Darn! Was going to watch the SOTU, but fell asleep even before it began. And now I hear it was 1 hour and 18 minutes long . . .

So, early this morning I went on X and saw this already viral clip which has already been turned into hilarious memes:

And this reminded me of the astro chart I put up yesterday for the SOTU, which had almost all the planets on the right side of the chart! Wow. So the response (right side) will be what’s important, not the action (left side) itself?? I wondered how that would manifest. Well, now we know. Plus: Expansive, over-the-top Jupiter in home-loving Cancer at the Midheaven. Makes sense, eh?

Rather than trying to find a site where I could watch the entire SOTU myself this morning — or, to save time, an accurate transcript — I decided off the cuff to ask grok this question:

What are the most important points made at SOTU and why and how. Antecedents and consequences of each one.

 

Well, well, did I get an eyeful. Took many many seconds to respond, consulted what was it, 35 sources? and was so detailed that my eyes glazed over almost immediately. (Hmmm. . . am I just not cut out for life in a body on planet earth in this intensely complex, complicated, maze-like and fast running seemingly nowhere civilization?)

I kept going with grok. Here’s a question my son Colin asked when he was three years old: “Which is more real, my dreams or yesterday?”

To which I had responded, thrilled with this youngster’s questing mind: “Wow, what a great question!”

Colin’s question ended up being my final response when defending my 1972 doctoral dissertation in philosophy.

One of the encircled academics had asked me, “Okay, so you say ‘there’s a fine line between fiction and fact.’ Give us an example.” So I did. And three-year-old Colin’s question made the room go suddenly, and utterly silent. For many agonizing seconds. Until one of them finally rousted himself enough to tell me to go into the next room while they decided my fate.

So. Early this morning, in a playful mood, I asked grok that same question:

Which is more real, my dreams or yesterday?

 

Which elicited a response that to me, is infinitely more interesting than the “factual” question about what happened at the SOTU last night — though I have yet to pursue it either.

I was on a roll.

Decided to ask next, “What is a number?” This is the question I had asked in first grade: “But . . . what is a number?” genuinely perplexed, and ashamed of my befuddlement. Instead of responding to the depth of this question, Sister Bernita shut me down. ‘Twas as if I had been MK Ultra altered. A PTSD that lasted for many many years! Poor Sister Bernita!  Dumbfounded, not knowing what else to say, she had turned from the blackboard to remark, after staring at me for many seconds as my face turned red . . . not realizing, that she was thereby shutting off my right brain, my questing self, open to the infinite: “That is not a question, dear.”

Okay, as I said, this morning I was on a roll. Asked that question of grok.

What is a number?

 

And of course, got another long-winded AI response that is deeply interesting to one such as me, though again, I have yet to pursue it.

Finally, I followed that question with this one:

What is not a question?

 

Well, you can imagine what fun I had asking that one. Again, a very long response, after many seconds of “thinking” and gobs of “sources.” Again, I have yet to pursue it. But here’s from the final paragraphs:

3. The philosophical/non-dual punchline (my favorite for this sequence we’ve been on)

In the spirit of your earlier questions (“What is a number?”, “Which is more real, my dreams or yesterday?”), both of which dissolve ordinary categories — this one dissolves the category of “question” itself.

Ultimately nothing is truly a question, because:

• Every “question is already answered the instant consciousness notices it (the noticing is the resolution).

• Or: in pure awareness there is no asker, no asked, no gap to bridge , therefore no question exists at all.

• The appearance of questioning is just mind playing hide-and-seek with itself. So what is not a question? Everything (and nothing, but mostly everything pretending otherwise.)

   

Yeah folks. Welcome to Saturn/Neptune entering Aries. The zero point. Brand new beginning. Starting over. Reset even your overworked brain to zero.

Oh wow. I should ask grok, “What is zero?” A question that frankly, has always fascinated one such as myself, who has Neptune at the Midheaven of her natal chart (Dec 19 1942, 8:02 AM, San Antonio TX), raining on everything else, and just now (for the one and only time, at 83) being opposed by transit Saturn and Neptune opposite, at the root. Yeah, dig down, dig down . . . what’s underneath? What holds it all up? Nothing! Nothing? No thing?

Aaah, not today.

 

Want more? Here’s an interesting X post that echoes my own peregrinations, though not so meta-physically.

The Five Low-Bearing Pillars Holding the Illusion Up