Definitions of Apparitions

[Ninjutsu]

Ninja, I have a right to my opinion. You accused me of flaming you simply because I disagreed with you. Your bad, not mine.

I have never understood that statement that less is more. Oh, I get the context that shutting up after making a point instead of expounding on it makes the point sometimes better than the rationale behind the point.

But that statement doesn't hold true in all respects. For instance, let's talk about a forest. If a forest consists of one tree, is it really a forest? No, not at all. It is just a tree in a field.

But if there are thousands of trees on vast tracks of land is that considered a forest?

Yes because that is the definition of a forest.

So in this case more is more. Less is not more, in fact in this case calling a lone tree in a field a forest is confusing and very demeaning to the field, which certainly prefers being called a field and not a forest which it is not.

In the Four Agreements, one of the agreements was that we agreed on a mutual language and what certain sounds contained within that language would mean certain ideas. We call these sounds words and sometimes phrases to get an idea across.

To call a lone tree in a field a forest would just confuse people as we have all agreed that land empty of most trees is considered a field not a forest. To call a forest a field without adding the words "of trees" to the phrase would just call to mind an empty field devoid of most or all trees.

So this is a clear case of more is more. More trees, more forest, more understood and an agreed on definition.

Less is not forest, but an empty or nearly empty field, more understood in the context of communication and an agreed on definition.

So you see there are potentially reasons to use both phrases. Your way is a metaphor for something else. Metaphors are acceptable as they convey ideas in non conventional ways. My way is a valid indication of how literal language works. Neither is wrong, it is just a different turn of phrase.

However, if you still cling to the idea that less is more in all cases, I am more than willing to take part of your paycheck, since you don't need all of it because less is more. In fact by that reasoning you would be better off sending some of it my way. Would you like my PO box?

A Question - What does Your Post have to do with Definitions of Apparitions?


--- Ninja

[Ninjutsu]

Certainly it can only consist of hundreds of trees, but in my area we called that the woods.

However, I am delighted that you got my point.

Hmmmmmmmmm

I get Your Point - Thanx for Answering My Question


--- Ninja

[maryals]

Sierra, as you know I come from a whole family of Artists and Engineers (bridge builders) so I grew up with the phrase "....less is more..." but in a very different context than Ninjitsu gives us.
Take an elegant Evening Dress for example, a Chanel. Because her designs had LESS frou frou and ribbons and pearls and stuff, her designs where MORE elegant and tasteful than others.
Or, let's say you are training a certain young horse, and this horse gets easily frustrated. Less training at each session would do more towards success.

Ninja just likes to tug our chains, being all mysterious and enigmatic....I just have fun with him. Somewhere among all the Smoke and Mirrors of his Mystery are some bits of truth.

What does all this have to do with "Definitions of Apparitions"? More than you realize Ninja, if you just open your mind a wee bit more
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MaryAlice can't we all just get along? LOL

[Ninjutsu]

Sierra, as you know I come from a whole family of Artists and Engineers (bridge builders) so I grew up with the phrase "....less is more..." but in a very different context than Ninjitsu gives us.

--- Not Really

Take an elegant Evening Dress for example, a Chanel. Because her designs had LESS frou frou and ribbons and pearls and stuff, her designs where MORE elegant and tasteful than others.

--- Right

Or, let's say you are training a certain young horse, and this horse gets easily frustrated. Less training at each session would do more towards success.

--- Bingo

Ninja just likes to tug our chains, being all mysterious and enigmatic....I just have fun with him. Somewhere among all the Smoke and Mirrors of his Mystery are some bits of truth.

--- Enlightenment can be Fun - Thanx

What does all this have to do with "Definitions of Apparitions"? More than you realize Ninja, if you just open your mind a wee bit more

--- Hmmmmmmmmm

--- I will have to do some Zen Meditation on that Statement - Thanx

MaryAlice can't we all just get along? LOL

--- Probably Not - World War III is In Progress

--- Hmmmmmmmmm - Again

--- Cool - That Statement sort of brings this Thread back On Topic

--- Thanx MaryAlice - You are Way Cool to the Max

A Question - When I post Several Times in A Thread instead of One Time in A Thread is that Less or More?


--- Ninja

Saying of The Moment: A Question can be An Answer

[Shecoda]

It is overkill if you are making the same point over and over and over and over. LOL

Mary you are wrong in one respect. A young horse actually needs more training, not less.

The older more well trained horse only needs be kept in training on a occasional basis.

A younger horse, unlike a dog, needs a much longer training session than an older horse. No matter how frustrated the horse gets, it needs to be taught patience and the frustration needs to be worked through. Nobody wants to get on the back of an 1100-1200 lb animal that has frustration issues. Well maybe some of the bronc riders at the rodeo but they are hoping to get paid for it.

Current thinking by some of the super trainers (John Lyons, Pat Parellie, Buck Braniman etc.) is that repetition, the process of going over something over and over in a training session is the better way to get a trained horse than 20 minutes here or there. Or even 20 minutes daily.

When you are on a young horse's back in the riding arena and you reach the end of the arena where the young horse is sure there exists something that is going to eat it, the horse will spook. If allowed, the horse will stop going to that end, ever more fearful that there really is something hiding there, perhaps in the shadow. If allowed to the extreme the horse will become a spooky horse, spooking at every shadow, every bird that flies by, every leaf that blows across the trail. This is a dangerous kind of horse, and more than one spooky horse has panicked and run off the cliffside in that panic. End result? No more horse.

Nothing is accomplished by getting off the horse and walking away. This reinforces the fact there is something scary at that end of the arena. This reinforces the fact that the world is totally scary. This is how a young horse thinks.

The fix to this and many other training issues is to make the horse face the problem. Once or twice is not going to do it. You may have to take the horse to that end of the arena 100-150 times before it even starts to be comfortable down there. This can take a couple of hours or more depending on how hard the horse wants to force the issue. However, if you get off the horse before it starts to give in, you only tell it that there must be something there to be worried about and you have also taught the horse that it is in charge.

This is gentle training, you are not whipping the horse or beating the horse, you simply are not letting it get away with being fearful.

Horses that learn to face their fears usually find out there was nothing scary in the first place and learn to trust their riders.

This takes some of the danger out of an inherently dangerous sport.

All training sessions with horses are usually long.

Just thought I would correct the record.

So in this case more is better.

I know all this because my best friend is a horse trainer.



As far as the evening gown analogy, perhaps the better phrase is more frou-frou is just too much.

[Ninjutsu]

LOL...

No Comment


--- Ninja

[maryals]

Thank you for the horse training lesson (I believe it will help in my story). Obviously I know nothing of horse training so I should not have used that analogy.

Let's do get back to apparitions
I am enjoying the Stories!


MaryAlice

[Ninjutsu]

Let's do get back to apparitions

I am enjoying the Stories!

MaryAlice

Kudos to maryals

--- Ninja

[Topper]

Man ... is the sphinx

Horse is Horse

I'm getting tired of beating a dead horse under this topic of appy's
(pun for those of us in the tack)

Not everything can be tossed into the basket as an apparition
more classifications are needed.

[snowbird]

Once on a caribbean island, I had visited a plantation where the master had found out that he had a terminal illness. In the bedroom, he shot his wife and then himself. Some members of the family who lived there sometimes saw him, others would see her. There was still a faint blood stain on the bedroom hardwood floor.

The bathroom was at the end of a very long hallway from the dining room. Midway, there was the entrance to the summer kitchen opposite to the bedroom. There was also a little alcove (niche in the wall) with a little table where the magazines were kept. I was uncomfortable going to the bathroom but thought nothing of it as there was a houseful of people. On the way back, I stopped at the little table, sat down and thumbed through a magazine as it was the 3rd week of vacation and one can only take so much of paradise... I started feeling as though someone was watching me and so I turned around, but all I saw was the bedroom. Nevertheless, the feeling was very strong, like I was in someone's space, and so I left for the dining room.

I started picking up some dirty dishes and went back to this hallway to the summer kitchen whose door was opposite to the bedroom and prepared to marched right in. I took 2 steps and it was like hitting an invisible wall. I gingerly reached out, without taking another step, and put the little pile of plates on the absolute corner of the table and walked out. The feeling was like someone was there watching me, but I didn't see anyone and, I was told the servants were gone.

I returned to an empty dining and saw that everyone was on the balcony enjoying the sultry night and whistling frogs and recounting the history of the place. It was then that things finally fell into place.

Hubby and I gathered the kids and left soon after. We had a long lonely drive to the eastern and less populated part of the island. The drive was very stressful through the cane fields. We rounded a corner at the top of the hill that we were to descend to our cottage by the sea and I could see a broken and chipped low cement wall with people crouching on it. There were people in rags in the field cutting cane. As we drove by, the people on the wall would stop talking and watch us as we drove by.

The area around the cottage was lit up only by the light of the car that we had rented and it was very eery with the light ending in blackness. Hubby check the house and turned all the lights on, came outside and we got the kids in bed and turned in ourselves.

The bedroom was lit up by the shine of the moon coming through the window slats, hitting the mahogany wardrobe on hubby's side of the bed. The air was still and all we could hear was the unrelenting sound of the ocean. Sleeping was impossible, breathing was hard - there was no air coming in. I half expected to see someone standing by the bed - we were being watched. We tossed and turned and neither of us said much of anything but what air there was, was very tense.

I turned to face hubby and saw the moonshine on the wardrobe. I looked at it and then to the window because it occurred to me that the moon was not in a position to shine on that wardrobe. I stared at the wardrobe and saw it gradually turn into a head and shoulders. I threw the covers off and jumped to the doorway where I could turn the light on. I turned on the radio as well and insisted that the radio and the light was going to be on for the rest of the night, til the sun came up.

We listened to Spanish music and searched for an english channel to get the time. Midnight had come and gone during our tossing and turning in bed and so I wondered if midnight in another part of the caribbean (1 am our time) had to go by before we'd be left alone. As it turned out, that seemed to be the case because after 1 am, all of a sudden the wind blew in, there was a change of air and atmosphere - it was like flicking a switch.

We turned the lights and radio off. There was no moonshine on the wardrobe and we fell asleep.

The next day, we travelled up the hill where I saw that there was no cement wall, and there was no cane field, just tall grass swaying in the wind.

So there's my story of apparitions. Thinking about it, I was fortunate to have had a look through the window of time when I saw the people on the wall and the cane cutters. But I have no idea what it was that wanted to show itself on the wardrobe... could someone have followed us into our space from that plantation house? Your guess is as good as mine - but it was an interesting happening - and I'm hoping that I won't be sorry that I've brought it up seeing as how I'm alone right now

snowbird

[Illyria]

Wow Snowbird, great story. Thanks for sharing.

[circledancer]

Wow Snowbird, great story. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, that would have made my hair stand up! very scary!

[snowbird]

Yes, that would have made my hair stand up! very scary!

Well, it did and it didn't for me. While going through that situation, I think hubby and I were on survival mode - looking after the kids - making sure the house was okay. What went through my mind in bed was being so uncomfortable for what seemed like such a long time that gradually I allowed the anger to take over and so I had the energy to jump up and go for the light. It's quite different talking about it and living through it.

Were they apparitions? - you bet!

s.