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Monday, October 6, 2008
"Color in Context"
Roughly, the conclusion is that experience of color is in the mind, but there are objective things in the world that bring about that experience.
"Two central facts show that color perception is more than wavelengths. Almost everything of our color experience is 'in context'. Part of it is wavelengths. Things reflect the colors of things around them. Nothing demonstrates this so well as these two photos I took at the Brooklyn Museum:
Old Kingdom Gneiss Statue, Fertility Figurine
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As you can see, my adjustments make it 'truer' to the native coloring:
That is normal 'context based' color experience, for everything around us is absorbing reflective color from nearby objects. For instance, you've heard of the eyes that look blue or green, depending on what the person is wearing. But the context can go beyond the normal, to become strange and illusionary. I learned from the _Philosophy of Mind_ course of an intriguing website featuring all sorts of illusions. The following illusion had me boggled. I did not believe the color of the axis point link was the same, nor the angles all ninety degrees:
![]() This is from a screen capture... (Actually, a screen capture of a screen capture) ...as is this 'mask revealed'. ![]()
Even though I 'know' they're both gray, one still looks blue and one still looks yellow.
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Tuesday, October 7, 2008
"Portrait of Worried Man"
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Sunday, October 12, 2008
"A Satisfying Weekend"
Memory of the statues info plaques rather weak, I did a little research which reveals the statue honors the West Mormon Battalion that traveled through Yuma 160 years ago. Six hundred of them made a grueling march from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California. The statue of Philemon Merrill was done by R.C. Merrill, who "said Philemon Merrill is his great-great-grand uncle". It's a fine statue, full of vitality, and his shirt has nice draping, as fabric would naturally hang. I didn't take a camera, so I have no photo. But maybe that's why a roadrunner bird approached very near to us. He was so cute with his tail that bobbed up and down and his head, with its spiky 'hair' also bobbed up and down. Julia was so right to encourage the walk. We both felt refreshed and energized. I was so energized, I got back into that gallery work. I can happily report, IT IS DONE!. I'm very pleased with it, this treasure to revisit the museum, and for others as well, to see it through my eyes.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008 A
"A Quick Drawing"
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008 B
"A Few Small Synchronicities and a Border Test"
1. As I checked old journal entries to pick up the Halloween deco, I scanned past an entry nearly a year ago speaking of the 'bird lady' at the Brooklyn Museum. Did I suspect then I'd be seeing her in person? I left a 'note from the future' there. And now for my border test. While looking for an illo with Anubis bending over a mummy, I got distracted by other items in the Dover Egyptian clip art CD. I found one interesting item and tweaked it a bit. Not sure where I'll use it yet, though. |





Wednesday, October 15, 2008
"Water Bearer"
Thursday, October 16, 2008
"Thoughts on this Day of Setian Festival"

10:12pm
(To illustrate Parable of the Pots)

5:27am
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On this the day of the Setian festival 'Slaying of Osirus', conversely known as 'Planting of Seed ("Babeh/Phaophi")', and now discovered as Khebes-Ta, 'Hacking up of the Earth,' (via Webb, Gadalla and Assmann), I wake early with thoughts. How synchronous that 'Hacking up of the Earth', as giant earth hackers were tearing up the ground nearby at work yesterday. How their work shook even the walls of the building! Of course, their efforts were not for agricultural reasons, but to remake the asphalt in the parking lot. Still, a synchroncity is a synchronicity. Not only that, when I left for work this morning the ripe smell of non petrol based fertilizer greeted my nose. The apartment groundsmen are planting the seed of future grass! Yes, everything comes together! Osiris dies that he might be reborn. It's a nice mythology for end-of-life hopes. But there are other applications. The Setian understands that it is the release of stasis in one's life. Old habits which do not serve us are 'buried' that we might be transformed as better, stronger people. Can it be the Christian concept of being 'born again' derives ultimately from the Osirian drama? Anything that comes to an end in our lives, especially if it was something that was enjoyed, there's a sense of mourning its loss. If we do not deal well with change, it's hard to come to terms with it. Yet these are the necessary cycles of life. Neheh is an unending futurity of cyclical time. Those of us who seek Xeper, to spiral forwards into increasingly refined versions of ourselves know change is necessary. But change is not easy. Those that seek the path of forgetfulness, to numb themselves to their regrets do not understand the transformative capacities. But they are not the awakened. They do not understand that consciousness is all, or they would not be so apt to dull it. The awakened, however, embrace loss and regret, knowing this embrace is the only way to overcome the difficulties. Those people who I have lost, who have died, I release them to Neheh, to the future. A part of them remains with me in my memories, and thus they still live that way. I release my regrets. I cannot change the past, and what I did then. However today is mine, I choose my actions today. I release those habits whose effects cause regret. I will spiral forward, I am not a 'finished being', of "immutable permanence". Herein is every hope.
![]() Four days later, those planted seeds are sprouting!
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