You Matter

 

"Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next."

– Jonas Salk

 

I need to be nicer to all those tiny atoms serving us, especially those inside my body. That extends outside of me, too, to the animals and plants. Golly, rocks are made of atoms. Water is made of atoms. I guess we are all connected. 

                                                          

Have you heard of the "Split-beam scientific experiment? I had heard of it. Most of us have. Still, I didn't understand it. However, I was intrigued when I read Gregg Braden's account of it in his book, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief.

 

Why scientists thought of shooting a proton (a light particle) through a hole is beyond me, but it turned out to open the door to quantum physics.

 

I always wondered about people who thought metaphysical people were cuckoo and was tempted to ask, "Have you ever read anything about quantum physics? It's crazier than anything we can conjure. 

 

Were those scientists playing around in the lab one day, or were they seriously investigating light particles? I don't know. I hope they were playing, for much is accomplished with a glad heart.

 

The first split-beam experiment occurred in England in 1909 and is still being discussed today. Physicist Geoffrey Ingram Taylor found a way to shoot "the stuff of atoms," that is, quantum particles of light called photons from a projector to a target some feet away. He placed a barrier between the projector and the target. He must have figured something was afoot, for the barrier had two slits.

 

The thought at the time was that a photon is a particle. That proton was pulled out of the atom as a particle. Therefore, one would think it would go through a hole through which it was aimed, like a bullet, and hit the target on the other side.

 

However, the photons did something unexpected.

 

They passed through both holes.

 

Just as water can travel through a window screen as it thaws from ice to a liquid, Taylor's photons did something similar.

 

 

The photons, they surmised, instead of being a particle, became a wave, and that wave could pass through multiple openings.

 

This was mind-boggling. Because until that time, there was nothing in conventional physics that could change the nature of its existence.

 

Thus, a new kind of physics entered the picture—quantum physics. (A quantum is a packet of discrete energy.) 

 

Taylor and his associates asked these questions:

 

1. How did the particles know' there was more than one opening?

2. What caused the particles to change into waves to accommodate the two openings?

 

 

Then they went on to ask a third question.

 

"Who knew there was more than one opening in that barrier?"

 

Their answer? 

 

The people in the room.

 

Was it possible that the people's consciousness in the room influenced the particles?

 

This opened the door to something almost unthinkable at the time. It suggests something that the most ancient and cherished spiritual traditions have stated since the beginning of our existence: That thoughts and beliefs affect matter.

 

Yeah, I know, it's weird.

 

This experiment has been repeated many times with fancier and more sensitive equipment. In 1998 Israel's Weizmann Institute confirmed and published "Quantum Theory Demonstrated: Observation Affects Reality." 

 

They stated that photons are influenced by being "watched," The more intense the watching, the greater the watcher's influence on how the particles behave. 

 

When I first heard that experiments with atoms are influenced by being watched, I thought that we caught those tiny atoms sitting on the toilet, and they were embarrassed. So, they jumped up and did something else. 

 

I'm not up on the latest discoveries on what is happening with quantum physics, but I know that the old image of the atom as a nucleus with electrons buzzing around it like a solar system now has another view. Now there is a thought that the electrons that buzz around the nucleus are more like a fog. They are probabilities. 

 

Old though--that the electron, or electrons, are buzzing so fast that if you tried to touch one with a needle, you would always hit it. New thought—they are a realm of probabilities. There is a possibility of a particle being everywhere and anywhere.

 

Yeah, that boggles my mind too. 

 

We could take that further, but I don't want to go too deep into physics. Besides, I'm not a physicist. I'm a scout. I go around finding things and bring them home. I could be a hunter-gatherer, but I don't hunt animals. I hunt for ideas. And I like being a scout for I can ride my horse while searching for the best road to travel.

 

This view of the world as possibilities opens a whole new way of thinking. Some say this field of possibilities is consciousness, and everything happens in the field. That would explain why poking an atom in Los Angeles is instantly felt by its sister atom in New York.

 

Don't blame me. I'm only the scout.

 

 

A Letter

 

Dear Friends,

 

I ran into an old friend at the grocery store who told me this story:

First, let me say that we live in a small town about 12 miles from Eugene, and the minute you drive into town, you see an enormous billboard almost wholly covered with a picture of a llama. You also see that the largest RV dealership in the state has spread its wares on both sides of the highway for a couple of blocks.

That billboard tickled me. It was the RV company advertising themselves with a picture of a llama.  At the bottom of the ad, it said: "We accept anything as a down payment."

Then I met Penny.

Penny's husband thought getting alpacas—they weren't really llamas—was a good idea. I don't know, maybe he wanted to sell the wool or something, perhaps those big brown eyes got to him. And alpacas are cute. (Did you know alpacas sing to their babies?) Penny, however, definitely a city girl, not a farm girl, was less than impressed with the accumulation of alpacas in their back yard.  To add insult to injury, her husband hurt his back, and she had to care for the alpacas.

Time went on until they were in the market for an RV. And so they went to the local RV outlet to shop—you know the one in our home town that's spread out on both sides of the freeway.

When penny saw their ad, "We take anything as a down payment," Penny, smart cookie that she is, said, "Boy, do I have a down payment for you," and convinced them to take an alpaca as a down payment. A good advertisement for them, a good deal for her. When they found an outlet for the alpacas, they agreed to accept the others as well. Alpacas gone. Happy Penny.

I never heard how the husband felt about losing his Alpacas.

 

Now I'm into this week. What are you up to?

I'm avoiding my Real Estate studies (175 revised Real Estate Laws wore me out) and have been working on my book. Yep, I'm writing one. It has been an escape for me—isn't that what novels are about? I had been reading Inglath Cooper, and she inspired  me to write my own.

I found her on Kindle. She's an animal advocate, likes to delve into personal relationships, and said, "Who, after all, doesn't like a good love story? And, she nearly always puts a dog in her stories. She seemed like my kind of girl.

I can write a love story, I said, and I will have a dog in it.

And since I felt cooped up at home, I decided to move my protagonist to Florence, Italy. If I couldn't travel, I could at least fantasize about it. Well, I know little about Italy, except you need to fight the nuns at the airport to get a luggage cart. I don't know the language or much about the country, except I know Florence is the seat of the renaissance, and it is filled with art. A friend, my kids, then age 13 and 16, and I made a stop off the train long ago and briefly visited Florence. We visited Florence's Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo's David, followed by a lunch where the chef surprised my youngest daughter with a heart-shaped pizza. That was it. I didn't know anything else, but I had fun learning and dreaming up a romance for my heroine.

So, that's what I've been doing. I am riveted to my computer. You could hardly pry me away for two days. I hope my readers will feel similarly and can't pry themselves away from my book.

Who wants to read about a 72-year-old woman falling in love?

 I don't know.

 I do.

Now, tell me about your week.

 Love,

Jo