Monday, June 18, 2018

The Best Science

Sciencegasm by Rian Fike
THE BEST SCIENCE
(For John Bell)

The best science
Is done after midnight
In the darkest part
Of the night.

The best science
Is done
On hands and knees
Chasing
Some obscure delight.

The best science
Is done
By two or by one:
A risky high-wire act
Which only few can see.

The best science done
Is done for fun
And love of mystery.

The best science
Goes
Where the darkness is deepest
Not merely to bring home a kill
But to become the very first seeker
Of a deeper darkness still.

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Nick Chakras: Part Three

 
12 Cranial Chakras

12 CRANIAL CHAKRAS

Worship at your local TEMPLE
At the forward lobe dividing man from ape
FRONTAL, PARIETAL, OCCIPITAL
And the hind brain situated near the NAPE
Then the CHEEK bones, the MAXILLA
And the MANDIBLE's estate.
INION, TM JOINT and CHIN,
Little landmarks on the skin. 
Toast skoal to the skull, your CRANIUM's domain
Protecting a thing thought useful called the brain.

SPINAL CHAKRAS
8 SPINAL CHAKRAS

Most creatures whom you meet today
Will be propped up by vertebrae
They'll have a PELVIS and a TAIL
A NECK and THORAX without fail.
Though all were born for different fates
Salute your fellow vertebrates.

What partners with the small of back?
Was a matter of no small debate
Both of them are saddle-shaped
So LUMBAR and PERINEUM mate.

Bring attention to the WHOLE body
Then turn your thoughts to a larger goal
Imagine all and everything you're not:
The Universe with a you-shaped HOLE.

Pelvis by Emma Craig
ZERO    ONE    TWO    THREE

Nick Chakras: Part Two

LIMB CHAKRAS
12 HAND CHAKRAS
6 LEFT   6 RIGHT

This little PIGGIE went to Stanford
This little PIGGIE stayed in bed
This little PIGGIE joined the convent
This little PIGGIE got wed
This little PIGGIE texted Oui, Oui, Oui
On his iPhone.

Clever piggies in your HAND
Some piggies even play Chopin.

12 ARM CHAKRAS
6 LEFT   6 RIGHT

SHOULDER joint
connected to
The HUMERUS
Humerus connected to
The ELBOW joint
Elbow connected to
The FOREARM
Forearm connected to
The joint of the WRIST.

Nice ARMS
Now please
What's a nice girl like you doing
With joints like these? 

12 LEG CHAKRAS
6 LEFT   6 RIGHT

ANKLE joint
connected to
The SHIN bone
Shin connected to
The KNEE joint
Knee connected to
The THIGH bone
Thigh connected to
The joint of the HIP.

Nice LEGS
now please
What's a nice girls like you doing
With joints like these?

12 FOOT CHAKRAS
6 LEFT   6 RIGHT

This little PIGGIE went to market
This little PIGGIE stayed home
This little PIGGIE ate roast beef
This little PIGGIE had none.
This little PIGGIE went Wee, Wee, Wee
All the way home.

Restless piggies in your FEET
Some piggies even live in Crete.

Exploring the little finger chakra
ZERO    ONE    TWO    THREE

Nick Chakras: Part One

HINDU CHAKRAS
8 HINDU CHAKRAS

This being sucks energy out of the GROUND
Sitting tight and secure on its ROOT
Fulfilling your debt to the species with SEX
Ruled by BELLY the ego, the core absolute
The HEART has its reasons that bypass the brain
The THROAT fills your silence with history
The BROW vainly tries to make sense of it all
While the CROWN connects you to mystery.

SENSUAL CHAKRAS

8 SENSUAL CHAKRAS

EARS and EYES
To hear and see
NOSE and SKIN
To smell and feel
TONGUE and MOUTH
To taste and fabricate the vowels
And for breathing in and pushing out
Thank your servants LUNGS and BOWELS

Hindu Chakras: after Sir John Woodroffe
ZERO    ONE    TWO    THREE

Friday, June 1, 2018

Nick Chakras 2018

84 Nick Chakras 2018

In the year 1918, Sir John Woodroffe, Indian High Court Judge and Sanskrit scholar, published his highly influential Serpent Power (under the pen name of Arthur Avalon) which introduced the Indian tantric notion of  "chakras" to the English-speaking world. These classical chakras, seven in number, form the central organs of a "psychic anatomy" -- seven physical locations in the body that also serve psychic functions as well.

One hundred years later, books on the chakras publish pictures of the same seven chakras with or without the elaborate decorations illustrated in Woodroffe's Serpent Power. Why only seven? I wondered. Has the last century witnessed no progress whatsoever in psychic anatomy? A century ago, physicists recognized only three elementary particles --  proton, neutron and electron. Now today's Standard Model shows us more than a dozen of the Universe's fundamental parts. Why aren't there more chakras than seven?

For more than fifty years, since I was working at a psychic bookstore in Menlo Park while studying physics at Stanford,  I have been considering this problem, working to rationally expand the traditional Hindu system of elementary bodily physical/psychical centers and have now reached a satisfactory conclusion.

A preliminary account of this research can be found here. 

What is a chakra anyway? At the very least it is a part of the body to which one can direct one's attention and observe what happens. Most of the time we take our body parts for granted. And except when they are in pain we pay them no mind. How might our life change if from time to time we systematically brought our attention to each particular body part with as strong a mental intensity as we could muster?

When I was a kid in Ohio, the floor of our boy's room (Nick and his brothers Tom and Duke) was covered with a gigantic linoleum map of the United States which we boys traversed in our imaginations using toy cars, planes, trains, trucks and tanks. Similarly one might regard Nick's 84 Chakras as a map of 84 of your body's principle cities (not including suburbs) and let your imagination go exploring.

Nick Chakras contain the classic seven Hindu chakras plus many extras. For the sake of symmetry I require each chakra to possess a partner chakra which is in some sense its consort, its opposite, its dark side. This partner chakra is designated symbolically by a black/white reversal. In most cases the "dark chakras" are located in the lower part of the body. For example, the Thumb Chakra's opposite is the Big Toe. And the classic Heart Chakra's opposite is the Belly Chakra.

In place of Woodroofe's spectral-colored, multi-leaved lotus symbols, I have chosen simple black-and-white symbols based on geometric shapes each intended to be suggestive of the body parts they signify.

Nick Chakras are divided into 5 categories: the Hindu Chakras, Spinal Chakras and Sensual Chakras, each with eight members, the Cranial Chakras with twelve members, and the Limb Chakras which possess 48 members. (8 + 8 + 8 + 12+ 48 = 84.

To the seven classic Hindu Chakras, I have added a "Ground Chakra" (whose opposite is the Crown Chakra) which I later learned corresponds to the Yung Chuan or "Bubbling Spring Chakra" of Taoist esotericism.  As a partner to the Lumbar Chakra I have added a "Perineum Chakra" which corresponds to the Chinese "Hui Yin" Chakra or "Gateway of Life and Death."

This post introduces the new chakra system. The following three posts will connect names to each symbol and clarify some of my choices:

Part One: Hindu and Sensual Chakras

Part Two: Limb Chakras

Part Three: Spinal and Cranial Chakras.
(Unlike the rest, none of the 12 Cranial Chakras is paired with a partner.)

I have constructed this new chakra system for the fun of it. My main interest lies in the search for a brand new science I call quantum tantra based on an as yet to be discovered quantum-inspired way of connecting with Nature.

I want to woo Her, not view Her
Pet Reality until She purrs
Longing to merge with Dame Nature bodily
Yearning to mingle my substance with Hers
And them content with merely observing
Are nothing but Nature's voyeurs.

Nick Chakras might be considered a map of naked-eye objects of the body compared to what the deep-space quantum compassionscopes of the future will reveal about the nature of Mind and its hidden relations to this marvelously agile meat machine.

Artist's conception of quantum-tantric chakras
ZERO    ONE    TWO    THREE