Is Spirituality Spiritual?

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[Jana]

THE ANNUAL COSMIC CYCLE
Kundalini and the full spectrum of human existence and experience follows the same pattern as the growth of plants through the seasons. A general outline is as follows: The energy follows the annual growing cycle of Seed—JFM, Leaves—MAM, Flower—JJA, Fruit—ASO, Soil—ND.  (Southern Hemisphere people are obviously switched with their flower period being in Jan-Feb.)

Seed—JFM—head-heart, ethereal, abstract
Leaves—MAM—heart-solar plexus, powering up, urgency, portent
Flower—JJA—belly-pelvis, highest heat and Heart, full body physical lumination
Fruit—ASO—head pressure-heart-lungs, revelatory chemistry
Soil—ND—energy to pelvis, dieoffs, descent to subconscious, opening up of right hemisphere consciousness-perhaps due to increased melatonin in winter

This is a broad overview of the cosmic growth cycle which cannot reflect the infinite variables and complexity of human existence. The 22 year sunspot cycle probably follows a similar growth cycle from seed-leaves-flower-fruit-soil. This is the flow of the Tao of life, it is a hyberbolic curve that spirals through time. The astronomical influences on cell development are instigated by the solar/lunar influences on the EMF of the earth...the sunspot cycle has a greater influence than anything I think.

Yin goes inward to interior life or introversion. Yang goes outward to exterior life or extraversion. Revelation periods are usually down in the Yin valley of the smaller tides of the equinoxes, while more physical and sexual heating occurs at the Yang solstices with the larger tidal effects. Full moons are usually more palpable than new moons, but occasionally a new moon will exert just as powerful a force as the full, but in a Yin kind of way to break open the heart. The solstices, occurring at the “ends” of the elliptic, produce larger tidal effects, which represent greater accumulation and release of fluids and other matter—as is evidence by the larger menses of women in the middle and ending months of the year. How this increased accumulation and release happens in men would also be an interesting study. One can be assured that it is tied into the anabolic, catabolic growth cycles.


We are heading up to solar max in 2011 so we are likely to be now in the heating phase for solar max which means we should have some K. activity to document.

[jimtzu]

. Everything is a tool for synergy.
d.

that brings to mind some of the more modern tools...  brainwave entrainment, eeg machines etc..  while not having the same problem where the idividual identifies with a system or classification, there can be an over reliance on the external forms that we mirror ourselves with.  as with the mythological ways of exploration, the scientific methods can be just as much a crutch or delusion when the brain and mind get conflated.  wilbers demonstration of controlling and stopping his brainwaves
(and the purpose is?) is a distraction like the Holosync quest for the holy grail of delta (at the high cost of dollars and annoyance of high pressure marketing).  it's easy to forget to leave the boat at the shore after crossing the lake....

[henry]

"virato live" broadcasts william bloom of findhorn, "challenging the new age,and counterfeit spirituality", saturday at 12:06pm est.  .. anonymous

[Jana]

Personally I think riding in a boat is cheating...we should all have to swim in shark infested waters...it is more like real life that way.


Hmm, Jason Bourne is definitely more awake than Mitch Rapp…
Poor Mitch still believes in the starship of state. Jason you could say had a “rude” awakening. I must say, I do hope the series continues…this latest one was riveting and addictive. The Bourne series presents a timely heroic model for survival within this apocalypse (lifting the veil) that we are now engaged in. Very well done indeed.

The acai berry can be purchased in the frozen berry section at Wild Oats or Wholefoods. It tastes a little like fatty unsweetened chocolate, and presents the ultimate final note to a superfood smoothie…however you do have to make sure the other fruit you use, such as banana and orange, have a high sugar content.

Supra-sex Meditation
Perhaps the fastest method of accelerating metamorphic alchemy, involves a sensoral-imagining using the inner kinesthetic felt-sense of the body to imagine one is having sex with a cosmic lover. This only really works when kundalini heat is already highly activated. I don’t think there is any way faster of refining, defining, integrating and transforming the bodymind over from its more gross form to its illuminated form. The key point however is that Supra-sex Meditation doesn’t involve any touch, any normal sexual stimulation or any orgasm…it doesn’t even necessarily involve visual fantasy. Go easy though, especially in the beginning you need days, weeks or possibly months of integration time after each session, depending on how conducive your social environment is to you “showing up.” I have done this a couple of times spontaneously and both times I woke up in the morning, and my body looked alien to me, like it was somehow more “formed” integrated and alive than I had previously known it to be.

[henry]

 

[marianthi]

Well, Jana

As far as I´m concerned, the Cosmic Lover is ´What Is´ at its rawest, most undisguised  state.

St. Theresa seems to have known him occcasionally too.

[Jana]

Ah the sublime benefits of spinsterhood

[Jana]

HEGEMONY VS. ISOCRACY
Hegemony (pronounced [ˈhɘ.dʒɘ.mɘ.ni]) (Greek: ἡγεμονία hēgemonía) is a concept that has been used to describe the existence of dominance of one social group over another, such that the ruling group -- referred to as a hegemon -- acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as opposed to dominance purely by force

Will meditation and spirituality save us from hegemony, or will it merely make us quiet as as go to the slaughter?

I don't mean any "organized" hegemony, for it certainly isn't that. It is more of the play out and blow back from thousands of years of ongoing stupidity. You could call it a hegemony of stupidity or a stupid hegemony. As opposed an Isocracy: a government in which all individuals have equal political power. An Isocracy is what Roman and American ideals were built on...true values of the Republic.

The hegemony I talk about is the brute force of the military-industrial machine, built on male-explosion-entropic-unsustainable and destructive modes of thought, behavior and control. Throw the church in the mix as the Dorian Gray painting that tries to cover up the fundamental breach of morality and common decency that is going down.

The problem with power-hunger is that it makes one deny ones inner sense of moral-intuition...thus those in power cannot be meditative or they would not be in power. Thus brute force and stupidity will rule over the human species until we become a new species. Not sure if meditation does anything other than make one more sensitive to the inner-outer bullshit. Power and spirituality are anti-thetical.

“For capitalist society to be overthrown, workers must first establish their own ideological supremacy derived from their revolutionary consciousness.”
http://www.caledonia.org.uk/hegemony.htm

We are not saying that capitalism or profit is at fault but that the “type” of capitalism—that which is for short term monetary gain without regard for environment or true human development. Though there appears to be a winner in this kind of capitalism, ultimately it is lose/lose all round, because it ultimately forces the awakening of humanity thru negative means such as war, crime, obesity, disease, destruction of our home planet and wasted lives.

Once the population stops responding to the fear promoting tactics of the wolves that run them, then the economy and sociopsychology of human dynamics will very rapidly change over to a win/win economy. Thus both the source of capital and the political powers needed to protect positive growth, needs to be laundered in the power of the liberated human spirit…through a revolutionary consciousness. From the mud of the “old ways” the lotus of the “new ways” is born.

Ok, now I am starting to see how meditation might create a nondual and fearless background in which to engage in transformational dharma.

It is hard to say how repressed by hegemony I am, I think if I was self supporting without having to rely on a job, I would feel a greater sense of freedom in general. Also men, need to learn new ways, and the women have to wake up and help them to grow...this I take as my task.

Society is less in trouble than it used to be for the shield has been penetrated and the veil is coming down, what is underneath is not a pretty sight, but at least we are getting a look at what lies beneath the lies. Our job is to inspire the young ones into a sense of liberation and future vision and possibilities beyond what are presently observable...you remember that feeling of endless potential you used to have in your twenties. The young ones have grown up in a collective defeatist doom...they know in their hearts it "should" be different...so we have to reassure them, that yes, the veil is lifting and we can see a lot of compost available to grow new life.

[Jana]

Joseph Chilton Pearce said on practicing peace in times of war...you withdraw your energy completely from the Ship of State...he recommends us to not spend one ounce of our energy either condemning or trying to save the Ship of State. Instead of trying to change "Culture," focus on putting your energy into the Lifeforce itself...that is tend to the barren fig tree like Jesus suggested. In this way "higher" socialization of the human animal is bought about.

Osho in his book Freedom, said to focus on ones own spiritual freedom, because political systems come and go and there is not much one can do about them. Therefore like Joseph Chilton Pearce, Osho recommends to withdraw ones energy from the ship of state and put it into ones own enlightenment and spiritual vocation.

I wasn't saying that individual enlightenment magically effects the political situation of the times, nor the economic, nor the social development, nor even the psychology. I am saying that politics and the contemporary level of operation of the society we are embedded in is largely beyond our control...therefore rather than seeking to control it, to bagger it, to complain, to resist, to put it down etc...we should instead be focused on our own freedom, and our own contribution to the enlightenment process. People such as Noam Chomsky for example probably have a spiritual vocation that directly puts them in the counterforce to the flow-of-ignorance of the times. Others, like me hide away and write books that do not directly but indirectly seek to change things thru shear power of the truth I might be able to pull together.

I do know that the power of prayer and meditation can change the noosphere, but happenstance itself is largely set up by structures and mechanisms that unconsciously play themselves through to bring about the disaster that might serve to increase consciousness. Thus we grow by accident, mayhem and default until humanity becomes more generally enlightened within all structures and points of interaction. A very slow, but also a very fast process.

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered a high tech way to quell panic in rats. They found that when they stimulated neurons near the middle of the prefrontal cortex (infralimbic area), this sends a fear extinguishing signal to the amygdala (fear memory) which reduces "freezing" in rats. It appears that the infralimbic area in the prefrontal lobe is the "safety memory" zone. Through connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, the increased activity of infralimbic neurons in the prefrontal cortex strengthens memory of safety by inhibiting the amygdala's memory of fear. The researchers speculate that stimulating parts of the prefrontal cortex in anxiety disorder patients, using an experimental technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation, might help them control fear. Meditation probably does something similar, slowly rewiring the nervous system away from the habit of fear and stress.

I personally do not feel suppressed by hegemony, other than general ignorance which is more boring than anything. The tyrannical powers at large in the world today are more petty tyrants than anything, born largely of stupidity more than outright evil. They are naughty little boys that wanted to see what they could get away with. Of course it is the drugs that did it, for no one in their right mind would have done such a thing.

BookTV: 911 Stranger Than Fiction Part 3 (September 11 Israel Mossad)
Video: World Trade Center, Pentagon, Building 7, WTC, 911. September 11th, World Trade Center, George Bush, Pentagon,...
booktv.magnify.net/item/VSG7TVM7YDZ58RXF

Spirituality won't save us from hegemony, but it will stop us being distracted by the circus. By giving us a well-adjusted perspective to things beyond our control perhaps.

I would like to open up the discussion on humans relationship to power in general, I will put power into KWs 13 stages, like I did with service.
We need to see the structure of powers evolution and to lay out some disclosure and tenets. Each meme has a different relationship to power...we must also consider gender, extravert/introvert, age and various flavorings.


"If spirituality were even remotely the solution to (much less salvation from) oppressive power structures, there'd be less evidence of those same oppressive power structures in the social reality that actually constellates around nearly every spiritual leader."

Yea, this kinda of thing made me outright dismiss modern spirituality in groups ... I saw the codependency, exclusion, circle the wagons, narcissistic specialness, focus on the one teacher-Guru etc... to simply make the whole thing an ugly addictive dysfunctional mess, only essentially feeding security and power and belonging needs of the ego. The whole focus on outer-titty I began to see as not only silly, but a gross distraction from the true genius realization of the individual.

Using the old mythic models from the East (Buddhism/Vedanta) which only really  work in a tribal setting, is simply a regression here in the West...
The individual needs his day in order for a higher collective to arise to a higher structural form. Thus all groups should service Individual Genius (Spirit) of all members...rather than the adoration and acquiescence to a single power symbol.

Colonialism, Empiricism, Fascism, Church, Guru, and Patriarchy are not to blame...these systems play out because they can!  It is subjection of the human spirit that is the cause. Power-over malignancies are only a symptom of this ongoing negative relationship we humans have with the "power" principle.

Because these systems are second nature to us now, and play on by default without question...we need bring the nature of power to conscious light, define what are the higher modes of operation, and question the very nature of institutions such as the Presidency, or Papal seat or Regency. Perhaps the day of a central figure in politics and religion is simply passé. And we are  simply unconsciously carrying on old parental forms of governship, worship and warship which do no longer work in a global community.


If spirituality will not save us from malignant power structures and forces of unconscious power hunger...then we need to come up with a better spirituality...after all what is spirituality for if not to "form" the nature of our existence and experience.

Our spirituality should foremost help us to realize a right relation to power. So we can readily see that Bush's God is plainly on coke.

We know that "shows" of brute power and the victimization of others, is really a show of weakness and lack of spiritual realization—but does this knowledge serve to change things over to a better mode of operation.
No, power continues to automatically have the run of the field, because we have not collectively inspected the true nature of its mechanism. How can you hope to run a country or enact international relations if you have not brought the nature of power and will to conscious and collective light.

 The fundamental goal in life is "To Grow closer to God"... the organizing principle...and then to bring that realization of the organizing principle back down to earth to make human life sustainable and holy for us all. There is a difference between railing against the storm, and defining and organizing it to reflect "higher" socalled spiritual principles that reduce suffering for all sentient creatures, and allow the true spiritual genius of all individuals to flourish.


Part of the problem with the politico-spiritual situation in the USA today is that we have not collectively declared that the Emperor has no clothes. Logically, ethically and in every way, there should have been no license or potential for the Bush crowd to do what they did, and for all that backsliding legislation to have occurred. That it did, shows that there is something terribly wrong with the structures, principles and enforcement of government...something terribly wrong indeed.

We all need to see that the Emperor is indeed naked! And to set about changing government back to a lawful, universal principled mode. Because the people are victims of the politico-spiritual environment of the times, we should demand that governship which “furthers” our highest well-being. Not run us down a gauntlet of chaos into a surefire hellrealm!

[jimtzu]

that was quite an expansive post with some good insights.  finding a blance within oneself helps the individual deal with the "outer" world, and if enough people are centered it will have an effect on the collective consciousness of society.

there are some  interesting advances in brainwave entrainment and now, magnetic tuning of the brain. for BWE i would check out the neuro-programmer from Transparent http://www.transparentcorp.com/products/np/overview.php which allows you to program your own sessions, you can even make your own "holosync" type sessions but are not  limited to their protocol or subjected to the imfamous marketing.
the magnetic stimulation research is very interesting too, mostly concentrating on depression at this point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation but it would be good to see some focus on the "fear factor".

as a side note i watched the movie Peaceful Warrior last night. while not great, it does a decent job of presenting the inner journey that must be taken to "find" ourselves and our place in the world.

[Jana]

I am pretty much in bliss, ecstasy and on my dharmic path as a constant 24 hour thing, and have been that way intensively for 7 years. Brainwave tech might be useful for some, I use it very occasionally, but I simply follow my genius for arriving at always new and awesome inner technologies through gnostic means...that is my "job."
 
I don’t normally talk of such things as hegemony, because it is down there in the toilet with the rest of the crap. But, I ask, how are you going to meditate and hold onto your precious spirituality when they start raying the earth with mind control waves from their satellites. We can pray that this doesn’t occur within our lifetime, but they have the tech in place now, so what does this mean for human evolution if we cannot even contact our God thru our inner connection anymore—that essentially turns us into robots and fodder for the machine. Know that those in any power system on earth do NOT have your best interests at heart. We need to upgrade our relationship to power to an entirely new mode of operation.

I personally don’t give a shit what happens to America, I don’t have much love for it at present because it is acting like such an A-hole. America can look after its own asse. But if it continues to misbehave and act so stupidly, the whole world will have to arm themselves against it. The US at this point is defining world future history, and judging from leadership in this country, I don’t think this is healthy (gross understatement).

Everyone has to balance their own spiritual books, but when a democratically elected leader is at the helm of the ship of state, I think it only right to question his bookkeeping abilities and his sanity…if we do not want the ship to crash and run aground on the rocks of stupidity.

Malignant power mongering is contagious, just as sane just leadership is catchy. America “should” be a beacon of hope and direction for the world…instead it is simply a bully and a thief.

I am not in anyway angry, nor even fearful, nor bearing a revolutionary fire.  But I am going to make the expose and development of new modes of power and leadership one of my lifelong goals…simply because I see dominance and submission to be a game in which neither wins and both lose, and I see it as the fundamental source of all disease in the human species….physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and cultural.

How would power/leadership operate in a futuristic Shambhala that did not contain the seeds of subjection and repression that reside in all human systems of the past and present?

[Jana]

Not that I am adverse to a little bit of S&M, but it should be kept out of the White House. It gives America a bad name, and makes the States seem rather sordid, nor to mention stupid…and America has some of the best minds on the planet, so we need to get “those minds” to work at the helm of state. Then everyone can become confident that we are navigating to a place we actually want to arrive at, the economy will boom, and international relations can be repaired. However, if this fascist track continues, America will become increasingly bankrupt in every way, and it will be left behind on the global chessboard because its has not evolved to a healthy, syntropic use of will. Those evolutionary minds who could help move America along into the 21st Century will simply leave and go live in other countries that are more responsive to the call of truth and evolution.

The power-over principle represents a more infantile stage of the development of will. With conscious evolution older more primitive forms of will are subsumed and superannuated in direct correlation to the growth of Heart-intelligence. But such development requires the transcendence of tribal and traditional forms of culture and transcendence of culture in general. The reason being that the patterns of authoritarianism, patriarchy, dominance/submission, ruler/slave are built up and conserved over extensive periods of human history by a power-elite. These patterns of will enforcement gain power and momentum as they steamroller their power—such morphic patterns of rule by divine right, are then unquestioned and continue unchallenged as through they were just the way things are, sanctioned by God or divinely appointed posts of dominance and usury.

I am not saying that all leadership is bad, but that leadership needs to evolved into forms that are progressive for the times, not regressive. Progressive leadership furthers human progress rather than hinders it. That is, we need our elected leaders to promote the expansion of Heart-intelligence and provide the socio-economic environs where human spiritual evolution is fostered. Thus leaders need to be of the highest Heart-intelligence and also beyond the lower forms of power-lust and control. These leaders need to exhibit a natural and innate moral intuition for universal justice.

Power-over begins with inner violence.
I don't think transcendence is the problem, but blind ignore-ance...tribal religions do not transcend they deny and ignore in the name of increased power principally for the ruler, and secondarily imbibed by association through the followers.


 GROWTH CYCLE OF THE WILL TO POWER (1st version)
I have correlated various organs and areas of the body with the stages of consciousness from page 633 of Integral Psychology, by Ken Wilber with the various types of giving or service and finally with the stages of the evolution of will and power. Will may cycle around from inner illumination to externalized accomplishment throughout its evolution…growing through the cyclic play of internal yin and external yang phases.

1.Gonads—Presocial autistic (Reactive, fusion)——Dependent
Extraverted will, Fear-based Rage, blind physical force without regard for consequences, desire for violence and catharsis.

2.Adrenals—Symbiotic (Naïve)——Submissive
Intraverted will, Passive-aggressive, internalized rage, need for drama and revenge.

3.Gall Bladder—Impulsive (Manipulative)——Servile
Introverted will, Billious-force, submission with internal resistance, aggression due to helplessness.

4.Spleen—Self Protective (inferiority)——Addictive codependent
Extraverted will, Guilt-force, Manipulative punishment and reward tactics.

5.Pancreas—Conformist (industry)——Conciliatory
Intraverted will, Weak-will, resolution to submit to external powers, good little child.

6.Liver—Conscientious-conformist (role confusion)——Bargaining unconsciously
Extraverted will, Righteousness-indignation, appeal to justice at the egoic level.

7.Thymus—Conscientious (identity)——Trading consciously
Intraverted will, Law-enforcement, rules to reduce chaos and increase the civilizing principle.

8.Heart—Individualistic (consistency)——Non-competitive truce
Exraverted will, Good-will, friendly attempt at equality, inner/outer violence leaving.

9.Thyroid—Autonomous (differentiated from ego)——Intellectual concourse
Intraverted will, Equalitarianism, Intelligent inquiry on the best means for Win-Win.

10.Third Eye—Integrated (authentic)——Creative synthesis
Extraverted will, Partnership of equals, 1st transcendence of the force of dominance and submission.

11.Crown—Transcendent (active genius)—Merger of souls
Intraverted will, Soul-Synergy of genius in service of mutual Art.

12.Full Integration—Unitary (Saint, Sage)——Pouring forth of Divine Grace
Extraverted will, Mutual Art in service of the enlightenment of all humanity.

13.Realization—Nondual (Noetic-Self, Avatar)—One Being, no separation
Intraverted will, Ultimate empowerment used exclusively for transanthropomorphic well being of all creatures.


Thus we see the lower conscious forms of will are weaker, less empowered, reflecting both dominator and submissive aggression in an effort to get apparent needs met. As our needs evolve and our empowerment to meet those needs does also, this is synonymous with the evolution of will itself.

[Jana]

I think Christopher Hitchens has the last word on this conversation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs

I personally don't believe in any continuation of spirit after death so I think Hitchens is right on that one. I think he makes a watertight case against the need for religion...in that we can be more spiritually enlightened without it, and definitely more moral without religion...for if religion is the excuse to use illogical mythic thinking in order to assuage the ego of its insignificance and eventual death...then such wonky thinking is not exactly moral...for morality ultimately goes back to the ability to intellectually and intuitively divine the TRUTH.

Thus in its tendency to lie for power and pretence, religion is fundamentally immoral. That is we can be more spiritual and real without it.
One way or another religion is an attempt to gain power over the insecurities of existence...submission to authority (hegemon) is also a method of doing this from the yin-passive perspective...gaining power-protection through "larger" Other.
In either case the yang attempt to gain power and the yin attempt are both not doing anything to evolve our relationship to the POWER PRINCIPLE.

We need to think of ways of increasing humans sense of inner security without the need for lies and authoritarianism. And this is essentially done through installing QUALITY in the body, mind and soul by not screwing with the essential goodness of our animal, human existence and not degrading our ecological environment.

The States is into packaging, and fudges over the quality of the item or person themselves, as long as it looks good, they think they can get away with crap.
This is observable if you go into any food store, or restaurant or clothing store or try to purchase anything in America. You really have to search high and low for quality here.
In NZ, quality is everywhere, and we do not know any better, we do not know how spoilt we are to have such quality...where you can go to the corner store, buy the cheapest packet of tea, and it is better than the most expensive packet of tea in America.

I do not know how things got so bad here commercially in the US, I assume it was a slow decline of the soils combined with a capitalist system that is bent more on profit than quality. Quality doesn't necessarily cost more, and it might indeed cost less if recycling and ephemeralization practices where ingrained into the psyche of the culture.

But unless America wakes up to the fact of the BAD QUALITY ECONOMY that exists here, and attempts a country wide effort to put QUALITY FIRST...that is to become humble, and realize improvement is in order....then I can only see the quality of life, product, produce and socialization to only go further and further down the tubes.
One would think that competition would slowly improve quality...but no...because the states is so focused on the outer packaging, people are dooped by advertising, and if they do not travel THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT A BAD DEAL THEY ARE GETTING.

[Denis]

11:11 stargates, ufo's, crop circles and now a proponent for the possibility of the imminent birth of God...What next you ask? Never "misunderestimate" me to quote a wise guy. The depths of my insanity knows no bounds.

I was thinking about the God thingy this AM and a voice said to think of the cyclical nature of God...I don't know for sure where this would have come from exactly, 2012 has been kicking around in my head lately and the Mayan concept of time as a cycle rather than a linear thing...

Came home for lunch and saw that you were talking God Jana. I was a non believer for a very long time but I have had to revise my position of late, call it a hunch, inspiration or delusion. Anyway, this whispering in my ear is like a bit of string that I've been pulling at all afternoon and I have this impression that God and consciousness is this chicken and egg thing. I think we are birthing God through consciousness and making God ever more complex as awareness increases in complexity but also, the God principle predates consciousness, is outside of consciousness.

In another sense, God is ...and isn't. Almost as if it is an active principle, consciousness gathers the bits that make up God, God in turn actualizes through our recognition and the universe dissolves into God. Sort of a big bang big crunch kinda thing.

I don't have much time to write more and make this even more muddled, cooking dinner for friends tonight but I wanted to put a bit more of my new age phantasms out there.

d.

[henry]

thanks denis and jana. the recent 11:11, crop circle,ufo and 2012 musings  made me think of joseph campbell. i'm guessing he would see these thingys as new age mythology, and the  good professor took mythology seriously. we are aimed by our metaphors? i'm reminded of the admonition to trust in God and tether your elephant (camel?).  ...henry