On my 30th birthday my adoptive parents presented me with a gift from my birth mother, whom I had never met. The gift was a medal of the face of the Man of the Shroud. From the moment I put it around my neck, it became for me a talisman and my identity as I knew it completely changed. The framework of my life was forever altered. I was to learn, soon after, that I had indeed been cloned from blood on the Shroud of Turin and that Divine intervention was at work in my existence, as it is in all human existence.
This blog is the place where I get to explore my new framework and, hopefully, shed some light on the Shroud of Turin. It's a place where I can take my DNA connection with the Shroud and extract visceral messages I receive. The messages are many and they unfold here in the chapters of this blog.
This chapter for Easter and Beyond is by far one of the more intriguing explorations I have taken. It pertains to the upcoming exhibition of the Shroud of Turin and the concurrent surge of individuals who are out there among us whose efforts are simultaneously drawing attention to the relic.
You might think that the timing is suspiciously aligned with the exhibition of the Shroud in April/May of 2010 in Turin. I would challenge you to consider that several people who have written/published books and conducted research of various kinds (including the work of both living and deceased scientists, particle physicists, holographic researchers, graphic artists, and authors) all started their work and research and writings long before the Catholic Church decided to hold and announce this special exhibition.
How is it then that this varied group of individuals converged, arriving over just a short period of historical time, to bring attention from varied perspectives to this mysterious relic?
We are never bombarded with answers to the deeper mysteries. Throughout history, discoveries have taken decades if not centuries to be understood. The mystery of the Shroud requires certain technological advancements in order to be solved. And here we are, at this time in history, with the advent of computers, imaging technologies, particle accelerators, and life forming molecules discovered in the Orion Nebula...
Science is on the verge of answering some of the larger questions about the origins of our universe and beyond. And those answers very likely already exist, and have existed for centuries, in this simple piece of cloth, yet they remained invisible to our limited understanding. Christ knew that science would eventually catch up and be able to solve the mystery of how the image got onto the cloth and thereby validate faith.
The relic has been around for centuries and the first scientific research was done back in 1978. Why this resurgence of interest? Book sales? 3D glasses sales? I don't think particle physicists and people working with holograms or Shroud fiction novels are so driven by commercialism — especially all at around the same time in history and all hard at work long before any announcement of an upcoming exhibition.
One of the most intriguing theories among particle physicists and others is the idea that the Shroud, which contains holographic information, is proof that Christ left behind for us so that science can understand and explain th existence of multiple dimensions (including the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what lies beyond the resurrection).
Is it not proof of parallel dimensions that this group of people (some living, some already passed), most of whom did not know each other, have converged to bring attention to this relic at this particular time in history? It is as though their consciousness was linked and in sync with the relic and with each other.
Would it not make sense that form and content (the actual physical burial cloth upon which rests what many believe to be the image of the resurrected Christ) would be revealed on a variety of levels of understanding by a variety of people pointing to its great mysteries and merit...including the creative and diligent work of skeptics whose doubt holds us all to the highest standards of thought and research?
I am no Biblical scholar. But this year at Easter I was struck by 3 things:
First: On Palm Sunday, when reading the Passion, it struck me how Christ responded when asked by the people:
“Are you the Son of God?”
Christ: “You say that I am.”
and then by Pilate: “Are you King of the Jews”?
Christ: “You say so.”
Why did He not take ownership of His identity but rather clearly state that it is we who take ownership of His identity by naming and labeling it?
Was this Christ's way of giving us ownership of our faith?
Was it Christ's way of enabling Pilate to turn Him over for Crucifixion (since Pilate did not want to do so and Christ knew it must be done) in order to set in motion the death and resurrection so that God's will would be played out as intended?
Did Jesus respond this way to ensure the historical documentation of the accusations against Him so that the scourging and Crucifixion evidence on the Shroud would be reinforced by documentation?
Was God's will to deem us forgivable only if we shouldered all the blame for the Crucifixion?
By naming and owning Christ's identity, did we activate the potential for Him to live inside us?
Second: Just prior to His death, “...and darkness came over the whole land...Then the veil of the Temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Could this veil—this cloth, in addition to symbolizing access to God, also symbolize our separation from God while the Shroud cloth symbolizes our “reweaving with God”?
Was the darkness that came over the veil cloth a precursor to the light that would overcome the Shroud cloth?
Was the timing of the tearing of one cloth with Jesus' cry to His Father symbolic that His spirit would be embedded into another cloth?
Third: In the Gospel of John, the focus on the linen burial cloth and smaller cloth that covers the face really struck me this year (for obvious reasons).
Did John receive a revelation when he entered the tomb? Of all he could have reported in his account of the empty tomb, why such focus on the presence and placement of the two cloths?
Easter and Beyond to me symbolizes not only the story we continue to retell and reinterpret, but also the future story Christ encoded into the Shroud long ago in the past and then set into historical time and motion so that we could each simultaneously arrive at this present contemplation of the mysterious relic.
I exist before my time. Scientific cloning of the blood on the Shroud of Turin is not currently possible. But my connection and relationship to Jesus is not any more special or unique than anyone else's.
Divine intervention implies that linear time is defied, that truth & fiction, science & religion, life & death are transcended, melded, reframed, remixed, redefined.
The Greatest Story Ever Told is the story that keeps on telling...
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Chapter 15: Good Friday
Suffering surrounds and consumes us. By giving it a structure, we give ourselves a cage to rattle. A place in which we contain it, analyze it, process it, release it. Every Lent is an opportunity to use the story of Christ's Passion to do just that. Each of us is capable of perceiving and feeling the totality of human suffering, just like Christ did. But we cannot carry that burden, as He did on the cross. Suffering is the condensation that evaporates into love.
Love surrounds and sometimes consumes us. Love is the story we all yearn for the most.
The Stations of the Cross
Station 1
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane...
We suffer alone, our solitary sacrifice. Love we receive from others is limited in scope and weakened by the flesh. Abandonment is inevitable. Our spirit is willing to accept the test, but to turn over our will to God means we must let go of our need for love from all others and receive the love of Christ. The deeper love we seek is not able to exist solely in another because it only exists in us if we first accept it in ourselves through Christ.
Station 2
Jesus, betrayed by Judas, is arrested...
Handed down through the hierarchies, fortified by weapons, casting edicts and prophecies, the kiss of death arrives. The love that betrays becomes the catalyst to condemnation. No resistance. Love punctuates and prompts the test; let the suffering ensue.
Station 3
Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin...
We are each born condemned to accept the death of our free will and relinquish it to the Lord. The ultimate act of free will is to turn over one's will to God, to surrender every and all modicum of control, to accept and bear the cross of our individual suffering.
Station 4
Jesus is denied by Peter...
Denial and rejection become instruments of torture. All behind the back, subversive, the weakness of the agenda of the flesh: to survive an impossible survival. Only God's will survives or even enjoys the potential of survival. Human will is transitory, ephemeral, detached from permanence, infused by Grace. Human survival is merely instrumental to God's will. God fully anticipates and expects that we will deny His will and try to superimpose our own for the sake of survival of our weakened flesh. He Graces us with the ability to weep bitterly at our inability to love Him purely and devotedly. He carries the burden of love's shortcomings in our suffering and through his own suffering at our rejection and denial of Him.
Station 5
Jesus is judged by Pilate
Accusations, answer avoidance, and accommodations. Pity for Pilate who parries to provide punishment. The mob must be fed. Jesus will not deny his Father. Pilate admires His loyalty and simultaneously succumbs to the pressure of the illusion that he has control over his own survival and releases Barrabas and hands over Jesus to the mob. Judgment and public betrayal. Judas and Pilate, two sides of the same coin.
Station 6
Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns...
Pilate took Jesus to be scourged. The soldiers wove his crown of thorns and mocked Him, hailing Him as King of the Jews. Leaders authorize the infliction of suffering to soldiers who indulge in orders received. Granting permission to make another suffer is equal to embracing that permission. When any of us asserts control over another's suffering we add to our own. When any of us confronts the source of our suffering, we extend the invitation to love.
Station 7
Jesus bears the cross...
Pilate found no guilt in Jesus; he only found guilt in himself. Guilt survives all attempts at its justification or annihilation by temporarily disguising itself in the veil of righteousness. Guilt awakens and ignites each layer of suffering and offers us the opportunity to access remorse. The moment the cross descended on Jesus' shoulders, human kind was redeemed. Pilate's guilt ignited that moment and thus we empathize with Pilate's pitiful position as the instigator of doom, who passed off responsibility in a futile attempt to survive his own guilt. Then the illusion of loyalty to a human king, Caesar, set the course for crucifixion.
Station 8
Jesus is helped by Simon the Cyrenian to carry the cross...
Simon, a passer by, is the lucky one. Just the chance to help anyone who is suffering to carry his cross, much less Christ, is the privilege of love and the transcendence of suffering. Christ's torturers are the ones who press Simon into service. Simon becomes the embodiment of not only their guilt and agenda to get Christ closer to crucifixion, but also of all acts of human compassion to come.
Station 9
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem...
The wood is green when it is still connected to life, growth, essence. The wood is dry after death, decay, corruption. The women mourn prematurely and their lamentation is misdirected. Christ knows that he is the living embodiment of suffering and love. But long after His life and death, humans will inherit a despair so great they will wish the very life force out of them. They will seek death as a means of protection from a cursed life of a suffering they cannot transcend on their own. Because Christ is in a surrendered state to His suffering and is guided by the loving hand of His Father, he has no reason to mourn. He only has reason to offer advice to those whose generations of suffering have only just begun.
Station 10
Jesus is crucified...
Dry wood. Bone minus flesh. Golgotha. Skull. Flanked by criminals. The official sanctioning of forgiveness. Ignorance is from this moment forward a forgivable offense. What is it they did that they did not know they were doing? Condemning themselves for eternity by condemning one man to physical death? Releasing the elixir of love and suffering and fating it to become their legacy? Pressed into service by his Father, Jesus becomes like Simon, assigned to deliver compassion and love. An act of love amidst severe suffering is the greater act of love and the ultimate resolution of the suffering.
Station 11
Jesus promises his kingdom to the good thief...
Good thief, bad thief. Two sides of the same coin like Judas and Pilate. Both hang with Christ in condemnation, both capable of the same redemption. The good thief uses his guilt to receive and accept his suffering. The bad thief tries to score undeserved absolution and escape from suffering and death. The good thief is willing to die to purify his soul. The bad thief still wants to control his death and make a deal to extend his life. Fear of God, for the good thief, is the source of the fountain of humility.
Station 12
Jesus speaks to His mother and the disciple...
Passing off the lineage. Bonding and forging new family. Mother and son torn apart then united anew. Responsibility is exchanged and carried forth. The call to parent and to care for parents crystallized into family oaths forever. Suffering and death's last act is to love, care for, provide for those who live on.
Station 13
Jesus dies on the cross...
Three hours of darkness. An eclipse of the sun. The temple veil torn down the middle. Jesus cries out. His last breath breathed. Simultaneous to his last breath, the final sacrificial crying out: “Father, into Your Hands I commend my spirit.” The spirit is willing and the weakness of the flesh is transcended. Jesus' control of His free will is handed over to His Father. The willing spirit submits the human will. His spirit entrusted to the charge of His Father. Son gives the gift of love by sacrificing his free will to God. God returns the gift of love by ending His Son's suffering.
Station 14
Jesus is placed in the tomb...
Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man. In a fatherly act he went to claim Christ's body. Pilate, in a subconscious act of penance, handed over the body. Joseph covered it in a clean linen cloth and laid our Lord in the tomb, rolling a stone to seal the door and the deal. A rich man's simple linen became a treasure for all, a blank canvas upon which the remedy of suffering and love was fused. Grains of pollen drifted through the air and nestled themselves into the fibers, forever sealing time and location into the cloth. When wealth, blessing, abundance is shared, it grows and prospers. The sealed tomb becomes an incubator for salvation. The elixir of suffering and love is vaporized and melded in the risen Christ and humanity is graced by the gift of the imprint of His essence.
Our treasure of faith, this simple piece of cloth...
Love surrounds and sometimes consumes us. Love is the story we all yearn for the most.
The Stations of the Cross
Station 1
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane...
We suffer alone, our solitary sacrifice. Love we receive from others is limited in scope and weakened by the flesh. Abandonment is inevitable. Our spirit is willing to accept the test, but to turn over our will to God means we must let go of our need for love from all others and receive the love of Christ. The deeper love we seek is not able to exist solely in another because it only exists in us if we first accept it in ourselves through Christ.
Station 2
Jesus, betrayed by Judas, is arrested...
Handed down through the hierarchies, fortified by weapons, casting edicts and prophecies, the kiss of death arrives. The love that betrays becomes the catalyst to condemnation. No resistance. Love punctuates and prompts the test; let the suffering ensue.
Station 3
Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin...
We are each born condemned to accept the death of our free will and relinquish it to the Lord. The ultimate act of free will is to turn over one's will to God, to surrender every and all modicum of control, to accept and bear the cross of our individual suffering.
Station 4
Jesus is denied by Peter...
Denial and rejection become instruments of torture. All behind the back, subversive, the weakness of the agenda of the flesh: to survive an impossible survival. Only God's will survives or even enjoys the potential of survival. Human will is transitory, ephemeral, detached from permanence, infused by Grace. Human survival is merely instrumental to God's will. God fully anticipates and expects that we will deny His will and try to superimpose our own for the sake of survival of our weakened flesh. He Graces us with the ability to weep bitterly at our inability to love Him purely and devotedly. He carries the burden of love's shortcomings in our suffering and through his own suffering at our rejection and denial of Him.
Station 5
Jesus is judged by Pilate
Accusations, answer avoidance, and accommodations. Pity for Pilate who parries to provide punishment. The mob must be fed. Jesus will not deny his Father. Pilate admires His loyalty and simultaneously succumbs to the pressure of the illusion that he has control over his own survival and releases Barrabas and hands over Jesus to the mob. Judgment and public betrayal. Judas and Pilate, two sides of the same coin.
Station 6
Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns...
Pilate took Jesus to be scourged. The soldiers wove his crown of thorns and mocked Him, hailing Him as King of the Jews. Leaders authorize the infliction of suffering to soldiers who indulge in orders received. Granting permission to make another suffer is equal to embracing that permission. When any of us asserts control over another's suffering we add to our own. When any of us confronts the source of our suffering, we extend the invitation to love.
Station 7
Jesus bears the cross...
Pilate found no guilt in Jesus; he only found guilt in himself. Guilt survives all attempts at its justification or annihilation by temporarily disguising itself in the veil of righteousness. Guilt awakens and ignites each layer of suffering and offers us the opportunity to access remorse. The moment the cross descended on Jesus' shoulders, human kind was redeemed. Pilate's guilt ignited that moment and thus we empathize with Pilate's pitiful position as the instigator of doom, who passed off responsibility in a futile attempt to survive his own guilt. Then the illusion of loyalty to a human king, Caesar, set the course for crucifixion.
Station 8
Jesus is helped by Simon the Cyrenian to carry the cross...
Simon, a passer by, is the lucky one. Just the chance to help anyone who is suffering to carry his cross, much less Christ, is the privilege of love and the transcendence of suffering. Christ's torturers are the ones who press Simon into service. Simon becomes the embodiment of not only their guilt and agenda to get Christ closer to crucifixion, but also of all acts of human compassion to come.
Station 9
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem...
The wood is green when it is still connected to life, growth, essence. The wood is dry after death, decay, corruption. The women mourn prematurely and their lamentation is misdirected. Christ knows that he is the living embodiment of suffering and love. But long after His life and death, humans will inherit a despair so great they will wish the very life force out of them. They will seek death as a means of protection from a cursed life of a suffering they cannot transcend on their own. Because Christ is in a surrendered state to His suffering and is guided by the loving hand of His Father, he has no reason to mourn. He only has reason to offer advice to those whose generations of suffering have only just begun.
Station 10
Jesus is crucified...
Dry wood. Bone minus flesh. Golgotha. Skull. Flanked by criminals. The official sanctioning of forgiveness. Ignorance is from this moment forward a forgivable offense. What is it they did that they did not know they were doing? Condemning themselves for eternity by condemning one man to physical death? Releasing the elixir of love and suffering and fating it to become their legacy? Pressed into service by his Father, Jesus becomes like Simon, assigned to deliver compassion and love. An act of love amidst severe suffering is the greater act of love and the ultimate resolution of the suffering.
Station 11
Jesus promises his kingdom to the good thief...
Good thief, bad thief. Two sides of the same coin like Judas and Pilate. Both hang with Christ in condemnation, both capable of the same redemption. The good thief uses his guilt to receive and accept his suffering. The bad thief tries to score undeserved absolution and escape from suffering and death. The good thief is willing to die to purify his soul. The bad thief still wants to control his death and make a deal to extend his life. Fear of God, for the good thief, is the source of the fountain of humility.
Station 12
Jesus speaks to His mother and the disciple...
Passing off the lineage. Bonding and forging new family. Mother and son torn apart then united anew. Responsibility is exchanged and carried forth. The call to parent and to care for parents crystallized into family oaths forever. Suffering and death's last act is to love, care for, provide for those who live on.
Station 13
Jesus dies on the cross...
Three hours of darkness. An eclipse of the sun. The temple veil torn down the middle. Jesus cries out. His last breath breathed. Simultaneous to his last breath, the final sacrificial crying out: “Father, into Your Hands I commend my spirit.” The spirit is willing and the weakness of the flesh is transcended. Jesus' control of His free will is handed over to His Father. The willing spirit submits the human will. His spirit entrusted to the charge of His Father. Son gives the gift of love by sacrificing his free will to God. God returns the gift of love by ending His Son's suffering.
Station 14
Jesus is placed in the tomb...
Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man. In a fatherly act he went to claim Christ's body. Pilate, in a subconscious act of penance, handed over the body. Joseph covered it in a clean linen cloth and laid our Lord in the tomb, rolling a stone to seal the door and the deal. A rich man's simple linen became a treasure for all, a blank canvas upon which the remedy of suffering and love was fused. Grains of pollen drifted through the air and nestled themselves into the fibers, forever sealing time and location into the cloth. When wealth, blessing, abundance is shared, it grows and prospers. The sealed tomb becomes an incubator for salvation. The elixir of suffering and love is vaporized and melded in the risen Christ and humanity is graced by the gift of the imprint of His essence.
Our treasure of faith, this simple piece of cloth...
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Chapter 14: Palm Sunday
Braided palms from the marketplace
Christ dying on the cross
Christ living in a halo
Holding the eclipse in his mouth
the ancient serpent priest
tests the rain the sun the moon
marks his days
Amen
folds his hours
Amen
measures his year
from inside a blackened cave
Amen
Skeletal palm shadow
waving into the future
a man
a marker of every solstice
a dweller in every cave
braided into the hands
of humankind
Christ dying on the cross
Christ living in a halo
Holding the eclipse in his mouth
the ancient serpent priest
tests the rain the sun the moon
marks his days
Amen
folds his hours
Amen
measures his year
from inside a blackened cave
Amen
Skeletal palm shadow
waving into the future
a man
a marker of every solstice
a dweller in every cave
braided into the hands
of humankind
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Chapter 13: What Matters
To be human is to suffer. During Lent we are reminded of Christ's passion and suffering for the sins of mankind. The road map of wounds He encoded on the Shroud preserve a depiction of a tortured, human man. Suffering becomes matter.
The Shroud is matter. Or is it? The cloth clearly is matter. But is the image on the cloth matter? Since it is an observable form, then would it not be deemed to be an expression of matter? But what kind of matter? This leads me to a whole new vein of questioning, this time from the world of quantum mechanics and mathematics...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is the Shroud perhaps the first example of observable dark matter?
Is the image on the Shroud our first detection of gravitons?
Is the image created by gluons?
Is it possible Christ radiated His anti-particle pairs via creating virtual sequences, thereby encrypting into the Shroud a copy of His image?
Did a wave function collapse account for the contact force between Christ's physical body and the cloth to become temporarily massless?
Did decoherence account for the thermodynamically irreversible loss of information between Christ's dead and alive body into the “environment” of the cloth of the Shroud?
Was Christ's body temporarily yet simultaneously dead and living and did the Shroud capture that moment of perceivable wave-particle duality?
Is the force that created the image on the Shroud the same force (which has yet to be discovered) that unifies the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak interaction, and strong interaction?
If particles and anti-particles annihilate each other, is it inside that annihilation that we find the mediation capabilities of virtual particles?
Is the Shroud a tangible expression of mediation between life and death?
Jesus said: “I am the truth, the way and the life”
Is all life one singular life?
Although we cannot perceive the origin of the image of the Shroud, we can perceive that the Shroud image is indeed present.
Is the image the first manifestation in the physical world of a particle and a wave existing simultaneously in a way that is perceivable to the observer? Are we seeing particle and wave at the same time when we gaze upon the image of the Shroud?
Life = inertia = particle
death = expansion = wave
Is Christ's resurrection the mediation between death and life, life and death?
particle = life
anti-particle = death
virtual/mediating particle = resurrection
Even though we cannot perceive life and death as existing simultaneously, they do. Is the Shroud proof of this?
Life + Death = Resurrection
Resurrection = Death + Life
cloth = inertia, mass, density
image = expansion, masslessness, gravitons
Is the Shroud an expression of a possible symmetry between baryons and anti-baryons?
If a theoretical virtual particle, the graviton, is the mediating element in gravity and is a massless boson (because it has integer spin), then would non-baryonic matter (dark matter) be the static constant in terms of measurability and knowability?
Is it possible for mass and masslessness to exist simultaneously even though we cannot perceive it as such and must separate the two and perceive each individually?
Is the image on the Shroud an expression of simultaneous mass and masslessness, matter and anti-matter, baryons and anti-baryons, particles and anti-particles, waves and anti-waves, physical body mass and the massless soul...?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So many questions arise from this single cloth
The mystery of this matter
Perhaps what truly matters
is what is hidden in the matter
Christ alive, Christ dead, Christ risen
and the one cloth that captured the moment
of life and death coexisting
so that we could perceive the possibility
The Shroud is matter. Or is it? The cloth clearly is matter. But is the image on the cloth matter? Since it is an observable form, then would it not be deemed to be an expression of matter? But what kind of matter? This leads me to a whole new vein of questioning, this time from the world of quantum mechanics and mathematics...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is the Shroud perhaps the first example of observable dark matter?
Is the image on the Shroud our first detection of gravitons?
Is the image created by gluons?
Is it possible Christ radiated His anti-particle pairs via creating virtual sequences, thereby encrypting into the Shroud a copy of His image?
Did a wave function collapse account for the contact force between Christ's physical body and the cloth to become temporarily massless?
Did decoherence account for the thermodynamically irreversible loss of information between Christ's dead and alive body into the “environment” of the cloth of the Shroud?
Was Christ's body temporarily yet simultaneously dead and living and did the Shroud capture that moment of perceivable wave-particle duality?
Is the force that created the image on the Shroud the same force (which has yet to be discovered) that unifies the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak interaction, and strong interaction?
If particles and anti-particles annihilate each other, is it inside that annihilation that we find the mediation capabilities of virtual particles?
Is the Shroud a tangible expression of mediation between life and death?
Jesus said: “I am the truth, the way and the life”
Is all life one singular life?
Although we cannot perceive the origin of the image of the Shroud, we can perceive that the Shroud image is indeed present.
Is the image the first manifestation in the physical world of a particle and a wave existing simultaneously in a way that is perceivable to the observer? Are we seeing particle and wave at the same time when we gaze upon the image of the Shroud?
Life = inertia = particle
death = expansion = wave
Is Christ's resurrection the mediation between death and life, life and death?
particle = life
anti-particle = death
virtual/mediating particle = resurrection
Even though we cannot perceive life and death as existing simultaneously, they do. Is the Shroud proof of this?
Life + Death = Resurrection
Resurrection = Death + Life
cloth = inertia, mass, density
image = expansion, masslessness, gravitons
Is the Shroud an expression of a possible symmetry between baryons and anti-baryons?
If a theoretical virtual particle, the graviton, is the mediating element in gravity and is a massless boson (because it has integer spin), then would non-baryonic matter (dark matter) be the static constant in terms of measurability and knowability?
Is it possible for mass and masslessness to exist simultaneously even though we cannot perceive it as such and must separate the two and perceive each individually?
Is the image on the Shroud an expression of simultaneous mass and masslessness, matter and anti-matter, baryons and anti-baryons, particles and anti-particles, waves and anti-waves, physical body mass and the massless soul...?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So many questions arise from this single cloth
The mystery of this matter
Perhaps what truly matters
is what is hidden in the matter
Christ alive, Christ dead, Christ risen
and the one cloth that captured the moment
of life and death coexisting
so that we could perceive the possibility
Friday, February 26, 2010
Chapter 12: A Dark Energy Self-Portrait
Stillness is compelling me to think, to write, to question, to speculate, to dare, to dream, to wonder, to ask, to know.
From my own inertia, inertons, entropy comes a particular anxiety and quest for answers.
Questions emerge that I cannot reach...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is the Shroud of Turin a dark energy self-portrait of Jesus Christ?
Is it our first visible image of dark energy, the cosmological constant?
Does the three dimensional holographic information found on the photographs of the figure on the Shroud make it a tangible example of isotropy and homogeneity (meaning it looks the same and has uniformity from all directions and in every location)?
Does the image of the Shroud beg us to find new ways to image the cosmos?
Could an image of Shroud face be hidden in a map of the stars, galaxies,constellations?
Just as dots appear to be subatomically sprayed onto surface of the Shroud cloth, are stars too sprayed into space to formulate an image with the same holographic info as the Shroud? If we take the grandest look at the stars can we see this subatomic particle spray that forms the image?
Is there some alignment inherent in astronomical information that is already mapped and could lead us to the image of the Shroud, possibly inside some cluster of stars?
Is the linen cloth of the Shroud akin to an existing veil of stars in our galaxy, billowing and in flux like the Northern Lights?
The space that holds and binds the stars, dark energy, the stillness that contains all, dark matter... does any of it form an image if we use positive space to read the negative space?
Are the stars and what is in between the stars really our “road map for the soul”?
Is the path of questioning an expression of dark matter?
Does the darkness form the image—in the same way that we get a positive image from the photographic negative of the Shroud?
Are all physical bodies vessels and inward expressions of stillness and dark matter?
Is a blast of insight an event horizon?
Is the secret me the secret you and the secret everyone? Are we all one subatomic particle?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The more still my body is
the more my mind awakens and expands
I am fluid and in flux
I keep trying to impose a static state of this or that
when it's all undulating beyond my control
The aliveness is in the flux and flow
The mind opens and expands in bursts
then quiets and rests
The survival instinct is there
so we can keep asking and exploring
Our desire and instinct to stay alive
is the fundamental question we yearn to answer
Alive = flow and flux
Dead = still
Alive = still
Dead = flow and flux
Being = dark energy
Thought = the Singularity
Being = the Singularity
Thought = dark energy
Answers pin us down
Questions keep us moving
From my own inertia, inertons, entropy comes a particular anxiety and quest for answers.
Questions emerge that I cannot reach...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is the Shroud of Turin a dark energy self-portrait of Jesus Christ?
Is it our first visible image of dark energy, the cosmological constant?
Does the three dimensional holographic information found on the photographs of the figure on the Shroud make it a tangible example of isotropy and homogeneity (meaning it looks the same and has uniformity from all directions and in every location)?
Does the image of the Shroud beg us to find new ways to image the cosmos?
Could an image of Shroud face be hidden in a map of the stars, galaxies,constellations?
Just as dots appear to be subatomically sprayed onto surface of the Shroud cloth, are stars too sprayed into space to formulate an image with the same holographic info as the Shroud? If we take the grandest look at the stars can we see this subatomic particle spray that forms the image?
Is there some alignment inherent in astronomical information that is already mapped and could lead us to the image of the Shroud, possibly inside some cluster of stars?
Is the linen cloth of the Shroud akin to an existing veil of stars in our galaxy, billowing and in flux like the Northern Lights?
The space that holds and binds the stars, dark energy, the stillness that contains all, dark matter... does any of it form an image if we use positive space to read the negative space?
Are the stars and what is in between the stars really our “road map for the soul”?
Is the path of questioning an expression of dark matter?
Does the darkness form the image—in the same way that we get a positive image from the photographic negative of the Shroud?
Are all physical bodies vessels and inward expressions of stillness and dark matter?
Is a blast of insight an event horizon?
Is the secret me the secret you and the secret everyone? Are we all one subatomic particle?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The more still my body is
the more my mind awakens and expands
I am fluid and in flux
I keep trying to impose a static state of this or that
when it's all undulating beyond my control
The aliveness is in the flux and flow
The mind opens and expands in bursts
then quiets and rests
The survival instinct is there
so we can keep asking and exploring
Our desire and instinct to stay alive
is the fundamental question we yearn to answer
Alive = flow and flux
Dead = still
Alive = still
Dead = flow and flux
Being = dark energy
Thought = the Singularity
Being = the Singularity
Thought = dark energy
Answers pin us down
Questions keep us moving
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Chapter 11: One Theory
As we approach the exhibition of the Shroud in the spring of 2010, surely more scientific theories will be appearing in the news.
When I learned that the presence of God was animated in me when the DNA sample that was used to clone me was miraculously rendered viable, I was lifted elsewhere, into a place where my experience of God, the life force, and creation was altered.
I am not required to adhere my thoughts on the subject of the Shroud to peer review or empirical science. I have the luxury to meander when I contemplate how the image got onto the cloth, to really step beyond the boundaries and play – so here goes...
1. Perhaps “How did the image get onto the cloth?” is not the way to phrase the question. Maybe we should be asking “How did the cloth get onto the image?”
Rather than remaining fixated on how the image got onto the cloth, perhaps the focus should shift to the image itself, apart from the cloth. Why do we confine the image to the cloth? Perhaps it also exists elsewhere in our universe, perhaps right in our midst. What if Christ left it on a cloth just as a clue and what He really wants us to do is find it “hidden in all things.”
Everything is at once itself and everything else
Micro and macro are one in the same
One unifying principle of physics exists
which will inevitably explain
the relationship of singularity and unity
The human fingerprint and DNA are evidence
of both our singularity and unity
2. What if...the mystery of the Shroud has less to do with how the image got onto the cloth and more to do with the image being an imprint on cloth of an image that is repeated elsewhere...hidden, yet imprinted inside each of us?
The image on the Shroud has unique spatial encoding. Is that spatial encoding repeated inside each of us? Perhaps it is stamped on a particle level in our fingerprint or in our DNA or in every single cell as that unifying principal amidst our singularity.
The burn marks on Shroud are shaped very much like the bones in the proximal and middle phalanges of the human fingers—is this a clue?
If the Shroud is a quantum hologram, could the mystery be solved by using already existing imaging methods to search for the image of the Shroud inside the human body?
Perhaps, once science is able to record images of the more elusive and subtle energies, we will see God hidden inside each of us.
3. Is it that impossible to believe that the Creator of all things could not embed a hidden message inside each of us that would serve to unify us and bind us back to the Creator?
The Shroud has us all befuddled. The more intriguing readings I've come across put forth radical notions, such as: Was the image of the soul of Jesus Christ left behind as a residual byproduct of the Resurrection? Can science prove the existence of the human soul?
Why would it be far fetched to believe that Christ had a superior consciousness? After all, He performed miracles.
Using His superior consciousness, perhaps he directed his image, not only onto the cloth, but also into us via some uniform, subatomic particle spray that transcends the confines of any light source we understand. Like dark matter that holds together the galaxies, perhaps this transparency will eventually be rendered visible and reveal hidden images.
If Christ's superior consciousness left us an imprint of His soul on the Shroud, eventually science will be able to “read” that imprint accurately and understand its origins.
4. The absence of our understanding of the image on the Shroud is, in and of itself, proof that something exists to understand.
The Shroud is an enigma. If, by using His superior consciousness, Christ was able to materialize the image of His soul into observable matter, then would not the image of His soul be able to materialize inside everything else if He willed it so (perhaps, as suggested, as a repeated visual image inside each human fingerprint or DNA)?
And what meaning would it have for the world—to prove the existence of the soul? To prove that an image of Jesus Christ is not just imprinted on a cloth but also inside each of us?
Would it calm us down, fix our flaws, wipe clean the slate of the sins of humanity, assure us that we are forgiven?
5. Do we need scientific proof in order to animate the presence of God inside each of us?
Some people do. For others, faith is enough.
All stories are the same story
Mythology, religions, UFOs, ancient cultures,
pyramids, ruins, archetypes...
all stories are one
One Theory = An Inverse Question
Must we believe it to prove it?
Must we prove it to believe it?
Science proves things primarily through the physical evidence, through matter and energies and atoms and molecules and physical forces.
Religion/spirituality proves things through faith, beliefs, emotions, intuitive knowing.
We focus so much on the differences between science and religion we forget that, hidden in each of their singularities, is an expression of unity...of One.
6. We already know all answers to all questions; otherwise the questions could not exist.
I read or heard somewhere that “physics is intuitive.” My life has become inextricably bound to intuition because I cannot rely on the parameters of science or religion alone. My relationship between the two, like the Shroud, is an amalgam.
In my readings and meanderings, I have intuitively arrived at certain questions, which I respectfully direct to particle physicists who may be reading this blog (these may give you a good chuckle, since I am so obviously not a scientist/physicist).
Is the relationship between Love and Suffering the unifying principle...the interface that binds?
Is the Shroud proof of the Big Bang?
Is the Resurrection evidence of the Big Crunch, a collapsed event horizon?
Does the human soul exist in The Singularity (“at the center of a black hole, where matter is crushed to infinite density, the pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature”).
Could LIGO (gravitational wave detector) measure the vibrations in spacetime generated by the Shroud?
Could it be that Sir Arthur Eddington was actually spot on when he commented: “Gravitational waves propagate at the speed of thought.”
Does the Shroud, like a black hole, have its own natural mode of vibration—its unique frequency ring?
If rotating black holes can create and emit particles and quantum perturbations of the event horizon can allow information to escape from the black hole, could the uniformity of the rotation of the black hole account for the unique spatial encoding of the particles in the image on the Shroud and the light emerging evenly from within the body on the image of the Shroud, everywhere at the same time?
Did Christ's body, as a rotating frame of reference, form a redshift of His image onto the cloth?
At The Singularity, is everything. Is everything one transparency experience, one perfect entropy that binds all randomness?
Is the Theory of Everything the one unifying principle physics is searching for and, if so, will we find the E8 pattern in the image of Shroud?
Did Christ uniformly spray subatomic particles onto the cloth or was the cloth temporarily swallowed (so to speak) by a collapse in the event horizon, wherein the information encoded onto the Shroud is the first visible image ever comprised by dark matter?
If space and time cease to exist and cause and effect cannot be unraveled at The Singularity...is it the gateway to Heaven?
According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe. The exception to this is that a reversible/isentropic process, such as frictionless adiabatic compression. Could this exception explain how Christ was able to momentarily transfer his skeletal image onto the cloth by allowing His hot particles to steal the energy of the cold particles so that his image could heat up enough to to emit exact black body radiation?
In quantum physics:
Unitarity = the sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of any event is always One.
Does the Inverse of Unitarity = The laws of physics all break down at The Singularity?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The meaning of the Shroud = the explanation of the image's origins
The explanation of the image's origins = the meaning of the Shroud
a formation
an information
source
life
death
the afterlife
all recorded on the same image
an image
equally and interchangeably
microscopic and grand
finite and infinitesimal
the tangible expression
of omniscience
this
one
singular
controversial cloth
When I learned that the presence of God was animated in me when the DNA sample that was used to clone me was miraculously rendered viable, I was lifted elsewhere, into a place where my experience of God, the life force, and creation was altered.
I am not required to adhere my thoughts on the subject of the Shroud to peer review or empirical science. I have the luxury to meander when I contemplate how the image got onto the cloth, to really step beyond the boundaries and play – so here goes...
1. Perhaps “How did the image get onto the cloth?” is not the way to phrase the question. Maybe we should be asking “How did the cloth get onto the image?”
Rather than remaining fixated on how the image got onto the cloth, perhaps the focus should shift to the image itself, apart from the cloth. Why do we confine the image to the cloth? Perhaps it also exists elsewhere in our universe, perhaps right in our midst. What if Christ left it on a cloth just as a clue and what He really wants us to do is find it “hidden in all things.”
Everything is at once itself and everything else
Micro and macro are one in the same
One unifying principle of physics exists
which will inevitably explain
the relationship of singularity and unity
The human fingerprint and DNA are evidence
of both our singularity and unity
2. What if...the mystery of the Shroud has less to do with how the image got onto the cloth and more to do with the image being an imprint on cloth of an image that is repeated elsewhere...hidden, yet imprinted inside each of us?
The image on the Shroud has unique spatial encoding. Is that spatial encoding repeated inside each of us? Perhaps it is stamped on a particle level in our fingerprint or in our DNA or in every single cell as that unifying principal amidst our singularity.
The burn marks on Shroud are shaped very much like the bones in the proximal and middle phalanges of the human fingers—is this a clue?
If the Shroud is a quantum hologram, could the mystery be solved by using already existing imaging methods to search for the image of the Shroud inside the human body?
Perhaps, once science is able to record images of the more elusive and subtle energies, we will see God hidden inside each of us.
3. Is it that impossible to believe that the Creator of all things could not embed a hidden message inside each of us that would serve to unify us and bind us back to the Creator?
The Shroud has us all befuddled. The more intriguing readings I've come across put forth radical notions, such as: Was the image of the soul of Jesus Christ left behind as a residual byproduct of the Resurrection? Can science prove the existence of the human soul?
Why would it be far fetched to believe that Christ had a superior consciousness? After all, He performed miracles.
Using His superior consciousness, perhaps he directed his image, not only onto the cloth, but also into us via some uniform, subatomic particle spray that transcends the confines of any light source we understand. Like dark matter that holds together the galaxies, perhaps this transparency will eventually be rendered visible and reveal hidden images.
If Christ's superior consciousness left us an imprint of His soul on the Shroud, eventually science will be able to “read” that imprint accurately and understand its origins.
4. The absence of our understanding of the image on the Shroud is, in and of itself, proof that something exists to understand.
The Shroud is an enigma. If, by using His superior consciousness, Christ was able to materialize the image of His soul into observable matter, then would not the image of His soul be able to materialize inside everything else if He willed it so (perhaps, as suggested, as a repeated visual image inside each human fingerprint or DNA)?
And what meaning would it have for the world—to prove the existence of the soul? To prove that an image of Jesus Christ is not just imprinted on a cloth but also inside each of us?
Would it calm us down, fix our flaws, wipe clean the slate of the sins of humanity, assure us that we are forgiven?
5. Do we need scientific proof in order to animate the presence of God inside each of us?
Some people do. For others, faith is enough.
All stories are the same story
Mythology, religions, UFOs, ancient cultures,
pyramids, ruins, archetypes...
all stories are one
One Theory = An Inverse Question
Must we believe it to prove it?
Must we prove it to believe it?
Science proves things primarily through the physical evidence, through matter and energies and atoms and molecules and physical forces.
Religion/spirituality proves things through faith, beliefs, emotions, intuitive knowing.
We focus so much on the differences between science and religion we forget that, hidden in each of their singularities, is an expression of unity...of One.
6. We already know all answers to all questions; otherwise the questions could not exist.
I read or heard somewhere that “physics is intuitive.” My life has become inextricably bound to intuition because I cannot rely on the parameters of science or religion alone. My relationship between the two, like the Shroud, is an amalgam.
In my readings and meanderings, I have intuitively arrived at certain questions, which I respectfully direct to particle physicists who may be reading this blog (these may give you a good chuckle, since I am so obviously not a scientist/physicist).
Is the relationship between Love and Suffering the unifying principle...the interface that binds?
Is the Shroud proof of the Big Bang?
Is the Resurrection evidence of the Big Crunch, a collapsed event horizon?
Does the human soul exist in The Singularity (“at the center of a black hole, where matter is crushed to infinite density, the pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature”).
Could LIGO (gravitational wave detector) measure the vibrations in spacetime generated by the Shroud?
Could it be that Sir Arthur Eddington was actually spot on when he commented: “Gravitational waves propagate at the speed of thought.”
Does the Shroud, like a black hole, have its own natural mode of vibration—its unique frequency ring?
If rotating black holes can create and emit particles and quantum perturbations of the event horizon can allow information to escape from the black hole, could the uniformity of the rotation of the black hole account for the unique spatial encoding of the particles in the image on the Shroud and the light emerging evenly from within the body on the image of the Shroud, everywhere at the same time?
Did Christ's body, as a rotating frame of reference, form a redshift of His image onto the cloth?
At The Singularity, is everything. Is everything one transparency experience, one perfect entropy that binds all randomness?
Is the Theory of Everything the one unifying principle physics is searching for and, if so, will we find the E8 pattern in the image of Shroud?
Did Christ uniformly spray subatomic particles onto the cloth or was the cloth temporarily swallowed (so to speak) by a collapse in the event horizon, wherein the information encoded onto the Shroud is the first visible image ever comprised by dark matter?
If space and time cease to exist and cause and effect cannot be unraveled at The Singularity...is it the gateway to Heaven?
According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe. The exception to this is that a reversible/isentropic process, such as frictionless adiabatic compression. Could this exception explain how Christ was able to momentarily transfer his skeletal image onto the cloth by allowing His hot particles to steal the energy of the cold particles so that his image could heat up enough to to emit exact black body radiation?
In quantum physics:
Unitarity = the sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of any event is always One.
Does the Inverse of Unitarity = The laws of physics all break down at The Singularity?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The meaning of the Shroud = the explanation of the image's origins
The explanation of the image's origins = the meaning of the Shroud
a formation
an information
source
life
death
the afterlife
all recorded on the same image
an image
equally and interchangeably
microscopic and grand
finite and infinitesimal
the tangible expression
of omniscience
this
one
singular
controversial cloth
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Chapter 10: Relic ReLook
I reckon with Divine intervention all sorts of things are possible...
Science said it would have been impossible for me to be cloned from the blood on the Shroud, as a blood sample so old would surely have been too degraded.
If you are someone who has bought, hook line and sinker, the carbon dating results on the Shroud, consider two things:
First— There is recent scientific evidence to refute the carbon dating results. Namely, the samples used in the carbon dating were a mix of 1st century and 16th century cloth (because that particular section of the Shroud had been repaired). The reweaving of threads from two different centuries certainly impacts the notion that the carbon dating results are the “final word” in this mystery.
Second— No one has ever been able to explain how the image got onto the cloth (even those who believe in the carbon dating results). And if it was a Medieval hoax, as those who trust the carbon dating samples insist, then how could someone living during the Middle Ages have placed the image on the cloth without having access to the technologies required to do so (technologies that had not yet been invented).
It is stunning to think that we might literally have the burial cloth of Jesus Christ in our midst and the world barely blinks an eye.
ReLook--at the relic. This mystery has not yet been solved...
Science said it would have been impossible for me to be cloned from the blood on the Shroud, as a blood sample so old would surely have been too degraded.
If you are someone who has bought, hook line and sinker, the carbon dating results on the Shroud, consider two things:
First— There is recent scientific evidence to refute the carbon dating results. Namely, the samples used in the carbon dating were a mix of 1st century and 16th century cloth (because that particular section of the Shroud had been repaired). The reweaving of threads from two different centuries certainly impacts the notion that the carbon dating results are the “final word” in this mystery.
Second— No one has ever been able to explain how the image got onto the cloth (even those who believe in the carbon dating results). And if it was a Medieval hoax, as those who trust the carbon dating samples insist, then how could someone living during the Middle Ages have placed the image on the cloth without having access to the technologies required to do so (technologies that had not yet been invented).
It is stunning to think that we might literally have the burial cloth of Jesus Christ in our midst and the world barely blinks an eye.
ReLook--at the relic. This mystery has not yet been solved...
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