It is June, and that’s a good enough reason for a new Header Image. It’s a pleasure to have Harvest the Dog on the header. Her smile should bring a smile to the thousands of visitors we get each month.
-Tyler
June 1, 2011
Crystal Cave in Costa Mesa has quality mysterious boxes
Crystal Cave - Costa Mesa Large Geodes
891 Baker St.
Suite A-16
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 754-1151
Crystal Cave in Costa Mesa has been around for a long time. I remember buying a mysterious box from them back in the 1990’s before I went off to college. The box was made of wood and had brass symbol work on it. Over the years I have used the box to hold interesting semi-precious stones and old coins. Now I have a small, yet quality coin collection and I still use that very box. There is a mysterious story about that box if you care to listen…
When I had an office in Santa Ana, that was a strange time in my life. I used to have very little money, and I used cash to purchase food. Every penny counted. But since I bought food in Santa Ana I would sometimes get old coins as change. The reason for this is because Santa Ana is one of the older parts of Orange County and a great deal of older coins are in circulation still. It was in this city that I found in my change, a 1901 penny. I loved the coin and put it in my box.
Over a few months, I would place other coins that I found. Some were in good condition, while others were quite abused yet they had tremendous character. These misshapen coins had blemishes of true experience so I felt they needed to come out of circulation and rest a while. And what better place to rest, than in a mysterious box.
I kept the box in the sunlight. It rested upon a mirror to absorb even more light. Some days it would get warm to the touch. And the wood would warp and I understood that. The wood would bleach and I welcomed it. Such things are normal and expected. But on especially bright days, the brass-work on the box would actually get hot to my fingertips. It was those days that made me realize that the coins inside…well, something was happening.
A few weeks later, I found an interesting penny that was a grey color. It was a 1943 penny. Unfortunately it was not the kind that is worth a lot of money, but it has character and spirit and I wanted to welcome it to my collection. I placed it underneath a faceless slug coin, and it rested beside a New Zealand coin and few old nickels and a piece of black stone. But a few nights passed, and I noticed something strange about the box.
The box was slightly open. I looked inside the box to see if anything was missing. Could it be that someone was tampering with my things? It made little sense because the items contained within it had little value to anyone but myself.
Crystal Cave owner: Barbara - CLICK to Visit the online store!
But when I tried to close the box, it resisted. I was confused. I checked the hinges and the sides to make sure a spring or a stick hadn’t gotten stuck into the box because I had been dissecting some old VCR’s in the corner of the office. To my surprise, there were no obstructions. I tried to close the box again, but it resisted me. Eventually, I pressed very hard to close the thing and it finally yielded to me. But when I removed my hand it slowly opened to a slight crack. I ended up getting frustrated and I put a heavy jar filled with small VCR parts on top of it to keep it closed.
The next day I removed the jar and it cracked open again. This boggled me because there were no springs in the hinge mechanism to open and shut the box. It was a very simple contraption, just a box mind you…things don’t get any simpler than this. So I just settled my mind on the notion that the box had somehow become magnetized by the amount of coins in the box. Although none of the coins were actual magnets, metal can possibly have magnetic fields or perhaps the metal was interacting with the brass hinges and the brass decorations on the top of the wood.
Regardless of whatever the reason for the box’s behavior, a month later it stopped acting strangely.
Now, I still have this box. And the collection within it has grown. So much so in face, that I’ve needed to find a new box to share the coins. So I decided to revisit the Crystal Cave and see what they had to offer. There were many boxes to choose from. Similarly to so long ago, there was a wide selection…wider in fact. I didn’t need a huge box, just something to house the younger coins, ones that didn’t have the massive amount of age and wisdom of the older coins. I finally chose a small box, again with some brass inlay decoration. It has a beautiful triangular design on the top that has squares in the motif as well. The shapes were geometrically pleasing to the eye.
I said to Barbara, the shop owner, that there is a way of things, “identification and multiplication.” That is the best way to spread energy into a new field. So many of the foreign coins are going into the small box. But in retrospect, I know I’m no where near with the small box. I have put an interim of coins in it, but I need to be willing to sacrifice some of the location of the oldest coins from the old box and let it stay within the new one. That is the only way to to seal the transition.
But enough of boxes. The store of Crystal Cave was lovely to walk into, as usual. The place is filled with interesting books and crystals and the occasional geode that was pictured above. Barbara was exquisitely helpful and friendly and so has their staff always been in the times I’ve visited the place. I’ve bought crystals from this store and they have always been very high quality.
I know I will visit the Crystal Cave again.
Here’s a link to the Crystal Cave official Website – CLICK HERE
-Tyler
Wash down a steak with a hot latte
The best follow up to a nice steak dinner, is a hot, whole-milk latte. The reason for this is because steaks are very heavy and they tend to make one want to turn into a monster. So the best way to compensate for this is to drink a big latte. Lattes have caffeine and so they counteract the heaviness of the steak meat. In fact, I already drank a whole milk latte earlier today, but since we had steak for dinner I had to follow it up with a latte for good measure.
I didn’t feel guilty about this in the slightest because I worked out extra hard yesterday that my triceps feel like they have ham sandwiches attached to them. So drinking and eating so much today is actually a reward for getting pumped yesterday and an incentive to work out tomorrow after I’m not as sore.
Haloween is right around the corner so I need to get ripped fast.
I’ve been reading he newspapers as often as I get a chance and things aren’t looking too good. There is a great deal of uncertainty and pessimism. But a lot of the articles are funny so I read it anyway. Good journalists are able to toss some humor in even the most bummer-filled subjects.
Wow this latte is startin to really kick in. I can feel my blood pulsating in my ankles. Is that safe?
I’m watching my computer run antivirus and it is so boring…zzz. The last time I did a full scan it took forever and my computer got hung up on a file so I deleted it but I forgot to run the scan again. I’m scanning righ now because my internet browser has been acting very strange. It’s been locking up more often than usual.
I actually wanted to run disk defragmenter but I’ve found that running system cleanup then antivirus…then defrag is a better way to go. I’m a little bit worried because two days after I ran defrag on my last computer the whole hint died, so maybe this isn’t the best idea. Oh well, at least I have a latte.
Let’s take a look at my coin collection…I got some good ones over here. There’s a 1901 Indian head penny. I wonder how much copper wire could be made out of this. Good for emergencies. The most recent addition is a 1941 nickel.
Now that I think about it. I want a new box to hold my younger coins from the 1960’s and younger. My current box is getting muddied energy by holding all the youngin’s.
-Tyler
May 31, 2011
Male Energy Cultivation Experiment 006A
Lumberjacks to the Max
Ok, so I’m 2 weeks into 006A and things are going very well. I’ve finally learned a few things that could end up being quite useful. The first thing is that I heard a long time about that energy cultivation has to do with the amount of food, water, sunlight, exercise and meditation…and restraint from outflows. I used to think that resisting outflows was the most important part, and it still is. But there are strategies that can be employed that help with the process. One thing that I’ve found through experience, is that food intake is huge. The amount of food and the quality of the food is extremely important. But what is more important than that is the current psuedo “temperature of the furnace.”
Timing is everything when it comes to cultivation, and when it comes to food, that axiom couldn’t be even more true. It’s not just about how much food one eats or the quality of it, as much as the timing in which it takes place. Even though this cultivation round has only been churning for 2 weeks or so, I’m at a much higher energy level than I was even during 005B. The reason for this is because I’m paying closer attention to food intake. By eating too little food, the fire of one’s digestive system looses metabolic power. And by eating too much food at the wrong time, one can smother the flame of his cultivation. So I’ve been exercising when I feel like I’ve eaten a lot the previous day. Then I go into the workout after only eaten a small bowl of cereal (by my standards). And then when I get done with the workout I’ll eat a protein and vitamin bar and then eat lots of food throughout the day and even into the evening. If I feel fat or groggy the next morning, I just listen to my body and exercise the areas that didn’t get engaged in the workout the previous couple days. And if I’m too sore to workout, I simply walk around town for hours throughout the day.
By doing this I’ve been able to limit NE’s to 1 in this two week period, which was near the beginning. And I’m not worried about that at all. Also breathing has been excellent. For a couple weeks I was transitioning from listening to my guided meditation video and listening to music instead. This worked slightly, but now I’m getting back into the guided meditation. I like how the video is only 10 minutes long so when I drift and then come back I’m not hearing anything and it is a smooth landing.
All this combined with even more water intake makes this whole process seem to have a light at the end of the tunnel. It now longer seems like I’m taking shots in the dark.
The next important thing to discuss is sunlight. Sunlight is extremely tricky to talk about because it is basically radiation that can do harm or do good. What I’m realizing is that one doesn’t need a tremendous amount of it in order to gain the benefits. But I find that being in the sun around 15 minutes – 20 minutes at a time every couple or few hours is a good place to start. I’m still learning a lot about this part of things and my findings aren’t as concrete as my analysis of food intake. But so far I can say that sunlight is the bottleneck. You can increase the amount of exercise that you can do, or increase the amount of food intake. But to overdo on sunlight can cause physical problems and turn you into a burnt raisin. So I’ve found that sunlight goes hand and hand with restraint from outflows. Once you expel sunlight energy through an outflow, it’s gone. So it is best to choose wisely.
Today at the gym I felt something that was pretty cool. I was doing some back exercises and after a decent set I took a quick break and felt an energy surge. And I just slowed down and let it sink in, and when I did, with my feet flat on the floor…I could feel through my sneakers the entire vibration of the whole gym. Every stair climb to every step on a treadmill, it was very serene and made remember what a friend once said. He said that Zen masters who attained a high enough sensitivity could eventually feel ants crawling along the ground from meters away. Also what I felt was nothing in comparison to that, it was at least a start…a reminder that I’m on the right track.
One thing to consider is whole, are we really alive, is this some sort of holographic universe thing. I tend to find contemplations like these fun. But it actually doesn’t matter if the world we live in is real or not. The more I think about it, the less I worry about whether or not this universe is just sensory inputs and information…the more fun I have. That being said, there are some distinct advantages to evaluation the universe as information alone.
To put this into perspective, let’s say that everything is just information. Ideas have some information in them…and so do cheeseburgers. How much information is in each greatly depends on the person who shared the idea with you and the quality of the barbeque sauce in the cheeseburger.
When we exercise, we are telling the body what areas to work on. Think about it, lumberjacks usually attain a certain strong body-type because of their profession, it has some things to do with genetics but I think people put too much emphasis on that. So what’s going on is that everyday these lumberjacks go to work, they are using certain muscle groups. And the exercise that they do sends information to the muscles and tendons and nerves that these things need either more blood or nutrients or that they aren’t powerful enough to get the job done quickly. So eventually the muscles get developed in those areas.
What is interesting is that food is a form of information. And drinking water is a way to help decode that information and help integrate it into your body of information. That being said…what is sunlight? Well, if cheeseburgers are information from cows and bread, then sunlight is information from our nearest star called, “Sol.” You DO NOT want to give that energy up. That information is from space, bro!?! Think about it, our sun gets energy not only from its own nuclear fission and fusion reactions that happen within itself, but it also gets some of its radiation from the light from distant stars. There is absolutely no guarantee that 100% of the sunlight we receive comes from our solar system alone. It is much more likely that a very very minute percentage of our sunlight comes from other solar systems and perhaps other galaxies entirely. This helps to explain why surfers and people who enjoy beach volleyball have a certain “glow” about them. They are absorbing information from the celestial heavens.
So there is a balance that can be struck. Sometimes engaging in an outflow may be straight up better than becoming bitter with energy cultivation. 005B ended because I needed to have 100% of my brain focused on graduation from school. I USED the energy that I had spent over a month to cultivate in order to bang out a great paper. And it worked. But if I was more adept at energy cultivation, I could have written the paper and maintained the energy flow as well. But I’ve found that this is a process, and creating the occasional illusory city along the path is perfectly all right as long as one realizes that one is doing so. Anything less is backsliding. And doing that often is a form of backsliding as well, because it is a form of self-justification.
So if water helps to decode the information, then meditation helps to debug the information. This is how a computer programmer goes through lines of code to weed out syntax errors. Or how a gardener will comb a garden for weeds. There are also things that happen during meditation that I’m just scratching the surface on. I’ve definitely found that the longer one has been cultivating, the better the meditation is. When I tried meditating a week ago it was uneventful. But last night I saw a strobe and other things. And a few weeks ago into 005B there was some serious ET stuff going down. I don’t even know where to start with that puppy.
Oh right! This reminds me, thanks for bringing up the ET stuff. You know how scientists are trying to look closer and closer into the fabric of the universe? We have mathematicians and physicists trying to evaluate and examine the tiniest particles and create theories. And the farther they look, they come up with things like quantum theory and other such things. These theories deal with coping with strange phenomenon when looking at very minute and small pieces of information. There are issues with the observer and the observed, the experiment and the experimenter. Well, that process is a way of tickling the very fabric of the universe itself. These scientists are taking a feather to being that we are all a part of and in return the universe gives us a puzzle to play with. The more I read about it, the more it seems like a dance than a mining excavation.
Well, meditation is very similar to the scientists of quantum mechanics…except the roles are reversed. In this case, the still person who is trying to relax and chill is the one that experimented on by the universe itself. As humans in everyday hyper-society we constantly say exactly what we are feeling either through our blogs, tweets, jobs, conversations or even our scents and smells through exercising and pheromones. But when we meditate and get very quiet, we are playing hide and go seek with the universe. It is so used to knowing everything about us, that it gets curious in us. The deeper the state of stillness and the more relaxed the concentration, the more the observer becomes interested. Eventually, some things may revealed to make us simply laugh or smile.
-Tyler