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the rohn report

dissertations on almost anything about being human / contemporary and humorous observations / bulletins and notifications / tips and quips / sermons rohn.substack.com

All Episodes

11:15

Tom Sawyer and the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation

the rohn report ·

2023/10/05

Featured in today’s BBC online is this article: The weird sound from the early Universe. Scientists figured out back in 2005 that there had been a primordial hum permeating the universe since shortly after it was born. It spread out at half the speed of light thru the plasma (ionized gas) which was all there was of the universe at the time - a deep bass note with a wave length of 450,000 light years. They were delighted and excited at their discovery. Tom Sawyer is learning to whistle as he walks

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13:41

John / Rohn - I get it

the rohn report ·

2023/09/28

I want to write about my dad. His name was John. John, Rohn, get it? I imagine him in his aspirational phase: young, newly married, intent on raising a family and finding a congregation to minister unto, his ordination in hand. He did find a place, in Hudson, Michigan. A Baptist church in need of a pastor. I don’t know why. They hired him on and that was his first time. Being a pastor and all, doing all the things a pastor does. And making babies. Must have been fun.He was handsome and

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10:52

my cat can speak in english words

the rohn report ·

2023/09/21

I know it sounds unbelievable. One time I opened the back door to let her in and I distinctly heard her say “ankyoo ” in her meowy voice. I mean she could have come in the cat door but she wanted me to open it for her. Another time, just a few weeks ago, I was sitting in my meditation chair on the front porch having my quiet time and Kybo was meowing around looking for strokes. Her voice had a pleading tone in it as if to say “Why can’t you give me strokes?” I said “Because I’m meditating.”

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11:01

the story of Göbekli Tepe

the rohn report ·

2023/09/14

Stone pillars, T-shaped megaliths 15 feet high, quarried and carved out of the limestone rock with flint tools and set in circles around . . . what? I can only guess, now 11,000 years later. That’s how long ago this place was built.11,000 years ago they hadn’t even invented farming yet, not really, maybe a few gardens here and there, by chance. They wouldn’t build the pyramids or Stonehenge for another 6,000 years. What . . . the heck?They were hunters and gatherers, foraging, moving around

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8:36

eyes see light

the rohn report ·

2023/09/07

They’re designed for it. Even with your eyes closed you can see light. Even with your hands covering your closed eyes you can see light. Some kind of light. If you close both of your eyes and cover one eye with one hand and pet your cat with the other hand you will notice the difference between one covered closed eye and one uncovered closed eye.The purpose of these experiments is to demonstrate how sensitive our eyes are to light, they want to see. They can see in a completely perfectly dark

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11:48

regeneration nation

the rohn report ·

2023/08/31

This is my front lawn as of Thursday afternoon, August 31, 2023 after a long hot dry summer which doesn’t seem to be over yet. In the Spring it looked like this. We had rain and the sunflowers activated. Their seeds had been lying on the ground all year, waiting for their chance. Hundreds of them sprouted and grew, tall and proud. Many times I stopped to look at them, their faces uplifted to the sun, when I stepped out on my bike in the morning and it would make me laugh a deep hearty laugh to

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13:01

enter the dragons

the rohn report ·

2023/08/24

There was a time not too long ago when I thought I wanted to be a nomad and travel around in my van. Van life. I bought a van and started equipping it to live in while I traveled around in my nomadic life.Now I’m driving a Prius, a city car, and the van is for sale. The thought of traveling around in a van seems really awkward and arduous to me now. Of course if I had a fully equipped van with all the amenities that I’m used to living in a house, it might be plausible but my van was far from

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13:20

It’s going to rain.

the rohn report ·

2023/08/17

It’s going to rain. This is what I promised myself when I saw the 10 day forecast on my computer. The heat wave over. The obstinate dominance of the Sun finally subsumed by something more nuanced - the rain. And now for something completely different - cooler weather and rain. I sure hope it rains. It could still go all along outside us and miss us completely. I’ve seen it before. On weather radar. One time I made a movie of weather radar with a thunderstorm coming in. It approached San

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21:52

late stage capitalism is a riot

the rohn report ·

2023/08/10

I just went to the mailbox, walked over hot asphalt in bare feet to get there, and it was all junk mail. A flyer entitled ‘2023 PROPOSED PROPERTY TAX BILL INFORMATION’. All caps. ‘Snooze and save’ said another flyer, even larger, with a beautiful woman making a bed, all lower case. I think it’s a furniture store. There was a GIANT movie ticket, or facsimile thereof, 8”x12”, just to make sure you got the point. It’s huge. It looks exactly like a movie ticket with numbers on it but the flip side

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46:25

Barista Interview with Abby

the rohn report ·

2023/08/03

Welcome to Barista Interviews. This is the third in the series. Katie from Rose Hip Coffee and Ali also from Rose Hip Coffee were also featured.Baristas really do play a mythic role in society. They have been playing their role, serving up the drinks, talking to the patrons, ever since the time of Gilgamesh in old Mesopotamia when he encountered Shiduri, the bar maid, on the beach at the edge of the world. She offered him her wisdom but he wasn’t ready, couldn’t accept it. He had to keep

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19:13

The Ancient Book of Magic Secrets

the rohn report ·

2023/07/27

The Ancient Book of Magic Secrets is finally available. It took long enough. It’s available in hardcover or paperback here. I know, Amazon is an insidious and capricious corporate entity. They’re also the most convenient platform to publish on. Or atleast the only one I could manage. So anyways, there it is. It’s about being human, or atleast about how we have been human. Sometimes comically, sometimes tragically we have been progressing along these many thousands of years, improving our

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14:44

in praise of

the rohn report ·

2023/07/20

paid subscribersFirst of all I’d like to say thank you to all the paid subscribers of the rohn report. I’m deeply grateful, and I just turned payments back on : ) I feel less disabled and more in a rhythm of writing. Typing speed is back to half of what it was, carpal tunnel symptoms are abating. There are 14 paid subscribers, if you’re curious, and 169 regular free subscribers. Most of the rohn reports go to both but sometimes there are special editions just for the paid subscribers. Well

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9:42

lonely elderly people

the rohn report ·

2023/07/16

I keep hearing about lonely elderly people. Living alone in a house with no spouse or kids. Just holding on. It’s in the news. In the Netherlands they have a special check out line at the grocery store that goes slow so the elderly lonely people can have someone to talk to. It was on Facebook.Can you imagine that? To arrive at your old age and discover yourself all alone? I can. That’s how my life has been lately. Old age can hit hard. It doesn’t necessarily follow a schedule. Even my

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6:27

storytelling

the rohn report ·

2023/07/13

Once again I have nothing for the newsletter. I have spent the last week in an agonizing exercise of futility trying to marry my pages word document to KDP’s publishing platform. My head hurts just thinking about it, but it may finally be bearing fruit.‘The Ancient Book of Magic Secrets’ wants to enter the life of the world. It’s been 8 years since the project was born of fire and rain and a deep desire to say something to the people. This is what it looks like.All of us are people and all of us

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8:07

beautiful destruction

the rohn report ·

2023/07/06

Avdiivka, before the war, was 30,000 people living in a comfy bedroom community on the outskirts of Donetsk, Ukraine. Then came the invasion of February 2022 and Avdiivka ended up on the frontlines. It was bombed and then bombed some more. Donetsk was occupied - the Russian army just a few miles away. Now, a year later, it’s pretty much been reduced to rubble. They’re under threat of attack every day from the 152 mm howitzers, sometimes a missile or a bomb dropped from an airplane. Quite a

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3:30

nothing to report

the rohn report ·

2023/06/29

it’s thursday and i’ve got nothingno sweet epiphanies / no exciting adventuresi try to write every week if just to process my own inner journeycalibrate my perspective with the reality of thingsthat’s a useful exercisebut lately it’s been mostly resting and healing and not even bike ridingthat’s where i get alot of the themes and sub-themes - from up on my bikei miss it / i need the inspirationhuman beings (if i might pivot to the universal) need to be remindedwe forget the simplest and most basic

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11:35

visiting / listening and the power of being silent

the rohn report ·

2023/06/22

part 1 :: visitingI remember when I was a little kid, a rug rat actually. Television was not well established yet and even if you had one there were only 3 channels, if the weather was right. Anyways my parents would take us kids out visiting to a neighbor’s house for the purpose of having a conversation. There we would sit around the coffee table in the living room and talk. The adults would sit around and talk, I would roam the room, explore, examine the books and bric brac on the lower

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12:08

what I learned from my carpal tunnel syndrome

the rohn report ·

2023/06/15

Pain has a voice. That’s what I’ve learned. Or rather my body has a voice, many voices and pain is one of them.Carpal tunnel syndrome squeezes the space in the wrist where the nerves and blood vessels pass thru into the hand. It can cause numbness, tingling, muscle weakness and pain - especially at night. One night I was lying in bed with my hand brace on feeling the pain traveling all over my hand. Sometimes it felt like my palm was on fire, like I had stuck my hand in a pizza oven. Sometimes

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12:40

a book

the rohn report ·

2023/05/25

A book is a book. I mean it’s only a book. But for people who like books it can be a life changing experience. I’m preparing to publish a book and hopefully it will change people’s lives. It changed mine.After six years of writing, two years of looking for a publisher, innumerable edits and revisions - it’s ready. Here’s the cover picture. It’s a detail from the White Shaman painting from west Texas. But it’s not about the White Shaman, he’s just helping me make a point, it’s about being

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6:18

wildscaping in the neighborhood

the rohn report ·

2023/05/18

It’s spring! With lots of rain and the wild flowers are wild. Hey that’s not a sentence but I don’t care. It’s spring with lots of rain. And the wild flowers are wild.Here in my neighborhood, a friendly suburb about 6 miles north of the downtown, lots of homeowners are practicing wildscaping. That’s the practice where you give the wildflowers a chance to bewild and do their thing. Front yards and traffic islands and entrances to institutions are alive with the sweet bouquet of wild flowers and

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