On one of the shows Chris Brogan hosted on Blog.tv he invited me to co-host with him. We talked about security, Jewish mysticism, and how I might use this new media for the things I teach and do. When he asked I was struck a bit by how much of this "new media" has been used, in the past 30 years, for spreading Jewish mysticism and the like. I was going to email Chris some thoughts on this, but I decided I would put this here and share it with everyone.
Right now there is a project going on called The Living Archive where they are working to digitize vast stores of magnetic media from 12 to 30 years ago. These are videos and films of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Now what ties this to the new media theme is the following. Although some of the film is from professional recordings, a large portion of the film is from individual people making their own recordings of something they thought was significant in their life.
Even more relevant to the new media is that talks that the Lubavitcher Rebbe gave were broadcast over an improvised phone network (I think it may have been a call in line) not unlike the live podcasts of today. There were also real time translators who translated from Yiddish and Hebrew to English. (In the videos you can see people listening on earpieces to the broadcast translations as they watch). For some events, like Menorah lightings they did at an international satellite linkup of live Chanukah Menorah lightings around the world. This was done in the 1980's.
So many of the features of the "new media" have long been used, but only recently have the tools been developed that enable anyone to implement global broadcasts at the push of a button.
I'm still working out what I can contribute to the video podcasting/new media trend, but I found reflecting on what has already been done an interesting exercise to determine what of what are we doing is truly new and what is the democratization provided by new technologies.
Showing posts with label content. Show all posts
Showing posts with label content. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Kings and Queens - or Kabbalah On One Foot
In a discussion on twitter about whether or not conversation is King I made a bit of a flippant comment "but a King is always best with a Queen, perhaps content is queen (although kabbalistically conversation is queen. I digress)". To elaborate on this comment would take more than 140 characters, so I thought I would blog about it.
One of the central concepts of kabbalah (however you want to spell it) is the tree of life. I often think of it as being a bit like a fractal design. If you've ever played with fractal programs you can look at a pattern and zoom into a part and find the pattern repeating itself. The pattern of the tree of life is used from the beginning of creation - with the shattering of the vessels of Tohu (chaos) (think big bang) - all the way down until we see the pattern in our own body.
Leaving Keter/the Crown aside for the moment we have:
Wisdom and Understanding being the two hemispheres of the brain.
Kindness and severity being the two arms (one pushing away (severity - the left arm/the weaker arm) one drawing close (kindness - the right arm)
Beauty or harmony - the torso (- think of classic Greek beauty - it was the definition of the torso that reflected it and how the lines of the arms drew the focus into the core of the body.)
Victory and Appreciation - the legs
Foundation - the base of the torso or "The organ of procreation"
And Malchut/Royalty - often translated as Kingship - is the womb....or the mouth.
Although Malchut is translated as kingship it is a feminine aspect within the tree. (No duh Goldie - you said it was the womb.) So what do the womb and the mouth have to do with each other?
One aspect of the womb is that it conceals something yet at the same time it is the place where gestation occurs and it gives forth a new being. It reveals and conceals. It takes something internal and intimate and creates something which is separate. If you think of the nature of speech - or communication - it takes an idea that a person had and through a process of development (taking it from thought to communication) those thoughts become words, which are expressed by the mouth and then becomes separate. Some aspects of the original thoughts are concealed - but it also reveals an idea that was hidden before.
Now where did all of these ideas come from that are suddenly revealed - did it just spring forth from the mouth fully formed? Of course not - it came from the mind, from the emotions from the weighing of how to best say something and choosing ones words, and then with the mouth we speak. The content comes first, and then based on the content produced by that process the words have value, or lack thereof.
If we go back to the tree of life above the nearest source for the content, that which coalesces the ideas before they reach Malchut - is a masculine aspect - the King who joins with the Queen.
Thus we have Content is King, and Communication is Queen. But content without communication isn't nearly as powerful as the two combined. (And the reverse is also true.)
One of the central concepts of kabbalah (however you want to spell it) is the tree of life. I often think of it as being a bit like a fractal design. If you've ever played with fractal programs you can look at a pattern and zoom into a part and find the pattern repeating itself. The pattern of the tree of life is used from the beginning of creation - with the shattering of the vessels of Tohu (chaos) (think big bang) - all the way down until we see the pattern in our own body.
Leaving Keter/the Crown aside for the moment we have:
Wisdom and Understanding being the two hemispheres of the brain.
Kindness and severity being the two arms (one pushing away (severity - the left arm/the weaker arm) one drawing close (kindness - the right arm)
Beauty or harmony - the torso (- think of classic Greek beauty - it was the definition of the torso that reflected it and how the lines of the arms drew the focus into the core of the body.)
Victory and Appreciation - the legs
Foundation - the base of the torso or "The organ of procreation"
And Malchut/Royalty - often translated as Kingship - is the womb....or the mouth.
Although Malchut is translated as kingship it is a feminine aspect within the tree. (No duh Goldie - you said it was the womb.) So what do the womb and the mouth have to do with each other?
One aspect of the womb is that it conceals something yet at the same time it is the place where gestation occurs and it gives forth a new being. It reveals and conceals. It takes something internal and intimate and creates something which is separate. If you think of the nature of speech - or communication - it takes an idea that a person had and through a process of development (taking it from thought to communication) those thoughts become words, which are expressed by the mouth and then becomes separate. Some aspects of the original thoughts are concealed - but it also reveals an idea that was hidden before.
Now where did all of these ideas come from that are suddenly revealed - did it just spring forth from the mouth fully formed? Of course not - it came from the mind, from the emotions from the weighing of how to best say something and choosing ones words, and then with the mouth we speak. The content comes first, and then based on the content produced by that process the words have value, or lack thereof.
If we go back to the tree of life above the nearest source for the content, that which coalesces the ideas before they reach Malchut - is a masculine aspect - the King who joins with the Queen.
Thus we have Content is King, and Communication is Queen. But content without communication isn't nearly as powerful as the two combined. (And the reverse is also true.)
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