Getting To Know The Plants Around You: Part 2

I have enjoyed seeing the newly blossoming trees and flowers on my hikes at Griffith Park lately.   One yellow flower was present on the side of the path for nearly the whole trail.  

Turns out it's Wild Mustard, whose black seeds are used to make the condiment and the spice.

        
The condiment was first created by the Romans, who mixed the crushed seeds with young wine to form a spicy paste.  The word mustard comes from the latin words "mustum" meaning new wine, and "ardens," meaning fire, or burning.  

Quantum Mechanics

The Double Slit Experiment

This is a clip from the documentary What The Bleep Do We Know?

Fear

"Novelist Margaret Atwood asked women what was their greatest fear concerning men.  The most common reply: A man might kill them.  When she asked men to confide to her their greatest fear concerning women, the most common response: A woman might laugh at them."


-Leonard Shlain, Sex, Time, and Power

Short story

The Creative Man

There once was a man who was born with a desire to create, to love, and to live.  As a child he created, he loved, and he lived as much as he was allowed to by his parents, his teachers, and his nannies.  The adult figures in his life were very encouraging, as far as adult figures go, but it was still not enough room to contain all the inspiration that poured from his soul.  As a young adult he became accustomed to the ways of the world and to the demands and expectations of his particular society.  He wanted to create, and tried to, but found it difficult, as if everything was working against him.  He did not understand why there were so many rules and obstacles that kept him from creating as much as he would have liked.  As he grew older he became increasingly more frustrated with his circumstances.  Soon he was too busy to create— he needed to focus on surviving.  He had a family to support, and a mortgage.  It wasn’t long before he forgot what it was like to be creative at all.  The suggestion of creativity began to seem silly or whimsical, and then it became threatening.  For many years he kept his creative urges hidden, and became so accustomed to brushing them aside to make way for more important, useful thoughts that the creative insights eventually ceased almost completely.  Though he was not consciously aware of them, these insights continued to multiply, but now they had nowhere to go.  Keeping all this energy inside him took a toll on his body and mind.  He became tired, angry, and depressed.  By the time he was wrinkled and hunch-backed he felt he had somehow wasted his life, but couldn’t explain why.  He had spent most of his life either working or sleeping, but that didn’t seem too unusual.  Still, he could feel that something was missing.  He wondered if he should have spent less time working.  But then he thought, no, I had to work.  What else could I have done?

-IAM

"It's lovely to live on a raft.  We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.  Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.  Jim said the moon could 'a' laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.  We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down.  Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest."

-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal." 


-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

The Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript, aka "The World's Most Mysterious Manuscript," is named after the book dealer who acquired it in 1912, but nothing is known of it's true origin or author.  It's thought to have been written sometime in the early 15th century, and it's basically 240 pages of writing and illustrations divided into six sections: Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, Pharmaceutical, and Recipes. 

What's amazing is that it was written in an unknown language, and so far no one has been able to decipher the text, though it's been studied by many professional cryptographers and codebreakers.  The letters, which sometimes look similar to Roman and Latin glyphs and sometimes look completely different from any written language, are arranged in close formations like words, but appear in odd patterns.  Some letters appear only at the beginning, middle, or end of words, and common words are often repeated three times in a row.  It was written fluidly from left to right, and there are no obvious errors or corrections.

Another strange thing is that none of the plants can be identified.  Many of them are puzzling combinations of roots and leaves that wouldn't normally grow together.  

Based on the illustrations it's thought to be some kind of pharmacopoeia or medieval medicine guide.