Solioonensius Rising
Many have already linked to this BBC article, relating the Sun's latest display of bizarre behavior:
'A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.Indeed it is pretty interesting, and it can lend itself to many musings and reflections. If you're a libertarian, for instance, you might rejoice, sure that this somehow finally proves how fossil fuel gases have absolutely nothing to do with global warming. If you're an environmentalist, you may think that both sunspots and fossil fuels are factors, and this must mean that we're all doomed. Me? I'm just reminded of Gurdjieff's concept of solioonensius.
Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past.
They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer.'
If you don't know or remember what that is, you can brush up on it with this DuVersity article:
'...the time of planetary tension which energizes the earth so people strive for freedom - then turn that striving for freedom into war or the equivalent of war, into destruction. It is, according to Gurdjieff's own theory, a time when certain new directions can be implanted into general culture.'Some related reflections can be found here and here. To explore the war-related implications, check out Alex Burns' excellent 2002 essay on "Gurdjieff and Peace Studies: the Dark Side in History".
Once you're done, (or before you start, or if it's all you're going to read), re-read carefully this J.G. Bennett quote from one of the articles linked above:
'The point is that there are two completely different ways in which people can react to a state of Solioonensius. It always arouses dissatisfaction, but this may be external or internal. External dissatisfaction leads to external conflict; internal dissatisfaction strengthens the desire to struggle with oneself. Those who understand the necessity for working on themselves and achieving the second destiny find in that state of tension the greatest possibility of incentive and force to make them work harder. But those who do not have this feeling, this realization, project outwards their dissatisfaction and become hostile and angry with other people—suspicious, jealous and the rest of it- and then, defenseless against these mass psychoses, begin to hate. And the very people who, only a few years before, could not conceive of themselves consenting to the idea of war become involved in the destruction of other people. And those other people, passing through the same mass psychosis with the same justification, wish in turn to destroy their existence.'Would that explain a few things? Enjoy the reading...