Archives of prior monthly email bulletins
Hi all:
Here's the Sacred Geometry bulletin for October 2008:
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1) Events: Interviews, Seminars, Workshops, Classes, Exhibits
2) New Products, Articles, Tutorials
3) Recent Introductions
4) Website(s) of Interest
5) Book(s) of Interest
6) Movie(s) of Interest
7) Music of Interest
8) Affiliate(s) of the Month
9) Quote(s) of the Month
10) Image(s) of the Month
11) Annual Multimedia Contest!
12) Request for Submissions
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1) Events: Interviews, Seminars, Workshops, Classes
If you are interested in sacred geometry workshops in the Medford, Oregon are ... or others,
please let me know! I'm planning workshops now, so please advise me if you're interested in a
workshop in your area. Here's my list of current and past events.
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2) New Products, Articles and Tutorials
The Fourth Hermetic Law (Polarity) is the topic for my most recent article on the
Spirit of Ma'at website. This series of articles are brief excerpts from my upcoming book,
The Geometry Code. I've listed the articles in this series (3 more to follow) on my Resources page,
as well as my Events page.
I've added two new free items for subscribers: a Sacred Geometry Bookmark and a
Sacred Geometry Desktop Image (a.k.a. Sacred Geometry Wallpaper). These are new freebies that
I'm offering for new subscribers to my free newsletter (that you're now reading), and, since you're
already a subscriber, they are for you as well.
This month's installment of the "beginner's corner" shows how to inscribe a pentagon in a circle;
this is from page 146 in SGDS
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3) Recent Introductions ... (Still Fairly) New :-)
Enhance your edits: Geometric Video Patterns (Gradient Wipe Transition Images) for Final Cut Pro!
If you use Final Cut Pro (or know someone who does), check these out!
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4) Website(s) of Interest
Thanks to Michael H. for sending this link to a superb tutorial/animation gallery by Robert W. Gray
on polyhedra, the Platonic Solids, the Cuboctahedron jitterbug relationships and much more; many
pages of great imagery and data that give a kinesthetic comprehension of the interconnectedness of
these geometric systems!
Videographer Elizabeth Upton has a fun new trailer for her upcoming documentary on
Sacred Geometry; I'm looking forward to seeing the entire finished project! I think I might have
heard and seen a bit of my voice and imagery fleeting by in the trailer... :-)
Here's some very trippy YouTube animations; the first one of a cuboctahedron reminds me of my college
Rubiks cube programming assignment when "computer graphics" was in its infancy! Moving to
the fourth dimension, here's a rectified 120-cell animation (3D slices through a 4D polytope - a polychora),
and its hyperdimension siblings: rectified tesseract, rectified 24-cell, Cantitruncated 16-cell, rectififed 5-cell,
6-5/2 Duoprism, etc. ... There are over 100 really well done animations of these transforming polyhedra by
WildStar2002...
Notice the fluid, graceful transitions from one frame to the next, as in these superb 4D star polytope animations
by Russell Towle. Now, having watched these, does the illusory nature of this so-called "reality"
seem even a bit more stretchy? :-)
My world-traveling niece sent me this interesting collection of world maps showing how the
proportions change (depicted by warped country sizes) as various interesting statistics are applied.
Speaking of maps, here's a site with a neat java applet that shows dozens of map projections with lots of
parameters you can toggle while moving the continents around with your mouse (who says a little
rodent isn't powerful!). If you want to see our planet in a heart shape, try the "Bonne (PseudoConical)"
Projection. I seem to recall from reading Peter Tompkins classic "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" that
Mercator (one of the more famous map projection methods) left his grafitti in this last remaining of the
Seven Wonders of the World. BTW, be patient while this applet loads; it takes a while even on a fast
connection, but is worth the wait...
The reason I was exploring maps is because I'm doing some research to figure out how to apply a
2D image onto the surface of a geodesic dome. I'm interested in figuring out a general algorithm for
mapping a 2D bitmap images onto adjacent triangles of geodesic surface (for different frequency geodesics);
rather than reinvent that wheel, does anyone know of an algorithm (or better yet POV-Ray code) and/or
a pre-processor to map a 2D image onto a portion of a geodesic surface? I'm guessing that
the general approach is to use a good 2D to spherical map with minimum distortion, and
then apply sphere to geodesic triangle mapping... Any help with part or all of this would be
appreciated! Ideally, I'd like to be able to define the orientation, and scaling for a 2D
(rectangular) bitmap (e.g. jpg) file and then apply it to a geodesic surface (specifying
the frequency (using spherical subdivision of an icosahedron) and render. Just reply to this email
if you have any suggestions or ideas on this... THANKS!
Another interesting page by George Hart that shows how the number 7 (not that
usual in 2D geometry!) shows up in the proportions of areas in a triangular grid (the basis of the Flower of Life.) ,,, Scroll down to the image with this caption: "Fig. 5. Triangle seven times the grid triangle area."
And one more related find; a fun fold up of an icosahedron showing six equators (great circle projections)
by Mitch Powell.
Recently I've been subscribing to a weekly update from google which lets you know when your website
has been referenced. It's always interesting to see how and where ideas propagate! Here are a
couple of places my articles on the Hermetic Laws have surfaced: Divine Cosmos and The Galactic Butterfly.
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5) Book(s) of Interest
Supplements to A Course In Miracles : Psychotherapy-Purpose, Process and Practice, and
The Song of Prayer-Prayer, Forgiveness, Healing by Foundation for Inner Peace... My favorite idea
from this book is that the secret of true prayer is to forget the things we think we need! :-)
Journey Without Distance by Robert Skutch - an interesting historical account of ACIM; can
you tell that I'm really savoring ACIM and ACIM-related media lately? :-)
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6) Movie(s) of Interest
Recount - A timely dramatization about the flaws in our current electoral process;
matches the accounts of journalists like Greg Palast.
Religulous - Bill Maher's examination of how unexamined dogmatic thinking can range from silly
to scary.
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7) Music of Interest
Fusion of the Five Elements by Michael Hedges on Torched.
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8) Affiliate(s) of the Month
Creative Catalyst Productions - Excellent instructional videos for artists. My wife raves about
these and the few I've seen I can attest to the quality and usefulness of the info for artists as well!
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9) Quote(s) of the Month
"You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. It's range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane." - ACIM, Text, Chapter 9, VII.6
"There's no power in victimhood. It isn't that you might not have had bad experiences, and it isn't that the pain is not real. But it's a loser's game to get stuck on "Look what was done to me!" The only power is in "Fine! It's all true. Now, what am I going to do? What options exist for me?" - Nathaniel Branded, author of The Art of Living Consciously
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10) Image(s) of the Month
The nested pentagrams of this image (Earth And Venus Per Martineau)
are similar to those found on page 153 Pentagonal Fractal Arms) in SGDS
Like all 12 images in this series, prints, apparel, cards and more are all available with a
wide variety of options on my zazzle gallery.
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11) 2008 (now annual) multimedia CONTEST!
I've decided to make the Sacred Geometry Multimedia Contest an annual event, so you NOW have
until Dec. 31, 2008 to send me entries (inspired by Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook, or other
images or ideas on the site) to win a free GeometryCode screensaver and eBooklet!
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12) Request for Submissions
If you would like to stay connected and network with kindred souls online, check out
LinkedIn. I'm enjoying connecting with both recent and long-time friends and colleagues
and discovering new friends of friends (and soon friends of friends of friends... :-)
As always, please let me know how I can support you. Please send me any interesting items about
sacred geometry or related interests (since everything is interrelated!
Thanks for your interest & support! :-)
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Bruce Rawles
POB 1515, Eagle Point, Oregon 97524
co-author of The Geometry Code screensaver
author of Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook
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