Rand Water Quotes

This is the most precious gift anyone has ever received. You gave me back a memory that I will cherish forever. You gave me something from my grandma I didn't know I had. And you kept it and it lef you back to mme. It gave me you'' I felt a wetness in my eyes and I blinked confused from the strange sensation. A small trickle of water rand down my cheek. I stared into the darkness as I held Pagan in my arms in amazement Death had just shed a tear.

Things stood still, not a leaf trembled on the branches, while the sky slowly lost its color and became an expanse that looked like the spread of glowing water.

The walls are cracked and water runs upon them within threads without sound, black and glistening as blood.

When they lay in bed together it was—as it had to be, as the nature of the act demanded—an act of violence. It was surrender, made the more complete by the force of their resistance. It was an act of tension, as the great things on earth are things of tension. It was tense as electricity, the force fed on resistance, rushing through wires of metal stretched tight; it was tense as water made into power by the restraining violence of a dam. The touch of his skin against hers was not a caress, but a wave of pain, it became pain by being wanted too much, by releasing in fulfillment all the past hours of desire and denial.

Stand here, he thought, and count the lighted windows of a city. You cannot do it. But behind each yellow rectangle that climbs, one over another, to the sky - under each bulb - down to there, see that spark over the river which is not a star? - there are people whom you will never see and who are your masters. At the supper tables, in the drawing rooms, in their beds and in their cellars, in their studies and in their bathrooms. Speeding in the subways under your feet. Crawling up in elevators through vertical cracks around you. Jolting past you in every bus. Your masters, Gail Wynand. There is a net - longer than the cables that coil through the walls of this city, larger than the mesh of pipes that carry water, gas and refuse - there is another hidden net around you; it is strapped to you, and the wires lead to every hand in the city. They jerked the wires and you moved. You were a ruler of men. You held a leash. A leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends.

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. THe lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone- flowing. The stone had the stillness of one last movement when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. THe stone glowed wet with sunrays. The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky so that the world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff. His body leaned back against the sky. It was a body of long straight lines and angles each curve broken into planes. He stood rigid his hands hanging at his sides, palms out. He felt his shoulder blades drawn tight together. The curve of his neck, and the weight of the blood in his hands. He felt the wind behind him in the hollow of his spine. The wind waved his hair against the sky. His hair was neither blonde nor red, but the exact color or ripe orange rind... He stepped to the edge, raised his arms, and dived down into the sky below.

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

A stream cut across the grass, and tree branches flowed low to the ground, like a curtain of green fluid. The sound of the water stressed the silence. The distant cut of open sky made the place seem more hidden. Far above, on the crest of a hill, one tree caught the first rays of sunlight.

Couldn’t we camp down by the lakes?” Nynaeve asked, patting her face with her kerchief. “It must be cooler down by the water.” “Light,” Mat said, “I’d just like to stick my head in one of them. I might never take it out.” Just then something roiled the waters of the nearest lake, the dark water phosphorescing as a huge body rolled beneath the surface. Length on man-thick length sent ripples spreading, rolling on and on until at last a tail rose, waving a point like a wasp’s stinger for an instant in the twilight, at least five spans into the air. All along that length fat tentacles writhed like monstrous worms, as many as a centipede’s legs. It slid slowly beneath the surface and was gone, only the fading ripples to say it had ever been. Rand closed his mouth and exchanged a look with Perrin. Perrin’s yellow eyes were as disbelieving as he knew his own must be. Nothing that big could live in a lake that size. Those couldn’t have been hands on those tentacles. They couldn’t have been. “On second thought,” Mat said faintly, “I like it right here just fine.

She felt that his presence seemed more intensely real when she kept her eyes away from him, almost as if the stressed awareness of herself came from him, like the sunlight from the water.

These ideas can be made more concrete with a parable, which I borrow from John Fowles’s wonderful novel, The Magus. Conchis, the principle character in the novel, finds himself Mayor of his home town in Greece when the Nazi occupation begins. One day, three Communist partisans who recently killed some German soldiers are caught. The Nazi commandant gives Conchis, as Mayor, a choice — either Conchis will execute the three partisans himself to set an example of loyalty to the new regime, or the Nazis will execute every male in the town. Should Conchis act as a collaborator with the Nazis and take on himself the direct guilt of killing three men? Or should he refuse and, by default, be responsible for the killing of over 300 men? I often use this moral riddle to determine the degree to which people are hypnotized by Ideology. The totally hypnotized, of course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is correct, because they have memorized the Rule Book. It doesn’t matter whose Rule Book they rely on — Ayn Rand’s or Joan Baez’s or the Pope’s or Lenin’s or Elephant Doody Comix — the hypnosis is indicated by lack of pause for thought, feeling and evaluation. The response is immediate because it is because mechanical. Those who are not totally hypnotized—those who have some awareness of concrete events of sensory space-time, outside their heads— find the problem terrible and terrifying and admit they don’t know any 'correct' answer. I don’t know the 'correct' answer either, and I doubt that there is one. The universe may not contain 'right' and 'wrong' answers to everything just because Ideologists want to have 'right' and 'wrong' answers in all cases, anymore than it provides hot and cold running water before humans start tinkering with it. I feel sure that, for those awakened from hypnosis, every hour of every day presents choices that are just as puzzling (although fortunately not as monstrous) as this parable. That is why it appears a terrible burden to be aware of who you are, where you are, and what is going on around you, and why most people would prefer to retreat into Ideology, abstraction, myth and self-hypnosis. To come out of our heads, then, also means to come to our senses, literally—to live with awareness of the bottle of beer on the table and the bleeding body in the street. Without polemic intent, I think this involves waking from hypnosis in a very literal sense. Only one individual can do it at a time, and nobody else can do it for you. You have to do it all alone.

Libertarians: Never got over the fact they weren’t the illegitimate children of Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand; currently punishing the rest of us for it. Unusually smug for a political philosophy that’s never gotten anyone elected for anything above the local water board. All for legalized drugs and prostitution but probably wouldn’t want their kids blowing strangers for crack; all for slashing taxes for nearly every social service but don’t seem to understand why most people aren’t at all keen to trade in even the minimal safety net the US provides for 55-gallon barrels of beans and rice, a crossbow and a first-aid kit in the basement. Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn’t actually involve real live humans. Libertarians

Doesn’t water still come up through the tap?” she asked. “Capitalism marches on, Dot. What good is free water when you can pay a hotel three dollars a bottle?” “And people are okay with this?” “Of course. America’s love affair with commerce never cools.” “If you tell me they’re still reading Ayn Rand I may spit.

There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their “instincts” as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable—the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmers’ omnipotent whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: “Now grow a harvest and feed us!

Rand calmed himself, finding peace, turning to Tam. He remembered, from his old memories, something from a book. The key to leadership is in the rippling waves. You could not find stillness on a body of water if there was turmoil underneath. Likewise, you could not find peace and focus in a group unless the leader himself had peace within.

Jesus does not say blandly that treasure in heaven results from our generosity on earth. More passionately, he urges his followers to pursue treasure in heaven, the way a thirsty desert wanderer pursues water, or a savvy portfolio manager scours the financial landscape for investments. John comes nowhere close to the Biblical conclusion. Not through faulty reasoning, but the Objectivist simply starts from a different premise. That premise leads him to the “primacy of the individual.

On the evening before the inquest, Scythe Rand decided it was time to make her move. It was truly now or never – and what better night for her and Goddard’s relationship to rise to the next level than the night before the world would change – because after tomorrow, regardless of the outcome, nothing would be the same. She was not a woman given over to emotions, but she found her heart and mind racing as she approached Goddard’s door that night. She turned the knob. It was not locked. She pushed it open quietly without knocking. The room was dark, lit only by the lights of the city sifting in through the trees outside. “Robert?” she whispered, then took a step closer. “Robert?” she whispered again. He did not stir. He was either asleep, or feigning, waiting to see what she would do. Breathing shallowly and sharply, as if she were treading ice water, she moved toward his bed – but before she got there, he reached over and turned on a light. “Ayn? What do you think you’re doing?” Suddenly, she felt flushed, and ten years younger; a stupid schoolgirl instead of an accomplished scythe.

Maar je ziet het als je oefent. Je contouren die dunner worden, je silhouet dat vervaagt. Je bent nog niet helemaal verdwenen. Dat duurt een hele poos. Jaren. Maar je verdwijnt. Je verdwijnt voor jezelf, wordt een ander, elke dag. Je bent niet wie je ooit was. De microscopisch kleine cellen die je gezicht vormen op de foto die je ouders in de kamer hebben hangen, zijn weg, vervangen door nieuwe. Je bent niet meer wie je was. Maar ik ben er nog wel, de atomen wisselen van plek. Zo is het ook met de mensen van wie je houdt. Met bijna stilstaande snelheid verkruimelen ze in je armen en je zou willen dat je je aan iets bestendigs in hen kon vastklampen, hun skelet, hun tanden kon vastpakken, de hersencellen, maar dat kun je niet, want bijna alles is water en het heeft geen zin dat vast te houden. Alle sporen verdwijnen, stukje bij beetje. En later verdwijnen de sporen die ze hebben achtergelaten, het huis waarin ze woonden, de tekeningen die ze voor je maakten, de woorden die ze op briefjes schreven. De herinneringen waarmee je achterblijft zullen uiteindelijk ook loslaten, als oud behang, en mettertijd zal het niet meer mogelijk zijn om antwoord te geven op de vraag of er op deze planeet aan de rand van dit perifere zonnestelsel ooit leven is geweest.

Hanging around them made Charlie feel like maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with her. It didn’t matter if she didn’t fit in at school, or that her body kept changing on her. It was okay when her best friend’s parents took one look at Charlie and clocked her for trouble. When even Laura herself, who’d known her since she was eight, started acting weird. It was fine that she’d given up hoping her mother would notice there was something strange about Rand taking her on trips all the time. All those people who judged her or couldn’t be bothered with her were marks. She’d have the last laugh. “You gotta be like a shark in this business,” Benny told her with his soft voice and slicked-back hair. “Sniff around for blood in the water. Greet life teeth first. And no matter what, never stop swimming.” Charlie took that advice and the money from her last job with Rand and got a tattoo. She’d wanted one, and she’d also wanting to know if she could con a shop into giving her ink, even though she was three years away from eighteen. It involved some fast talking and swiping a notary sigil, but she got it done. Her first tattoo. It was still a little bit sore when she moved. Along her inner arm was the word “fearless” in looping cursive letters, except the tattooist had spaced them oddly so that it looked as though it said “fear less.” It reminded her of what she wanted to be, and that her body belonged to her. She could write all over it if she wanted.

Al in de vroege ochtend, het was bijna nog nacht, had Gregor de gelegenheid de kracht van zijn zojuist genomen besluiten te toetsen, want vanaf de gang opende zijn zuster, bijna volledig aangekleed, de deur en keek nieuwsgierig naar binnen. Zij kon hem niet dadelijk vinden, maar toen zij hem onder de canapé ontdekte - God, hij moest toch érgens zijn, hij had toch niet kunnen wegvliegen - , schrok zij zo, dat zij, zonder zich te kunnen beheersen, de deur van buitenaf weer dichtsloeg. Maar alsof zij berouw had van haar handelwijze, deed zij de deur meteen weer open en kwam, als ging het om een ernstige zieke of zelfs een vreemde, op haar tenen binnen. Gregor had zijn kop tot vlak aan de rand van de canapé naar voren geschoven en observeerde haar. Of zij wel zou merken dat hij de melk had laten staan, en wel allerminst uit gebrek aan eetlust, en of zij ander voedsel zou komen brengen, dat meer aan zijn wensen tegemoet kwam? Als zij het niet uit zichzelf deed wilde hij liever verhongeren dan haar erop attent te maken, hoewel hij eigenlijk een geweldige aandrang voelde om onder de canapé vandaan te schieten, zich aan zijn zusters voeten te werpen en haar om wat lekker eten te smeken. Maar zijn zuster zag dadelijk tot haar verbazing de nog volle kom, waaruit alleen rondom een beetje melk was gemorst, zij nam hem meteen op, weliswaar niet met haar blote handen maar met een lap, en droeg hem de kamer uit. Gregor was uiterst nieuwsgierig wat zij ter vervanging zou brengen en hij maakte zich daar de meest uiteenlopende voorstellingen van. Nooit had hij echter kunnen raden wat zijn zuster in haar goedheid werkelijk deed. Zij bracht hem, om zijn smaak te onderzoeken, een hele keur aan spijzen, op een oude krant uitgespreid. Er was oude, half verrotte groente; botten van het avondeten in een gestolde witte saus, wat rozijnen en amandelen; een kaas die Gregor twee dagen tevoren oneetbaar had verklaard; een stuk droog brood, een met boter besmeerd stuk brood en een met boter besmeerd en gezouten stuk brood. Bovendien zette zij bij dit alles ook nog de waarschijnlijk definitief voor Gregor bestemde kom neer, waarin zij water had gegoten.

Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. They, who pose as scientists and claim that man is only an animal, do not grant him inclusion in the law of existence they have granted to the lowest of insects. They recognize that every living species has a way of survival demanded by its nature, they do not claim that a fish can live out of water or that a dog can live without its sense of smell—but man, they claim, the most complex of beings, man can survive in any way whatever, man has no identity, no nature, and there’s no practical reason why he cannot live with his means of survival destroyed, with his mind throttled and placed at the disposal of any orders they might care to issue.

... terwijl ik mijn gezicht in de spiegel bekijk. Dat verandert van dag tot dag. Sommige dagen meer dan andere. Niet veel, natuurlijk, maar als je goed kijkt, als je oefent, je concentreert, dan kun je de minuscule veranderingen in de huid zien, de rimpel in mijn voorhoofd die in de loop van de nacht is veranderd, misschien maar een halve millimeter. Maar je ziet het. Als je oefent. Je contouren die dunner worden, je silhouet dat vervaagt. Je bent nog niet helemaal verdwenen. Dat duurt een hele poos. Jaren. Maar je verdwijnt. Je verdwijnt voor jezelf, wordt een ander, elke dag. Je bent niet meer wie je ooit was. De microscopisch kleine cellen die je gezicht vormen op de foto die je ouders in de kamer hebben hangen, zijn weg, vervangen door nieuwe. Je bent niet meer wie je was. Maar ik ben er nog wel, de atomen wisselen van plek, niemand kan de bokkensprong van de quarks controleren. Zo is het ook met de mensen van wie je houdt. Met bijna stilstaande snelheid verkruimelen ze in je armen en je zou willen dat je je aan iets bestendigs in hen kon vastklampen, hun skelet, hun tanden kon vastpakken, de hersencellen, maar dat kun je niet, want bijna alles is water en het heeft geen zin dat vast te houden. Alle sporen verdwijnen, stukje bij beetje. En later verdwijnen de sporen die ze hebben achtergelaten, het huis waarin ze woonden, de tekeningen die ze voor je maakten, de woorden die ze op briefjes schreven. De herinneringen waarmee je achterblijft zullen uiteindelijk ook loslaten, als oud behang, en mettertijd zal het niet meer mogelijk zijn om antwoord te geven op de vraag of er op deze planeet aan de rand van dit perifere zonnestelsel ooit leven is geweest.

FIVE ELEMENT THEORY “In nature, we have the four seasons and five energetic transformations of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.” Nei Jing: Chapter 5

we came to a stream which lay as a streak of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time.

De zon was een matrode schijf met een vurige rand om de bovenronding tegen een egaalgrijze lucht. Op het water wat rode slierten zoals schilders dat soms doen om weerspiegeling weer te geven. Ervoor vlogen grote sterns vissend heen en weer. Van een meter of tien lieten ze zich vallen, boorden het water in dat opspatte alsof er een steen in werd gegooid. Even later kwamen ze weer boven water. Kierrr... kierrik!

Oh, for Christ’s sake!” he screamed, smashing his fist down on the table. “Where have you been all these years? What sort of world do you think you’re living in?” His blow had upset his water glass and the water went spreading in dark stains over the lace of the tablecloth. “I’m trying to find out,” she whispered. Her shoulders were sagging and her face looked suddenly worn, an odd, aged look that seemed haggard and lost. “I couldn’t help it!” he burst out in the silence. “I’m not to blame! I have to take things as I find them! It’s not I who’ve made this world!” He was shocked to see that she smiled—a smile of so fiercely bitter a contempt that it seemed incredible on her gently patient face; she was not looking at him, but at some image of her own. “That’s what my father used to say when he got drunk at the corner saloon instead of looking for work.

A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction. “An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose. “But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. “Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. They, who pose as scientists and claim that man is only an animal, do not grant him inclusion in the law of existence they have granted to the lowest of insects. They recognize that every living species has a way of survival demanded by its nature, they do not claim that a fish can live out of water or that a dog can live without its sense of smell—but man, they claim, the most complex of beings, man can survive in any way whatever, man has no identity, no nature, and there’s no practical reason why he cannot live with his means of survival destroyed, with his mind throttled and placed at the disposal of any orders they might care to issue.

You were wrong to kill him. You know the penalty for murder.” “A rope around the neck, as these wetlanders use.” Mangin nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me where and when; I will be there. May you find water and shade today, Rand al’Thor.

But thirty million dollars of subsidy money from Washington had been plowed into Project Soybean—an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest of soybeans was ripening, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma Chalmers, better known as Kip’s Ma, was an old sociologist who had hung about Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by her recent conversion to Buddhism. “The soybean is a much more sturdy, nutritious and economical plant than all the extravagant foods which our wasteful, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect,” Kip’s Ma had said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise. “Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee—and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple diet, it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more people. The greatest food for the greatest number—that’s my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it’s our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for centuries. There’s a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient.

cardboard on the tips of his ten fingers, up the crimson-plushed stairway to Guy Francon’s office. The cardboard displayed a water-color perspective of a gray granite

cardboard displayed a water-color perspective of a gray granite

DJ, are you awake? Freaking elf. “Go home, Rand.” I am home. Where are you? I frowned and burrowed my face into the soft down pillow. Which wasn’t my pillow. Holy crap. What had happened? I sat up and took in several observations at once, none of which made sense and all of which sent my heart rate jack-rabbiting hard enough to send my blood pressure into the ozone. First, I was lying beneath a heavy bedspread woven in a rich blue-and-cream print. The bed was an elaborate confection made to look like an antique half-tester, and a brass chandelier hung overhead. I recognized the Hotel Monteleone. I recognized Jean Lafitte’s bedroom in the posh Eudora Welty Suite in the Monteleone. I didn’t have a clue as to how I got here. Second, I wore only underwear. My clothes were thrown across a chair in the corner. I had no recollection of removing them. Third, the pillow next to mine still held the clear indentation of a head, and there was water running behind the closed bathroom door. What in God’s name had I done? Rand! Where are you? So help me, if that elf was behind this, I’d splay him open like a catfish and watch his guts fall on the floor. Then I’d batter and deep-fry him. God, Dru. Stop shrieking like an elven shrew. I think you got too cold and went into a survival state.

Why does the term “Root Vessels” provide an easier mental picture of the function of this energetic system? If we use the analogy of a tree, rather than that of water as the Chinese did, in describing the Qi Jing Ba Mai then they become the “Root Vessels” and the twelve Main Meridians become the “Branch Meridians.” The twelve “Branch Meridians,” or Main Meridians, serve to move energy/qi to and from the organs of the body as understood in Traditional Chinese Medicine. They are the branches of the tree, and like the branches of a tree they will die if there is not a healthy root system to support the growth and maintenance of the organism. The Extraordinary Vessels comprise the energetic system of the body that stores and releases energy to the twelve Main Meridians.4 They are the source of energy in the human body and the term of “root” more fully describes their interaction with the entire energy system. The Extraordinary Vessels, when working properly, move energy in a continuous manner to adjust and moderate the flow of energy throughout the twelve Main Meridians. Understanding how the Extraordinary Vessels do this is essential to gaining an advanced knowledge of the combative aspects of the martial arts, as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine in general.

GV-15 and 16 are located within one inch of each other on the back of the head, at the base of the hairline. By striking this point, the ability of the Extraordinary Vessels to correct energetic imbalances of the Yang associated meridians are severed. What does this mean exactly? It means that a forceful strike or series of strikes, which are aimed at GV-15 and 16, will greatly hinder, or even completely stop, the ability of the body to correct energetic imbalances to the heart. This concept is referred to as “sealing the qi”1 or “sealing the energy.” Remember that in a combative situation that your opponent’s body will be in an energetic state in which the Fire and Metal meridians will be in great excess. The Wood, Water, and Earth meridians will be energetically in a highly deficient state during such an encounter. During the encounter you attack the Main Meridians in a manner that accentuates those imbalances. This is through your initial entering technique to the strike that places your opponent in a position where strikes to GV-15 and 16 are possible. Your finishing strike or strikes are focused on those two points, which are no more than one half of an inch from each other. It is a great possibility that the excessive energy of the heart, which can not be corrected by the Extraordinary Vessels after your finishing strike, will result in a heart attack. Think of it this way. Because of the automatic responses of Body Alarm Reaction, the Heart meridian is “flooded” with extra energy by the Extraordinary Vessels. That extra energy places in the Heart meridian in an excessive state. Martial techniques are executed that contribute to this already excessive state. The heart will be overwhelmed with extra energy. It will be beating at a much greater than normal rate. To correct this excessive state the body would normally utilize the connection points of GV-15 and 16 to “pipe out” or “draw off” the excessive energy that is present in the Heart meridian. By striking GV-15 and 16, repeatedly if possible, the connection is disrupted to the point that this can not occur. The result is that the heart is in a major excessive state and it can not correct the imbalance. That can result in arrhythmia. This is the worst possible energetic attack to the delicate Yin associated Heart Meridian. It is the worst possible energetic attack period.

GV-15 and 16 are located within one inch of each other on the back of the head, at the base of the hairline. By striking this point, the ability of the Extraordinary Vessels to correct energetic imbalances of the Yang associated meridians are severed. What does this mean exactly? It means that a forceful strike or series of strikes, which are aimed at GV-15 and 16, will greatly hinder, or even completely stop, the ability of the body to correct energetic imbalances to the heart. This concept is referred to as “sealing the qi”1 or “sealing the energy.” Remember that in a combative situation that your opponent’s body will be in an energetic state in which the Fire and Metal meridians will be in great excess. The Wood, Water, and Earth meridians will be energetically in a highly deficient state during such an encounter. During the encounter you attack the Main Meridians in a manner that accentuates those imbalances. This is through your initial entering technique to the strike that places your opponent in a position where strikes to GV-15 and 16 are possible. Your finishing strike or strikes are focused on those two points, which are no more than one half of an inch from each other. It is a great possibility that the excessive energy of the heart, which can not be corrected by the Extraordinary Vessels after your finishing strike, will result in a heart attack. Think of it this way. Because of the automatic responses of Body Alarm Reaction, the Heart meridian is “flooded” with extra energy by the Extraordinary Vessels. That extra energy places in the Heart meridian in an excessive state. Martial techniques are executed that contribute to this already excessive state. The heart will be overwhelmed with extra energy. It will be beating at a much greater than normal rate. To correct this excessive state the body would normally utilize the connection points of GV-15 and 16 to “pipe out” or “draw off” the excessive energy that is present in the Heart meridian. By striking GV-15 and 16, repeatedly if possible, the connection is disrupted to the point that this can not occur. The result is that the heart is in a major excessive state and it can not correct the imbalance. That can result in arrhythmia. This is the worst possible energetic attack to the delicate Yin associated Heart Meridian. It is the worst possible energetic attack period. The Heart is the most delicate and important organ of the body to energetic fluctuations. Where are no other energetic attacks that have this much of a negative effect on the body. The results of this type of attack are extremely serious and should only be used in life-or-death situations!

The Cycle of Creation states that the Water Element nourishes the Wood Element. An example of this is the rain/water that nourishes a tree/wood. The Wood Element nourishes the Fire Element. Think of adding a log/wood to a campfire. The Fire Element nourishes the Earth Element. Visualize the ashes of the fire mixing with the soil/earth. The Earth Element nourishes the Metal Element. Think of how various metals are found with the ground/earth. The Metal Element nourishes the Water Element. Consider the condensation/water on the side of a metal container on a hot day. That completes the cycle of interaction from a creation or nourishing perspective.1 It is depicted in the illustration below. Figure 9-1: Five Element Cycle of Creation. The Cycle of Control, or Destruction, is the counter to the Cycle of Creation. Chinese teachings maintain that there must always be balance within a system for everything to work properly. If all the organs of the body were in a constant state of nourishment the body would be completely out of balance. The Cycle of Control explains how the five elements can control one another, thus creating a balanced healthy organism. The Cycle of Control states that Water Element controls the Fire Element. That is easy enough to understand. Think of pouring water on a fire. The Fire Element controls the Metal Element. Visualize a blacksmith that is using fire to melt metal. The Metal Element controls the Wood Element. Think of a metal axe that is cutting a tree/wood. The Wood Element controls the Earth Element. Think of how the roots of a tree/wood penetrate the soil/earth. The Earth Element controls the Water Element. Think of how the soil/earth dams up a lake/water. That competes this cycle of interaction from a controlling or destructive perspective.2 See Figure 9-2. Figure 9-2: Five Element Cycle of Control. The Chinese grouped the various organs of the body, as they understood them, into the Five Element model. The amazing science of acupuncture, which was developed over the last three thousand years, utilizes that model to treat many forms of sickness and disease. Likewise, the martial artist can use the same model to enhance their combative abilities. The interactions of the Five Element Theory has expanded the combative aspects of the martial arts in the Western world. But, the vast majority of the applications have been focused on the easier understood interactions of the twelve Main Meridians. ORGAN

GV-26 Chinese Point name: Shui Gou;29 English translation: “Water Trough;” Special Attributes: It is the intersection point of the Large Intestine Meridian and the Governing Vessel. It is also listed as one of the 36 Vital Points in the Bubishi; Location: Below in the nose and a little above the midpoint of the philtrum; Western Anatomy: The superior labial artery and vein, the buccal branch of the facial nerve, and a branch of the infraorbital nerve are present; Comments: This point can be struck or pinched. In a situation in which it is necessary to control an individual GV-26 can be pinched between the thumb and the forefinger with great effect. A strike should be aimed upward at a 45-degree angle. This strike, if thrown with force, will also hit GV-25.

Additionally, when considering the constitutions of the five archetypes you will rarely be faced with a self-defense situation against a Water Body Type. They tend to be more passive than the other elemental types and you will rarely find them in any physical activity like taking martial arts classes or other contact sports. You will more than likely face a Wood, Fire or Metal type in a street encounter given their constitutions. The taller Wood types tend to enjoy alcohol, which affects their Liver — the Yin Wood meridian, and can be aggressive during that time. Fire types are known for having quick tempers and it can easily get out of control in an encounter. Metal types tend to suffer from the “Little Man” syndrome. They are generally smaller in stature than the other elemental types and the more Yang versions tend to be aggressive.16 Earth types can be a handful when they are mad, but on the most part they are slow to anger. These examples will hopefully help you gain some insight to the advanced aspects of the diagnostic abilities of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which transcends the physical treatment of disease into the mental and emotional constitutions of the individual.

There, she thought, was the ultimate goal of all that loose academic prattle which businessmen had ignored for years, the goal of all the slipshod definitions, the sloppy generalities, the soupy abstractions, all claiming that obedience to objective reality is the same as the obedience to the State, that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat’s directive, that a hungry man is not free, that man must be released from the tyranny of food, shelter and clothing—all of it, for years, that the day might come when Nat Taggart, the realist, would be asked to consider the will of Cuffy Meigs as a fact of nature, irrevocable and absolute like steel, rails and gravitation, to accept the Meigs-made world as an objective, unchangeable reality—then to continue producing abundance in that world. There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their “instincts” as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable—the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmers’ omnipotent whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: “Now grow a harvest and feed us!

They came to a clearing. It was a small hollow at the bottom of a shaft made of straight rock hillsides. A stream cut across the grass, and tree branches flowed low to the ground, like a curtain of green fluid. The sound of the water stressed the silence. The distant cut of open sky made the place seem more hidden. Far above, on the crest of a hill, one tree caught the first rays of sunlight. They stopped and looked at each other. She knew, only when he did it, that she had known he would. He seized her, she felt her lips on his mouth, felt her arms grasping him in violent answer, and knew for the first time how much she had wanted him to do it. She felt a moment’s rebellion and a hint of fear. He held her, pressing the length of his body against hers with a tense, purposeful insistence, his hand moving over her breasts as if he were learning a proprietor’s intimacy with her body, a shocking intimacy that needed no consent from her, no permission. She tried to pull herself away, but she only leaned back against his arms long enough to see his face and his smile, the smile that told her she had given him permission long ago. She thought that she must escape; instead, it was she who pulled his head down to find his mouth again.

Jacques entered the maze of tunnels, his body moving with supernatural speed. He could hear every sound, the water dripping, then roaring, the high squeak of the bats, even the slight shifting of the earth itself. But he could not detect what he wished to hear most. There was no sound coming from the pools. No ripple of water, no humming, no soft breath from sleeping. No heart beating. Shea was lying motionless on a rock when Jacques entered the steamy underground chamber. He stood very still in the entrance, afraid to move or speak. She had not responded to his telepathic call to her. If she were lost to him, the monster that was Rand would win after all. No one would ever be safe again until Jacques was destroyed. He shook his head. No, if she were dead, he would not leave her to face the unknown without him. Rand would not win. Jacques would follow her, find her. They would spend their life in the next world together. He cleared his throat carefully, noisily, wanting her to turn to face him. She didn’t move, her body utterly still. Jacques inhaled sharply and caught the faint scent of blood. He cleared the distance between them in a single leap, his speed so great, he was almost unable to stop before plunging headlong into the pool. As it was, he teetered precariously on the rim of the boulder before regaining his balance. There was blood smeared on the rock beside Shea’s naked body, a faint crimson ribbon over her breasts. Jacques cried out, dropped to his knees beside her, gathered her up to press her against his chest. Her heart was not beating. He could not feel a pulse or find a thread of life. “No!” He shouted it hoarsely, his voice echoing through the chamber eerily. The voice was lonely and lost, his heart ripped out, like Rand’s.

She looked over the spread of lake and hills, with not a sign of men, not another house anywhere, just water, trees and sun, a world of their own, and she thought he was right—they belonged together—the three of them.

The kind of disgust that made it seem as if the whole world were under water and the water stood still, water that had backed up out of the sewers and ate into everything, even the sky, even my brain. And then I looked at that kitten. And I thought that it didn’t know the things I loathed, it could never know. It was clean—clean in the absolute sense, because it had no capacity to conceive of the world’s ugliness. I can’t tell you what relief there was in trying to imagine the state of consciousness inside that little brain, trying to share it, a living consciousness, but clean and free. I would lie down on the floor and put my face on that cat’s belly, and hear the beast purring. And then I would feel better....