Exploring The Nature of Being

I am interested in the nature of consciousness and the relation of the self to nature and the cosmos. The nature of language fascinates me, its capacities for expressing underlying psychological action, its limitations and scope in reflecting the reality we observe through the filtering action of our senses, and the entrenched filters of habitual interpretation that we inherit from our cultural milieu, upbringing and education. Language is however not solely limited to the human domain - it is universal. Neither is it purely limited to species in a sophisticated organic sense, but an intrinsic characteristic of all organisations of matter.

I have an intense interest in semantics, heuristics, cosmogenesis, existential philosophy and psychodynamics, and find that my reconnaissance in these areas has enriched my understanding of what I am, who I am, and why I am here. Nevertheless, life and Reality are an open-ended mystery which the sciences and arts comment on in different, but complementary ways. I would love to see an evolution from our well entrenched attitudes of Speciesm to Pantocracy and from Anthropocentrism towards one of Pancentrism

I've witnessed the entire and ongoing social revolution in this country, one of the most radical and yet peaceful, resolving, and evolutionary the world has ever seen. The confrontative polarisations that froth over so much of our planet are traceable to paradigms in conflict - most of these are acutely obsolescent - but the very energy of their conflict also reflects a striving towards deeper harmonic resolution. I believe that it is indeed possible to dissolve the skewed perceptions of reality embodied in these paradigms and to shift them towards more holistic objectivity. In that way, a true human family is more than just a fleeting utopian ideal.
Is it not preferable to accelerate spiritual evolution, rather than perpetuate a retardative stasis that has impeded our progress for millennia?

Background

I qualified as lecturer in electronics and spent some years as principal of an electronics college. I am a freelance technical consultant and at present have been appointed as specialist in alternative energy sources to an international concern. I started studying the classical guitar at the age of fourteen, won a National Prize for guitar composition in South Africa and have taught both professionally and privately. I have a hand-built ten-stringed Ramirez and six-string Khono guitar. With new commercial enterprise the time for practising is limited, keeping a repertoire intact requires several hours per day which are sometimes difficult to find... I have includes some MP3 sound files of my compositions here. I love teaching the classical guitar and regard it as a highly important mechanism for self-discovery, apart from the joy it can bring as an instrument of musical expression. I love studying Astronomy, Cosmology and Philosophy. My hobbies now are collecting good music, gemmology, mineralogy, tropical fish and when I can, riding and windsurfing.

I completed "The Nature of Being" during my one and a half year's stay in Sofia, Bulgaria, and have returned to South Africa in order to pursue its publication and start a new life here with my Bulgarian Fiancee and our two daughters. The work is subtitled "Why You Are Here And What To Do About It" - An exploration of human intentionality and the potentials of consciousness. It comprises 520 pages and is fully illustrated with 171 Figures and photographs, 30 Tables, and richly referenced to academic and research sources in 109 footnotes and 511 endnotes. An index with 2 871 page-referenced entries is provided to allow easy looking up of relevant topics of interest.

This vital book by Frank Valentyn is now happily available (June 2004) on CD with full-colour graphics. A major theme maintained consistently through the entire development is the perception of an underlying Universal Purpose, a reason for being, common to all species, and stressing that what we perceive as sentience and intelligence lies within a spectrum of organicity far exceeding the scholastic simplicity and rulishness of schoolbook learning. Escaping the comforting limits of a neo-newtonian clockwork universe, we enter a quantum hyper-universe to see multiply enfolded paradox, learn that complexity and simplicity encode each other mutually, and come to see past these to the inestimable power of acts of directed consciousness and the cosmically encrypted energy available to them.

FAMILY

My origins are in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I went to school until the age of nine. My father, a Ph.D. in music, was offered a post as lecturer at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, where we emigrated - a period of tearing loose from a known culture and immersion into a totally different one that required some adaptation to different attitudes, standards and language. My mother was a nursing sister in the area of psychological nursing care. My interests in family genealogy were recently awakened, an aspect of one's origin that stimulates no excitement when you are much younger. By using Webferret ® in its e-mail address search function, I located twenty-seven addresses of the same family name globally. Addressing these as a group I received very promising feedback and the identity of some of my forebears was confirmed. I now have some perspective on my origins back to about 1600 on my father's side and about 1325 on my mother's. I believe it to be very important to know where one stems from, your familial and cultural heritage - and to have some perspective on the people who once thought of you in their far futures, whose struggles helped to shape what and who you are.

I met my sweet lifepartner and wonderfully inspiring wife, Laika, on the Internet, and travelled to Sofia in Bulgaria to meet her. This was a difficult two day trip by bus passing through five countries and a still devastated Serbia. In Sofia I taught English in high schools and colleges while we made plans for our future. Laika and "our" daughters Daniela (15, left) and our eldest, Liliane (18, right) are now with me in South Africa. It took a while, but our family is complete again!

I have a son, Alex, who is a military instructor pilot in the South African Air Force.

	Alex won his wings in December '97 and was first based at Swartkops AFB where he flew Allouette gunship and heavy transport Oryx helicopters. He took part in some daring rescue work, including one incident where ten young people (in a boat made for four, and without lifejackets) were decanted into the rough waters of the Vaal river and stranded on a tiny island in mid-stream... the rescue attempt occurred in pitch darkness at around midnight, aided by the chopper's searchlight, and was a complete success.
	Alex is now a captain in the Air Force, pilot instructor and a member of the elite Silver Falcons aerobatics team.		The team regularly performs in airshows and fly-pasts for official and state functions.

Alex had the honour to fly president Nelson Mandela (that's him to our left of the president), had two copies of his book "The Long Road to Freedom" signed by him and in a fly-past at president Thabo Mbeki's inauguration,

flew the "Rooivalk" indigenous attack helicopter in the ceremonial flyover as the only example among other types. On one particular evening I heard the sound of a familiar "chopper" type approaching - as I walked into the back garden, it came in close with its searchlight switched on and circled overhead repeatedly - it was my birthday, and one of the nicest presents I ever received!

Poetry is one of the most expressive modes of communication. The Ethics of Influence which underlie the dynamics of observation and expression of the poet, reflect not just the art, techniques and traditions, but an orientation and evolution of consciousness. I write poetry and essays in a wide range of topics, some treating existential matters, others on artistic topics, some humorous, some serious, some in fable form. To see some of my thoughts have a look at a few of my Selected Poems

I'm an Aquarius, obviously the most excellent Zodiacal sign... but with the ongoing balancing acts I have to perform I sometimes wonder....

Favourite Links

Please note that many more specific article-related links are supplied in linked pages on this site

Space and Astronomy

	NASA Website: Space exploration technology and wonderful images of Earth and Space.		Caltech Astronomy department.
	The rich resources of The Kennedy Space Centre		The International Space Station
	An introduction to the enormous telescope of the Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii		The search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - the SETI Institute
	The Hubble Space Telescope, HST		The search for    Extraterrestrial Intelligence - your chance to participate valuably!

Poetry

The Web Poetry Corner Everything from classical poetry to the intense, the naive and the ingenuous.

My own Poetry pages.

Science Fiction Poetry (and literature)

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