Electronic Intelligence

My ipod reads my energy. I'm sure of it. Tonight, after two days of agonizing over my taxes that are due in three days, I took a break to do some of the dishes that've been piling up. Wanting to listen to some music, I got out the ipod, put it on shuffle, donned the headphones, and got to work with the sponge, soap, and day old dishes. What's the first song my ipod decides to play? Out of 1669 songs that my husband and I have loaded since getting it three months ago? Taxman. By The Beatles. No shit.

The second song was from Rodrigo Y Gabriela, a group that I've been listening to, almost exclusively, for the past few months.

It'd be a bit disconcerting if it weren't so fascinating and coincidental.

It reminds me of an email I got a couple months ago from a man I interviewed. Jordan Pease, the director of the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library. One day, while working feverishly on the article that profiled him, Jordan sent me an email:

Hi-
You’ve got to try this if you haven’t already. It’s called “20Q” and it’s an amazing Artificial Intelligence Technology (AI) demonstration website in the form of a guessing game.

Players think of something and answer 15-30 questions about it (yes, no, maybe, unknown, etc) and the computer will guess correctly nearly every time you play!

It is downright spooky how accurate it is, especially with such seemingly vague questions. They claim it’s 80-98% accurate, and so far I’d agree.

20Q.net Try it.

Maybe my ipod has some of the same inherent intelligence. Yeah, a pretty whacko proposition. But the fact that Taxman was the first song it played has me wondering.

When a library closes in a community . . . does it make a sound?

Yesterday's closure of the Jackson County Library System in Southern Oregon, due to lack of funding, is the largest ever shuttering of libraries in the history of the United States.

The doors at Ashland's public library were locked at 5pm on Friday, April 6th.

In a staged protest/sit-in--proposed by several young library patrons
and carried out with the help of supportive adults--a large group of
young people, ranging in age from 5-16, refused to leave the
library until Malcus Williams, an officer with the Ashland Police Department showed up (as part of the plan) to escort them out.

The following is a video I shot and edited for the local newspaper.

The two halves of god

I just had an epiphany and had to come write it down before it slips away. Not sure I should share it publicly, but here goes.

I was sitting on the toilet-- yes, epiphanies can happen anywhere--and I picked up the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of Spirituality & Health that a doctor friend loaned me. I'm reading an article by Louise Danielle Palmer titled: Empowered by the Sacred.

It's an article about the "living mystic" Andrew Harvey and I've just finished reading the 7 aspects of the "Great Death" that he teaches about. The author of the article then writes:

In the course of evolving as a species, we have discovered one-half of the God-power within us: the power to destroy.

And all of a sudden it came to me that this is why the bible seems to describe two completely different gods. It's something people rarely attempt to explain and understand, but remains a glaring inconsistency nevertheless.

If God is truly within, and not something outside and over us, then she/he/it (Holy Sheheit, the middle h being silent, as a group of us laughed about a number of years ago) is evolving right alongside/inside us and/or because of us. And whether a parable, prophecy, or just an interesting story, the bible shows us how God/we evolve from being judgemental, vengeful, and destructive to forgiving, compassionate, loving, and creative.

When I imagined, in a very brief flash, asking God/The All/Source if this was true--the impression that came back was of a bunch of gleeful beings jumping up and down saying, "yes, yes, yes, that's it!"

I was stopped in my tracks when I read the above words "we have discovered one-half of the god-power within us," now I continue reading the paragraph to find out what comes next:

...Now, Harvey believes, we must embody the other half: the power within us to create.

Now that I write it down, it seems so simple and obvious that I wonder that it felt so epiphanous. Maybe everyone else already knew this, but I'd never thought of it this way. The thought/revelation gave me goosebumps, and it's something I want to spend some more time pondering.

Cafe Sometimes and Other Writings

Maybe Cafe Now wasn't a good name for a blog that I only get to once in a while. Maybe I should have called it Cafe Sometimes.

Thing is, I took a paid writing gig and haven't had the time to get here and write my little meandering thoughts and observations. Thought the least I could do to nurture the place was to post some of the pieces I've been writing for my local newspaper. They're mostly profile pieces of some of the unique and interesting people that make up our vibrant little community of Ashland.

I offer some of them here as glimpses into what it means to be human in a world that seems to be increasingly uncertain.

Ely Schless: Inventor
Pam Derby: Compassionate Listener
Tish McFadden: Musician, Teacher
David Gall: Postman
Bill and Shirley Patton: The Patton Tree