“Even a man who is pure in heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright”

Among Europe’s most popular legends are the Strigoi, known as the tortured souls that rise from the dead with the ability to transform themselves into animals, drain energy from their victims and make themselves invisible. Some scholars argue that they can be living beings with supernatural instincts instilled with the power to move objects, control the passage of time and possess special insight to foretell the future.

There are many stories about what lurks in the forests of Europe where the Strigoi dwell as human sized predatory creatures with unusual speed. A ripe subject for literature, cinema and television. They tell the common tale of chronic dissatisfaction with life, cursed while trapped within a fear of change. The only other way to attain immortality is by seeing though the illusion of life’s addiction and ascend, aware only of movement since direction is subjective. But even to do that, one still has to suffer as does the tortured souls most feared in myths in an ironic twist of fate.

Although he never refers to the undead, Woody Allen has included some witty dialogue about chronic dissatisfaction in his 2008 film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, “Life is short, life is dull and full of pain and this is a chance for something special.” Some of the directors words also seem to explain why love stories between humans and the Strigoi are so compelling, “Only unfulfilled love can be romantic,”  as images of Edward and Bella, Angel and Buffy are evoked.

Most of the claims about the Strigoi have been dismissed as hallucinations, fables usually attributed to a curse using breadcrumbs to lure an audience as a common ploy of witches who live in candy houses somewhere in the woods of the Carpathian mountains where beasts prey upon lost souls who only know what they don’t want, effectively becoming yet another victim of chronic dissatisfaction.

Sixty years earlier the film Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) took a comical look at the undead. A respected horror film that is considered by the American Film Institute (AFI) among the top 100 films of American cinema. The plot is set in Florida and surrounds four different kind of Strigoi as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are smuggled out of eastern Europe as wax dummies pursued by the man who turns into the werewolf while the invisible man makes a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Even though he cannot be seen a voice is heard, “allow me to introduce myself, I’m the invisible man.”

Although none of them appear in a Woody Allen film, all of them were effected by chronic dissatisfaction and madness.

Around the time of Socrates a lesser known philosopher wrote, “perspective is the ability to visualize two points on any horizontal line with a third point elevated in the distance allowing parallel lines to be drawn intersecting at the ‘vanishing point’ beyond which nothing is seen.”

An example of this occurs when vision is focused on a point along the horizon driving an automobile on a flat desert highway with cactus and sand on either side. Then, its noticed that the road in the distance disappears and becomes a dot. If the path has been traveled before, familiarity with what one expects to find is reinforced with confidence about what still lies hidden as memory saturates the event.

Artists of all sorts such as painters, sculpture’s and architects write using perspective in various ways to stimulate imagination  suggesting, “what lies beyond can be perceived with a little bit of flexibility surrounded by rational thought reflecting that which  is not visible,” recognizing it as a place where the hypothetical becomes tangible.

If the gaze is fixed and the horizon moves, a cause could be myodeopsia, a condition characterized by the appearance of spider’s web thread like spots moving as the field of vision shifts. Floaters as they are known in ophthalmology are small pieces of hardening vitreous structures that break off within the eye and move freely in the fluid causing shadows to be cast on the retina.

Even though they are common and considered more an  annoyance than anything seriously wrong with one’s visual capabilities, an exam by an ophthalmologist once a year is advisable.

Floaters are often a result of aging, a corneal abrasion or an infection. Some think they are  optical illusions  which are perceptual effects that arise from interpretations of an image by the brain rather then an entoptic phenomenon. Others may consider them a figment of science fiction but only those who have them know for sure.

According to Japanese myth “good fortune follows a child conceived under the fiery plasma emanating from the Earth’s magnetosphere.” On the other hand western scientists and theologians might argue that it is not possible to know the precise correlation between “expelling billions of electrons funnelling to and from a pole,” and mitosis, immersed in a field of magnetically charged particles under the Aurora Borealis.

A peaceful place, calm and harmonious, where the energy of the planet is as vibrant and subtle as the stars flickering  through the  aqua red  sky of the northern lights, an ideal place to think about philosophy, religion or contemplate the breath of Japanese myth and the Ho Ho Ho of Old St. Nick.

Unfortunately, busy professionals are often unable to travel to the Arctic regions to find the northern lights to breed a child of good fortune. For them, a unique solution has been devised to bring the lights to their location by thinkgeek.com called the Aurora Projector. “This unique object uses three colored LED’s and a frosted lenses to simulate the ice of the northern region that is now melting due to global warming from the products of the industrial revolution,  to project twisting swirling misty lights on your wall or ceiling. Four triple-a batteries power it for up to 20 hours to avoid any interruptions in a thoughtful conception. The controls are simple to master - On, Off, and  a Timer  which  shuts it off after 30, 60, 90 and  120 minutes, especially thoughtful  for those who are in the geriatric age range. Plus, the lamp is hinged, so if you are concerned about straining your neck muscles or pinching the wrong nerve to stare at the light show on the ceiling, you can tilt it vertically, and project the pretty colorful lights on the wall instead. The size of the contraption: H13 x W18.5 x D11 cm. The 4 AA batteries it takes to run this thing are not included and it doesn’t appear to have any plug in components.”

Now for the right yen and $39.00 you too can conceive a child of good fortune that will make parenting as easy as baking a souffle.

During the Roman Empire, a group of large carp like fish known as genus Barbus were domesticated in marble tanks under the bed of guests invited to lavish Roman Orgies  signifying their fascination with underwater life that led to aquariums. But, it wasn’t known until much later that goldfish like others in the Carp family are social animals who frequently become bored with their environment when left alone without other fish to interact. For them, a stark, un-embellished bowl of water just wont do because their inclination when happy is to be curious. In fact this quality is believed to have encouraged the development of elaborate fish tank rock formations, miniature sunken ships and the R2 Fish Training Kit. which made Albert the goldfish pictured above a member of the Guinness Book Of Records as the fish with the largest repertoire of tricks of any aquatic vertebrate with scales.

According to historical records, The concept of fish school, not to be confused with a school of fish was first founded by Dean and Kyle Pomerleau in 2004. Kyle who was seven years old at the time won two common goldfish at a school fair spending hours watching them for several weeks. He suspected that there was more going on in their brains then most people were willing to give them credit for. On a whim, he and his father decided to see if it was possible to train fish to do tricks using techniques frequently associated with  training dogs, cats, and circus animals.

In an attempt to give fish their just due as responsive pets rather than some kind of decoration at risk for being flushed down the toilet or eaten by a house cat, their scientific investigation led to the Fish School Training Manual, initially written in French. The basic principles set forth in the pamphlet are positive reinforcement and shaping which uses the fish’s innate curiosity to encourage behavior modification. After all, Kyle  claimed,  “Fish have often been served in various cultures as religious symbols, deities and the subject of art, books and films such as The Incredible Mr. Limpit,” a 1964 live action/animated film by Warner Brothers about a human who mysteriously turns into a talking fish and helps the US Navy defeat the Nazis using his “thrum,” an intense  noise that disrupts underwater  instruments and weapons long before Finding Nemo won the Oscar as best animated feature in 2005.

It was the ancient ones who first recognized the nature of cycles,  passing down the knowledge, gifted in written text and oral traditions to the chosen of each generation to keep records of what was meant. The task for them was to create an atmosphere where harmony exists without interfering with choice.

The ancient ones were aware that cosmic forces are immense and subtle, remaining invisible until sensitivity to them is developed much as knowledge is often hidden among the clutter of pointless facts noticed before a truth is revealed.  On the other hand they contended that “nothing is useless as long as its appropriately prioritized.” An approach no different than subjecting students to a multiple choice test who are given more information then they need to choose the correct answer, a way of encouraging the development of  knowledge by also sharpening the ability to use a sound process of elimination (guessing).

Who the ancient ones were is less important than what they said about the universe describing it as “a lot of space with ‘things’ suspended within, in constant motion  as everything moves in relation to their previous position and/or mutual gravitational effects on each other.” They were aware of the closest and farthest currents although they attracted less attention by being silent and occasionally leaving inspiring hints along the way, sometimes misinterpreted, becoming the basis for cults.

According to them, the universe could be interpreted as a conduit for the cosmic pulse, while the veil is defined as “anything that is not known,” frequently misunderstood as a symbol for whatever prevents revelation, neglecting to consider its dual purpose as a protection from the knowledge one is not ready to receive. They indicated, “the ability to verify existence or calculate cycles is not necessary to understand the imperceptible.”  Only a rudimentary comprehension of mathematics is important as one silently listens to the cosmic breadth and reads the poetry of light, sound and motion.

Fragments of fable and myth  have been passed down revealing some things about the first ancient one, said to have been born in a small town in the Himalayan Mountains.  Originally the youth, like the other men of the village, was a peaceful farmer. However, an elder villager held in great respect somehow gained certain  knowledge which he shared with the one who later became the first of the ancients. Both began exploring the secrets of the universe learning how to harness cosmic energy for their own uses, although their motives were quite different. While the elder focused on  building a vast empire, the youth wished to use it for the benefit of his fellow villagers. A great struggle ensued between the two, symbolic of the battle between selfishness and selflessness, as  the legacy of the ancient ones remains a contemporary theme about power.

Another reminder of cycles are found in  remnants of The Mayan civilization, which constructed the most mathematically accurate calender ever devised, informed with future astronomical events which influenced their culture along with paganism and human sacrifice. Survival they realized depended on planting crops at the right time and understanding the forces that effected their growth much of which involved cycles of climatic regularity and change. They found ways to ensure a continuation of their society until they vanished, leaving only mystery and myth for scientists to fathom, although their calender and some written hieroglyphs remain.

The Mayan calender calculates the end of one cycle and the beginning of another at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012.  All they contended was that the transformation from one to another would be characterized by “great changes,” as the Sun and its planets approach the center of the galaxy, an event that occurs once in twenty eight thousand years.

What happens after this date is unwritten suggesting that it must be left to those who are now alive to determine the shape and intensity of the change.

Suppose it were possible to make scrambled eggs without beating them first - perhaps a trivial concern - but when was the last time you cracked an egg without paying attention to what you were doing? It doesn’t really matter where the egg is struck, as long as it contains no shell.

Every now and then a double yolk appears and those become unusual events, especially when children are looking on, eagerly absorbing everything with awe struck attentiveness. To them it’s a magical event and how they interpret what they see can shape their personality and define the approach they will take to life. This may sound like a hefty claim, but each time an egg is successfully transformed into an omelet, it builds confidence, a celebration when it enhances the ability to focus, especially for children and multi-taskers who revel in cracking two, in both hands at the same time.

Creating a batter in a bowl is a rote expenditure of energy. Another approach would be to open the eggs directly into the heated pan, then using a fork, mixing the yolks and the whites together when they are in the process of solidifying, creating a unique variation of color and texture, as a small amount of milk or cream for the aristocrats is added with salt and pepper. This encourages risk-taking, an absorbing adventure each and every time the task is undertaken. Most important is not having to scrape them from the pan. An assurance of an experienced knowing hand, especially when one of the kids asks: “Why are some eggs white, and some brown?” Then a learner-ed parent can respond with a smile, “They can also be green.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_shells

In Hinduism, Avatar is a  Sanskrit word referring to the conscious descent of a deity from heaven to earth often translated into English as “incarnation,” but a  more appropriate term is “manifestation.” Its meaning is the basis of James Cameron’s visual epic that took fourteen years to complete depicting native life of Pandora, a planet that takes several years to reach in suspended animation. The film is an artistically stunning adventure in 3D worth seeing  even if the story, written in two weeks, is a bit derivative with a  screenplay that borrows heavily from some of the directors previous work and brings to mind too many similarities to Dances With Wolves.

The military look of the film is so reminiscent of  Aliens that it distracted me from  becoming immersed in the film. Aliens is the 1986 classic that Cameron directed about the bugs that gestate in the chest of its living host and have acid for blood. As in Aliens, the company or corporation features prominently as the prime antagonist of evil instigating  the invasion force that plans to drain Pandora’s natural resources for the benefit of Earth. Our planet is now an ecologically depleted waste land, a victim of economic greed that Weavers character, Dr. Grace Augustine, a Bio-Anthropologist opposes as passionately as she did as Ellen Ripley in Aliens.

The feel of the film’s technology including a cargo loader machine similar to the one Ripley uses to defeat the queen bug at the end of Aliens is featured in facsimile in a major battle scene at the end of Avatar. This similarity is an annoying element of this new film which was written, directed and produced by Cameron with a running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Although the 3D nature of the films construction is groundbreaking, the plot is predictable and the characters are too two dimensional drawing  heavily from other science fiction/ fantasy films. The premise that all living things emanate a common energy also known as “the force”  fills everything in the universe is perhaps a reference to the  Star Wars universe , not that there is anything wrong with imitation, but even the forests of Pandora,  a magical place  with luminescent creatures and large revered trees  evokes the image of Lothlorien the mystical home  of the elves of Middle Earth. Add to all this the notion of cloning a personal avatar and a neural link, then  Alien Resurrection and The Matrix comes  to mind. But despite all its flaws, Avatar is worth seeing if only to make one realize that Star Trek (2009) is a much better film.

Although The Nutritional Aspects Of Expanding Populations sounds like a worthy subject for serious study in Biochemistry and Nutrition especially when considering the impact of the large spike in population growth during the post war period and its sociological implications on the  baby boom generation, it became the basis for a landmark 1955 cinematic classic  about the development of a growth serum and how it could be used to solve the problem of overpopulation and world hunger, a neglected subject in the mid fifties.

The elixir depicted in this film adaptation is so potent its promise is in providing the complete nutritional needs of any growing organism, a claim overshadowed only by the myopic scientific experimentation focused solely on animal rather than plant life which could have made it more palatable for vegetarians and provide a sound basis for reducing cardio-vascular disease when coupled by increased exercise and the cessation of smoking.

The film is titled Tarantula and was directed by Jack Arnold and stars John Agar,  Leo J. Carroll and Mara Corday with an uncredited appearance of twenty-five year old Clint Eastwood as a jet pilot dropping napalm at the films’ climax. Arnold went on to direct The Incredible Shrinking Man two years later in 1957 considered by many as his masterpiece and  Eastwood became a multiple Oscar winning director.

In this scenario,  Professor Gerald Deemer  is a scientist with a just motive, a hero trying to avert food shortages which are predicted as a result of the world’s expanding population of two billion in 1955, a role passionately played by veteran character actor Leo J Carroll. This is the premise that sets it apart from most giant bug movies featuring  mutations caused by either nuclear weapons or a demented scientist. In this case its a result of noble intentions gone wrong with a sound display of scientific methodology and  multi layered sub plots such as a budding love story and a rare medical condition known as acromegaly artistically shot in black and white featuring an arid desert with whistling tumbleweeds. It is here Professor Deemer invents a special nutrient on which animals can exclusively thrive causing them to enlarge many times their normal size to serve as a source of food.

Harvested in the professors’ home laboratory are several over-sized rodents and a tarantula that escapes somewhere  in the California, Nevada area, hungry and lurking for prey, growing and yet undetected despite  leaving pools of arachnid venom and skeletal remains whenever it fed.  Why spiders and rodents were used to experiment on instead of cattle or sheep is left unexplained, but  perhaps it  suggests that Deemer thought there may be a time when a high protein diet would be defined by how many legs are on the plate.

Unthinkable imagery created by very sophisticated  visual effects and score, the film has a sharp   witty script written by Robert Fresco and  Martin Berkele based on a story by Ray Bradbury, yet its science fiction basis never diminishes the credibility that advancing bio technology may one day lead to the discovery of such a nutrient with unanticipated consequences.

When a very bored hotel concierge  asks Corday, a 1954 Playboy centerfold who  arrives in town as a biology student working on her Masters dissertation, The Nutritional Aspects Of Expanding Populations and Agar who plays the town doctor, “Well ain’t you going to introduce yourselves?” as they leave the hotel for a ride in his car.

“No” they respond in unison, as the hotel manager scratches his head and  mutters,   “Yep, it can be an awfully fast world.”

Promoting a product or a range of services is known as advertising - part art form, part science - using psychologically inspired messages, both overt and subliminal, meant to effect a target audience revealing a need for “something,” suggesting the article or service offered can satisfy the inner craving better than anything else.

One could argue that how something is advertised can create a mass obsession (illusion), with television and other forms of communication especially when focused by someone (ad manager or director) who is astute, charismatic and able to influence collective thought and public opinion. The consumer, a recipient of these effects, interprets input differently, believing some and seeing through others by evoking past experiences that reveal preconceived notions and cultural influences.

Known in Hindu as Maya, illusion in a general sense is held as neither true nor false, but is as real as the reflection one sees in the mirror, although initially considered by most as a falsehood.  Some people may be able to see through illusion as Hindu philosophy believes, by shedding ego and  evolving, presumably to yet another illusion that lies hidden, suggesting that existence is layered like an onion, with tiers when peeled.

Illusions  rarely present sequentially,  often appearing simultaneously, which is part of the reason why it’s difficult to identify let alone distinguish them, although they have been the basis of parables, myths and legends often unnoticed, sometimes invisibly obvious. It is possible that dream imagery reveals them in symbolic form. The number seven is a good example to illustrate: “An individual faced with the appearance of seven perplexing forms (choices, tests) emerging from something as mundane as a series of seven chalices in a cloud or mist. The person’s back is toward us gazing at the dazzling array of ‘prizes’ appearing from these cups as aspirations, fears and rewards, with positive and negative obstacles. Jewels, a snake, a laurel-wreath, a dragon, castle, head, and a shrouded person.”

There is nothing mystical about these symbols, some of which are arch-type in nature. A veiled shrouded figure commonly represents  that which one cannot see, while a person’s head perhaps signifies a relationship or ill tidings during the French Revolution. Jewels can be wealth but also clarity of vision. The wreath of power denotes influence and control over others which can be benevolent or malevolent. All of them  suggest duality of positive and negative with clues suggesting the attainment of balance. The problem with symbols is that they can be archaic,  and it’s possible to read more into them than they convey. However, the one thing they all seem to have in common is they all contain the potential for attachment, which is in and of itself an illusion.

for more reading: The Sacred Symbols of the Ancients.

At present, the merits of health care insurance reform are increasingly at the forefront of public tension. However, the problem with this debate is that there has never been a system to reform in the first place. The current structure of private insurance evolved from a vacuum created by the lack of ideas to share the developments of advancing medical technology which demonstrated the ability to increase life span and extend the opportunity to live a longer and healthier life.

The only group that has total accessibility to the best medical care is the wealthy since they have so much money they can pay for the high cost without effecting their economic lifestyle. For most, insurance is the only way to pay for medical costs and avoid debt, until the price for coverage itself becomes so expensive that its weight threatens a financial disaster even in countries that have universal access run by the government, since the cost of medical care is rising everywhere, just at a slower rate then in the United States.

Until the personal need for health care becomes acute, thinking about it is as appealing as writing a will or purchasing life insurance by focusing attention on a subject influenced by anxiety. Most people know they are mortal, but that doesn’t mean they want to be reminded of it. That’s why sickness and end-of-life issues are difficult and often subject to the influence of superstition, overwhelmed by considering the theories of the unknown revealed in religion and myth.

When illness brings the issue to the forefront, it is then revealed whether one’s existing insurance is sufficient to cover whatever medical situation may arise. In most instances, it’s not enough. If a public outcry is unleashed, private interests concerned with maintaining the status quo, a lucrative industry, debate that a single payer system run by the government can only lead to declining quality because it creates no incentive to encourage competition which they claim would lower the cost of medical care. This has always been the argument against a single payer system, although decades of the private sector approach have failed to result in controlling the cost of medical care. This is why reform is needed.

HMO’s are businesses and are accountable to their stockholders, existing as private co-operatives that maximize profits by excluding those with pre-existing conditions unless they can get coverage as a benefit of working for a large company that can negotiate a package for employees. If jobs are lost, so is medical coverage. For that reason, equating health insurance with employment needs to be reconsidered. Some people argue that this is a threat to free enterprise; others see it as a moral dilemma with cultural consequences.

Private insurers claim that they comply with all the regulations that exist although requirements placed on them vary widely from state to state, creating too many different markets to keep track of, a real problem when trying to develop uniform standards. Relying on them to monitor themselves is similar to what happened on Wall Street. These companies specialize in creating complicated forms and booklets with paragraphs that are difficult to comprehend without a knowledge of medical terminology or a familiarity with contracts.

Individual policies are so expensive for those who are already sick to intentionally discourage them from seeking insurance. They are forced to get treatment at the emergency room which drives up the price for medical care because Medicaid, a state run system, pays the cost by increasing taxes for everyone. Medicare, also a government program, is a problem as physicians, unhappy with the cost limitations imposed by the government, are increasingly refusing to take on Medicare patients just as the baby-boom generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, approach the age of 65, adding more stress to a system already close to collapse.

This is where we are now as President Obama tries to convince the public that in order to prevent another financial meltdown health care insurance must be reformed especially since medical technology is so interconnected with other aspects of the economy. However, whenever there is an increase in government intervention or regulation, the cry of Socialism fills the air.

Any agenda for reform has to include concrete plans focusing on prevention and an increase in primary care physicians who are trained as adept diagnosticians who know when it’s appropriate to refer to a specialist. Family care practitioners can deal with eighty percent of medical problems. Perhaps government financing medical students in exchange for practicing in primary care settings for several years after they graduate can be one part of the solution. But this would be a government program that costs money up front, and yet it is difficult to be precise about costs and savings when you’re talking about preventing something that hasn’t occurred yet .

The focus, in reported news stories, on the sensationalism of the disruptive elements occurring at the town hall meetings that took place in early August, littered with irate constituents demanding to know the exact cost rather than on the improvised clinic of Inglewood California just outside of Los Angeles, as thousands of people stood in line for days waiting for medical and dental care. According to the New York Times editorial of August 16th, “there is a vast palpable need for a change in the health care system, one that politicians opposed to reform insist is the world’s best.” This debate is less about health care reform than about reforming medical insurance.