See people whole. Like magic, they might just become whole. A culture that loses track of – or perhaps deliberately devalues – the humanities forgets where it came from. Worse, it becomes blind to where it’s going. Plato’s Cave forged first in gold, now technology. The good news? That epoch peaked long ago. We’re already on the other side of that hill. Enough of us know. After collapse, you can create a whole new galaxy from the dust.
Latest
percepts
Words you might remember from reading a dictionary in 9th grade:
- Soul: the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
- Resonance: a vibration of large amplitude produced by a relatively small vibration near the same frequency of vibration as the natural frequency of the resonating system
- Harmony: congruity of parts with one another and with the whole
Welcome
Create the future
“If I want to create the future, then I work against my future. And if I do not want to create it, once again I do not take sufficient part in the creation of the future, and everything happens then according to unavoidable laws to which I fall victim.” – Carl Jung, The Red Book
In Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Larry Gopnik (continuously) receives the Monthly Main Selection by doing nothing.
Now Reading
Indra’s Fractal Net: The separation of science and the humanities never existed
Month
August, 2026
Author and date
William J. Jackson, 2004
Sometimes it takes a long time for you to catch up to a book. You’re living within a milieu no matter what’s on your bookshelf. That was certainly the case for William Jackson’s beautiful work, Heaven’s Fractal Net.
Jackson lived in Indianapolis and taught for years at IUPUI (now Indiana University Indianapolis) while I was frequently in the building. Still, it took a snowy Tuesday afternoon visit to a rural mountain Idaho thrift store in 2023 for this excellent book to sync with my mind.
The ancient geometry of fractals underlies everything around us. Always there, periodically we seem to need a reminder. Jackson’s book builds on Benoit Mandelbrot’s groundbreaking work, and is a connecting thread between visual design, science, archetypal psychology and spirituality. A connecting thread reminding us that any separation was ever only an illusion.
In Buddhist and Vedic cosmology dating back thousands of years, the fractal nature of reality is referred to as Indra’s Net. The complex interconnected networks and relationships between all objects within a system plays out in self-similar ways each and every time. Mix and repeat, spin out into a new journey. This includes symbols, which are living, not static. They work on you. Next time you encounter something in daily life that feels mirror-like in its experience, this is you experiencing Indra and Jackson’s net. The life hologram.
Ideas
Your Entire Body is a Radio Receiver.
What channel are you tuned to?
The entire body is a tuning mechanism. Your skin, your heart, your toesies, all of it. Not just the brain. It’s all designed to receive the big channel from above, a pre-installed feature. But everything all around you is loud and you’re distracted. I recommend quiet. Find quiet. Perhaps mostly quiet. And less images. Technology isn’t going away, but you can change you. How you relate to it. You’ll see. And hear.
You Can Do This Hard Thing.
It’s not easy, I know.
I had the chance to be around legendary folk singer Carrie Newcomer for a stretch of time, and when you know someone you just know. There is simply no denying a soul with her energy, and when she sings “we’ll see this thru” you immediately feel that “we” is all of us, together. Think something new into existence. You can do this hard thing. We can, Carrie. Impossible just takes a little more time.
Collapse is Recovery in Progress.
Are you narrating your past?
Did you collapse? Career? Addiction? Marriage? Me too. All great mythology hangs on fall and rise, depths, the unknown, even taboo. American obsession with an illusory perfect life has always been marketing, it sold GE electric ranges in 1958 and is still running. But it’s teetering. You can heal if you accept you’re on a journey. There’s no rise without the ash heap. That pain you feel is not optional, it’s the catalyst for transformation. Rebirth.
Originals
Frequently Asked Questions
What in the world?
You’ve had a gut feeling for a decade that something is a little off about modern life, right? Perhaps much longer. Because it is. We created a completely absurd material world to live in. We’re on the consumer treadmill, often just sitting and watching other people do things on a glass slab on the wall, in-between eating ever-larger quantities of “foodie” abstractions where someone infuses something into another thing that nobody would even imagine in 1970. Go find a beach photo from 1970, it’ll speak for itself. And that treadmill? The most ridiculous device ever invented. You open a door, walk outside, and it’s free. You might even discover a real person out there.
Why?
If aware, this is everyone’s battle. Feel free to look around this very galaxy for curated examples. All one can do is start moving, set your new frequency. Energy then spreads via resonance. Forcing leads to failure, no matter how deep your frustration. Heal one, you might heal all. Others tune in without realizing they’re doing it. Those that don’t fall away, naturally. We can still hope for them. This is a both / and world.
In one sentence, what is the best advice?
Stop looking at your old reflection.