"Honey, it's Post!"

Regular quote from my children, delivered in the American accent of their Californian cousins. From midnight, it's Lent (post in Polish - it rhymes with 'lost' and 'cost', rather than 'host' or 'most'). For the 28th year in a row, there no alcohol for 46 days, no meat, no salt snacks, no confectionery, no fast food. Will I be able to cut fish and dairy too this year? I'll give it a try, but if my hotel (the Mercure in Gdynia) can't offer me a breakfast with enough non-meat/dairy/fish protein to get me through to a late lunch, I shall fall at the first hurdle.

But Lent is not just about giving things up. That's but a start. The aims should be to do new things. Over the years, Lent has been starting new habits. This blog was launched during Lent; my exercising similarly (press-ups etc); kicking salt snacks and over-salting food (before even tasting it) - Lent is about the will to stop doing bad things, but also to develop good practices.

Over the years, Lent has become a time of enhanced spiritual ambitions - seeking answers to life's existential questions. How to place that spiritual search within a scientific framework that avoids being New Agey wishful thinking?

This year I will be looking at two things - quantum physics - what we know (and more importantly what we don't know) - and consciousness, in particular, memory.  Last year's Lenten search drew heavily on Stuart A. Kauffman's Humanity in a Creative Universe - a book that drew a line under the certainties of the Newtonian worldview. This year, I will take a broader look, considering Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting by Hilde Østby and Ylva Østby, In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin, and the 1975 classic, The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra. I want to delve as deep into the science as I can, and draw conclusions as to the purpose and sense of our lives, and in particular the nature of consciousness, what it means to be me, and you - and whether our consciousness can exist beyond our physical bodies.

Phew! A long way from kicking salt snacks to contemplating eternal life, but then that is what Lent is there for.

Sitting here in Gdynia, I am finishing a bottle of Fortuna Czarne Whisky Wood, a strong black Polish beer brewed with shavings from whisky barrels (7.5%). Intense, yes, the whisky's there - but for my palate it's OK but too sweet. Well, that's it - next alcohol will be downed at 00:01 on Sunday 21 April. In the meanwhile, time to grow, and move along that path towards greater peace of mind. Healthy spirit within healthy mind within healthy body. The spirit - consciousness - is all important.

Credo: "I believe in one God, the maker of all things visible and invisible." Yes, still true. But defining 'God' is crucial. More on this over the coming 46 days.

This time last year:
Consciousness, and the war between Science and Religion

This time two years ago:
The atoms within us

This time five years ago:
Our house gets connected to the town drains

This time six years ago:
No more revelations

This time eight years ago:
Free will vs. destiny