It’s a good example of the affect of mediation on socially-generated practices of any sort [this came into mind when I saw a poster advertising a IEEE conference here in Sydney. The posted contained all the recognized and standardized functions of conferences anywhere on any subject. The cocktail evening cruises on the ________ (fill in the blank) river/harbor/lake. The hospitality suites in the _________ (fill in the blank) hotel. The keynotes by famous personages. The plenaries, the break-outs, the posters, workshops, and seminars. yadda, yadda. Don't people get tired of this endless repetition of heavily coded social protocols?]

The following was downloaded from the UM (University of Minnesota) original Gopher online text retrieval system sometime in the winter of 1991-92. I think it’s the first document (extant) that I downloaded via that new networked document system — the direct precursor of the WWW. Coming around in a very long, very wide circle, from the roots of the digital coming-to-being in the last millennium, breathe deeply:

1. Sit on the forward third of a chair or cushion.

2. Arrange your legs in a position you can maintain comfortably. In the half-lotus position, place your left leg on your right thigh (or vice versa). In the full-lotus position , put your feet on opposite thighs. You may also sit simply with your legs tucked in close to your body, but be sure that your weight is distributed evenly on three points: Both of your knees on the ground and your buttocks on the round cushion. On a chair, keep your knees apart about the width of your shoulders, feet firmly planted on the floor.

3. Straighten and extend your spine, keeping it naturally upright, centering your balance in the lower abdomen. Push your lower back a little forward, open your chest, and tuck your chin in slightly, keeping the head upright, not leaning forward, or backward, or to the side. Sway your body gently from left to right, until you naturally come to a point of stillness on your cushion.

4. Keep your eyes cast on the floor about 3 to 4 feet in front of your body, eyes neither fully opened nor closed. If the eyes are closed, you might start to daydream or visualize things.

5. Keep your lips and teeth together with your tongue resting against the roof of your mouth.

6. Place your hands on your lap with the right palm up and your left hand (pal up) resting on your right hand, thumb-tips lightly touching, forming a horizontal oval. This is the mudra of zazen, in which all things are unified. Place the sides of the little fingers against your abdomen, a few inches below the navel, harmonizing your center of gravity with the mudra.

7. Take a few breaths, exhaling fully. Let your breath settle into its natural rhythm. With proper physical posture, your breathing will flow naturally into your lower abdomen.

8. Sit still and keep your attention on your breath. When your attention wanders, bring it back to the breath again and again — as many times as necessary!

9. Be fully, vitally present. Simply do your very best. At the end of your sitting period, gently sway your body from right to left. Stretch out your legs; be sure they have feeling before standing.

10. Practice every day for ten to fifteen minutes (or more) and you will discover the treasures of your life.

Got that one hurdle out of the way, though there is still the matter of the accompanying paper. I saw very clearly the interface between the institution and the wider world, where the protocol of the (semi-)ordered system imposes its particular form on the flow.

But, in the end, I may not be able to over-come the imposition of a protocol so polariz(ing)(able). The one person who coordinates the checking of unsatisfactory/satisfactory at this juncture did not seem to engage with my presentation at all. Except to point out that I satisfied precisely none of the assessment criteria. Were it a response that was nuanced, I could understand missing the mark, but with a complete rejection of the presentation, I find it a little over the top, and, well, disingenuous if the term intellectual engagement is being bandied about at the same time. If I didn’t have 20+ years of teaching with fifteen of it moving through this exact space of inquiry across tens of universities with hundreds of graduate students, I might be open to the idea that what I am articulating is not graspable or open to engagement, but in this case, I suspect some other mechanism was operating, what else can I do?

And so, encroaching on the last major procedural hurdle before the doctorate goes to the external examiners (next year sometime). The panel assessment seems to be routine and bureaucratic. Public speaking in compressed time frames is no fun. When there’s always too much to get across in the extremely limited time frame, and the highly institutionalized context allows for negligible true dialogue. In some ways, the process is a deeply laughable (chortle?) imitation of what it claims to be, or what it once perhaps was. That is, learning as a process of open and sustained dialogue between two or more humans. Facing the unknown that each other presents, or both facing the unknown of what is, or what is out there. Contemporary ‘education’ is a thin and watery drool coming from somewhere up above — meagre remains of what’s left of a blasting monsoon of shared life that brings one to a deeply profound awareness of that-which-is. Instead we squelch around in evaporating puddles of shared encounter, wishing for more rain, and complaining about the weather.

Tomorrow, it happens. We shall see. No brolly, no Wellies…

So, over this hurdle, and maybe the final work commences, perhaps finishing earlier than scheduled, or at least that inspiring outcome is a concept on the radar.

Meanwhile, surviving week-to-week, in part through the acupuncture and massage treatments from Heiji Cho and some of the Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) students here at UTS. The gall bladder channel is the one being worked — to release rising yang from the liver. hmmm. The treatments work, they seems to diffuse the migraines that do show up and eventually, as is common, with any lock, the migraines will vanish. I am confident of this, and only wish I had come to this conclusion last year, or even earlier as these episodes interrupted life from time to time. The stress of movement came on such a regular basis, but there was no thought to find a source, find a working solution, a cure. It was only the process of gritting the teeth until a dark and quiet room could be found for the duration. Western meds never really worked, they only covered the symptoms at best, and in some cases a single pill cost as much as a full 90-minute acupuncture treatment session.

But choosing to undertake a treatment of what is known as ‘alternative’ medicine was always a difficult stretch. Despite input from trusted others who had benefited. There was the hardship of paying cash from the pocket to the practitioner when cash was never so abundant.

Es mag ein Gott auch, Sterblichen gleich
Erwählen ein Tagewerk und teilen alles das Schicksal
Daß alle sich einander erfahren,
Und wenn die Stille wiederkehret, eine Sprache unter Lebenden sei.
Wie der Meister tritt er dann, aus der Werkstatt
Geringer und größer,
Und ander Gewand nicht denn ein festliches ziehet er an.
Und andere sind noch bei ihm,
Und der Vater thront nimmer oben allein.
Viel hat erfahren der Mensch,
Der Himmlischen viele genannt,
Seit ein Gespräch wir sind
Und hören können voneinander.
Die Gesetze aber,
Die unter den Liebenden gelten,
Die schönausgleichenden sie sind dann allgeltend
Von der Erde bis hoch in den Himmel.

– Friedrich Hölderlin, excerpt from “Versöhnender, der du nimmergeglaubt”

over to Serial Space to meet Ian and see a screening of early works of his — tape-to-tape media collage works which work remarkably well, especially given their age. very interesting conversation ensues afterward with folks. a good sign of pro-vocative work.

History: National Military Establishment (NME), headed by Secretary of Defense, created by the National Security Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 495), July 26, 1947, which divided the War Department into separate Department of the Air Force and Department of the Army and reduced the status of the three military departments (Army, Navy, Air Force) to that of constituent units. NME redesignated DOD by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949 (63 Stat. 578), August 10, 1949.

Navy Predecessors

DCI established in the Department of the Navy under the Board of Navy Commissioners by order of the Secretary of the Navy, December 6, 1830. Initially responsible only for maintaining the navy’s stock of nautical charts and navigational instruments, DCI began chart production in 1835 and astronomical observations and other original hydrographic work by 1838. Upon the abolishment of the Board of Navy Commissioners and the establishment of the bureau system by an act of August 31, 1842 (5 Stat. 579), DCI was transferred to BuO&H. Known variously and informally, 1844-54, as the United States Naval Observatory, the Hydrographical Office, the Depot of Charts, the National Observatory, and the Washington Observatory. Formally designated the USNOHO by order of the Secretary of the Navy, December 1854. Transferred, effective August 31, 1862, to BuNav, established as successor (in part) to BuO&H by an act of July 5, 1862 (12 Stat. 510). Separate HO established in BuNav by an act of June 21, 1866 (14 Stat. 69), with responsibility for preparing and publishing maps, charts, and nautical books required in navigation. Transferred to the newly established BuE, June 30, 1889, as part of an exchange of functions between that bureau’s predecessor (Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting) and BuNav mandated by the departmental reorganization under General Order 372, Navy Department, June 25, 1889. HO restored to BuNav, 1892; transferred to BuE, 1898; and returned to BuNav, 1910. Transferred to OCNO by EO 9126, April 8, 1942. Transfer made permanent by Reorganization Plan No. III of 1946, effective July 16, 1946. Renamed USNOO by an act of July 10, 1962 (76 Stat. 154). USNOO mapping, charting, and geodetic production and distribution resources consolidated into DMA, July 1, 1972. See 456.1.
(more …)

Aside from a fraction of a kilo-ton of human-re-configured matter that has been more-or-less permanently jettisoned from the immediate gravitational field of the Terran system, all human activities are and always have been fully immersed in what, for the purposes of modeling, may be seen as a limited (eco-)system with limited energy resources. L-I-M-I-T-E-D. Followers of the develop-and-consume-at-any-cost economic philosophy appear to think that there is an un- at the beginning of limited. But are these limits germane regarding the scalar possibilities of alteration that 6.9 billion humans applies to the ‘closed’ system? Can this plague-species actually cause significant change? It’s maybe only a question of where on a sliding scale the alteration sits, and what range on that scale indicates ‘significant’ change.

It is not difficult to observe that all expressions of life have an affect on the immediate vicinity. The bed of dead leaves beneath the cottonwood, layered by age: age showing as a returning dissolution, collenchyma structures in the veins remain longer, the epidermis stripped away by insects, solar radiation, weather, and time. The altered rhizosphere full of exudates nourishing symbiotic microbial life which, in turn, alter the chemistry of the surrounding soil. The altered atmosphere, being distantly distributed by the wind, the absorption of Light. Animals consuming leaves, wandering away. Reverberatory. What does a tree do to the rest of the cosmos? It does. Clearly any form of life has this effect. It’s just a question of how much. Quantitative, with the qualitative in the affirmative, but still open to how.

back in the CMAI office a few weeks ago thanks to Meghan — UTS Ultimo, the place hadn’t been touched (not even the white board) since I was here last December. the organization is in deep hibernation or simply decline. such organizational configurations are generally, here as elsewhere, armatures for funding projects.

the sense of departmental decline extends to the plants on the window sill: somebody’s plants, were dead or almost dead. so, begin triage by re-potting the living ones and continue watering them daily. they flourish with the attention.

The rumbling classic of coming-to-be in the dynamic of encounter with the Other. Buber’s classic work is dense and difficult. Working through it is slow. It may take a month, or perhaps a year. Sentence by sentence, discovering resonant meaning. While preparing for the doctoral assessment arising in a couple week’s time. Strange to have actually bought a copy of I and Thou there in Portland, along with a new copy of Wilhelm’s I Ching. Nothing to be made of it except that mediated energies from the Other are felt, are compelling, and, in the end, are all we have. But does spirit need this mediation, or, as is framed in many systems, is it a task, a challenge, set to our hungry roving ghosts by something greater, or is it merely the nature of it all, of which we are a substantive part?

After a long hiatus, the need to get back to work on this space surfaces. A continent away. A fiscal quarter later. And feeling like the speed of days is such that a chin-strap is necessary on the Tilley hat, though it’s not worn here yet, the sun is still in winter distance, and there’s not been enough of it (indoors too much) to warrant head-coverings.

Doctoral assessment time, in a couple weeks, though it would seem that the hoop to leap through is spacious. Or maybe specious — where casuists squabble over the use of meaning to construct be-ing.

But at least have joined the food coop, inspired by Ann-Marie’s dedication.

More soon. eh?

Understanding this from being aware of my own movements (and instances of compromised balance), and watching locals, I noticed several major differences between their gait and mine. The primary feature of the local walk was that both feet never really left the ground and contact was flat-footed and somewhat stiff-legged. There was a substantial time when the full sole of the shoe was flat on the ice, and it was during that time when forward acceleration was made.

If you try this yourself, you will immediately see that the glutes are not the site of any muscular effort for locomotion as opposed to when accelerating off the big toe and Achilles tendon. Could this be the source of the predominance of flat arses in Iceland?

Aside from the glare-ice technique, there was another endearing and embodied gait by farmers when walking their fields. A thousand years of overgrazing sheep has seriously compromised most of Iceland’s grasslands. As the land was overgrazed, this exposed the underlying volcanic soil directly to powerful aeolian erosion which could strip meters away down to a gravelly bedrock surface in no time. When life again attempts to establish itself on that surface, after sheep are removed from the picture, it first starts as miniscule moss colonies which grow in the shelter of a small cobble or so. The moss begins to capture wind-borne soil which gradually increases the colony size which increases the turbulent capture of airborne sediment. Over a period of decades these moss colonies form a hummocky surface with a relief of perhaps 50 cm (18 inches) and a horizontal frequency of a meter or so. To walk across such a surface is absolutely exhausting unless you conform your body in a particular way. The Icelandic farmers gait consists of the following: hands clasped behind the back, an exaggerated forward hunch of the upper body, and the knees bent dramatically. Leaning forward, and using the bend in the knees to essentially level out the distance between the upper body and the average ground height of the bottom of the hummocks, one takes long strides where the torso never goes up and down, but rather the level changes of the hummocks are compensated by different extensions of the knees. It’s humorous to watch, but is highly effective and a very rapid gait. If one tries ‘normal’ walking, climbing up and down the hummocks, it is slow and absolutely exhausting.