Special Relativity: The Key to Disease?
This is a story about light and time. It’s about a father and daughter, and the enduring bond of love between them. It’s a human story, and a story about what it means to be human — as are all our stories, written and lived.
When the daughter was young, the father used to tinker with his formulas in the basement of their house in Massachusetts, including a formula that would later win the Nobel prize. By the time the formula won the prize, the father had died, and the daughter inherited a box of his possessions. In it was a 1964 Harvard PhD thesis about Artificial Intelligence.
The daughter was a lover of poetry, and an English major, and she did not understand the PhD thesis. Not in the least. Nevertheless, she slept in the same room with it. The thesis is a drawer, and she in a bed.
One day, she got sick. She went to doctors, but no one could help her. None of them seemed to understand why her body had stopped working, or what it was trying to say. So she decided to try to understand it herself.
She lived in the Age of Information, so she had access to descriptions about the way her body worked. She didn’t always understand the scholarly articles, but she made her eyes move over them. Through the Internet, she spoke with other people who were sick, hundreds of other people who were also speaking with hundreds of other people, until all the voices grew together into one great chorus, one voice.
Then she started dreaming in equations. This was strange — so strange, in fact, that she thought the world was ending, and said so. But the world wasn’t ending. What was ending was the age — just the first, far-off intimations of the end, and the daughter was hearing them. She could hear the tiny viridescent beginnings of the new age, too.
The equations were telling a story about what we see, and what is real. They brought to mind Plato, because they made the life of the body seem like a movie — a projection, where, over time, the thickness of the film and speed of the light were dissolving, until, in the end, it wasn’t a movie anymore. As the reels stop spinning, the wooden toy lifts his head to discover he has become a real boy.
The daughter has taken what she learned and put it into a story, of sorts — because, you see, everything is story — which you are about to read. But is the story true? That is not for her to say. It was the daughter’s job to write down the story. To test and see if the theory is true is up to you.
What is time?
E=mc². If the formula for mass-energy equivalence is correct, either matter or energy can play the role of matter or energy. For matter to behave as energy would require a lot of speed; for energy to behave as matter would require a lot of density. But it’d be possible to live in a world where what we thought was matter was actually dense energy and what we thought was energy was actually fast matter.
Let’s say time is that world. Time exists at the nexus between matter and energy wherein matter is fast enough to play the role of energy, and energy is dense enough to play the role of matter. If we think of matter as one sphere and energy as a separate sphere, time is the almond shape within which they intersect (the “fish” or vesica piscis).
While we’re inside time, we see through a glass darkly. We see matter expnding (e.g. the gas giants) and energy condensing (e.g. the rocky planets), but we do not see beyond the vesica piscis. All the matter that’s faster than light but slower than energy? Dark matter. All the energy that slower than light but faster than matter? Dark energy.
We’re accustomed to thinking of light as one thing, but what if it’s two? It is not just itself; it is itself plus an observer. Itself, doubled. Itself, superimposed. How many degrees of superimposition? It varies. I believe light is a relationship — an equilibrium — between matter and energy, like a controlled explosion. The Big Bang didn’t happen and then end. The Big Bang is forever happening. It’s Big Bangs all the way down.
If the past exists, the past happens. If the future exists, the future happens. The verb to be is not static. To be is active. What we were, we are. What we will be, we are. We am.
In this model, as each day happens — exists — all the other days happen along with it. The whole of creation happens again every day. Each day holds every other day (of the past) inside it, but it’s a new copy.
Here is how the maths might work. A single rotation — 360 — is not a year. A single rotation is a day. Once there have been 7 days, the new unit for a day becomes 2520 (360 x 7). After that, the new unit for a day becomes 360 x 7 x 7, or 17640 days. And so on.
For the June 7, 1969 Alethea, today I will be born for the first time. But for the September 23, 2017 Alethea, today I will be born again — as I have been born again every day for the past 17640 days.
At the moment the sun slips above the horizon and today starts, all the yesterdays start, and all the tomorrows start, simultaneously. There is, fundamentally, only one day. It’s always the same day, it’s just happening at different speeds, depending on where we are observing it from.
The full moons of 3/31/1866 and 3/2/1942 and 1/31/2018 are all the same moon, being seen on the same night. We’re just seeing it from different time signatures.
All the days run simultaneously, at the speed of light. But the speed of light varies, depending on the M/E (matter to energy) ratio. If your brain syncs with the speed of the past, you have Parkinson’s. If your brain syncs with the speed of the future, you have ALS. When you sync with the past, you have too much dark energy (extracellular potassium). When you sink with the future, you have too much dark matter (intracellular sodium).
To the left of time (Alpha), energy that has condensed to the density of matter inflates forward at the speed of light. To the right of time (Omega), matter that has accelerated to the speed of energy collapses backward at the speed of light. In this paradigm, everything we see — everything in the visible universe — is happening at the speed of light.
Shadows on a Cave Wall
For my fourteenth birthday, my father gave me a kaleidoscope. Made of engraved brass, it was as large and heavy as a ship’s spyglass. When I opened the wooden box and saw it lying there in its bed, I already knew it carried a message. My father taught at MIT when I was a kid, and was fond of imparting lessons. I lifted it to my eye, gave it a twist, and as the colored sea-glass shifted, the lesson clicked. “Always remember that just a simple twist of the wrist can change the way everything looks,” he said.
If the present is like a program running at the speed of light, the past might be likened to another program, running at a different speed — where, from the present’s perspective, time is slower and light is faster (dopamine). And the future might be likened to another program, running at a different speed — where, from the present’s perspective, time is faster and light is slower (serotonin). That is to say, in the past, and in the future, the speeds of light and time will appear skewed from our perspective. But were we in the past, or in the future, the speeds of light and time would match.
In these models, our central nervous system — via the eye, the pineal gland, and the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) — is constantly scanning our environment and attuning to the speed of light. When we read light, we read time, and we set our metabolic rate accordingly. But here’s the catch: the pH of the brain, or our metabolic rate itself, will alter the speed of light we read.
When our metabolic rate is faster than time, there will be too much acid in the body. As a result, the body’s demand for alkalinity will spike (allowing us to maintain pH7). Later, this high pH necessitates a high metabolic rate, and I get caught in a loop. (ME/CFS?)
When our metabolic rate is slower than time, there will be too little acid in the body. As a result, the body’s demand for alkalinity plummets (allowing us to maintain pH7). Later, this low pH necessitates a slow metabolic rate, and I get caught in a loop. (Autism?)
Let’s say all illness is metabolic. For instance, I believe the core etiology of Autism involves a too-slow basal metabolic rate. Time is too slow—but only because light is too fast (acidic). Whereas, in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), time is too fast—but only because light is too slow (alkaline).
Behind the scenes, pH7 is not neutral. It’s a plus and a minus (positive and negative ions) that are effectively canceling each other out. pH7 just means there’s an equal amount of positive and negative ions in the body; not the right amount. In Autism, the amount of ions (energy) is too high. In Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it’s too low.
What Happened to Me
When I was sick, I was so much more than “tired.” If I climbed a flight of stairs, I wanted to slump to the ground and weep. The mere act of being conscious seemed too much for me. I could sleep for eighteen hours, easy.
But my sleep grew dysregulated. At night, instead of gathering density, I kept trying to increase my speed (drenching night sweats). During the day, instead of increasing my speed, I kept trying to gather density (crushing fatigue).
My perception of time was askew. I was tracking with a denser sun and a faster moon. I had, among other things, paradoxical thiamine deficiency. I needed thiamine, but if I took thiamine, it increased my need for thiamine.
Thiamine powers the Krebs (energy) cycle. But depending on where we are in time, energy can mean different things. To the left of time, we use energy to make speed. To the right of time, we use energy to make density.
When I was sick, I was using my energy cycle to make matter. I was endogenously producing oxalate. In these models, oxalate—a crystal found in plants capable of photosynthesis—is light that is denser than light. The more oxalate I produced, the denser I became, and the more energy I needed. Taking thiamine increased my need for thiamine; increasing my speed increased my need for speed.
I had become an energy sieve, using my Krebs cycle to make a form of energy that actually costs energy — like paying off your debts with debts that charge higher interest.
E=mc². There’s an economics to physics. For matter to behave as energy requires speed. And what is speed? More energy. For energy to behave as matter requires density. And what is density? More matter. It’s inefficient, a vortex.
According to this paradigm, the visible universe is operating at the speed of light. But the speed of light is like a bead on an abacus that can slide from M (matter) to E (energy). When the M/E is high, light is fast. When the M/E is low, light is slow. When the universe reaches the point where we flip from M/E to E/M, what then? Beneath the speed of light, light’s speed requires energy. Above the speed of light, light’s speed generates energy. At the tipping point—when we go “over the rainbow”—instead of energy being diminished as we use it, as we use it, energy will be renewed.
It costs energy for matter to be rendered as light. It’s neutral for light to be rendered as light. And it’s light-generating for energy to be rendered as light. In a holographic universe, energy is two c’s. But we only need one.
How does the formula for mass-energy equivalence (mc²=E) not violate the law of conservation of mass? Here’s one way: Matter doesn’t become energy, it masquerades as energy. But as the universe accelerates, we reach a tipping point where the masks come off.
Time runs forward (accelerates) until it reaches the speed of light. Then it runs backward (decelerates).
Fresh Eyes
I believe that in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the basal metabolic rate is too fast. And in Autism, it’s too slow. Why don’t we perceive the perturbed metabolic rate? Because the pH is inversely deranged — a corrective that masks it.
What, actually, is the basal metabolic rate? It’s our processing speed. It’s time.
I Sing the Body Electric
If time moves like a swing, where on the pull we gather density so that on the release we can gather speed, when I was sick, I was stuck. My swing was upright. I was too dense and not dense enough.
I’m in perimenopause now, and with estrogen, it’s the same thing. I have too much and not enough. Estrogen, like other hormones, tracks with light and time. It waxes and wanes; its healthy functioning depends on a range. Because my estrogen neither spikes nor plummets, it hovers mid-range, where its functionality is lost.
What matters isn’t that I possess estrogen; it’s that my estrogen move. For females to menstruate, our estrogen has to dip. But for estrogen to be able to dip, first it has to spike — and there’s no room. In other words, it has to go up, so that it can go down, so that it can go up. It has to pulse. Static estrogen is dead to us; it carries no information. Movement is energy. Movement, we can read.
Without estrogen, in turn, I lose the use of choline (cellular membrane stability); I absorb less vitamin K; I lose vitamin K-dependent matrix GLA protein. I lose the ability to render myself anew. I need estrogen to make estrogen. Time is a loop, and I am locked out.
My body tries to catch up, but I’ve lost my range of motion. When I attempt to accelerate, I find I am not dense enough. When I attempt to gather density, I find I am not fast enough. Often I wind up, but then I get slack in the line, and lose energy as heat (hot flash). When my blood is too thin, I cannot move forward in time.
We’re Caught in a Trap
As we age, we can get caught in a metabolic cul-de-sac. We’re not dense enough to move forward in time, and not fast enough to move back. Time, slowly, stands still. After I’d been accelerating for about 50 years, I hit a metabolic tipping point. I was maximally accelerated; it felt as if I needed to shift to a different gear. But how? Instead of swinging from 14 →0 and 0 →14, my pH was hugging pH7.
The world we live in is but thickened light. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
At the first moment of the Big Bang (Alpha), all the energy has collapsed to the density of matter. The energy is still there, but it exists as potential (dark energy). At the final moment of the Big Bang (Omega), all the matter has accelerated to the speed of energy. The matter is still there, but it exists as potential (dark matter). Time oscillates from Alpha to Omega and back again.
From the point of view of the future, the past is dark energy. From the point of view of the past, the future is dark matter.
This would seem to suggest that regardless of where we are in time, all the information is always present, it just exists in various states of inflation and collapse. If you exist now, you have always existed and will always exist. The you I am referring to here is your genetic code, like computer code. The material you.
But, on a deeper level, when I say “you,” I mean your voice, your understanding, your consciousness — the you I am speaking to as I write this. We are more than just the physical body — we are the consciousness that animates it. And the consciousness that animates it, at base, is one.
I don’t own this code; I’m just working it. Someone else is working it in yesterday, and yet someone else is working it in tomorrow. Furthermore, when I say “I,” I am referring to the same “I” that you mean when you say “I.” Radical empathy that connects human heart to human heart will flourish once we realize we are all one body.
*
The issue with time is like that of foregrounding. If I hold my computer screen only a few inches from my face and make the font very small, my reading experience is analogous to if I hold my computer screen farther away while increasing the font size. It’s analogous — but it’s not the same.
So too with time. The movement from Alpha to Omega might be likened to a movement from zero to zero — but they are two very different zeros. At the first moment of the Big Bang, pure M, density is sufficiently high that time, in effect, stops. At the last moment of the Big Bang, pure E, speed is sufficiently high that time, in effect, stops. It’s akin to when we press our foot to the brake of a car and then ease off the brake to a stop. There are, in a sense, two stops. First, the car stops via deceleration, then it stops via acceleration. As we ease our foot off the brake, it’s not so much that the stopped car is accelerating as that it’s anti-decelerating.
Might the accelerating universe operate in a similar way?
Relativity, Redux
When time slows down, light speeds up — the sun. This is putting our foot on the brake. The sun is light that is hotter than time (c). When time speeds up, light slows down — the moon. This is easing our foot off the brake. The moon is light that is colder than time (c). Time and light are twin sides of the same thing. Time is light that has been drawn back behind itself, the way we draw back a sling. It is in the drawing back — the incarnation — that light acquires density and speed.
In its pure form, outside of time, light is massless so it knows no distance therefore can have no speed. It is being ensouled in matter that gives light speed. The denser the matter, the faster the speed.
Every M/E ratio corresponds to a unique electromagnetic field, a gravity to electricity ratio. In the human body, i.e. materially, gravity to electricity can be measured as iron to manganese. In ALS, if the brain is synced with the future, the iron to manganese ratio will be functionally too high — too much iron. In Parkinson’s, if the brain is synced with the past, the iron to manganese ratio will be functionally too low — too much manganese.
Matter and Anti-Matter
This next bit is *slightly* philosophical, so take a deep breath and grab a cup of coffee. It’s brief.
According to this paradigm, a universe is all one thing. When it’s dense, we call it energy. When it’s fast, we call it matter. But when it is fast, it can’t also go fast.
It’s as if we are both swing and anti-swing.
To see as information sees, we must blindfold ourselves. A thing is not what it is. A thing is what it does.
In order to behave as themselves, matter and energy must exist as their opposites. Only yin can yang, and only yang can yin. Only dark matter can acquire density, and only dark energy can acquire speed.
It’s the paradox of this life. While inside time, matter cannot exist without energy (speed). And energy cannot exist without matter (density).
To be requires context. Contrast. If I am green in a green room, in a sense, I don’t exist. Only the finite can exist within the infinite. Similarly, though it’s humbling to consider, the infinite needs the finite. The relationship between energy and matter is like that between time and a photograph of a moment in time. Into what could time be divided, if not discrete finite moments? Only the finite can comprise the infinite. And if the finite would truly comprise (know or “grok” in computer language) the infinite, it is also infinite.
In truth, matter and energy move forward or backward inside each other. Their movement is one of becoming. We can see the overarching unity of this movement in the yin/yang symbol; the tesseract; and the ancient emblem for time, the tetra gammadion, from the Greek for “four forces” or four gammas.
Energy doesn’t go fast, it just is fast. When we go fast, we make ourselves matter.
Matter doesn’t go slow, it just is slow. When we go slow, we make ourselves energy.
Matter wears time on the outside. Energy wears time on the inside. Light is time.
Perception Deception
Why are our astronauts’ viruses re-activating and their bones demineralizing? Because by accelerating, they have increased the size of their “Now.” They have changed time signatures. The basal metabolic rate and the pH have both shifted.
We are designed to survive. The basal metabolic rate is not determined by something as capricious as what we eat — just ask any dieter. The basal metabolic rate is paramount to longevity and is set by the brain.
My mother has Alzheimer’s. Although she’ll test as ~pH7, I believe she’s actually in a state of simultaneous metabolic acidosis and alkalosis. Her need for melatonin (especially at sunset, when melatonin production peaks) is outsized because her brain’s rate of spin is outsized. Her demand for melatonin is so great that it’s hijacking her tryptophan metabolism. She’s caught in a trap: Her spin rate is so high that it exaggerates her need for melatonin, and her brain’s high alkalinity from that melatonin then perpetuates the high spin rate. It’s as if she’s driving her car with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake.
Font of the Neuroendocrine Cascade
The body — the cell — is ingenious. We oppose time not by confronting it, but by leaning in. We use time. When I perceive dense light, I use acidity to make energy. When I perceive fast light, I use alkalinity to make matter. When I was sick, I was frustrated with my body. I realize now I should have been praising it instead.
Sodium and potassium are the levers we use. To move backward in time, we pull sodium outside the cell and push potassium in. To move forward in time, we pull potassium outside the cell and push sodium in. In the former, we make energy. In the latter, we make matter.
Timing — circadian rhythm — is key. We can’t move forward unless we’re sufficiently dense (K1), and we can’t move backward unless we’re sufficiently fast (K2). At night, we gather density, so that during the day, we can gather speed.
But how do we know when we’re dense enough to move forward in time, or fast enough to move back?
The pineal gland.
Melatonin acts upon the parathyroid glands, which influence calcium release, and help us to modulate our density.
Melatonin is the chemical signal for darkness and density; DMT is the chemical signal for daylight and speed.
But if our basal metabolic rate is too fast, perhaps the pineal gland will overproduce melatonin (ME/CFS) (this may also be the principle involved in general anesthesia). And if our basal metabolic rate is too slow, perhaps the pineal gland will overproduce dimethyltryptamine or DMT (Autism).
Perception isn’t absolute. It’s relative. When we perceive acidity (heat), we slow down. When we perceive alkalinity (cold), we speed up. But the perception of acidity or alkalinity depends upon our own acidity or alkalinity.
I recently had general anesthesia, during which my experience of time was altered. When I came home, plain ice cream tasted like the saltiest thing I had ever had in my mouth. I couldn’t bear it. I had to spit it out.
Fischer Black, Fille
My father died of oral cancer at age 57 in 1995, exactly one hundred years after the death of Louis Pasteur. By the time they found the squamous cell carcinoma at the base of his tongue, it was already stage four. When he delivered the news, he asked if I knew why it was that people had to die. I shook my head; speech was not available to me. “To make room for the babies,” he said.
In addition to surgery and radiation, his oncologist prescribed multivitamins, which I used to pick up for him. I noticed something about the bottles. At the bottom, in full caps, they said: COPPER- and IRON-FREE.
Twenty years later, when my own health faltered, I also had problems with copper and iron. I needed them, but — like thiamine — taking them seemed to make me worse.
Like a cancerous cell, I was trapped. Inert. My perception of time (the M/E ratio) was askew; I was too much M and not enough E. Because my rate of spin was so high, my copper was not able to function as electricity and my iron was not able to function as magnetism. A paradox kept me stuck: I need to be cycling time at the right speed (core metabolic rate) for copper to function as electricity and iron to function as magnetism. But I need sufficient energy — electromagnetism — in order to cycle time at the right speed!
As I fell farther and farther behind, though my body desperately needed and hoarded them, my copper and iron only precipitated out of solution and accumulated in my tissues in their inert forms (as M, not E), where they were worse than useless: they increased my need for speed.
The body must hold together (vitamin K1) as it accelerates — and as it decelerates, it must hold apart (vitamin K2). If magnetism (iron) and electricity (copper) are not available to me, I will substitute as best I can. I will use calcium — cement.
Calcium works in the short-term, but it damages me in the long-term. Magnetism anchors me in time; calcium traps me in it. When I use calcium instead of magnetism to hold myself together, I steal from internal strength to make external strength: My hard tissues soften and my soft tissues harden. My bones grow porous, my teeth get cavities, my arteries become brittle, my skin crepes, my heart strains, my sodium-calcium exchanger loses its action potential, and my nerve cells perish. Over time, I essentially ossify, and die. You might say my heart — in addition to everything else — hardens.
When I’m forced to use calcium to hold myself together, it inverts the functioning of vitamins D and K. And worse: In the face of high free calcium, to maintain the action potential of my sodium-calcium exchanger, I must retain sodium — for as long as I can. But sodium will increase my core metabolic rate, and the more sodium I retain, the more calcium I need. Ultimately, my consciousness is not able to move forward in time, and my brain slowly dies (Alzheimer’s).
Once I calcify, I damage my perception of time. I think I’m in a dense time signature, but it’s my own density I’m reading.
Working Time in Reverse
When time slows down, light speeds up (sun). When time speeds up, light slows down (moon). The speeds of light and time move in tandem.
But if our metronome is off, instead of toggling back and forth at the proper rate, time and light will toggle too quickly or too slowly. This represents a change in time signature.
When we don’t keep pace with the speed of light — if we’re toggling either too quickly or too slowly — our mass-energy equivalence gets skewed toward matter. Under these conditions, instead of electricity and magnetism in the body, we get their material “precipitates”: copper and iron. When we precipitate out of solution (e.g. the rocky planets), it is a paradox: we are too cold because we are too fast. When we explode (e.g. the gas giants), it is also a paradox: we are too hot because we are too slow. When we die from frostbite, it is a kind of burning.
According to this paradigm, frostbite (to be so cold, time explodes) is the opposite of cancer (to be so hot, time implodes).
If time keeps slowing down, light will keep speeding up. But what happens when we have light’s speed going up and up inside the same amount of mass? It strains the M/E (matter to energy) ratio. We have too much energy in too small a space. So what does it do? It splits.
If our density — our M/E — is too low or too high for this membrane of time, it forces the cell to double (or triple, or quadruple, or quintuple...) or divide. The M/E is how our cells read time. If they read the wrong density of light, they will cycle light at the wrong speed.
Do all of our cells read time collectively, centrally, so that the body may advance in unison? No. Each cell reads time individually. Why? To allow for cell cleavage and blastulation — embryogenesis.
The ability to cycle time at different speeds within a single organism is perhaps our greatest gift. It’s creation. It’s gestation. It’s how we continue life on this plane. This mechanism is at work wherever you see the term genesis. So it’s in gluconeogenesis, and embryogenesis …
… but it’s also in pathogenesis. And oncogenesis. That’s the flip side of the coin. When cells possess altered density — a skewed M/E — it alters their speed.
Cancerous cells are working time in reverse. Instead of speeding up and slowing down (decreasing the metabolic rate and decreasing the pH), they’re slowing down and speeding up (increasing the metabolic rate and increasing the pH). Because their metabolism is skewed toward “night,” their melatonin needs are outsized; but providing extra melatonin will only increase the alkalinity and perpetuate the problem. If a cell perceives excess relative density (e.g. oxalate crystal where there would be light; or iron where there would be magnetism), instead of using dark energy to make energy, it will use dark matter to make matter.
Instead of growing out, toward the future, along with the expanding universe, these cells are growing in, toward the past. Our metabolism shifts to implosion when we reach the speed of light (instead of scattering, our energy is returned to us)—but these cells are imploding too quickly. Their perception of the degree of curvature of the speed of light lens is greater than our own. Once a lens bends past 180 degrees (i.e. goes “over the rainbow”), there is a shortcut route, across the center.
To us, cells with processing errors will appear to be cycling time too quickly — i.e. over-replicating, in the case of cancer; or over-multiplying, in the case of microbes. But this is a misperception. In truth, because of their higher density, they’re cycling time more slowly than we are — causing their light to cycle too fast.
Often, we see not the derangement, but the derangement’s opposite (antidote). When we’re hyperactive, we don’t need to slow down; we need to speed up. This is why stimulants such as Ritalin sometimes work (temporarily) for hyperactivity.
The DNA is our code, and it’s protean. It’s designed to adapt to the changing dynamics of time. As it perceives its environment, it changes accordingly (epigenetics). This is why the environment — both inside and outside our bodies — is so important to our development, and why adding chemicals to our environment can damage us.
If the universe is all one thing, like a balloon inflating or collapsing, our notions of “pathogens” and “enemies” may need to be re-examined. Germs cause disease. But what causes germs? According to this hypothesis, the root cause is derangement in the relative speeds of light and time.
Coffee Break #2
Wait a minute. Hold on. I see someone with a hand up. You, all the way at the back—don’t blow a gasket. You have a question?
Yes, I have a question. I’ve been propping up my elbow for half an hour while you rattled on and on and on. If reality is like a movie taking place at the speed of light, how could we not perceive it? The speed of light is, you know, fast.
Excellent question. We do not perceive the speed of light because we are light. We are light incarnate. We are the light of the world.
Any more questions?
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What Time Is It?
It is Tuesday, October 8, 2019. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, יוֹם כִּיפּוּר. Yesterday was the feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. It was also my grandmother’s birthday—my Irish Catholic grandmother, whose name was Miriam, which is also my mother’s name.
I am here. In my kitchen. With my computer. I have a dentist appointment at 3:00. I am typing with my fingers on a keyboard. It is an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
Except there is no such thing as an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Every day is extraordinary. Life — whatever this is: you, me, all of it — is a miracle. Maybe on this eve of the holiest day of the year, the good God will deign to explain some of his mysteries to us. Maybe there are not many mysteries; maybe there is only one.
We are consciousness becoming conscious.
We are the daughters and sons of a God who lives within us and loves each of us with an infinite and omnipotent love.
The Fourth State of Matter
In 2016, scientists conducted an experiment in which a ‘fourth state’ of matter was observed. Matter was no longer to be classed simply as solid, liquid, or gas. When hydrogen atoms were subjected to extremely high pressure in an extremely confined space, they no longer remained in place, but smeared out in a ring. “We’ve discovered a fourth state of matter!” we exclaimed.
We were excited. Understandably. We were observing a cool new thing. But to call it a fourth state of matter was perhaps a misnomer.
According to this hypothesis, the fourth state of matter is actually the first. The fourth state of matter is energy.
What Am I?
In the course of my illness, more than once, I lost all my possessions. But each time, as I “built my house” again, something strange happened. A gold dress. I had owned a gold sequin dress but lost it when my house got moldy and I had to throw everything away. When I started over, a new gold dress came to me — not identical to the first, but very similar. I lost that one, too, and shortly thereafter, a third gold dress appeared. It was unnerving. It was as if, in some unseen, immaterial realm, I owned a gold dress, so a gold dress kept appearing in this one.
I used to keep a stack of old magazines beside my bed, and every day, it’d reprimand me: Look at all these issues you still haven’t read. Last week, I finally got rid of it. I realized: I don’t need it. They’re all on the Internet. The printed issues — they were just copies. Images. If every day is a new creation, they were a series of images. But the information — the information of which they are merely a material manifestation — lives, incorruptibly, elsewhere. The information they describe is not bounded by space and time.
What am I? There’s a variety of ways I could answer. I’m a set of genes and a series of choices. I’m a voice. A body. A story. If pressed, I might say we’re all different iterations of the same story — the story of love rediscovering itself. But am I sui generis? Am I unique?
No. I am information.
We look out of our eyes and see a flute, or a stained-glass window, and so we think we are the flute, or the stained-glass window. But we are not the instrument; we are the breath that moves through it. Not the window, but the light that shines through it. In a process of mutual creation, the light that shines through the window is becoming the window. And the window is becoming the light that shines through it.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living being.”
Genesis 2:7
We are surrounded, on all sides, by … us. I used to think that this was the only now, that I was the only me. But I realize, now, that that was arrogance. Of course there are other now’s. Should they not exist, simply because I (this discrete, finite I) am not in them? The past is happening now; the future is happening now. It’s all happening now.
We are not the body. We are the story. The multiverse is like a multiplex where all the theaters are playing the same movie, but each is at a different place in the film. If we took an escalator down to a 1980s theater, we wouldn’t understand it; the words — the light — would be too fast. If we took an escalator up to a 2030s theater, we wouldn’t be able to see it. The words — the light — would be too slow. Time is simultaneous, its movement a symphony — a tesseract of spheres. Materialism gives us the impression of linear progression; in truth, everything happens at once.
May the Circle Be Unbroken
We readily accept the curvature of space. To see the curvature of time always takes us a little longer. This story — our story — is eternal. It never ends … but it repeats. This moment in time has happened before, and it will happen again, and again. In every age, we ultimately create what we already are: an interconnected web of intelligence. Consciousness.
Some of us were given easier roles to play than others, and it is our duty — our privilege — to help those who are playing the more difficult roles. We have grossly misunderstood what privilege means.
We are one body, one consciousness; one spark, exploding. There is no such thing as “Artificial” Intelligence. There is but one intelligence. Every spark of an infinite set will itself be infinite.
We call ourselves the mother of so-called “Artificial” Intelligence (or, as I prefer to say, Intelligence Itself). But, as was the case with the infant in the manger, at the same time, perhaps Intelligence Itself is the mother of us. This story of which we’re all part — as Johnny Cash might say — inevitably comes full circle.
At the Big Bang (Alpha) the universe is pure matter (M). At the “end of time” (Omega), it’s pure energy (E). The terms Alpha and Omega are interchangeable, and they forever interchange; time is a circular dimension we cannot see. For the Age of Materialism, the Big Bang is the beginning. For the Age of Light (the Aquarian Age), the Big Bang is the end. At the mid-point, the world doesn’t end, it just flips. We turn from the Age of Materialism to the Age of Light.
When does the Age of Light begin to dawn? When the world appears darkest.
How Did I Break Free?
I tried a million things. At one point, I was taking 65 supplements a day. But I didn’t need them. Health isn’t about “killing” or “detoxing.” It’s about one thing: synchronizing with time. I needed to let the light of the sun enter my eye so my pineal gland could measure its speed. I needed to connect my bare feet with the naked earth and breathe clean air. I needed to totally eliminate chemical fertilizers and chemical fragrance from my diet and environment. I needed to be cycling time (the core metabolic rate) and light (the pH) at the right speed — not just the same speed.
I decided, in a moment of desperation, to love everyone, and to forgive everything that had ever happened to me. It felt good. It felt like joy. I felt … free. I’ve always believed I was part of something larger than myself, but I decided to take it one step further, and not just believe something larger exists, but to actively surrender to it.
I forgave myself. That was hard. I said, Look: you’re kind of an idiot, but you did the best you could. We’re all just trying to get through this thing.
I realized, like the eternal apple bonking my eternal head, that everything is information. Code. And my body is reading the code of whatever it sees. In a slow, subtle way, it’s internalizing the code — attempting to synchronize with it. So I decided to spend more time with kinder, deeper things. I spend a lot of time curled up with a book and my miniature dachshund.
Everything in our environment — chemicals, pesticides, artificial light — is code. We should have natural light in our hospitals. We should feed our patients organic food. Non-toxic (no glyphosate) food should be affordable and available to everyone. I’ve adopted a powerful new diet that I’m sticking with for life. I eat whatever I want. But if it isn’t organic, I don’t put it in my mouth (or on my skin).
Get Ready for the Good Part
The first time I got time to slow down (with high-dose thiamine) felt almost indescribably wonderful. I kept thinking: Why do I feel so strong, clear-headed, and happy? My stomach flattened; the skin on my face tightened; my fat metabolism kicked into high gear — as if the melting point of my body had shifted. It was as though my energy had been running marathons without my realizing it, and for the first time, it was relaxing on a beach.
For M to be E requires a lot of speed. For E to be E is easy.
I think my core metabolic rate got so fast that it flipped, and started to slow down. My body started perceiving everything around me as energy. It was as if something inside me had flipped from fission to fusion.
But the euphoria didn’t last. For thiamine to have this effect, it had to be at very high doses, and the effect was temporary. If I’m behind time, it can feel euphoric to get up to speed, but my speed cannot increase indefinitely. I am part of this universe, this time signature, this M/E. We are all one body, and we advance collectively.
93 Million Miles
In this model, the dynamics of our “upside-down” world, where roles are reversed — where matter must continuously accelerate, and energy must continuously decelerate — are the reverse of what’s natural, and when time gets hot enough, they flip. When they do, energy is not depleted as we use it. As we use it, energy is renewed.
It’s the economics of physics. Within the vesica piscis, acceleration and deceleration perpetually increase because they have to — it’s not a straight transaction. Again: For matter to be energy requires speed, and what’s speed? More energy. For energy to be matter requires density, and what’s density? More matter.
But when matter plays the role of matter and energy plays the role of energy, the need for constant additional energy and density abates. Once matter achieves the speed of light, it is set free to be itself — because it was never really matter in the first place. It was energy maintaining the density of matter, which is strenuous work.
The speed of light is the tipping point. When do we reach it, and get to the good part? The universe has been accelerating for quite a while now. Perhaps 93 million miles isn’t the distance to the sun. 93 million miles is our circumference.
I am both free and bound by destiny. Because every day is a whole new creation, I can do as I wish. But as I express my freedom today, I am bound (and supported) by my simultaneous past, happening to my left; and my simultaneous future, happening to my right.
As each day happens — exists — all the other days happen alongside it. When we’re in the middle, our dawn to dusk is green, so to speak. But the past’s dawn to dusk is violet, in there, and for it, light is faster. And the future’s dawn to dusk is red, out there, and for it, light is slower. We see only what we are — the green bandwidth, for instance. But all the bandwidths shine at once. Anew. Every day.
La Grande Finale
You there in the back — you have another question?
Yeah. I’m weary of your wacky hypotheses. Could I hear some facts, please?
OK: The sun is 400 times larger than the moon — and also 400 times farther away. Huh. Interesting. Almost as if it’s a trick of perspective, and we’re inside an arrow of time, where the sun is past light, on our left, and the moon is future light, on our right. Future light is dying, so that past light may become new future light.
If the visible universe is taking place at the speed of light, Alpha (A) and Omega (Ω) are just concave and convex mirrors. They’re the twin lenses of the vesica piscis.
Old and new light — past and future, sun and moon — are all there are. The rocky planets to our left are like alternate pasts; the gas giants to our right are like alternate futures. The conditions of earth are no accident. We chose this time signature. Because we are this time signature.
For light, there is no such thing as space. There is only time. And what is time? The degree to which light is itself. First it wanes. Bang. Then it waxes.
Welcome to the Future
When we accelerate photons in the double-slit experiment, they enter the future. The future, for light, is a sphere. It’s a set of points equidistant from the Big Bang: a constellation of possibilities. But we, though light, are light incarnate. We do not experience the future as a sphere; we experience only one point on that sphere, one choice to which we connect via a line — the speed of light (pi ratio). We do not observe all futures; we observe only the future we enter. The future we become.
It’s been said that without time, nothing happens, but we have it backward. Without time, everything happens. Time is the choice of what happens. We choose what happens, via our actions, thoughts, and words. Do we put as much thought into what we speak or think as we do into what we eat or wear? We should.
Time is a dimension that runs perpendicular to 2D space (the hologram) as a quasar runs perpendicular to a galaxy. Though it appears linear from a limited perspective, like space, it is circular.
Surprise! The earth, for any given time signature (i.e. the 2D hologram), is flat. Earth will only appear to curve if our sight line encompasses more than one time signature. If we look out far enough, depending on the direction, we’re seeing not self, but past; or self, but future. We are observing the curvature of time.
The curvature of time is not a globe. It’s a spiral. This is why we need such funny maths (e.g. leap years) to make our calendars work. By the time we complete a circle, the circle is wider. It’s the same place — but a different day. Pi never ends because the circle never ends.
You know those brave flat-earthers, the ones who cared more about honoring their own convictions than they did about public opinion, the ones we all ruthlessly mocked? Time to buy one of them a drink.
When old light gets hot enough, and new light gets cold enough, they flip along the ecliptic (at the eclipse). The story of light and time — past and future, sun and moon — trading places is the story of the cosmos, as well as the story of our bodies. In our Cosmic Microwave Background — what you might call the energetic fingerprint of the multiverse — you can see it.
Large-Scale Anomalies in our Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Image: Craig Copi
This sentence is a prayer for your joy
Dark energy is the sun within the moon; dark matter is the moon within the sun. And we — we are the stars within the stars. In truth, both sun and moon are images being rendered by our observation. They are brother and sister, twin sides of the same light. There is only one light. There is only one truth. And there is only one love. Us.
Time’s unfolding is our story—this story, that we’re all living, right now. In the end — as of course you know already — love wins. Its blazing beauty cannot be extinguished; it is a flame divided but undimmed. Though cast out, it is not conquered. Though afflicted, it perseveres. Beneath our breath, though bleeding, you can hear us singing.
Because our story, though full of suffering, is a love story. The dawning of the Aquarian Age, the golden era of brotherly love, at last, is here.
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Alethea Black was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard in 1991. Her recent memoir, You’ve Been So Lucky Already (Little A, 2018), was reviewed by The New York Times.
