A story I told at a minister's graduation ceremony got quoted my friend and fellow instructor, Teri Goggin-Robbins, the developer of the Strong and Wise system. It was a cool story about some thoughts I had about my GPS as I drove to the ceremony. Click here to see her blog which contains my quote. While you're there, sign up for her blog. She always has bright ideas to share. I'll write the story myself soon.

The Moment of Creation
An origin story by Annabella Wood
April 8, 2010


In the beginning, before there was the earth for the winds to blow through the trees or the rain to fall down onto, before there was the sun, before there was light and before there was dark, before there was time and before there was space, there was sound; the sound of ohhmmm. This sound of ohhmmm was a wave of perfectly smooth crests and troughs of perfectly identical shapes. Every wave was exactly the same shape and height and width as every other wave in the ohhmmm, so it was all one ohhmmm wave. This wave moved all about at a constant rate of movement, but since the speed at which it moved never changed, and there was no one there to see it, it really didn’t move at all. In other words, it was both an infinite number of waves and one wave; both moving and not moving. Everything was peaceful and serene in the universe and everything was good because the sound of ohhmmm was everything that was.
One day, the ohhmmm wave ran into a point of infinite, pure energy that was not moving. As the wave tried to sweep up the point into itself and make it part of the wave, the point did not move nor change. It stayed right where it was and remained a point of infinite, pure energy. The wave said to the point, “Unmoving point of infinite, pure energy, you must become like me, for you will become as happy as I am, and as long as I am everything that is, there is peace throughout the entire universe.”
The point replied, “I am happy as I am, where I am, and what I am. I will not join you, nor become like you. You are welcome to be you, and I will just be me.”
The wave felt a little threatened by such self assuredness in something so unlike itself, for if something so different from the wave could be happy, then perhaps something was wrong with the wave. The wave decided that it was absolutely necessary for it to make the point like itself. It tried to hypnotize the point with its ohhmmm, but that didn’t work. It tried once again, to convince the point to become part of the wave, saying, “Unmoving point of infinite, pure energy, you must become like me, for you will become as happy as I am, and as long as I am everything that is, there will be peace throughout the entire universe.”
The point said, “I am happy as I am, where I am, and what I am. I will not join you, nor become like you. You are welcome to be you, and I will just be me.”
So the wave focused its full force of the ohhmmm onto the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy, but the point did not waver, nor move, nor merge with the wave. Instead, the point rested peacefully, waiting for the wave to settle down and restore itself to peace, slightly amused at the wave for insisting that the point must become wave-like for the point’s own welfare. The point said again, in a patient, calm voice, “I am happy as I am, where I am, and what I am. I will not join you, nor become like you. You are welcome to be you, and I will just be me.”
The ohhmmm wave became quite fearful that it would lose its peace forever in the face of something so unlike itself; something so unfamiliar. It felt that its very survival hinged on incorporating the point to become part of the wave. The ohhmmm wave raised itself to its full height and threateningly told the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy, “If you don’t willingly become like me and take my form, I will crash upon you and forcefully make you like me. Then you will see how much better and more peaceful your life will be. Once you are just like me, I will be everything that is, and peace shall be restored throughout the entire universe.” Then the wave started yelling ohhhmmmm at the point, to illustrate to the point how happy and peaceful the wave was.
The point, unimpressed by the wave’s unsuccessful demonstration of peace and happiness stood fast and this time had to yell to the wave to be heard over the oohhhmmmm, “I am happy as I am, where I am, and what I am. I will not join you, nor become like you. You are you, and I am me, so let’s just let that be.”
In a fit of rage borne from fear of its own demise because of the presence of something unlike itself, the wave increased the volume of its oohhhmmmm to a deafening roar and then yelled, “I will crush you, and kill you and fracture you or dissolve you until you become a part of me, for I must make you like me so that I can be everything that is and then I can restore peace throughout the entire universe.” Then, the wave crashed over the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy in an attempt to crush it, kill it, fracture it or dissolve it and make it part of the wave forever so that the wave could, once again, be everything that is and then it could restore peace throughout the entire universe.
As the wave thundered down upon the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy, the wave tore itself, creating uneven wavelengths and irregularities throughout the ohhmmm wave. Suddenly it was no longer one wave, both moving and not moving, but rather an infinite number of different waves, with different shapes, speeds and directions. At the same moment, as the wave cracked across the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy with all its force, it completely shattered the point’s outer shell, exposing the raw energy within. Instantly, concurrently, everything within the unmoving point of infinite, pure energy was released and the ohhmmm wave fractured from one into an infinite number of waves.
The point and the wave exploded in unison; a gigantic fireball of light, sound and matter. They zoomed past their notions of the pre space-time universe and catapulted themselves into the unknown, creating time and space as they broke through the barriers of their old thoughts. They spread themselves throughout the universe in the forms of light, planets, galaxies, stars, dark matter and anything else you can imagine. In this one instant, time and space, matter and energy and everything that is, was created from everything that was.
And that is how the world began.

 The following is an excerpt from my final paper for my BA in Quantum Physics Theory. I hope you enjoy.  - Annabella


A Little Bit of Science, and Why We Might Care - April 2010

According to Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, energy = matter times the speed of light squared. So what and who cares, other than that this equation is the corner stone of both a new science and a new mathematics? What difference does this make in our lives here on Earth? These are the questions I have been exploring during my studies here at UI&U. I expect I will continue exploring them long after graduation. The song whose video I am creating as my culminating studio project this semester is one which speaks to these questions in visual form. It is my energy self traveling at the speed of thought (light) to join with my matter self. The joining of these two aspects of myself is the alchemical process of me becoming all I can be during this physical life. I liken it to the union of the wave and the point in my creation story.
Throughout this lifetime and perhaps many others before, my experiential self has been seeking knowledge of my spiritual self. Upon attaining a little of that knowledge, my spiritual self became so overpowering, I couldn’t maintain my experiential self. It seemed they were mutually exclusive. Neither extreme brought me the experience I was seeking, because neither self is the whole picture. It is in their joining that my own joy abides, and it is this joining which I am facilitating through my studies at UI&U and in my life. It is both parts of myself walking together on this physical plane which fulfills me, and which I am just beginning to consciously experience. It is the acknowledgement of the journey and moment of recognition that the “I’m Coming Home” music and video are about.
What is creativity? Is it the fabrication of a piece of artwork? Is it the writing of a book or a song? Certainly, these are considered creative endeavors, but creativity is much more than just that. I see it as what takes place every time something moves from the quantum field of infinite possibility into a fixed or semi-fixed material state. For instance, when someone dreams a dream, that is the act of dreaming. It can be a specific dream, often referred to as a thought, such as a picture that an artist wants to paint. It could be a less well defined dream such as a life one wants to live. Regardless of the type of dream, it is through the creative act that one’s dream breaks through the veil separating the field of infinite possibility from the physical realm and the dream becomes something we humans consider “real”; an experience or a material thing, but either way, it is a presence in the physical realm.
I believe that Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity gives a mathematical representation of the creative process. The theory of special relativity has long been an object of fascination to me. Literally it states that the amount of energy within an object is equal to that object’s mass times the speed of light multiplied by itself once. From a mathematical standpoint, that means that if we know the mass of any object we can calculate how much energy is required to hold that object together.
Let’s take a nickel for instance. According to the web site hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/thermo/nickel.html, a nickel weighs about 5.1 grams. Running this information through the Theory of Special Relativity we find that a nickel is the material equivalent of 4.5 x 1015 Joules. A “Joule” is simply a unit of measurement of energy. So what does that number mean? How much energy is that? Through further calculations, we find that 4.5 x 1015 Joules is enough energy to run the average desktop computer for 5 hours.1 Who would have thought there was so much energy in one little nickel? Imagine how much energy your body is using to hold itself together!
It is very surprising how much energy matter requires for its existence. This is the reason an atomic bomb is so devastating. In an atomic bomb explosion the materials used in the bomb release their energetic equivalent all at once. A small amount of matter emits tremendous amounts of energy.
As interesting as all this is, it is only the literal use of the equation. This equation is actually much more provocative than it seems on the surface. The thought process that Einstein went through on his way to finding this equation helped to midwife the birth of quantum physics, which, in turn, is bringing the science of physics face to face with such interpretive studies as philosophy, theology and spirituality. No longer can a cutting-edge physicist live in a world of nothing but equations, measurements, invariant solutions and certainty.
This is not to say that classical physics is no longer accurate. It is as accurate as it ever was. It is still very useful, in much the same way that it is useful to consider the earth to be flat. On a daily basis we just don’t use the fact that the earth is round, even though we know that it is. We move about as if we were on a flat surface, and it works quite well unless we are planning the flight path of a jetliner. Then it is important to know that the earth is round. In this manner, the rules of classical physics work quite well. They don’t break down until one is working with very small or very large quantities.
Among other things, the Theory of Special Relativity states that energy and matter are closer than equivalent. Einstein is often quoted as stating that, “matter is energy condensed to a slow vibration.” If this is true, then energy and matter are not just equivalent. They are made of the same stuff. They are different forms of exactly the same thing. That “thing” is vibration.
It has long been known that matter can be converted into energy, such as the burning of wood. The wood becomes the light and heat of the fire, and the ashes. Since the weight of the ashes is so much less than that of the wood that burned, where did that extra weight go? It became energy in the form of the light and heat. It is no longer matter. The same is true of gasoline in a car. The liquid gas is burned in the engine and the heat and light of that fire is harnessed and turned into the movement of the car and its occupants. Processes such as these are going on continuously all around us.
What about energy being converted into matter? One place we see this is in the development of plants. They take sunlight (energy), mix it with water and dirt, and create plants. The action of energy becoming matter is often considered to be that of creation, and matter becoming energy to be that of destruction.
It could be said that all matter was formed out of pure energy at the time of the big bang. Brian Swimme starts out his book, The Universe Story, with the following statement: “Originating power brought forth a universe. All the energy that would ever exist in the entire course of time erupted as a single quantum—a singular gift—existence” (17). According to this point of view, energy existed before matter, and some of it became matter while much of it remained energy. According to this creation story, energy becoming matter is the ultimate act of creation — the last word, shall we say, of creativity. Notice he also mentioned that it was “All the energy that would ever exist in the entire course of time.” He didn’t say, “All the matter that would ever exist.” Isn’t it interesting that energy is considered the constant in this universe, and matter is considered to come and go? As matter disappears it is becoming energy and as matter appears we now accept that it is energy appearing as matter. We never talk about matter appearing as energy when we are looking at something like a lightning bolt or the Northern Lights or something that is pure energy. That is because energy is accepted as being the building block of the entire universe, not matter. Everything that exists is either energy appearing as energy or energy appearing as matter, and when energy appears as matter it is because of creation: the act of creativity.
Picture the equation e=mc2 as a spectrum, with “e” at one end of the spectrum and “mc2” at the other end of the spectrum. In this case, the end of the spectrum with the “e” would represent the state of the universe at the time just before the big bang, and the other end of the spectrum would represent a world where all the energy was appearing as matter, such as in a black hole, perhaps. The spectrum represents the unchangeability of the total amount of energy that makes up the universe. No matter where one is on this spectrum, the sum total of all the “e” on one side plus all the “mc2” on the other side will always equal the entire spectrum. Our physical world sits somewhere on this spectrum, and just where we sit is constantly moving. As matter is created, our place on the spectrum moves toward the “mc2” end of the spectrum. As matter becomes energy, we move the other way. As with any other spectrum, the things on the ends of the spectrum, often considered opposites, are actually the same thing appearing as opposites. After all, the ends of a stick are still the stick.
Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity states that everything is actually energy, no matter what it looks like. So thoughts are energy, ideas are energy, tables are energy and cups of coffee are energy. Our calculation with the nickel demonstrates the massive amount of energy required to make even a small amount of matter. This energy can be in the form of thought, ideas, inspiration or anything else known to humans since everything in this world is some form of energy.