be the eternal sound.

Aum consists of three sounds A...U....M.

A - Signifies the beginning of the universe,

U - Signifies the life period of universe and

M - Signifies the destruction of the Universe.

Hence AUM is the only word which represents the three main work of God:

Creation (Brahma), Operation (Vishnu) and Destruction (Shiv) of the Universe (Srishti).

Most of the mantras in Hinduism start with the word AUM,

because AUM is pure consciousness while other words in a mantra are Nature (Prakriti).

AUM in itself is a complete Mantra; its chanting is sacred and brings enlightenment. It is the Maha Mantra.

It does not belong to any language; it is the primodal vibration of the consciousness which created the universe.

AUM has four steps: A...U....M and the last one silent

A = Physical plane , wake state of mind, Beginning, Brahma,

U = Astral Plane, dream state of mind, Manifestation,Vishnu,

M = Causal Plane, dream-less state, Destruction, Rudra.

Fourth unspoken sound = Turiya is beyond the universe, the Enlightened State.

AUM is a Sagun Mantra, Nirgun Mantra and Beeja Mantra ALL IN ONE.

Recitation of Aum brings peace and happiness and finally Enlightenment.

The Spirituality of Mathematics

Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes - I mean the universe - but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders 
in vain through a dark labyrinth.
Galileo Galilei
 
If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6, and 9, 
then you would have a key to the universe.
Nikola Tesla

Tesla was fascinated with the numbers 3, 6 and 9, perhaps even obsessed, as he was reported to have always walked around a building three times before entering. Aside from his apparent obsession, there is substance to his fascination. The 3, 6 and 9 represent the pathways that force (energy / information) manifest through to form material. The other numbers: 1 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 represent the already manifested ingredients of material. Thus the structure of all things material is dependent on the sequence / pattern that force takes via the 3 , 6 and 9 conduits. The sequence changes to form the pulses (wave) force found forming and supporting all things commonly known as fields. 

9 is 3 squared and 3 is the first prime. Everything contained herein expresses the 3 or third principal. Space is defined by 3 dimensions. When working with these number patterns, think in terms of thirds. Now it becomes somewhat clearer as to why there are 360 degrees in a circle. They are all expressing decimal parity of 9 which is to say they are center focused. Even if you halve 45 and so on you will get 22.5 = 9, 11.25 = 9, 5.625 = 9, 2.8125 = 9 and so on. The 9 is a self similar axis, the Z axis. The X and Y define the surface topology of the logarithmic spiral, while Z is the central third. 6 and 3 oscillate around nine and it’s probably 360 because 3 and 6 are the “nines”.

The 4th Dimension is TIME - there are 24 hours in a day; 2+4 = 6; there are 60 minutes in an hour; 6+0 = 6; there are 60 second in a minute; 6+0 = 6. So the full revolution is a 6, half is 12 which is a 3. Around the 12 hour clock you have a constant 3,6,9 oscillation. 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock= 3, then 15 o'clock = 6, 18 o'clock = 9.... 3 , 24 o'clock = 6, and 3 , 6 , 9 , 3 , 6 , 9, ........forever.

Numbers have temporal value (series of values over a time period), spatial (occupying) and volumetric qualities. Space and time are one thing - “space-time”. They are both spirals. Everything is a curved line except the 9 - the spirit emanation outside of space and time.

Not only that but an atom is 99.9999 % space; it is a mini blackhole. Electromagnetism is radiating out from an exchange of gravity going into the 9. The 9 demonstrates the omni dimension which is the higher dimensional flux emanation called Spirit that always occurs within the center of a magnetic field. The number nine is Energy being manifested in a single moment event of occurrence in our physical world of creation. It is unique because it is the focal center by being the only number identifying with the vertical upright axis. It is the singularity or the Primal Point of Unity. The number nine never changes and is linear.

For example all multiples of 9 equal 9. 9 x 1 = 9, 9 x 2 = 18, but 1 + 8 = 9, 9 x 3 = 27, but 2 + 7 = 9. This is because it is emanating in a straight line from the center of mass out of the nucleus of every atom, and from out of the singularity of a black hole. It is complete, revealing perfection, and has no parity because it always equals itself. This is because it is flowing in a straight line from the center of mass out of the nucleus of every atom, and from out of the singularity of every black hole. It is complete, revealing perfection and has no parity because it always equals itself.

Nature always expresses herself with numbers. The symmetry of our decimal system is a principle of nature. The 9 axis causes the doubling circuit and it is the point towards which matter converges and away from which it diverges or expands. Thus the polar number pairs will be mirror images of each other, both flowing in opposite directions from the central axis. There is perfect symmetry wrapped around a single point coiling outwards the way that petals are wrapped in a rose, or a nautilus shell spirals outward.

The number nine lines up with the center of the infinity symbol and it is from this center that the linear emanations we call Spirit flow from the center of mass outwards. Spirit is the only thing in the universe that moves in a straight line. Spirit is what makes everything else warp and curve around it. The perfect number patterns are actually created by this Spirit energy. Without Spirit the universe would become destitute and void. Spirit flow is the source of all movement as well as the source of the non-decaying spin of the electron.

Talking Across the Stars

On November 16, 1974, a radio message (the image on the left) consisting of 1679 pulses of binary code (0's and 1's), taking a little under three minutes to transmit, was transmitted on a frequency of 2380MHz from the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico by SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) to the globular star cluster M13, some 25,000 light years away and consisting of some 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules, in an attempt to solicit a response from any intelligent alien lifeforms that might receive the message. The message was a mathematical explanation written in a basic code describing who we are as a species and where we live within our own solar system.

Why 1679 digits? The reason for this is pure mathematics. 1679 is the unique product of two prime numbers - 23 and 73. Any sufficiently intelligent lifeform would look for unique, universal constructs - such as prime numbers, chemical element frequencies and binary digits. Because ONLY the two prime numbers 23 and 73, when multiplied together, produce 1679 there can only be a single way to arrange the signal, by converting it into a matrix grid - 23 squares by 73 squares.

On August 21, 2001 two crop formations were reported near Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK (the image on the right). The Chilbolton reply in the form of a crop formation was a startling reply. The coded message imprinted in the crop formation showed nine distinct discrepancies between what was discovered in the crop field at Chilbolton and the original message transmitted to the stars in 1974.

The numbers 1 to 10 appear exactly the same in the formation. However the atomic numbers indicating the prevalent elements making up life on Earth, has an additional value inserted into the binary sequence. This is precisely added in the correct location in the original binary code (therefore it can't be a mistake). Decoding from the crop formation, this additional element has an atomic number of 14 - Silicon. Moving down, the next change is an obvious one - consisting of an extra strand on the right side of the DNA double-helix. Another, less obvious, change is in the binary coding of the number of nucleotides in DNA itself (in the center). There are quite significant changes to the shape of the alien-like humanoid form and to the diagram of the Arecibo dish. On either side of the ET form, there are changes to both the population figure and also the height value. The latter is now 1000 in binary, or 8. If we multiply this by the original wavelength unit we get 100.8cm which is roughly 3' 4" - corresponding to the height of ET by many witness accounts. Below this there are additional changes to the Solar System chart. The third planet from the sun is not the only one highlighted; the fourth and fifth planets are as well. The fifth even appears to be emphasized even more, with three additional pixels. Lastly, the representation of the Arecibo transmitter in the original message is even more cryptic, and the binary code for the size of the transmitter is altered.

So what does it all mean? There are some fairly obvious implications from the crop formation. First, and quite obvious from the aerial view is the shape of the ET figure. It clearly has a stick-like body with two arms and two legs, but has a much larger head and two distinct eyes, reminiscent of the greys of popular UFO culture. Indeed, the modified height code of just over three feet would also confirm this. If you decode the population binary sequence in the actual crop formation you get a value of approx 21.3 billion - a lot bigger than the original transmission and Earth's current population. Perhaps this is the population of ET's planet, or even the combined human and ET population of Earth - if you believe, like some researchers, that Earth is already populated by an unseen ET contingency! If you assume that the alterations to the Solar System section in the crop formation refer to several planets, then this could also indicate the combined population of inhabited planets somewhere. There is also some indication of a change in the basic DNA structure of ET. The additional (third) strand shown on the right and also a change in the number of nucleotides indicates a different DNA than ours. It seems quite similar, so perhaps it's a genetic alteration or even a mutation of ours. The difference in the Solar System information could indicate one of two scenarios: either it refers to our own Solar System, but in addition to highlighting Earth it also highlights the fourth and fifth planets - Mars and Jupiter. Alternatively, it might not correspond to our own Solar System at all, but to the ET's own solar system - which would also appear to consist of nine planets. The sun is also depicted in the crop formation as slightly smaller. Could this be their smaller sun, or could it represent some point in our own future - perhaps when the sun has become smaller and we've populated the other planets? This latter idea, although highly speculative, could even indicate the DNA modification through increased genetic experiments.

If you look at the whole exchange on a philosophical level, it stimulates an intriguing debate about communication with other possible lifeforms. And it begs the question as to whether crop circles are a legitimate form of interstellar communication. And since the Chilbolten crop circle has an additional column added for Silicon, could this be an additional clue about the physiology of ET's? Perhaps ET is a silicon based lifeform instead of carbon based. Regardless of our take on the exchange, the formations at Chilbolten represent an immense effort to portray what we see in the field and from the air. To create the Chilbolten crop formation within a few hours of darkness over one night would have been extremely impressive, irrespective of its origin - whether human or extra-terrestrial.

Aerial Photo of Chilbolten Crop Formation

Cosmic Conundrum

This is the Chiseldon Crop Circle 

discovered in the U.K. on August 2, 1996

This is the Roswell Rock

found by Robert L. Ridge on September 4, 2004

25 miles from the famed UFO crash site

Assuming neither originated by the hand of man,

WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE SOMEONE IS 

TRYING TO TELL US?

to the Beat of a Different Drummer

To End All Violence

Much of the violence witnessed around the world today is the result of a revolution against secularism. Among Arabic peoples of Islamic orientation the revolution is two-fold - the first has been against the secular nationalism of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak in Egypt, Assad in Syria, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq – all regimes widely viewed even by their own people as corrupt and oppressive; the second is against the secular culture of the West, judged as decadent, materialist, and soul-destroying.

In a world of declining superpowers, sclerotic international institutions, a swath of failing states and the chaos of civil and tribal wars, religious fundamentalists and extremists are seizing power and influencing elections. We have little choice but to re-examine the factors that have led to violent conflict in the first place. If we do not, we will face a continuation of the terror that has marked the 21st century thus far. The real clash of the 21st century will not be between civilizations or religions, but within them. It will be between those who accept and those who reject the separation of religion and power.

We seem to have entered an historic period of desecularization in which peoples of faith around the world seem to be aiming to retake the cultural high ground from the trend experienced around the planet in the last four hundred years of attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis. The uprising by extreme Islamic groups like ISIS in objection to secular influence is only the spearhead of a broader cultural shift that we may expect to proliferate until more faith-based leadership usurps to power over the more materialistic leadership we see today throughout the world. The momentum that is building is not something that will be defeated. Until the factors that have led to the rise of ISIS are tackled effectively, the murderous chaos now largely confined to Syria and Iraq will become an issue that impinges ever more on all of our lives.

The problem will not just go away, and relying on conventional politics to sort it out may be of little use at all. People in the West do not fully understand the power of the forces that oppose their way of life. Passions at play run deeper and stronger than any might imagine, and reason alone will not win this battle; nor will invoking the causes of freedom and democracy. We will all need to join together to fight against extremism of every stripe to meet the challenge we now face of how to defend and protect the hard-won freedoms and liberties we have gained in the West.

The initial problem is that there is a culture gap with these Muslim extremists. They live within a time system where the minimum unit of currency is a decade, where they are comfortable looking at the world in terms of centuries. So far, their long-term problem is meeting the short attention span of people in the West. There is nothing accidental about the spread of radical politicized religion in our time. It came about because of a series of decisions a half-century ago that led to the creation of an entire educational network of schools dedicated to the proposition that loving God means hating the enemies of God (infidels). Radical Islam was a movement fueled by oil-producing countries to fund networks of schools and universities dedicated to Wahhabi or Salafist interpretations of Islam, marginalizing the more open, gracious, intellectual and mystical tendencies in Islam that were in the past the source of its greatness. The end result has been a flood of chaos, violence and destruction that is drowning the innocent and guilty alike. As long as these teachings of hate continue in Middle Eastern mosques as well as those embedded within Western culture the current violent cycle will continue.

When we attempt to understand the motivation for jihad and why young disaffected people of every background from around the world are enlisting in support of the Islamic cause, the conventional socioeconomic explanations do not work. The militaristic extremists we face are not poor, ignorant Islamic fundamentalists; they are well educated and largely come from means. It is the secular society of the West and the resulting moral vacuum that leaves idealistic youth without anything substantive to believe in, leaving them susceptible to radical influence. Young people are and have always been idealistic, but as a culture the West is very short of ideals right now, and so youth become drawn to causes that may be very dangerous.

Young people are growing up in a world in which they are not proud of their country, as previous generations have been. They have no strong identity with their country or community, and so they seek identity wherever it may be offered – on You Tube and social media. In the cause offered by religious extremists they hear talk of high ideals and the sacred to justify what would otherwise be seen as murderous acts. They are being offered an identity as part of the global nation of Islam which is presented within these social media outlets as being attacked and humiliated. In times past, radical groups such as ISIS would have been marginalized and largely unknown, but now their ideas can instantly reach a global audience thanks to the revolution in information technology. Their ability to spread a hybrid of religious fervor and political power has created an anti-modern maelstrom with a very destabilizing effect.

What is needed is a return to religious/spiritual values if we are to create any sort of competing identity that can counter the attraction to extremist propaganda by disillusioned young people. Regardless of whatever ideology and beliefs a religion represents, it gives people a real sense of their common good as members of society rather than being abandoned to founder in the self-centered ideas promoted by the secular world. We have not been addressing the theological dimension of these problems we face in the world, confronting the underlying religious issues involved. It has been said that while weapons win wars, it is ideas that win the peace. We are not going to resolve this conflict of values with bullets and drones.

The solution to the problem – reinforcing the religious principles of respect, tolerance and love of neighbor found in all faiths, better education, plus a coming together of all the faiths to fight extremism. Christians, Jews, and Muslims must stand together now, in defense of humanity, the sanctity of life, religious freedom, and to honor the Divine. A new generation of religious leaders and educators who embrace the world in its diversity must be trained, with emphasis upon the generosity found within all sacred texts. There must be an international campaign against the teaching and preaching of hate. As John Locke said: “It is unreasonable that any should have a free liberty of their religion who do not acknowledge it as a principle of theirs that nobody ought to persecute or molest another because he dissents from him in religion.” If children continue to be taught that non-believers must be converted or killed, all the military interventions in the world will not stop the violence. While religion may be one of the main sources of of violence we witness in the world, it may also be the path to our mutual peace.

There is incredibly powerful idealism among Muslim youth today; they are hungry to bring about reconciliation in a secular world through restored religious values. That idealism must be channeled for constructive benefit, away from hateful teachings. In the end, no matter how much struggle we go through to reach for peace, no matter how much we try to maintain a secular world without a foundation in religion, it will only be through religious/spiritual ideals that the world returns to lasting stability.

Raising a Hand for Freedom

To defend our country we need a prepared military force, but to defend our way of life we need education. Freedom is lost when it is taken for granted. Unless we hand on our memories and ideals to the next generation – the story of how we won our freedom and the battles that had to be fought along the way are lost forever.

Most traditional cultures down through time saw and continue to see education as the responsibility of the parent or teacher to instruct, guide or command children on their path to independent adulthood. The task of the child has been merely to absorb and obey. There is a great danger in this approach, however, as those delegated as teachers to pass along the values and traditions of culture may deliberately chose to omit or abandon certain memories, and may subvert certain ideals to accommodate a particular competing agenda. In a matter of a generation of time the freedom gained through struggle may be lost through subversive instruction and guidance. The remarkable history and traditions of the United States are at grave peril right now because we have abdicated our fundamental responsibilities to pass along the exceptional ideals of our nation.

As a former professional educator, one of the things that I have always admired was the Jewish approach to the issue of education of youth - that it is the duty of a parent to encourage his or her children to always ask questions, and that the child who does not yet know how to ask should be taught to ask. Jewish folks are always questioning and arguing about religion and life with each other, and it is a wonderful thing for keeping the fires of their faith burning brightly. Judaism is not a religion of blind obedience, certainly, nor should any classroom be. In fact, there is no Hebrew word that means “to obey”. This is not the approach practiced in American schools (outside of my own classrooms) in the 75 or so secondary schools I have been exposed to public education over my lifetime. Judaism believes children should ask questions, and that instruction should begin in response to the questions asked by a child.

Socrates, who spent his life teaching people to ask questions, was condemned by the citizens of Athens for corrupting the young. Teachers today are, by and large, not prepared to address the deep and difficult questions children might raise if encouraged to do so. Colleges that prepare teachers to instruct and to guide young people completely avoid the issue, focusing exclusively upon content and classroom management at the expense of real student growth. I never learned in college how to orient instruction around student inquiry, but stumbled upon this natural approach quite by accident.

During instruction about plate tectonics to six sections of high school earth and space science, as my students had reached a point of perfect understanding and successful parroting of the fine points of my instruction, I discovered that recent theorizing about the topic I was teaching had diametrically changed and that the matters of instruction I was presenting from the text book were completely wrong. Faced with this conundrum and desiring to save face, I resolved the matter in a creative manner by telling my students that I had lied. I was amused at the reaction. My students refused to believe me. "Teachers never lie."

Insisting that I lied to them (disregarding the fact that science had evolved inconveniently in the middle of my instruction) I turned the episode into a teachable moment. After re-teaching the latest theory to replace what I had just taught out of the text book, regaining buy-in from all of my classes, I encouraged my students to always question everything that I presented to them. At first they went all in with their questions, often wandering into the ridiculous in their attempts to exercise their new-found freedom. It was not long before the questions settled down to being mostly on topic. Building upon my success, I encouraged my students to question everything in life - other teachers, their parents, their preists, news on the radio and TV and in newspapers (there was no Internet at that time). Question, question, question! As one might expect, I caught a lot of flack from all points as my revolution grew in force. While there was thereafter always a buzz of excitement in my own classroom because real learning was occurring, real personal growth, I gained a first-hand appreciation for what Socrates must have felt as I continued to further corrupt youth by encouraging them to question everything.

Alas, I abandoned teaching as a career, or rather, it abandoned me. Freedom is still borne forward by those who question the face-value of everything, refusing to accept and obey just because someone commanded them to do so. Long live the Socratic Method!

Cosmic Origami

When Einstein came along with his General Theory of Relativity, all of a sudden flat-earthers had a new justification for their loony argument. Einstein demonstrated that gravity comes about through the distortion that matter and energy produce in a four-dimensional spacetime “sheet.” If one looks at the universe as a two dimensional flat sheet of paper, then what we perceive as billions of clumps of matter that we call galaxies are no more than three-dimensional forms created out of a single flat universal sheet of paper into all manner of interesting shapes through a sort of grandiose cosmological origami. It is gravity itself that causes this infinite flat sheet consisting of dark matter pervading all of space to distort and fold into the three-dimensional bodies that we perceive to fill the universe.

From our observations of microwaves we know that just after the Big Bang there was a dark matter sheet laid out evenly throughout the universe whose density varied very little from point to point. However, there were tiny density fluctuations in the first instant of time that set up ripples in the field of dark matter. In these dense regions where the sheet contracted a bit, it bunched up, eventually forming structures like galaxies. In less-dense regions the sheet stretched out to form voids between the galaxies. The observable universe arose out of clumping along the folds created by the rippling.

If we take a three dimensional sheet of dark matter and expand it into a six dimensional position-velocity phase space, then each particle of matter may be plotted against it's 3D spatial coordinates and also the three coordinates of its velocity. Dark matter has a unique physical “collisionless” property in which its particles can all pass right through each other without any effect. In this 6D space phase, dark matter’s collisionlessness ensures that its sheet can never cross itself, or tear, just like a 2D paper-origami sheet is not allowed to cross itself or tear when it folds up. The creases and folds in dark matter are important because they mark the edges of structures like galaxies.

But the analogy to origami only goes so far. The cosmological origami sheet is stretchy, unlike in paper origami. And the cosmological sheet is three-dimensional, folding up in six dimensions, unlike 2D paper-origami sheets that fold up in 3D. The origami analogy helps explain why galaxies tend to form with filaments spreading out from them. Without stretching the paper, it is impossible to form a bunched up knot in the paper origami without producing filamentary folds at the same time. The origami viewpoint also helps us to understand the growth of complexity - how the complexity of a structure increases with the amount of “origami paper” that gets folded up to construct it.

For the Love of a Good Dog

On my trail run at Uwharrie National Forest, NC, yesterday I twice encountered a gentle Shepard named Rambo who wanted to run with me in the worst way.  I had to stop in my run several times for Rambo's owner to retrieve his pooch against its basic instincts.  I could see in his eyes that Rambo and I were kindred spirits at heart, sharing the same wild passion for unfettered, rampant, explosive, free physical expression. I continued lopping on down the trail with a smile on my face, feeling very validated, knowing that the path I was following was one of magnanimous heart.