Crop Circles

We don't know much about crop circles. In the early nineties it was "exposed" (oddly enough in all the major newspapers on the same day...) that they were frauds, merely man-made. But that exposure has since been exposed itself, the people who supposedly made the formations could not explain how they did it, or indeed replicate it.
And since then, "crop circles" have grown wildly beyond mere circles and become amazingly complex and huge mathematical works of art appearing mysteriously in crops around the world, though mostly in England.

They are often hundreds of feet across, and contains hundreds of elements, precisely aligned after complex mathematics. And they appear usually in one short summer night. They have no footprints in them. And they often have strange magnetic phenomena within the formation.

Me, I don't know who makes them. Aliens? Spirits? Humans with secret technology? In any case they are really beautiful and compelling, and a strong witness that there is more under the heavens than we know.

Steve Alexander (Temporary Temples) is perhaps the best photographer of this phenomenon. He publishes a beautiful booklet every year with pictures of the circles. The books are really high quality, warmly recommended.
Steve does not normally give out high-rez versions of his pictures, but with my legendary charm and a promise of a link on this blog, I talked him into letting me share a few with you. They are big files, but worth the download. Enjoy.

Crop Circle Silbury Hill 2005
Crop Circle West Kennet 2004
Crop Circle West Kennet 2004 B
Crop Circle Windmill Hill 2004

Education

A reader has challenged me to write about education. I said I was not the most obvious person to do so, since I don't have any!
At least not a formal one. I didn't finish 12th grade, and I have never seen the inside of a university. (Do they really have all that mahogany?)
Yet I have an excellent life, financially and spiritually.

I won't say formal education is worthless. It is very valuable for a traditional life and craft. For learning how to be a dentist or an engineer, you won't get around it, so far as I know.

At the same time it is a fact that a very high percentage of the very most successful people in the world did not get a formal education. This is because to be successful takes education, but the kind of spirit and persistence it takes to be uniquely successful is not something anybody can teach you. At least not somebody who works in the education system. The same goes for achieving original and groundbreaking ideas and executing them. As a matter of fact, if there is a big downside to formal education, it is that it tends to kill originality by its very nature. (It can only teach you how others are doing things.)

I think I can say one thing for sure: your most important education is the one you give yourself.
You should be reading at least three books at once at any time: one on how to improve your craft. One on a craft or area you would like to go into. And one which talks about your relationship with the universe and beyond.

Wallace and Gromit

Since the advent of video and DVDs, I don't go to the movies often. (For one thing I like to be able to take breaks.) But I went with a friend last night to see Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Wererabbit.
I warmly recommend it. It has even better production values than Chicken Run, and to my taste it is even more entertaining and has more soul. In fact, it is the first animated movie outside Pixar I would put in the same class as Toy Story II and The Incredibles. It is just hilarious.
It has it all: suspence, humor, mystery, action, and even romance (in a big-hair, big-toothed sort of British way).
Stobblehouse sez: Way Cool.