Does DIY cupping work?

In my experience so far - and I am surprised myself - YES, it does.
I've been using silicon cups for exactly a week now.
I purchased them to remedy my life-long sluggish lymph flow. That was it.

Well, the lymph flow got worse - MUCH worse - before it got better (more on that on some other occasion).
But I have noticed something unexpected: my cellulite seems to be disintegrating.
(The cellulite also doesn't hurt as much as it did at the beginning, and I doubt it's because I got "used" to it - you don't get used to certain pain - or because the cups became weaker. When I apply a cup to a place where I haven't used it before, the cellulite still hurts.

There is also a very visible - totally unexpected - result: the cellulite around my navel (belly button) and abdomen has smoothed out, and my waistline actually improved. This I was not expecting. Ever.

But the most exciting result to me is my face and neck.
Again I bought the cups "just" to remove the lymph (it accumulates even in my nose!).
After two days - I kid you not - I noticed my jawline becoming tauter. And by that I mean, other people seem to be noticing it. Like, strangers on the street. (And no, it's NOT because of the bruises.
Kidding. :)
I did have some bruising, but that's because I let a cup sit on my face for HOURS while I read.)

Oh, how I wish I had this YEARS ago!


Please note: I AM NOT SAYING YOU WILL GET THE SAME - OR COMPARABLE - RESULTS.
Then again, you may.
You may get even better results.

In case you're interested, I bought this kit.
(And no, I hereby formally declare that I am in no way associated to the company, nor was I paid or received any benefit whatsoever to toot their horn.
In fact, I paid through the nose for the postage and the Amazon "insurance", in addition to the kit, because it's not yet available in Europe.)

There are many other brands, including the Bellabaci system which seems to have been the first silicon-made cupping kit for home use. Based on their Amazon (and other) reviews they seem to be very good. Had I not found that other system first, I would probably have gotten the Bellabacis (especially since they are readily available in Europe).

A caveat, though.
It seems some silly webmaster/mistress at Bellbabaci.com has created a series of positive reviews - but neglected to pay attention to the timestamps... :)

http://www.bellabaci.com/does-cupping-therapy-hurt/

Please. Do you really want us to believe that all of the six happy customers posted their reviews on the same day, two-three minutes apart?
(To give them the benefit of doubt, I thought at first that the time stamps reflected the time of  comment approval. But that doesn't make sense. Comments, no matter when they are approved, reflect the time at which they were posted by their authors. Besides, why would one need several minutes to approve each of these short comments one after the other?)

This is how companies hurt themselves. The Bellabaci cups seem to come highly recommended by actual customers - why would you risk your own reputation?


That's it for now.
More in the Self-Made Beauty section of this blogo-fleet when it is updated in a few days (after more than two years!).

Yoko Ono vs. ... WHO?

Actually, it's "versus" (not really, since it seems to be a unilateral battle) Judy Murray, the mother of Andy Murray (the tennis player).

Apparently, Ms. Murray is waging an unprovoked Twit(ter) war against the woman who is still considered by some (or many) to be responsible for the break-up of The Beatles. (Which was in 1971. Forty-three years ago.)

Here is a funny piece on it:

Today in Twitter Beefs...

I've never been  fan of Yoko Ono; I don't know why, but I find her irritating.
I've never been a fan of Mr. Ono, the late John Lennon, either.
(I especially hate his celebrated song Imagine, which is - ideologically, not musically - probably the most overrated piece of sh** EVER.)
I am a fan of The Beatles, though. Admittedly I was too preoccupied with little-girly stuff at the time of their break-up to even notice it (or them, for that matter), but I am sure their blazing meteoric career had ran its course. If it hadn't, they wouldn't have broken up - Yoko Ono notwithstanding.

None of which really matters, becaus the only thing I wanted to say was: Ono's tweets are, for the most part, surprisingly good ("surprisingly" to me, because I don't like her).
Murray's replies to her tweets, on the other hand, are appallingly unfunny. Nay - more than "apallingly": they are painfully, embarrassingly unfunny, in the most stupid sort of way.

I don't even know her (well, I do now), yet she managed to make me dislike her even more than I disliked Yoko Ono.
Yoko Ono 5 : Judy Murray 0.
(And that's without Ono even replying to Murray!)

Grow some self-awareness, woman.
Just because you're on Twitter it doesn't mean you HAVE to behave like a twit.

Take courage

You may have read this ancient letter. 
According to most sources, it would be exactly 500 years old today - written on Christmas, 1513.
According to possibly the most authoritative source, its age - or indeed its author - have been impossible to prove.

Even so - and even if you have read it - perhaps it is time to reread and reread it.
The time is always right for words that carry the beauty and solace of truth.


A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia Dela Aldobrandeschi, 
Written on Christmas Eve Anno Domini 1513

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see.  And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!


Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.


Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.


Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

Merry Christmas - or whatever Light, whatever Good, you honour - and the best of the best in the new year.


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

That blinking Wi-Fi button!

The title and the exclamation mark notwithstanding, this is not going to a parody, a satire, or even a particularly funny post. It is actually a post about what caused a constantly blinking Wi-Fi button on my DSL modem (it went on for days), when clearly my laptop settings and the ISP were not at fault.

It was malware. Specifically, MySearchResults, which I had downloaded, unwittingly, bundled with some other program - possibly (just possibly) with my beloved PhotoScape. 
(And let me tell you, I never EVER download programs from dubious places - usually I use CNET - or install them without scanning them first. So, I am somewhat disappointed in my Avast! for not having picked it up. Still, I am keeping it for the time being.)

I had noticed it in Internet Explorer (which I rarely use), where it presented itself as a default search tab. Naturally, I went to the trouble of removing it, even from the registry - manually, entry by entry.

I thought I was free of MySearch. But then I noticed something else: Internet Explorer didn't respond after removal - and there were odd problems with the internet connection. The machine was telling me I was connected, it couldn't find any trouble with the connection - yet I still couldn't access any webpages.
Furthermore, the system appeared to be more cumbersome, slower than usual (and the laptop is only two months old).

I used to love Spybot Search & Destroy, and used it for more than nine years in a row; but in the past few years I found its quality had deteriorated (maybe I am wrong, but that's my impression).
So I went and downloaded  the free edition of MalwareBytes and performed a quick scan.
It came up with more than thirty suspicious entries, including one or two memory processes - and all but one seemed to be related to the defunct (or so I thought) MySearchResults. The remaining one was OpenCandy, which I know came with Photoscape. (Seriously, Photoscape!)

You see, this malware - MySearch - hides itself under generic names in the registry, so it's easy to miss it unless you know exactly what names and places to look for. Which is why I had only partially removed it, but left many entries in the registry that allowed the malware to update itself again and again.

Well, in one clean sweep they were gone. The internet connection works fine. The odd memory problems are gone. 
And my Wi-Fi button blinks no more.

The Sounds of Nature

An extensive collection of high-quality recordings of the sounds of nature.
Highly recommended.





From the Internet Archive.

As I was about to ditch Firefox...

If you've come here, you have most likely experienced annoyances with Firefox.  (In fact, you've most likely experienced them even if you haven't come here.)
Like, it being so mastodontically slow that it took more than a minute just to load, and then it had to think and ponder for a few moments - actually, more than a few - before executing every single command you gave.

Well, I have.  I've been using Firefox - along with four other browsers - for ten years now, but in the past three or four years it has become impossibly slow, practically unusable.

So I tried to find a solution. There is an add-on called Memory Restart that gives you the chance to restart Firefox with no hassle every time its memory usage bloats out of proportion (and that happens very fast with Firefox... in fact, that's the ONLY thing that happens very fast with Firefox). Unfortunately or not, it was made by Mozilla and it only helped me very marginally. Very, very, very marginally.

So I searched on. 
I found a thread that suggested deleting all "sessionstore.JS" files and its duplicates, if any. You can find them in your profile. 
(Click on HELP, then TROUBLESHOOTING INFORMATION - or just follow the instructions on this page.) Or you can do what I did - because it's the fastest way - and simply search your computer for sessionstore.js. To find them, you'll have to have the "search hidden files" option enabled, of course.)

Again, it helped. And again, only very marginally.

Then - to make a long story  much shorter - I decided it was probably one of the add-ons that was causing the slow-down-to-crawl.
So I opened my add-ons folder and disabled the most obvious suspect: ADBLOCK.

It worked like a charm.
Sometimes the most obvious suspects really are those whodunnit.

So, think - as I failed to for much too long - what benefits, if any, does AdBlock bring you, and are you willing to sacrifice normal-speed browsing for the pleasure of not having to see a few ads.

I am not.



ADDENDUM (June 2, 2013):

Well, for some reason the "charm" only worked for a day.
Today Firefox is back to its old form: bad, slow and very tiresome to know.

I mean, it still is better than before - especially after I deleted the storesession.js again - but it's nowhere up to yesterday's speed - not that it was lightning-fast or anything (we're talking about Firefox) but it was much faster than today.

Don't worry, I'll keep you updated.

Dinner With Candles

There are few things quite as alluring as a candle-lit dinner... especially if you happen to be out of gas and/or electricity, so you used the candles to actually cook said dinner.

Don't ask me why - I'd rather not know - but many people seem to be inordinately interested in improvised cooking and other domestic appliances these days. But whatever the reason, yes, it's fun and it's always useful to know that there IS something you could do if you happened to find yourself in an emergency.

YouTube is full of videos about "cooking with candles". I have only seen one or two, but while the ingenuity of those men is by all means commendable, I had to wonder: 

a) why don't they cover the pot while it's heating and/or while the food is cooking (rather obviously, you save a LOT of heat and speed up the process); 

and 

b) why don't they use a simple kitchen stove grate to cover the candles?

The candles used are typically tea candles, placed in convenient little metal containers. But because the authors of the videos improvised a contraption that serves as a "grate" of sorts, they can only use a few candles at a time, thereby reducing the cooking power. If they used a ready-made kitchen stove grate, they could place  many more candles underneath it, replicating the power and effect of a functional stove.
Heck, if you're near a kitchen stove that for some reason is not functional, you could simply place the tea candles on the stove itself, underneath the grates.

I've tried it; it worked well.


IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:
The Man Who IS an Island
Going Green: Growing Your Own Furniture

The Skies Have Spoken... Again

Much of the media, even "serious" mainstream media, seem to be abuzz with a report - and a picture - of a bolt of lightning that allegedly hit the dome of St Peter's basilica in Rome yesterday - on the very day of Pope Benedict XVI's announcement of his forthcoming resignation on February 28th of this year.
(The announcement itself certainly is comparable to a bolt from the skies. No pope has resigned in many centuries.)

Lightning is far from extraordinary in the present weather conditions; and a tall dome, such as Michelangelo's masterpiece, is a natural lightning rod.

Still, I am surprised that so few, if any, seem to remember that the advent of the current Pope was met by very similar, only much odder, weather manifestations.
Who could forget the wind "fingering" through the pages of the heavy book placed on John Paul II's coffin, during the ceremony outside St Peter's, before closing it in a shockingly abrupt manner?
(The window shutters on the late John Paul II's bedroom - which had been closed, as tradition dictates - were also flung wide open, but few seem to have noticed it.)

Yet many seem to have forgotten the far more shocking scene immediately  after the habemus papam, when the newly announced Pope Benedict XVI was led onto the balcony overlooking St Peter's Square - and a gust of fierce wind and rain slammed the door of the balcony in his face.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
And now, I cannot believe so many have forgotten about it.

Where am I going with this?
Nowhere. I am simply completing the picture that others have chosen to focus on. I like completeness.

I do believe sometimes nature can express - or seem to express - itself symbolically in terms of a wider human reality, perhaps as a condensation of the human collective subconscious, if there is such a thing.
(Make sure you click on that link if you're interested in this topic.)

But what would it be saying in this case?
I don't know. Nobody knows.
And, typically, those who know the least are the most vocal about it, expressing unabashedly the extent of their intellectual and cognitive shortcomings.

We just don't know.

Benedict XVI - Josef Ratzinger - is a human, like all of us, yet he has been subjected to inhuman (perhaps understandable) scrutiny and often to hatred that has little to do with him. (But then hatred is hardly a rational feeling.) People in the limelight are often perceived as cartoon characters, with no humanity of their own, which serves no-one, least of all those who are guilty of such perception.
But that's how it is.
Yet he, like all of us, only has one life to live.
Perhaps that is the reason - one of the reasons - why he wants to shed the weight of leadership of an institution so heavy with tradition and all sorts of implications, and face - live through - whatever he has and wishes to face. It is his life: his one and only life.

Whatever his reasons for stepping down, I wish him peace and light.
And I wish much more of the same on his - or anyone's - mindless detractors.

Kate in Wonderland

Buckingham Palace and its subsidiaries, Kensington Palace, Balmoral... 
I think they could qualify as a wonderland of sorts. There is a queen; and certainly there are many, many curious characters inhabiting it. 
(Silver stick-in-waiting... If that's not a Carrollian kind of name, I don't know what is.)
Heck, even Mustique, with its insidiously scratching-inducing name, is far removed from hell on Earth.

But this is not about Kate's lifestyle. If anything, it is, if you will, more about her "lifestyle" - the images inhabiting her world - as it would or could have been, had she decided to pursue her academic interests. Or as it might be is she does decide to pursue them.
OK, let's not strain this metaphor any further.

You will have noticed that we have mentioned Catherine Middleton (apparently that still is her legal name), or the Duchess of Cambridge, as she is now known, exactly once before in this blog.
There's no special reason for it, as there simply is no special reason for mentioning her.

But today a friend, an art historian (and a damned good one, too), wondered what was her fellow art historian Kate's diploma thesis or dissertation, as they are called in some places. 

That is an interesting question, so I tried to find out.
Thanks, mostly, to this site, it didn't take me long.

Catherine Middleton graduated with a dissertation on Lewis Carroll and his photographic interpretation of childhood.
The full title of her thesis, as it is listed on the Honours dissertations page of the University of St Andrew's website, is 'Angels from Heaven': Lewis Carroll's Photographic Interpretation of Childhood.

I'd love to read it, as photography - treacherous as it is -  can be contentious anyway, and Lewis Carrol's photographs of children even more so (especially in these ridiculously politically correct times).

I would also love to hear what it was that attracted her to this particular topic.

If you know more about Kate's penchant for Lewis Carroll's photography, do let us know. 

"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.