I'm starting this topic after deciding to take the Fuller Challenge (see announcement). On this website, July 18, 2008, there are 55 pages with reference to "fuller" as in R. Buckminster Fuller. Time for one of his own. I was going to put the page under Trips/Imagine in geometry, but Fuller is so much more than that, deserving of his own open space, so I created the fuller directory. Update on March 3, 2014 there are 162 results for "fuller", tripled from 2008. On October 16, 2018 there are 139 results, less than before for the same content, which reflects how Google is searching. In fact, there will be more pages related to the last entry about Fuller Dome.
My Fuller History
I ran and run into Fuller at major intersections of my life. Brief highlights:
I
heard Bucky Fuller speak in Minnesota, 1953, early in my college
career . It was a landmark event, opening my mind
in myriad ways. Proof of the depth of his influence
came home to me dramatically recently when I saw
the challenge
movie.
It starts with the helicopter-delivered building
like a tower plugged into earth that had fired my
imagination in 1953. How similar it is to my 2008 virtual
staff planted at the Two Thumbs.
- In 1966 when I was dropping out of the work world in San Francisco, I found his book, I Seem to be a Verb and later I changed my name from Carol to Caroling. Reading Ideas and Integrities, I was fundamentally focused by his example and telling of looking for what can and needs to be done for the good of all, not just yourself.
- By 1968 I had begun to make a stained glass dome: Wholeo Dome. I needed a structure to hold up the panels. Studying Domebook II, I decided on a geodesic tube frame. Building it and another dome Bump (to live in) taught me lots about Fuller. One panel in the dome shows his vibes.
- Concurrently, from 1968-1972 I was inspired by his autobiographic example of rethinking everything, which I partially expressed in Stained Glass Lib. Fuller at a crucial junction in his felt like committing suicide. Instead, his wife supported him for two years while he stopped talking and began to think originally, not bound by conventions and conditioning, that became the basis for his inventions.
- Visiting Boulder, Colorado, I heard him speak
again at the university in a huge auditorium. Here's
what I wrote in my journal:
3/12/75 ... tonight my problem was Fuller. I can't follow the structure of his thoughts. It seems he said the same old things. He talked slow then increased in speed tremendously. He was funny. But I was aware of projection of energy patterns. Seems that is what is so alluring about (his) spell. Now is he aware of that? Is it real or is it just my own personal artwork? Is what I see valuable to others? ... At one point it was so complex (network of lines) that almost solid - a diagram of everything. Everything symmetrically disposed. He gestured that way with hands. First right gives, then left gives, then a both-handed, all-body embrace. Also various conductings and swoops. ... Fuller is coasting on past reputation. He should know it's time to stop. Younger people soon won't know what he was about. Holy man. It seems everything perfectly calculated to adjust you to become more highly developed, expanded. He raises you from brain to MIND.
I remember that when a famous leader (from Africa or India) entered the stage, the intense psychic exchange between them appeared in my mind's eye. - After I installed Wholeo Dome, I invited Fuller twice. See his letters to me: one (October 7, 1976) and two (October 26, 1977).
- Used the bamboo dome framework in Expansion of Consciousness, a stained glass window.
- Read Synergetics and Synergetics 2 in 1987, but I'm not sure when I started reading them. The Fuller connection helped me endure the narrowness of being a technical writer for the computer industry by continuing to engage my far out mystical geometrer. See hypertext entries in Zen and the Art of Dividing by Zero, 1988. Note, still reading it in 2015.
- From 1997 on, I continued to refer to Fuller off and on in publishing wholeo.net (search on "Fuller").
- I offered ColorRune Healing since the start of wholeo.net, but the concept matured with the interactive Flash version of Color Healing in 2005. The structure was the bamboo dome, based on the icosidodecahedron. I used it until 2013 when I discovered five cubes could be expanded directly into a rhombicosidodecahedron.
- In 2008 I saw a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art called Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe. See my notes. See also my review of the catalogue.
- In 2011 I did extensive investigation of the Duo-Tet within a color cube, engaging Fuller yet again, deeply.
- In 2013 I fixed a drawing that was severed in the online version of Synergetics. Here's my note on the web page where I published the graphic. The Fuller graphic is published incorrectly to the web. I have fixed it. {Note: see where and more in 2015 links.} See Section 1130.24 on this page: Direct http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s11/p1000.html#1130.24 or PDF http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s11/print/p1000.pdf. The graphic is on page 452 of my Synergetics 2 book. Apparently R. W. Gray or someone put Synergetics and Synergetics 2 together.
- In 2014 Fuller made my Top 10 list of books that have influenced my life.
- In 2015, see Galacting or Galaxying, a page that goes deeper into the drawing fixed in 2013 with spiralinearity. The word galaxying is from this section and more with a better link here: http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p3500.html#535.21.
- In 2018 I visited Fuller Dome, The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability in Edwardsville, IL and designed a Wholeo Fuller Yoga Mat. Also began watching The House of Tomorrow video, which is set in a geodesic dome and features RGB wisdom guiding life of a teenager.
- In 2019 decided that the Wholeo 2024 5-year plan will celebrate with a trip to the 90th meridian, to do yoga with family in Fuller Dome for my 90th birthday.
- In 2020 read "The House of Tomorrow" book by Peter Bognanni, realizing it shows even more than the movie, how Fuller's wisdom weaves into life.
Links Related to acceptance of the 2009 challenge
Here I'll collect links in preparation for my work in acceptance of the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_of_ten_tetrahedra
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Compound_of_ten_tetrahedra.png Wenninger model 25
- http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/CompoundsOf5And10Tetrahedra/ Wolfram demonstration project
Notes
- * 4D image from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2009 movie, used Courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller.
- It is a challenging time. Fuller, Gore (see Al Gore's Challenge), and Google (see 10x100 project) might focus challenge in certain ways, but on an individual level, can we meet the challenge successfully by making each and every right decision? Each decision should have the maximum potential to solve the crisis facing all of us.
- Ongoing work on the challenges is listed at the bottom of the challenge page.