"Why, God"?

In case you have missed it, here is a very good column by Maureen Dowd, of the New York Times, conveying the message of a friend of hers, a priest.

"Why, God?"

It struck a chord with me, not because of its tone and intelligent compassion, but because of these words (all the highlights are mine, not the author's):

One true thing is this: Faith is lived in family and community, and God is experienced in family and community. We need one another to be God’s presence. When my younger brother, Brian, died suddenly at 44 years old, I was asking “Why?” and I experienced family and friends as unconditional love in the flesh. They couldn’t explain why he died. Even if they could, it wouldn’t have brought him back. Yet the many ways that people reached out to me let me know that I was not alone. They really were the presence of God to me. They held me up to preach at Brian’s funeral. They consoled me as I tried to comfort others. Suffering isolates us. Loving presence brings us back, makes us belong.         

These words, especially those highlighted ones, reflect a truth I've come to know. I know they are true by the very absence of such love in my life at the time when I needed it the most. My family and friends - but mostly my family - on whom I had always relied without questioning our "communion" and their unconditional love, let me down in the most unimaginable way possible.

It was that, and nothing else, that caused me to lose the faith that had been my wings throughout my dazzling, unusual, mostly wonderful life. 
(N. B. Reader, you most likely haven't the slightest idea of what exactly I am talking about here, so refrain from judgement - not for my sake, but for your own.)

But I haven't given up hope of regaining it.
Without it, I am as good as dead.
We all are.


All the best, whoever you are, wherever you are.
May everything you wish for others come true for you. ;)



IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MAY LIKE:
Greetings to the Unknown Human (and non-human, too)

Farewell, the End of Time

Finally: here it is, people.

I can't believe it, no more than you can believe it. 

After so many years of... not exactly waiting or even paying much attention to it, but wondering (in the sense of thinking full of wonder) about it... it is HERE.

I remember as if it were yesterday the day when i first heard about it; I think it must have been in the mid-1990s.

I remember how almost-proud I felt when I told people it would be a Friday or Sunday (the original date I heard was December 23rd), that fateful day when everything that ever was would change. 

I felt almost-proud of the fact that I had checked my PC calendar so far ahead in time.

Friday, December 21, 2012.

Sunday, December 23, 2012.

said the calendar.

How could such a distant, abstract date even be a day of the week:
a Friday, a Sunday?

How far, far away it seemed! 

It seemed far to the point of being abstract. Not a real-real date. Not a date that we would actually get to live through. Certainly not the "we" that we were then. (You know what I mean.) 

And now, it is here.

It is happening TOMORROW - just a few hours from now.
And I know that in less than an hour's time, in just a few minutes, I will be sitting here, watching, awe-struck and in disbelief, as the clock turns to December 21, 2012, the mythical date of all dates.
And I still won't believe it.

I am only fearing the anticlimax of it, and I am mourning in advance the end of so many hopes and dreams. Not mine - I never paid serious attention to it - but of many other people, whose world is my world. 

Your world is my world, and I want it to be a beautiful, healthy and happy world. I want your wildest dreams to come true, because they are my dreams too.

But, just in case, I'll take heed of Spurinna's mythical reply to Julius Caesar's equally mythical: "Well, here we are, Spurinna: the Ides of March have come."

"Aye, they have come - but they have not yet gone."

And that's why I am writing this now. ;)

Finally, I'll borrow a part of the latest message on our sister blog, which has all to do with Time:

Keep your heart upright and light, like a plant reaching for the Sun. 

See you on the other side of Time.

Don't be too surprised if it looks remarkably similar to this side. ;)

Half as old as Time + 200 years

On this day, exactly 200 years ago, on August 22, 1812, the first Westerner (that we know of) set eyes on Petra, "the rose-red city, half as old as time"*. It was Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a Swiss-born explorer that died only five years later, aged 32, a victim of dysenteria.

His account of the discovery reveals a state of mind considerably less romantic than one might imagine - but I still envy him. Profoundly so.

Here is an excerpt of his travel diary pertaining to what we now know for certain was Petra.

In following the rivulet of Eldjy westwards the valley soon nar­rows again; and it is here that the antiquities of Wady Mousa begin. Of these I regret that I am not able to give a very complete account: but I knew well the character of the people around me; I was without protection in the midst of a desert where no traveller had ever before been seen; and a close examination of these works of the infidels, as they are called, would have excited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures; I should at least have been detained and prevented from prosecuting my journey to Egypt, and in all probability should have been stripped of the little money which I possessed, and what was infinitely more valuable to me, of my journal book. Future travellers may visit the spot under the pro­tection of an armed force; the inhabitants will become more accustomed to the researches of strangers; and the antiquities of Wady Mousa will then be found to rank amongst the most curious remains of ancient art.

You can read the rest here.

* John William Burgon's fabulous "half as old as time" poetic figure (from his award-winning poem Petra, 1845) was actually a quote from Samuel Rogers' poem Italy ("A Farewell"), written in 1822: 

And now a parting word is due from him
Who, in the classic fields of Italy,
(If haply thou hast borne with him so long,)
Through many a grove by many a fount has led thee,
By many a temple half as old as Time;

The Man Who IS an Island

If you were unwise enough to read about the non-event of August 4th in our previous post, this should cheer you up.
For all the "love & light" that is messing up with people's heads, there's also genuine love - as in joie de vivre - and genuine light - as in bright - breaking the old molds of thought and living.


Here is a man who has built himself an island and is now working towards making it a country - an itinerant, floating country of his own.





Godspeed, Richie & Co.! 

MM: the Self-Perpetuating Machine

If you're expecting an adoring essay on Marilyn Monroe... turn away.

It was fifty years ago today that Marilyn Monroe was living the last 24 hours of her life. The date of her death is usually listed as August 5th, but it seems much more likely that she died in the late hours of August 4th.

Why are we even remembering her today?

Because she is an icon - meaning a public figure easily recognised, and even more easily reduced or "summarised", in just a few traits. The fewer traits are needed to signal the figure, the more iconic it is.
(Hitler is another such icon - probably the most iconic figure of the entire 20th century. The fact that a house has been found to look like him says it all.)

But icons are not born. They are made. Whatever efforts the "icon" has invested in its own making (as it is the case with MM), they are ultimately codified and perpetuated by others. And so, it's no surprise that icons tell more about those who gaze upon them than about the - often paltry - self hidden behind the Wizard-of-Oz-like facade of the icon.

MM was made after her conveniently early death at age 36, by the likes of Andy Warhol and, especially, the lying over-compensating braggart that was Norman Mailer, may he rest in peace, and later appropriated by all sorts of "interest groups", becoming the glamorous queen bee of losers.
In effect, she glamourised loss.

[One of the most surprising - and surprisingly stubborn - incarnations of the icon are the allegations of supposed "feminism" in MM (all the while uncritically perpetuating MM's own fibs and gross exaggerations about her childhood abuses and assorted abandonment "issues").

This was the woman who said: "Joe is the head of our family, we'll go wherever he says" and "I don't mind being a girl as long as I can live in a man's world", and who relished in calling herself "Mrs Joe Di Maggio" and "Mrs Arthur Miller".

There is nothing wrong with that per se; it's certainly a few planets removed from who I am, for example, but everyone has their own path in life, so I am not going to judge. At all.
It is, however, more than a little ridiculous to try and bend her into a feminist icon.

It seems to me that many of these third-generation self-proclaimed "feminists" (I consider myself a feminist - which to me means no "agenda" and certainly no man-bashing - therefore no quotation marks for me) need an excuse for indulging in the sort of "old-fashioned" femininity she incarnates (and it certainly is old-fashioned, not to mention very limited and limiting). 

Well, sisters, if you really need excuses freely to enjoy the forever ambiguous interplay of hormones and mind... let me tell you, you aint' much of a feminist.]

But why MM?

There were and are better looking faces, better looking bodies and, God knows, much better actresses, then and now.

She had a bone structure that photographed well: expanses of flat surfaces that reflected the light. That "minor" cosmetic surgery to enlarge and bolster her chin that she underwent around 1950 - after having been called "the chinless wonder" by studio bosses - was anything but minor; it proved a pivotal point in her career. Because it gave her a more photogenic face it also gave her the edge of confidence that is needed in order to concentrate on projecting one's image. An image that was constructed from within but needed the lights of a film or a photo shoot set to appear. 

MM wasn't an actress - she was an illusionist.
However, the "luminosity" that was caught by the camera - and live when she turned "her" (the MM persona) on - was not entirely physical. It was the residue of the energy she summoned to create a vision of all the intangible yearnings and glimpses of bliss that are our main driving force through this life as they were hers.

She gave up on attaining any of that - if she ever really thought they could be hers. (She seems to have had remarkably little talent for happiness - and I am quoting her, albeit loosely.) 
Instead she gathered the scattered flickers of that eternal warming light and projected them into an image. She offered that image to the world outside her to receive in return the reflected light and warmth of other people's intimate yearnings. Those yearnings, of course, weren't about her - but they could be projected onto her, and she could bask in their reflected warmth and light.

"Being liked" was her main goal in life (that could be expressed in words).
This compulsion, based on the absence of any feelings of self-worth, was so strong that apparently she didn't even care that the "love" she received was illusory. It gave warmth while it lasted, and that was enough.
Until it wasn't.

I don't know if Carl Gustav Jung ever wrote about her or even remarked her - he died in 1961, so he may have (however keep in mind that her "iconic" status actually evolved after her death) - but I am sure he would agree that her strength (as a public image) was the absence of her own Self. By being absent, barely there, almost non-existent, Norma Jeane made room for Marilyn Monroe: an appealingly light empty space that acted as a mirror. Marilyn Monroe exemplifies Jung's concept of anima perfectly. Her strengths are all borrowed from other people who willingly invest her image with them. They see themselves in a mirror - and they like what they see. Even her weakness. Or especially her weakness. We all want a little respite; and we all want to be acknowledged as the wounded innocent children we were and still are.

And this is also the reason why many people cannot stand MM.
They see the process - the projecting - that is going on, and they resent the lack of attention that they deserve too, and for the same reasons.
They want their own vulnerability, their own wounded childhood, their own yearnings - their own beauty - to be acknowledged, too. 
And they have every right to it.

So, my friend, on this day that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of an icon - a flicker of borrowed light that is coming from you - look around and find that same beauty, the same wounds, that very same "special" quality, that very same light in others, including yourself. It is there, and I don't mean it metaphorically.
You owe it to yourself to find it and revere it, instead of showering praise and virtual flowers and tears for your own self on the shadow of an image.

No, it's not an "iconic" image.

If you'd like those, visit this marvellously rich blog from where it was snatched.)

FURTHER READING:

If you though this was harsh (which, of course, it wasn't), let me know what you think of Clive James's marvellously chiselled essay, Mailer's Marilyn (a lot more than "just" a book review). Give it a read; it will be time well spent.

The Olympic Bet: Why "First Contact" Did Not Happen

If you 've been browsing around the "alternative" media these days, you may have found an announcement by a "Galactic Council" - from Andromeda, I think - that on August 4th, 2012, at the Olympic Games in London, they, the "Galactic Council of Light", will make "full contact with humans" that will be observed by everyone. (I believe "mass landings" were mentioned.) They will do this "to assist Gaia's ascension".

This was decided on July 25th, 2012, at a meeting of said Galactic Council of Light. (Where exactly the meeting took place is unknown.)

We are usually very forthcoming with links and references here, so you may be surprised why we aren't offering any.

In truth, there is no good reason.
There is A reason: we don't want to drive attention to any website or blog in particular that mentions this announcement. They are easy enough to find anyway. (Just go through the links in our previous post.)
And it's hot. Hot and somewhat sticky, which makes us, forget-me-nots, very lazy.
So there.


EDIT TO ADD:


OK, here's a brand new video for your enjoyment. 
The inscription "Gaia is sick and it's time they intervene" was simply irresistible. Call us cynics; we do.





(Oh, and the council is Pleiadian, not Andromedan. Our apologies to both councils and all those affected.)

It is August 3rd today, yet we here - being evolved enough to peer outside time - dare to predict that "full contact" did not happen on August 4th, or if it did, it wasn't observed by all, as announced.

It's the purported reasons for this failure (yet another one) that escape us at this point. Not that there are very many possibilities. We are leaning towards:

1) The announcement above was a forgery maliciously conveyed to Earthlings - via "channels" - by a competing galactic council (the Galactic Council of Dark Matter?).

2) The announcement was a test... of some sort. We are probably not enlightened enough to see its reasons and eventual benefits to our underdeveloped souls. We will in time, fret not.

3) The "full contact" has been suspended until further notice for reasons of the photo-galactic order that we are not enlightened enough to comprehend (even if they list them, as they probably would if this scenario is chosen).

4) The "full contact" DID happen and WAS observed by all... who were enlightened enough.

5) The "full contact" DID happen and WAS observed by all... but the mainstream media obliterated all testimonies about it.

6) The "full contact" DID happen and WAS observed by all, but - for our own protection, of course - the direct memory of it was obliterated by some esoteric galactic means. (We probably have been "upgraded" all the same, mind you. DNA-wise, that is. OR maybe dimensionally. Or both.)

Of course there is always another possibility, but the likelihood of this one ever being announced is practically nil:

7) It is all a fairy tale for adults who care not - dare not - see the reality as it is, in all its messiness and magnificence.

Take your pick.



UPDATE 
(August 5th, 2012):


If you're interested in how this is going down among those who believed, have a look here.
But beware: it's depressing. 
No joke. It is deeply depressing.

Here are two snippets for a preview:

I want to share a channeling from the Pleiadian Council on why the rumors of the alleged Olympics landings are not true, and why humanity is not ready for official landings yet:

http://lightworkers.org/blog/164620/channeling-kaleidos-pleiadian-c...

"We will not perform a public landing on Earth during the Olympics. Nor will any of our enlightened friends. It is due to the simple reason that humanity is not ready for it, and that the time has not come yet. The energies on Earth are not the right ones for the first major official visit to take place. That day, when the visit will take place, it will happen together with the very most enlightened people on Earth, who have reached highest in their spiritual development. It will happen together with tomorrow's representatives and leaders of humanity who will bring humanity into the New Age. It will not happen during any event that is linked to the Matrix [such as the Olympics].

And from a different poster:

I've spoken with Ambassador Tanka from the planet Dakote, the same star system Taygeta, as is the planet Erra;

I've spoken & confirmed with Ambassador Iekara {eye ka-rah} from the planet Erra - who said his people would NEVER issue an "ultimatum" attempting to force [ET] "Disclosure" on any planetary governmental bodies. He said, "...we do not interfere in Earth governmental affairs.

Are you happy, Gene Roddenberry, wherever you are?

The Dark Side of Love & Light

A sketch of a(nother) rant


There is a petition, Put bankers behind bars, against "corrupt bankers" open these days, started by Avaaz.

Apparently many people are really ticked off by bankers. I can't blame them - I am not a fan of them myself - but what's funny is that I found out about the extent of the anger against them on various, more or less popular "alternative" websites. As a matter of fact, I first learned about this petition on one of those sites.

This petition would have to be signed by at least one million people for it to be deemed "successful" (whether it would really achieve a concrete, measurable goal, remains to be seen).
In the five days since it's been started, however, less than half a million people worldwide have signed it. (I did, just so you know.)

Considering the constant bank-bashing and angry spewing that goes on on those "alternative" sites one would reasonably expect that many of their members would jump on the opportunity to nail the banks - or at least to make a very visible show of their sentiment towards them. Right?

Wrong!
The threads about the petition (with the subject matter stated clearly in the subject line) remained practically ignored for a day or two. Even the "view counts" were low, showing that even the non-member (or not logged-in) visitors weren't too interested in them.
After a day or two, a few replies cropped up, with some of them trying to diminish the importance of the petition, and some actually  discouraging people from signing it. On one of those sites, only ONE member, apart from the original poster, said s/he had actually signed the petition.

Does that make any sense?
If you know anything about those "alternative" communities - as I do now (much to my regret) - you will not be surprised at all.

You see, an inordinate amount of those "alternatively" thinking people who proclaim to be "awake"" (or so they think, when they think at all) seem to want everything to fall apart.
They are, in fact, waiting for their ET (as in extra-terrestrial) friends to come and rescue the Earth.
If we do anything to rescue ourselves and sort out our own mess, the ET may reconsider their coming and let us be. (Which would mean the world would have to go on as it did before, with people having to go to work to earn money.)

No, I am not joking. (I wish I were!)
But there is a very good - if cruel - joke in there: it is the irony that these "awake" people are the best friends and allies that those oh-so-maligned "banksters" and other reptilian perverts who apparently run this world could ever hope for. They are passive to the extreme; and they make everyone who thnks differently than the mainstream vox populi appear astonishingly naive or even stupid, to put it mildly, and cretinous - perhaps borderline insane - to put it more accurately.

On top of everything, very many seem to have an insane (no, really - literally insane) hatred for religious spirituality - anything that isn't their own New Age cult. (Or Buddhism, which makes said religion appear in a very bad light, through no fault of its own.) All of which plays directly into the hands of the "caesars" of this world.
Love & Light indeed...

I remember how overjoyed I was in the early 1990s to see the emergence (from my point of view) of "alternative" thought as a measurable force or movement. I had always been blessed with both a strong analytical mind and intuition that verged on the "paranormal". I grew up believing nothing was impossible. I lived accordingly, and indeed, nothing was impossible. But I saw  so much suffering and injustice in the world - and so much fatally misguided "rational" thought - which burdened me with worry and sorrow.

Furthermore, I lived in an environment that was openly hostile to religion and spirituality. None of the people around me, except my mother (truly exceptional in many more than one way), who attended mass every Sunday - and not just as a habit - seemed to ever even think of anything remotely spiritual. They were good, decent people (mostly). But there was no shred of evidence in their behaviour of any sort of transcendental light stirring in them. The world they lived in was the world they could see and touch and taste and hear with their (severely limited) physical senses only. And while the going was "good", that was all  they needed.

And then the internet came. Soon I found lots of web communities that seemed to speak the same language that was spoken in my secret garden. I noticed that many used to sign their messages with "love & light" (often adding "laughter") - all wonderful things! Even the name given to such communities - the New Age - sounded just right. That's what we needed, after all. A new age, a dawn of an Arcadia for all living beings to enjoy, in time.

The internet world was young and I, too, was an internet virgin. I believed they really meant it. In fact, I still believe they thought they really meant it. And great things were to come - soon.

Yet the world did not become a better place with the passage of time. If anything, it seemed to become ever more violent and mindless. The violence and mindlessness in the physical world we are seeing now is a culmination of a process that has been hatching for a long time.

And the lives of those people, as far as I could follow them, did not improve either.
How is that possible?
Does that mean that living according to those principles is all bunk?

Not at all. It is, in my view, still the only way to live. Truly live.
But you do have to live it - not just talk about it and read about it.
You have to grow and expand, and no words will do that for you. You have to do it yourself.

Which implicitly means you also need to confront the seeming opposition from the reason-governed world we live in since the advent of the Enlightenment. (To say the name is ironic us putting it politely... But it is vital to keep in mind that the "light" referred to in this context actually meant reason, hence it's also - and more accurately - called the Age of Reason.)

Furthermore, our own bodies and their entanglement with the physical world are a major driving force in anyone's life. It's only normal. You cannot overlook them, or you'll get nowhere.
You not only have to face and see things and acknowledge them; you also have to process them in such a way that they fit in organically with the great puzzle of this world.
Denying the realities of the physical world is not the way to go. Even the least analytical minds have to live with them, so they have to face them and process them in order truly to grow and expand and gain true force spiritually.

The lack of (independent) deep thought first became apparent to me in a forum discussion, long ago, when I saw that surprisingly many of these "enlightened" people were virulently opposed to Christianity.
It was a shock at first, because it seemed so out of place in the context of that particular discussion. After all, Christ was mentioned - and no one could accuse him of not living "love & light"!

But those people kept rattling on about the Vatican and the Crusades (?!) and priest abuse and what-not... They were reminded of the fact that Christ and his principles were under discussion - not his formal "representatives" (which, quite frankly, were never anything else than nice and kind in my own experience, but of course, I can see that others have different experiences).
Would you blame democracy for all the abuses perpetrated in its name?
Would you blame the philosophy that all men are equal under the sun for the terror and bloodshed committed in the name of this noble principle?
(Think La Terreur in France, to name just one among all too many examples.)
Or as a friend of mine would say: would you blame the water for the drowning of those who cannot swim in it?

But it made little difference.
Then, they - rather predictably - started talking about the supposed "pagan" roots of Christiniaty. That worried me. It worried me because it revealed - for the second time - a startling lack of insight and even education. It's not the dates or even the iconography of Christianity that matters: it's the teachings. And the teachings cannot be even compared to those of the pagan cultures they were referring to.

On another occasion, when someone was blasting (yet again) Christianity, specifically the Catholic church, someone introduced - very smartly - the idea that the  transsubstantiation essential to the Catholic mass is, in fact, the only public and widely accepted instance in this old world structure of ours that not only admits but directly refers to the spiritual alchemy that all "alternative" communities seem to swear by. 
(That this seems to be lost on most of those who attend mass, too, is more than unfortunate; and yes, that s directly the fault of the Church's misguided "guidance". It is true, however, that everyone is free to think things through on their own - and even should do so, or that faith is lame and myopic.)

It turned out that many didn't even know about transsubstantiation (and yet they felt they knew enough to discuss it?). But, predictably, it made little difference, anyway.

They were - literally - blinded by hatred and ignorance, those ancient room mates that hardly ever go anywhere one without the other.

This is just an example that I have seen repeated over and over.
I am sure those who are more familiar with other religions could say the same.
And let's not even mention their passive-aggressive - or, sometimes, aggressive-aggressive - attitude towards self-proclaimed atheists!
(With whom I have no problem whatsoever, as long as their stance is based on independent and sufficiently thorough personal thought - not tabloid tattle and peer pressure - and often it is.)

With the advent of 2012 things only intensified in the "alternative thought" arena.
Fear not, there will be no talk of "2012" here; I am sure you're familiar with the phenomenon yourself, perhaps moe than you'd like to be.
The heat is on; and heat being what it is, it brought out feelings and thoughts in all their intensity.
And now, for the past year or so, my opinion of the "alternative" community (or communities) has plumetted to depths I would never have thought possible in those happy early days, in the early 1990s.

Here's the reality as I have experienced it:
Tthe gross majority of the "alternative" scene seems to be composed of LOSERS.
What do I mean by losers? People who for one reason or another (bad parenting being the probable original cause) feel deprived in life. All too many seem to be severely undereducated - who else would be getting their "information" from sources such as Before It's News (don't even ask) and even, believe it or not, News of the World? - or they wouldn't be lapping up or perpetuating tall tales and urban legends that have been debunked years ago, while blatantly ignoring, or displaying hostility towards, those who try to make them see the truth in that matter.
(Their attitude could be best summed up as "Na-na-na, I can't hear you!" followed by sundry accusations about "negativity" and veiled allusions to one's "density"...)

Consequently, few of them seem to be satisfied with their employment status - if they are gainfully employed at all - which would explain why so many seem to spend inordinate amounts of time on their pet websites. 
(I took the time to check the postings of a few such posters, on different forums, and they seemed to be posting throughout their day and well into their night.)

And so they dream.
They dream of fabulous worlds where there is no money (not taking the time to think what kind of lifestyle that would entail) and nobody has to work.
They dream of galactic flotillas coming to their rescue (oh yes), and the fact that NONE of their prophets' announcements or predictions - which are becoming increasingly vague, date-wise - ever has come true does not deter them at all. 

It was this sort of audience that gave rise to "telepaths" (well, some sort of -paths for certain) a la John Kettler, a (minor) phenomenon too improbable to be believed only a few years ago: a person who now blatantly claims that all those wonderful humanity-liberating feats (featuring prominently mass arrests of bankers and such - not educating us, Earthlings, about free energy, for example) HAVE, in fact, happened... we just don't see them yet. The stridently jubilant tones of his announcements do not seem to raise any alarm about his mental health.

They are the ones who support the mess that is Greece's economy - and society, to be honest - against the evil bastards of the EU who have the gall of reprimanding the beggar who asks them for money while spitting on them (and still gets the money!) for his lacking work ethics. They blast the likes of Christine Lagarde for her blunt statements (that she has more sympathy for the starving children in Africa than for the Greeks), yet bow in advance to invisible galactic masters who offered them a ride in a spaceship, limo transfer included, and then stood them up. (But fret not, it's all good.)

And let's not even mention (because we already have, extensively :)) the outright hatred they have for most religions. They fail to see, of course, they are being wound up by the same mainstream media (MSM in their lingo) that they proclaim to hate so much, as only an uneducated person, with little aptitude for independent thought and spiritual finesse (not to mention psychology), would.

Come to think of it, hate seems to be a strikingly common emotion among such communities. Which is ironic, to put it kindly, considering  that "love" and "light" (with the occaisonal "laughter" thrown in) seem to be the main - nominal - currency in these patently humourless and often cult-like comunities.

No wonder they don't have much understanding for mottos like "love your neighbour as you would love yourself" or "forgive unconditionally". 
(Unless you put the same thing in long-winded sentences involving either the "ego" or Buddhism, or both - ah yes, then it's all right. :)). 

Talk is cheap, "walk" is not.
But only walking the talk will get you anywhere.


ADDENDUM (August 9th, 2012):
For a wonderfully illustrative example of the "love & light" hypocrisy and aggressive passivity (not a typo or mistake), fuelled by hatred, see this thread.

Fairy horses - have YOU seen them?

There is a lovely old folk tradition in lovely old Central Europe that if a fern seed inadvertently falls into your shoe on Midsummer night - that would be about now - you will be able to understand the language of animals.


But that's nothing compared with the claim by Herbie Brennan - an author who has been mentioned a lot on our sister blog - that he actually saw a herd of fairy horses when he was a child. (Yes, fairy horses. Yes, a herd of them.)


Read all about it here:

Do Fairy Horses Exist?

Please note that it happened on Halloween.
Maybe they were plain old ordinary horses in disguise. :-)

Saint John's Day

Today is the perfect day for gathering St John's Wort - Hypericum perforatum - unless it rains.
(You should never gather plants when it rains. Not because of your hairdo, but because the plants will rot.)
It is good against depression. Even if you don't ingest it. :)

Funny, isn't it, that nature would produce a powerful antidepressant at the time when it is needed the most?
Well, some would say it's exactly six months later that it is needed - and after six months, your concoctions should be just perfect.
But I don't need an antidepressant on December 21 - 23.
To me, those are the happiest days of the year.

It is NOW that it's the saddest time of the year.

Goodbye, Redjellyfish?

Has Redjellyfish gone off-line permanently?
I have nobody to ask, so I am asking it here.
For the past three days I've been unable to access it.

Redjellyfish was the first website that I started visiting daily, to click for the chimps and for the rainforest. That was eleven years ago.
I took my first webmail address there: Planet-save.
Every email you sent contributed a little towards a fund intended for rainforest preservation.
I never saw it used by anyone else; I wonder why.

I loved Redjellyfish. I loved its concept, and I loved its appearance - all red and green and nice - I loved its puzzles (even though they hadn't been updated in years).
I loved everything about it, because I loved what it represented: the early days of my internet experience, more than eleven years ago now, when my world was coming into its fullness; when everything was good and kind and fun, and appeared to be becoming ever better.

That's why I would miss Redjellyfish so much.
I actually have tears in my eyes as I write this. Tears for everything that I thought would be, for the promise of yesteryear. It never really materialised, or it did so differently than I thought it would; but that doesn't even matter. The promise itself was enough to rest easily at night and wake up with stars in one's eyes.

I want Redjellyfish back.
I want my yesterday's future back.

ADDENDUM: On June 21st, Redjellyfish came back. :)
Now I want the rest of my life back, too.


YET ANOTHER ADDENDUM (December 26th, 2012): 
About a fortnight ago, Redjellyfish disappeared from the web again.
I fear - and I hope I am wrong - it is for good this time.


AND THE FINAL (?) ADDENDUM (September 22th, 2014):
It's been almost a month since I've last clicked successfully on the DONATE buttons. I also sent an email - twice - to the email addresses indicated on the website, but they came back as undeliverable.
I fear this really is the end of my beloved Redjellyfish.
And to me it is also the end of an era. A happy era, the likes of which, I am afraid, I shall never see again.

Why cathedrals matter

By Hayu.

Borrowed from here.

P.S. Yes, the photo is lovely, and independent thinking is very much encouraged here.

But there is a more literal pathway to other people's thoughts somewhere within that photo. :)

Who cares about the transit of Venus? See THIS!

Well, you can't, actually. See the event itself, that is. No special glasses will help. Not even the telescopes at Mount Palomar would help.
But you can see the probable consequences of it - and, most exciting of all, you can ponder on just what it was.


I am talking about the "vast cosmic event" that appears to have happened around 774 A.D. that left a durable imprint on trees, those natural custodians of once-living history.


Here is the original article:

Vast cosmic event leaves record in ancient trees

Was it a supernova?
Was it a solar flare?
Was it a ...


This really sparked my imagination and appetite for research. But of course, not having the expertise - being a passionate lover of dendrochronology isn't enough - there's little I can do on my own.


Still, I can think and imagine... That in itself kicks butt in ways that the paltry transit of tiny Venus, parading as an unsightly pimple on the huge face of the Sun, never could.


(But Venus the Morning star, and especially Venus the Evening star, will forever remain my favourite sky sight. I love you, Venus. I just prefer you when you're transiting the twilight skies in my eyes, lighting them, instead of humbling yourself in the face of the unappreciative glare of the Sun.)

The Day I Became a Bitch (a rant)

Well, not really.
But I have been becoming rapidly sick and tired of babying and spoonfeeding my "friends" throughout all my life, and recently have stopped doing it... Well, almost. Certainly I don't do it to the point of overextending myself, wasting (much) of my time, anymore.
After all, I do like to help.
But the babying days are GONE.
Today I am only writing about it, that's all.
(But the written word has a special power, so we'll see what comes out of it, in the long run.)

What do I mean by spoonfeeding and babying others?
Trying to make them think things through, and do so from their perspective, from what they want for themselves, and helping them find practical data for their advancement. (Because some of them - all adult, mature people - are too stupid, or lazy, or scared of actual advancement, or all of the above - to search the internet efficiently on their own.)
It's one big psychotherapy session, complete with actual problem-solving for them (when they seem unable or too scared or something to do it on their own).

I have been doing that all my life.
I like to help. And I have a LOT to offer.
In truth, I have inordinate amounts of goodies to offer.
(Well, yes, even if I say so myself. Nobody else will; it's taken for granted.)
And I've always believed that from those who have been given a lot, a lot is expected.

But even though I never - consciously - expected any "reward" from them (I can honestly say that the satisfaction of seeing a problem go away, or just a person cheer up, was enough of a "reward" to me), the time came when I needed help. I didn't even know it myself, but it was evident to everyone else. Or it should have been. 
But none came.

So I started thinking very thoroughly about my own life, and discovered all the instances of "mismanagement" - of sheer and criminal neglect - that I and my sibling were subjected to, by parents who did love us very much, but were simply incompetent as parents. (They did teach us, particularly my dear mother, to be good people, pure and simple, and that is hugely important. Then again, perhaps they only didn't spoil it entirely, if you know what I mean.)  I - and my sibling - could be the poster children of laissez-faire victims. 

And then I started thinking of all the mistakes and errors - my mistakes and my errors - that accumulated over the years, partly as a result of those earlier parental errors, and realized that never EVER did I have a single friendly presence in my life who would invest in me not half, not one third, but one tenth or less of what I invested in other people, most of whom I don't even love - heck, most of them I don't even LIKE! But that doesn't prevent me from helping them in any way I can if needed.

Someone - some one - once told me that I was an ocean of Being and talent.
Very nice; but oceans have no power, unless there is a force, a wind, directing their waves. They are forever folded into themselves, static, their waves - the talents - consumed by each other, with only the occasional wave hitting the shores with any force and perhaps, with the persistence that soft power needs, carving on some rock a weak memento of what could have been.


Not one person, not one adult - or peer - ever tried to see the world through my eyes and help me find the right direction from my own perspective and according to my own wishes, like I do, with special care not to impose my views on what is good in life. 
Not one person did ever force me, in a friendly and warm but effective way, to think through what I was doing or not doing, to even ask me what I wanted to do in life! let alone to help me figure out how exactly was I going to get it.
Nobody ever invested in me a fraction of the time and genuine thoughtfulness and effort that I have been investing in others since childhood - while also trying to be my own friend, seeing that I had no other friends. (I don't mean people to play with. You know what I mean.)

And for the first time in my life, I felt truly and deeply SORRY for myself.

People who don't think too deeply will blurt out that feeling sorry for oneself isn't helpful.
Poppycock!
It all depends on the circumstances and the quality of the "sorrow" you feel, and on what you do as a result of that feeling.
It all depends, as all does, on the context.
I only wish it had happened much, much earlier!
Because as a result of that I felt charity - agape, the love towards the Other - for myself.

What prompted me to write this?
The fact that I spent time prodding a "friend" to think what she really wanted in a certain situation, and finding helpful data for her... while she sat on the other side, too scared (you won't believe this, but it's true) to even click on the links I sent her, because - I suppose - she prefers to dream on and not face reality.
(Eventually she did click on them and started researching, but not before I made her see that she was afraid of success, of making her wishes come true. And I'll bet you anything that tomorrow this new-found momentum will be gone... Because it's happened many times before.)

That prompted me, today of all days.
The anger that I felt - towards myself - for dragging her dead weight (not for the first time - or the tenth, or the twentieth - but for the last time).

Well, I am done dragging dead weight.
It can drag itself, or remain dead, for all I care.
I will still help, but I will NOT drag anyone's weight across their vital bridges.

Will they learn?
I don't know.
I don't really care.
Because what that life-long haul of dead weight dragging did to me was to drain me of the last shred of affection I may have had for others. All I have left is resentment and/or contempt for them, depending on the moment.
That's not what I want for my heart and my mind.

Don't wait until it happens to you, too.
Shed the weight, let them walk on their own feet - or drown.
Don't drown with them. You'll be doing a favour to no one.

I for one am sick and tired of takers, and I am done dragging dead weight.
And for the first time in years I feel as light as a bird.
And ready to take flight.

Underrated websites, III

The Song Trellis

Long and wide may it grow!

R.M.S. Titanic : 100 Years of Legend

(Some of our readers loved The Teeth of Time, so we've decided the re-publish a small - and slightly edited - portion of it, as a very modest little hommage to the legend of our time, the R.M.S. Titanic: a fitting metaphor for the 20th century - the stuff that our yearnings, and our failures, are made of.
Furthermore, this little post has been timed to appear at exactly 23:40 - or 02:40 UTC - when the ship hit that infamous iceberg and started its voyage into the land of legend.)

On this day in 1912 the Titanic sank.

After having been rediscovered on September 1st, 1985, by Robert Ballard and his team, even its skeletal remains are becoming sparse. Apparently a "gigantic organism" - with "social intelligence", no less - is devouring it.

But you can still hear the Titanic's wail. 

Time has a hard time silencing wails.

If you wish to honour the ship and its many dead - as well as its many survivors, for they, too, deserve to be remembered - do yourself a favour and skip Cameron's technically uber-perfect disaster, that posthumous slap in the faces of the real passengers and their loved ones (did you know there were nine newly wed couples aboard, only four or five of which survived together?), and read Walter Lord's  A Night to Remember (1953) instead. It is still, to this day, the best and most reliable book on the Titanic.

L'Occitane, or The Stink of Success

Ten or eleven years ago my nose and my eyes fell in love, head over heels. Not with each other, but with L'Occitane. 
(If you know L'Occitane, it needs no introduction; if you don't know L'Occitane, go and find out about it.)


During the first five or six years of the century this company successfully competed with the Diors and Chanels and Givenchys of this world, and provided most of my gifts for the people I loved the most (and that includes myself). If you ever needed a last-minute gift, you could dash into L'Occitane's store and grab literally anything off the shelves - and it would be a hit with the recipient (male or female, young or old, rich or not). Try that with Dior or Chanel or Givenchy!


But then, around four or five years ago, something began to change. 
I think it all began precisely when they realised that - up to a certain point - they really could compete with the Diors and the Chanels and the Givenchys, certainly for the clientele that wanted excitingly pristine, fresh, genuinely good fragrances - and for much less money. Exquisitely crafted, elegantly unpretentious yet naturally complex, exhilarating fragrances that smelled like concentrates of the true scents of nature. They were - almost literally - a breath of fresh air. They mimicked the fresh air - and the richness - of nature, and they did it very well. Fragrances in elegantly simple, seemingly old fashioned containers, with equally old-fashioned labels that said vervaine, lavande, fleur d'oranger - simple, beautiful words that meant verbena, lavender, orange blossom; because that's precisely what was inside. 


True, not all of their labels were so straightforward or laconic in their description of the contents. Some were deliciously historic - like the Eau des Quatre Voleurs, the name of which referred to the (very famous) four thieves who, so the story goes, robbed houses during the time of plague.
I bought their Eau des Quatre Voleurs for my brother, for his birthday, almost ten years ago now. He loved it. 
A year later I had to buy again.
Another year later I could not buy it, because I went away, and where I went there were no L'Occitane stores.


Then I returned to "civilisation". During the voyage back, on a ship deck, a woman nearby was rummaging through her necessaire, and I caught a glimpse of a boxy bottle with that beloved label in block letters: L'OCCITANE. I swear, it almost brought tears to my eyes.


But when I actually entered a L'Occitane store (and then another one) and happily browsed through their inventory - already missing some of my old favourites - I got the impression that something wasn't quite as I remembered it.
I could not put my finger on it - the stores were still little heavens of visual and olfactory bliss, the bottles and boxes were still extremely tempting - but it was not unlike that odd, elusive moment when the most glorious sunset you could possibly imagine suddenly loses a key element of its light. Everything looks exactly the same... yet somehow flat, faded. The full glory of its light is there no more. It is beautiful, but no longer dazzling; it is no longer interesting. Something is off.


Stores and commercial products in general do not usually evoke in me comparisons with sunsets or the glory of nature. 
Well, apparently L'Occitane does. Or did. 
But after today's visit to L'Occitane I think the time has come to voice my concerns, before the sun goes down altogether on this heavenly-scented little oasis of refined and solid artisanerie among the ocean-worth of plastic pink flamingoes: the sadly trivial, bubble-gummy, homogenised and sterilised world of treacly-fruity "celebrity fragrances" and their more venerable but no less "trendy" haute-couture fragrances.


Trendy. That was the word I've been trying to spit out for the past ten minutes.


L'Occitane used to be Nature, only more so.
Now they are leaning towards Annick Goutal, only less so.
Who wants a green tea and jasmin fragrance?
I am sure some do; I don't. None of my friends do. Judging by the few reviews I've been able to find, not very many people do.
I want jasmin, pure and simple, with that drop of lemon that brings out all its glory. I do not want to smell like a cup of jasmin-scented green tea; I don't even like to drink it, much less wear it.
I don't want colognes with top, middle and base notes. For that, I have Dior and Chanel and Givenchy. I want a fragrant water that smells like what it says on the bottle. I want a pure lavender water that smells like pure lavender because it is pure lavender and it says so on the bottle - not something called "Blue Harvest"; I want linden-blossom ironing water (a favourite gift of an aunt of mine) that smells like linden blossom ironing water and comes in a big bottle that says linden-blossom ironing water.


But it's not (only) the fragrances - especially the missing ones, old favourites that have been mindlessly discontinued - what prompted this outburst. 
Everything seems to have been infected by a certain "trendiness".


I loved - loved! - the various complexion-enhancing coloured baumes, packed in adorably unpretentious little metal containers. I think they came in one or two, maybe three colours. (called, very simply, rose, coral, no-nonsense names). That was all that I - or the grateful recipients of this gift - ever needed or wanted. And they were fabulous for the skin. It positively glowed, but nobody could ever guess that the glow came in a little metal box.

I have been trying to find them. I couldn't. I was shown an array of rouges and lipsticks (?!) and eye-shadows and what-not, all packed like every other rouge or lipstick or what-not in the world of commercial cosmetics. Red and girly and each one with its own fancy name... Maybelline, only less so.

The result?
Originally, they were unique; they already had "arrived", right from the start.
Now they are starting to look aspirational. 
Not a good place to be after 35 years in business - most of which had been a brilliant success.


Do you know how you recognise true nobility?
Sadly, I am not convinced the management pundits of L'Occitane do - not anymore.
But I do.
True nobility has a few distinctive hallmarks that cannot be faked, much less bought. Theese have various names and descriptions, some more florid or accurate than others, but if you strip them all down to the core, you will discover that their common essence is GENUINITY. Lack of pretension.


Stick to your original guns, L'Occitane. Those were good, solid, trustworthy guns; and they had a long range.
Remember: money does smell. And it's not a pretty smell.

Scroogle is gone - GO Duck!

Are you still searching for a new search machine?
(And if not, why not?)

In our last post we recommended Scroogle.
Our recommendation must have had quite an impact (only partly kidding), because now, a few days later, Scroogle is no more.

We are very, very sad to see it go. It was a noble endeavour, something tangible, well - and courageously -  beyond the lazy talk of so many who condemn Google... and then go and "google" for whatever info they need.

But let's not despair.
There are many, many other search machines.
Here is our new favourite that we recommend using in lieu of Scroogle.

DuckDuckGo

Or use something else (see out previous post for more options).
So, you, see, you still can... scroogle. :-)

ANYTHING is better than Google.
And lately... not just morally.