Albert Edgecomb memorial

Longtime Consociate Albert Edgecomb (May 2, 1924 – May 10, 2016) passed away at the age of 92 at his residence in Reno. A Memorial Service was held to celebrate his life on Saturday, July 9, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Child. In attendance were members of the Reno Church Community who had known him.

Albert had been a resident member of the Second Advent Community for over thirty years. During that time, he received Third-level Ordination in the Order of The Holy Child and was active in the Second Advent ministry until his advanced age prevented him from doing so. He helped sponsor a number expeditions to the Chachapoyas region of Peru through the Andean Explorers Foundation and had taken part in one expedition himself.

Rev. Robet Roy delivers eulogy

Eulogy for The Reverend Albert Edgecomb, written and delivered by The Reverend Robert Roy on July 9, 2016:

Albert John Edgecomb was born on May 2, 1924 in Everett, Massachusetts, a small manufacturing town four miles north of Boston. His parents had earlier migrated from Newfoundland, Canada.

At nineteen years of age in 1943 Albert joined the war effort, enlisting with the 156th Army Airways communication system squadron and was sent to the South Atlantic theater of operations as a corporal.

After three years of service in the military, Albert went to work for the telephone company in Massachusetts and retired in 1984.

Earlier in 1976 Albert had begun his studies with the International Community of Christ by mail, and with his retirement in 1984 decided to move to Reno to continue his studies with us in person. As far as I know, he never married and never spoke of anyone he had been close with. His passport showed only one trip abroad, and this was to Peru in 1994 to take part in an expedition with our beloved teacher Gene Savoy Sr.

Albert was always a solitary person and by the year 2000 we saw less and less of him. His heart was always with this Teaching however. He never stopped tithing till the day of his passing.

I knew him for 16 years of his life here in Reno. He always had a smile and enjoyed a good joke, although he never gave you more than a chuckle for your effort. He was a good listener, but he never initiated a conversation. A person felt good in his company, a pure soul with no bad comments about anyone, a good example of a man at peace with the world. He was a person rewarded, I believe, with a long life for his peaceful outlook in this world and his prayerful contributions in our Church.

I pray that God bless his Soul and Spiritually reward him with a place in Heaven.
Spoken with Love and a Blessing,

Rev. Robert Roy

Portrait of Albert Edgecomb and reception cake

Having reached the level in my Cosolargy studies that deals with light, color and color bodies, I wanted to devise a practical way to use the A4 size color gel filters that I received with the booklet. I am what might be called an anti-handyman, and shun stores like IKEA that peddle DIY and self-assembly units. Fumbling with items that need to be screwed, glued and rudely inserted is not my idea of a relaxing weekend. The hammer is the natural enemy of the anti-handyman and I never allow one to get within 10 feet of my thumbs. So I scouted around my local K-Mart store – which I guess is the Australian version of Walmart – and found some components that would fit snugly together in a few minutes.

PICTURE 1: Stuff from K-Mart

The parts I ended up with were, as shown in picture 1, a wooden frame designed to hold an 8” x 10” picture, a small plain metal lamp base, a 2-pack of size E27 53 watt halogen light bulbs, and a small storage box made of wicker, with a cloth lining. Total cost was thirty dollars in Australian play-money, which converts to just over twenty bucks in real currency (U.S. dollars).

PICTURE 2: Components

I stood the box on end (picture 2) and removed the solid backing from the picture frame. I did, however find that it is better to retain the glass panel to press the color filter up against, using the cardboard inner frame to secure it in place. Unlike viewing the Sun with filters, glass does not inhibit the use of color treatments. The inner measurement of the box opening was actually about 8 ½ “ x 11” but, with the overhang of the cloth lining, the frame nestled into it and stayed in place without any need for fastening (picture 3).

PICTURE 3: Color Lamp

And because it is not tightly sealed, the cord of the lamp passes comfortably under the frame. Changing filters from one color to another is quick and easy.

The ideal way to use it is in a darkened room. It has been suggested to me that using colors at the lower end of the spectrum like red and orange might not be advisable at night before retiring because, just like ingesting a cup of your favorite caffeinated beverage, it could disturb your sleep pattern. If you have block-out curtains then it will work fine in the daytime. Blues and violets should produce a more calming effect before sleeping. I use mine in my bedroom, sitting on a chair next to the bed, and there is a mirror on the opposite wall, so the light is enveloping. Any further discussion about my bedroom and mirrors would be too much information.

The recommended time for exposure to color screens using artificial light is 15 to 30 minutes. As you can see, the box is small and the bulb is close to the filter as well as the surrounding cloth insert. I have been using mine for 15 minutes per session daily and have not noticed any deterioration to the filter or overheating of the fabric, so the 53 watt (800 lumens) bulb seems to be sufficient to cast enough light without damaging its surrounding components which, as you’d expect, are all made in China. I would refrain from leaving it on for more than 30 minutes or falling asleep with it on. Since I cannot afford a decent lawyer, I will borrow my legal disclaimers from the Chinese packaging: Never use this appliance in a bath, shower or swimming pool; Not intended for use by persons, including children, with reduced sensory or mental capabilities or lack of experience and knowledge, or Australians unless under supervision.

by Paul V. Young

“Light has long been a metaphor for advanced mental processes—enlightenment. In this regard, images of light have been used as methods of meditation to arrive at relaxation and expanded mental states. Now, research shows that special light sensitive cells in the eye are not used for vision, but rather, send neuronal fibers through complex circuits directly into higher brain centers of learning and emotion.”

Read the entire article online at the blog of Jon Lieff, MD.

Resident Consociate Michael has this to say about the article: “For its brevity, this is one of the most complete articles ever written on the effects of sunlight. It is very easy reading and all the information, though not cited, is supported by research publications I’ve read over the past four or five years.”
link submitted by Michael McIntyre

18th Annual Community Memorial Caravan meets at Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in Reno

In 2016 the Northern Nevada Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Committee and the Nevada Clergy Association presented community memorial events in the Reno community in celebration of the Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The 30th Annual Interfaith Community Memorial Service
Sunday, January 17, 2016 3:00 Pm
Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada
780 Del Monte Lane, Reno

The 18th Annual Community Memorial Caravan
Monday, January 18, 2016 10:00 AM
Meet at Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
780 Del Monte Lane, Reno

THE POWER OF UNITY

We come together in Unity working together to enrich our lives through an interfaith experience. During this service, religious leaders and others give thanks for the life, legacy, and message of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Prelude music: “MLK” performed by the UUFNN Choir

Welcome delivered by Reverend Neal Anderson, Sr. Minister, UUFFN

Invocation delivered by Rajan Zed, President, Universal Society of Hinduism

Sharing a spiritual message, Jim Eaglesmith, performance artist and spiritual story teller

Musical selection performed by The Power of Love

Leroy Jones of Power of Love performing

Musical selections performed by Second Baptist Church Choir

Keynote Address delivered by Patricia Gallimore, President, Reno-Sparks NAACP

Reverend Onie Cooper Humanitarian Award presented to Eddie Scott

Reverend Onie Cooper Humanitarian Award presented to We Care About Kids NV

Closing remarks delivered by Reverend Canon Gary Buchanan, International Community of Christ

Benediction delivered by Reverend Mother Rebecca Willis, International Community of Christ

Presenters at 2016 MLK Jr. Community Memorial Service

Sari, Freeda, and Greg on May 15, 2016 at 8:26 AM PHOTO: Greg Wilson

A daughter was born to Australian Consociate Greg Wilson and his wife Sari on May 11, 2016. The news came in an email from Greg to Robert Petrovich:

“Sari and I have wonderful news, mate………We’ve just had our baby girl the night before last!!!! She’s 9 pounds in weight, 22 inches long and fit as a fiddle! She’s bloody GORGEOUS in fact! Take a look……we’re all attached above! And guess what?….. She was born on the same day as the late Gene Savoy!……..only about 90 years post.

“Our Beauty’s name is Freeda Peppi Wilson. Freeda means ‘Beloved Beauty’ in Nordic, spelt Freida, and in German Freeda means ‘Peaceful Ruler’.

“So there ya have it……she’s destined for great things, mate!”

Akhenaten and Nefertiti bathed in the light of the Aten

“The Energy Stream Connecting the Eye to the Sun”
“Planet Earth’s habitat is the sun’s bubble, known as the heliosphere, and it is reasonable to suppose that all the matter in our solar system, from planets and asteroids to earthly life-forms, owes its origin to our very own star[i]. In a material sense then, the sun is our god, our source and provider. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed the sun we see is just the physical form of a higher ‘Intelligible or Spiritual Sun.’ Philo of Alexandria called it: “The Sun of the sun, the Intelligible object behind the object comprehensible by sense, and from invisible fountains he supplies the visible beams which our eyes behold.”[ii] In addition to the light, heat and solar winds the sun sends our way, the Greeks taught that our Psyche receives a more subtle, invisible life-force called Pneuma, which, along with rays of the light spectrum, enters the human being via the eyes.

“ Why is it important to be aware of this force? Simply put, tapping directly into the generator increases your energy supply and intensifies the light. Once linked by a powerful, unobstructed path of current, the circuit becomes complete. The output of the sun is the vivifying stream of life itself. And for the spiritually inclined seeker, illumination advances exponentially as you increase your exposure to the source and the intake of its light rays.”

Read the entire article by Paul Young online at solarancestor.com.

by Paul Young

Elizabeth Reece, a member of the administrative staff at the Chancellery offices of the International Community of Christ, occasionally checks the internet for new references to Gene Savoy’s explorations and his other works since people will often use him as example in books they are writing about Peru or Amazonas.

In November 2014 she found a reference to “Gene Savoy” being scheduled as a topic of a high school Catholicism class at St Joseph’s High School in Metuchen, NJ, and she contacted the class instructor, Thomas Cunningham:

Dear Mr.Cunningham,

I stumbled across your teachers outline for the 2014-2015 Religious Studies class at St Joseph High School. On the day of 11/25/14 you listed Gene Savoy as a topic for discussion during Catholism. Since, I have studied and worked with Gene Savoy, (the explorer, religious scholar and teacher who established the International Community of Christ) from 1978 up to his passing in 2007 I wanted to asked if this was the same individual discussed in your class. If so would you be willing to share some details of the reactions received from your students during the discussion, or what source material they used. If it is the same person, the idea that you would offer your freshman class an opportunity to comment about him is very intriguing to me. Thank you very much, I hope this letter is not too intrusive.
Respectfully,
Elizabeth Reece

This was his response:

Hello,
The section on Gene Savoy was covered in our textbook in Chapter 4. There is a short story about Gene Savoy getting lost in the Jungle. He finds himself getting very anxious about the situation, but after settling down… He begins to pray for guidance from God. He eventually is able to find his way out of the jungle , and credits that “quiet time with God” with his trek out of the forest. My students were very interested with the incident. The textbook contains many short stories like this one….

Take Care,
Tom Cunningham

This led Elizabeth to a rather interesting discovery: In Catholic high school classes across the country who use the textbook Path Through Catholicism (Mark Link, 1991), there is a story told by Gene Savoy being used as an example that “God is present in all.”

Here is the article that appears on page 49 of the textbook:

Bill Dailey with his grandniece Helena Savoy in 2014

Bill Kenneth Dailey, brother of the late Gene Savoy, Sr., passed away February 12, 2016 in Reno, Nevada. He was 84 years old.

Bill was born November 21, 1931 to Walter Dailey and Mamie Rogers in Portland, Oregon. He spent the majority of his life in the Great Northwest and moved to Reno permanently in 2006. Bill was a retired surveyor and cartographer and owned Sierra West Photogrammetrics until his retirement in 1991. Bill was an American patriot serving his country in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He had a passion for history and geography.

His keen interest in Central and South American indigenous civilizations led him to visit Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil, often-times exploring with his half brother, Gene, and the Andean Explorers Club by river boat on the Amazon and research plane over Guyana and Suriname. Gene and Bill also organized the Oregon Expeditionary Society in the 1950’s before Gene’s journey to Peru.

Bill’s family and his brother Gene’s lived together in the same residential complexes in Mexico City and Reno also in the 1970’s. Bill helped Gene relocate and establish headquarters in the United States in 1972 and contributed to the design of the then-new Cosolargy “atom” logo. Sierra West Photogrammetrics took some of the first aerial photographs of the Red Rock Sanctuary in the early 1980’s.

After retirement, Bill moved again to Reno to be closer to his two daughters and extended family. Family members, including Lisa Dailey Robinson, son-in-law Brent Robinson, and granddaughters, Whitney and Morgan, provided Bill with many fun family moments, and he would tell them of his journeys and adventures. Bill’s niece and nephews, Jamila, Sean and Gene Savoy, Jr. and Gene’s daughters also spent time with him, and he was able to enjoy holidays and family gatherings with those he dearly loved.

Bill was predeceased by his parents and brothers Gene Savoy, Sr. and John Dailey. A private celebration of life will be held on Sunday, May 29, 2016 near Pyramid Lake, Nevada.

by Gene Savoy Jr. and Lisa Robinson

Bill Dailey in U.S. Army uniform during the Korean War

Collage of human head, molecules and various abstract elements on the subject of modern science, chemistry, physics, human and artificial minds

“It appears that we are approaching a unique time in the history of man and science where empirical measures and deductive reasoning can actually inform us spiritually. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) – put forth by neuroscientists Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch – is a new framework that describes a way to experimentally measure the extent to which a system is conscious.”

< Read the entire article by Bobby Azarian online at huffingtonpost.com. >

link submitted by Frieda Nelson

Our Friend, the Sun: Images of Light Therapeutics from the Osler Library Collection,
c.1901-1944
by Dr. Tania Anne Woloshyn, Curator
Department of Art History & Communication Studies,
McGill University
January to June 2011
Osler Library of the History of Medicine

From January to June 2011, Dr. Tania Anne Woloshyn, Curator of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, offered an exhibition on early twentieth-century light therapies through the university’s Department of Art History & Communication Studies. The exhibition showed how early twentieth-century doctors combined intuition with science to develop early therapies that employed sunlight: heliotherapy, using natural sunlight, and phototherapy, using artificial light.

The booklet she wrote and designed to accompany the exhibition is available online at www.mcgill.ca/library or you can download a PDF copy of the booklet here.

Download the 24-page PDF: “Our Friend, the Sun: Images of Light Therapeutics from the Osler Library Collection, c.1901-1944” by Dr. Tania Anne Woloshyn, Curator, Department of Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University, 2011.

The quote that follows is from the opening paragraphs of the introduction to the booklet that accompanied the 2011 exhibition:

INTRODUCTION

He may resemble some overblown bourgeois Humpty Dumpty, but in J.M. Andress and W.A. Evans’ 1925 children’s hygiene handbook, Success and Health, “Doctor Sun” (Fig.1) is prominently promoted as the wise choice of a family physician with very real sincerity. With his smiling face, radiating luminous rays, and open gesture, he welcomes the viewer to his domain, where in the background children dance and play. Here health and happiness are shown as one and the same.

Nor is this a unique representation of the sun as doctor. A Cannes physician, Dr J. Orgeas, for example, stated as early as 1889:

Just as the sun is the principal of all life, so it is the source of all healing. It is the Sun, and uniquely the Sun, that sick people seek in winter on our coast. It is the Great Doctor, Doctor of the Faculty of the Sky, to whom the suffering come to demand a cure for their ills.

It might seem natural, even obvious, to associate sunny days with play, pleasure, and well-being. But the connection between sunshine and health has been historically less a matter of instinct than a deeply naturalised therapeutic practice, and one especially dating to the turn of the twentieth century. This is the subject of the exhibition, “Our Friend, the Sun: Images of Light Therapeutics from the Osler Library Collection, c.1901-1944” (the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University, January-June 2011).

The development of light therapeutics is a little-explored dimension in the history of medicine. The following exhibition presents an international visual culture of light therapies during the early twentieth century, considering both natural light – cure by sunlight or heliotherapy – and artificial light – cure by electrically manufactured light or phototherapy. Heliotherapy, an ancient practice of total bodily exposure to sunlight, and phototherapy, pioneered by Niels Ryberg Finsen in the 1890s, were considered to be revolutionary therapies by c.1900 for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis, smallpox, and lupus, as well as chronic conditions such as arthritis.

The exhibition features in particular the work of four physicians: John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943); Auguste Rollier (1874-1954); Albert Monteuuis (fl.1900-1914); and Niels Ryberg Finsen (1860-1904). American, Swiss, French, and Danish, respectively, these four physicians knew of each other’s work and, in some cases, visited each other’s facilities, indicating that light therapeutics was an international field. Kellogg and Finsen also individually experimented with both heliotherapy and phototherapy, evidence that the two were far from antithetical treatments or chronologically separated. Indeed, while Finsen may have begun experimenting with natural light in the outdoors initially during the 1890s (soon abandoning this entirely for artificial electric light), Kellogg would use both simultaneously, and Rollier continued to utilise natural light from the turn of the century to the Second World War, having never converted to artificial means. Therefore while the exhibition is divided into two halves, heliotherapy (the two left cases) and phototherapy (the two right cases), significant cross-over occurred between the two – in their historical developments, in their visual cultures, in their methods, and in the shared scientific beliefs driving them as therapies.

Significantly, these physicians asserted the ancient, quasi-magical origins of light therapeutics at the same time as they advocated it as a “modern” therapeutic of sound scientific rationale. So too did they posit it as a welcome, pleasurable and comfortable experience while simultaneously including photographs of patients strapped down, exposed to the sun almost nude in win-ter, or subjected to gun-like electric machines. Themes of natural and artificial, ancient and modern, and pleasurable and painful within the history and visual culture of light therapeutics illuminate this exhibition of rare illustrated texts and objects from the Osler Library collection. It also considers how heliotherapeutic and phototherapeutic practices were disseminated and popularized by that visual culture.

Download the 24-page PDF: “Our Friend, the Sun: Images of Light Therapeutics from the Osler Library Collection, c.1901-1944” by Dr. Tania Anne Woloshyn, Curator, Department of Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University, 2011.