Nancy & I were among several hundred peaceful library supporters that showed up in Medford, Oregon's Alba Park today to voice our emphatic support of keeping all the libraries in Jackson County open. In the photo, Nancy is in the lower right, holding up the colorful sign with the yellow "O" in "Save Our Libraries!", and you can see my "Martineau Solar System - Mars/Venus" print on the white sweatshirt next to her left arm holding her picket sign. We'll be taping the evening news tonight from Medford, since at least two TV stations had videographers present. Both the primary county commisioner's chambers and the overflow viewing room on the third floor of a nearby county building were packed to capacity (it was a great place to warm up for a few minutes, though!). So we went to the Medford Library, where we joined the Standing Room Only folks and watched most of the 3-minute (very eloquent and diverse) citizen speeches in support of keeping our libraries open. All 15 county libraries are scheduled to close on April 6 unless other imaginative solutions are mustered. (Maybe we need to catch up?)http://www.mailtribune.com/Here is the email I sent yesterday to a few dozen folks (local to Jackson County, here is the land of Jefferson)====Hi all:If any of you live in Jackson County, use the public library system or know people who benefit from our libraries, have children or know people who have children, or just plain want to let our county government officials know that we want to KEEP THE LIBRARIES OPEN, read on!This peaceful rally isn't about HOW this is to be achieved – a different issue – it is about the people of Jackson County speaking out in SUPPORT of our libraries...Nancy & I will be there in Medford tomorrow morning; we hope to see some of you there! Carpool if you can. Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2007Time: 8:30-9:30 AMPlace: Alba Park, Medford, Oregon ( Main Street, corner Ivy and 8th Street)More details

Today's post is an email conversation I had with a visitor to the intent.com website that I probably could have written a decade ago, so this might be useful to those of you who already have purchased a copy of the book (and thanks to all of you who have supported me in this way over the years!) There are a few other goodies on my site map that might also be of interest.
=================================

Hi Julian:

Many thanks for your inquiry. I got so involved with the reply, that I've decided to post it on my blog for today, as well as in this email; I'm grateful that you asked the question, so now I can answer it for the world

On 30 Jan 2007, at 6:54 AM, Julian wrote:

Dear Bruce

I was reading your web pages about your book SACRED GEOMETRY DESIGN SOURCEBOOK and I wondered if you could tell me whether the book provides the reader with details of how to draw the 2-D patterns for themselves or whether they are just templates without such instruction.

The simplest answer is "yes and no", depending on which of the 1300+ images you're referring to.

------------------------------------

The detailed answer is (here goes!) that I cover some of the philosophy and underlying
math, concepts and archetypal ideas in the beginning of the book, and provide a
generous assortment of references in the back of the book. For the remainder
(majority of the 256 pages), I give the images as much room as possible so that
not only can the patterns be photocopies easily (I went with spiral binding just
for that reason), the image quality would be as high as possible for an 8.5" by 11" format.

Some of the illustrations give step-by-step procedures (in graphical form,
assuming some basic familiarity with how to use a compass and straightedge), such as:

page 44 (showing how "unit cells" for the tiling patterns can be used to create an enormously
expanded variety of additional patterns by recognizing how the space-filling shapes can be
varied; this applies to the "unit cell" examples on pages 16-43,

page 45 (showing how each of the patterns on pages 16-43 can embellished with fractal or
other inscribed detail for each of the polygons for an infinite (literally!) variety of possible
variations, (which actually also applies to the majority of the remaining images in the book;
page 237 gives a 3D example of this),

pages 46-84 have either explicit (most of these pages) or simple to observe implicit "unit cells"
which show how these can be created in a great variety of ways,

page 84 (Pentagon Rotation Grid) gives the 73.2% proportion crucial to the exact construction of this pattern,

page 85 (Genesis of the Seed of Life) shows the step-by-step "compass only" construction of this important
and universal pattern,

page 86-95 (variations on Seed of Life and Flower of Life) show how once the Seed of Life is constructed,
so many other patterns can be easily derived – Flower of Life, Hexagonal Grid, 2nd Harmonic Overlay
(which is used in Mika Feinberg's beautiful LightSOURCE screensaver animation; see my links page
at http://www.intent.com/bruce/links.html), Tree of Life, Fruit of Life, Heart and Ankh matrices, recursions,
Metatron's Cube, etc.),

page 95: since the Dodecahedron is the most complicated shape to derive from Metatron's cube, the top center
illustration on this page shows which vertices are used to create the "dodecahedron 2D shadow" with small
circles highlighted in the larger image,

page 96: The general instructions for creating Nested Inscribed Polygons appear on this page,

page 100-102: other examples of the crucial proportions needed to create these image either by hand or with a computer graphics program; numerous pages provide these instructions in the text without detracting from the space given to the images,

pages 104-105, 110-113, 123-124, 128, 130, 138-139, 144-145, 155, 163, 166, 171, 176-180, 182-187: all have instructions and details on how to create the images,

page 146: very detailed step-by-step instructions for inscribing a pentagon within a circle,

page 147: very detailed step-by-step instructions for inscribing a pentagon starting from one side of a given length,

page 156: very detailed step-by-step instructions for creating a golden rectangle (including "whirling squares and more),

page 156: very detailed step-by-step instructions for dividing a line by the golden ratio,

page 157: very detailed mathematical information about golden ratio progressions and powers, illustrated graphically,

page 188: shows how the Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece incorporates the golden ratio

page 189: an amazing amount of data on this page about the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt showing phi (golden ratio) and pi proportions, and the proportions of the so-called "King's Chamber" although the so-called "sarcophagus" (granite box) within is too large to fit through the only passage leading into that chamber, which violates the generally accepted funerary rite theory,

page 190: the classic "Measure of Man" (Vitruvian Man) by Leonardo daVinci, copied around the world, showing the golden ratio proportions in the human body,

page 191: the only known CAD drawing adaptation (to my knowledge) of Leonardo's "Ideal Church" sketch,

page 192: detailed specifics about the Shoemaker's Knife of Archimedes, giving several variations all showing the mathematical principle,

page 194: details of the geometry of the classic 1991 Barbury Castle, England crop circle formation,

page 195 and page 52: the details of the geometry encoded in the Sri Yantra (a classic Hindu mandala) and the cross section of the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt (also the "squaring the circle" conundrum), both with a 1-Phi-Square Root of Phi triangle which has a 51 degree, 51 minute slope,

page 196: numerous details common to the 5 Platonic and 13 Archimedean Solids,

pages 197-214; numerous details specific to the 5 Platonic and 13 Archimedean Solids, including how the insphere/intersphere/circumsphere/side length proportions are calculated,

pages 215-224: similar details specific to the 4 Kepler-Poinsot solids, the Star Tetrahedron (a.k.a. Stella Octangula) and related polyhedra,

pages 225-229: numerous graphics showing how the Platonic Solids relate to each other in a myriad of fascinating (awe-inspiring, really!) ways,

pages 230-235: numerous relationships between 3D polyhedra with 5-sided symmetry and the "shadow" they cast on a decagon (10-sided polygon), with construction details,

page 236: step-by-step instructions on creating an accurate drawing of the Icosahedron and Dodecahedron starting from a Golden Rectangle,

pages 237-255: generous appendices for hands-on explorers of all ages and levels of experience, including tables and charts of regular polygon angles, apothem, radius and side ratios and areas, radius ratios by coordination number for Ionic Chemical Bonding (which relates to properties of materials at the molecular and planetary levels), Fibonacci Numbers, Perfect Right Triangles (when I put the book together, I wasn't aware of the Phi-1/Phi-Square Root of 3 Right Triangle that Mike Green of British Columbia introduced me to), Prime Numbers, extensive tables with all sorts of data on the Platonic and Archimedean Solids (useful for a variety of purposes, including model construction and computer simulation and animation, a map of planet Earth showing superimposed Platonic Solid Vertex Latitudes and (example) Longitudes, a fun stereogram with 6 Small Stellated Dodecahedra (there, I gave the clue away , a short bio of myself, 3 pages of bibliography (more on my books and links pages and blog), and unique graphical index to all the illustrations in the book. Whew! I'd almost forgotten how much I packed into this labor of love over a decade ago!

Many of the 1300+ images are somewhat self-explanatory graphically (especially if you have created the basic shapes like the Seed of Life, Golden Rectangle and a few others by hand with compass and straight-edge, which I highly recommend for anyone as mentor Keith Critchlow so aptly reminded me when reviewing my original manuscript)...

... and of course, if you are finding re-creating one of the patterns challenging, I'd be happy to answer other questions via email that I can share with other enthusiasts on my blog (which I'll do with this reply; thanks for asking!

I'm also working on a number of related projects that will complement the book with video "hands on" procedures, etc. Stay tuned!

I have my new Myspace set up here. Several colleagues – we've called our selves the "Ashland Geometers" and more some like the sillier name of the "Hedronists" – have a new collaborative Myspace... stay tuned for more fun under way!

Here are a few interesting links about consciousness, modern physics and interconnections I found while doing some research this morning on these subjects (most are courtesy of Wikipedia, where I've just started making a contribution here and there...)

Peter Russell (and his page on the New Frontiers website)
Perennial Philosophy
Philosopher's Stone
Copenhagen Interpretation
Many Worlds Interpretation
Common Dreams
TimeStar (thanks to Dan for this link)

Sometimes it's fun to see what synchronistically leads to the next web-woven thread in the tapestry... Perhaps one of these will lead you to some interesting ponderings or AHA moments If nothing else, pages like this serve as a little time capsule of where my thoughts have ventured during a portion of a day on this lovely planet...

Here's an article a friend sent that points in the "simpler is more sustainable" direction. Even without researching the statistics, this makes a (sustainable) worlds of sense to me! Thanks to Marge & Janaia for sending this my way:

What one action could you take to make the biggest difference to reduce global warming? Eliminate or reduce meat consumption (except locally-produced). More impact than swapping to a hybrid car.

 The United Nations has sent tremors through the livestock industry with a new report that states,
 "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the
  most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." The report shows that 
 livestock production accounts for more greenhouse gases than automobiles. For every calorie of 
 meat consumed, at least ten calories of fossil fuels were required to produce that meat. Animal
  agriculture takes up 70% of all agricultural land, and 30% of the total land surface of the
  planet. Today, 70% of "slash-and-burned" Amazon rainforest is used for pastureland, and feed 
 crops cover much of the remainder. The ultimate ramifications of the report suggest that the 
 average American can do more to reduce global warming emissions by adjusting their meat eating 
 habits than by switching to driving the most fuel efficient car currently on the market. Negative
  environmental impacts can be greatly reduced by reducing (or eliminating) meat consumption and
  buying locally grown and sustainably produced meats, dairy and animal products.

 Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3853.cfm

Suzie Daggett (who did a superb job arranging speakers for our New Frontiers group a few years ago and has been making similar great contributions to the community since with her Insight directory) is involved in the Heart of Healing Conference, which will take place March 24-25, 2007. It looks like a great lineup of presenters for those of you in the Sacramento, California area. Check it out! Here's the flyer she sent:

Here's a neat stereogram animation (thanks, once again to Michael in Arizona!) by Tony Smith which is a 4-dimensional shape; see my links page for more on polytopes.

Although the vast majority of my mentoring has been informal, I've been an avid mentor as long as I can remember, and I just discovered not only a local opportunity here in Eagle Point (ASPIRE) to contribute to the community as a mentor, but also a statewide organization here in Oregon (Oregon Mentors), and a national organization (Mentoring.org) which links to resources and networks to mentoring groups and opportunities all over.

If you feel that you want to make a positive contribution with your enthusiasm, support, knowledge and just plain caring in the lives of young people, check out these opportunities! If you're reading this, you probably have a lot to share, and that sharing can make a BIG difference... See my thoughts about the film "Right Here, Right Now" in a recent post... I don't claim that my high school paper on the golden ratio was responsible for my uncle's Joe's younger nephew becoming a Math professor ... although HE acknowledges that as being an influence... We often see only the tip of the iceberg of the effects that our goodwill creates, which may propagate through many lives and around the planet!

When I reflect on the years I taught Adult School (Leadership and Human Relations), conducted classes at Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy, California, workshops in Arizona, California, and now Oregon (including our local high school) those have been some of the most fun highlights of my life... Perhaps you have insights and knowledge you would like to share also; now is the time!

I've finally uploaded a video animation loop I created a few weeks ago.
Here's the description I added for the YouTube file:

Infinite Recursive Zoom In of Nested Platonic Solids

This continuous loop rotates around a nest of the five Platonic Solids: Cube (red), Tetrahedron (yellow), Octahedron (green), Icosahedron (blue) and Dodecahedron (purple), returning to a cube oriented along the same x-y-z axes one third the size in each dimension as the outer cube. The transparency of the inner cube changes from 100% opaque to 100% transparent as the animation proceeds, which allows playing as an infinte recursive loop. High-resolution versions and more info at www.intent.com and www.brucerawles.com

The original video looks quite a bit better, BTW, the resolution reduction required for YouTube is rather severe... I just wanted to test the process, and you can still get a sense of what the original looks like.

I just finished reading an updated illustrated version of the classic "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. Many thanks to my cousin DeDe for the gift! Will reading these words of literary wisdom make me more self-conscious about my writing – I hope not! My intent is to hone my writing skills and convey what is important effectively and with gusto. I'll begin by practicing one of the rules of the book; brevity ... right now!

Thanks to Michael in Arizona for alerting me to this very intuitive demonstration of how shapes resonate with different vibrational patterns and frequency interactions (quite reminiscent of Hans Jenny's Cymatics work):

Chladni Resonance Effect - sound makes form

You can feel with your ears when the sound interactions are more complex and more dissonant, and see it reflected in the patterns at the same moment.

Great synchronicity; I got an email from a new friend (here is Lisa's blog) about her experience with orbs, and I just got back from a superb lecture this evening sponsored by RVML on crop circles by world expert Nancy Talbott. In addition to her first rate scientific plant and soil science research, she has an impressive amount of what's becoming known as "orb photos". There is going to be a Prophet's Conference on the orbs soon; I imagine it will be fascinating!

I've always agreed with the Dalai Lama's prescription (or actually I think it was his response to the question of what his religion was, to which he replied; "simple, it's kindness" or something like that)... and I suppose to sustain that, we all need imagination to maintain the kindness we're all capable of. We went to go see "Night at the Museum" today, and there's some rather imaginative animation in that movie (as in so many fun films these days)... How about more collective imagination about a world based on kindness! Works for me...

Here's an excerpted dialogue about the Sri Yantra and it's geometry from a recent email with colleague Sherri Silverman; one of those "might as well share with a wider audience" conversations...

=====

Hi Sherri:

Your message is timely and appreciated!

I have an interesting "synchronicity" story to tell about the Sri Yantra. Over a decade ago, when I was researching the 1-Phi-Square Root of Phi triangle (cross section of the Great Pyramid and primary geometry in the Sri Yantra), I discovered a website that gave the exact proportions of the Sri Yantra and it's construction ( http://alumni.cse.ucsc.edu/~mikel/sriyantra/golden.html ), and I was replicating these on my computer using Claris CAD. That evening, I happened to be listening to a favorite radio program, New Dimensions, hosted by Michael & Justine Toms. Michael's guest just happened to be talking about - you guessed it! - The Sri Yantra! His guest, whose name I've forgotten, mentioned that all authentic replicas have a small gap between the inner and outer regions of the design, so I made sure there is a very tiny gap on my version of it on page 195 of my book.

I'm curious if the CD has music with frequency ratios of 1: Phi: Square Root of Phi...

BTW, another friend in British Columbia (Mike Green) recently alerted me to a right triangle I wasn't aware of that has Phi: 1/Phi: Square Root of 3 (hypotenuse) proportions; amazing that I'd never run across such an elegant triangle linking these mystical proportions! Seems curiously connected, somehow! (The square root of three is the proportion of the Vesica Piscis, the diagonal of a cube & circumsphere to intersphere ratio of the tetrahedron, and the surface area to edge ratio of the tetrahedron.)

=====
Dear Friends,

I will soon send out one of my illustrated newsletters with Vastu tips relating to the eastern sector of your home or business. In the meantime, I wanted to let you know about a FABULOUS NEW ITEM FOR YOUR CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE:

I have found a wonderful Sri Yantra CD that converts the mathematical form of the auspicious Sri Yantra into sound. It creates a centered, harmonious, meditative experience. This is not Sanskrit chanting, nor is it on the website shopping cart yet. Call Transcendence Design at 505.984.0108 to order this special CD. Prices follow the explanation of the CD. If you do not remember the benfits of the Sri Yantra, look at http://www.transcendencedesign.com/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=yantra_meru_chakra.html and http://www.transcendencedesign.com/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=yantra_shri.html for info on the two- and three-dimensional forms of the Sri Yantra.

The SRI YANTRA consists of 9 triangles arranged with 4 pointing upward and 5 pointing downward, superimposed on top of one another. Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, DC, BFA, has translated this ancient mandala into a sonic mandala mathematically in two different ways, corresponding to part 1 and part 2 of the CD. The sound vibration patterns that are generated by the complexities of the Sri Yantra make this soundtrack a powerful tool for reaching deep states of consciousness.

In each part of this CD, Dr. Thompson has used the circle around the triangular patterns of the Sri Yantra as a central reference point to which all of the triangles relate in distinct proportionate ratios. On track 1 you will hear the Sri Yantra assemble itself sonically one triangle tone at a time, starting with the frequency for the circle and ending with all twenty-seven angles playing together. This produces the exact relationship patterns you see as you look at the Sri Yantra visually.

For Track 2 of the Sri Yantra CD, Dr. Thompson calculated the area of the circle and the area of each of the nine (9) triangles. He then related the area of each triangle as a percentage proportion to the circle that enclosed it, making a ratio. In both tracks, Dr. Thompson has played the complete Sri Yantra through a series of seven octaves. You will hear the Sri Yantra begin as a mix of complex low frequency vibrations, which continually double in frequency every four minutes and become higher and higher, leading one upward. Many people feel the Sri Yantra begin as a sound vibration in their body and eventually exit through the top of the head.

The sounds on this CD have been processed with special 3-D recording techniques, so headphones or good stereo separation give the best results. This CD is best used sitting with an erect spine, with eyes closed and lights dim. You may also wish to listen to it while gazing at a picture of the Sri Yantra.

The Sri Yantra CD is only one of many Transcendence Design conscious lifestyle products. You can get an advance peek at more of them at http://www.transcendencedesign.com/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=vastu_products.html.

I have added a lot of new material to the website, including an article from the Santa Fean Magazine this past July. You can read "Do you vastu?" at http://www.transcendencedesign.com/press-santafean2006.html

All best wishes for a truly centered year of grace, love, and abundance,
Sherri Silverman

http://www.greatmystery.org/

Spoken Word offering: Claims of the Normal: A Skeptic's View - In Memory of Robert Anton Wilson

Yesterday we had probably the largest snowfall here in the Rogue Valley since we moved here a couple years ago. It was only 2-3 inches, but enough for the neighborhood kids to be out inner-tubing down the street past our house, and it took a couple of neighbors and me to push my wife's car into the garage when she (finally) made it back from the sloppy roads to a freshly shoveled driveway.





I've been enjoying the Echoes music program in the evenings from our local NPR affiliate Jefferson Public Radio. Yesterday was no exception; host John Diliberto interviewed harp-guitar player Stephen Bennett who has some lovely mp3 clips to keep you warm acoustically here. My all time favorite harp-guitar player, who I had the good fortune to see in concert in Grass Valley a couple of times, while he still walked this planet, was the legendary Michael Hedges.

Yesterday evening, I watched (after the fact) Steve Jobs' MacWorld Expo 2007 Keynote Address, and was (as usual) wowed by the breakthrough technology demonstrated by the visionary engineers at Apple, Inc. – their new name, since they are venturing further and further from "just computers." They have lots of impressive features and technology in the new iPhone which should be available in a few months. It's always fun to see what new "how cool!" ideas they can pull off, and with the latest and greatest engineering innovation as well as usability (like "pinching" the touch screen with two fingers to expand or contract the zoom level on the web page or photo being viewed). The John Mayer mini-concert at the end of the presentation was fun, too!

Another feature of the new iPhone is low power consumption (allegedly, since they're not out yet), but I can imagine it must be rather low to run portions of OSX code and all the other new stuff, as well as being a phone, iPod, and who-knows-what-else is in there I'd like to be the first person (on record) to suggest that they integrate (while they're at it!) a sensor on the back side from the display for HRV (Heart Rate Variability, interfaced in devices like the HeartTuner, HeartLink, and HeartMath's products such as their new emWave) so that the next-gen iPhone can also give you an energetic "reality check" for your biological/emotional health and allow you (via widgets, apps or whatever) to correlate who you're talking with, what you're saying (and hearing and seeing) and make statistical recommendations for your life. If our techno-crazed culture still needs training wheels for intuition until our spiritual evolvement catches up, why not have the best possible (and reduce the number of gadgets we carry around!

Meanwhile, the "low power consumption" issue (before I digressed with another vision), is another important topic in the spiritual-physical spectrum of important breakthroughs to help with the transition from being "on the edge of environmental/cultural collapse" to "on the edge of environmental/cultural serenity." I have been watching Dr. Mercola's videos on health lately, and today he digressed (from his usual nutritional emphasis) to talk about the "other" important electronics trade show last week, CES in Las Vegas, which I have yet to attend, so I appreciate his vicarious summary. In it, he mentions Organic LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology screens under development – they apparently have "extraordinarily low power requirements" and look even better than the current plasma displays, and can even be made flexible. Now, if we can just replace all those CRTs with pico-powered displays, perhaps develop practical ZPE sources (if what I've heard extrapolated about Maxwell's fifth, under-reported scalar equation are true) for transportation, redesign our communities so we (most of us, at least) can all usually walk or bike to work, put in low energy bullet trains between densely populated areas and implement all the other Ecotopia-like, sustainable ideas that Al Gore alludes to at the end of "Inconvenient Truth", we might REALLY have some technological evolution that reflects significant spiritual evolution!

Yesterday, I met with colleague Dan Shaw and several other "fellow geometers" in Ashland, Oregon, and it was a joy to share mutual inspirations and support; much more to follow as a result of our collaborative brainstorming ... There are details of our most recent public collaboration at the Mobius on 21 Sep 2006 here. For now, here is a timely post (for multiple reasons, since it is Dan's birthday as well as the day before he presents one of two upcoming events in Ashland if you can attend... Here's Dan's update, along with a few comments from me...

Sound is such a wonderful "universal language" which in many respects is even more intuitive than geometry. Sound also embodies geometry so beautifully, as noted by visionaries from Pythagoras to Hans Jenny (the Cymatics sound/form research pioneer whose modern work is currently carried forward through the efforts of Jeff Volk who was one of our New Frontiers speakers.) Dan's work explores the realm of spatial orientation, which seemed to have a renaissance in the 1970s with quadraphonics (now seemingly absorbed into the "surround sound scene"), and John Chowning's computer generated sound (where a tetrahedron of speakers, one directly over the listener's head could make sounds so realistic that a simulated fly buzzing around one's head might evoke a swatting response The magic of architectural acoustics is yet another aspect of sound and spatial interaction; an early inspiration for me (and probably lots of others was Paul Horn's classic recording in the Taj Mahal, Inside, and Inside the Great Pyramid. Another early influence was Paul Beaver & Bernie Krause's "Gandharva" album, half of which was recorded in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, which I had the pleasure of visiting a few weeks ago with my family. I was inspired by the Inside recording to do similar acoustic research in the Great Pyramid, and eventually recorded sound within it such as this clip of the resonance of the granite box erroneously referred to as a sarcophagus within the depths of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Add to the mystical experience of interacting acoustically with an inspiring space with the mystical experience of feeling kinship with other souls attuning with sound, and the potential for transformation can multiply astronomically!

Here's details on Dan's upcoming events in Ashland, Oregon on 16 Jan 2007 and 7 Feb 2007:

======================================
Hey! I Invented a New Musical Art Form
by Dan Shaw

What is a Vortex? I wanted to give people the experience of being in a Vortex, not just talk about it, as I have at VortexMaps.com. It's easy to demonstrate the geometric reinforcement of patterns of energy vortexes, using musical instruments. With these simple instructions you can try it yourself, and be among the very first to develop this new art form.

So I took eight chimes, and did the simplest thing I could think of. I gave seven volunteers a chime and hammer(?!) and we stood at the center of the room, back-to back. The "audience" stood in a circle around us.

I began by slowly walking and chiming from the center to the edge of the room, outside the ring of the audience. Then I walked back to the center, still chiming. I then tapped the person across from me, and we each walked to the edge of the room and back chiming. This gave the audience the sense of their relationship to a "line" of sound-energy. Next, three chimers walked out and back, forming a triangle of sound. We progressed in this way, adding a chime at each repetition, until there were eight chimes, forming an expanding and contracting octagon of sound.

The entire process took just a few minutes. The audience had an experience they had never had before, their relationship to geometric patterns of sound. The audience and volunteers all enjoyed it. Had we taken more time, we could easily have come up with an infinite number of variations, such as counter-rotating circles of chimes.

The volunteers were unrehearsed, so we used a random assemblage of an octave of chimes. A quite different effect could be achieved with continuous instruments, such as violins, instead of chimes, which are more percussive and intermittent. The audience, on the dance floor, may move among the instruments, become participants in creating a unique soundscape, instead of sitting in an audience, removed from the instruments, hearing more or less exactly what the rest of the audience hears. The musical piece may be composed in complete synergy with a choreography of the physical movement of the instruments and musicians. One sound-healer called the new art form, "equivalent to the discovery of perspective in painting."

I invite you to contact me to let me know what you're doing and how we can work together.
--
Dan Shaw
http://VortexMaps.com/
http://DanShaw.com
P.O. Box 3028, Ashland, OR 97520

Yesterday, I saw two wonderful RVML videos! Sharif Abdullah, author of "Creating a World That Works For All" & David Korten, author of "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community". Both emphasize how all our personal and planetary challenges ... and opportunities to transcend them ... are interconnected and ultimately all "one thing"... Highly recommended! The ideas in these important videos have the potential of lightening our hearts on an ongoing and sustainable basis!

Abdullah is founder and president of Commonway Institute... Here is Korten's website.

This morning I received an email from a website visitor in the UK asking if I sold pyramid models. In keeping with my recent resolution to not answer the same question twice (by posting generic, FAQ-ish info online, what a concept! , here is my reply:
=====

I don't actually sell pyramids, although it is a topic of great interest to me (especially the Great Pyramid
which I had the good fortune to visit in November 1992 after two decades of anticipation; quite an amazing experience there!)

I have a fold-up pattern in my book on page 189 of my book, Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook,
which is available here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/583170

or, the foldup pattern (which has the correct proportions for the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt) is also
online on my website here:
http://www.intent.com/elysian/sgds_p189.html

If you use the model above, the important proportion (as close as you can get it) is:
diagonal length (also the radius of the circle used to make the foldup pattern) : 0.95105645
side length (the four base sides of the pyramid): 1.0

This will give the exact golden section (1.618034...) proportions for the pyramid faces (the two halves of each face
can be 'reassembled' to form a golden rectangle, as is shown on page 189.

In terms of someone to make you a model, any craftsperson that is good with math should be able to fashion you a model scaled to your requirements; especially for large items that would need to be shipped, I highly recommend finding someone local to your neighborhood/community (and local matierials) if possible for optimal environmental factors!

Since I get inquiries like these frequently, I'll post my response (you will be anonymous) to my blog today:
http://www.brucerawles.com

I hope this is helpful!

News flash! Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook is now available from Lulu.com !!!

I've uploaded my SGDS book to Lulu.com and now I'm even more impressed with Lulu!*
(I was already impressed when I created a 2007 calendar and tried out their printing quality last month.)
The speed it got to me was impressive; a mere 7 calendar days from ordering online to my doorstep,
and that includes the printing... which by the way is excellent!
The new version even has an official barcode on the back

Here's a link to order Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook direct from Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/content/583170

I'm enthused about having lulu print my book AND do fulfillment for a number of reasons:

1) Ordering directly from the printer eliminates shipping the book twice
(first to me, then to you, which is the old method)
This makes much more sense environmentally and economically!
Due to their economy of scale, they can ship more economically, also,
so you'll save almost a dollar on shipping by ordering from Lulu directly (rather than me
for orders going to US addresses.

2) You now have 24/7 worldwide online ordering access, with your favorite credit card,
even including those rare times when I'm on vacation

3) Since they process the order directly, it saves you time by ordering online,
rather than waiting for me to get your check in the mail and then processing your order.

4) They can print the books on-demand for slightly less than my former printer, due to their
optimized print-on-demand system, so every order via Lulu helps me a little more ... much appreciated!

5) I will save time processing orders (and waiting in line at the post office), so I can redirect my
efforts to new offerings (which I'm excited to announce to you all next month; VERY big
news awaits you that I'm quite thrilled about!)

* Many thanks to my dear friend James in Nevada City, Calif. for telling me about Lulu!

Today's post is written by my first ever "guest author"; my beloved wife, Nancy, who put my feelings and thoughts about this film (which I thought was just going to be ONLY a romantic comedy) quite well:

"Bruce and I just watched our Netflix movie of the week: The Girl in the Cafe (2005). It stars Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald: "A May-December romance blooms -- not without roadblocks -- in this Emmy winner for best "made-for-TV-Movie.  Not long after meeting Gina in a cafe lonely civil servant Lawrence asks her to accompany him to the G8 Summit in Iceland. The shy outsiders hit if off, but their attraction to each other is tested when Gina's personal convictions contradict Lawrence's professional duties".

It is well done, and makes a wonderful point of this generation's ability to achieve greatness.

Keep warm,
Nancy"

At the end of this moving (and highly recommended!) film, there is a short clip from one.org, which I highly recommend visiting, signing the petition, and supporting however you can!

I pay attention to synchronicities. The planets seem to align to reflect (as above, so below) our mundane progress through life. Here is a superb quote for today (10Dec2007) from Celestial Timings (by Cayelin K. Castell; thanks to Daniel Giamario, a former New Frontiers presenter, for the reminder!) that seems to synchronistically fit the healing feeling that I choose to give power to in my life:

"One of the quickest, most radical life changing actions we can now take now is to treat ourselves and others with kindness. Research shows acts of kindness shifts our whole vibrational energy not only for those giving and receiving the kindness but for everyone who also witnesses it. Kindness raises our physical vibration, releasing serotonin and other feel good hormones in the body whenever we are participating in an act of kindness even if only as an observer. This creates a wave of healthy vibrational energy rippling throughout our world bringing the light of love and compassion into material form."

Yesterday, I re-discovered a kindly old friend, Home Power magazine; you can subscribe here. I was a charter subscriber when photovoltaics, small hydro and wind power were definitely more of a hobbyist's pursuit than the polished commodity status the industry now enjoys today (despite mass perception.) The average person probably still believes that power from their local utility is cleaner (both electrically and environmentally) than power produced on-site by state-of-the-art pure sine-wave inverters and related technology. So many worthy efforts need to be recognized, and Home Power magazine is high on the list of folks doing the right thing! Being self-sufficient is an empowering feeling, on whatever level we experience it!

Taking the metaphor of home and power to an internal level (following that synchronicity!) I must again lavish kudos on the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library (RVML) for providing a venue for some outstanding presentations. Last night was no exception. Dr. Leonard Laskow, who has worked with the HeartMath Institute and Dr. Beverly Rubik, gave a superb presentation about the Healing Power of Love. He talked about his background as a medical doctor, and how there is a near vacuum of literature in the traditional medical community on how the feeling of love, or unconditional acceptance, or whatever label we might want to put on it, is responsible for the greatest healing. He not only cited important research, he demonstrated, offering exercises for the lecture audience that I found personally inspiring and healing, how forgiving one's self (at all ages of our lives), and others can have profound transformative effects, as well as significant medical benefits. Kudos to Dr. Laskow, and to RVML for hosting him!

I'm happy (again!) to report that 8 of my Martineau Solar System prints are now on display in Linz, Austria, as part of his traveling crop circle exhibit. If you need to translate the German web page cited above into your favorite language, I find babelfish handy... If any of you are living or visiting Austria, and are able to visit this exhibit, I'd love to hear from you about it.

Here are some photos Jay Goldner sent me of my artwork (which is a small part of his much larger exhibit):





Here is the email (about the new Austrian venue) I just got from Jay, who, incidentally, did a superb job of translating my Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook into German and has published other fascinating books in German and English.

Dear international friends of the crop circles!

We have just been able to find time to let you know that the world’s greatest and largest crop circle exhibition (1700 m2) has opened a few weeks ago in Austria. The original Swiss exhibition (it was shown in Erich van Daeniken’s Mystery Park in Interlaken) has been brought up to date and greatly expanded.

So far there have been 93.000 visitors to the exhibition and is now open to the public in the Upper Austrian capital city of Linz. The running time of the renewed exhibition has just been prolonged till 21st of January 2007. I have attached some pictures of the large presentation halls.

Our long term project is to establish a crop circle museum, more precisely a crop circle exploration center (look at www.cropcirclemuseum.com). But until then we would like to present this impressive exhibition (more than 300 objects) in many other countries. So we are looking for local partners worldwide and suitable exhibition space (1000 m2 upwards).
 
Please help to spread this information and perhaps to also make this exhibition possible in your city/country. We would of course also be happy if you could visit our Austrian exhibition. You will be amazed.

With crop circular greetings

Jay Goldner & the Phoenix Team

We're all just an infinitesimal, yet crucial part of the great spiral of life. Colleague Mingtong Gu just sent me a clip of the healing spiral ceremony he conducted in Ashland with several hundred in attendance a few months ago (I'm wearing a purple shirt, standing just left of the bottom of the screen about 2 minutes into this neat video taken of the event. We were also participants in a very fun multimedia event at the Mobius in Ashland, on 21 September 2006, along with a half dozen other geometry enthusiasts which you can read about on my events page.

Last night I had a strange dream which seems to reinforce the silliness of what we concern ourselves with so often, as well as the serious things we gloss over. In the dream, I found Amy Goodman (I rarely dream about people I know, and less often about those in the public eye) on her hands and knees on the floor of a well-lit office building, hunched over in fetal position, sobbing, while somehow (you know how paradoxical dreams can be!) singing, karaoke-style, about not being able to find a staple-puller anywhere in the office (and no one could help her)... That's about the extent of the dream; on the surface it seems quite absurd, almost comical, to see someone (especially someone with such a generally serious demeanor; and I do have a tremendous admiration for her work as a journalist, the anchor for Democracy Now which is a beacon for compassion in a crazy world!) lamenting about something so trivial (kinda reminds me of the movie Office Space, now that I think of the object of the sorrow!). Of course, this afternoon, while unstapling a stack of old code printouts to use as scratch paper, the "Aha!" moment hits, and here I am pondering the deeper significance and symbolism. I'm contemplating new opportunities that seem on the surface to match the backdrop, but the "dig deeper" inspiration grabs me and says, pay attention to the real issues where you can make a difference (regardless of where you are at) and let the trivial fade away of its own accord... After all, like the CBS Sunday morning episode on "memory" pointed out, our personas are composed of what we dwell upon; the point they didn't make (or perhaps I missed hearing) was that it is the emotional emphasis WE give to our experience that gives it life... Also, since my family genetics pre-disposes me (another unchallenged belief? to play with puns, I'm struck with the double-meaning of staple (being the stuff we find in our pantries and fridges that we believe sustain us, breatharians, notwithstanding We don't really live by bread alone, do we, but by the comfort we give ourselves in our choice of focus in our every relationship to this infinite world we seem to inhabit. I'm reminded of the advice in Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East (I'm currently re-reading after about 35 years) that reminds us of the infinite supply within us...

Years ago, I was the editor of a "treeware" newsletter (I probably have an old digital photo of the original members around somewhere on a floppy disk; remember those?) for the Nevada County Macintosh User's Group, Sierra Mousetrap which now has a blog expertly maintained by the dedicated efforts of long-time friend and colleague, Rich Webster who, like my brother, has inspired me to take up this blogging habit with more vigor and regularity. Friday night Rich & I had a great skype conversation, about life, the universe (Mac-centric, of course), web design, and the usual host of other mutual interests. I'll be eager to read his posts about MacWorld Expo (since he's going and I'm not), so go for it, Rich!

Today is my step-son's birthday... Happy Birthday, Shaun!!! We'll be celebrating with him and his wife for dinner out in a few hours (looking forward to that 'con much gusto')... on Epiphany Day (why not personalize a religious tradition with personal relevance that transcends dogma and vicarious-ness?)

Speaking of gusto, last night we read a bit more of A. J. Jacob's Know-It-All, (thanks to a gift from my sister, Gayle!) which is fun to read a few pages of before nodding off... (Nancy & I have this quasi-tradition of reading a little aloud to each other; well, I actually do most of the reading, but we both enjoy it...) Anyway, a few good laughs are a nice way to end the day, and remind ourselves (as we transition from intense focus on these three vast, yet ultimately minuscule (teensy, tiny) windows on reality from this little planet out at the edge of a spiral arm of a typical galaxy...to so-called 'dream land'. Remember, we're all infinite beings, right! Know-It-All is a great tour in alphabetical order of some rather fun curiosities about our culture. We haven't even gotten through the I's (we fell asleep last night just before 'Intercourse', but already I can recommend this book!

This rings particularly true for me today... Is anyone else doing more soul-searching than ever before lately? I'm feeling a strong pull to draw on untapped inner reservoirs of knowingness, strength and calm to meet the coming year... and gather together with kindred souls to amplify the energy of that resolve... both in "virtual space" and face-to-face...

"We must go within to find our answers and recognize we are forging a new path. We must question all we have learned, we must discern for ourselves what is truth and what is not. Ultimately we are the only authority. Only out of a framework such as this may creative thought arise towards a World of Peace, Love, and Prosperity....." from www.Gnostic.Org

Thanks to Ed in Ashland for 'A very cool Science News article I just came across I thought you would appreciate.'

After you've read this article about a neat geometric shape called spidrons ... note that the hexagonal fractal (used to create the spiral arms) also encodes the Jupiter/Earth orbital relationship in John Martineau's highly accurate model:
(I'm still impressed that this model also tracks two synchronous clusters of asteroids at +/-60 degrees to Jupiter as well!)

I had an opportunity to meet Zometool wizard Marc Pelletier in Boulder about a decade ago (during Luke Gatto's wonderful sacred geometry conference there); what a polyhedral 'Disneyland' he had in his workshop!!! (His Zometool technology story was rather neat, too...lots of creativity in a little plastic hub! BTW, I had a Zometool star lit up with little lights on our porch for the holidays (one of my favorite shapes; a stellated dodecahedron

As I've been telling folks for years, I'm working on a new book, which has evolved into a CDROM and DVD project with a companion book... stay tuned! I'm quite enthused about recent progress; I feel simultaneously challenged and inspired by the enormity of material to cover in the topic I've chosen, yet the heart of it is not material, at all! How's that for a teaser? Since a picture, as they say, can be worth a thousand words, here's a rough sketch of some of the core concepts, in geometric symbolic form. If we lived in a culture that was steeped in the deeper meaning of symbols, this might be the entire book, but not to worry, I'll be providing lots of accompanying words!


copyright (c) 2007 - Bruce Rawles - Elysian Publishing

If you want to 'stay tuned' via my free monthly email bulletin list, send an email with 'subscribe' in the subject heading to the email address below. I'm always appreciative when I get emails with inspiring info of general interest about interconnectedness in general, and what has become loosely termed 'sacred geometry' in particular; I make it a point to incorporate useful URLs, events and info that others might enjoy, so please send them along (and many thanks to those of you, too numerous to name here, who have done so for over a decade!)

Today, following a polytopia post, I happened upon a website with the proportions of the vesicula (a term coined by colleague Aya who I met in Sedona in February 2004 with his fabulous large mandala canvases.) The "vesicula" is the "sliver" composed of two back-to-back sides of the 3-sided Reuleaux Triangle...

I confirmed the proportions here (using the URL above; the proportion is 4: (2*(4-4cos30)) which is
1.0717968, so simplifying by dividing both sides by 4 (to give the proportion for a circle with radius =1);
12*(1-cos30)) = .2679492 (according to my calculator)... Another proportion to add to the list of somehow cosmically significant proportions! I have a diagram which shows the area calculations for the more familiar Vesica Piscis, which has a square root of 3 proportion, in terms of its aspect ratio.

Happy 2007, one and all... I sincerely wish you a peaceful, joyous 2007 and beyond!

I've been enjoying the Conscious Media Network videos (a new batch for January uploaded today which I'm listening to now)... which reminds me of this very timely acronym for health from a doctor who reversed her terminal cancer using the regimen here: NEWSTART+2 (acronym for Dr. Lorraine Day's health suggestions)

Nutrition (lots of unprocessed vegies, fruits, nuts, whole grains; strict vegan for cancer patients)
Exercise (plenty)
Water (10 glasses a day; brain is 85% water; coffee and soda actually dehydrates)
Sunlight (she says skin cancer is caused by diet)
Temperance (eliminate junk food, junk thoughts (resentment, guilt, paranoia, etc.)
Air (spend more time outdoors)
Rest (10PM to 2AM when healing hormones are optimum during sleep)
Trust in God (higher heart intelligence)
+2:
Attitude of Gratitude
Benevolence (help others; pay it forward, egalitarian attitude)

Works for me! Thanks, Lorraine!