The above photo, of the star cluster Pleiades, is the work of my old childhood friend (and first love, and second husband (for two years in our 30s), and forever tribal member) Dick High. Since retiring from his career as a newspaper publisher, Dick has become consumed by his new passion, amateur astronomy. What started out as a small telescope in his back yard has morphed into twice monthly car-camping expeditions into the Anza-Borrego Desert or up Mount Palomar.
Twice each month, with the help of a back brace, he loads up his gigantic telescope and mount (about 200 pounds total) in a car bought specifically for its carrying capacity, and heads east from the California coast. He stays up for two nights (and sleeps fitfully during the day between). The telescope takes about 2.5 hours to set up, and another 1.5 hours to dismantle and stow for the day. Since, he’s there for two nights, and has to do each set-up and dismantle twice, he spends a total of 8 hours just on those tasks.
For this photo, Dick comments, via email: “Its amazing blue color comes
from the light of the bright stars hitting cold background gas clouds. Cold
clouds reflect blue light, while hot clouds emit red light. In order to get this image, I combined 112 separate photos [taken in November and December 2010] in order to get the faint background while not being overwhelmed by the super bright stars.
Dick is learning how to go deeper and deeper into the universe with his camera, to clearly capture the faintest of galaxies; and the deeper he goes, the longer the camera has remain trained on a single point. The man is dedicated, his passion driven by awe. As he remarks, “Their splendor blasts past the mind to touch the soul.”
Last summer, in honor of our 50th high school anniversary, Dick and I spent some quality time together. Traveling up and down Idaho highways, we dug deep into conversation.
So it was then, that given Dick’s interest in “the above,” it came as a complete surprise to me that he doesn’t “believe” in UFOs or ETs. I thought for sure that we would have a great conversation about that too. I’ve seen UFOs in the desert between Fairfield and Gooding, Idaho. Dick’s brother Dave has seen UFOs in the desert between Jackpot, Nevada and Twin Falls. And back in high school, their father, a well-known and deeply respected state senator, told us that he had seen UFOs on several occasions. He also told us about “Project Bluebook.”
Now why haven’t little blue men appeared to Dick while he camps, alone, in the desert? That area of the country is supposedly rife with UFO sightings, and in fact, I’ve seen them there, too. Much to my surprise, actually.
The occasion was the International UFO Congress, Laughlin, NV, in February, 2009. Having not attended such an enormous and multifaceted conference before, I was seriously overwhelmed, and found myself starting to close down. I noticed that I was especially polarizing against a man who had offered to take groups of people out onto the desert each evening with night vision goggles. He claimed that there were lots of UFOs out there, every single night! I thought he was crazy. That’s impossible! That can’t be true!
As is my tendency when confronted with something that I think impossible, I decided to test the boundaries of my own epistemological framework.
I signed up.
So there I was, standing in the dark, spooky desert near the road with about twenty other people sharing a dozen night vision glasses. And, almost immediately, there they were! We all saw them through the goggles and tracked them with tiny hand-held lasers. The UFOs appeared as tiny, far, far-up lights traversing the sky, at about the same speed, it seemed to me, as a satellite, but stopping, starting, darting, quickly changing direction . . . definitely not satellites; not planes either, since they didn’t blink.
So why did we see them, and not Dick? Could it be the goggles? (Looking at the same point in the sky without goggles, the lights were just barely perceptible, easily missed; without thinking they were there, who would look for such faint traces?) I urged Dick to get night-vision goggles, and in fact, have been on the look-out for a used pair myself ever since. I’d love to test the skies around here in southcentral Indiana some clear, dark night. In fact, I know just the fire tower to climb in a nearby state park.
Or maybe it’s that these strange lights follow the leader wherever he goes with his night-vision goggles! (I mean, anything‘s possible.) Or maybe it was just that location, near Laughlin, which is, no doubt, pretty close to at least one secret above ground or underground U.S. air base. (UFOs are known to frequent military bases especially ones with nuclear missiles. See testimony from over 400 retired military: www.disclosureproject.org.) Or maybe the UFOs were actually advanced U.S. military test planes, back-engineered from crashed UFOs.
Who knows?
In any case, whatever it was that we all saw, Dick does not see them, and Dick does not “believe.” Maybe he can’t see UFOs because he doesn’t think they are there. Maybe his internal epistemological framework forbids their entrance into his awareness.
When I asked him why, incredulous, that he wouldn’t even consider that ETs might be visiting us from other places, he said that the distances were so vast that he just didn’t see how they could travel so far. It would take too long.
At the time, I just shook my head, and muttered, “But if you think about dimensions, different dimensions . . .” and left it at that.
Now here’s what I’d like to say to Dick. It’s still not all that articulate, and I hope any physicist would forgive me, but here’s what my intuition tells me. Here’s why I don’t have a problem with things taking a long time to get here. Why? Because Earth’s time/space matrix might not apply anywhere else.
Matter, Energy and Dimensions
If, with Einstein, we assume that matter is convertible into energy (as we proved with the atomic bomb), and if we assume that energy vibrates at different frequencies, that the range of frequencies is infinite, and that each frequency (or cluster of frequencies) can be experienced as a stable plane or dimension, then, in this dense third-dimensional frequency in which we humans operate here on earth, we can acknowledge both the possibility of an infinite number of other dimensions and of beings who live in them, despite the fact that our five-sense bodies cannot normally perceive or interact with them.
All of us have had experiences that we cannot explain rationally. Even one UFO sighting, or one occasion when a mortal illness mysteriously disappeared, or one miracle when physical laws must have been bent else we would have been killed, clues us in to mysteries which seem to evade the foundations of science, and yet, we will swear upon them, they were real.
To think in terms of an infinity of dimensions, then the laws of this third dimensional reality may not apply when we ask ourselves how long does it take to get from Earth to other planets, or even other galaxies or universes. What we think of as “Time” is itself a condition of Earth-based consciousness, and this space/time matrix something that we need only pop through to enter the incomprehensible.
In this spirit, on this exopermaculture site, we ask again that we serve to build a bridge between above and below.
Above to below: Let us become consciously aware of the larger etheric nutrient soup in which Earth floats and how inquiries into the various dimensions of and entities from celestial worlds behind and within might enhance our Earth-based permacultural practice.
Below to above: In alignment with what, for some, are the first two permaculture principles, let us “observe and interact” with the usually unnoticed “edge” of our own psychological and epistemological horizons so that we may see through them.
Ultimately, by dissolving this little noticed, but closely guarded psychological and epistemological edge between Earth and space, we invite cross-fertilization between our familiar world and worlds — dimensions — that lie both beyond and within. What some have called “zone zero zero” in permaculture lives, both within ourselves and in the universe, as the clear, unbounded, infinite space of consciousness, what physicists might call the quantum zero-point field of endless potential.
Next up: Zone Zero Zero
I wanted to share an excerpt from a website that has researched these things extensively. It is clear from what I have learned that Physics is an incomplete model, and contrary to the image that such science would like portray, the data that comes in on the macro and micro level daily contradicts certain aspects of the current model. Rather than adjust the theory or look for inherent flaws in the incomplete model, the modus operandi is to create wild theories that elaborate extensively on the absurd and because these holes in the dam need constant plugging, each of these scientists is revered for their contributions to plugging those holes. The funny thing is that we stopped listening to Einstein at a certain point in his research, and in his later years toward his death, many of his past assumptions he was publicly recanting and altering based upon what he was learning. Einstein, unlike most of his predecessors, was not afraid to admit he was wrong.
http://divinecosmos.com/index.php/start-here/books-free-online/20-the-divine-cosmos/95-the-divine-cosmos-chapter-01-the-breakthroughs-of-dr-na-kozyrev
“We know that we are tracing a complex spiraling pattern through space thanks to the orbital patterns of the Earth and solar system. And now, the study of “temporology,” or the science of time, is under continual, active investigation by Moscow State University and the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, inspired by Dr. Kozyrev’s pioneering work. On their website, they state that:
In our understanding, the “nature” of time is the mechanism [that brings about] appearing changes and occurring newness in the World. To understand the “nature” of time is to point to… a process, a phenomenon, a “carrier” in the material world whose properties could be identified or corresponded with those of time.
This may seem strange at first glance, since a tree falling in your yard could be seen as a product of a strong wind, not the “flow of time.” However, you must then ask yourself what caused the wind to blow? Ultimately, the motion of the Earth on its axis is most responsible.
Hence, all changes are caused by some form of movement, and without movement there can be no time. Several of the scholars whose papers are published through the Russian Institute of Temporology agree that if Kozyrev had changed his terminology and use of the word “time” to more common scientific terms such as “the physical vacuum” or “the aether,” then many more people would have been able to understand his work sooner in the ensuing years.”
So mainstream science has some catching up to do! The work of Scientists like Dmitriev, Kozyrev, Halton Arp, Nassim Harramein, & Elizabeth Rauscher to name a few, has completely changed the landscape of physics research and how it applies to consciousness.
With greater than the speed of light being a provable reality, and non-locality of connecting phenomenon, it seems that many things are possible which we might have otherwise seen as not possible. Just because our minds cannot perceive of the possibility of something that is not within our reach technologically, doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible. And according to the testimony of thousands of eye witnesses, there is more than enough non-public sector technology to make your jaw drop to the floor, and I will guarantee you that these technologies were developed with the understanding of the shortcomings of our own physics model. But we certainly can’t have anymore backyard tinkerers discovering sources of free energy from the aether that isn’t supposed to exist!
Indeed this is exactly what is happening, and the dam is quickly breaking. Before long, there will be no stopping the influx of new discoveries taking place all over the world that negate the current model. Soon, we will see a scientific revolution, and all secrets of the cosmos will be revealed. In my opinion, the 2012 event will be the catalyst for this realization because you cannot deny something that affects every being on the planet at the exact same time on a cellular and consciousness level. These technologies will then emerge without resistence because everyone will have decided that current physics doesn’t explain what has just taken place.
I had an afterthought on time dilation and Plant Life.
One idea I have been toying with in trying to determine what the post-2012 world might look like. Changes in the LISM (Local Interstellar Medium) density would most certainly affect our experience of time. Would this also affect the “Time” it takes for plants to grow?
Is it possible that we would not have to wait years for our Permaculture principles to manifest? What if we could see entire plant life cycles evolving into periods of “Time” that we experienced as not more than a few days or weeks? What if we could suddently fit 4-5 growing cycles into one single season? How would that affect our relationship with abundance and our perception of what is possible? If the amount of absorbable energy in the LISM was greatly increased, wouldn’t our cellular abilities to absorb this excess light radiation (The Good Kind 🙂 increase as an adaptive measure? Is this not already programmed into our DNA already? We do after all only use about 3% of our DNA actively. What if the same goes for plants? And what if we could absorb that energy almost directly and didn’t need to eat except for pleasure?
These are a few of the things that my mind has been consumed with in regards to what I expect as coming changes. I sometimes wonder if the opening up of a new relationship with the idea of abundance for some of us is a reflection of our mind’s attempting to get a grasp on what we feel energetically coming to this planet? What if permaculture is result of these energies creeping in and affecting us on a level that is unseen, but wells up as ideas that emerge on the conscious level.
Great Periods in history have followed tightly with the tracking of our exposure to these types of energies, as the Mayan time cycles have recorded. Rennaisance emergence has been followed closely within these cycles, and always occurs right in line with these solar changes. Could it not be that Permaculture in a sense is the projection of these ideas into the present from the future and what is to come?
Brandon,
I would like you to convert this from a “comment” into a post on the site. Give it a title. And give me a bit of a bio for you and let’s add you NOW as one of the writers. You obviously are thinking along the same lines as I am. I too, have been thinking about time cycles of plants and how they will most likely change . . .
At any rate, are you willing to do this? I know you’ve set up a “fractal” site as well, but we could always cross-fertilize these two sites whenever we feel like it.
Bless you!
Ann
Sent from my iPad
VERY interesting post, and please will you tell your husband that the picture he has taken of that part of the universe is absolutely magical. I really love it, and when I look at it it is like it’s alive, the colours change, breathe.