My Calendar

The Five Nexus of Resonance

A nexus is a coming together, connection. It is derived from the Latin nexere, to bind together. The plural is not, surprisingly, nexi, but rather nexuses, or nexus. I've chosen to use the singular plural, because it seems appropriate.

Resonance has five key main nexus. They exist objectively, socially, and within our individual consciousnesses. Our consciousness is created by and is the creator of the powerful resonances that exist within and between these nexus. They are not neatly separated one from another, but overlap in a myriad of wonderful and sometimes unexpected ways.

They are:

1. The big natural cycles we experience in nature. These include the astral, planetary, solar, earthly, lunar, and daily cycles that occur around us, and happen to us. They appear external to us, and are observable mostly with the naked senses. They are linked to our bodily cycles (See below, #2) through our circadian, menstrual and seasonal rhythms, mostly.

2. The cycles in our bodies. These include our respiration, heartbeat, and brainwaves, plus the various cycles of these cycles -- most particularly our circadian, lunar, and seasonal cycles. These are linked to music (#3, below) through the rhythm of the heart, the regular 16th-note pulsation of our alpha brain waves, and the more tonal frequencies of our gamma brain waves.

3. The resonance that we intentionally create. These are the sounds, sights, smells, tactile feelings, and tastes that we create through our music, art, aromas, touch, and cooking.  These align with our five senses.

4. Science and math.

A Resonant Bridge

When I tell people I'm thinking and writing about resonance, many say, "Oh yea, like the Takoma Narrows Bridge!"



Interestingly, Takoma Narrows isn't an example of resonance, but rather of harmonically- reinforced chaos. There was no vibrational source, only the powerful stimulus of the wind that caused the harmonic and then chaotic reaction of the bridge. This could be argued further...

But I'd like to talk about resonance itself as a potential bridge between the mechanical (Newton), relativistic (Einstein), and quantum mechanical (Heisenberg and Schrodinger) universes. Unhappily I don't have the scientific or mathematical background to "prove" that resonance is a bridge between these three radically different ways of looking at the universe. But here's a broad outline of my thinking.

First, Newton's view of the universe was a culmination of the scientific view that reason, observation, and mechanical cause and effect are the only "true" reality, and completely seperate from our perception and consciousness of what we're observing. The universe acts according to universal laws which we experience from the outside.

Einstein brought consciousness somewhat into this picture, by showing that our experience of time changes when our speed relative to each other becomes very high. He was still operating under the presumption, however, that things were potentially certain -- all you had to do was find the right mathematical equations with which to express them.

Then, Heisenberg and Schrodinger, among many others, showed that reality itself changes when we observe it. In the world of quantum mechanics, consciousness is at the center of reality, whereas, in Newton's world, it was completely separate from it. Subsequent to their basic formulations, others found that the intention of the observer influenced what was being observed.

I'm not suggesting, like some have, that the only reality is in our consciousness. But I am saying that it's a two-way communication between observed and observer, and that the effectiveness of that communication depends on its resonant qualities: the energy and coherence of the sender, and the sensitivity and tuning of the receiver.

"Effectiveness of that communication?" More on this in subsequent posts, but my presumption is that we are in constant two-way communication with the world around us, at a myriad of different frequencies and through many different types of energy. Our understanding of and ability to use resonance can make us better senders and receivers; more attuned to and better able to influence what goes on inside of us, with other people, and with our environment.

Becoming more resonant can take place in many different ways, along a rich braided network of different paths. But the first step is developing awareness of the vibratory and energetic resonances we create and experience (1) within ourselves, (2) with others, and (3) with the environment. Maybe the best place to start developing that awareness, given the longevity and credibility of "objective" science, is by observing and cataloging resonance "out there," in the universe, at all frequencies.

So that's where we'll start.

ISSSEEM -- The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine -- had a great conference a couple of weeks ago. Deepak Chopra spoke, sending waves of powerful energy through the audience. He can do this because he is a Yogi, versed in addressing the heart while speaking his mind. It was almost overwhelming.

Vibration and resonance were everywhere. Between the participants, in the presentations and discussions, in the book titles, in the product brochures. It seems like these subtle energies manifest through resonance. Question is, how, exactly?

When I asked Claude Swanson, Greg Maret, and Jim Oshman (three of the keynote speakers) what role they thought resonance played in their work, they all said, basically, "why, resonance is all there is." In his talk, Deepak Chopra said, "we are a symphony of resonances -- omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent."

Wonderful words! Question is, how do we make them applicable to everyday life? Ultimately, we want a phenomenology of resonance (phenomenology? there must be a better word...) that is practical, moving, motivational, exciting, musical...

So first thing is to say what we can now.

1. Resonance is a fundamental force in the universe.

2. Resonance is fundamental to, and connects, the "I, We, and Its" realms of existence.

3. There may be two types of resonance -- harmonic and fractal. (Though I suspect they're explainable in the same terms.)

4. Resonance is an information transmission mechanism.

5. Resonance happens at all frequencies, from the slowest galactic cycles to the highest planck frequencies and beyond.

6. Resonance is the interaction between sender and receiver; it requires duality and partnership/relationship.

7. Resonance occurs at regular intervals along the frequency scale, based on octaves and other logarithmically scaled intervals (thinking about Global Scaling).

8. Somewhat corrollary to #6: a vibration or cycle by itself does not exist. It can only exist in relation to another vibration or cycle.

9. Resonance is what links all forms of consciousness.

10. Resonance is how all subtle energy medicine works.

11. More resonance means less energy needed to accomplish the same purpose.

12. Resonance increases when energy and coherence of the "sender" increase, and when the tuning and sensitivity of the "receiver" increase.

13. Resonance takes place in gross, subtle and causal energy realms.

14. Harmonic or fractal resonance between these energy realms caues things like Platonic "ideals" vs. physical "reality." (Quotes on purpose!)

The Information is too Loud!

The Swine flu virus scare has me thinking about the media, and more generally about the amount of information that bombards us every day. Remember how the four elements of resonance are power, coherence, tuning, and damping? Information is like sound.  If there's too much of it, we get crazy, and try to find ways of filtering it or turning down the volume

I found a study at the University of California at Berkeley that quantifies the amount 0f information the world is producing, and how fast it's growing.  The figures are astounding.

1.  The world produced about 5 new exabytes of information in 2002.  An exabyte is 1,000 petabytes.  A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes.  And a terabyte is 1,000 gigytes.  Another way to think about it:  an exabyte is 37,000 Library of Congresses.  Humans produced 185,000 Library of Congresses worth of information in 2002.

2.  With a world population of 6.4 billion, that amounts to 800 MB of new recorded information per person.  That's the equivalent of 30 feet of books.

3.  Information production has been growing 30% a year.

What that means on a day-to-day basis is that we can't possibly absorb the information that comes at us each day.  It's like an extremely loud and constant noise.  There's some discomfort, and we try to find ways of turning it down and filtering it.  We also look for coherence within it, trying to tune into the frequencies that we need.

This creates fear and anxiety, and changes our primary need from one of finding information, to one of finding coherence and meaning within the information we're getting.  In information resonance terms, we need less power and more resonance.

As "listeners", we are trying to find ways of tuning into only what we need (tuning out what we don't need), and becoming less sensitive (damping ourselves) to the sheer volume of what's out there.

So, as the media delivers increasing amounts of  information about more and more topics like swine flu, we hunker down, put on our headphones, read editorials, become fundamentalists.

How do we maintain and increase our ability to resonately absorb the information that we need when the volume is so loud, and getting louder?

Some Resonance Basics

Resonance is a vibration caused by another vibration. Vibrations happen at virtually all conceivable frequencies, and in all energetic realms. Another way to think about it: resonance is the cyclic interaction between two entities.

The main elements of resonance are (1) source amplitude, (2) source frequency, (3) target damping, and (4) target tuning. I'll talk about a fifth element, intention, in a later post.

Power is the amplitude of the source vibration. In a sound context, it's how far the air moves in each cycle of the sound wave. While this has much to do with perceived loudness, it's not the same thing, since our perception of loudness depends on a combination of amplitude, pitch, and subjectivity. The energy contained in a source vibration is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the wave. So if you increase the amplitude by a factor of two, the energy increases by a factor of 4. In addition, if you have two soundwaves with the same amplitude, one at a higher pitch, the one with the higher pitch has more energy.

Source Frequency, again in the context of music, is pitch. More generally, it's the number of cycles per given unit of time of a given vibration. So our brain's Alpha wave frequencies range between 8 and 12 cycles per second, or Hz. The lowest A on the piano is 26 Hz. Pluto's orbital cycle is .004032 revolutions per Earth year (one orbit around the sun every 248 years).

So we have a source that is vibrating at given frequencies and amplitudes, creating energy. The amount of that energy depends on the amplitude and frequency of those vibrations. The extent to which we get resonance from that energy depends on the target.

Target Damping is the degree to which the target is free to vibrate in response to energy from the source. If the target is heavily damped, it will have a very small and undifferentiated reaction to the cyclic energy of the source. As damping decreases, the target vibrates more. When damping passes through zero and goes into the negative, it is energy that essentially amplifies the source. So a target can either reduce or increase the energy from the source.

Target Tuning is the degree to which the target can "hear" the vibrations of the source. In the simple case of a tuning fork tuned to A440, it will only resonate to the same source frequency of 440Hz (Actually, it will also resonate to certain lower frequencies, but more on that in a later post). Jonathan Goldman calls this "free" resonance. The soundboards and air columns of musical instruments, on the other hand, are designed to resonate at a variety of frequencies. Indeed, the quality of that resonance in musical instruments is the foundation of the quality of the instrument itself. Johathan Goldman calls this second type of resonance "forced" resonance, and it is by far the most common type of resonance that we encounter in our day-to-day lives.

So to summarize: Resonance is the cyclic interaction between two entities. The degree of resonance depends on the amplitude and frequency (energy) of the source, combined with the damping and tuning of the target. This definition applies to all frequencies, from the planetary to the super-atomic, and in all energy realms, from the gross to the subtle and causal.

This is the first post of the Resonance blog. We'll write about resonance at all frequencies, from the planetary to the super-atomic. We resonate all the time, at all frequencies, in many different types of energy, and yet, for a variety of reasons, we're only partially aware of those resonances.

Resonance is good for us. Listening to good music, understanding and living by the cycles of the planets, aligning with our circadian rhythms, honoring the collective unconscious, living with cyclicality and ambiguity -- all contribute to our well-being. Conversely, listening to bad music, ignoring the cycles of the planets, living outside of our circadian rhythms, and not honoring the collective unconscious, all cause us to be less well, or less whole.

We're an integral and active part of a vibrating, cycling, breathing, singing universe. We're both listener and performer, and so need to develop both our ears and our “chops.”

Here are some of the fields and phenomena that manifest resonance in one way or another:

• Music
• Music therapy
• Reiki healing
• Energy systems
• Harmony and harmonic structure
• Quantum mechanics
• Cymatics
• Sacred geometry
• Sound therapy
• Tides
• Astrology
• Climate change
• Lasers
• Morphic resonance
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Radio broadcasting
• Brainwaves
• Heartbeats and heart rate variability
• Hearing of pitch
• Entrainment
• Mechanics
• Chronobiology
• Mythology

And here are some examples:

• Acoustic resonances of musical instruments and human vocal cords

• The timekeeping mechanisms of all modern clocks and watches: the balance wheel in a mechanical watch and the quartz crystal in a quartz watch

• The tidal resonance of the Bay of Fundy

• Orbital resonance as exemplified by some moons of the solar system's gas giants

• the resonance of the basilar membrane in the cochlea of the ear, which enables people to distinguish different frequencies or tones in the sounds they hear.

• Electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios and TVs that allow individual stations to be picked up

• Creation of coherent light by optical resonance in a laser cavity

• Material resonances in atomic scale are the basis of several spectroscopic condensed matter physics. Examples include Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Mössbauer effect, Electron Spin Resonance, and many others.

• The shattering of a crystal wineglass when exposed to a musical tone of the right pitch (its resonance frequency)

Resonance is everywhere, and so deserves some focused attention. So here we go!