Excitement is over-rated

It dawned on me the other day that I no longer get excited, nor do I seek excitement any more. One can be excited by the prospect of travel; I'm not. I've not been on holiday for 12 years, nor do I hanker for a holiday. I'm not excited by watching sport or going fast.

This is a profound difference between me today and the younger, thrill-chasing me.

Am I happier! Of course I'm happier! But why? What is it about an ascetic rural lifestyle that brings happiness? Primarily, peace of mind, agency over my time. Repeatable moments of joy.

One question arises however. I am convinced of the reality of non-local consciousness, of the survival of identity after death – in the form of consciousness and its associated qualia memories – rather than ego. The ego being intrinsically linked with the body, with its appearance and its place in the status hierarchy, dies with it. But consciousness, pure observation, abides. 

Much of the lore surrounding reincarnation features people with memories of dying young, of lives tragically cut short, and of the desire to return again to experience more of human life. 

But what of reincarnation as experienced by people who die in old age? A long life may bring substantial wisdom, along with a sharper perception of how much remains unexplored. I know what I know, my belief system is becoming ever-clearer, but I am also increasingly aware of what I don't know.

I witnessed two great forces driving my father forward in old age, namely observation and curiosity. Not everyone has had the benefits of a great education, but with enough observation and curiosity, aided by access to knowledge unparalleled in human history and more time for self-improvement, the life-long learning potential of an autodidact is vast. 

What's needed is the drive to learn; focus (for those wanting to specialise in any one field), the energy required to keep on with the hard work. And the inspiration to tap into the Flow, frequent moments of deep intuition. Didn't have enough of these qualities this time round? Ask for more next time.

A spiritually mature consciousness is likely to choose a next life that is not high in status or excitement, rather desiring an existence that offers the right conditions for further development.

Here I bow towards Plato and his Myth of Er in Book X of The Republic. For Plato, the purpose of philosophy is partly to prepare one's consciousness for the moment of biological death and the choice that follows. The philosophically educated person learns to distinguish a superficially good life from the genuinely good – wealth from justice, fame from wisdom, power from self-mastery. Once each soul has selected a life, its chosen destiny is confirmed. The souls then forget their old lives, before being reborn.

Much as I admire classic sports cars, ownership of one is not for me. Entropy would soon turn it to rust, I have zero mechanical or engineering skills; in any case I would not seek to wring out every last ounce of power on my local backroads, nor do I feel any compunction to show off a beautiful car in front of people. 

Should I have any curiosity regarding places such as Göbekli Tepe or any number of anomalous prehistoric sites, I can visit them online these days, and watch talks about them from experts. The prospect of flying off anywhere is no long exciting; the prospect of sitting for several hours in an aluminium cylinder at 30,000 feet, between security and passport checks. No thanks.

Excitement – I have have passed onto a higher plane.

A house full of cats and long rural walks.

Happiness is a 1:1 ratio between your expectations and your reality. (J. Koba)

This time last year:
The Aesthetic Attention Span

This time three years ago:
Wałbrzych, Książ and Riese

This time 11 years ago:
Something new in the skies over Okęcie

This time 12 years ago:
How the other half lives – a Radomite's tale

This time 13 years ago:
On guard against complacency

This time 14 years ago:
Ready but not open – footbridge over Puławska

This time 15 years ago:
Dusk along the Vistula

This time 16 years ago:
Mediterranean Kraków

This time 16 years ago:
Around Wisełka, Most Łazienkowski, Wilanowska by night

This time 17 years ago:
Summer storms

This time 19 years ago:
Golden time of day

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt V)

[Part IV here.]

That such a sequence of events, with its particular names and places, should present itself to me in a dream, over 145 years later is not easy to account for with classical cause-and-effect physics.  

My dream, which I had on the morning of Sunday 3 May, was unlike the run-of-the-mill dreams I'll have most nights. The three unities are preserved; time (1880), place (the City of London, Luxembourg) and action (a court case arising from an ambiguity in a telegram). The dream was vivid – the names 'Gormally' (who was Irish) and 'Kuhn' (who was Jewish) came through loud and clear; I could feel the atmosphere of their office in Victorian London; I could see them flicking through maroon-bound books of law in the courtroom. I felt that Gormally's career had taken off very suddenly, and that the commodity that these traders specialised in was salt. The dream also spoke of anarchists, whose actions may or may not have led to the issues that ended up in court.

I had the framework of a story; automatic writing. Not something I'd made up; something that had come to me in a dream. This is the fifth such case. Previous dream-inspired short stories have taken me back to London in 1964, London in the 1950s,  Heathrow Airport in 2023, eastern Poland in 1831 and Moscow in 1952. This phenomenon is fascinating. There is no effort required on my part to devise a story; all I needed to do was to have recognised the significance of the dream on waking and jot down as much as I could remember.

So on Sunday morning (coffee first!) I opened my laptop. I made extensive use of AI (ChatGPT and Google Gemini), cross-checking one against the other to avoid hallucinations or confabulations, grounding the basic points from the dream in historical facts. Yes, said both AIs – the places, the dates, the plot – all were historically plausible. My dream had got them right! I just had to beat the story into shape. I add some details; freemasonry, the Magic Flute. Both plausible, historically accurate. I'm still in the flow.

But where from the dream? The setting – the City of London, Bricktorian Britain, 19th century railways, I can feel the atmosphere. I'm thinking of the opening pages of Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands with its description of London as Imperial capital. The setting is familiar. But the narrative? Did it happen as I dreamt it? 

And here I get metaphysical. In an infinite universe, yes, the events must have unfolded exactly as I described them in some parallel world. Mathematically, infinity would be able to encompass everything that happened.

Did something leak through to my consciousness as I slept?

One writes it down, and one leaves it there.

This time three years ago:
Transitioning from Owl to Lark
[Woke up today at 05:30!]

This time four years ago:
Hills... I gotta have hills

This time five years ago:
Flashback to a Dream - subconsciousness and memory

This time 15 years ago:
'Old school' = pre-war

This time 16 years ago:
Britain chooses a coalition government

This time 17 years ago:
Landing over Ursynów

This time 18 years ago:
On being assertive in Poland

Lent 2026: day 33 –talent and intuition

Imagine a blank canvas in front of you, a range of paint brushes, and access to paints in any shade you want to reach for. GO! Don't think, just feel yourself slipping into a trance-like state. Don't think: "Oh, it could do with a contrasting colour here, a splodge of white, maybe," rather let your intuition take control of all decisions. You have no previous experience, no 10,000 hours of practice, no theoretical knowledge about paint drying times and combinations of hue. Just go for it. Let it out; don't intellectualise, don't think: "this is starting to look like a city at night in the rain, so I'll steer it that way,"

What do you will come out? More than likely, brown sludge, slop; nothing, a distant approximation of what could be taken for abstract impressionism but lacking any redeeming qualities. Get 300 people in front of easels, however, and give them the same task, and a jury will have something to go on. Some curious quirk that catches the eye, there unintentionally. But importantly, some folk are better able to tap into the flow.

The early abstract impressionists knew exactly what they were aiming at; but daubing blank canvases seemingly at random – can it result in anything of interest?

You don't know until you've tried it!

Same with automatic writing. Put yourself in front of a keyboard, get into the flow and see what comes out. Imagine a higher entity, a separate entity, a strand of non-local consciousness, taking over your fingers, and letting words come out as they may. What are you getting?

This is certainly not going to work with musical instruments. The untutored, the unpracticed, will never manage a euphonious run of notes. Forget intuition alone serving as a guide to musical creativity! The 10,000 hours rule here is the rule that cannot be broken (though Sid Vicious had a good try). Having said that, the phenomenon I've noticed (and recorded) for some time now – waking up with an original tune going around my head – is very real (I have a phone's-worth of recordings), but these are typically short, two or three bars of music, certainly no Moonlight Sonata.

Mindfulness, meditation, altered states designed to enhance creativity – but not the creativity that comes from a thought process, rather a case of letting your consciousness reach for new quality.

Lent 2024: day 33
Time and spirituality, Pt III

Lent 2023, day 33
Into the Afterlife (Pt I) 

Lent 2022: day 33
The Search for Understanding

Lent 2021: day 33
Connecting with the Metaphysical

Lent 2020: day 33
"On my planet there is no disease"

Lent 2026: day 14 – intuition vs. intellect

The human brain – what a powerful tool! Deduction, calculation, logic, inference, conclusion; putting two and two together – the cognitive process, churning away inside your skull. Until recently unassisted by computer power, human brains have been able to manage fire, invent the wheel, erect magnificent cathedrals, devise the steam engine, and indeed invent the computer. Bioelectric signals jumping across the synapses of the brain's neural networks, all the while reasoning, processing data and information, sifting through the possibilities of probable outcomes – and all the while managing behaviour and self-image.

Intuition is different to thought or cognition. It has metaphysical qualities. Thought is a process; intuitions come instantaneously. Intuition is a sense of knowing something without the act of reasoning. Intuition involves accessing information or insights not immediately apparent deducible from the process of logical thought. Intellect is wedded to the physical number-crunching power of a given human brain. Intuition, I would argue, is closer to the pure experience of consciousness, unmediated by the thought process. Intuitions are often reported as 'gut feelings' – usually ones that turn out correct.

I see intuition as the result of tapping into the Flow, the cosmic purpose; it offers insights, answers and new creativity. Intuitions tend to be positive, optimistic and uplifting; aligned.

Our current scientific paradigm is based on the notion that everything in the Cosmos is based on matter. Our brain is matter; thoughts are the result of electricity moving through that matter. Consciousness, however, splits the scientific consensus (the Hard problem). The majority view is that consciousness is nothing more than the experience of brain activity, an epiphenomenon resulting from evolution. Experiencing the taste of coffee or the sight of bright sunlight on virgin snow requires no cognitive effort. Others state that consciousness is an illusion and doesn't really exist (hence, there's no hard problem). Idealists, however, see consciousness as being fundamental, and this view is closest to mine. From there, the leap to metaphysics.

As well as differentiating intuition from intellect, it is important not to mistake intuition for instinct. The latter is set of behaviours, innate and learned, that an organism carries out unconsciously in response to external conditions. Recoiling away from an object headed for your face. Instinct, not intuition. Instinct I witnessed in my cat, Wenusia, who knew how to give birth and mother five healthy kittens, without access to lectures, advice from her mother or guidebooks.

And now it's time to dive into the speculative: is intuition proof of non-local consciousness? It implies a interconnectedness of minds and potentially access to information that's not limited by space and time. And this implies magic; intending a physical effect without a physical cause. Precognition – 'seeing' into the future, or remote viewing – 'seeing' distant places.

Intuition can be given a theological spin; the Holy Spirit, who inspires believers, allowing for them to interpret all the sacred scripture, and indeed entering the Conclave that chooses the next Pope.

Now, is intuition something that we can tap into if we are open to it? Are some people gifted with greater intuitive powers than others? Or can we develop our intuition through practice and exercise?

I return to my analogy about laptops. It's a useful analogy. One laptop is fully-featured, has huge processing power and a vast hard drive, but it stands alone. The other has a weaker processor and little read-only memory, but unlike the first, it is connected to the internet via wi-fi. Which laptop is more useful?

And further questions... As humanity makes the leap to being a technological species, are our intuitive powers losing out to our highly trained cognitive skills? Has our intuition atrophied during our evolution from hunter-gatherers?

Imagine two musicians. Both have trained intensively, putting in thousands of hours of practice. Both have mastered their instruments. Both can be relied on to perform without errors, without hitting bum notes. But one is a competent, seasoned session musician. The other has the gift of being able to put successions of notes into a novel order, creating new musical quality. A Mozart, a Gershwin, a Bowie. These guys had something above and beyond technical excellence; they had a metaphysical touch; they could tap into the Flow.

Imagine two theoretical scientists. One strains away at the mathematical underpinnings of the subatomic or the galactic scale, working away at formulae, double-checking them and cross-checking them with observational data. The other has an innate grasp of how things work and can come up with dazzling new insights that lead to new theories. 

In every field of human endeavour, there's the plodding donkey, patiently getting on with it, but lacking that spark of creativity, and there's the genius. I would posit that many of humanity's greatest minds had their 'eureka!' moments; a sudden flash of inspiration rather than a final deduction. This is not to say that they haven't put in the donkey work, but that it was an inspired intuition got them to that moment.

Sometimes it is a moment – a flash, and you're there. But creative genius is about how long you can remain 'in the Flow', how much you can download from Big 'C' Consciousness before – for whatever reason – that direct contact is interrupted. You return to your former status as pedestrian writer, musician or artist.

The ability to tap into the Flow and stay there long enough to complete something new, imaginative, creative – and to return to that state time and time again – is what differentiates genius from the merely competent.

But intuition isn't just about the inspiration that stands behind creativity. It is also about tapping into non-local consciousness for the sake of avoiding mishaps or disasters. Intuition can be seen as that 'guardian angel' that out of the blue sends you a go/no-go signal. I shall post tomorrow about intuition and luck.

Lent 2025: day 14
Ego, consciousness and time

Lent 2024: day 14
Emergence and Complexity vs. Entropy and Chaos: Good vs. Evil?

Lent 2023, day 14
The appeal of mystic traditions

Lent 2022: day 14
Between Serendipity and Proactiveness

Lent 2021: day 14
Prayer

Lent 2020: day 14
Choose the music for your religion

Pareidolia, hypnagogia, hypnopompia – and coincidence

It's dark in my bedroom as I wake for a wee. The only light in the room is from the soft digital glow of my thermometer/clock. I'm not wearing glasses. As I return to consciousness I look across at the device. It looks like a negative image of an old yellowed newspaper, shrunken to a tenth of its size and turned anticlockwise... Can't be...! As my eyes adjust to the light and my brain adjusts to being conscious, I make out the three digits separated by a colon: it's 04:44. It's 17.8°C in the room and -6.1°C outside

I look down. I see two kittens on the floor... no, it can't be kittens. They're in the kitchen. It's my sheepskin slippers. I return to bed. There's a cat on my pillow? There isn't. It's my pyjama top... 

The mind plays tricks on you in those liminal spaces between wakefulness and sleep, sleep and wakefulness. Not only what I see, hear and feel, but within my stream of consciousness. I wrote recently about waking up with the name 'Sylvia Bossack' (with that exact spelling) on my mind. This is quite a common phenomenon. 

One I had on Monday night as I was dropping off to sleep: 'Mount Shasta'. I returned to wakefulness to note it down. Later that night, waking up for a wee, the word 'Carrevolins' and the placename 'Bassetlaw' pop up in my stream of consciousness. It is 04:30.

I drop off to sleep again. I dream that I'm back in West Ealing, having my electric scooter serviced at a shop on the Uxbridge Road. (I don't have, and never had, a scooter, electric or otherwise. The shop is where a barber's is currently located). I chat with the young bloke who's looking at my scooter and agreeing the price for the service. He's done the work on this scooter before, and says he still remembers my address, which he's about to jot down on a piece of paper. "44 Rosebank Road," he says. I correct him, giving the Cleveland Road address. 

Waking up on Wednesday morning, 'Puget Sound' floats into my stream of consciousness. Why?

I get out of bed and the first thing I do is to consult my 1973 editions of Kemps Ealing and Hanwell Directory for 1973. The owner of 44 Rosebank Road back then was a Mr A. R. Casseltine. Not a precise match for 'Carrevolins', but – you must admit – close. 

I consult ChatGPT. "Casseltine is an extremely rare surname worldwide – forebears.io estimates there are only 70 individuals with that name globally, with the highest incidence in the United States and only two in England."  Puget Sound? Mount Shasta? Searches revealed people with that surname connected with both places, but spelt 'Caseltine'.  No precise match, unlike the Sylvia Bossack case.

What could such a sign... mean?

Follow-up, Sunday 11 January 2026. I wake with the words 'Dov Meckler Band' on my mind. Used Google and ChatGPT, one and only mention of a Dov Meckler was one from Wolbrom, born 1902. No musicians of that name noted, despite a vast amount of resources searched by AI. But no matter. In a parallel universe...

This time last year:
Sleepy time, Christmas to Three Kings

This time last year:
Trains in the snow around Chynów

This time seven years ago:
New football pitch for Jeziorki

This time eight years ago:
The Winter Sublime

This time 14 years ago:
Long train running

This time 15 years ago:
Most Poniatowskiego

This time 17 years ago:
Warsaw well prepared for winter

Intuition, the secret power of your consciousness – Lent 2025: Day 16

Our current scientific paradigm, based on the notion that everything in the Cosmos is based on matter,  rejects the idea of intuition as a sixth sense outside of the five connected to sensory organs – sight, hearing, taste, smell and hearing. Yet most people will to some degree accept intuition on the basis of what they have personally experienced.

Often mistaken for instinct, intuition is something different. Instinct is set of behaviours, innate and learned, that an organism carries out unconsciously in response to external conditions. Blinking, recoiling, shielding one's face, reaching out to grab – these are instincts. Watching a cat as it sit perched on the window ledge, watching the ground below. Its attention is fully focused on detecting movement in the undergrowth that could signal the presence of prey. The cat's ears swivel independently of one another; one rotates clockwise by ten degrees, the other anti-clockwise by 45 degrees, at the same time. This happened instinctively. The ears are not guided by the brain, but respond reflexively to external stimuli. 

Intuition is also different to thought or cognition. Thought is a process; intuitions come instantaneously. Intuition is a sense of knowing something without the act of reasoning. Intuition involves accessing information or insights that are not immediately apparent through logical thought. And now it's time to dive into the speculative: is intuition proof of non-local consciousness? It implies a interconnectedness of minds and potentially access to information that's not limited by space and time. And this implies magic; intending a physical effect without a physical cause. 

Now, is it something that we can tap into if we are open to it? Are some people gifted with greater intuitive powers than others? Or can we develop our intuition through practice and exercise?

Below: How Google Imagen 3.0 sees the difference... The AI must have learnt from somewhere that "hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain."

Again, I return to my analogy about laptops. It's a very useful analogy. One laptop is fully-featured, has huge processing power and a vast hard drive, but stands alone. The other has a weaker processor and little read-only memory, but unlike the first is connected to the internet via wifi. Which laptop is more useful?

And further questions... As humanity makes the leap to being a technological species, are our intuitive powers losing out to our highly trained cognitive skills? Has our intuition atrophied during our evolution from hunter-gatherers?

Lent 2024: Day 16
Do we tend to get more spiritual as we get older?

Lent 2023, Day 16
Intuition – is it magical?

Lent 2022: Day 16
The difficulties of focusing on the spiritual

Lent 2021: Day 16
This planet is my home, today and tomorrow

Lent 2020: Day 16
My metaphysical journey, as I see it

Biorhythms are nonsense. And yet...

You ask anyone with any chronic illness how they are, and often you'll hear: "there are better days, and there are worse days." We can all sympathise with the notion of cyclical fluctuations in samopoczucie, in one's physical, mental and spiritual condition. 

Back in the 1970s, I had read – and thought a lot – about biorhythms – the idea that we are all subject to three cycles governing the way we feel and behave.

From Wikipedia: "the biorhythm theory is the idea that people's daily lives are significantly affected by rhythmic cycles with periods of exactly 23, 28 and 33 days; a 23-day physical cycle, a 28-day emotional cycle, and a 33-day intellectual cycle." The theory is predicated on the notion that all three cycles are precisely matched at the moment of birth, and run on throughout life, hitting peaks and troughs that can come together at rare intervals.

At the time, newspaper articles and pop-science books passed from hand to hand in sixth-form common rooms and with the aid of pocket calculators, we were trying to work out whether we were meant to be having a good day or a bad day (or a combination of both across three metrics). But there was a huge snag that I could see – the mathematical precision that the theory depended on. Biology isn't digital; it's messy. Women's menstrual cycles are a good illustration of this, periods coming early, late or sometimes not at all. So why should, for example, the human intellectual cycle run at exactly 33 days? For all people? 

Although biorhythms have rightly been dismissed as pseudoscience, I nevertheless intuit that there's a wisp of truth here. We all have our ups and our downs, physically, intellectually and emotionally. For some people, the amplitude of the peaks and troughs is not significant. Externally, they appear consistent.

But not everyone is consistent. Athletic, intellectual or artistic performance can fluctuate. And obviously there are extraneous factors. Are we ever at our absolute peak when taking an exam, running a race or just experiencing the emotions of a long-awaited vacation?

So – is this all cyclical? Can one pin down those highs and lows, and based on that – can one predict them into the future, such as solar or lunar cycles?

Here's my experience – when the physical cycle is low, one is more likely to come down with some infection. There's a greater need for daytime naps, nocturnal sleep has longer duration, there's a higher propensity to small aches and pains. 

So when the physical cycle is low, I'm not trying to break exercise records. I take it easy. I go to bed early and have a lie-in the next morning. And when the cycle peaks, then I can go for it (like the two sets of nine pull-ups to the bar I managed on 6 November.) Pull-ups are a good indicator for me of my physical condition. Some days I'll be pulling seven or eight; others three or four are more usual. So looking at the data gathered over 11 years, can I see a pattern? If there is (just looking a pull-ups, for example), it's not at all regular, but there are peaks and troughs.

Intellectual cycles are also interesting. These, I think, are longer in duration. For me the symptoms of an intellectual low is when I feel that I don't really know much. That my understanding of the fabric of reality is poor. My curiosity wanes, I'm more easily distracted. When speaking in public, I do so without much conviction, and I feel I'm not carrying the audience along with my narrative. And blogging – sometimes I feel inspired, sometimes I'll go back to an old post and think "that was really quite good!". Other times, the prose seems flat, contrived or borrowed.

Emotionally, my mood swings are from gregarious to withdrawn, though in the withdrawn state I'm not unhappy, so I'd rate my happiness levels as consistently good. Sometimes I do need to be alone.

Consciously sensing the feedback from your body, mind and spirit are to me essential in keeping on track. But the fundamental question is – are we running on cycles, or are the ups and downs of our physical, mental and spiritual condition merely the result of external factors? And if there are cycles – to what extent can we control them, physically or indeed metaphysically?

This time three years ago:
Twilight rambler

This time five years ago:
Late-November pictorial round-up

This time six years ago:
Artificial Intelligence vs Artificial Consciousness

[In retrospect, an interesting and prescient piece!]

This time seven years ago:
Viaduct takes shape in the snow

This time ten years ago:
No in-work benefits for four years?

This time 11 years ago:

Third snow-free November in a row

This time 12 years ago:

Another November without snow

This time 13 years ago:
Snow-free November

This time 14 years ago:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

How we look at the future

It struck me as I was walking northward along the road to Michalczew. Walking (as one should) facing the traffic, I could see the back of three road signs ahead of me. All of them triangular – warning signs. And then I imagined the following scenario...

You're driving a car with no windscreen. Just a solid metal panel in its place. All you can see is what's behind you and to the side of you; the image in the rear-view mirror and the two images in the wing mirrors; you can also see out of the side windows. You are driving forward, very slowly, along a long, straight road. The last few kilometres had all been all straight, nothing you can see behind you, or to the left or right of you suggests that the road ahead (which you can't see) won't also be straight. You pass a triangular sign. You can only see the back of it. You know it's a warning sign because of its shape – but what's it warning you of? You can't tell. Then a second triangular sign appears in your mirrors – and then a third. 

Some danger is clearly approaching. But what it is, you can't tell. You slow down anyway, and concentrate your entire attention on what you have just passed. Can you observe any patterns? You look left. You look right. Is the kerb moving away from you? Or towards you? This would suggest that the road is starting to bend one way or the other, and that you'd have to turn the steering wheel appropriately – and slow right down.

Such is our view of the world's unfolding timeline. 

The current scientific view of spacetime – the Einsteinian paradigm – defines our reality in four dimensions – three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. But time is the odd one out in this quartet. We can move up or down along the Y axis; left or right along the X axis; and backwards and forwards along the Z axis. And at variable speed. But when it comes to time, we can only move directly forward through it, at a steady one second per second.

We can look in all directions spatially, but we can only see backwards in time. We remember our past; we can only guess our future. Our relationship with time, compared to space, is extremely limited. Metaphysically, I regularly have flashbacks (anomalous qualia-memory events that I recognise and connect with the past), but have yet to have a flashforward. 

I am minded of this when I receive, as I do at this time each year, The Economist's The World Ahead. Journalists, commentators and analysts weigh in to describe the key trends that will define 2025. Yet despite the brain-power that goes into this publication, it's often overtaken by events by the end of the first quarter of the year in question.

An innovation in recent years is the inclusion of a panel of 'superforecasters', who answer a series of geopolitical and macroeconomic questions relating to the year ahead. The weighted results of this poll is more accurate than the musings of individual experts showcasing a pet theory. The aggregated wisdom of the crowds, especially if the crowd consists of individuals outside of the big institutions, without commercial or ideological agendas, is more accurate. But only if the right questions are asked. Questions for 2025 are quite bland; China's inflation rate, Nvidia's share price, Germany's ruling coalition. That sort of thing. 

The Economist's superforecasters got four and half out of eight with their forecasts for 2024, correctly calling the UK election, continued conflict in Ukraine, no clash between China and the West, and no euro-zone recession. But global GDP growth outpaced their forecast of 1.5%-3%; they said Narendra Modi’s alliance would win at least 300 seats in India’s election (it won just 240); and they wrongly predicted a Democrat would win the US presidency. But beyond asking a panel of superforecasters, looking ahead at 2025, The Economist raises some interesting outlier possibilities; among that of a supervolcano exploding or a new pandemic, two are intriguing – a lost text from antiquity is discovered; and evidence of alien life is detected.

Here I'd like to touch on the role of intuition in guiding us towards the future. All the intellects on earth, all the analytical powers, can sift through potential scenarios; they can work through the known knowns, the known unknowns and guessing the unknown unknowns – and still get it wrong. But if one is open to the power of intuition, a inspired glimpse into the future can prove as accurate as that a forecast based on pure analysis.

The butterfly effect – one seemingly trivial incident leading to a major event through a cascade of causal links – makes it impossible to empirically plot a future timeline that will inevitably happen. Even the most powerful supercomputer, even Laplace's demon, is unable to write the news headlines for, say, 10 August 2025. This makes an intuition-led seer's premonition just as valid as any professional forecaster.

Given the bind that theoretical science is currently in, as the physicalist/reductionist/materialist paradigm runs out of road, it would make sense to investigate what's currently considered flaky woo-woo and look more deeply at the role of our intuition in gauging the future.

I'd suggest starting locally with some n =1 experiment, to see whether we can intuit what happens to us over the next week. The key thing: don't overthink it.

This time last year:
First snow, 2023

This time two years ago:
The Algorithm of Fate

This time three years ago:
Non-local consciousness - science and spirituality

This time four years ago:
Fenced in at last

This time seven years ago:
Poznań's Old Market

This time eight years ago:
Brexit, Trump and negative emotions

This time 13 years ago:
Premier Tusk's second exposé

This time 14 years ago:
Into Poland's former Heart of Darkness

This time 15 years ago:
Commuter schadenfreude

Interrogating one's intuition

Intuition is defined as the "ability to acquire knowledge, without recourse to conscious reasoning". A sense of inner cognition; a sudden prompt that pops up in your stream of consciousness. The answer to a question that doesn't require the thought process or rationality. A brilliant flash you somehow know to be utterly true.

It's there; it is there. If you listen out for it, you will hear it. If you acknowledge its presence, it will be there for you. Ignore it not; heed your intuition, for it is a most valuable tool. Be mindful of its existence, of its usefulness as a guide in your day-to-day activities. It will support you, advise you, prompt you, comfort you, warn you. It will confirm a decision, or maybe suggest another option.

But is it necessarily right? Both in the sense of correct, and in the sense of morally right?

I have become attuned to being aware of intuition. Recognising the moment. And in this, a metaphysical moment – the touch of Big C Consciousness upon our small c consciousness. Here, I'd argue is the back-channel of prayer; it is the Cosmic Purpose in alignment with our own here-today-here-tomorrow human purpose.

Parsing the intuitive moment, to sieve the wishful thinking from the genuine intuition takes skill too. And here we get to today's point. When you recognise that you've had an intuition, examine it carefully – does it feel right? Will it help? Has it put your mind at rest? Usually, it just feels right. Sometimes, rarely, two seemingly conflicting intuitions will arrive simultaneously. Which one is correct? Or is this just an invitation to dig deeper and engage some rational thought? 

Don't demand – don't expect – an immediate answer. As my brother commented cryptically on the post before last, "the obligation runs the other way" (a quote from the Goy's Teeth scene in the Coen brothers' A Serious Man). Indeed. 

{{ Don't sweat the small stuff. }}

Wow! That just popped in, this very second. Yup – makes sense; too much time wasted on the inconsequential. Focus on the bigger picture, step up to the meta level. 

This time last year:
Notes to a future me

This time two years ago
The End of Times

This time three years ago:
Going round in circles

This time four years ago:
Between wakefulness and sleep 

This time seven years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time 10 years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time 11 years ago:
Behold and See – short story, Pt III

This time 14 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Procrastination, time and mindfulness

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." (C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955)

"If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do." (The Stock-Sanford corollary to Parkinson's law.)

But what if you don't do it, what if you just push it (whatever it is) further on into the future?

Mentally juggling the tasks ahead of me before I go out for the evening, I'm pondering which ones are most important and in what order I should tackle them, and what the consequences of not doing them are. There's a finite time limit: quarter past four in the afternoon, that's when I have to leave to catch the train into town.

It's Saturday morning. The worst that could happen is that I simply end up shifting the tasks on into the future. At least I have no office work requiring my attention before Monday; the weekend is my own. But is it? There's cider-making (clearing the ground under the apple-trees, collecting windfall apples, juicing them and filling a ten-litre demijohn). There's cleaning the house (usually, this can wait). There's blogging (I've not written for a while). And a book I want to read. And my exercises. 

Breakfast over. I take a peek outside – it's raining. And so, I have An Excuse. Not to waste time, I double down on my exercises. Wow! I managed eight pull-ups! (Four sets of pull-ups done. Seven, seven, eight and seven. Twenty nine in total.) Now onto the back extensions... six sets of eight. Done. Now onto the sit-ups... Sixty. Done. Now onto the weights. Four sets of 30. Press-ups, three times twenty, and eight minutes of plank (two times four minutes).

Time should be measured by entropy, not seconds, minutes and years. The process of order turning into chaos. Wasting time means letting chaotic processes unfold.

{{ czas chce nas skrzywdzić }} – 'time wants to harm us'.

I'm not one for being pro-active. Sure, I react, when prodded, I respond. What really drives me, though, is not material. It is mystical; metaphysical. I do believe in an overarching Cosmic Purpose. So much of what happens to us in our lives, the major junctions at which we take this turn or that, are determined by chance. We think we have control over our destinies, and yet looking back we can see how much was preordained. 

However, how much we do, how much we achieve – this is determined by our strength of will. How much we push over into the future, rather than doing today. But then on the other hand, avoiding stress is important to living longer. Don't get worked up over work. If your procrastination leads to levels of stress that you can't cope with, then either learn to let go, or work on reducing the amount of time you waste on the inconsequential. 

As I get older, I see the importance of measuring outcomes. My health and fitness spreadsheet (now in its 11th year) is crucial to this. But while I can demonstrate empirically how I can build up strength of will (and through it, physical strength) from year to year, seemingly in defiance of the ageing process, I cannot will inspiration, creativity, contact with the numinous. And at this moment, I receive an intuition – pray for these things, and they will come. Meditate, mindfully.

This time time two years ago:
Summer as it should be

This time three years ago:
Measuring the unmeasurable

This time five years ago:
Heading Home [my father leaves Warsaw for the last time]

This time seven years ago:
From my father's historic return to Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
Country life in a capital city 

This time ten years ago:
My ogród is my działka

This time 12 years ago:
Mazowieckie province tempts with mini- and micro-breaks

This time 14 years ago:
Pride and anger

Specialists, generalists and rabbit-holes

Is your knowledge broad or deep? If broad – has it been deepening over time? If deep – has it been broadening over time? 

I'm a generalist, although I do have a handful of interests in which I can claim an above-average level of knowledge, though far from expert-level. I'd also rate myself as being a slow learner – the result of attention deficit. It takes quite a while for the for me to grok something fully; that Eureka! moment arrives late. And even then, I often later realise that what I took for my complete understanding of something was actually quite superficial – as I acquire newer and deeper levels of intuition.

I marvel at the mind of a mathematician, who can intuitively grasp, for example, the concept of Euclidean spaces in topology. "Euclidean spaces of any positive integer dimension n are called Euclidean n-spaces when one wants to specify their dimension. The qualifier 'Euclidean' is used to distinguish Euclidean spaces from other spaces that were later considered in physics and modern mathematics." I literally understand none of that. And yet our world depends on science and technology that is founded by people with on a solid understanding of such concepts.

Mathematics at school became an insurmountable challenge to me once d y over d x equalled, uh, something. Differential equations. Calculus. Couldn't get my head around it. Couldn't grok it. Aged 16, with a scraped pass at O-level maths, I just gave up. A succession of poor teachers? A brain that wasn't (and still isn't) wired for maths? Or just an inability to focus? Anyway, I abandoned the sciences at A-level and chose easier things – more interesting things for my brain – like English Literature, History and French.

Learning is not just about memorising facts – chemical formulae, laws of physics, Latin declensions, historical dates. It's about putting these facts into some kind of structured perspective, creating a narrative around them that makes everything fall together and suddenly go 'click'. A gifted teacher will be able to tell that story, be it about Euclidean spaces, abiogenesis or the causes of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

And here I fall into my first rabbit hole. I enter a Wikipedia page entitled 'Austro-Prussian rivalry'. There's a map from 1756. German towns, east of the Oder/Odra river. Liegnitz – Legnica. Been there. Glogau – Głogów. Been there too. But hello, what's this? Kay. A town called Kay, similar in size to Liegnitz and Glogau – what's that in modern Poland? Turns out it's now a village called Kije (literally 'sticks' or 'staves'), the site of a battle (1759) in the Seven Years War.

New connections click into place, adding to learning that I'd acquired earlier this year while in Bystrzyca Kłodzka. The history of Western Poland was not just about Germans competing with Poles for land in Silesia and Pomerania – it was about different branches of the German-speaking world competing among themselves for land in Silesia and Pomerania.

For this understanding to fall into place, two qualities of mind are needed: curiosity and observation – the gift of being able to notice things, correlations, patterns. Some people are more curious, some less curious. Now, in the old days, my curiosity would run into the brick wall of lack of access to information. Once I'd scoured my own books, once I'd been to the public library, most times I could get no further. Today, there's unlimited information a few clicks away.

Google, Wikipedia and now AI, the internet has given us access to knowledge the likes of which we couldn't even imagine in our youth. 

This is a double-edged sword for the easily distracted. A rabbit hole can drag you deeper and deeper until you find intellectual satisfaction that you are seeking. "Yes, now I understand". But the rabbit hole will have many shafts running off to this side or that side. Rabbit holes can become so engrossing that you dive down one, then another, and then another, losing track of what it was you were originally trying to find out. An addictive activity, sucking the unwary browser deeper and deeper into a topic, before sidelining them into some other area of research far removed from the original topic. The instant gratification, the dopamine hit, of stumbling on something more interesting. Loss of focus. Distraction.

Rabbit holes can also be serendipitous. You're researching something, you get distracted by something that seems at first sight utterly irrelevant – you check it out by clicking on the link – and fate determines that you learn a new fact that somehow connects the dots, and adds a new value. I find I often learn things accidentally, stumbling across them having been distracted from the task in hand. The benefits of losing focus. Attention deficit is not necessarily a bad thing.

According to Google's Ngram viewer, the term 'rabbit hole' became ten times more common across the corpus of English-language literature in the quarter century between 1994 and 2019. The internet, search engines,Wikipedia – and now AI – have opened up new galaxies of information. 

My feeling is that our new information age will spawn far more generalists than specialists. 

But is this a brain thing? Traditional thinking here is that in some folk the left hemisphere is dominant and they are good at maths and science where binary answers are called for, while right-brained folk are better at creative work, the arts and language. Professor Iain McGilchrist is good on this. But is it more than just left-brain/right brain? I have posited that we are all on one spectrum or another. The autism spectrum can result in a mind with the capacity for deep focus; restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests. Specialism. The ADHD spectrum, on the other hand, can result in a butterfly mind that lands on a thousand flowers, acquiring a superficial appreciation of a wide range of knowledge. Generalism. Do these two minds overlap? Is autism spectrum disorder linked to left-brain dominance? Or does one mindset preclude the other?

I pop the question into Google Gemini. It replies: "Recent research suggests a more nuanced relationship between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and brain function. Studies have indicated that individuals with ASD may exhibit:

• Reduced brain asymmetry: This means that the differences in structure and function between the left and right hemispheres are less pronounced compared to neurotypical individuals.
  
  
• Altered brain connectivity: There might be differences in how different brain regions communicate with each other.

I feel we have a vast amount to learn about ourselves.

This time last year: 
The US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency. 
(and what can be more rabbit-holey than UFOs!?!)

This time two years ago:
Gloucestershire, 1830 and Ohio, 1946: automatic writing

This time three years ago:
New phone, new laptop, Part II

This time four years ago:
Two images from my early childhood

This time five years ago:
How PKP PLK's planners should treat pedestrian station users.

This time six years ago:
Foreign exchange: don't get diddled!
[for the saps who pay £250 for €200 at the airport]

This time eight years ago:
Defining my Sublime Aesthetic

This time ten years ago:
Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn Peninsula

This time 12 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, late July

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, after the storm

This time 16 years ago:
Rural suburbias - the ideal place to live?

Notes To A Future Me, Pt I

Notes To A future me? The future me? Some future me? Each variation of that sentence has different connotations; to each one can be attached different metaphysical interpretations. Definite or indefinite? I choose indefinite. Singular or plural? I choose singular. So from the outset, I am assuming the notion of an individual - not communal - spiritual journey from Zero to One.

Why? I base this notion on a lifetime of fleeting conscious experiences - qualia memories that allude to a past life; memories rooted outside my conventional biography. Conscious connections to another time, another place, that are consistent and familiar. 

Let me start by picking apart the word 'me'. To whom I referring? A metaphysical experience that extends beyond the biological 'me' - that's the me, Michael Dembinski, son of Bohdan and Maria, born 1957. I am not looking for a future version of my ego - no; my ego shall extinguish along with my body. Rather, it's the eternal 'me'; the consciousness that experiences those qualia - subjective and personal - the memories of which form the continuity of who I really am. 

For it is this that I consider to be the essence of the Eternal Soul. A consciousness that travels along time's arrow from past to future, passing through an infinite number of biological hosts along the way, always evolving in spiritual terms. 

Yet how this process works, how it can be explained in human terms, is beyond my intellectual grasp. I strongly intuit, however, that this is my life's purpose - to get just a few steps nearer to an understanding of the reincarnative nature of consciousness in this lifetime. And I do feel that over the years that my focus, and my understanding, is being honed.

So my assumption is that as has happened before, following the bodily demise of Michael Dembinski, my consciousness shall endure; though in what form - and in what place, and what time, is not something I can predict. 

Though can I will my future incarnation in any direction?

I would wish to be reborn neither into suffering, nor into privilege. Neither states are conducive to contemplation of the numinous. Suffering is a state from which one struggles to escape - doing so becomes an all-engaging activity; abstract ontological questions are crowded out. But a life of luxury also stifles philosophical enquiry. A middle way, devoid of discomfort and of luxury, is required.

A future incarnation must have purpose - seeking and unravelling further clues, answers to which will lead to further steps along the infinitely long path from Zero to One. But we cannot expect the answer to the deepest questions of cosmic existence in this lifetime nor in the next; for this will only come at the end of time.

As humans, biological entities, we are driven by biological imperatives - which at the core are reproduction and hierarchy. Basic mammalian biology lies behind the human drive to attain and display material status. But the chasing of material possessions beyond the comfort level - luxury for its own sake - is something we all need to be aware that we are doing.  And such behaviours should be shunned for the good of the soul - as well as for the good of society and the environment.

An ascetic life, focused on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and wisdom, should be the purpose. Wisdom for wisdom's sake - not for the sake of material wealth, power, privilege or popularity.

Bumbling through a world of ever-increasing complexity, I am aware that an ever-higher level of intelligence is needed just to make sense of it all, not to be fooled by those who wish to dupe us for their own egotistical ends. We are evolving within evolutionary intellectual arms-race; no longer is sheer brute force enough. In the present, and even more so in the future, the cunning, the clever and the quick will overcome the physically powerful. Evolution increasingly favours the smart, not the strong.

What would I ask of a future bio-environment - a future human body - within which my consciousness could continue to evolve spiritually within an unfolding Universe tending towards its purpose?

I'd certainly be grateful for greater powers of focus - a longer, deeper, attention span, a brain that is less-easily distracted. A brain that can deal with mathematics beyond the basics, a brain that can understand and recall complex formulae. But then not just the number-crunching ability of IQ but a deep and accurate intuition. Is raw intellect as important as intuition? Are they separate?

As a species have so much more to learn about ourselves, our environment and the vastness of the Cosmos. It's not something we can get to intuit within a lifetime. And so, I believe, the future exists as a space for our eternal consciousness to inhabit, to return to, to evolve spiritually in.

More in this thread to come, over the years. I grow in understanding, as does science. Our model of the Universe unfolds along with it.

This time last year:
The End of Times

This time two years ago:
Going round in circles

This time three years ago:
Between wakefulness and sleep 

This time six years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time nine years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time ten years ago:
Behold and See - short story, Pt III

This time 13 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Intuition - it is magical? Lent 2023: Day 16

Mind over matter - foreseeing the future, consciously forestalling/precluding catastrophe, willing oneself good luck or good health - this sounds at first glance like pseudoscience. Fallacious thinking - a cognitive bias. A load of bunk. 

Or is it...?

It's too early for me to tell you how effective my sense of plugging into a Cosmic stream of good fortune is. Stick around, and hopefully I'll tell you when I reach 95. When he was that age, my father would ask me, rhetorically, "Why was I so lucky?" I think he knew the answer, although it was something he could not articulate. However, I think he knew. [In parentheses, I'd say here that while my father was never a mentor to me in my youth, he certainly taught me exceptionally well how to live in old age. His attitude to life and to ageing was exemplary.] However, having got to 65, relatively unscathed, I feel more qualified to say that I feel there's something in this than when I was just 35.

The idea of intuition being a sixth sense outside of the the five that have sensory organs attached to them - sight, hearing, taste, smell and hearing - is something that mainstream science would reject, but that most people will to some degree accept.

Magic (as opposed to illusionism, merely a form of entertainment) is the use of the metaphysical, supernatural or paranormal to affect the material world. If your worldview excludes everything but the physical, there is no room for such thing as magic. Cause must precede effect, motion requires a force acting on a body, and the arrow of time goes one way.

We live our everyday lives on the edge of chaos. From macro-scale existential threats (nuclear war, pandemic, super-volcanoes, solar coronal ejections, asteroid strikes) to personal mishaps (losing your wallet, mobile phone or keys), bad things can happen. Can we stave them off with positive thought?

If we are open and sensitive to our intuitions - able to recognise a genuine intuition from a wishful thought or a gut instinct that's just wrong - maybe we just can. Don't ask me to prove it. Intuition may work better for some people than for others, and the question of whether we can improve our intuition by practice is a good one. Can we aim to improve our skills of listening to the void, as it were? Catching that calm, quiet voice that gives us short intimations of future outcomes, or optimal solutions?

Here are a few hints on how to practice intuition and strengthen your intuitive skills:

• Pay attention to that inner voice. The more attention you give it (of the right sort - not Ego-intermediated wishful thinking), the more practical use it will become to you.
• Aim for the highest level of sincerity with yourself. Ask yourself: "Is this really what I'm feeling?" Feel certain that your wishful thinking is not taking over and creating a simulacrum of a true intuition. If it is - dismiss it. Act only on those that pass the meta-sincerity test.
• The Cosmic Purpose tends towards the Good. Your intuition won't tell you how to steal or cheat.
  
• Your intuition is allied to your Consciousness - not to your Ego. Your intuition won't suggest to you how to become more popular and powerful, how to scale the Ladder of Authority to lord it over others.
• Pay attention to how your body feels - that tickling sensation on the roof of the mouth that often presages a cold or flu. When you feel something's not quite right - tell yourself emphatically "I don't want this - let it go away!" And when you do feel yourself feeling well - express conscious gratitude for it! Gratitude should also accompany the journey of recovery and recuperation.
• Pay attention to how your mind feels - when you feel a sudden rush of euphoria on opening the front door on a rain evening, on seeing a beautiful sunset, on beholding a night sky full of stars - get into the habit of feeling gratitude for that sensation. And when you feel down, remember good times roll around naturally; things will for sure improve.
• Whenever you go out - be it on a long trip or a short walk, consciously express the desire to return home safely, avoiding accidents, crime, losing something, something breaking down or ill health. And upon safe return - give thanks. We are always walking on the edge of chaos. 
• Mindfulness/meditation practices that clear the mind of the race of everyday thoughts open the conduit to extraneous intuition - ideas that pop into your consciousness unbidden. Intuitions are often subtle and require a sensitive mind; that can be worked on (see below). With practice and exercise, you can make the intuitions stronger.
• Write it down. I've had a notebook with me most of the time for the past 12 years or so; catching those moments of intuition is helpful.
• Practice decision-making based on intuition. Try making a small decision based purely on intuition, and then reflect on the outcome to see if your intuition was accurate. This may help you build trust in your intuition; bit by bit you can step it up and apply it to more important decisions. 

Developing intuition takes time and practice. However, intuition should be in balance with critical thought and analysis; intuition may be misled or influenced by wishful thinking; using it in conjunction with purely intellectual faculties will strengthen both.

"If you will it, Dude, it is no dream." [Leb. 7:19].

Lent 2022: Day 16

The difficulties of focusing on the spiritual

Lent 2021: Day 16
This planet is my home, today and tomorrow

Lent 2020: Day 16
My metaphysical journey, as I see it

Intuition and instinct - Lent 2023: Day 15

Into the third week of Lent, and I'd like to move onto the theme of intuition. 

Defined as "immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes" or "a perceptive insight gained by the use of this faculty", [Wiktionary] we instinctively know of its presence but spend little time or effort trying to understand it, even less trying to develop it as something that can be of enormous help in our lives.

Is intuition the same as gut instinct? I'd argue that it isn't - intuition is something different, something metaphysical.

Gut instinct is a biological response unguided by thought. It is an evolutionary development of the fight-or-flight response. I am in a new environment - I am on guard. Is this a threatening situation? Or can I relax? I see a strange face - should I fear it? Can I trust it? 

Instinct is set of behaviours, innate and learned, that an organism carries out unconsciously in response to external conditions. Blinking, recoiling, shielding one's face, reaching out to grab.

Intuition comes spontaneously, unprompted by circumstances. 

Intuition is something metaphysical, a 'sixth sense', perception that lies beyond the scope of today's reductionist-materialist science. Intuition is that thought that often presents itself to you unbidden, maybe as you wake, or shower, or while on a walk. It can also present itself to you as an answer to an intractable problem you've been wrestling with - a simple 'let it go' or 'act now'. The voice is calm, it has your best long-term interests at heart. And that intuiting moment may come in prayer - as the back-channel, the response to your opening up towards the Infinite and Eternal.

Learning to heed intuition is a skill that we humans have not even begun to develop. It's not taught, it's often dismissed as a cognitive bias, as a symptom of wishful thinking. Developing intuition, through practice and self-awareness, is possible - to the extent that the US military has spent millions of dollars on a programme to help develop a sixth sense among infantrymen.

The reductionist materialist approach to intuition is limited to an interaction between neurons in the brain; matter causes the effect we experience as intuition.

In this short clip below, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder (one of today's great YouTube popularisers of science) gives an extremely clear explanation in under five minutes of how reductionist-materialism sees the metaphysical. 

This is certainly not my point of view; I believe that consciousness is non-local - that is, not confined to the brain within our skull. Possibly - and this is nothing more than intuition! - consciousness is present across the Cosmos; a background, a sea within which all particles - everything - exists.

My intellectual counterargument rests on that which physics today doesn't yet know. Basing one's worldview on the Standard Model, which remains unreconciled with General Relativity, which cannot explain dark matter or dark energy, squeezes spirituality out of the physical world and into Dualism. There can be a soul, there can be Heaven - but not in the Cosmos of particles and fields. This is not what I intuit - my own feeling is that Consciousness is the force (maybe related to quantum theory, or string theory - who knows?) that binds everything together in this unfolding Universe of ours.

More about intuition over the next few days.

Lent 2022: Day 15

Religious belief, practice, inquiry and experience

Lent 2021: Day 15
The Afterlife - Faith and Doubt

Lent 2020: Day 15
Rites and Rituals