Wil's Testament

Yoga Poem - a work in progress

wil — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:09:11 GMT

Yoga (a work in progress) Headstand, cat, and downward dog Bridge and cobra; fish and frog Shoulderstand and head to knee Lion and camel, bow and tree Spinal twist, hero and mountain Lotus, eagle, crow and fountain Stretching shoulders, stretching spine Stretching heart and stretching mind Yoga’s priceless, Yoga’s free Yoga’s sacred circuiTree From wisdom ground, this ancient seed Grows out into the Galaxy We are bright light inside the Stone Through Yoga’s network We phone Home. Magic carpet yoga mat Taking me Away. Taking Me away. Taking me a Way Assuming the assana of the Powerful assumption And holding And letting go Breathing into it Breathing into it Breathing Into It Take yoga’s Light harness Hitching our wagon to the Stars We pull for peace, pulling for goodness sake Pulling for the joy of The Work Pulling ourcellves up On this evolutionary beachhead Shakti troopers, We move Through these kriyas Gasping in this refined AtmoSphere Thankful for this body, thankful for this Opportunity thankful for this good Life

Elephant Paints Self Portrait

wil — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:37:39 GMT

I think this is amazing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE&feature=related

Peepers!

wil — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:24:00 GMT

I heard the spring peepers for the first time a couple of days ago. They are a chorus now. I love the sound. http://www.naturesound.com/frogs/audio/peeper.ram from: http://www.naturesound.com/frogs/pages/peeper.html

Tests of the use of psychedelics in warfare.

wil — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:41:20 GMT

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6923485507156361772&q=lsd+british+troops&total=221&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

I still love this song, 40 years later.

wil — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:36:03 GMT

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2678466794021433487&q=love+forever+changes+concert&total=13&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Bush's Favorite Painting

wil — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:04:42 GMT

In Bush's mind, this is a painting of a daring christian missionary. It is his favorite painting, and he actually named his (ghost written) autobiography after it. In reality, it is an illustration of a posse about to catch a horse thief. This is from Harpers: http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002237 The Illustrated President BY Scott Horton PUBLISHED January 24, 2008 George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled “A Charge to Keep.” Bush was so taken by it, that he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography. And here’s what he says about it: I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves. So in Bush’s view (or perhaps I should say, faith) the key figure, with whom he personally identifies, is a missionary spreading the word of the Methodist Christianity in the American West in the late nineteenth century. Wilhelm Heinrich Dethlef Körner (you see why he used initials, though he later Anglicized this as William Henry Dethlef Koerner) was born in Germany and immigrated to a small town in Iowa as a young tot. He made his way over time to Chicago and worked as an illustrator for the Chicago Tribune. He married Lillian Lusk, a well-know graphic artist in her own right, and moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where he worked for Pilgrim Magazine. He and his wife scrimped and saved to finance a move to New York City. They were after more formal art training and to establish a position as artists in the heart of the publishing industry. They made it to New York in 1907, and they were very successful. In fact, Koerner’s principal employer through the core of his career was Harper’s Magazine. Koerner published 55 feature illustrations in Harper’s, the first in 1910 and the last in 1925. You can view them here. Koerner was not exclusive to Harper’s, however, he also did important works for the Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s and Collier’s among other publications, and he did a brisk business for the book trade, again very heavily for Harpers Brothers, and he pioneered commercial illustration (Koerner did the first box artwork for C.W. Post’s Grapenuts, for instance). His serious work after 1907 focused heavily on the American West, and he clearly was one of the key “Golden Age” illustrators. His work is famous for dramatic images which for me are consonant with the age of Teddy Roosevelt—they suggest ruggedness, love for the outdoors, a strong sense of adventure and risk-taking. His paintings are packed with motion, and at times rather dramatic motion. I was not able to find much about Koerner and his sense of religion, through it is very clear that he did not engage in public displays of religious fervor and religious themes are absent entirely from his work. So Bush’s description of “A Charge to Keep” struck me as very strange. In fact, I’d say highly improbable. Now, however, Jacob Weisberg has solved the mystery. He invested the time to track down the commission behind the art work and he gives us the full story in his forthcoming book on Bush, The Bush Tragedy: [Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination. Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.” So Bush’s inspiring, prosyletizing Methodist is in fact a silver-tongued horse thief fleeing from a lynch mob. It seems a fitting marker for the Bush presidency. Bush has consistently exhibited what psychologists call the “Tolstoy syndrome.” That is, he is completely convinced he knows what things are, so he shuts down all avenues of inquiry about them and disregards the information that is offered to him. This is the hallmark of a tragically bad executive. But in this case, it couldn’t be more precious. The president of the United States has identified closely with a man he sees as a mythic, heroic figure. But in fact he’s a wily criminal one step out in front of justice. It perfectly reflects Bush the man. . . and Bush the president. Update Though I haven’t exaimed Jacob Weisberg’s sourcing for his book, an alert reader points out to me that the story of the Koerner picture “A Charge to Keep” (though we should note that this is the name Bush gives to the picture, not Koerner’s name) was first explored and revealed by Sidney Blumenthal in April 2007 in a column published at Salon.

Pressure cookers save energy, time and money!!!

wil — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:27:43 GMT

I think a stainless steel pressure cooker is a necessary item for a kitchen. Food cooks in about a third the time, 70% faster, according to one source. That makes a lot of difference!! Think about it. Over the course of a year, the time energy and money saved is really impressive!They pay for themselves very quickly if you use them. There are a lot of advantages that are less obvious than the time, energy and money savings. They make it so much quicker and easier to eat things like sweet potatoes, winter squash, brown rice, dried beans, quinoa, and other unprocessed foods, that they become a larger part of your diet, and this saves a whole lot. There is a distressing tendency for beans and brown rice to be served undercooked because of people being in a hurry, and using a pressure cooker means an end to that. They really help keep the house cool if used in the summer in place of conventional cooking methods. There are nutritional benefits to steaming vegetables in a pressure cooker. They take a little getting used to, but it is way worth it. The energy savings alone should convince folks to give them a try. Khrysso' s comment has me thinking to add reviews. I like aeturnum, a brand made in italy, but they are a little pricey and harder to find gaskets for. Here is a neutral looking review of a couple of reasonable ones. They have the added advantage of being easy to find replacement parts for too: Value/Budget Pressure Cooker: There are a lot of pressure cookers under $100 that got great reviews, but one that stood out amongst the others is the Presto 01341 4-Quart Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker ($44). The heavy duty 4 quart stainless steel pressure cooker from Presto has a strong-lock lid with steam vent, a pressure indicator, and an overpressure plug. You even get a rack for steaming food or canning purposes. Owners say this cooker creates great brown rice, beans, pastas. Although much smaller than the 6 or 8 quart models, this one still performs well for singles or couples with no kids. Another great value pressure cooker is the Fagor Splendid 6-Quart Pressure Cooker ($60). Larger than the Presto 4-quart model listed above, the Fagor is great for producing stews and chili. Easily makes meals that feed up to 6 adults and cleanup is no problem say most reviewers. If you plan on making meals for more than 2-3 people, go with the Fagor for it's added capacity. http://www.galttech.com/research/household-DIY-tools/best-pressure-cooker.php The piece that jiggles around and lets the steam out is called a petcock. Here is a poem using that word. Nervous laughter letting off steam like the petcock of a pressure cooker

The jewel in the lotus

wil — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:48:45 GMT

the world is a prayer wheel swinging the moon around and around and around om mani padme hum blue white jewel in the lotus of our Sun's golden light the world is a rock tumbler tumbling around and around and around we knock up against each other rubbing off sharp edges polishing and shining jewels in the lotus of our Sun's golden light

Change on the Living Earth: James Lovelock

wil — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:22:50 GMT

Sir James Lovelock to the Royal Society Oct 29th, 2007. The speech of an era. 56 MB, 1 hour This is required listening. It is available at : http://www.ecoshock.org/ Which is a wonderful resource. Thanks go to Russ, the fearless moderator of the mighty Gaia Tribe. Lovelock is a hero! http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/

Happy Birthday Albert!

wil — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:00:56 GMT

The world's first acid head, Albert Hoffman, turns 102 today! "I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation." - Albert Hoffman

Harvest the Day

wil — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:31:23 GMT

During extensive research for the poem on my previous blog, i came across this: Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. It is popularly translated as "seize the day", although a more literal translation of carpe would be "harvest" ("harvest the day"), as in the harvesting of fruit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe_diem The painting is called "Gathering the Day" by Susan Spar http://susanmartinspar.blogspot.com/2007/10/oil-painting-of-native-american-woman.html

Seizing the Day

wil — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:15:28 GMT

I seized the day. Then the day seized me! We both let go, And sat down for tea

The Power Elite Who Control Earth

wil — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:42:32 GMT

We are the power elite who control the fate of Earth. Real power belongs to people who can think their way through the dark labyrinth of arcane fears, shadows and confusion into the clear light of this new day. The pyramid is a symbol of yang power and has been appropriate for the long age of power and action that we have been going through, Before this age, there was an age where Yin predominated, when we were receptive to Gaia's signals. During the coming Yin age, we will be receptive to Galactic signals as well as Gaian information. I do not believe that current events are being orchestrated by a power elite who control the world or anything even vaguely resembling this scenario. I think a lot of the coincidences people use as evidence of various theories are not so much an indication of the truth of the theory , but of the truth of the principle that reality tends to clump. Like likes Like! I think that patriarchal patterns of thinking still predominate, and that this is predicated on the principle that somebody is at the head, in charge. It takes intellectual, emotional and spiritual courage to come to grips with the fact that nobody is in charge. We are the charge. We are hooked together into a giant biocomputer, taking Seti at Home to another level, and taking in information very fast and getting faster. We are a global brain, though we are not thinking very clearly yet. And the reason we are not thinking clearly yet, is that we are still applying old, patriarchal, top down ways of thinking about things that should now be thought of in opposite terms. Not in terms of imposing our will, but in terms of matching our wills to harmonize with incoming information. Not in terms of competition, but in terms of cooperation. Breathe in, breathe out. You are part of the conspiracy. We only need to realize We are the power

My life lately.

wil — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:48:49 GMT

Has been a lot better. I moved to a local community called Abundant Dawn in midsummer. http://www.abundantdawn.org/ I knew most everyone there, and it is a great place. I lived out of my motor home there for a few months. I was working on a framing crew in august and september, and have mycellf in a better financial situation. I could have stayed there, but instead i moved a couple of months ago to another Floyd community called High Flowing...... the central figure here is starroot, who i've known for many years. http://people.tribe.net/6be777dc-fb42-497e-a397-723065f26ec4 http://www.starroot.com/ The place has a long history and lots of trashed out converted school buses, and an assortment of cottages and lots of old mobile homes, one of which i moved into. It is situated in a big U with two other mobile homes and a big porch and courtyard all round. It is heated by a behemoth wood stove out back, and a water and radiator system. I have free rent for doing some gardening, and so have very low overhead. Very good high speed internet i share with neighbor for $10 a month. My cat likes it here much better than the last few places we've been. She spent one very cold night in a tree, though, having been chased there by a dog. I finally tied up this wicker basket with some rope, tied a wrench to one end and threw it over a branch near her, put some food in the basket, hoisted it up to her, she got in and was lowered down. ( i read about this method online after searching for solution) So we like it here just fine, and fit in well with the other guys and their cats. I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow. The place is a mixture of beautiful and squalid. There is a large beautiful pond, and another smaller and more secluded pond, and lots of woods, though they are mostly scrubby. There are also the aforementioned trashed out buses and other junk, and the place needs a lot of energy, but this useless if not self sustaining. It is a good place for me to winter for sure, and i am thankful for the space.

Observations

wil — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:12:37 GMT

Religion is a compass, not a map. We can also navigate by the stars. Now is what matters now. Some ancient scribe left an “o” out of the word “good” in order to save a little papyrus, and look at all the confusion that’s followed. I think our lesson here is that details matter. Sometimes society seems to me to be a system of gas giant egos with pretty moons dancing around them. We live on different worlds together. We are smarter and better informed than any of us. Bush is not the problem. He re presents the problem. Stupidity is the problem. We’re working on it. We unfold the plan. The plan unfolds us.

Free Rice

wil — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:52:48 GMT

I love this game! My son Tamlin turned me on it a week ago. It's a vocabulary game where for every right answer, 20 grains of rice are donated to hungry world citizens. This adds up quickly. I donated 10,000 grains my first sitting. The game has 50 levels, and i get to 48 but not past that yet. I think it the best, most challenging, vocabulary game i've played, and the donation factor has me feeling like i'm not totally wasting my time. I've learned a lot of words too. I looked them up on urban legends, being a very suspicious scorpio, and it is true about the rice donations. The advertising pays for it. I think this an excellent venture all round, teaching people and feeding people at the same time. http://www.freerice.com/ ( i searched around and found out that there are approximately 29,000 grains in a lb of long grained rice. But it adds up with a lot of people playing the game. 7.5 billion grains have been donated in the couple of months that the game has been up.)

Ethiomasters

wil — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:53:42 GMT

Found this great ethiopian music site this morning and am really enjoying it. I must have a bass krar! (This means i must make one.) http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=276268463

My Resume

wil — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:26:51 GMT

I have to leave where i've been staying now, and don't have anywhere lined up to go. I'll look around today and find someplace to be for short term anyway i'm sure, but i'd like very much to move to someplace that could use my energy for something good in return for a place to be. I am, unfortunately, pretty much broke. I've got a nice smallish winnebago with a couple of solar panels on top and all, but have credit card debt that about cancels this out and i'll need to sell it i think ( any offers? i've got 9.5 K and will sell for 8) I have a pickup truck and actually feel more grounded living out of the back of it, which i have done at various times in my life. Anyway, i am a hard worker, get up before dawn and go to sleep pretty much when it gets dark. I like to cook and clean and am very good at gardens and such, having been a market gardener for many years. I know a lot about homestead skills, food preservation cow and goat milking, dealing with milk. I'm a pretty good carpenter and have done that for money a good bit. Also am good with a chainsaw. Also know a bit about mushroom cultivation, have modest computer skills and a laptop. I'm a good musician, especially at backing up others. I can really make them shine with digital horn or low whistle work behind. (I think i am very very quick to pick up what is happening musically in this regard) Also a good drummer. I'm an aspie, and sort of childlike in many ways, and this gets taken advantage of. I very much like to be useful, but don't much like being used or abused. I need to be around good hearted, honest people...(don't we all?) I don't drink or use tobacco. I haven't watched a tv program in years, gone to a movie in decades, or even gone to a restaurant in a year of two that i can remember. Don't need to be entertained, that's for sure. I'm good and patient with kids, having raised 3 of my own. I have one cat, who i like very much. Anyway, i think my skills and attitude could be very useful in some situations. If anyone knows of such a situation, please contact me. Thanks.

Xunflute.com

wil — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:15:42 GMT

http://xunflute.com/ Hey ya'll. The xunflute website is finally up. All sorts of mistooks , but it is up and improving steadily. This is good, we have a lot of xuns we need to sell. We changed the tuning on them a couple of months ago, going from 6 to 7 fingerholes. The same notes are available on the new and old style, but the fingering pattern is different. Anyway, i made a page offering the old style at half off for tribals ( or anybody else who finds the page, but i don't reckon that's likely). I wish they were cheaper. I am not personally monetarily wealthy and don't like things being priced out of the range of my ilk. But this is a fair price considering the time we spend on each instrument. We've made hundreds over the past year, and have sold a grand total of one so far. Here is the url for the half off deal for tribals: http://xunflute.com/ForTribals.html the photos aren't available on this one, but the sound clips should work. Please give me some feedback on mistakes you might notice or suggestions you might have. I find, to my surprise, that i very much enjoy working on webpages, which is good as i have a lot of work left to do on this site. I plan to offer other types of flutes and such in the near future. Also there is a lot of info i want to put up about vessel flutes and the Mayan connection and other stuff. But for now, and such as it is, here it is.

Who in the world do we think we are?

wil — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:13:43 GMT

And who do we think this undefined "they" is that we refer to constantly. Listen for this and you'll hear what i'm talking about. There is no "they" in any meaningful sense. Until you people realize this we are in deep shit...................just kidding. We are totally in this together. "I am another yourcellf" is true, and means, among other things, that there is no they to blame anything on. There's just us, and we are enough. We will do just fine. The bright blue spot on the south china sea is due to rayleigh scattering. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html#c2

Mayans and Music

wil — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:40:30 GMT

Complex Whistles Found to Play Key Roles in Inca and Maya Life by William J. Broad (written in 1988) Much more than toys, the whistles were genuine musical instruments Experts are teasing thousand-year-old secrets from the clay whistles, ocarinas and flutes of the ancient Americas, discovering that these old musical instruments are surprisingly advanced in their construction and tonal qualities. Once dismissed as toys, these objects are now seen as ancient American wind instruments that were vital to the life of the Inca and Maya peoples, including the ruling elite. Recently in Belize, a rich lode of instruments was unearthed from a royal tomb, underscoring their importance. The new appreciation of the pre-Columbian instruments is being fueled by recent discoveries of musical objects at archeological sites in Central and South America and by increasingly rigorous analysis of such instruments for their cultural significance and mechanical action. Indeed, some are turning out to be so complex that they have no counterparts in modern instruments. Army of Researchers In the last few years, a small army of physicists, archeologists, anthropologists, musicians, ethnomusicologists, and craftsmen have probed these ancient wind instruments with tools, X-rays, stethoscopes, stroboscopes, tape recorders, frequency meters and spectrum analyzers. In one case, a tiny ocarina, which is generally more complex than a whistle and wider than a flute, generated much interest because it had an impressive ability to produce 17 notes. X-rays showed it to have three hidden chambers that gave it unusual versatility. The earliest pre-Columbian clay instruments, found on the coast of present day Ecuador, date from thousands of years B.C. The art of instrument making flourished unti the time of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, and is still practiced, though with diminished skill, by descendants of the prehistoric Americans. "People think of these objects as signaling devices or playthings," said Sue Carole De-Vale, head of the systematic musicology program at the University of California at Los Angeles. "That's wrong. They were clearly musical instruments, used for ritual and pleasure." Few written records were left by the people who made and played the ancient instruments, forcing modern experts to glean tantalizing clues about their use from the objects themselves, their sounds, Spanish accounts and ancient Indian murals. For centuries, pre-Columbian instruments were generally regarded as curiosities that were valued more for their shapes than for their ability to produce music. Every major museum had a few, although curators sometimes did not realize they were musical instruments or know how to make them come to life. Moreover, the instruments revealed little about the people who used them since the objects had often been removed from their cultural context by grave robbers and curio dealers. "Because the remains of musical instruments have been found sporadically, and rarely in concentration, they've been written off as another small artifact," said Norman Hammond, a professor of archeology at Rutgers University who specializes in Maya music. New discoveries, however, are raising their status. At a Maya burial site at Pacbitun in Belize, in Central America, Paul F. Healy and a team of archeologists from Trent University in Ontario recently unearthed a rich lode of more than a dozen flutes and ocarinas buried beside Maya rulers. After 1,000 Years, Sound "Such instruments are seldom in this kind of context," Dr. Healy noted. "They may have been used by musicians in the funeral procession. One of the more interesting moments was when we blew them for the first time in a thousand years." The figurines shaped like men have lower tones than the female ones. The Belize site also produced two unusual hybrid instruments that were half flute and half rattling maraca. To date, thousands of acoustically distinct clay instruments have been found in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru. The instruments include examples shaped like animals, human figures, and imaginary beings. Musically, they include double, triple, and quadruple flutes, which can produce more than one sound at a time. Experts say such musical diversity starts with clay, which is deceptively simple. It can be modeled, flattened, rolled, pinched, coiled, pressed, scored, shredded, pierced, stamped, extruded, cut, spun or cast in molds. When fired to high temperatures, it becomes hard as stone. The ease with which clay can be made into musical instruments allowed the cultures of the pre-Hispanic Americas to advance musically at a time when Europe was experimenting with wooden recorders and metal flutes. As with most musical instruments, the clay ones evolved gradually as generations of craftsmen drew on a growing store of knowledge. All whistles, as well as recorders, ocarinas and pipe organs, work on the same general principle: A smooth flow of air encounters some obstacle that causes it to break into vortexes, which give rise to the oscillations heard as musical tones. In most whistles, a carefully constructed passage forces a smooth flow of air out a slit onto a sharp edge on the side of the instrument, breaking the airflow into vortexes that spiral away from and into the instrument. The larger the inner chamber, the deeper the tone. Finger holes in the chamber effectively change its size, allowing the production of a series of different notes. One of the first scholars to study the ancient American instruments systematically was Samuel Martí, a Mexican anthropologist. "There can be no doubt that pre-Columbian music reached a level of development comparble, perhaps superior, to the contemporary cultures of European and Asiatic origin," Dr. Martí wrote in his 1978 book, "Music Before Columbus," published by Ediciones Euroamericanas in Mexico City. For nearly two decades, Dr. Hammond of Rutgers University has been studying the origins of Maya music in Belize, especially the whistling figurines of Lubaantún, an ancient Maya center. Although the flowering of Maya culture occurred between A.D. 200 and 900, some complex musical instruments are far older. Dr. Hammond noted that one early Maya ocarina, dating from 500 to 600 B.C., is advanced enough to play the first five notes of the tonic scale, that is, do, re, me, fa, so. "Five-note ocarinas are scarce," he said, "and something that matches an Old World scheme is vere unusual." The intervals between notes vary widely, in theory being nearly infinite. He added that some of the instruments were far from sophisticated, the intervals between their notes being "a shade off." Another scholar, Dale A. Olsen of the Florida State University school of music, has concentrated on analyzing the musical instruments of the Tairona of northern Colombia, one of the first Indian cultures wiped out by Spanish conquerers. Dr. Olsen studied 400 of their clay whistles, ocarinas and flutes. Playing in Harmony With an electronic stroboscope, which uses flashing lights to analyze the frequency of sound waves, Dr. Olsen measured the pitch of the instruments with great accuracy. He found that many had similar tuning systems, implying they could be played harmoniously in concert with one another. "They were probably vital for conjuring up the supernatural, for protection, for religion and culture," he speculated. "The care that went into making these instruments suggests that they were more than diversions or toys." Perhaps the most intensively studied instruments of all are the enigmatic whistling bottles of Peru, which were made continuously for two thousand years, starting around 500 B.C. Hundreds of these have been found in fanciful shapes that are built upon single bottles or double ones joined together. These bottles have been split open, X-rayed and analyzed. Yet their function remains a mystery. When partly filled with water and moved about or emptied, they produce a weak whistling sound. But if their spouts are blown directly, they produce a sharp tone. Bottles' Harmonic Structure Stephen L. Garrett, a physicist at the Navel Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and Daniel K. Statnekov, a whistle musician, analyzed the harmonic structure of 73 of these clay bottles from nine cultures that inhabited the coasts and highlands of Peru, including the Incas. Using spectrum analyzers and frequency meters, they tested the tonal ranges and found that the bottles of the same cultures had similar frequencies, while those of dissimilar cultures had different ones. This led them to challenge the conventional wisdom. "The bottles are generally regarded by anthropologists as utilitarian liquid containers with the whistle providing an amusing method of venting," they wrote in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. "We are suggesting an alternative interpretation of the bottles as having been specifically produced as whistles." In an interview, Dr. Garrett said their revision was driven by the fact that curious sounds were produced when two or three bottles of the same culture were blown simultaneously. Their higher notes would interact to produce deep, lower notes that could not be tape recorded but only heard in the ear, where the effect is generated, he said. "The idea is that these low-frequency sounds were important in religious rituals for changing states of consciousness," he said. Spiritual Quest Indeed, Mr. Statnekov has recently written a book, "Animated Earth," published by North Atlantic Books in Berkeley, that recounts a spiritual quest for meaning in his life that was triggered by blowing ancient Peruvian bottles. "Fifteen years ago I was living the life of country squire," he recalled. "Then I bought a whistle at auction and it changed my life." While many experts doubt his notion that old musical instruments have a special ability to stimulate spiritual growth, they agree that these objects are a good way to probe the past, revealing the ancient civilizations of the Americas to be surprisingly advanced in ways not previously appreciated. "Music is a measure of cultural complexity," said Dr. Olsen of the Florida State University. "It adds the other layer of knowledge about their social intricacies and achievements." From the New York Times: Science Times Section Tuesday, March 29, 1988, page C-1

Check this video!

wil — Sun, 20 May 2007 23:11:48 GMT

Some geezer playing one of them xuns. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3274443329915782847&hl=en

Most of Our Universe is Missing

wil — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:44:35 GMT

I watched this BBC science documentary recently that i thought was very interesting. Among the things i learned from it is that the rotation of our galaxy clearly defies our notions of gravity. the outer stars, like us, should be orbiting slower, but they are not. How is it kept synchronized ?!!? This is very interesting, especially with 2012 in mind. Here is a link to a bitorrent download of the program: http://btjunkie.org/search?query=most+of+our+universe+is+missing the photo i got to illustrate this post is very interesting too. It is a portrait of our galaxy taken by sampling the light from 30 million stars. Here is the url: http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/milkyway.html

Vessel Flutes

wil — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:33:18 GMT

Tuning these xuns we are making has taken quite a bit of my time and effort. I've been doing it mostly by ear, often while music is playing in the background, so i loosely tune to be able to play with it if i can. I listen to a lot of adham sheik, pygmy music, sufi stuff, and the beatles, amongst other sounds, and these have influenced me. I like to make it so a straight run up the fingers makes what i call a "pygmy yodel" kind of jump that they do ( i love pygmy music) and then so it also play with other music. Still, i don't think playing tunes is the instruments strongpoint, not at all. They are essentially shamanic tools. Playing christmas carols on them just sounds wrong somehow even when the notes are right on. I've been interested in this type of instrument for a long time, and feel that it is one of our best tools for the use of sound healing and for using sound to change consciousness. I feel that i've been led to this over and over, with various clues brought to my attention in odd ways, and the high coincidence factor i associate with being on to something good. These instruments were very highly regarded in pre colombian south and central america as well as by ancient chinese taoists. I was reading about them online this morning, when i came across a guy saying he was making replicas of ancient peruvian whistle vessels. He says that the fundamental frequencies changed over time, from culture to culture in south america. This information connected in my mind with what i've read about the ancient chinese use of a fundamental note or frequency which changed over time as well. I've read that this note was made by blowing over the top of a piece of bamboo, and that the exact length and diameter of this piece became the unit of measure for the kingdom, with rice being measured in terms of how much this piece of bamboo held. This fellow, then article does not mention his name, says that he has learned to tune the vessels in an altered state in order to get the right frequencies, as slavishly copying the old frequencies won't work as the situation has changed. I find this fascinating. Really, i think that since the notes can be bent all over the place, and since so many permutations are built in in one makes various size holes, that a very very wide range of frequencies are available no matter how they are tuned. When two are played together, the results can be very strong if the players are making an effort to make pleasing harmonies and potent beat frequencies. I love these things, and coax all manner of strange sounds from them by doing low tones while i'm playing them, for instance. I want to make bigger ones than we currently do and do a lot more experimenting. We need to sell some of the ones we've already made though and am trying to figure out how to do this. I think $35 bucks is a fair price if that includes shipping to the u.s and canada. this makes them cheaper than any i've bought off of ebay, and they are significantly better in my opinion. My problem in this is that they are all different. I feel like i should take a picture and soundclip of each one, and am trying to get that together. Amelia has switched over to making udus, which are clay drums and she makes very nice ones. The vessel flutes are new to her, but she's made udus a lot before. Here are a couple of links on peruvian whistle vessels that make interesting reading for those exploring those frequencies. http://diseyes.lycaeum.org/fresh/vessels.htm http://www.peruvianwhistles.com/hummingbird-clue.html

Xuns

wil — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:26:50 GMT

I have missed Tribe and my friends and am going to spend more time here now. Here is an update of my life. The cat and i moved in with a lady friend named amelia and her five cats in the fall. One of her many talents is in the field of pottery. We started making ocarinas and xuns. The word "xun" looks like zun, but is actually pronounced "schwin". I found out about them on the internet last spring, and got one from ebay, which i tried and tried to learn how to play, but to little satisfaction. I eventually collected several more different xuns from ebay transactions. The first one i had was a real turkey, and that, in part, was why i found it so hard to play. I think the ones we make are much better than the ones i bought. First amelia makes a solid body model of the xun, then make two halves of a plaster mold from that. We pour slip, or liquid clay, into the mold, and wait a number of minutes between 5 and 8 depending on a few factors, and then pour the liquid out. The plaster pulls water out of the slip and clay sticks to the wall of the form, the thickness determined mostly by the lenght of time before the liquid is poured out. In a couple of hours or less, we open the mold and pull out a xun. Then amelia cuts the lip in and makes holes according to a pattern i gave her, and then i fine tune it. Amelia fixes it so it looks real nice, and then we put it aside until we collect enough to fire them. We are just getting to where we have enough to sell. A single hole on a xun can make a very wide range of microtones, depending on how it is blown. This really made it hard to learn. Every time i picked it up it was like a new instrument as i would start with a different note. I am trying to build nice pentatonic scales in the ones we make, along with the ability more chromatic and microtonal scales. It is very much still in development. I've made some that have four holes and are meant to be played with one hand while i drum with the other. I like this a lot. I have been interested in the psycho acoustic properties of vessel flutes for a long time. I read a book called "Animated Earth" which about one man's experience with the transformative power of vessel flutes. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1556434634/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/102-2161079-0980903?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books The acoustic properties of vessel flutes is very different from those of open ended flutes and whistles. Vessel flutes don't overblow, or jump an octave and are thus limited in their range. They are, however, much more resonate and have a fuller and richer sound. Their notes are pure tones, without the harmonics of open ended flutes. Here is a link to a page where you can hear a recording of me playing the smallest xun we make. I plan to put up a recording of a larger one tomorrow. http://wil.typepad.com/found_soundation/