Well my honey came home early last night and we cleaned and refurbished my new computer (his old one!) very nice, very fast and OH - DID I TELL YOU I HAVE A 500 GB HD, NOW ????

Sorry , I know screaming isn't polite but I couldn't help myself for a moment.

Today I am going to rebuild my system and download all the programs we all use as well as the games and what ever my system needs to work properly - I think, but I am not sure, that I have all the drivers - well, except the ones for the scanner and printer ! I am considering trying Thunderbird because I am already using Mozilla Firefox. Here is the Mozilla website.

This weekend I am going to try to salvage anything I can from my old hard drive. I had been neglecting back-up procedures for a long time and have paid the usual price for not listening to my unconscious - Of course, the big problem is the defunct Windows XP Operating system on the old hard drive - how exactly will this computer react when its slave hard drive has XP, too - I suggested gutting that program immediately upon turning the computer back on - just going for the throat and deleting all the files - remember, it won't be only my registry list - only my C drive copy is there. My honey is not sure that is going to work.

One of the great problems is, that, as computers get more and more complex more and more can go wrong. We will never know for sure what went wrong on my old Beastie - Leon thinks it was on the motherboard, but exactly why it would suddenly fail, die, crash we do not know - we have few thunder storms here in the northwest and had nothing that could be mistaken for a power surge that day.

I would love you all to really read that short article about Newton that is the subject of my comment, above. I have had mystical experiences my entire life, since very young childhood and have always accepted what I can only call the transcendent realms but I have also loved nature and the study of nature (science) since that very same period of my life - as a very little girl (1st. grade). I had a passion for astronomy and drove my poor parents crazy when I asked for a telescope, later other disciplines have attracted my attention and there are few aspects of science that I ignore, entirely. Both love of God and love of nature are natural for me and I see no conflict between a universe that has invisible, translucent realms of consciousness & subtle energies that can not be measured by existing sensors, and, also, the physical, material realms of solid matter that are easily measured, observed and studied with both our own senses and modern technologies. I see the universe as a complex set of relationships and connections - made of pure energy and consciousness in which energies of varying degrees of power and subtly flow through the ALL. Matter and consciousness are related - in fact, they are united.

"The ALL is ONE the ONE is All !"

For those of you who want to limit the universe either to the 6000 years of the Bible, Koran or even the books of Moses or solely to a godless universe of the Physical matter and natural laws ---- well, all I can say, is that you underestimating the complete strangeness and wonder of the ALL ! I stand between the two extremes of the religious who want to limit the universe and the Godless who want to limit the universe, and, I say, with all honesty, you are both very, very wrong and wrong minded. ( I actually pity you some because your imagination has failed you.)

Men like Giordano Bruno and Issac Newton knew that you did not need to leave God & your soul behind as you explored the realms of physical matter - the physical matter universe was another way to KNOW GOD (it reflected God as a mirror reflects or a painting reflects the mind of the painter ) . They did not faint before the mystery of the ONE and the ALL ... this is very important and it has been lost by both the churches and modern intellectuals : the physical universe, made by God in his mind and heart at the beginning of time, shouted out in the explosion of the big bang as a word spoken, reflects to us a view of the face of God - The TAO - the ALL is the both matter and spirit - balanced forever and reveals in all its patterns, forms, radiations, energies, laws, history and shapes - the ONE who gave it life - the entire universe is made up of God's energy, his love, power, life - He is both the ONE and He is ALL there is = yet, he also transcends his universe & all universes and is both timeless and transcendent. At His level of consciousness you stand beyond time and all other limits - there is no time, for Him, or those who are lucky enough to experience His presence.
Think about that a moment. God isn't a guy on a white cloud with a long beard - He is both force and person (intellect, awareness, personality, even things like sense of humor!) but so far beyond anything that those words mean to us humans that we can not, even when we strive to do so, understand exactly how his consciousness works - He isn't a Jove or a Odin or a super human. He is aware - a person, so to speak - but he is also a force, an energy - life force itself - and time, space, death have no real meaning for him/her - they are illusions created by matter and matter's limits.

God (who is pure consciousness, awareness, love..) is the great artist - the hands (again, not literal hands! ) behind all the natural laws, the elements, patterns and energies of the universe. He is the life force/TAO, balance, love that makes the universe possible. In seeing His creation (and a note: God is beyond gender - He is actually He/She - having within his consciousness aspects that we describe as female/ feminine and aspects that we describe as male/masculine. ) we see a little of his hand - and understand a little better his/her real nature - and what I feel for God is both Love and Awe and yes, constant surprise.
Lastly, I would add that God - the real God - is difficult, perhaps impossible for our minds to grasp - our words and imaginations fail to grasp the incredible reality that Is God/ universe/the All/ TAO and it is natural to want a simple, comprehensible, graspable universe - either the universe of the religious or the universe of the atheists & materialists but I will not settle for either; infinity and eternity are not too big for me. I accept the complexity of it all and admire and love it for its great beauty.