I love how the ivy on this fence changes colors every year. I spent the afternoon listening to old Alan Watts lectures on Youtube. Here are the notes I wrote down:
All of the senses are forms of touch. Eye sight is the most subtle, where our cells are touched by light. Each nerve ending in our body sends a message to the brain. We can see that because we can see the nerves. But we are each nerve endings in the body of god. We all attach to one mind. The feeling that "I am" is the most persistent human thing. The feeling of "I" is the same in everyone.
That same feeling of "I" is what a shrimp feels. The most beautiful lady in th world looks like a Shiva monster to a shrimp. The shrimp is convinced that he is the "I"!
1. Air (Yellow) represents mind and thoughts, the ability to think.
2. Water (Blue) represents emotions.
3. Fire (Red) represents will, the ability to direct your thoughts and emotions towards action on the physical plane.
4. Earth (Green) represents all the materials on the physical plane that the three subtle-elements interact with.
5. Space (White), or aether, represent the "5th element" and it is the "background canvas" or "cosmic lattice" that the "material earth" is projected upon.
While I believe that the "five elements" actually related to a funamental truth about the structure of matter at the microcosmic level, I also really like how in alchemy they're used as a metaphor for the ingredients of human experience.
I spent Sunday evening watching a documentary Davo sent me about a Dutch journalist interviewing Iggy Pop as he walks the interviewer around my neighborhood in 1993.
