By reading the book Cymatics, many of us thrilled to the idea of vibration made visible in that gem of a book from the late 1960's. 

With a few lines of code I have decided to plot the equations which go to heart of, and could be said to generate, these beautiful forms.

More motivated me than just the chance to look directly at and witness the imagery. I have seen some claims that the Shri Chakra could be seen from these "tonoscopes".

I did this quick project for a friend who wanted to know the best place to put her dollars to get the most protein.

The raw USDA source data can be found here.

Some immediate surprises:

• how proteinaceous native Inuit foods are (it's ok to make up words here, isn't it?),
• restaurant cole slaw is below fruit pie by ratio,
• fish and meat rank higher than I knew, but not as high as soy. (What do you think of soy? And its various and manifold controversies? I, for one, have eaten meat more recently than soy, sadly enough in some ways),
• scary to think that this is the US diet option set,
• rock on, pumpkin seeds!
• rock on, spirulina!
• what is "raw cisco" anyway?
• I don't even want to think about "raw, turtle, green".

Download the spreadsheet here:

A student just asked a great question:

"If an astrologer sees something about the past, but that didn't materialize, does it give a clue about the kind of karma that the native built up? Meaning, can retrodiction [a prediction about the past] be used to live more intelligently in the future?"

Here is my answer: If the retrodiction failed, then the astrologer failed. Sorry if that seems harsh, but that is my first answer. Building on it, that simply means that the astrologer is still learning, and ​very few astrologers are not still learning. What it can do is teach you something new, or at least stimulate you to learn more, some new technique, some new meaning.

So, at the very least, it can cause the ​astrologer​ to live more intelligently into the future. The client is just fine, always has been and always will be (and so is the astrologer).

Now, I feel like latently embedded in that answer is another question about free will. That is, some may say that the person is "just" exercising free will, and that is not in the chart. The concept of free will is held in such high esteem in American culture, and so, if your astrology can not line up with a past event, it is not helpful or even honorable, the thinking might go. I would like to address that thinking.

Remember that astrology is fundamentally about ​maya, and in maya is great cause and effect, such a dense web of it in fact that ​almost everything​ is fixed in potential in the chart. This is the field of experience, and the astrologer excels here.

There is in fact only one thing not in the chart: ​Purusha​ consciousness, "one-pointed awareness", also the only thing which gives us real freedom and hence real free will. It is true; that is beyond the chart, always has been and always will be. (In one-pointedness is no movement, no change, nothing to move into or change into, so the melodramas of the stars are of no use.) Hence, It is beyond the laws of karma and is the pure essence of everything, including Itself. This is the seed of awareness, and personal consciousness excels here. This is reality.

However, what does Purusha consciousness want to fulfill? Prakriti (Mahamaya), just as Shiva wants to fulfill Parvati, leading us in a delightful mobius strip back to the astrology chart.

This is why Dr. Lad draws an infinity symbol between Purusha and Prakriti at the top of the Sankhya tree.

To know this diagram is to know astrology, to know Ayurveda, to know both the manifest world and where it came, to know the child of Purusha and Prakriti. Ganesha.

Note: above Purusha and Prakriti is the unary oneness of Atman. Atman is not shown in this particular version, but in school, when presenting this topic, Dr. Lad does certainly draw It.

Aum Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Gam Ganapataye Swaha!

I remember before I learned Jyotish that I was often bewildered as to why things were.

I would wonder "why is this person acting that way" and "why was that thing that way" and so on. And then I learned Jyotish and honestly, I never again had to leave those questions unanswered. Better yet, after a few years, I no longer had to ask them.

For example, at a meeting the other night, there was to me a rather sharp and shrill quality to the discussions, discussions that were actually coming out a generous emotional place but that ultimately detracted from the ability to relate. The relating instead demonstrated fairly universally a very strong ill-placed and displaced pitta.

I think this not because I know more or even that I feel more than any other, but rather because the chart of the meeting says so, and so, as seen after the fact, it was.

I am just writing this to remind myself and invite others to consider what, to me, is a deep Vedic truth: don't take things personally.

From the great Colorado Ayurvedic Medical Association (COLORAMA):

Join ‪#‎Renay‬ ‪#‎Oshop‬, professional jyotishi of 18 years and COLORAMA Board member for a special presentation on ‪#‎AYURVEDIC‬ ‪#‎PSYCHOLOGY‬ & THE ‪#‎JYOTISH‬‪#‎CHART‬ on Friday, July 31, at 5 pm at the Lotus Room at the Solstice Center (302 Pearl St., Boulder, Colorado). 

Learn about the 
-Definitions in Jyotisha, ‪#‎Vedic‬ ‪#‎Astrology‬,
-Ayurvedic notions of health,
-Ayurvedic notions of the Self,
-Differences in Ayurveda from Western cultural concepts of mental illness,
-The mechanisms of the interior in Ayurveda: the ‪#‎antah‬ ‪#‎karana‬ from the tradition of Vasant Lad,
-How the above can be directly seen in Ayurvedic "scans" through the Jyotish chart with examples.

 http://www.AyurAstro.com/

Cost $12 for COLORAMA members / $20 for non-members.

For information about ‪#‎COLORAMA‬ and how to become a member visit http://www.ColoradoAyurveda.org/membership

Meditation is a wonderful thing.

I’ve lately begun to feel the connection of the sushumna naadi to my crown chakra above and my root chakra below. A magnetosphere phenomenon happens. In other words, the first picture plus meditation is the second picture.

A human in meditation looks like a magnetosphere in the shape of a torus, the shape of the universe.

This might explain why groups of meditators practicing together “cohere” enough to change the environment.

Don’t believe in macroscopic coherence?  Here is mainstream proof.

Note how the heart is the core of the torus.

Did you know that the earth’s magnetosphere correspondingly looks like a human?







Plus, by extension, there is this: Rattling_Earth’s_Force_Field - a truly awesome video that basically explains the foundations of Vaastu.

What I have found in my experience teaching at and attending Ayurvedic schools is that there is a fairly simple but robust formula for who does best in which school.  I get asked pretty often by students which school to go to.  This post is for you.

Each school has an overall characteristic that can tell you what its working rising sign is.  For example, a certain school has a very academic approach, very technical.  It functionally has a Gemini ascendent.  Sure enough, almost all of the students have a Scorpio rising sign.  How does this make sense?  Well, Ayurveda is represented by the eighth house. Scorpios have Gemini in their eighth house and so tend to learn Ayurvedic mystery-school type stuff, represented by the eighth house, in a Gemini way.

There is a nice symmetry here too in that the sixth house of Gemini, which represents the healing model that the Gemini school takes, is Scorpio. So, all these Scorpio rising students satisfy the healing approach of the Gemini school, and the Ayurvedic education of these Scorpios are satisfied by the Gemini approach of the school.

In short, the 6/8 relationship works very well in general for Ayurvedic education.
Similarly, an institute-style school is very Aquarian in its approach, taking the grand transhumanist Satabishak (a fixed star in Aquarius that means “100 physicians”) framework.  Sure enough, the students who do best there are Cancer types, very loving, nurturing and feminine in their approach to life, since they have Aquarius in their eighth house, and the Aquarian school has Cancer in its healing sixth health house.

A nutrition based school, Taurus rising, similarly does best with Libra ascendants. I have empirically seen this.  Similarly a truly temple-like spiritually complete school which is Piscean and meditation-centric is a great home for proud Leos looking for Ayurvedic education.

Is the school’s approach meticulous, plodding, careful to approach completion, perhaps with a hatha yoga emphasis? It may be Capricorn rising.  Here the detailed high ordered geekiness of a Gemini student is best.

Is there a strong charismatic leader, perhaps with government connections, that is leading the school?  The plodding careful work of a Capricorn rising student would be best in such a Leonine school.  And so it goes.

Finally, as a sidenote, one merely needs to look to the tenth house to see how the school appears to the world: the Gemini school hence appears as highly spiritual and Piscean.  The Aquarian institute would have a public reputation of  a very transformative, somewhat scary Scorpionic mien. The Taurean nutrition school is likely to have a reputation of a nonpersonal society-improving  higher purpose of Aquarius, and the Piscean spiritual school as a mutable fiery place of monks in higher Saggitarian  learning.

However, I must emphasize that love for the teacher is paramount, that it comes before any of the above analysis, and that a good teacher can teach to and for anybody.  For example, the Aquarian institute would be fine for a Scorpio as long as the Scorpio is willing to accept his or her Ayurvedic education as a kind of remaking college experience (Aquarius is fourth house, symbolizing college and other things, for the Scorpio) even if if the Scorpio has already been to college or even graduate school.

The bottom line to all of this is that Ayurvedic schools, all holy, all beautifully intentioned, have dramas of their own. It would be a disservice to the student to say otherwise.  The responsibility is on the teachers to make sure that a complete experience is available to each student.  The responsibility is on the student not to take the dramas of the sky personally.  If he or she could learn this as a general principle, he or she will go far toward becoming a general healing practitioner.

Make sense?  This system of observations has really held up empirically.  I hope it is of use.

Good luck in your search and feel free to ask questions.

The concept of a Philosopher’s Stone has become famous from the Harry Potter books of J. K. Rowling.

To many’s surprise, it now seems to be publicly attainable.

Recently, in the past month, a treatise has been released that describes in detail how to make the stone (see recipe book link), and on multiple readings it seems to “hold water”, uniting selections from the Bible,  ancient Taoist texts, and medieval manuscripts.

The similarity to Ayurvedic 1000 times washed ghee is undeniable in its making process and its purported effects.

I would like to embark on the 1.5-3 year process of making the powdery stone from vegetable and plant juices.

The recipe book for the Philosopher’s Stone: http://bookofaquarius.forgottenbooks.org/

A perhaps related Science article: http://scim.ag/old-experiment

And how it may work: http://www.livemint.com/2011/08/01221757/Ayurveda-meets-nanotechnology.html?a

With the Philosopher’s Stone one can transmute one’s own metals to silver or gold, depending on the type of stone developed.  Other reported benefits of the stone include healing, perpetual energy and the ability to make more stones. See recipe book link.

I will need six of these retorts, some flasks and a water bath in order to follow the recipe to make the Philosopher’s Stone.

I only wonder if it will turn out to be like a deathly hallow?

A rotational relational database on herbs and techniques of Ayurveda , the traditional ancient Indian form of medicine.

Please note that it is a work in progress and not complete nor exhaustive. 

sanskrit jaTI phala, mada zauNDa

latin Myristica fragrans

rasa pungent, bitter, astringent

vIrya heating

vipAk pungent

guNa light, oily penetrating

doSa VK-,P+

rasayana to reproductive, nervine, and intestinal tissues

karmas astringent, nervine, sedative, psychotropic, carminative, aphrodisiac, stimulant, expectorant

suggested dose 1/8-1/4 teaspoon

Botanical Description Nutmeg is the seed (about 1 x 3/4 inch) of the tree which is an angiosperm or evergreen.

Habitat and Varieties Indigenous to the Spice Islands of Indonesia, it is also grown in Malaysia, the Caribbean, and the Kerala state of India. M. malabarica is an adulterant sometimes used in India, and is called Jaiphal as well.

Indications:

• vAta mind
• transient insomnia
• restless leg syndrome
• need for muscle relaxation
• angina
• fibromyalgia
• arthritis
• intestinal spasms, gas, bloating
• premature ejaculation
• female infertility

Contra-Indications:

• high pitta
• high doses (>6g) may cause intoxication, leading to hallucinations, headaches, dizziness, and heart palpitations
• inhibits prostaglandin in the expectant mother and may be hallucinogenic in the fetus

For, Combine With:

• Inflammation and Bleeding :  bitters
• Spasms and Gas :  aromatic herbs
• Nervousness and Insomnia :  ashwagandha, brahmi, jatamansi
• Digestive Upset :  amalaki, haritaki, fennel, cardamom
• Diarrhea from Coldness :  haritaki, kustha, bakuchi
• Impotence and Premature Ejaculation : ashwagandha, gokshura, lotus seeds
• Female Infertility and Menstrual Irregularity : shatavari, rose

Dr. Lad uses nutmeg essential oil for marma point massage therapy.
Nutmeg is also considered an Ayurvedic dhupana, or smoke therapy agent.


Sources:

1. Ayurvedic Medicine: The Principles of Traditional Practice, Sebastian Pole, Elsevier Limited, 2006, p. 235-6.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myristica_fragrans, accessed 5/31/9.