The Case Of The Mellowing Sun

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* This ultraviolet image of the Sun shows one of the largest solar flares ever seen, courtesy SOHO, (NASA & ESA).
Possible Consequences Of Slowed Solar Activity
That there is an inextricable link between Life on earth as we know it and the interaction between the heavenly bodies - is well known. The earth spins on its axis at slightly less than 1,700 kilometers per hour. This figure in itself is enough to make us feel dizzy and off-balance, but the earth's spin does not make us feel so - even the just-emerged new-born infant is quite at ease with this spin. But then this lump of rock does not stop at only spinning. It revolves around that other round mass of hot gas at an astonishing speed of over one hundred thousand kilometers per hour.



And the earth has been doing it for millions of years, absolutely effortlessly cruising in empty space, without apparently needing any fuel nor motivation, and without causing any pollution too in the conventional sense of the term. And while doing so, the planet performs this beautiful motion of tilting one of its poles towards the Sun every six months, a phenomenon that we have come to call the solstices. So confidently it performs this exquisite move, that had some human being tried it while spinning and zooming, we would have called it brazen daredevilry. Compared to this stupendous performance, the elaborate fanfare with which we struggle to make our vehicles even touch one thousand six hundred kilometers in an hour - in itself a laudable feat - appears so piddly, so miniscule, so trifling.

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* A CAD engineer visualizes how the latest car on the road will perform, YouTube / drumbassraver. The "Bloodhound" is expected to clock 1,610 kilometers per hour when it is ready, which it is scheduled to be in another two years. When it finally begins running, it will be the fastest land-automobile ever. Now compare this with the speed of 100,000 kilometers per hour clocked by our own Earth. The earth has been moving at this speed, without stop or let, for the past millions of years, and hopefully shall do so for the next few millions of years.
So right now, as I am typing this out, and right at this moment in time as you are reading this, we are not only spinning round and round at 1,700 kilometers per hour, we are also travelling in a circular forward motion at 100,000 kilometers per hour. We are breathing in, breathing out, ensconced in our very own private space, simply enjoying our existence. Despite all this dizzying spin and insane speed, you and I do not feel an iota of discomfort. For us, this is how it has always been, and God willing, this is how it shall always be till the End, whenever it comes. It is as if the only purpose of all this motion and movement is to give us this supreme bliss of comfort. Somebody Somewhere is quietly working hard, and making no fuss about it, too, to ensure that we enjoy our existence. Somebody up there is taking care.


Somebody up there is taking care. So pampered are we that the entire biome has been constructed to be a self-sustaining unit. We take in, consume, excrete, which becomes the input for something else, whose output in turn goes as input to yet something else, till the cycle is complete and we get back as input what we need. The earthlings do not have to seek any assistance from anybody outside the biome. Life continues self-contained, forever and forever.


The continued sustenance of this biome is possible thanks to the Sun, our very own Energy Dynamo, who has also scripted the soap opera that has been going on and on for the past few billion years on planet Earth. And all along these years, the sun has been burning itself up; and this burning is happening at just the steady pace required so that we can continue to live comfortably, without getting any sunburns.


In its effort to cap its own fires, the sun develops on its skin black spots that look like acne on a teenager's face from such a long distance. Actually, these seemingly trivial acne spots have a tremendous impact on life on planet Earth. For each sunspot hints at the Sun struggling to repress its fury; and the storms unleashed when the Sun's subconscious explodes out of control can travel all the millions of kilometers to reach Earth in a matter of days. These storms can wreck havoc on all our systems that are electronics- and electricity-dependent. The instance of the blackout experienced by more than six million people when the Quebec electricity grid was hit by such a solar storm, is usually cited to describe the havoc that a really angry Sun can wreck.

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* Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), erupting from the Sun in January 2002 - image courtesy SOHO (NASA & ESA) - animation by 'Windows To The Universe' Staff (Randy Russell), windows.ucar.edu.
These spots appear and disappear with astonishing regularity; in fact, like the cyclicity observed in the spouse's or intimate-partner's mood-swings, there is cyclicity too in the appearance and disappearance of these sunspots every eleven years. Beginning from the time that they began formally recording these cycles, the present cycle has been numbered 24. According to a paper published here, the number of sunspots in this present cycle has been forecast to touch a maximum of 101 +/- 5. This will make this cycle - according to the paper's authors - less active than the previous cycle by about 20%. The authors further forecast that solar cycles 25, 26 and 27 are going to be even less active. So what is the implication of this reduction in solar activity?

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* Video animation of the Sun's sunspot cycle, YouTube / Cleanenvironment.
The implication is that the Sun is mellowing. It will continue to be in this mellow, introspective, reflective mood for perhaps the rest of this century. There are a few consequences of this event. Two of them are phenomenological, and the third has an aura of mysticism around it.


The first consequence of the reduced number of sunspots is that there is less probability of occurrence of associated solar activity such as solar flares, mass coronal ejections and "prominence eruptions". Which in turn implies that we may not experience geomagnetic storms in the forthcoming years, of the kind that caused the Quebec blackout. If Armageddon were to happen in the year 2012 as a lot many doomsayers are predicting, then the Sun perhaps won't be to blame. Somebody up there is indeed taking care.


The second consequence is the possibility of a lowering of the temperature of the globe. The association between low solar activity and the onset of winter on Earth is borne out by comparison of the sunspot number with global temperatures. (This chart, for example, lists the number of sunspots detected for the period from 1610 to 1995.) We have had these periods in the past, such as the Dalton Minimum, the Maunder Minimum, and the Sporer Minimum, when lower-than-average Earth temperatures coincided with low solar activity. When the Sun turns inward to reflect upon its existence, the Earth literally catches cold. The threat of Global Warming Armageddon should perhaps be replaced by the threat of Global Cooling. It is as if there's a huge, intricate system in the Space that has been set in motion to respond to the silent cries of the birds and the animals sweltering under the Greenhouse heat. Somebody up there is indeed taking care.


The third consequence of the reduction in solar activity is that the solar wind barrier --- that usually prevents the entry of cosmic particles coming in from outside the solar system --- has now been weakened. These cosmic particles are extremely high-energy particles that emerge out of the intense turmoil and churn happening in the Universe, a result of the Supreme Force tearing down old worlds and building new ones. With the barrier down, these cosmic particles will now travel (are now travelling) unfettered and unchallenged all the way from the periphery of the solar system to hit the Earth's atmosphere, pierce through it, reach down and pierce through our skin to reach deep inside our body. What is the significance in our life of the arrival of these cosmic particles? How will it affect Radiative Forcing, or the balance between the energy entering the Earth and the energy going out? Climatologists have so far been able to figure out only that these high-energy particles tend to create some small wisps of clouds here and there, so obviously the issue is far from settled.


Mystics have a different take on the influence of cosmic particles, and their view has got to do with the intangible and directly-immeasurable mind and its invisible link with the anima mundi. They point to the relationship between human consciousness and Schumann Resonances. Schumann Resonances are the extremely-low frequencies at which the air waves naturally undulate in the circuit formed between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere. These frequencies are typically around 7.83 Hz, with higher overtones being 14.3, 20.8 Hz, etc.


Now it so happens that the human brain too shares the same frequency bands. A remarkable coincidence, don't you think? When the frequency of the brain's waves locks into the frequency of the undulating waves of the earth-ionosphere circuit, then their amplitude and therefore the resultant energy heightens. Let's go by the metaphysical hypothesis that the mind is the homunculus behind the brain, and that the mind is the seat of our consciousness. So when the amplitude and the corresponding energy of the brain's waves increase because of the resonance, then correspondingly our mind's energy is raised. And we that say our consciousness has been raised. On the other hand, when our brain's waves go out of tune with the Earth's frequency, the resonance dampens, and correspondingly our consciousness becomes basal. So all the human brains - well, almost all the human brains, and include too the brains of all living beings - resonate very naturally with the frequencies of the Earth-ionosphere circuit. That's their natural habitat, their natural state of existence.


What these cosmic particles do when they impinge upon the Earth's ionosphere is to cause the overall frequency levels of the Earth-ionosphere circuit to jump a notch higher, to the next Schumann overtone. And expectedly, the vibrations in the human brains follow. The net result? While vibrating at the same humanly-possible, naturally-resonating frequency, the waves of our brain touch higher amplitude! And therefore, an even higher energy! The mystics say that this raises the human consciousness by a good enough degree.

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* Representation of consciousness, 17th century drawing, wiki.
Expect, therefore, to get in touch with your Higher Self in these coming years. Expect to be obsessed with this strong urge to move beyond the primitives of food and material comfort and sex, and to seek answers to profound questions such as who you are, whence you came, and where you are going. Prepare to be surprised by your own reaction and attitude towards daily situations, where once you were ensnared by basal emotions of fear, pride, grief, anger and the like, you are now enveloped by a light-headed feeling of being at peace, of letting go, of letting be. While Hermetic philosophers term the new awareness the first step towards enlightenment; I would liken the Schumann Resonances and their overtones with the rungs of the Jacob's Ladder. Using another analogy, the raised consciousness is like the opening up of the Gateway to a higher plane of existence.

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* 'Jacob's Ladder' by William Blake - wiki. Jacob lies asleep in this William Blake painting. The brain's waves are in a dampened-resonating mode. To raise consciousness, first learn to entrain the brain with the Natural Frequency of the Earth that holds you. And then wait and be alert for the opportunity to present itself which will raise your consciousness even higher. As the opportunity the mystics say is arriving (has arrived) now.
But while the brain's waves vibrating at an unprecedented high amplitude is an opportunity; it is up to you to take advantage of this opportunity. When the Ladder presents itself, it is only when you consciously intend that you will step on the higher rung; on its own the Ladder will not push you up. When the Gateway opens, it is when you consciously intend that you will step inside; on its own the Gateway will not pull you in. On its own, a raised consciousness is meaningless. You will have to remain alert to take advantage of this opportunity --- ignorance and slumber and skepticism and cynicism and non-belief can sometimes be our worst enemies.


These consequences are an outcome of the forecast made in the paper I have quoted earlier. These consequences incidentally run contrary to the general thrust of the views expressed in media articles on the latest solar cycle (such as this). I would be happy to be corrected on this score if I am wrong in my assessment. Ultimately, of course, not you, not I, but the Sun is the final arbiter. Going however by the nil to next-to-nil solar spots observed ever since cycle 24 began, the paper's forecast appears to be borne out, and therefore, so perhaps should the assessment.


What if the forecast is proven to be wrong by, who else, the Sun Himself? What if the Sun breaks his cyclicity, just like how the moody spouse or intimate-partner unexpectedly does every now and then? Simply reverse all the consequences discussed above by one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. Reverse everything, except this one precept: Somebody up there is taking care.