Random Lunacy

Wikipedia starts off describing technological singularity this way:

A technological singularity is a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress becomes so rapid that it makes the future after the singularity qualitatively different and harder to predict.

Some have linked the 2012 prophecies to singularity. Meanwhile, we are having an interesting event right now. The total lunar eclipse on the same day of the winter solstice. Granted, the eclipse is at the beginning of the day and the solstice is at the end of the day, but even that hasn’t happened in nearly 400 years.

Outside, it is windy and mostly cloudy. I catch brief glimpses of the eclipse through breaks in the clouds. It isn’t as cold as I expected, but Fiona doesn’t want to get out of bed. We have a couple sets of wind chimes, as do our neighbors, and there is a veritable symphony going on out side.

Inside, I check my twitter feed. It is pretty lively for this time of the morning. Here are a few qutoes:

All of us looking at Eclipse r nerds. All of us looking at Twitter r nerds. All of us tweeting about Eclipse r Mega-nerds

Eclipse is awesome

Red moon rising...creepy beautiful.

Watching the eclipse in a perfectly dark field near new paltz, ny- magnificent!!

Woke the kids to see the eclipse. Really nifty.

Send moon pictures we are so cloudy rainy here in Riverside! 

Let's all take a moment of silence for the planet Pluto, who cldnt join us this evening.

and when the night is through, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you." Wish Dad were alive 2 see the #eclipse. He'd love it.

Everyone who doesn't have clouds covering the eclipse SFU

As I'm sure has been written many times tonight, "Goodnight, Moon." Been really fun seeing friends', Twitter's reactions. G'nite, all.

Everyone simultaneously Tweeting about the #eclipse all over the world right now. For one moment, we are all a community. Literally awesome.

When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Meanwhile, it is National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. Wherever You Are Healthcare for the Homeless, a program of Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC), my new employer, will be hosting a memorial services and candlelight vigils in memory of the areas’ homeless residents who died in 2010 today and tomorrow. Then, on Thursday, I will go to the funeral for my aunt and rush back home for a birthday party for my father-in-law.

Between a new job, the loss of a family member, the stress of the holidays, I’m pretty raw. The wind chimes and the moon help a little. All of this returns me to the old Zen story:

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

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