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library1. Oxford’s English Dictionary |
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Vitality |
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Journal© |
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1. A place set apart to contain books for reading, study, or reference. (Not applied, e.g. to the shop or warehouse of a bookseller.) In various applications more or less specific. a. Applied to a room in a house, etc.; also, a bookcase. In mod. use, the designation of one of the set of rooms ordinarily belonging to an English house above a certain level of size and pretension. b. A building, room, or set of rooms, containing a collection of books for the use of the public or of some particular portion of it, or of the members of some society or the like; a public institution or establishment, charged with the care of a collection of books, and the duty of rendering the books accessible to those who require to use them. c. (More fully, circulating library.) A private commercial establishment for the lending of books, the borrower paying either a fixed sum for each book lent or a periodical subscription. d. A theatre-ticket agency. 2. a. The books contained in a library (sense 1); a large collection of books, public or private (J.). b. Often used in the titles given by publishers to a series or set of books uniform or similar in external appearance, and ostensibly suited for some particular class of readers or for students of a particular subject, as in “The Library of Useful Knowledge” (1826-1856), “The Parlour Library” (consisting of novels, 1847-1863), “Bohn's Standard Library”, etc. Formerly also in the titles of bibliographical works, and of periodicals. c. transf. and fig.; esp. used to denote (a) a great mass of learning or knowledge; (b) the objects of a person's study, the sources on which he depends for instruction. In quot. 1523 = a catalogue, list.(c) A collection of films, gramophone records, music, etc.
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From the editor... |
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Take a trip through the works of Michael Talbot and Robert Monroe and the above term carries far broader connotations than simply a physical warehouse of printed matter. The age old disciplines that deal with the formation of thought continue to wrestle with the question on just where the miracle of idea manifests. Is it an electrical charge that jumps from fiber to fiber inside the gray matter itself? Is it, rather, an energy field that surrounds the cranial chakra, yielding the artist’s depiction of the “aura” or the “halo?” Or is the mind a broader intangible concept that some refer to as the universal subconscious (in which case there is no such thing as a truly private thought or original idea)? In the Lakota tradition the mantra most uttered is mitakue oyasin — we are all related.
So is the cranial vessel a warehouse of hardware only, that serves as a conduit for software from an exterior source? Or is the entire CPU and hard drive inside the gray matter protected by those twenty two bones bonded by the dura mater?
The mind is clearly the warehouse of ideas, and the idea is the product of the greatest miracle recorded….imagination. The mind is the library, which for one moment can seem to exhibit such clarity...only to then become as equally illusive.
Food for thought, Bill Jackson |
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April 2008 |
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Volume II Issue 4 |
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Click on the links below to navigate through the pages of Vitality Journal April 2008 issue. |
