Writing Tip: Using Photos For Inspiration

April 18th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available, Writing Tips

This image by Lulybelle helped me to flesh out the pink mist as described in The End of All Times

This is a link to a photograph published on Flickr by Lulybelle.  It helped me to polish my writing, and allow the pink mist in The End of All Times to become more of a character rather than a two-dimensional villain.

Before Viewing this Photograph

Here’s the description of I had of the Pink Mist’s first appearance before I saw this photograph:

Now, the scenery was still there, but swirls of a rose-pink gas rose from the grass and trees.  The beautiful blue sky now appeared gray.  Who ever made up the line about looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, obviously never tried it. . . .

Roger’s eyes widened in disbelief as he followed the same golfer who shot up as if something had stabbed him from behind. The pink mist gathered around him, and in a sudden blur, it seemed to glow. The golfer’s scream was swallowed as the mist reached his throat.   95% of the golfer’s body was now gone, and suddenly the mist was consumed by flame that produced a golden-white light. What’s more, a moment later, where there had once been a golfer, there was now nothing at all.  Or, if there was something, it was too little to observe from the twelfth story of the Emerald Lake hotel that overlooked the Edgewood Golf course.

“Roger”, he heard Madeline’s frantic voice through the headset of the phone.  She sounded desperate.  “You answer me!” . . .


Pink Mistover is 100% fatal within three minutes.  Fatal, perhaps, is not the right word.  The pink mist appears to convert the mass of the body into energy and also into one of several gases—oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide. He paused, unsure of his facts, then continued.  Some may not consider it fatal because . . .”

“Because, if you were a religious person, you might think of yourself as being reborn, and . . . ”

“. . . And, . . . “

“. . . because, even though we can not explain it chemically, after a flashing some people smell lilac, or sometimes, sulfur.”

After Viewing this Photograph

Outside, a tall pink mist materialized close enough for him to make out some of its details.  It was a series of constantly-changing wisps.  The pink was darkest at the bottom, lightest at the top, it essence.  One could imagine leaves and stems, growing upwards, as they reached into new territory they were less colorful.  As it propagated, the pink color darkened. Watching it was hypnotic, a belly dancer turning slowly, sensually  and then and, then, almost like an animal sniffing out its prey, it shifted toward the nearest golfer who was apparently hypnotized by its gyrations.

What happened next wasn’t what Roger saw, but what he heard. . . .

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Whale friendships

April 3rd, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

These Saving Luna videos are used to establish some of the patterns friendship between whales and humans

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Rituals

March 31st, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

The Spring Equinox – School of the Seasons – Excerpt from site:

Celebrating Candlemas
The spring equinox is one of the four great solar festivals of the year. Day and night are equal, poised and balanced, but about to tip over on the side of light. The spring equinox is sacred to dawn, youth, the morning star and the east. The Saxon goddess, Eostre (from whose name we get the direction East and the holiday Easter) is a dawn goddess, like Aurora and Eos. Just as the dawn is the time of new light, so the vernal equinox is the time of new life.

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Before the Big Bang – The Arrow of Time

March 21st, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

The question of what was there before the Big Bang is a question that relates to faith as well as to science.  Indeed science and religion may provide the final answer together.

Profile of cosmic microwave background (Image: Nasa) Cosmic microwave background, which looks a the light that was emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old could hold clues about the Big Bang.

Here is an interesting discussion of the Lopsided Universe by Sean Carroll, a professor at the California Institute of Technology,  in Discover Magazine.  Here’s a recap of the Loopsided Universe  article on the BBC by Dr Chris Lintott, Co-presenter, BBC Sky At Night, St Louis, US.  Here’s an excerpt from that article:

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and colleagues now believe these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe “bubbled off” from a previous one.

Their data comes from Nasa’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB since its launch in 2001.

Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.

Want to know more Check out a .pdf from a NASA website. Here’s a WMAP Universe PDF.

So what does all of this mean? My non-scientific answer is proposed in my three novels that collectively tell us that humanity had better get its act together and work in harmony with the Universe. It’s just possible that the answer is not something that humanity can figure out without developing a fuller appreciation of how other life forms may solve the problem.  It’s just possible that to other life forms the answer is obvious.  I’m combining some of this theory with inspiration from a CD that features collection of uplifting Tibetan bowls with some gong playing, plus other instruments.  There are touching vocals and, at the end of track two, this commentary.  “Out beyond all notions of right doing or wrong doing there is a place.  I’ll meet you there.”   See my blog post on Sarasvati’s Dream by Diane Mandle & Friends

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The Big Bang

March 21st, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a website that provides insight into the time line for the creation of the Universe. The image, below,  is from that site.  The following text is also from that site.  However, I have broken it into several paragraphs for ease of understanding as related to my books.

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.7 billion years.

The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of “inflation” produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.)

For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity.

More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe.

The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 380,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then.

The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe.

- Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

NAS

NASA Image on the Time line of the Creation of the Universe

This is an interesting discussion on the nature of time before the Big Bang.

NASA Image on the Timeline of the Creation of the Universe

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The Zohar

March 18th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

The Zohar discusses many topics that are currently being addressed by particle physics.  In my series, I have taken some of these topics, combined them with some biology, and a mind that is open to the concept that other life forms can also worship God.

Excerpt from the source:

The Zohar contains a discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of Ego to Darkness and “true self” to “The Light of God,” and the relationship between the “universal energy” and man. Its scriptural exegesis can be considered an esoteric form of the Rabbinic literature known as Midrash, which elaborates on the Torah.

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Introduction to Sacred Geometry – Charles Gilchrist

March 13th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Research, Uncategorized, Web Available

Charles Gilchrist is an artist who provides this workshop on sacred geometry, which is based on single pointedness–oneness, or what some people call Christ Consciousness.  The flame that is within all of us.

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Quantum Electronic Dynamics and Richard Feyman

March 7th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Technology, The End of All Times, Web Available

Richard Feyman, a brilliant American theoretical physicist once said, ““Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”  I agree.  Almost all scientific breakthroughs require the scientist to belief in new insights. 

This is a link to a Wikkipedia article on Richard Feyman’s work.

These YouTube videos of “BBC Four” shows discuss the concepts of group theory, particle physics, the eight-fold way, quarks, and how  deeper underlying fundamental realties are constantly needed to explain the mysteries of the Universe. 

BBC presentation discusses how Feyman’s theories are known to be the most accurate theory every created, and discusses the concept of the proof that Feyman’s theories are not fantasies and explains how mayonnaise is related the mysterious virtual particles in empty space.

It shows that nothingness, emptiness, can exert a force. This force is exciting because it raises dreams of unimaginable amounts of free energy.  

 The End of All Times uses this information as the basis for my science fiction postulates.

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Sacred Mirrors

February 27th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

Visiting the Sacred Mirrors site is like walking through a museum.  It’s well worth your time.  I prefer to treat it like a museum that I love:  Visit often, and each time focus on a different aspect.  The site uses Flash technology extensively.  You can blow up pictures, look at the detail of the frames, etc.  I strongly suggest budgeting at least 15 minutes to an hour to understand how to use the many features of this site.  It will be worth it.

Description from the site:
The Sacred Mirrors series is a totally unique work of contemporary sacred art created by Alex Grey. This installation of 21 framed images, consisting of 19 paintings and two etched mirrors, examines the anatomy of body, mind and spirit in rich detail. Each painting presents a life-sized figure facing viewers and inviting them to mirror the images, creating a sense of seeing into oneself.

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Astronomy Photographs

February 27th, 2010 by Alan | No Comments | Filed in Web Available

Astronomy Photo of the Day by NASA – Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Focal Pointe Observatory – Bob Franke’s Astro-Artist website – Quote from the site: The mission of the Focal Pointe Observatory is to produce “pretty pictures.”  Purists will say my images are bogus because the data is highly modified and all scientific value is lost. Well, like many other astro-artists, I just don’t care about science with my images.  The closest I may get to science will probably be searching for a super nova.  Shown below is a comparison of an unprocessed “scientific” and a “pretty picture” image. The two images were created from the same data.

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