It was 6:55 am, and I went outside on the back patio to wait for my employer to arrive at 7:00 am. I was preparing to leave after a 13-hour shift at work. Grey clouds filled the sky. I looked up at the apple tree in the center of the yard and saw a hummingbird rest upon a branch for a blink of an eye; I saw an object fall from the tree, then heard a loud "thud!" A golden-green apple had hit the ground. I thought of Isaac Newton and his epiphany when an apple fell on his head, and he was lead to define his law of gravity. Then I thought of Galileo's experiment.
Galileo's Famous Gravity Experiment | Brian Cox | BBC Two
"You probably know that two objects dropped in a vacuum fall at the same rate, no matter the mass of each item. If you've never seen a demonstration of this, then you really should, because it's incredible to watch.
Here is perhaps the perfect example, brought to us by physicist Brian Cox. He checked out NASA's Space Simulation Chamber located at the Space Power Facility in Ohio. With a volume of 22,653 cubic meters, it's the largest vacuum chamber in the world.
In this hypnotizing clip from the BBC, Cox drops a bowling ball and a feather together, first in normal conditions, and then after virtually all the air has been sucked out of the chamber. We know what happens, but that doesn't stop it from being awesome, especially with the team's ecstatic faces."
full-length experiment: https://youtu.be/E43-CfukEgs
After watching this, I thought about how negative thoughts can hit one like a bowling ball and crush one's positive emotional state and how a positive psychological impression can touch one like a feather and bring a sensation of soft pleasing pleasure.
Then I thought how meditation could create an emotional vacuum in one's consciousness so that there is "no crush of a bowling ball" and "no soft sensational feather." There is just observing the fall of the emotion (negative or positive) in an airless vacuum.
Sincerely,
April Vihilidal
Hi, April!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blogs this summer. I really resonate with your way of thinking and how you connect experiences and ideas. Thank you for sharing your happiness journey with us!
-Emily