Turning On...

Last night I was at Little City with Nicole, when I ran into my friend John who I hadn’t seen in ages. John is a fascinating character. He teaches astronomy classes at Austin Community College and tutors in math and physics. In addition to all this, he has a deep connection with the truely spiritual aspects of the world.

Our conversation last night began with a question about a book he was reading on Tibetan yogas and progressed through a relating of various experiences and thoughts on how the spiritual can creep up on even a cynical, critic like myself. We told him a story about our recent trip to Boston — about which I need to write more here — and how a statue of the Buddha at the Museum of Fine Arts brought tears to my eyes when I passed by it.

Later, talking to Nicole about this facinating conversation, I mentioned that John used to send out emails on a regular basis with interesting snippets, links and thoughts on a handful of subjects — most of them dealing with the environmental crisis, but scattered through with various small doses of beautiful imagery from space or other, sometimes obscure, tidbits from whatever he was currently reading.

I dug around and found an archive of these emails that I had (in search of his email address) and found this wonderful little bit:

To know Atum’s Being, contemplate him in thought.
To see him with your eyes, look at the exquisite order of the cosmos;
the necessity which governs everything you perceive;
the Goodness of all that has been, and that is coming to be.
Look at matter filled full with Life, and see Atum pulsating with all he
contains.
—Hermes Trismigistus

Check out:
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-1999/phot-40f-99-normal.jpg