The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an apelike cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region and are part of their history and mythology. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the late 1800s.

The scientific community largely regards the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of evidence, yet it remains one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology. The Yeti can be considered a parallel to the Bigfoot legend of North America.

In 1832, James Prinsep’s Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson’s account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson did not see the creature, but concluded it was an orangutan.

The frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century, when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more skeptical about its existence.

Beginning in 1957, wealthy American oilman Tom Slick funded a few missions to investigate Yeti reports. In 1959, supposed Yeti feces were collected by one of Slick’s expeditions. Fecal analysis found a parasite which could not be classified. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans wrote, “Since each animal has its own parasites, this indicated that the host animal is equally an unknown animal.”

In 1970, British mountaineer Don Whillans claimed to have witnessed a creature when scaling Annapurna. According to Whillans, while scouting for a campsite, he heard some odd cries which his Sherpa guide attributed to a Yeti’s call. That night, he saw a dark shape moving near his camp. The next day, he observed a few human-like footprints in the snow, and that evening, viewed with binoculars a bipedal, ape-like creature for 20 minutes as it apparently searched for food not far from his camp.

In 1984, famed mountaineer David P. Sheppard of Hoboken, New Jersey, claims to have been followed by a large, furry man over the course of several days while he was near the southern Col of Everest. His sherpas, however, say they saw no such thing. Sheppard claims to have taken a photograph of the creature, but a later study of it proved inconclusive.

Enthusiasts speculate that these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the extinct giant ape Gigantopithecus. However, while the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, most scientists believe Gigantopithecus to have been quadrupedal, and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape, walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the orangutan.

Interconnectedness is part of the terminology of a worldview which sees a oneness in all things. A similar term, interdependence, is sometimes used instead, although there are slightly different connotations. Both terms tend to refer to the idea that all things are of a single underlying substance and reality, and that there is no true separation deeper than appearances. Some feel that interconnectedness and similar terms are part of a contemporary lexicon of mysticism, which is based on the same core idea of universal oneness.

The mystics have related this as the notion of “all in one and one in all”, which in turn relates to the theological concept of panentheism, but in the most thorough meaning of that term. Not that all is within God, as your breakfast might be within you, or that God is solely within all, but, rather that the two, God and the creation are all one within one another.

In terms of religion, spirituality, personal world views and paradigms, the theology of God present within every human being, a concept familiar to Quakers and to Lutherans, might help to explain various life actions such as the rejection of human slavery. To own a slave would, in this cosmo-theological world view, be to claim ownership of the God present within the slave.

In global political, social, and ecological terms, the concept of co-relational “all in one, one in all” panentheistic interconnectedness will doubtless have significant economic, distributional, moral, ethical, political, personal, social, and ecological ramifications. By acknowledging the relationship to all things, interconnected behaviours are said to have the potential to change the world.

The scarlet pimpernel, also known as red chickweed, poorman’s barometer, shepherd’s weather glass, or shepherd’s clock, is a low growing annual plant in the family Myrsinaceae, growing in Europe, Asia and North America. The barometer or weather glass common names have their origin in the fact that the flowers close when atmospheric pressure decreases and bad weather is approaching.

The flower has been said to counteract the evil of malevolent beings and was once used as a cure for hydrophobia. The taste of the plant is acrid, and it has been reported to have killed certain birds feeding upon it. The latin name Anagallis Arvensis originates from the Greek anagelao, to laugh, because it was used for liver complaints and removed low spirits. One writer of lyrical prose noted that the flower opens at eight minutes past seven and closes at three minutes past two. 

It is most well known for being the emblem of the fictional hero The Scarlet Pimpernel, who’s nickname is derived from the drawing of a small red flower with which he signs his messages. This originally European plant is generally considered a weed and is an indicator of light soils. The small red-orange flowers grow from spring until autumn.

Defense physiology is a term used to refer to the variety of body function and physiological changes that occur in response to a stress or threat. When the body executes the fight or flight reaction or stress response, the nerve system initiates, coordinates and directs specific changes in how the body is functioning, preparing the body to deal with the threat.

As it pertains to the term defense physiology, the term stress refers to a perceived threat to the continued functioning of the body and life according to its current state. A threat may be consciously recognized or not. A physical event such as a loud noise or car collision, or a chemical or a biological agent which alters or has the possibility to alter body function away from optimum or its current state of functioning, may be perceived as a threat or stressor.

The perception of a threat may also trigger an associated feeling of distress. In his book Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton describes how a thought or the perception of a threat can trigger changes in body functioning and become physical manifestations of sickness and incapacitation.

Life circumstances, though posing no immediate physical danger, could be perceived as a threat. Anything that could change the continuing of the person’s life as they are currently experiencing it could be perceived as a threat.

A threat may be either a priori where an outside observer may agree that the event or circumstance poses a threat, or empirical in cases where an outside observer does not agree that the event or circumstance poses a threat. What is important to the individual, in terms of the body’s response, is that a threat is perceived.

In acute stress reaction, the body executes the fight or flight reaction to get the body out of danger quickly. When the timing between the threat and the resolution of the threat are close, the fight or flight reaction is executed, the threat is handled, and the body returns to its previous state, once again taking care of the business of life such as digestion, relaxation, tissue repair etc. The body is designed to stay in this mode for only a short time.

When the timing between the threat and the resolution of the threat are more distant, or the threat or the perception of threat is prolonged or other threats occur before the body has recovered, the fight or flight reaction continues and becomes the new standard operating condition’of the body. This continuous defense physiology is called the chronic stress state. Continuing in this mode produces significant negative effects and distress in many aspects of body functioning such as physical, mental and emotional distress.

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch.

Rainbows can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind a person at a low altitude angle. The most spectacular rainbow displays happen when half of the sky is still dark with clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky in the direction of the Sun. The result is a luminous rainbow that contrasts with the darkened background.

The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day. Rarely, a moonbow, lunar rainbow or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows are often perceived to be white.

A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. Its apparent position depends on the observer’s location and the position of the sun. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer’s eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior.

The Irish leprechaun’s secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will move further away.

In Greek mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by the messenger Iris between earth and heaven. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by the goddess Nuwa using stones of five different colours. In Hindu mythology, the rainbow is the bow of Indra, the God of lightning, thunder and rain. After Noah’s Flood, the Bible relates that the rainbow gained meaning as the sign of God’s promise that terrestrial life would never again be destroyed by flood.

In philosophy, systems theory and science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.

An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties.

The processes from which emergent properties result may occur in either the observed or observing system, and can commonly be identified by their patterns of accumulating change, most generally called growth. The emergent property itself may be either very predictable or unpredictable and unprecedented, and represent a new level of the system’s evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower level entities. For instance, no physical property of an individual molecule of air would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit sound.

One reason why emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the number of interactions between components of a system increases combinatorially with the number of components, thus potentially allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. For example, the possible interactions between groups of molecules grows enormously with the number of molecules such that it is impossible for a computer to even count the number of arrangements for a system as small as 20 molecules.

On the other hand, merely having a large number of interactions is not enough by itself to guarantee emergent behaviour. Many of the interactions may be negligible or irrelevant, or may cancel each other out. In some cases, a large number of interactions can in fact work against the emergence of interesting behaviour, by creating a lot of noise to drown out any emerging signal. The emergent behaviour may need to be temporarily isolated from other interactions before it reaches enough critical mass to be self-supporting.

Thus it is not just the sheer number of connections between components which encourages emergence, it is also how these connections are organised. A hierarchical organisation is one example that can generate emergent behaviour, but perhaps more interestingly, emergent behaviour can also arise from more decentralized organisational structures, such as a marketplace. In some cases, the system has to reach a combined threshold of diversity, organisation, and connectivity before emergent behaviour appears.

An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the larger essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture, or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference.

Epiphanies of sudden comprehension have also made possible forward leaps in technology and the sciences. Famous epiphanies include Archimedes’ realisation of how to estimate the volume of a given mass, which inspired him to shout “Eureka!” (I have found it!). The biographies of many mathematicians and scientists include an epiphanic episode early in the career, the ramifications of which were worked out in detail over the following years. For example, Albert Einstein was struck as a young child by being given a compass and realising that some unseen force in space was making it move. An example of a flash of holistic understanding in a prepared mind was Charles Darwin’s hunch about natural selection during The Voyage of the Beagle.

To this day in traditional and pre-modern cultures, initiation rites and mystery religions have served as vehicles of epiphany, as well as the arts. The Greek dramatists and poets would induct the audience into states of catharsis or kenosis, respectively. In modern times an epiphany lies behind the title of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, a state as Burroughs explained, “a frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of the fork.” Both the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp and the Pop Artist Andy Warhol would invert expectations by presenting commonplace objects or graphics as works of fine art, simply by presenting them in a way no one had thought to do before. The result was intended to induce an epiphany of what art is or is not.

The word “Zen” is sometimes used as a verb in the same sense as epiphany, to mean acquiring a sudden comprehension. Zen is similar to grokking, which is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity, as Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in Stranger in a Strange Land. The Zen term kensho would more accurately describe this moment, referring as kensho does, to the feeling attendant on realising, for example, the answer to the question set by a koan.