Friday, 30 June 2023

Post No. 2,488 - We had an earthquake last night

We had an earthquake last night: I didnt notice it (actually, Ive now realised I heard a crash as if something had fallen over - just as I had the last time we had an earthquake ... I couldnt find anything that had fallen over [same as last time], so ... was that a physical or a psychic noise?), but after that time I couldnt sleep for quite a while and was generally out of sorts.

At the time, I attributed that to being on the receiving end of discrimination yesterday, but after learning about the earthquake, I wondered if that had played a role as well. 

I decided to try to do some research, and found almost every single site I could find was either ultra-commercial, dedicated to superficial views of spiritual growth, rabidly addicted to conspiracy fantasies/tabloid trash styles, rabidly and unbalancedly sceptical, or stuck in a spiritual adolescent stage of hey - does this exist for real?!

A few years ago I found games players were clogging up sites; now - as commented by others in recent days on a range of sites - it is paid ads ... and the other rubbish. 

The only decent information I could find was from “Supernature: A Natural History of the Supernatural by Lyall  Watson (pub. Sceptre, 2013, ISBN 978 1 444 77857 1, first pub. Hodder & Stoughton, 1973; Amazon)

from location 1328:

"But it has now been discovered that an earthquake is also accompanied by, and preceded by, periods of low-frequency vibrations that fall into the range from seven to fourteen cycles per second. These start minutes before the first obvious shocks of the quake itself and provide an early-warning system to which many species seem to respond. The Japanese, who live right on a fracture system, have always kept goldfish for this reason. When the fish begin to swim about in a frantic way, the owners rush out of doors in time to escape being trapped by falling masonry. The fish have the advantage of living in a medium that conducts vibrations well, but even animals living in the air are able to pick up warning signals. Hours before an earthquake, rabbits and deer have been seen running in terror from the epicentre zones. Some people, particularly women and children, are also sensitive to these frequencies. The fact that the frequencies coincide with those that make people disturbed and ill would account for the wild, unreasoning fear that goes with an earthquake."

So yes, our state of being could have been adversely influenced by a relatively minor earthquake.

And it wasnt helped by having to go back to a book from the 1970s to get what should be readily available online. 

PS - after publishing the above I found https://theconversation.com/can-animals-sense-when-an-earthquake-is-about-to-happen-168483, from a couple of years ago, which focuses on animals possibly picking up foreshocks - which I suspect are the same or similar to the vibrations Lyall Watson wrote about. I also subsequently found https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220211-the-animals-that-predict-disasters, and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-animals-really-anticipate-earthquakes-sensors-hint-they-do/.

 

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Post No. 2,487 - Reflections (on Indigeneity)

Further to my previous posts here and here, the quest to find out more about the Indigenous part of my heritage led me to the free online Sydney University course at https://www.sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-community/kinship-module.html

There is a lot to learn - especially about specific kinship relations (which will have to wait until I can get to northern Victoria), and I am feeling overwhelmed ... and concerned about whether, or how well, I can meet my kinship obligations. 

I also wont restrict my caring - Ive always put family of choice ahead of family of blood, and life as a whole (especially sentient life) ahead of division into subsets ... much as this  revered  elder showed caring for others.

But this has been an interesting reflection on belonging - especially when I consider my vague but persistent desire to run away as a child in my primary school years. (Starting sailing in high school helped with a lot of things - mostly, being able to enjoy the dynamism of Nature, but it gave me a coping mechanism for much of life.) I also note that several elders - including, I think, the person mentioned above, have been proud of the non-Indigenous parts of their heritage.

But I also note the interview of Gary Blakey at https://youtu.be/Oq23bGXQj0E

I am concerned that his experience of being rejected, despite evidence of being - in part - Indigenous, may wind up being mine

If it is, mind you, Ill keep doing what I am now: Ill just be missing a formal recognition of part of me - and Ive had that in other areas of my life as it is.  

PS - I have subsequently come across a very useful - and reassuring - perspective on this at https://youtu.be/AZVtHCTk7PA.

 

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Post No. 2,486 - An Indication from the Global Consciousness Project of a need for help

Some time ago, I found a live 24-hour display of output from the Global Consciousness Project. The commentary on that site suggests that, if 4 - 6 hours are fairly consistently at the significantly high/low variance, then it is likely some event is underway that is affecting humanity's consciousness.

The current GCP output (the “dot”) that triggered this post is below.

These are critical moments, when a modest amount of effort can have an influence. Thus, I will be meditating to determine what energetic action I should be taking, and then doing the work of this blog (clearing nonBPM nonphysical  units and BPM  strengthening of BPM units ) wherever it is needed.


 

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Tuesday, 27 June 2023

Post No. 2,485 - Recovering from a corporate life - Episode 6: “moral injury”, and sleep

Posts in this series are now listed at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/p/recovering-from-corporate-life.html

PS - expect these to be edited fairly often. Writing these is part of the healing process, and will bring up more insights,etc.

At this stage of my transition to retirement:

  • I am working around two days per week (I could do more if I had the energy, but I simply have driven my body as hard as I can over my corporate work life, and can do no more than two days per week)
  • most of my effort is in finishing training courses that I am preparing for others, and filing my reference material, so that I can pass on what I have learned to others - with a view to them taking that as a starting point and developing the knowledge further (I am getting some useful feedback from running through parts of this with my successors);
  • I will be completing the rest of my employment on an entirely WFH basis - which is giving me more time for exercise and meditation (although recovering enough to be motivated/energised enough to do that is still an issue at this early [premature?] stage of my recovery), and reduces expenditure (no more commuting);
  • there are still some challenging aspects to work (and to other aspects of preparing to retire), but those are increasingly being handled by my successors with gradually reducing input from me.

One of the major points I wanted to briefly touch on in this post is that my sleep is not longer now, but I am finding it is deeper - so I am waking feeling more rested, despite not having more sleep. 

I am, however, not leaping out of bed to do things (like exercise ... or meditate ... ), but that is not the motivation struggle: it is a change of attitude - I want to spend some time savouring the wintry pre-dawn from a warm, snug bed. 

So, again, although I havent fully stopped work yet, I am far enough along on the path to stopping that I am enjoying a change of attitude, and my physical body is ... anticipating the change. 

So thats all good - so far. 

However, there is another aspect of the corporate life that I will need to deal with - probably progressively, meaning I will come back to this again: and that topic is moral injury

My motivation for getting into this area of work is technical, not financial - I didn't go through years at Uni and a demanding career so that I could achieve a bean counters idea of what constitutes adequate profit, or to achieve a specified utilisation rate, or to do all the cutbacks and compromises that ultra-competitive bidding forces companies to do in order to win work. 

There are plants Ive designed, helped build and commission/operate that I know are cost effective, but that are so cut back I:

(a) feel no pride or pleasure in them; and 

(b) consider the overall or “whole of life cycle” cost NOT to be optimal - too many bureaucrats consider a dollar deferred to be a future bunch of votes for them to be re-elected ... and maybe a dollar saved.

On top of that, there is the injury of the high stress and workloads that the modern  neoliberal interpretation of capitalism (the old version was bad enough) has inflicted on society, and times when I feel my ethical/moral values have been compromised (not to the extent of breaking any laws, nor requiring a referral to professional body's ethics committees - although I came close on that once, about four decades ago now)

I will get into that - perhaps - in future posts, but for now, Dear Reader, I wish to refer you to Jessica Wildfires excellent post on this topic - which was part of the reason for me writing this post. 

Her article is Theres a Name for What You're Feeling. Its Called Moral Injury. And theres a way to handle it.

As an example of what is in her excellent article, consider the following quote: 

“Our cultural norms almost never give us the time or space we need to process our emotions. Our leaders don’t give us the tools to deal with the tragic events in our lives. More often, they deprive us of those tools. They try to convince us to hide our needs and plaster over them with fake smiles. They urge us not to feel. ... It’s not a bad thing to stop and reflect on the moral injuries we’ve endured over the last several years. It’s necessary for us to heal. We can’t just do it once and then move on. For most people, it’s an ongoing process.”

One of the infuriating things about my area of work is the old dinosaurs (the last one retired several years ago, fortunately) who stand in a workplace and angrily - and thus, obviously, hypocritically - denounce any occurrence of emotions in the workplace. 

That is probably on a par with the problem of enforced, or at least presumed, friendships. 

There are positive matters related to those last two paragraphs, being: 

  • being able to manage emotions is a necessary part of being able to cope with high pressure jobs, but manage does NOT mean pretend they dont exist - in fact, you can ONLY manage emotions properly by acknowledging, respecting, and, in an appropriate time, place and manner, honouring them - which will be a key part of my transition, decompression, and healing; 
  • being able to coexist with colleagues in a constructive way is often essential to team work, but that requires a collegiate atmosphere, not friendship - some of the people I have been able to do my best technical work with I either didnt like or actively clashed with on non-work matters.
    I do have friends from work - people I will stay in contact with, but none of that is based on technical matters.

I am also writing some formal feedback on a number of matters. 

In doing so: 

  • I am writing that feedback knowing it is, as Jessica Wildfire terms it, a cathartic process; 
  • I will be sending the feedback only to people I trust; 
  • in writing the feedback I am aware of, and pointing out, that many issues are actually problems relating to the industry generally, consulting generally, and our societys economic systems - this not just a whinge about company matters (and even on the ~40% or the feedback that is company focused, I am suggesting ways to deal with the problems - which, apart from anything else, makes it more likely the feedback will be given some consideration).
So ... just a few more thoughts which I hope may benefit others.


Blessed be.


I am writing this series in the hope that it will contribute to a better understanding - or at least better research into the effects of - the so-called developed world’s economic systems - which are based on the world-destroying amathia of perpetual growth, and patriarchal oligarchical capitalism expressed as often expressed corporatism and neoliberalism.

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below. 

Vote Yes for the Voice in Australia.  

Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.


 


 

 


Monday, 26 June 2023

Post No. 2,484 - An Indication from the Global Consciousness Project of a need for help

Some time ago, I found a live 24-hour display of output from the Global Consciousness Project. The commentary on that site suggests that, if 4 - 6 hours are fairly consistently at the significantly high/low variance, then it is likely some event is underway that is affecting humanity's consciousness.

The current GCP output (the “dot”) that triggered this post is below.

These are critical moments, when a modest amount of effort can have an influence. Thus, I will be meditating to determine what energetic action I should be taking, and then doing the work of this blog (clearing nonBPM nonphysical  units and BPM  strengthening of BPM units ) wherever it is needed.


 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below. 

Vote Yes for the Voice in Australia.  

Finally, remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing.