Magic Wands in Folklore

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Nifty Buckles

Magic wands have been with folks for centuries. In ancient Egypt, magic wands, amulets to ward off serpents and books on magic have been discovered in the tombs of pharaohs. The magic wand was known to activate the soul (ba) when in use.

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The Greeks according to Greco-Roman mythology mentions the air god Mercury and/or Hermes the trickster god both owned a unique wand termed a “caduceus.”

The Greek witch Circe is mentioned in Homer’s book and poem termed “Odyssey,” as using a magic wand. Shaking a magic wand shows accolade to the goddess.

In the Norse community, Volva was a well known shamanic older woman who lived independent from her kin. She would travel the countryside and villages using her skills as a healer. Volvas were respected and charged for their work so they could continue to live separately. Volvas worshiped the Norse Vanir goddess and witch Freyja. 

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Relationships

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A wonderful analysis as always, Thanks

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By SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

Is there something irrelevant?

We say from the beginning, no!

Let us look at the data, as well as the views that exist.

Ancient Chinese thought captured the archetypal poles of nature and identified them in any form as complementary contrasts: male-female, positive-negative, up and down (Dipola). In one pole he gave the name “yin” and the other “yang”. The relationship between these concepts was depicted in the ancient symbol “Tai-Chu-Tou” in the “Diagram of overcoming”. It comes from a circle of x-ray circle, two x-ray circles, which have their centres on the same diameter, so they touch each other, but also with the original circle, as shown in the figure:

The Yen integration momentum triggers the birth of yang, the completion of which trigger the birth of yin and so on. On the same idea we think that we find it wonderfully formulated by Greek thought in the words: “no evil pure good”, “zero again”, “metron excellent”, and the thought of Heraclitus “always holds, no one” of the universe and every genesis is the product of contradictions and thus relationships . Besides, the theory of “relativity” is based on the same principle, the relations resulting from the movement of everything, the perception of space-time.

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In relation So with all this, we correct the non-existence of Lemma unrelated to a valid, recognized dictionary Greek language of Liddell-Scot-Konstantinidou in the sense that the newer dictionaries and modern Greeks attach, ie the non-situated with respect, but with the totally different concept of irrepressible, impenetrable, irresistible. Indeed, in the newer dictionaries (Tegopoulos-Fytrakis) the word has disappeared in its original sense, and Babiniotis hardly gives us the grace for a brief reference. The constant justification of modern linguists? The liveliness of language! For the sake of liveliness, let words die of centuries of meaning contribute to culture; and of course ignoring the “individual” and “collective self”, only a technocratic conception, in the name of the liveliness of the language, repel the real causes; “ignorance” with their own newer meaning of the word -which does not exist for us-but of the substantive ignorance of what they really do, since they can not even ask the question -which the word got this meaning in later years – because it means this was not determined by the creation of a new word? Of course, the answer is bitter – as any truth – and that is why it is repelled. Because in every period of decline, along with so many others, the glossoplasts disappear as indifference, lunacy, half-life leading to the “sacrilegiousness” of the language, processing it for a more profitable sale of the by-product, and that was just that word … A comparison of older ones with more recent dictionaries demonstrates the magnitude of the disaster, which pre-empts the bleak future. Of course, if one can understand that the language (correct for us) is the most important means of communication with the “self” and the “other” – who conclude relationship – in order to promote the knowledge of the “individual” and “collective organization” it is necessary to be clear, precise, unambiguous. Characterization of the Spartans’ communication and the sign of dolphins.

DETERMINATION OF RELATIONS (DIPOLA)

  1. WITH A PERSON IN THE PEOPLE

(a) Relationship of persons :

  1. Relationship with self
  2. Relationship with the family tree, straight line (parents, pre-parents, children, grandchildren) and sideways (brothers, uncles, cousins).
  3. Relationships with teachers, peers (in school years).
  4. Relationships with superiors, subordinates, colleagues (in the workplace) and relations with the public, fellow citizens, service staff.
  5. Relationships of social acquaintance, friendly, emotional-sexual (philhellenes, philosophies).
  6. Indirect relationships (fantasy, virtual reality, telecommunications through print, television, cinema, music and other arts).That is relationships with idols.
  7. Online Relations.
  8. b)Relationships with animals
  9. c)Relationships with plants
  10. d)Relationships with things-bodies.
  11. WITH THE PEOPLE, NO OTHERS, OTHERS OBSERVER 

5D-DIY

(a) Animal relations

  1. b)Relationships of plants
  2. c)Relationships of things-bodies, and all of them with each other, cross.

It is sufficient for the above classification to realize that beings are a universal network extending to all dimensions and that they interact dynamically. They are the knots of the net and the threads between them – just like brain cells with their synapses – in this body of the universe. This interaction is more perceptible as man’s self-awareness – maturity increases. Then the ability to perceive the most important dipole relationship is acquired:

  1. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE HUMAN WITH THE GOD, CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE

Then it is “illuminated,” the man is matured, “experiencing” the concept of Sequence (of the reciprocity of consistency) of the universal network, reproaching: “Hallelujah.

So you see in this sorting table the huge range of relationships.

Let us also look at the terrible depth of their significance, analyzing the ancient and omnipotent question: What is the meaning of Life?

Book books have been written, exorcisms of famous, unfortunately vague, individual, vague, insubstantial.

Take care of such anthology that I have a rough one titled “The meaning of Life” as seen by people prominent and virtuous. I note the encoded table of contents.

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  1. Life is to enjoy it.
  2. We exist to serve God
  3. We exist to discover our wisdom and ourselves.
  4. The meaning of life is a mystery.
  5. Life does not make sense.
  6. We live to help others.
  7. Life is a struggle.
  8. We exist to offer to society.
  9. We need to make sense.
  10. Life is absurd.

We answer that its meaning is expressed in one word: HARA! Without joy, Zoe makes no sense. We all find that life is characterized by a shift of joy with regret, that is, the deprivation of joy.

When we are without joy, we live hoping to restore it. That is why the wish is “transient” in all sorts of sorrows, as in the case of diseases, which are one of the main reasons for deprivation of joy, due to the loss of health-It is evidence that cases when depression leads to despair, in the loss of hope that joy will come back, suicide is ending, because life is losing its meaning now –

If we take care, we will see that two are the sources of joy. Pleasure and enjoyment on the one hand and virtue with love and love on the other.

In the features that distinguish one source from the other, we will discuss below.

Let us say here, however, that if we take better care to observe, we will find that drawing the joy from these two sources – or, rather, from regret, when the pumping is not achieved – is done through our relationships with ourselves and with others.

So, why do we say that there is no irrelevance!

Yes, why are relationships A and Z of Life!

Yes, why relationships are its meaning when they offer joy and deprive it of its meaning when it causes pain and sorrow.

Here, let us give you a parenthesis because that is what the union wants. Let’s now done with this nonsense of daily “to congratulate” their “congratulated” – No congratulations to someone, but with someone and of course, do not need, and with, as contained in the plus. So I just get together. And let’s get through the press and in essence, once the moment is right, as it has to do with the delicate discretionary ability on interpersonal relationships. It is a superior distinctive degree of “knowing it”,  of “maturing”, of “perfecting”, of compassion from being compassionate (compassionate). (Details in relevant chapter)

Let us be so sparing in the word congratulations, to feel honest, authentic when we express it because only then is the word accompanied by proper emotion and appropriate behaviour and of course not to say it with the meaning of the blessing, I reward him.

Much will be mentioned in the relevant chapters about the importance of speech-language in interpersonal relationships as well as in relation to self.

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 (Referral Table): * We will discuss in detail below, in the chapter “Entertainment and Recreation”.

(To see the image in larger size, click on it).

We have drawn this painting and taught him for decades. But please note, how amply confirmed biologically (molecular biology genome), the much recent (March-July 2013) American scientific research: A functional genomic perspective on human well – being, of BarbaraL. Fredrickson, StevenW. Cole et . all (PNAS). The researchers, based on their findings, conclude that one is not enough to be happy in general, as human genes, in a mysterious way, are “molecularly” distinguished, “right” by the “wrong” kind of happiness. There are two kinds of joy, the virtuous (also called “bliss”), and those who belong here are in an advantageous position in terms of the healthy functioning of their genes, compared to those who feel the “bad” and shallower joy (the so-called ” hedonistic “). In other words, meaningful life is superior (even in biological-genomic terms), from a simple, happy life.

For years, scientific research has focused on how the genome and the immune system are affected by anxiety, depression, and so on. But now the focus has been on the effect of the positive mental state on the biological function and found that all forms of happiness are ultimately not equal to the “eyes” of the genes.

Their basic conclusion was that people who feel the “blissful” type of happiness, ie they have a sense of selflessness, courtesy and a deeper meaning in their lives (social service, charity, spiritual search, etc.), have a more favourable expression genes in their bodies, resulting in their immune system is more effective and their body being better protected from disease.

On the other hand, those who feel happy, but in a “hedonic” way, that is, they usually suffer from egocentric, ephemeral and material satisfaction (food, sex, entertainment, etc.), exhibit negative expression of genes in their bodies. more vulnerable to chronic inflammation, infections and other diseases (cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, etc.). The researchers pointed out that while “hedonistic” people subjectively feel very nice, their genes objectively react very differently than in the case of “audacious” people.

Previous research by the same and other scientists has correlated positive emotions-especially the “blond” type with a longer life expectancy, meaning “right” happiness gives more years of life. Perhaps as the great psychologist Karl Jung said, “the smallest thing that makes sense, it is more worth living than the bigger meaningless one.” And as the Proverb says – we add – after the wise advice he gives for a virtuous life, that: “This is how you live a lot of time, and you are added to live ( Proverbs Solomon Chapter III, Scripture 11 ).

The pumping of joy from the Source is inherent in life. We would not go far out if we were to say that the first experience of paradise is experienced during endometrial life. Then everything is done on their own. Sleep, nutrition, in the most appropriate environment in terms of safety, temperature, etc. We are a new organ in the mother’s organism, from which we take everything as a matter of priority, even if it is at the expense of it (pumping iron, calcium) because we have the same blood circulation. But it also has a negative, that is, the transfer of negative emotions and emotions of the mother to us, through the transfusion of the disorder of its related hormones.

This is also confirmed in this primordial-first relationship that life is characterized by the alternation of joy with sadness, peace with war. And of course, during the endometrial life, the relationship with the mother is not unique since we are sure to receive information-stimuli from the wider environment. I do not forget the case of our first child’s gestation in her eighth month. Warm weather, open windows in central Athens. Sitting in the living room with my wife we are studying as protagonists – the accomplished miracle of life in her belly.

The calm of the atmosphere and the abdomen disturbs the intense curving from the street. It was the reaction, the snapping of the child as if you were scared in his sleep. Such a rapid reaction testified that it came from the irritation of his own nervous system and not from his mother’s blood-borne neuro-hormonal stimulation.

The first eviction from paradise occurs with childbirth. Maximum traumatic experience. The environment outside the paradise is colder, the lack of oxygen causes the first breaths that break out and burn the tender lungs, and then the deliberate firing of the umbilical cord cut.

Crying is cruel and necessary.

After all, you can feel the warmth of the warm maternal embrace and the soft breast offering sensual pleasure, the pleasure of satiety, the guarantee of survival and the sweet sleep as a means of returning to the lost paradise.

Crying is now a weapon that helps to meet needs, enjoyment, communication, and joy. And, of course, all of this is accomplished by the acts of hypertrophy of the new man’s ego during his infant, infant, childhood, adolescence (and not only).

During these periods of immaturity, the main characteristic of behaviour is based on the law of pleasure and pleasure, which is “I want everything, here and now”.

Of course, in the process of socialization, parents are forced to impose limits for which they have no knowledge or experience, thus improvising or applying “cliché” measures of their parents’ behaviour, even if they did not agree with them.

This is the basic model of the function of the parent-child relationship, which does not differ substantially in all other interpersonal relationships – as we will see in detail below – as they are all immobilized in the immaturity (ignorance of oneself) whose main characteristics are its interest continuous increase of joy through the enjoyment of the variety of qualities and the overcoming of all kinds of limits (exceeding of quantities). It is the violation of the excellence of the measure and submission to the forces of self-love and selfishness.

Forces that lead to acts that determine through relationships, the lives of people (karma in Eastern religions and philosophies). Of course, it does not have to do with destiny or our actions in an earlier life, but with the mechanics of the transfer of behaviour from generation to generation. The mechanism which, as it imposes selfishness and selfishness, is the only obstacle to “knowing it”, since it maintains in the opposite direction (ignorance) the ” Flow “

Concept Of Communication

Flow

People, people

pass and leave

and remain in memories

so few, for so little,

but bequeathed mechanics.

People blessed (?)

that come and go

and they stay in memories

so many, for so much,

and it is normal

even the opposite

their presence.

So why and why?

this human paradox?

But, obviously, the ignorance of existence.

Adhering to the convenient

and interest (?)

in the deification of ” I “

and not of ” us “

the separation

and not to the union.

So it does not stop

to “be afraid of Yiannis the beast

and the yolk of Giannis”.

Oh! your memory

the Divine Gift,

which thanks Sou

gets into existence

and Flow and Time,

the Past and the Present

but the Future.

Thanks, Sou exist

within the Universe the net

and thanks Sou and that’s it.

Oimen! if you stay alone

losing the rhetoric Logos

and the horse of the Fantasy,

you are standing unmovable

defining Truth

the humble reality.

But let me try

better to meet you

and from your absence

the existence, while living, (Alzheimer’s disease)

as this separation

states and defines

what it means

” Splitting ”

that is the sensory, mnemonic

but also emotional

-conscious or unconscious-

lack of data

of the subject in the subject.

Ali! a knot stuck

in the Universe the net,

– while Prometheus-

its existence ignores it

but also the net.

It is based on the book “The Return to Love, Truth, Life, Love” by Psychiatrist-Psychotherapist Stratis G. Economou, which is registered with ISBN 960 220 058 8.

source: https://gnothisafton.wordpress.com /

The Day Dostoyevsky Discovered the Meaning of Life in a Dream

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“And it is so simple… You will instantly find how to live.”

via https://www.brainpickings.org/

As I was lucky to be born by a family of “the art lovers”, my father was a professional writer and my mother was a professional book lover and my brother and I have grown up between a heap of books. though honestly saying that my brother who later had become a writer too, was much faster than me to run after the great world famous writers and me, as I was just about twenty months younger than him, began with the children books first 😉 of course, after my father’s death we’ve got much closer to each others and I took him as my teacher in the matter of literature.

Anyway, as I mentioned, there’re books and books all over and last not least, we have bought our own favourite books for the shelves.

One of my lovely writers was and still is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It’s not only his power to write about interesting characters and fascinating social stories but his amazing mastery about humans psycho. I think he is not like Tolstoy as the latest had tried always to show the direction, Dostoyevsky had always tried to discover the soul of the human and let the reader find out by her or himself how to act or react.

in following, there is a wonderful short story by him which is surely worthy to read ❤

One November night in the 1870s, legendary Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821–February 9, 1881) discovered the meaning of life in a dream — or, at least, the protagonist in his final short story did. The piece, which first appeared in the altogether revelatory A Writer’s Diary (public library) under the title “The Dream of a Queer Fellow” and was later published separately as The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, explores themes similar to those in Dostoyevsky’s 1864 novel Notes from the Underground, considered the first true existential novel. True to Stephen King’s assertion that “good fiction is the truth inside the lie,” the story sheds light on Dostoyevsky’s personal spiritual and philosophical bents with extraordinary clarity — perhaps more so than any of his other published works. The contemplation at its heart falls somewhere between Tolstoy’s tussle with the meaning of life and Philip K. Dick’s hallucinatory exegesis.

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky by Vasily Perov, 1871

The story begins with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg on “a gloomy night, the gloomiest night you can conceive,” dwelling on how others have ridiculed him all his life and slipping into nihilism with the “terrible anguish” of believing that nothing matters. He peers into the glum sky, gazes at a lone little star, and contemplates suicide; two months earlier, despite his destitution, he had bought an “excellent revolver” with the same intention, but the gun had remained in his drawer since. Suddenly, as he is staring at the star, a little girl of about eight, wearing ragged clothes and clearly in distress, grabs him by the arm and inarticulately begs his help. But the protagonist, disenchanted with life, shoos her away and returns to the squalid room he shares with a drunken old captain, furnished with “a sofa covered in American cloth, a table with some books, two chairs and an easy-chair, old, incredibly old, but still an easy-chair.”

As he sinks into the easy-chair to think about ending his life, he finds himself haunted by the image of the little girl, leading him to question his nihilistic disposition. Dostoyevsky writes:

I knew for certain that I would shoot myself that night, but how long I would sit by the table — that I did not know. I should certainly have shot myself, but for that little girl.

You see: though it was all the same to me, I felt pain, for instance. If any one were to strike me, I should feel pain. Exactly the same in the moral sense: if anything very pitiful happened, I would feel pity, just as I did before everything in life became all the same to me. I had felt pity just before: surely, I would have helped a child without fail. Why did I not help the little girl, then? It was because of an idea that came into my mind then. When she was pulling at me and calling to me, suddenly a question arose before me, which I could not answer. The question was an idle one; but it made me angry. I was angry because of my conclusion, that if I had already made up my mind that I would put an end to myself to-night, then now more than ever before everything in the world should be all the same to me. Why was it that I felt it was not all the same to me, and pitied the little girl? I remember I pitied her very much: so much that I felt a pain that was even strange and incredible in my situation…

It seemed clear that if I was a man and not a cipher yet, and until I was changed into a cipher, then I was alive and therefore could suffer, be angry and feel shame for my actions. Very well. But if I were to kill myself, for instance, in two hours from now, what is the girl to me, and what have I to do with shame or with anything on earth? I am going to be a cipher, an absolute zero. Could my consciousness that I would soon absolutely cease to exist, and that therefore nothing would exist, have not the least influence on my feeling of pity for the girl or on my sense of shame for the vileness I had committed?

From the moral, he veers into the existential:

It became clear to me that life and the world, as it were, depended upon me. I might even say that the world had existed for me alone. I should shoot myself, and then there would be no world at all, for me at least. Not to mention that perhaps there will really be nothing for any one after me, and the whole world, as soon as my consciousness is extinguished, will also be extinguished like a phantom, as part of my consciousness only, and be utterly abolished, since perhaps all this world and all these men are myself alone.

Beholding “these new, thronging questions,” he plunges into a contemplation of what free will really means. In a passage that calls to mind John Cage’s famous aphorism on the meaning of life — “No why. Just here.” — and George Lucas’s assertion that “life is beyond reason,” Dostoyevsky suggests through his protagonist that what gives meaning to life is life itself:

One strange consideration suddenly presented itself to me. If I had previously lived on the moon or in Mars, and I had there been dishonored and disgraced so utterly that one can only imagine it sometimes in a dream or a nightmare, and if I afterwards found myself on earth and still preserved a consciousness of what I had done on the other planet, and if I knew besides that I would never by any chance return, then, if I were to look at the moon from the earth — would it be all the same to me or not? Would I feel any shame for my action or not? The questions were idle and useless, for the revolver was already lying before me, and I knew with all my being that this thing would happen for certain: but the questions excited me to rage. I could not die now, without having solved this first. In a word, that little girl saved me, for my questions made me postpone pulling the trigger.

Just as he ponders this, the protagonist slips into sleep in the easy-chair, but it’s a sleep that has the quality of wakeful dreaming. In one of many wonderful semi-asides, Dostoyevsky peers at the eternal question of why we have dreams:

Dreams are extraordinarily strange. One thing appears with terrifying clarity, with the details finely set like jewels, while you leap over another, as though you did not notice it at all — space and time, for instance. It seems that dreams are the work not of mind but of desire, not of the head but of the heart… In a dream things quite incomprehensible come to pass. For instance, my brother died five years ago. Sometimes I see him in a dream: he takes part in my affairs, and we are very excited, while I, all the time my dream goes on, know and remember perfectly that my brother is dead and buried. Why am I not surprised that he, though dead, is still near me and busied about me? Why does my mind allow all that?

In this strange state, the protagonist dreams that he takes his revolver and points it at his heart — not his head, where he had originally intended to shoot himself. After waiting a second or two, his dream-self pulls the trigger quickly. Then something remarkable happens:

I felt no pain, but it seemed to me that with the report, everything in me was convulsed, and everything suddenly extinguished. It was terribly black all about me. I became as though blind and numb, and I lay on my back on something hard. I could see nothing, neither could I make any sound. People were walking and making a noise about me: the captain’s bass voice, the landlady’s screams… Suddenly there was a break. I am being carried in a closed coffin. I feel the coffin swinging and I think about that, and suddenly for the first time the idea strikes me that I am dead, quite dead. I know it and do not doubt it; I cannot see nor move, yet at the same time I feel and think. But I am soon reconciled to that, and as usual in a dream I accept the reality without a question.

Now I am being buried in the earth. Every one leaves me and I am alone, quite alone. I do not stir… I lay there and — strange to say — I expected nothing, accepting without question that a dead man has nothing to expect. But it was damp. I do not know how long passed — an hour, a few days, or many days. Suddenly, on my left eye which was closed, a drop of water fell, which had leaked through the top of the grave. In a minute fell another, then a third, and so on, every minute. Suddenly, deep indignation kindled in my heart and suddenly in my heart I felt physical pain. ‘It’s my wound,’ I thought. ‘It’s where I shot myself. The bullet is there.’ And all the while the water dripped straight on to my closed eye. Suddenly, I cried out, not with a voice, for I was motionless, but with all my being, to the arbiter of all that was being done to me.

“Whosoever thou art, if thou art, and if there exists a purpose more intelligent than the things which are now taking place, let it be present here also. But if thou dost take vengeance upon me for my foolish suicide, then know, by the indecency and absurdity of further existence, that no torture whatever that may befall me, can ever be compared to the contempt which I will silently feel, even through millions of years of martyrdom.”

I cried out and was silent. Deep silence lasted a whole minute. One more drop even fell. But I knew and believed, infinitely and steadfastly, that in a moment everything would infallibly change. Suddenly, my grave opened. I do not know whether it had been uncovered and opened, but I was taken by some dark being unknown to me, and we found ourselves in space. Suddenly, I saw. It was deep night; never, never had such darkness been! We were borne through space and were already far from the earth. I asked nothing of him who led me. I was proud and waited. I assured myself that I was not afraid, and my heart melted with rapture at the thought that I was not afraid. I do not remember how long we rushed through space, and I cannot imagine it. It happened as always in a dream when you leap over space and time and the laws of life and mind, and you stop only there where your heart delights.

The 1845 depiction of a galaxy that inspired Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night,’ from Michael Benson’s Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time

Through the thick darkness, he sees a star — the same little star he had seen before shooing the girl away. As the dream continues, the protagonist describes a sort of transcendence akin to what is experienced during psychedelic drug trips or in deep meditation states:

Suddenly a familiar yet most overwhelming emotion shook me through. I saw our sun. I knew that it could not be our sun, which had begotten our earth, and that we were an infinite distance away, but somehow all through me I recognized that it was exactly the same sun as ours, its copy and double. A sweet and moving delight echoed rapturously through my soul. The dear power of light, of that same light which had given me birth, touched my heart and revived it, and I felt life, the old life, for the first time since my death.

He finds himself in another world, Earthlike in every respect, except “everything seemed to be bright with holiday, with a great and sacred triumph, finally achieved” — a world populated by “children of the sun,” happy people whose eyes “shone with a bright radiance” and whose faces “gleamed with wisdom, and with a certain consciousness, consummated in tranquility.” The protagonist exclaims:

Oh, instantly, at the first glimpse of their faces I understood everything, everything!

Conceding that “it was only a dream,” he nonetheless asserts that “the sensation of the love of those beautiful and innocent people” was very much real and something he carried into wakeful life on Earth. Awaking in his easy-chair at dawn, he exclaims anew with rekindled gratitude for life:

Oh, now — life, life! I lifted my hands and called upon the eternal truth, not called, but wept. Rapture, ineffable rapture exalted all my being. Yes, to live…

Dostoyevsky concludes with his protagonist’s reflection on the shared essence of life, our common conquest of happiness and kindness:

All are tending to one and the same goal, at least all aspire to the same goal, from the wise man to the lowest murderer, but only by different ways. It is an old truth, but there is this new in it: I cannot go far astray. I saw the truth. I saw and know that men could be beautiful and happy, without losing the capacity to live upon the earth. I will not, I cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of men… I saw the truth, I did not invent it with my mind. I saw, saw, and her living image filled my soul for ever. I saw her in such consummate perfection that I cannot possibly believe that she was not among men. How can I then go astray? … The living image of what I saw will be with me always, and will correct and guide me always. Oh, I am strong and fresh, I can go on, go on, even for a thousand years.

[…]

And it is so simple… The one thing is — love thy neighbor as thyself — that is the one thing. That is all, nothing else is needed. You will instantly find how to live.

A century later, Jack Kerouac would echo this in his own magnificent meditation on kindness and the “Golden Eternity.”

A Writer’s Diary is a beautiful read in its entirety. Complement it with Tolstoy on finding meaning in a meaningless world and Margaret Mead’s dreamed epiphany about why life is like blue jelly.

Hades and the Helm of Darkness

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Myth Crafts

The Helm of Darkness…sounds awesome right? Also known by the less impressive title of The Cap of Invisibility, this powerful object rendered anyone who wore it completely invisible. Originally forged by the craft masters among the Cyclops, this object is part of a triad of weapons especially created during the Greek Titanomachy, the great war between the Titans and the Olympians. Before the war began the Cyclops had been imprisoned in the earth by the Titan Cronus, but Zeus freed them along with the Hecatonchires (the hundred-handed ones), recruiting them to his side and tipping the scales of the war. As part of the war effort, the Cyclops created three supernatural objects for the three first generational Olympian brothers; a thunderbolt for Zeus, a trident for Poseidon and a helmet for Hades.

Hades used his helmet to great effect during the Titanomachy, and the Olympians eventually emerged victorious, banishing the…

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Hidebound Hump Day — Cornelis Drebbel 8

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Just keep reading 😊❤🌹

Teagan's Books

Wednesday, September 26, 2018 

Thanks to everyone who visited the virtual art show, Under the SeaI preempted the Straightlaced Saturday edition of this serial for that post, but today the steampunk locomotive is back on track.

Steampunk eye unsplasy CAWTLadies and gentlemen, I bid you welcome to Hidebound Hump Day, where we continue our Victorian adventure from Wednesday last.  Horsefeathers… I can’t talk that way unless “Felicity” is firmly in my head — and she’s off trying to keep Cornelis in line. If I had kept going, I think I might have hurt myself.

Previously with Copper, the Alchemist, and the Woman in Trousers

Cornelis Drebbel, the alchemist, and Felicity, the woman in trousers met a curious little girl with hair the color of a new penny — Copper.  At her home, they found an unknown dead man in the study, and Copper’s father was missing.  People from a hateful orphanage showed up with…

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Countdown

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cakeordeathsite

The Surrealist-Victor Brauner 1947 The Surrealist-Victor Brauner 1947

Count it down,
Let it begin,
So that we be finished,
Better sooner than later.
We never start something
Without wanting it over,
Done with all that,
Time
To start on something else,
Something brand spanking
New
So in descending order
Because to go down
Is really an ascension
Concentrate hard
On the numbers chosen
Whether it be
696, 695, 694
or
93, 92, 91
Or perhaps just
21
Forever significant
(But everything has significance)
So let the countdown …

She turns over the card and pauses,
Lost in contemplation and glances
Over at the abstracted young man
Looking downwards at the table,
There cannot be any doubt, no,
Not this time for once she is sure:
She waits until his coppered stare
Intermingles with her agate rays
Before speaking, carefully considers
The weight and import of each word
“Do you see this card, Le Bateleur,

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Another Glass of Sangria

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Climax-Gaspar Noé Climax-Gaspar Noé 2018

Near the beginning of Gaspar Noé’s dance-horror movie Climax, we are introduced to the dancers via their audition interviews, which are played on a TV surrounded by VHS titles (it is set in 1996), which include such gonzo avant-garde/horror films as Suspiria, Possession, Salo, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Un Chien Andalou, further signalling (just in case you missed the bloodied body crawling through the snow at the start, and that it is a Noé movie) that what is to follow is going to be a full frontal assault on the senses. Whether you love it or hate it, Climax certainly succeeds as an overwhelming experience.

But before we go down to  Hell, we get a glimpse of Heaven in the extraordinary dance scene. Shot in one very long take, the young and diverse dancers, in their final rehearsal before leaving France to tour America, produce…

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A Mermaid’s Dream House, Casa Battlo

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Deborah J. Brasket

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When I stepped inside Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona, I felt like I was back on La Gitana, swimming through the coral beds and sea caves. Mesmerized by the mysterious and fantastic shapes I found at every turn, and dazzled by the kaleidoscopic colors that surrounded me, as if refracted through streams of light.

There are no straight lines in this house that floats upward four floors on spiral stairs. The rooms have no corners, only softly rounded contours, detailed by wisps, curls, and bubbles, as if sculpted by waves and etched with sea-foam. Light streams through every window and down stair shafts and through stained glass.

Follow me from ground floor to roof to see more of Gaudi’s masterpiece. All the photos are my own except where otherwise noted. More photos

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was a Spanish architect from Catalonia. His most famous works, Casa Battlo and…

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Tyger Tyger

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The Tyger, written and illustrated by William Blake The Tyger-Written and Illustrated by William Blake from Songs of Experience 1794

The Tyger which was first published in 1794 in  William Blake’s Songs of Experience  was later merged with Blake’s previous collection of 1789 Songs of Innocence as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. As with all of Blake’s work it was illuminated and printed by himself.

The Tyger is probably the most famous of Blake’s poems and justifiably so. It is a magical distillation of Blake’s major themes and metaphysics in a short poem of six, four line stanzas with a miraculous melding of form and content. It is in my opinion, the one poem in English literature that comes closest to achieving absolute perfection.

At the time of writing tigers would still have possessed a near mythical status. It is possible that Blake may have seen…

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