View allAll Photos Tagged INTERDEPENDENT
"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another." - Wikipedia
Just having some fun with my morning eggs. Thanks for visiting.
The Atala butterfly is strange to photograph. The colored areas are vague at the margins so the color looks like it has been dusted on a bit carelessly. But look at its marvelous tones below... deep velvety blue, bright sky blue and a brilliant red orange! It is very fast moving so getting a shot at all is always a thrill! Usually looks like a vibrant patch of astounding flying color and it's gone.
Interdependencies in nature once again. This marvelous creature owes its life to the Florida Coontie which was almost wiped out after being the money crop of the first Florida pioneers. Without the Coontie, this beauty will be gone. Coontie is the host plant and the only plant the Atala can lay its eggs on. The short, woody stem and rootstock of the Coontie grows almost completely underground and produces a terminal crown of stiff, evergreen, pinnate leaves up to 3 feet long. The brown, fleshy, erect, female or seed-bearing cones are pendent when mature. Coontie plants contain a natural toxin, which atala larvae accumulate in their bodies and use to repel birds. Without coontie, adult atalas have no place to lay eggs. No eggs means no new generations. .
Wild coonties’ demise began with starch: Long before Europeans arrived in Florida, Native Americans used coontie as a source of starch. Coontie, in fact, is a Seminole word that means “bread” or “white root” because the roots can be made into arrowroot flour. The Tequesta Indians thrived in the Arch Creek area. The oak hammock near the creek provided shade, edible plants, nuts and berries. Nearby Biscayne Bay provided shellfish, shark, manatee and turtle. North of the hammock were pine flatlands which sheltered the all-important coontie plant (Zamia integrifolia).
Around 1858 two ambitious pioneers used the creek and its natural bridge as a site for a coontie starch mill. These early entrepreneurs learned how to clean the poisonous roots and dammed up the waterway under the bridge diverting the flow through a sluice they carved out of a solid limestone bank. The water turned a wooden wheel attached to a nail-studded grinder which mashed the cootie roots into a paste-like pulp which was soaked and strained to remove any remaining poison. Laid out in wooden racks, the starch dried quickly and the sun bleached it white. In the early 1900s, several commercial factories in South Florida processed coontie roots for the manufacture of arrowroot biscuits. Unfortunately the coontie was overused and the Atala had no place to lay its eggs. In recent years, there is a great effort to reestablish coontie and as a result the Atala is coming back! And coming back abundantlyl!
Atala Eumaeus
Miami, FL
For more images of this rare, nearly extinct beauty, see my set Florida Butterflies.
Ruth Asawa began making art as a teenager while forcibly detained by the US government in an internment camp during World War II alongside her family and thousands of other people of Japanese descent, including animators from Walt Disney, who helped her learn to draw and paint. After moving to San Francisco in 1949, Asawa began constructing suspended sculptures, transforming everyday industrial materials – rough brass, steel, and heavy copper wire – into sinuous and graceful spherical forms, which, although three-dimensional in volume, do not contain any interior mass. Inspired by a basket weaving technique learned during a 1947 summer trip to Mexico while she was at Black Mountain College, Asawa’s looped-wire sculptures like Untitled (S.030, Hanging Eight Separate Cones Suspended through Their Centers; c. 1952) are grounded in the singular qualities of her chosen material. Making use of wire’s capacity for malleability, translucency, and solidity, the hanging sculpture Untitled (S.101, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form; c. 1962) is comprised of a series of translucent wire cocoons – a form that gives the work’s surface a womblike identity. In their suggestion of waves, plants, and trees, Asawa’s supple forms make particular use of the formal connection between the interior and exterior surfaces of the work, a relationship that the artist long described as interdependent and integral.
Madeline Weisburg
www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022/leaf-gourd-shell-net-bag-s...
Day 109 - April 19, 2010
Standard guitars come with six strings arranged from thinnest to thickest. The sixth string, (the one closest to the ceiling) is the thickest and produces the lowest pitch. But aside from the deep tone it creates, of equal if not more importance is the fact that the sixth string is also used as the reference string for tuning a guitar.
When tuning, you see, the sixth string is tuned first, then all the others follow. If you tune one string wrong, the one that follows will be out of tune. You get the picture (pun intended).
Life, on the other hand, may be less about tuning, but as the strings of a guitar are interdependent, so are we. How we chose to live our life in turn affects the lives of those closest to us.
pt.kingdomsalvation.org/videos/God-the-unique-vii-3-word....
Deus Todo-Poderoso diz: "Deus criou todas as coisas interconectadas, mutuamente entrelaçadas e interdependentes. Ele usou esse método e essas regras para manter a sobrevivência e a existência de todas as coisas e dessa forma a humanidade viveu tranquila e pacificamente, cresceu e se multiplicou de uma geração para a seguinte nesse ambiente de vida até os dias atuais. Ou seja, Deus equilibra o ambiente natural. Se a soberania e o controle de Deus não estivessem em ordem, nenhum homem poderia manter e equilibrar o ambiente, mesmo se fosse criado por Deus em primeiro lugar."
Fonte da imagem：de Igreja de Deus Todo-Poderoso
we are all interdependent. if we make someone (including ourselves) "other," then we lose access to empathy, tolerance, and understanding. that fearful place of "other" creates inward and outward conflict. in the wise words of martin luther king jr.: "i have decided to stick with love. hate is too great a burden to bear." so flickr friends (and people i have not yet met), in celebration of mlk, please know this: the light in me sees the light in you, always.
"The dance between darkness and light will always remain— the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars."
C. JoyBell C.
Follow me on: Facebook - Flickriver - Tumblr. - Twitter
© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved.
Another reworked shot from our visit to South Africa in 2017.
The 'Circle of Life' is very apparent, with an ecosystem that is interdependent on the variety of creatures, including this Vulture, which is part of the clean up crew.
This shot was backlit and dark. Luminar3 helped bring out the details.
Mas Subramanian and his team actually wanted to test the magnetic and electric properties of manganese oxide, but instead stumbled upon a previously unknown pigment, YInMn Blue. And it’s precisely this shade of blue that adorns the posters announcing this year’s Ars Electronica Festival and its “Error – The Art of Imperfection” theme. September 6-10, 2018, the focus will be on mistakes, fails, blunders and deviations from the norm. Whether celebrated as a marvelous source of innovation or scorned as the cause of catastrophic accidents, error is the center of attention this year.
Ars Electronica is once again summoning hundreds of artists, scientists, engineers, designers, technologists, entrepreneurs and social activists worldwide to gather in Linz September 6-10 to jointly investigate current technological and social interdependencies and their potential future manifestations. The festival locations are arrayed through the heart of the inner city, with POSTCITY as the hub and setting of such highlights as the Big Concert Night, the u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD festival and a jam-packed lineup of conferences featuring stellar participants.
The website of the 2018 Ars Electronica Festival can be found here
credit: Ars Electronica / Martin Hieslmair
"The Octagon House, also known as the Colonel John Tayloe III House, is located at 1799 New York Avenue, Northwest in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. After the British destroyed the White House during the War of 1812, the house served as the temporary residence of James Madison, President of the United States, for a period of six months. It is one of only five houses to serve as the presidential residence in the history of the United States of America and one of only three (along with the White House and Blair House) that still stand.
Colonel John Tayloe III, for whom the house was built, was born at Mount Airy – which he later inherited – the colonial estate built by his father, John Tayloe II on the north bank of the Rappahannock River across from Tappahannock, Virginia. By this time, it was the centerpiece of a roughly 60,000 acre department of interdependent plantation farms-known as the Mount Airy department, located approximately one hundred miles south of Washington, D.C., in Richmond County, Virginia. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University in England, served in the Virginia state legislature, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1800.
John Tayloe III married Ann Ogle, daughter of Benjamin Ogle and granddaughter to Samuel Ogle of Ogle Hall Annapolis, Maryland, in 1792 at her family's country home Belair Mansion. Ann was only a year younger than her husband. Tayloe was reputed to be the richest Virginian planter of his time, and built the house in Washington at the suggestion of George Washington on land purchased from Gustavus W. Scott or Benjamin Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy. The Octagon was originally constructed to be a winter residence for the Tayloe family, but they lived in the house year-round from 1818 to 1855. The Octagon property originally included a number of outbuildings, including a smokehouse, laundry, stables, carriage house, slave quarters, and an ice house (the only surviving outbuilding). The Tayloes were involved in shipbuilding, horse breeding and racing, and owned several iron foundries—they were fairly diversified for a plantation family. The Tayloes owned hundreds of slaves, and had between 12 and 18 who worked at the Octagon.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia, also known as just Washington or simply D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River, which forms its southwestern and southern border with the U.S. state of Virginia, and it shares a land border with the U.S. state of Maryland on its other sides. The city was named for George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, and the federal district is named after Columbia, the female personification of the nation. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S. with over 20 million annual visitors as of 2016.
The U.S. Constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; the district is not a part of any U.S. state (nor is it one itself). The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district located along the Potomac River near the country's East Coast. The City of Washington was founded in 1791, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. In 1801, the territory, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia (including the settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria), officially became recognized as the federal district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the district. There have been efforts to make the city into a state since the 1880s, a movement that has gained momentum in recent years, and a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021.
The city is divided into quadrants centered on the Capitol, and there are as many as 131 neighborhoods. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 689,545, which makes it the 23rd most populous city in the U.S. as of 2020, the third most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and gives it a population larger than that of two U.S. states: Wyoming and Vermont. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington's metropolitan area, the country's sixth largest (including parts of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia), had a 2020 estimated population of 6.3 million residents; and over 54 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the District.
The three branches of the U.S. federal government are centered in the district: Congress (legislative), the president (executive), and the Supreme Court (judicial). Washington is home to many national monuments and museums, primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 177 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profits, lobbying groups, and professional associations, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, AARP, the National Geographic Society, the American Red Cross, and others.
A locally elected mayor and a 13-member council have governed the district since 1973. Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. The District of Columbia does not have representation in Congress, although D.C. residents elect a single at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives who has no vote. District voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961." - info from Wikipedia.
The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
Lamellae, Singapore
Ahtehha, 2019
A shelf and display case for research (printed/3d pritned) in the Digital Manufacturing and Design lab.
A multi-agent approach to fabrication. Adapting a lamella system assembly to freeform geometry, every element has a reciprocal relationship with the neighboring pieces creating a complex, interdependent geometry. This is heightened by using 5-axis CNC swarf cutting to maintain surface continuity at joints and integrating all mortise and tenon connections. Each element is modelled as an instance of an agent that determines positioning, relationships with adjacent members, and geometric requirements. The precision of the geometry and CNC fabrication allows for direct assembly that holds by friction-fit alone.
The Representative of Humanity (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon. This was intended to be placed in the first Goetheanum. It shows a central human figure, the "Representative of Humanity," holding a balance between opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction personified as the beings of Lucifer and Ahriman. It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves. The sculpture is now on permanent display at the Goetheanum.
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861– 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist,and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His ideas are largely pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education,biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
Steiner first began speaking publicly about spiritual experiences and phenomena in his 1899 lectures to the Theosophical Society. By 1901 he had begun to write about spiritual topics, initially in the form of discussions of historical figures such as the mystics of the Middle Ages. By 1904 he was expressing his own understanding of these themes in his essays and books, while continuing to refer to a wide variety of historical sources.
A world of spiritual perception is discussed in a number of writings which I have published since this book appeared. The Philosophy of Freedom forms the philosophical basis for these later writings. For it tries to show that the experience of thinking, rightly understood, is in fact an experience of spirit.
(Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom, Consequences of Monism)
Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences. He believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others. Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love. His philosophical ideas were affected by Franz Brentano, with whom he had studied, as well as by Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.
Steiner used the word Geisteswissenschaft (from Geist = mind or spirit, Wissenschaft = science), a term originally coined by Wilhelm Dilthey as a descriptor of the humanities, in a novel way, to describe a systematic ("scientific") approach to spirituality. Steiner used the term Geisteswissenschaft, generally translated into English as "spiritual science," to describe a discipline treating the spirit as something actual and real, starting from the premise that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind what is sense-perceptible. He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality, and required close attention to the particular period and culture which provided the distinctive character of religious qualities in the course of the evolution of consciousness. In contrast to William James' pragmatic approach to religious and psychic experience, which emphasized its idiosyncratic character, Steiner focused on ways such experience can be rendered more intelligible and integrated into human life.
Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology[81] and that the form of external nature would be more comprehensible as a result of insight into the course of karma in the evolution of humanity. Beginning in 1910, he described aspects of karma relating to health, natural phenomena and free will, taking the position that a person is not bound by his or her karma, but can transcend this through actively taking hold of one's own nature and destiny. In an extensive series of lectures from February to September 1924, Steiner presented further research on successive reincarnations of various individuals and described the techniques he used for karma research.
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity. From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,[136] while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work, The Philosophy of Freedom.
In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine Lucifer-Gnosis and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world. Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as How to Know Higher Worlds (1904–5) and Cosmic Memory. The book An Outline of Esoteric Science was published in 1910. Important themes include:
the human being as body, soul and spirit;
the path of spiritual development;
spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
reincarnation and karma.
Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis that spiritual science is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter.
For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity. Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:[73]: Pt II, Chapter 1
Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;
Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation (situational ethics); and
Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.
Steiner termed his work from this period onwards Anthroposophy. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent judgment; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to logical understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results. Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and freedom.
Goethean science is not science, but pseudoscience. According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims:
wrong color theory;
obtuse criticism of the theory of relativity;
weird ideas about motions of the planets;
supporting vitalism;
doubting germ theory;
weird approach to physiological systems;
"the heart is not a pump".
In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where both accurate perception and imagination were required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze). He postulated that Goethe had sought, but been unable to fully find, the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom. Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy. Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception.
Particular organic forms can be evolved only from universal types, and every organic entity we experience must coincide with some one of these derivative forms of the type. Here the evolutionary method must replace the method of proof. We aim not to show that external conditions act upon one another in a certain way and thereby bring about a definite result, but that a particular form has developed under definite external conditions out of the type. This is the radical difference between inorganic and organic science.
— Rudolf Steiner, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Chapter XVI, "Organic Nature"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner
Rudolf Steiner developed exercises aimed at cultivating new cognitive faculties he believed would be appropriate to contemporary individual and cultural development. According to Steiner's view of history, in earlier periods people were capable of direct spiritual perceptions, or clairvoyance, but not yet of rational thought; more recently, rationality has been developed at the cost of spiritual perception, leading to the alienation characteristic of modernity. Steiner proposed that humanity now has the task of synthesizing the rational and contemplative/spiritual components of cognition, whereby spiritual perception would be awakened through intensifying thinking. He considered this relevant not only to personal development, but as a foundation for advanced scientific research
Moral background of spiritual development[edit]
A central principle of Steiner's proposed path to spiritual development is that self-development - inner transformation - is a necessary part of the spiritual path: "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to the spiritual philosophy Steiner founded, anthroposophy, moral development: reveals the extent to which a person has achieved control over his or her inner life;
ensures that he or she lives in harmony with the surrounding natural and social world;
correlates with his or her progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception; and
guarantees the capacity to distinguish between true perceptions and illusions, or to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements and objective realities.
Meditative path.
Steiner described three stages of meditative progress: imaginative cognition, inspiration and intuition.
In imaginative cognition, the meditant aims to achieve thinking independent of sensory perception through concentration on either visual forms of symbolic significance never encountered in the sensory world (e.g. a black cross with a circle of seven red roses superimposed upon it), metamorphoses (e.g. the growth cycle of a plant from seed to mature flower), or mantric verses spoken aloud or silently (e.g. verses for each week of the year intended to connect the meditant with the rhythms of nature).
In inspiration, the meditant seeks to eliminate all consciously chosen meditative content to open a receptive space in which objective spiritual content (impressions stemming from objective spiritual beings) may be encountered. The meditative activity established in inspirative cognition is set forth without concrete content.
The stage of intuition is achieved through practicing exercises of will (e.g. reviewing the sequence of the day's events in reverse order). At this stage, the meditant seeks unity with the creative forces of the cosmos without any loss of his or her individualized consciousness.
This sequence of meditative stages has the ultimate goal of the meditant experiencing his or her own karma and previous incarnations, as well as the "Akashic record" of historical events.
Preliminary requirements for embarking on a spiritual training[edit]
Steiner believed that in order for a spiritual training to bear "healthy fruits," a person would have to attend to the following:
Striving to develop a healthy body and soul.
Feeling connected with all of existence; to recognize oneself in everything, and everything in oneself; not to judge others without standing in their shoes.
Recognizing that one's thoughts and feelings have as significant an influence as one's deeds, and that work on one's inner life is as important as work on one's outer life.
Recognizing that the true essence of a human being does not lie in the person's outer appearance, but rather in the inner nature, in the soul and spiritual existence of this person.
Finding the genuine balance between having an open heart for the demands of the outer world and maintaining inner strength and "unshakeable endurance."
The ability to be true to a decision once made, even in the face of daunting adversity, until one comes to the conclusion that it was or is made in error.
Developing thankfulness for everything that meets us, and that universal love which allows the world to reveal itself fully to oneself.
Supplementary exercises
Steiner suggested that certain exercises should accompany all meditational practices as a measure of protection against possible negative influences caused by the meditation in the life of the individual. These six exercises, meant to foster positive soul qualities, are:
Practice self-control over one's thinking. For example: for a period of time -at least five minutes- contemplate any object and concentrate one's thoughts exclusively on this object. (A pencil or a paper clip might do.)
Exercise willpower by choosing any free deed, i.e. one that nothing is influencing you to do, and choose a regular time of day or day of the week to practice this. (E.g. water plants at the same time each day.)
Practice equanimity: foster calm emotional responses.
Try to see positive aspects in everything and to make the best out of every situation.
Practice being open to new experiences and ideas, never letting expectations based upon the past close your mind to the lessons of the moment.
Find a harmonious, balanced relationship between the above five qualities, practicing each regularly and becoming able to move dynamically between them.
The initial three exercises are intended to enable a person to attain self-discipline in thinking, willing and feeling.[1] The second group of three involve cultivating attitudes toward the world.
Individual exercises
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Exercises developed in anthroposophy include:
Review of the day. Each evening, going backwards through the day recalling its events, its sequential unfolding (experienced here reversed in time), the people one has met, etc.
Experiencing the year's unfolding. Exercises Steiner suggested here include:[citation needed]
Drawing the same plant or tree or landscape over the course of a year.
Meditating the sequence of 52 mantric verses that Steiner wrote to deepen one's experience of the course of the seasons and the year and to bring the inner life of the soul into dialogue with nature, the Soul Calendar.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises_for_sp...
Life pushes in and forces us to change. Our response to these forces can at times be very joyful and at other times very painful. The balancing of the emotions that come to us can make all the difference in how we choose to engage with life. Part of this adjustment requires us to use our experiences with what we read, what we see and who we share with. Growth will take place, if we are mature enough to listen within our depths to intuitions that guide us to adjust our journey to the realities that face us.
The question then becomes…what is reality? Who defines my realities? Again, that question can be answered with deep reflection on where we may find ourselves in our journey and those influences that we encounter along the way. My reality is not your reality but your reality helps me define my own.
-rc
/***************************************************************************
"What graces might come to the world if we remembered God not only as Person, as in Jesus Christ, but as Woman, calling out at the crossroads urging all the peoples of the world to see and relate to one another as members of one diverse but radically interdependent family. As a Mother, bent over her children in fierce protection, or crowning them with purpose and strength for the difficult journey ahead? As a Child, playing joyfully in the mountains, desert, and watercourses of creation? AS a Lover, not abstract and fleshless, but as one who loves us precisely in and through our bodies and despite our failings, still holds us in mercy and calls forth something strong and beautiful, something that we have long ago ceased to be?...What healing might rise in our own small circles of the world if we -male and female alike-embodied Sophia..."
-Christopher Pramuk, At Play in Creation: Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine. Pg. 104
/*****************************************************
Inscultures dels Vessant inferior del Quermany Petit
Pals. Costa Brava. Spain
By keeping 'safe' with the possible dates for just such a petroglyphic site, it is difficult to avoid an indigestion of ranges - here quoted as the mid Neolithic to the early bronze age or the classic 'either side of the Chalcolithic'. Anywhere from 6,000 to 3,800 ybp, or a boggling 2,200 years : a witness-set that up-heaves from first sedentary conglomeration, domestication, ages of megaliths, through to the collection of ores for copper smelting and the alliage of bronze as a long term replacement of polished stone. Vast qualitative changes that make the current internet revolution look slightly tepid by comparison. Finding ways to refine this range would seem to be an urgency. It is true that 'cups and rings' (here cups and canals) were used and created throughout this period with themes growing both organically, and arriving as finished complex 'abstractions'. Whilst the task may seem impossible, I propose two elements that may help turn attention to earlier dates for the Vessant site.
The site has 15 'registered' artificial cups and a further 5 that are potential geofacts. There are also around 10 smaller cups associated with a smaller bow shape that has been documented below. The outcrop appears as a classic hunter's gathering point - a place to meet before a group hunt, solid ground for plans, and a place to return to for the distribution of the cull. The neolithic is characterized by the slowing down and stopping of small clans. Whilst domesticated animals helped to provide milk and a guaranteed food supply, domestication did not put a stop to the hunting of wild animals such as boar and deer. A choice of sedentary fixed focal points for new dispersed populations to hunt from - specialist points that were outside from crofts and proto villages, with views that provided landscape, vista and data may, (and even should), have appeared like the rock pictured above. "Hangouts" for hunters - the first signs of what would in history become become the hunting lodge.
In an adjacent post's text of a rupestre archer's bow, I mentioned that cups may have reported individuals or clan representative who were present for a specific hunt - an elder hosting the gathering point, watching as tokens or amulets of individuals are placed into cups to prove that they were involved in the days of work. Here bigger cups are regulars, and from this logic, the cups of the above Vessant site, which has cups that are easily 12cm in diameter and 5cm deep, might suggest cups that have passed between generations, with the act of repeated cleaning being their attrition of growth. A small, long term and consistent community of hunters?
Out of view, and to the side of the rupestre in this photo is a 'bow' shape that is made of cups and canals (found on a flat surface to the upper left of this shot and not available in any documentation I have seen). There is an argument that this piece of rock art is younger simply due to the fact that the cups are smaller. If you look at the above image, there is another bow - much less obvious, but with the curve of the wood sprung to the left and the string a vertical. The scenario here is that the repeated use of the cups of this larger bow made the cups 'sag' with the image becoming less 'definitive'. At some point, a later generation decided to start from scratch and show their link around the object on an adjacent surface. One thing that may have pushed for this new representation of a bow, may have been the extraneous linked cups around the above bow, in effect confusing the 'reading' of the rock face. It may even be that random cups started to appear as a bow, and a later attempt was made to refine the original happenstanced fluidity. The question may even be put : might this gathering stone exist over a bridge of time that witnessed the introduction of the bow and arrow? This would push the date of the site from the beginning of the neolithic and into the mesolithic - a far fetched date from a deeper prehistory?
40km from this rock can be found the archaeological site and lake of 'La Draga' - a dated neolithic strata with potentially the earliest examples of preserved archer's bows in Europe. When things are new, they can become iconic. When things are iconic they can generate representations. Here the interdependently existing principles of the cup and canals may have simply 'bent' with excitement, aligning to the lines of a new tool (the bow). Aligning to the arrival of this cultural tool 'revolution' might tip the potential date closer to the Darga site's maximus - 7,400-7,200 ybp or, significantly prior to the current date range. A series of Levant Mesolithic caves associated with the hills that stretch down the inner eastern side of Spain include many dynamic and vivid images of archers. Some of the earliest of these images are thought to be in 'style II' or from a further 600 years prior to the Draga site. An example being the Arena caves archer images thought to be from around 8,000 ybp - utterly Mesolithic and from outside of the original 'safe zone'.
Caution, as cup size is not everything. As the form and method of 'cups and rings' expanded around Europe it did so as a cultural 'phenomena'. There seem to be examples of finished designs (lets say first appearing in pelt rolls) being transferred into stone. I discuss and try to explain this phenomena elsewhere. Some of these examples of rock art can include large cups that have obviously been pecked to size in one sitting. Another caution : hunting was not everything. The above stone may well have been apt for the the grouping of people around the subject of hunting. With time, the pleasures of 'meeting' as a 'club' may have led to groups forming around other subjects. As with the hunt, these second generation groups might enjoy neutral outcrops between villages. Dance, seeds, trade, skills, stars all being potential topics of meeting and conversation. And if a cup is aligned to a family, then a family member may feel at home stopping by. That these 'midways' also used new or existant cups and canals to describe persons present would be a simple social evolution apt for a gentle 2,200 year time-span. That the same cups and canals also became appropriated in secondary activities; from games, to rites; and from Babel stone language deciphering to conceptual discussion would also be deeply human. The cup is the noun and the line the vector in space making cup and ring 'maps' easily understandable for onlookers.
Today, some people use a library for research, others for warmth; some for a sleep and others for revision from books that the library does not hold. Likewise, a Mayors building might host civil marriages and decide upon when to give out rat poison or the appropriate amount of Christmas decoration for a date several months away - with the rule being that with humans, time can add flexible meaning beyond simple dictionary definitions. Understanding cups and rings may start to make sense when its modern theory has the strength to carry a healthy aporia of human clutter.
It can easily be seen that with just such 'midway' stones, a mechanism may exist as to how to move from the clan 'personification' of a 'transport dragon' (see photostream) to a new group identity via 'tribe', with ancient 'transport dragon' identities maintained as 'Gods'. As I propose that 'transport dragons' were largely a phenomena generated by extremes of weather, such as the ice age, deserts and even some crossing, it may be thought that landscapes without these extremes may have bypassed this group phase and thus arriving at 'tribes' from a different path or idiosyncratic chronology.
Rupestres images of archers from the Levant Espagnol:
Morella la Vella. Castellon.
Raco de Nando-Abri VI
Abri del Sordo
Cueva Remigia
Saltador A
Coveta de Montegordo.
Ulldecona...
AJM 15.06.18
Hiking partners, bonded, interdependent, man and dog high above the Columbia River in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon on the Starvation Creek Ridge trail #414. The Australian shepherd is wearing a Ruffwear Approach Pack.
BTW, the ridge trail had many varieties of wildflowers in bloom now at the end of April.
Best seen from the overlook.
Unlike most sites, two different cultural traditions are evident at Lowry. Portions of the pueblo are similar to early styles of Chacoan architecture, with later additions more characteristic of styles found at Mesa Verde. Lowry is among the northernmost Chaco-style communities, which may have formed an interdependent network spreading from Chaco Canyon, about 100 miles south in New Mexico. Later additions are more characteristic of those styles found at Mesa Verde.
【诗云轩】
【原诗】 致橡树 作者：舒婷
【Johanna Yueh 修改版】 To the Oak Tree By Shu Ting
我如果爱你—— If I love you --
绝不像攀援的凌霄花 I will never be a clinging trumpet creeper
借你的高枝炫耀自己 Using your high boughs to show off my height
我如果爱你—— If I love you --
绝不学痴情的鸟儿 I will never be a spoony bird
为绿荫重复单调的歌曲 Repeating a monotonous song for green shade
也不止像泉源 Or be a spring
常年送来清凉的慰藉 Bringing cool solace all year long
也不止像险峰 Or be a steep peak
增加你的高度 Increasing your stature
衬托你的威仪 reflecting your eminence
甚至日光 Even the sunlight
甚至春雨 Even the spring rain
不，这些都还不够 No, all these are not enough
我必须是你近旁的一株木棉 I must be a ceiba tree beside you
作为树的形象和你站在一起 Be the image of a tree standing together with you
根，紧握在地下 Our roots, entwined underground
叶，相触在云里 Our leaves, touching in the clouds
每一阵风过 With each gust of wind
我们都互相致意 We greet each other
但没有人 But nobody
听懂我们的言语 Can understand our words
你有你的铜枝铁干 You'll have your copper branches and iron trunk
像刀、像剑，也像戟 Like knives, like swords, like halberds, too
我有我的红硕花朵 I'll have my crimson flowers
像沉重的叹息 Like heavy sighs
又像英勇的火炬 And valiant torches
我们分担寒潮、风雷、霹雳 We'll share cold spells, storms and thunder
我们共享雾霭、流岚、虹霓 We'll share mists, hazes and rainbows
仿佛永远分离 Seemingly always apart
却又终身相依 But also forever interdependent
这才是伟大的爱情 Only this can be great love
坚贞就在这里 The loyalty is here
爱—— Love --
不仅爱你伟岸的身躯 I love not only your strapping stature
也爱你坚持的位置，足下的土地 But also your firm stand, the earth beneath you
（来源：中国网学英语频道）
These Atalas have just hatched! And they will hang till they dry and strengthen and then fly to a nearby nectar source to gain energy and vitality. So rare to see Atalas hatch and even more rare to see so many hatching at the same time!
The Atala butterfly is strange to photograph. The colored areas are vague at the margins so the color looks like it has been dusted on a bit carelessly. But look at its marvelous tones below... deep velvety blue, bright sky blue and a brilliant red orange! It is very fast moving so getting a shot at all is always a thrill! Usually looks like a vibrant patch of astounding flying color and it's gone.
Interdependencies in nature once again. This marvelous creature owes its life to the Florida Coontie which was almost wiped out after being the money crop of the first Florida pioneers. Without the Coontie, this beauty will be gone. Coontie is the host plant and the only plant the Atala can lay its eggs on. The short, woody stem and rootstock of the Coontie grows almost completely underground and produces a terminal crown of stiff, evergreen, pinnate leaves up to 3 feet long. The brown, fleshy, erect, female or seed-bearing cones are pendent when mature. Coontie plants contain a natural toxin, which atala larvae accumulate in their bodies and use to repel birds. Without coontie, adult atalas have no place to lay eggs. No eggs means no new generations. .
Wild coonties’ demise began with starch: Long before Europeans arrived in Florida, Native Americans used coontie as a source of starch. Coontie, in fact, is a Seminole word that means “bread” or “white root” because the roots can be made into arrowroot flour. The Tequesta Indians thrived in the Arch Creek area. The oak hammock near the creek provided shade, edible plants, nuts and berries. Nearby Biscayne Bay provided shellfish, shark, manatee and turtle. North of the hammock were pine flatlands which sheltered the all-important coontie plant (Zamia integrifolia).
Around 1858 two ambitious pioneers used the creek and its natural bridge as a site for a coontie starch mill. These early entrepreneurs learned how to clean the poisonous roots and dammed up the waterway under the bridge diverting the flow through a sluice they carved out of a solid limestone bank. The water turned a wooden wheel attached to a nail-studded grinder which mashed the cootie roots into a paste-like pulp which was soaked and strained to remove any remaining poison. Laid out in wooden racks, the starch dried quickly and the sun bleached it white. In the early 1900s, several commercial factories in South Florida processed coontie roots for the manufacture of arrowroot biscuits. Unfortunately the coontie was overused and the Atala had no place to lay its eggs. In recent years, there is a great effort to reestablish coontie and as a result the Atala is coming back! And coming back abundantlyl!
Atala Eumaeus
Urban Habitat, Biscayne Park, FL
I thought of this artpiece when I stayed with my mom earlier this year and she was reading the Dalai Lama's book (in collaboration with Franz Alt) :
“An Appeal to the World: The Way to Peace in a Time of Division.”
***************
"When the president of the United States says “America first,” he is making his voters happy. I can understand that. But from a global perspective, this statement isn’t relevant. Everything is interconnected today.
The new reality is that everyone is interdependent with everyone else. The United States is a leading nation of the free world. For this reason, I call on its president to think more about global-level issues. There are no national boundaries for climate protection or the global economy. No religious boundaries, either. The time has come to understand that we are the same human beings on this planet. Whether we want to or not, we must coexist.
History tells us that when people pursue only their own national interests, there is strife and war. This is shortsighted and narrow-minded. It is also unrealistic and outdated. Living together as brothers and sisters is the only way to peace, compassion, mindfulness and more justice.
The time has come to understand that we are the same human beings on this planet. Whether we want to or not, we must coexist.
Religion can to a certain degree help to overcome division. But religion alone will not be enough. Global secular ethics are now more important than the classical religions. We need a global ethic that can accept both believers and nonbelievers, including atheists.
My wish is that, one day, formal education will pay attention to the education of the heart, teaching love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, mindfulness, tolerance and peace. This education is necessary, from kindergarten to secondary schools and universities. I mean social, emotional and ethical learning. We need a worldwide initiative for educating heart and mind in this modern age.
At present our educational systems are oriented mainly toward material values and training one’s understanding. But reality teaches us that we do not come to reason through understanding alone. We should place greater emphasis on inner values.
Intolerance leads to hatred and division. Our children should grow up with the idea that dialogue, not violence, is the best and most practical way to solve conflicts. The young generations have a great responsibility to ensure that the world becomes a more peaceful place for all. But this can become reality only if we educate, not just the brain, but also the heart. The educational systems of the future should place greater emphasis on strengthening human abilities, such as warm-heartedness, a sense of oneness, humanity and love.
I see with ever greater clarity that our spiritual well-being depends not on religion, but on our innate human nature — our natural affinity for goodness, compassion and caring for others. Regardless of whether we belong to a religion, we all have a fundamental and profoundly human wellspring of ethics within ourselves. We need to nurture that shared ethical basis.
Ethics, as opposed to religion, are grounded in human nature. Through ethics, we can work on preserving creation. Empathy is the basis of human coexistence. It is my belief that human development relies on cooperation, not competition. Science tells us this.
We must learn that humanity is one big family. We are all brothers and sisters: physically, mentally and emotionally. But we are still focusing far too much on our differences instead of our commonalities. After all, every one of us is born the same way and dies the same way."
- The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso
The Atala butterfly is strange to photograph. The colored areas are vague at the margins so the color looks like it has been dusted on a bit carelessly. But look at its marvelous tones below... deep velvety blue, bright sky blue and a brilliant red orange! It is very fast moving so getting a shot at all is always a thrill! Usually looks like a vibrant patch of astounding flying color and it's gone.
Interdependencies in nature once again. This marvelous creature owes its life to the Florida Coontie which was almost wiped out after being the money crop of the first Florida pioneers. Without the Coontie, this beauty will be gone. Coontie is the host plant and the only plant the Atala can lay its eggs on. The short, woody stem and rootstock of the Coontie grows almost completely underground and produces a terminal crown of stiff, evergreen, pinnate leaves up to 3 feet long. The brown, fleshy, erect, female or seed-bearing cones are pendent when mature. Coontie plants contain a natural toxin, which atala larvae accumulate in their bodies and use to repel birds. Without coontie, adult atalas have no place to lay eggs. No eggs means no new generations. .
Wild coonties’ demise began with starch: Long before Europeans arrived in Florida, Native Americans used coontie as a source of starch. Coontie, in fact, is a Seminole word that means “bread” or “white root” because the roots can be made into arrowroot flour. The Tequesta Indians thrived in the Arch Creek area. The oak hammock near the creek provided shade, edible plants, nuts and berries. Nearby Biscayne Bay provided shellfish, shark, manatee and turtle. North of the hammock were pine flatlands which sheltered the all-important coontie plant (Zamia integrifolia).
Around 1858 two ambitious pioneers used the creek and its natural bridge as a site for a coontie starch mill. These early entrepreneurs learned how to clean the poisonous roots and dammed up the waterway under the bridge diverting the flow through a sluice they carved out of a solid limestone bank. The water turned a wooden wheel attached to a nail-studded grinder which mashed the cootie roots into a paste-like pulp which was soaked and strained to remove any remaining poison. Laid out in wooden racks, the starch dried quickly and the sun bleached it white. In the early 1900s, several commercial factories in South Florida processed coontie roots for the manufacture of arrowroot biscuits. Unfortunately the coontie was overused and the Atala had no place to lay its eggs. In recent years, there is a great effort to reestablish coontie and as a result the Atala is coming back! And coming back abundantlyl!
Atala Eumaeus
Miami, FL
For more images of this rare, nearly extinct beauty, see my set Florida Butterflies.
the theme is taken from an independence day interaction with dxg180. Each stone relies on the integrity of the next one . . .
On flickr we are interdependent - because we trust one another. I have recently had an experience that has thrown me a bit off balance. One of my contacts, completely out of character, sent me an email asking me for money because he was stranded abroad and his embassy wasn't helping him. Details were given of how I was to send the money etc. I feel upset as I had considered this contact a friend. I have removed him from my contact list, what else is there to do - but warn you of the danger of scams . . .
Kālī, also known as Kālikā (Sanskrit: कालिका), is the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, shakti. She is the fierce aspect of the goddess Durga (Parvati). The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death: Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kāla— the eternal time — the name of Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" (as in "time has come"). Hence, Kāli is the Goddess of Time and Change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation of evil forces still has some influence. Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Shākta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kāli as a benevolent mother goddess. Kālī is represented as the consort of Lord Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing. Shiva lies in the path of Kali, whose foot on Shiva subdues her anger.
ETYMOLOGY
Kālī is the feminine form of kālam ("black, dark coloured"). Kāla primarily means "time" but also means "black" in honor of being the first creation before light itself. Kālī means "the black one" and refers to her being the entity of "time" or "beyond time." Kāli is strongly associated with Shiva, and Shaivas derive the masculine Kāla (an epithet of Shiva) to come from her feminine name. A nineteenth-century Sanskrit dictionary, the Shabdakalpadrum, states: कालः शिवः। तस्य पत्नीति - काली। kālaḥ śivaḥ। tasya patnīti kālī - "Shiva is Kāla, thus, his consort is Kāli" referring to Devi Parvathi being a manifestation of Devi MahaKali.
Other names include Kālarātri ("black night"), as described above, and Kālikā ("relating to time"). Coburn notes that the name Kālī can be used as a proper name, or as a description of color.
Kāli's association with darkness stands in contrast to her consort, Shiva, who manifested after her in creation, and who symbolises the rest of creation after Time is created. In his supreme awareness of Maya, his body is covered by the white ashes of the cremation ground (Sanskrit: śmaśāna) where he meditates, and with which Kāli is also associated, as śmaśāna-kālī.
ORIGINS
Hugh Urban notes that although the word Kālī appears as early as the Atharva Veda, the first use of it as a proper name is in the Kathaka Grhya Sutra (19.7). Kali is the name of one of the seven tongues of Agni, the [Rigvedic] God of Fire, in the Mundaka Upanishad (2:4), but it is unlikely that this refers to the goddess. The first appearance of Kāli in her present form is in the Sauptika Parvan of the Mahabharata (10.8.64). She is called Kālarātri (literally, "black night") and appears to the Pandava soldiers in dreams, until finally she appears amidst the fighting during an attack by Drona's son Ashwatthama. She most famously appears in the sixth century Devi Mahatmyam as one of the shaktis of Mahadevi, and defeats the demon Raktabija ("Bloodseed"). The tenth-century Kalika Purana venerates Kāli as the ultimate reality.
According to David Kinsley, Kāli is first mentioned in Hinduism as a distinct goddess around 600 CE, and these texts "usually place her on the periphery of Hindu society or on the battlefield." She is often regarded as the Shakti of Shiva, and is closely associated with him in various Puranas. The Kalika Purana depicts her as the "Adi Shakti" (Fundamental Power) and "Para Prakriti" or beyond nature.
WORSHIP & MANTRA
Kali could be considered a general concept, like Durga, and is mostly worshiped in the Kali Kula sect of worship. The closest way of direct worship is Maha Kali or Bhadra Kali (Bhadra in Sanskrit means 'gentle'). Kali is worshiped as one of the 10 Mahavidya forms of Adi Parashakti (Goddess Durga) or Bhagavathy according to the region. The mantra for worship is called Devi Argala Stotram.
Sanskrit: सर्वमङ्गलमाङ्गल्ये शिवे सर्वार्थसाधिके । शरण्ये त्र्यम्बके गौरि नारायणि नमोऽस्तु ते ॥
ॐ जयंती मंगल काली भद्रकाली कपालिनी । दुर्गा क्षमा शिवा धात्री स्वाहा स्वधा नमोऽस्तुते ॥
(Sarvamaṅgalamāṅgalyē śivē sarvārthasādhikē . śaraṇyē tryambakē gauri nārāyaṇi namō'stu tē.
Oṃ jayantī mangala kālī bhadrakālī kapālinī . durgā kṣamā śivā dhātrī svāhā svadhā namō'stutē.)
TANTRA
Goddesses play an important role in the study and practice of Tantra Yoga, and are affirmed to be as central to discerning the nature of reality as are the male deities. Although Parvati is often said to be the recipient and student of Shiva's wisdom in the form of Tantras, it is Kāli who seems to dominate much of the Tantric iconography, texts, and rituals. In many sources Kāli is praised as the highest reality or greatest of all deities. The Nirvana-tantra says the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva all arise from her like bubbles in the sea, ceaselessly arising and passing away, leaving their original source unchanged. The Niruttara-tantra and the Picchila-tantra declare all of Kāli's mantras to be the greatest and the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra all proclaim Kāli vidyas (manifestations of Mahadevi, or "divinity itself"). They declare her to be an essence of her own form (svarupa) of the Mahadevi.
In the Mahanirvana-tantra, Kāli is one of the epithets for the primordial sakti, and in one passage Shiva praises her:
At the dissolution of things, it is Kāla [Time] Who will devour all, and by reason of this He is called Mahākāla [an epithet of Lord Shiva], and since Thou devourest Mahākāla Himself, it is Thou who art the Supreme Primordial Kālika. Because Thou devourest Kāla, Thou art Kāli, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called the Adya [the Primordial One]. Re-assuming after Dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable. Though having a form, yet art Thou formless; though Thyself without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya, Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress that Thou art.
The figure of Kāli conveys death, destruction, and the consuming aspects of reality. As such, she is also a "forbidden thing", or even death itself. In the Pancatattva ritual, the sadhaka boldly seeks to confront Kali, and thereby assimilates and transforms her into a vehicle of salvation. This is clear in the work of the Karpuradi-stotra, a short praise of Kāli describing the Pancatattva ritual unto her, performed on cremation grounds. (Samahana-sadhana)
He, O Mahākāli who in the cremation-ground, naked, and with dishevelled hair, intently meditates upon Thee and recites Thy mantra, and with each recitation makes offering to Thee of a thousand Akanda flowers with seed, becomes without any effort a Lord of the earth. Oh Kāli, whoever on Tuesday at midnight, having uttered Thy mantra, makes offering even but once with devotion to Thee of a hair of his Shakti [his energy/female companion] in the cremation-ground, becomes a great poet, a Lord of the earth, and ever goes mounted upon an elephant.
The Karpuradi-stotra clearly indicates that Kāli is more than a terrible, vicious, slayer of demons who serves Durga or Shiva. Here, she is identified as the supreme mistress of the universe, associated with the five elements. In union with Lord Shiva, she creates and destroys worlds. Her appearance also takes a different turn, befitting her role as ruler of the world and object of meditation. In contrast to her terrible aspects, she takes on hints of a more benign dimension. She is described as young and beautiful, has a gentle smile, and makes gestures with her two right hands to dispel any fear and offer boons. The more positive features exposed offer the distillation of divine wrath into a goddess of salvation, who rids the sadhaka of fear. Here, Kali appears as a symbol of triumph over death.
BENGALI TRADITION
Kali is also a central figure in late medieval Bengali devotional literature, with such devotees as Ramprasad Sen (1718–75). With the exception of being associated with Parvati as Shiva's consort, Kāli is rarely pictured in Hindu legends and iconography as a motherly figure until Bengali devotions beginning in the early eighteenth century. Even in Bengāli tradition her appearance and habits change little, if at all.
The Tantric approach to Kāli is to display courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night, despite her terrible appearance. In contrast, the Bengali devotee appropriates Kāli's teachings adopting the attitude of a child, coming to love her unreservedly. In both cases, the goal of the devotee is to become reconciled with death and to learn acceptance of the way that things are. These themes are well addressed in Rāmprasād's work. Rāmprasād comments in many of his other songs that Kāli is indifferent to his wellbeing, causes him to suffer, brings his worldly desires to nothing and his worldly goods to ruin. He also states that she does not behave like a mother should and that she ignores his pleas:
Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of the stone? [a reference to Kali as the daughter of Himalaya]
Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her lord?
Men call you merciful, but there is no trace of mercy in you, Mother.
You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as a garland around your neck.
It matters not how much I call you "Mother, Mother." You hear me, but you will not listen.
To be a child of Kāli, Rāmprasād asserts, is to be denied of earthly delights and pleasures. Kāli is said to refrain from giving that which is expected. To the devotee, it is perhaps her very refusal to do so that enables her devotees to reflect on dimensions of themselves and of reality that go beyond the material world.
A significant portion of Bengali devotional music features Kāli as its central theme and is known as Shyama Sangeet ("Music of the Night"). Mostly sung by male vocalists, today even women have taken to this form of music. One of the finest singers of Shyāma Sāngeet is Pannalal Bhattacharya.
In Bengal, Kāli is venerated in the festival Kali Puja, the new moon day of Ashwin month which coincides with Diwali festival.
In a unique form of Kāli worship, Shantipur worships Kāli in the form of a hand painted image of the deity known as Poteshwari (meaning the deity drawn on a piece of cloth).
LEGENDS
SLAYER OF RAKTABIJA
In Kāli's most famous legend, Devi Durga (Adi Parashakti) and her assistants, the Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabija, in various ways and with a variety of weapons in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation for with every drop of blood that is dripped from Raktabija he reproduces a clone of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with his duplicates. Durga, in need of help, summons Kāli to combat the demons. It is said, in some versions, that Goddess Durga actually assumes the form of Goddess Kāli at this time. The Devi Mahatmyam describes:
Out of the surface of her (Durga's) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger's skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.
Kali destroys Raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many Raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. Pleased with her victory, Kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain. In the Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as a Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Cāṃuṇḍā (Chamunda), i.e. the slayer of the demons Chanda and Munda. Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.
DAKSHINA KALI
In her most famous pose as Daksinakali, popular legends say that Kali, becoming drunk on the blood of her victims on the battlefield, dances with destructive frenzy. She is about to destroy the whole universe when, urged by all the gods, Shiva lies in her way to stop her. In her fury, she fails to see the body of Shiva lying amongst the corpses on the battlefield and steps upon his chest. Realizing Shiva lies beneath her feet, her anger is pacified and she calms her fury. Though not included in any of the puranas, popular legends state that Kali was ashamed at the prospect of keeping her husband beneath her feet and thus stuck her tongue out in shame. The Devi-Bhagavata Purana, which goes into great depths about the goddess Kali, reveals the tongue's actual symbolism.
The characteristic icons that depict Kali are the following; unbridled matted hair, open blood shot eyes, open mouth and a drooping tongue; in her hands, she holds a Khadga (bent sword or scimitar) and a human head; she has a girdle of human hands across her waist and an enchanted Shiva lies beneath her feet. Each of these icons represent a deep philosophical epithet. The drooping out-stuck tongue represents her blood-thirst. Lord Shiva beneath her feet represents matter, as Kali is undoubtedly the primeval energy. The depiction of Kali on Shiva shows that without energy, matter lies "dead". This concept has been simplified to a folk-tale depicting a wife placing her foot on her husband and sticking her tongue out in shame. In tantric contexts, the tongue is seen to denote the element (guna) of rajas (energy and action) controlled by sattva.
If Kali steps on Shiva with her right foot and holds the sword in her left hand, she is considered to be Dakshina Kali. The Dakshina Kali Temple has important religious associations with the Jagannath Temple and it is believed that Daksinakali is the guardian of the kitchen of the Lord Jagannath Temple. Puranic tradition says that in Puri, Lord Jagannath is regarded as Daksinakalika. Goddess Dakshinakali plays an important role in the 'Niti' of Saptapuri Amavasya.
One South Indian tradition tells of a dance contest between Shiva and Kali. After defeating the two demons Sumbha and Nisumbha, Kali takes up residence in the forest of Thiruvalankadu or Thiruvalangadu. She terrorizes the surrounding area with her fierce, disruptive nature. One of Shiva's devotees becomes distracted while performing austerities, and asks Shiva to rid the forest of the destructive goddess. When Shiva arrives, Kali threatens him, claiming the territory as her own. Shiva challenges Kali to a dance contest; both of them dance and Kali matches Shiva in every step that he takes until Shiva takes the "Urdhvatandava" step, by vertically raising his right leg. Kali refuses to perform this step, which would not befit her as a woman, and became pacified.
SMASHAN KALI
If the Kali steps out with the left foot and holds the sword in her right hand, she is the terrible form of Mother, the Smashan Kali of the cremation ground. She is worshiped by tantrics, the followers of Tantra, who believe that one's spiritual discipline practiced in a smashan (cremation ground) brings success quickly. Sarda Devi, the consort of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, worshipped Smashan Kali at Dakshineshwar.
MATERNAL KALI
Another legend depicts the infant Shiva calming Kali. In this similar story, Kali has defeated her enemies on the battlefield and begun to dance out of control, drunk on the blood of the slain. To calm her down and to protect the stability of the world, Shiva is sent to the battlefield, as an infant, crying aloud. Seeing the child's distress, Kali ceases dancing to care for the helpless infant. She picks him up, kisses his head, and proceeds to breast feed the infant Shiva. This legend is notable because it shows Kali in her benevolent, maternal aspect, with which she is not usually identified.
MAHAKALI
Mahakali (Sanskrit: Mahākālī, Devanagari: महाकाली), literally translated as Great Kali, is sometimes considered as a greater form of Kali, identified with the Ultimate reality of Brahman. It can also be used as an honorific of the Goddess Kali, signifying her greatness by the prefix "Mahā-". Mahakali, in Sanskrit, is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death), an epithet of the God Shiva in Hinduism. Mahakali is the presiding Goddess of the first episode of the Devi Mahatmya. Here she is depicted as Devi in her universal form as Shakti. Here Devi serves as the agent who allows the cosmic order to be restored.
Kali is depicted in the Mahakali form as having ten heads, ten arms, and ten legs. Each of her ten hands is carrying a various implement which vary in different accounts, but each of these represent the power of one of the Devas or Hindu Gods and are often the identifying weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali subsumes and is responsible for the powers that these deities possess and this is in line with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not displaying ten heads, an "ekamukhi" or one headed image may be displayed with ten arms, signifying the same concept: the powers of the various Gods come only through Her grace.
ICONOGRAPHY
Kali is portrayed mostly in two forms: the popular four-armed form and the ten-armed Mahakali form. In both of her forms, she is described as being black in color but is most often depicted as blue in popular Indian art. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication, and in absolute rage, her hair is shown disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth, and her tongue is lolling. She is often shown naked or just wearing a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. She is also accompanied by serpents and a jackal while standing on a seemingly dead Shiva, usually right foot forward to symbolize the more popular Dakshinamarga or right-handed path, as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive Vamamarga or left-handed path.
In the ten-armed form of Mahakali she is depicted as shining like a blue stone. She has ten faces and ten feet and three eyes. She has ornaments decked on all her limbs. There is no association with Shiva.
The Kalika Purana describes Kali as possessing a soothing dark complexion, as perfectly beautiful, riding a lion, four-armed, holding a sword and blue lotuses, her hair unrestrained, body firm and youthful.
In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali Ma is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And because of her terrible form, she is also often seen as a great protector. When the Bengali saint Ramakrishna once asked a devotee why one would prefer to worship Mother over him, this devotee rhetorically replied, "Maharaj, when they are in trouble your devotees come running to you. But, where do you run when you are in trouble?"
According to Ramakrishna, darkness is the Ultimate Mother, or Kali:
My Mother is the principle of consciousness. She is Akhanda Satchidananda; indivisible Reality, Awareness, and Bliss. The night sky between the stars is perfectly black. The waters of the ocean depths are the same; The infinite is always mysteriously dark. This inebriating darkness is my beloved Kali.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA
This is clear in the works of such contemporary artists as Charles Wish, and Tyeb Mehta, who sometimes take great liberties with the traditional, accepted symbolism, but still demonstrate a true reverence for the Shakta sect.
POPULAR FORM
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:
Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a sword, a trishul (trident), a severed head and a bowl or skull-cup (kapala) catching the blood of the severed head.
Two of these hands (usually the left) are holding a sword and a severed head. The Sword signifies Divine Knowledge and the Human Head signifies human Ego which must be slain by Divine Knowledge in order to attain Moksha. The other two hands (usually the right) are in the abhaya (fearlessness) and varada (blessing) mudras, which means her initiated devotees (or anyone worshipping her with a true heart) will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.
She has a garland consisting of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a Japa Mala or rosary for repetition of Mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.
She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities - she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, bad do not apply to her - she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adi-shakti.
SHIVA IN KALI ICONOGRAPHY
In both these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert or dead body of Shiva. There is a legend for the reason behind her standing on what appears to be Shiva's corpse, which translates as follows:
Once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory. All the worlds or lokas began to tremble and sway under the impact of her dance. So, at the request of all the Gods, Shiva himself asked her to desist from this behavior. However, she was too intoxicated to listen. Hence, Shiva lay like a corpse among the slain demons in order to absorb the shock of the dance into himself. When Kali eventually stepped upon Shiva, she realized she was trampling and hurting her husband and bit her tongue in shame.
The story described here is a popular folk tale and not described or hinted in any of the puranas. The puranic interpretation is as follows:
Once, Parvati asks Shiva to chose the one form among her 10 forms which he likes most. To her surprise, Shiva reveals that he is most comfortable with her Kali form, in which she is bereft of her jewellery, her human-form, her clothes, her emotions and where she is only raw, chaotic energy, where she is as terrible as time itself and even greater than time. As Parvati takes the form of Kali, Shiva lies at her feet and requests her to place her foot on his chest, upon his heart. Once in this form, Shiva requests her to have this place, below her feet in her iconic image which would be worshiped throughout.
This idea has been explored in the Devi-Bhagavata Purana and is most popular in the Shyama Sangeet, devotional songs to Kali from the 12th to 15th centuries.
The Tantric interpretation of Kali standing on top of her husband is as follows:
The Shiv tattava (Divine Consciousness as Shiva) is inactive, while the Shakti tattava (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva and Kali represent Brahman, the Absolute pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali, on the other hand, represents the potential (and manifested) energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind the entire content of all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him, just as Shiva remains a mere corpse without Kali i.e., Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, or Brahman, but is rather the dynamic power of Brahman. Hence, Kali is Para Brahman in the feminine and dynamic aspect while Shiva is the male aspect and static. She stands as the absolute basis for all life, energy and beneath her feet lies, Shiva, a metaphor for mass, which cannot retain its form without energy.
While this is an advanced concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the Nondual Trika philosophy of Kashmir, popularly known as Kashmir Shaivism and associated most famously with Abhinavagupta. There is a colloquial saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava" which means that without the power of action (Shakti) that is Mahakali (represented as the short "i" in Devanagari) Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive; Shava means corpse in Sanskrit and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The short letter "i" represents the female power or Shakti that activates Creation. This is often the explanation for why She is standing on Shiva, who is either Her husband and complement in Shaktism or the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism.
To properly understand this complex Tantric symbolism it is important to remember that the meaning behind Shiva and Kali does not stray from the non-dualistic parlance of Shankara or the Upanisads. According to both the Mahanirvana and Kularnava Tantras, there are two distinct ways of perceiving the same absolute reality. The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here that there is no matter, there is no universe and only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda - existence, knowledge and bliss. The second is an active plane, an immanent plane, the plane of matter, of Maya, i.e., where the illusion of space-time and the appearance of an actual universe does exist. This form of reality is known as Kali or Shakti, and (in its entirety) is still specified as the same Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is here in this second plane that the universe (as we commonly know it) is experienced and is described by the Tantric seer as the play of Shakti, or God as Mother Kali.
From a Tantric perspective, when one meditates on reality at rest, as absolute pure consciousness (without the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to this as Shiva or Brahman. When one meditates on reality as dynamic and creative, as the Absolute content of pure consciousness (with all the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to it as Kali or Shakti. However, in either case the yogini or yogi is interested in one and the same reality - the only difference being in name and fluctuating aspects of appearance. It is this which is generally accepted as the meaning of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva.
Although there is often controversy surrounding the images of divine copulation, the general consensus is benign and free from any carnal impurities in its substance. In Tantra the human body is a symbol for the microcosm of the universe; therefore sexual process is responsible for the creation of the world. Although theoretically Shiva and Kali (or Shakti) are inseparable, like fire and its power to burn, in the case of creation they are often seen as having separate roles. With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire. This reminds us of the prakrti and purusa doctrine of Samkhya wherein prakāśa- vimarśa has no practical value, just as without prakrti, purusa is quite inactive. This (once again) stresses the interdependencies of Shiva and Shakti and the vitality of their union.
Gopi Krishna proposed that Kali standing on the dead Shiva or Shava (Sanskrit for dead body) symbolised the helplessness of a person undergoing the changing process (psychologically and physiologically) in the body conducted by the Kundalini Shakti.
DEVELOPMENT
In the later traditions, Kali has become inextricably linked with Shiva. The unleashed form of Kali often becomes wild and uncontrollable, and only Shiva is able to tame her just as only Kali can tame Shiva. This is both because she is often a transformed version of one of his consorts and because he is able to match her wildness.
The ancient text of Kali Kautuvam describes her competition with Shiva in dance, from which the sacred 108 Karanas appeared. Shiva won the competition by acting the urdva tandava, one of the Karanas, by raising his feet to his head. Other texts describe Shiva appearing as a crying infant and appealing to her maternal instincts. While Shiva is said to be able to tame her, the iconography often presents her dancing on his fallen body, and there are accounts of the two of them dancing together, and driving each other to such wildness that the world comes close to unravelling.
Shiva's involvement with Tantra and Kali's dark nature have led to her becoming an important Tantric figure. To the Tantric worshippers, it was essential to face her Curse, the terror of death, as willingly as they accepted Blessings from her beautiful, nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has only one side: as death cannot exist without life, so life cannot exist without death. Kali's role sometimes grew beyond that of a chaos - which could be confronted - to that of one who could bring wisdom, and she is given great metaphysical significance by some Tantric texts. The Nirvāna-tantra clearly presents her uncontrolled nature as the Ultimate Reality, claiming that the trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra arise and disappear from her like bubbles from the sea. Although this is an extreme case, the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra declare her the svarupa (own-being) of the Mahadevi (the great Goddess, who is in this case seen as the combination of all devis).
The final stage of development is the worshipping of Kali as the Great Mother, devoid of her usual violence. This practice is a break from the more traditional depictions. The pioneers of this tradition are the 18th century Shakta poets such as Ramprasad Sen, who show an awareness of Kali's ambivalent nature. Ramakrishna, the 19th century Bengali saint, was also a great devotee of Kali; the western popularity of whom may have contributed to the more modern, equivocal interpretations of this Goddess. Rachel McDermott's work, however, suggests that for the common, modern worshipper, Kali is not seen as fearful, and only those educated in old traditions see her as having a wrathful component. Some credit to the development of Devi must also be given to Samkhya. Commonly referred to as the Devi of delusion, Mahamaya or Durga, acting in the confines of (but not being bound by) the nature of the three gunas, takes three forms: Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshmi and Maha-Saraswati, being her tamas-ika, rajas-ika and sattva-ika forms. In this sense, Kali is simply part of a larger whole.
Like Sir John Woodroffe and Georg Feuerstein, many Tantric scholars (as well as sincere practitioners) agree that, no matter how propitious or appalling you describe them, Shiva and Devi are simply recognizable symbols for everyday, abstract (yet tangible) concepts such as perception, knowledge, space-time, causation and the process of liberating oneself from the confines of such things. Shiva, symbolizing pure, absolute consciousness, and Devi, symbolizing the entire content of that consciousness, are ultimately one and the same - totality incarnate, a micro-macro-cosmic amalgamation of all subjects, all objects and all phenomenal relations between the "two." Like man and woman who both share many common, human traits yet at the same time they are still different and, therefore, may also be seen as complementary.
Worshippers prescribe various benign and horrific qualities to Devi simply out of practicality. They do this so they may have a variety of symbols to choose from, symbols which they can identify and relate with from the perspective of their own, ever-changing time, place and personal level of unfolding. Just like modern chemists or physicists use a variety of molecular and atomic models to describe what is unperceivable through rudimentary, sensory input, the scientists of ontology and epistemology must do the same. One of the underlying distinctions of Tantra, in comparison to other religions, is that it allows the devotee the liberty to choose from a vast array of complementary symbols and rhetoric which suit one's evolving needs and tastes. From an aesthetic standpoint, nothing is interdict and nothing is orthodox. In this sense, the projection of some of Devi's more gentle qualities onto Kali is not sacrilege and the development of Kali really lies in the practitioner, not the murthi.
A TIME magazine article of October 27, 1947, used Kali as a symbol and metaphor for the human suffering in British India during its partition that year.
Swami Vivekananda wrote his favorite poem Kali the Mother in 1898.
IN NEW AGE & NEOPAGANISM
An academic study of Western Kali enthusiasts noted that, "as shown in the histories of all cross-cultural religious transplants, Kali devotionalism in the West must take on its own indigenous forms if it is to adapt to its new environment." The adoption of Kali by the West has raised accusations of cultural appropriation:
A variety of writers and thinkers have found Kali an exciting figure for reflection and exploration, notably feminists and participants in New Age spirituality who are attracted to goddess worship. Kali is a symbol of wholeness and healing, associated especially with repressed female power and sexuality. [However, such interpretations often exhibit] confusion and misrepresentation, stemming from a lack of knowledge of Hindu history among these authors, draw upon materials written by scholars of the Hindu religious tradition. The majority instead rely chiefly on other popular feminist sources, almost none of which base their interpretations on a close reading of Kali's Indian background. The most important issue arising from this discussion - even more important than the question of 'correct' interpretation - concerns the adoption of other people's religious symbols. It is hard to import the worship of a goddess from another culture: religious associations and connotations have to be learned, imagined or intuited when the deep symbolic meanings embedded in the native culture are not available.
WIKIPEDIA
Jorge G. Castañeda appeared on Fareed Zacharia’s show ‘Global Public Square’ today. It was quite fascinating.
He also interviewed Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of England. These are brilliant people discussing things I care about.
_____________________________________________
Jorge Castañeda Gutman: (See Wikipedia.)
In Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Castañeda and the second or maternal family name is Gutman.
______________________
Jorge Castañeda
Jorge G. Castañeda - World Economic Forum on Latin America 2011.jpg
Castañeda at the World Economic Forum on Latin America in 2011
Secretary of Foreign Affairs
In office
December 1, 2000 – January 10, 2003
PresidentVicente Fox
Preceded by Rosario Green
Succeeded by Luis Ernesto Derbez
Personal details
Born
Jorge Castañeda Gutman
May 24, 1953 (age 67)
Mexico City
Political party: Independent
Alma mater: Princeton University
Profession: Professor, Politician
Jorge Castañeda Gutman (born May 24, 1953) is a Mexican politician and academic who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs (2000–2003).
He also authored more than a dozen books, including a biography of Che Guevara, and he regularly contributes to newspapers such as Reforma (Mexico), El País (Spain), Los Angeles Times (USA), and Newsweek magazine.
__________________________________________
Tony Blair in Wikipedia:
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. After his resignation, he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, an office which he held until 2015. He currently serves as the Executive Chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Blair was born in Edinburgh; his father, Leo, was a barrister and academic. After attending the independent school Fettes College, he studied law at St John's College, Oxford and became a barrister. He became involved in Labour politics and was elected Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983. He supported moving the party to the centre of British politics in an attempt to help it win power (it had been out of government since 1979). He was appointed to the party's frontbench in 1988 and became Shadow Home Secretary in 1992. He became Leader of the Opposition on his election as Labour Party leader in 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair, the party used the phrase "New Labour" to distance itself from previous Labour politics and the traditional idea of socialism. He declared support for the Third Way—politics that recognized individuals as socially interdependent, advocating social justice, cohesion, the equal worth of each citizen, and equal opportunity. Despite opposition from Labour's left-wing, he removed the party's formal commitment to the nationalization of the economy, weakened trade union influence in the party, and committed to the free market and the European Union. In 1997, the Labour Party won its largest landslide general election victory in its history. Blair became the country's youngest leader since 1812 and remains the party's longest-serving occupant of the office. Labour won two more general elections under his leadership—in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory (albeit with the lowest turnout since 1918), and in 2005, with a greatly reduced majority. He resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party in 2007 and was succeeded by Gordon Brown, who had been his Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1997.
Blair's governments enacted constitutional reforms, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, while also establishing the UK's Supreme Court and reforming the office of Lord Chancellor (thereby separating judicial powers from the legislative and executive branches). His government held referendums in which Scottish and Welsh electorates voted in favour of devolved administration, paving the way for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament (both in 1999). He was also involved in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement. His time in office occurred during a period of continued economic growth, but this became increasingly dependent on mounting debt. In 1997, his government gave the Bank of England powers to set interest rates autonomously and he later oversaw a large increase in public spending, especially in healthcare and education. He championed multiculturalism and, between 1997 and 2007, immigration rose considerably, especially after his government welcomed immigration from the new EU member states in 2004. This provided a cheap and flexible labour supply but also fuelled Euroscepticism, especially among some of his party's core voters. His other social policies were generally progressive; he introduced the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and in 2004 allowed gay couples to enter into civil partnerships. However, he declared himself "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and oversaw increasing incarceration rates and new anti-social behaviour legislation, despite contradictory evidence about the change in crime rates.
Blair oversaw British interventions in Kosovo (1999) and Sierra Leone (2000) which were generally perceived as successful. During the War on Terror, he supported the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration and ensured that the British Armed Forces participated in the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and, more controversially, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The latter became increasingly unpopular among the British public, and he was criticized by opponents and (in 2016) the Iraq Inquiry for waging an unjustified and unnecessary invasion. He was in office when the 7/7 bombings took place (2005) and introduced a range of anti-terror legislation. His legacy remains controversial, not least because of his interventions in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Despite his electoral successes and reforms, he has also been criticised for his relationship with the media, centralisation of executive powers, and aspects of his social and economic policies.
From 1833 until 1932, the present day Oakes Garden Theatre was the site of the once famous Clifton Hotels. Both hotels, at different times, were destroyed by fire. Named in honor of the late Sir Harry Oakes, a Parks Commissioner who purchased the site and then gave the land to The Niagara Parks Commission in exchange for another plot of land, Oakes Garden Theatre construction began in 1935, with the formal opening taking place on September 18, 1937.
Oakes Garden Theatre - Niagara Parks, Canada
Oakes Garden Theatre is a highly decorative Beaux Arts landscape, including classical and picturesque elements, with the central point a grass Greco-Roman amphitheatre surrounded by a limestone staircase, and features fountains, urns, statuary and sculptured bas-relief panels and medallions. It is historically significant, as “very few examples of landscape architectural design of this age or complexity exist in Ontario or Canada.” (P. Berketo, NPC Study, 2000)
Oakes Garden Theatre “is fan-shaped, with the stage so placed that the panorama of the Falls forms a natural backdrop, while at the rear there is a curved pergola connecting two open pavilions, one oriented on the axis of the Horseshoe Falls, the other on that of the American Falls.” (NPC Annual Report, 1944) Behind the pergola, is a beautiful and serene Japanese-style garden with a lily pond and wishing bridge, which is often used as a back-drop for wedding and other photographs.
Designed by Howard Dunington-Grubb, who has been called the father of Canadian landscape architecture, and assisted by J.V. Stensson and architect William Somerville, Oakes Garden Theatre displays specifically outlined spaces, utilizing architecture and sculpture, to provide remarkable views and vistas.
Formal gardens using carpet bedding - a Victorian practice of forming beds of low-growing plants of the same height in geometric patterns - are laid out and interspersed with flagstone walkways and expanses of grass. The unique design takes advantage of the various levels on the site.
Florence Wyle, Frances Loring and Elizabeth Wyn Wood, all significant Canadian sculptors from Toronto, were commissioned to design the fountains and bas-relief sculptures within the garden. Their works are neo-classical, which treasures beauty, and due to the subject matter of indigenous plants and animals, are considered uniquely Canadian.
Surrounded by an ornamental stone wall, this surprising garden provides visitors with a feeling of fantasy and escape.
Initially, the theatre was used for band and choir concerts. More recently, it has been used for corporate receptions, movie screenings and live broadcasts of internationally televised programs.
Following the construction of the present Rainbow Bridge, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission partnered with The Niagara Parks Commission in 1941 to create Rainbow Gardens as a link between the bridge and Oakes Garden Theatre and as an entrance to Canada and Queen Victoria Park. It was designed by the same team who designed Oakes Garden Theatre. “These gardens are equally as formal but have details typical of the Art Deco and Moderne period.” (P. Berketo, NPC Study, 2000)
Oakes Garden Theatre (Beaux Arts) and Rainbow Gardens (Art Deco) are two separate yet inter-penetrating spaces with areas of each interdependent on the other. Both gardens showcase early twentieth century Canadian art, architecture and landscape architecture.
From opalexplorenature.org: "Lichens are made up of two or more different organisms living together, a fungus and an alga. The fungus provides the body (thallus) in which the algal partner can live... The algal partner provides the essential carbohydrates (food for the fungus) from carbon dioxide and water, with the aid of sunlight. This close, interdependent relationship is referred to as a symbiosis."
3 Feb 2017, Collected from Berkeley County, SC, USA. (Studio shot.)
Haeckel's Siphonophorae
Finally finished all the tedious outlining stitches! This piece has officially stopped tormenting me!
Hand embroidered, in progress 18"x26"
Part of my series on monsters.
**** ALSO- If anyone can please please explain to me how the hell these work I will be your best flickr friend and send you a prize. NO GUESSES. I want someone who actually knows what they're talking about to explain it to me.
Here's what wiki says-
"Siphonophores are especially scientifically interesting because they are composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Siphonophores have been known to grow up to 130 feet in length.[1] Each zooid is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony attains the character of one large organism. Indeed, most of the zooids are so specialized that they lack the ability to survive on their own. Siphonophorae thus exist at the boundary between colonial and complex multicellular organisms. Also, because multicellular organisms have cells which, like zooids, are specialized and interdependent, siphonophores may provide clues regarding their evolution.[2]"
and-
"siphonophore – a colony of four kinds of minute, highly modified individuals, which are specialized polyps and medusoids.[1] Each such zooid in these pelagic colonial hydroids or hydrozoans has a high degree of specialization and, although structurally similar to other solitary animals, are all attached to each other and physiologically integrated rather than living independently. Such zooids are specialized to such an extent that they lack the structures associated with other functions and are therefore dependent for survival on the others to do what the particular zooid cannot do by itself."
Here are my questions-
1. Does each separate organism have distinct DNA?
2. When they reproduce, is each organism contained in one polyp (egg, whatever) all together or does each one have it's own that gets fertilized?
3. How can they be separate organisms of they are physically attached?
4. Does this prove that aliens exist and are just hiding under water?
PLEASE TELL ME!
"Merce Cunningham: Common Time" is a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center that is appearing simultaneously at the Walker and the MCA. Merce Cunningham (American, 1919–2009) was a seminal figure in modern dance, revolutionizing performance through his choreography and world-renowned dance company and through partnerships with leading artists, who created costumes, lighting, and set designs for his company’s performances.
The exhibition showcases Cunningham’s multidisciplinary projects, exploring, as Cunningham described, the “underlying principle that music and dance and art could be separate entities independent and interdependent, sharing a common time.”
Updated version of this post here
The practice of dumping grannies in the mountains to die, as a form of euthanasia is more a product of Japanese folklore than a real historical practice. But had the Japanese have carried out such a practice, it is possibly to see how, in certain circumstances it would be evolutionarily favoured. Species that are able and willing to dump their forebears in the mountains at such time as they are no longer providing sufficient wisdom or child-minding -- soft or hard contributions to society -- but are still eating and requiring assistance will be ridding themselves of a burden. Killing societal burdens could be argued to be beneficial to society, at least by the Nazis. There would be drawbacks. Any society in which such a practice were overtly carried out would promote the fear, uncertainty, and mutual distrust. It is for these reasons that it is very likely that granny dumping was confined to folklore rather actually taking place. But what if such a nastiness were to occur naturally?
The existence of cancer strikes me as being very difficult to explain. When Steven Fry, an atheist, was asked, 'what would you say to an omnipotent being should you meet one after you die?". As quick as a flash Fry replied, "brain cancer in children?" He proceeded to outline the Dostoyevski defence; an omnipotent deity that created a world like this, with childhood brain tumor, deserves no respect. If worshipping such an entity were the ticket to heaven, then it would be appropriate to say "sorry, but no thanks." "I most respectfully return him the ticket" (Dostoyevski, 1880, ch 35).
Even from the standpoint of evolution, however, cancer still remains difficult to explain. I don't think that there is some bloke with a slide rule doing intelligent design, but all the same things happen for a reason, an evolutionary reason. Random pain and tragedy happen, but it seems bizarre that organisms should inflict such horror upon themselves.
From a perusal of Google Scholar, and the advice of a friend, it seems that there are three ways in which cancer can be explained from an evolutionary perspective.
The first is that cancer is an example of survival of the fittest at a cellular level. Normal cells mutate to become cancer cells that replicate more rapidly, marshal resources more effectively, and are in that sense fitter than their non cancerous peers (Nowell, 1976). This logic is at once irrefutable -- cancers really do mutate in such a way as to survive -- but at the same time seems to require further explanation. Evolution predominates at the level of species and their genes. Evolution cares not for individuals, be they grannies or cells. Bearing that in mind, it is difficult to see why a species of human did not evolve to have an immune system capable of dealing with greedy, destructive cancer cells, unless cancer were beneficial to the species as a whole.
A second explanation for the evolution of cancer is that cancer is carrying out the prime objective of evolution the replication of the fittest variation, where variation implies death. If it were not for the fact that we have built in obsolescence, that we are programmed to age and die, then there would never be variation just a stagnant gene pool of nonagenarians or much older, and above.
But this explanation still does not cut the mustard. Ageing, wearing out, a weakened ability for cell replication is all very understandable but why should there also be this horrible self destruct mode? Cancer seems to be too violent, and gratuitous to be explained solely as another ageing mechanism, though it is generally related to age.
Another possibility (that I have yet to see expressed) is that cancer is an essential by-product of evolution in that species that evolve need to mutate so therefore they will inevitably experience mutation at the cellular level. This is an evolutionary explanation of the first explanation. Species that evolve need to made of stuff that mutates and evolves at an individual, and cellular level. Species are no more than the sum of their parts, so the parts and the whole necessarily correspond to each other in their tendency to mutate and evolve. This explanation sounds plausible too.
However, is this really how evolution occurs? When the proto rhino returned to the sea and evolved into a whale was it by cancerous mutation that its snout moved back to become a blow-hole? Did a cancer ever evolve into anything useful? Were the cells in our retina, prefrontal lobes or opposable thumbs ever once a tumour in one of our ancestors? I am inclined to think not. Cancerous mutation and inter-individual and inter-generational variation, appear to be different things. This is an argument merely from visual confirmation but, cancers just look different from all the variations, big noses, small jaws, and variations in height that we see between individuals and generations. A medical practitioner of my acquaintance tells me that you can spot a cancer. Cancers are not merely different, but cancer-like, and incidentally grotesque.
Further, upon reflection, there are some species of animal such as naked mole rats that do not suffer from cancer. It follows therefore that cancer is not a necessary by-product of evolution due to the covariance of species and cell, else naked mole rats would never have evolved at all.
So what was the evolutionary force that propelled this natural monster into existence?
To explain the titular theory I need to introduce two fields of research, and cut to the chase.
The first research field is that of paleopathology, scholars of ancient causes of death, find that cancer is rarer in our ancient ancestors. There is a striking rarity of malignancies” in ancient human remains (David & Zimmerman, 2010; see Johnson, 2010). The "cancer is a modern disease" meme allows some to conclude that it is caused by our industrial environment, or the prevalence of cigarettes. Again, this physical environment explanation is persuasive, but didn't our ancestors come in contact with shale tar, or enjoy a paleolithic toke? I suggest something else has changed, an aspect of our diet, which brings me onto the second area of research.
Another fascinating area of research research is that of Dr Valter Longo who finds that fasting is as effective as chemotherapy at alleviating and preventing cancer(e.g. Raffaghello, Safdie, Bianchi, Dorff, Fontana, & Longo 2010; Lee, & Longo, 2011). Fasting is found to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy, make the after effects of chemo less unpleasant, and even more importantly, cause cancers to self-destruct due to the effects of fasting alone. During a fast normal cells go into hibernation whereas cancerous cells want to eat and eat even themselves.
So, cutting to the conclusion. For much of our paleolithic past humans lived in hunter gather societies in which game and gather were a non continuous source of calories. For much of our evolutionary past therefore, it seems likely that we should have been forced to fast. Individuals in hunter gather societies would have been forced to fast unless that however, they had access to the resources of their peers.
Bearing in mind that cancer tends to effect older persons, and that it can be prevented in large part by periods of low calorie consumption, could it be the case therefore that cancer was a natural granny and grandpa dump? Social species such as humans may have evolved a mechanism called cancer, such that older persons who did not undergo periods of low calorie consumption, and were likely therefore in those societies to have been being a burden on their hunter gatherer peers, should self destruct.
If this is the evolutionary origin of cancer, it would mean that cancer today is even more utterly gratuitous than it appears. In the modern world where older persons are capable of supporting themselves and through their skills, knowledge, and sagacity benefiting the general community, then there is every evolutionary reason for keeping them alive. But for those millennia when humans lived on the calorific brink of extinction, a natural method of finishing off free-loaders may have been evolutionarily preferred.
This is the only explanation for this horror that I can think of, and it still does not explain childhood brain cancer.
The only positive take home from this conclusion is that it may be a good idea to periodically fast, especially in the unfortunate event that one has cancer.
Addendum
If the above hypothesis were correct, then the tendency to get cancer would be expected to correlate to the ability or tendency to freeload. I predicted that animals that do not get cancer would be those that lead a completely solitary existence. It seems however, that the animal most famed for not getting cancer, the naked mole rat is "eusocial". That is to say that rather than being independent, they are the most dependent of mammals, living in communities in which (like bees, wasps, termites and ants) individuals have specific bio-social roles such as breeding queens, and sterile workers. The fact that cancer free naked mole rats are eusocial does not disprove the cancer as granny dump hypothesis. Rather their highly interdependent social existence and freedom from cancer conversely suggests a link. Eusocial animal communities contain individuals that are essentially free-loaders: foraging for food is not a omnipresent function of the naked mole rat. It would make no evolutionary sense, therefore, for mole rats to self-destruct.
Another mammal that is almost entirely cancer free is the bow whale. Bow whales live in isolation or in small groups of up to six. They filter the oceans for sustenance so may have very limited ability to help or sustain their aged, or otherwise compromised, peers, very little opportunity for freeloading, and no need of cancer.
Dr. James DeGregori discusses the evolutionary origins of cancer from about the 40 minute mark in this video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXByvyVgHrI
Contra what I suggest above regarding a possible difference between oncogenic and evolutionary mutation, he is suggesting that they are the same thing, at least in the case of lactose tolerance in adults. And he is saying that the prevalence of cancer in older people is just because natural selection does not protect those that are past the breeding age so cancer is essentially another form of ageing. But then how does he explain those naked mole rats? I have not gotten to the end of the video.
Bibliography
Dostoyevsky, F (1880) The Brothers Karamazov.
Lee, C., & Longo, V. D. (2011). Fasting vs dietary restriction in cellular protection and cancer treatment: from model organisms to patients. Oncogene, 30(30), 3305-3316.
Nowell, P. C. (1976). The Clonal Evolution of Tumor Cell Populations. Science, 194(4260), 23-28.
Raffaghello, L., Safdie, F., Bianchi, G., Dorff, T., Fontana, L., & Longo, V. D. (2010). Fasting and differential chemotherapy protection in patients. Cell Cycle, 9(22), 4474-4476.
Image: Granny Dumping Moon by Yotoshi in the Tokyo Metropolitan museum.
お取り下げご希望でありましたら、下記のコメント欄かnihonbunka.comのメールリンクからご一筆ください。
Tutto il mondo manifesto si regge sui due principi yin e yang;
Lo yin e yang sono opposti: qualunque cosa ha un suo opposto, non assoluto, ma in termini comparativi. Nessuna cosa può essere completamente yin o completamente yang; essa contiene il seme per il proprio opposto.
Lo yin e lo yang hanno radice uno nell'altro: sono interdipendenti, hanno origine reciproca, l'uno non può esistere senza l'altro.
World is based on two principles yin and yang;
The yin and yang are opposites: whatever has its opposite, not absolute, but in comparative terms. Nothing can be completely yin or yang completely; it contains the seed for its opposite.
The yin and yang are rooted in one another: they are interdependent, mutual originate, the one can not exist without the other.
Life pushes in and forces us to change. Our response to these forces can at times be very joyful and at other times very painful. The balancing of the emotions that come to us can make all the difference in how we choose to engage with life. Part of this adjustment requires us to use our experiences with what we read, what we see and who we share with. Growth will take place, if we are mature enough to listen within our depths to intuitions that guide us to adjust our journey to the realities that face us.
The question then becomes…what is reality? Who defines my realities? Again, that question can be answered with deep reflection on where we may find ourselves in our journey and those influences that we encounter along the way. My reality is not your reality but your reality helps me define my own.
-rc
/***************************************************************************
"What graces might come to the world if we remembered God not only as Person, as in Jesus Christ, but as Woman, calling out at the crossroads urging all the peoples of the world to see and relate to one another as members of one diverse but radically interdependent family. As a Mother, bent over her children in fierce protection, or crowning them with purpose and strength for the difficult journey ahead? As a Child, playing joyfully in the mountains, desert, and watercourses of creation? AS a Lover, not abstract and fleshless, but as one who loves us precisely in and through our bodies and despite our failings, still holds us in mercy and calls forth something strong and beautiful, something that we have long ago ceased to be?...What healing might rise in our own small circles of the world if we -male and female alike-embodied Sophia..."
-Christopher Pramuk, At Play in Creation: Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine. Pg. 104
/*****************************************************
From 1833 until 1932, the present day Oakes Garden Theatre was the site of the once famous Clifton Hotels. Both hotels, at different times, were destroyed by fire. Named in honor of the late Sir Harry Oakes, a Parks Commissioner who purchased the site and then gave the land to The Niagara Parks Commission in exchange for another plot of land, Oakes Garden Theatre construction began in 1935, with the formal opening taking place on September 18, 1937.
Oakes Garden Theatre - Niagara Parks, Canada
Oakes Garden Theatre is a highly decorative Beaux Arts landscape, including classical and picturesque elements, with the central point a grass Greco-Roman amphitheatre surrounded by a limestone staircase, and features fountains, urns, statuary and sculptured bas-relief panels and medallions. It is historically significant, as “very few examples of landscape architectural design of this age or complexity exist in Ontario or Canada.” (P. Berketo, NPC Study, 2000)
Oakes Garden Theatre “is fan-shaped, with the stage so placed that the panorama of the Falls forms a natural backdrop, while at the rear there is a curved pergola connecting two open pavilions, one oriented on the axis of the Horseshoe Falls, the other on that of the American Falls.” (NPC Annual Report, 1944) Behind the pergola, is a beautiful and serene Japanese-style garden with a lily pond and wishing bridge, which is often used as a back-drop for wedding and other photographs.
Designed by Howard Dunington-Grubb, who has been called the father of Canadian landscape architecture, and assisted by J.V. Stensson and architect William Somerville, Oakes Garden Theatre displays specifically outlined spaces, utilizing architecture and sculpture, to provide remarkable views and vistas.
Formal gardens using carpet bedding - a Victorian practice of forming beds of low-growing plants of the same height in geometric patterns - are laid out and interspersed with flagstone walkways and expanses of grass. The unique design takes advantage of the various levels on the site.
Florence Wyle, Frances Loring and Elizabeth Wyn Wood, all significant Canadian sculptors from Toronto, were commissioned to design the fountains and bas-relief sculptures within the garden. Their works are neo-classical, which treasures beauty, and due to the subject matter of indigenous plants and animals, are considered uniquely Canadian.
Surrounded by an ornamental stone wall, this surprising garden provides visitors with a feeling of fantasy and escape.
Initially, the theatre was used for band and choir concerts. More recently, it has been used for corporate receptions, movie screenings and live broadcasts of internationally televised programs.
Following the construction of the present Rainbow Bridge, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission partnered with The Niagara Parks Commission in 1941 to create Rainbow Gardens as a link between the bridge and Oakes Garden Theatre and as an entrance to Canada and Queen Victoria Park. It was designed by the same team who designed Oakes Garden Theatre. “These gardens are equally as formal but have details typical of the Art Deco and Moderne period.” (P. Berketo, NPC Study, 2000)
Oakes Garden Theatre (Beaux Arts) and Rainbow Gardens (Art Deco) are two separate yet inter-penetrating spaces with areas of each interdependent on the other. Both gardens showcase early twentieth century Canadian art, architecture and landscape architecture.
I have posted over 65535 Hindu blogs ,,shot Hindu culture , rituals Kumbh Maha Kumbh, Naga Sadhus Tantriks ..including the Marriammen feast .. and all this thanks to my two Gurus Late BW Jatkar and Shreekant Malushte Sir ,,including some great photographer friends at PSI Mumbai my camera club..
Most of the Hindu feasts in Bandra I hardly shoot and most of them are now being shot by my 3 year old granddaughter @nerjisasifshakir
She has shot Advocate Ashish Shelars Ganpati for last two years.
I live in Mumbai my parents were not bigots , they gave us the best upbringing even the Marathi bai that worked with us when we were kids our mother insisted we call her Aiee ,, Mother ,,and all this has culminated in shooting my cultural inheritance ,,and so for those who do not wish to see this part of my documentation you can unfriend and block me ,, I shall not hold it against you as most of you I added recently was because you were also friends with my Peersabs son Syed Farid Chishty Sabri I did not see your profile just added you blindly when you sent me a friends request .
And if you comment adversely on my Hindu or Shia blogs I will block you instantly,, I am a photo journalist documentarist I dont promote any religion caste or creed I promote India and my Indianess ..
Thanks .
Kali, also known as Kalika (Bengali: কালী, Kālī / কালিকা Kālīkā ; Sanskrit: काली), is a Hindu goddess associated with death and destruction. The name Kali means "black", but has by folk etymology come to mean "force of time (kala)". Despite her negative connotations, she is today considered the goddess of time and change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation still has some influence. More complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the "ultimate reality" or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatarini (literally "redeemer of the universe"). Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kali as a benevolent mother goddess.
Kali is represented as the consort of god Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing. She is associated with many other Hindu goddesses like Durga, Bhadrakali, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati and Chamunda. She is the foremost among the Dasa-Mahavidyas, ten fierce Tantric goddesses.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Origin
3 In Tantra
4 In Bengali tradition
5 Mythology
5.1 Slayer of Raktabija
5.2 Daksinakali
5.3 Maternal Kali
5.4 Mahakali
6 Iconography
6.1 Popular form
6.2 Mahakali form
6.3 Shiva in Kali iconography
7 Development
8 In New Age and Neopaganism
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
Etymology
Kālī is the feminine of kāla "black, dark coloured" (per Panini 4.1.42). It appears as the name of a form of Durga in Mahabharata 4.195, and as the name of an evil female spirit in Harivamsa 11552.
The homonymous kāla "appointed time", which depending on context can mean "death", is distinct from kāla "black", but became associated through folk etymology. The association is seen in a passage from the Mahābhārata, depicting a female figure who carries away the spirits of slain warriors and animals. She is called kālarātri (which Thomas Coburn, a historian of Sanskrit Goddess literature, translates as "night of death") and also kālī (which, as Coburn notes, can be read here either as a proper name or as a description "the black one").[2]
Kali's association with blackness stands in contrast to her consort, Shiva, whose body is covered by the white ashes of the cremation ground (Sanskrit: śmaśāna) in which he meditates, and with which Kali is also associated, as śmaśāna-kālī.
Origin
Kali appears in the Mundaka Upanishad (section 1, chapter 2, verse 4) not explicitly as a goddess, but as the black tongue of the seven flickering tongues of Agni, the Hindu god of fire.[3] However, the prototype of the figure now known as Kali appears in the Rig Veda, in the form of a goddess named Raatri. Raatri is considered to be the prototype of both Durga and Kali.
In the Sangam era, circa 200BCE–200CE, of Tamilakam, a Kali-like bloodthirsty goddess named Kottravai appears in the literature of the period.[citation needed] Like Kali she has dishevelled hair, inspires fear in those who approach her and feasts on battlegrounds littered with the dead.
It was the composition of the Puranas in late antiquity that firmly gave Kali a place in the Hindu pantheon. Kali or Kalika is described in the Devi Mahatmya (also known as the Chandi or the Durgasaptasati) from the Markandeya Purana, circa 300–600CE, where she is said to have emanated from the brow of the goddess Durga, a slayer of demons or avidya, during one of the battles between the divine and anti-divine forces. In this context, Kali is considered the 'forceful' form of the great goddess Durga. Another account of the origins of Kali is found in the Matsya Purana, circa 1500CE, which states that she originated as a mountain tribal goddess in the north-central part of India, in the region of Mount Kalanjara (now known as Kalinjar). However this account is disputed because the legend was of later origin.
The Kalika Purana a work of late ninth or early tenth century, is one of the Upapuranas. The Kalika Purana mainly describes different manifestations of the Goddess, gives their iconographic details, mounts, and weapons. It also provides ritual procedures of worshipping Kalika.
In Tantra
Mahakali YantraGoddesses play an important role in the study and practice of Tantra Yoga, and are affirmed to be as central to discerning the nature of reality as the male deities are. Although Parvati is often said to be the recipient and student of Shiva's wisdom in the form of Tantras, it is Kali who seems to dominate much of the Tantric iconography, texts, and rituals.[4] In many sources Kali is praised as the highest reality or greatest of all deities. The Nirvana-tantra says the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva all arise from her like bubbles in the sea, ceaselessly arising and passing away, leaving their original source unchanged. The Niruttara-tantra and the Picchila-tantra declare all of Kali's mantras to be the greatest and the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra all proclaim Kali vidyas (manifestations of Mahadevi, or "divinity itself"). They declare her to be an essence of her own form (svarupa) of the Mahadevi.[5]
In the Mahanirvana-tantra, Kali is one of the epithets for the primordial sakti, and in one passage Shiva praises her:
At the dissolution of things, it is Kala [Time] Who will devour all, and by reason of this He is called Mahakala [an epithet of Lord Shiva], and since Thou devourest Mahakala Himself, it is Thou who art the Supreme Primordial Kalika. Because Thou devourest Kala, Thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called the Adya [primordial Kali. Resuming after Dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable. Though having a form, yet art Thou formless; though Thyself without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya, Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress that Thou art.[6]
The figure of Kali conveys death, destruction, fear, and the consuming aspects of reality. As such, she is also a "forbidden thing", or even death itself. In the Pancatattva ritual, the sadhaka boldly seeks to confront Kali, and thereby assimilates and transforms her into a vehicle of salvation.[7] This is clear in the work of the Karpuradi-stotra, a short praise to Kali describing the Pancatattva ritual unto her, performed on cremation grounds. (Samahana-sadhana)
He, O Mahakali who in the cremation-ground, naked, and with dishevelled hair, intently meditates upon Thee and recites Thy mantra, and with each recitation makes offering to Thee of a thousand Akanda flowers with seed, becomes without any effort a Lord of the earth. 0 Kali, whoever on Tuesday at midnight, having uttered Thy mantra, makes offering even but once with devotion to Thee of a hair of his Sakti [his female companion] in the cremation-ground, becomes a great poet, a Lord of the earth, and ever goes mounted upon an elephant.[8]
The Karpuradi-stotra clearly indicates that Kali is more than a terrible, vicious, slayer of demons who serves Durga or Shiva. Here, she is identified as the supreme mistress of the universe, associated with the five elements. In union with Lord Shiva, who is said to be her spouse, she creates and destroys worlds. Her appearance also takes a different turn, befitting her role as ruler of the world and object of meditation.[9] In contrast to her terrible aspects, she takes on hints of a more benign dimension. She is described as young and beautiful, has a gentle smile, and makes gestures with her two right hands to dispel any fear and offer boons. The more positive features exposed offer the distillation of divine wrath into a goddess of salvation, who rids the sadhaka of fear. Here, Kali appears as a symbol of triumph over death.[10]
In Bengali tradition
Kali is also central figure in late medieval Bengali devotional literature, with such devotees as Ramprasad Sen (1718–75). With the exception of being associated with Parvati as Shiva's consort, Kali is rarely pictured in Hindu mythology and iconography as a motherly figure until Bengali devotion beginning in the early eighteenth century. Even in Bengali tradition her appearance and habits change little, if at all.[11]
The Tantric approach to Kali is to display courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night, despite her terrible appearance. In contrast, the Bengali devotee appropriates Kali's teachings, adopting the attitude of a child. In both cases, the goal of the devotee is to become reconciled with death and to learn acceptance of the way things are. These themes are well addressed in Ramprasad's work.[12]
Ramprasad comments in many of his other songs that Kali is indifferent to his wellbeing, causes him to suffer, brings his worldly desires to nothing and his worldly goods to ruin. He also states that she does not behave like a mother should and that she ignores his pleas:
Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of the stone? [a reference to Kali as the daughter of Himalaya]
Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her lord?
Men call you merciful, but there is no trace of mercy in you. Mother.
You have cut off the headset the children of others, and these you wear as a garland around your neck.
It matters not how much I call you "Mother, Mother." You hear me, but you will not listen.[13]
To be a child of Kali, Ramprasad asserts, is to be denied of earthly delights and pleasures. Kali is said to not give what is expected. To the devotee, it is perhaps her very refusal to do so that enables her devotees to reflect on dimensions of themselves and of reality that go beyond the material world.[14][15]
A significant portion of Bengali devotional music features Kali as its central theme and is known as Shyama Sangeet. Mostly sung by male vocalists, today even women have taken to this form of music. One of the finest singers of Shyama Sangeet is Pannalal Bhattacharya.
Mythology
Slayer of Raktabija
"Kali Triumphant on The Battle Field," Punjab, circa 1800–20CE)In Kali's most famous myth, Durga and her assistants, Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabija, in various ways and with a variety of weapons, in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation, as for every drop of blood that is spilt from Raktabija the demon reproduces a clone of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with his duplicates.[16] Durga, in dire need of help, summons Kali to combat the demons. It is also said that Goddess Durga takes the form of Goddess Kali at this time.
The Devi Mahatmyam describes:
Out of the surface of her (Durga's) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.[17]
Kali destroys Raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many Raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. Pleased with her victory, Kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain. Her consort Shiva lies among the dead beneath her feet, a representation of Kali commonly seen in her iconography as Daksinakali'.[18]
In Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as an Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Cāṃuṇḍā (Chamunda) i.e the slayer of demons Chanda and Munda.[19] Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.[20]
Daksinakali
Bhadrakali (A gentle form of Kali), circa 1675.
Painting; made in India, Himachal Pradesh, Basohli,
now placed in LACMA Museum.In her most famous pose as Daksinakali, it is said that Kali, becoming drunk on the blood of her victims on the battlefield, dances with destructive frenzy. In her fury she fails to see the body of her husband Shiva who lies among the corpses on the battlefield.[21] Ultimately the cries of Shiva attract Kali's attention, calming her fury. As a sign of her shame at having disrespected her husband in such a fashion, Kali sticks out her tongue. However, some sources state that this interpretation is a later version of the symbolism of the tongue: in tantric contexts, the tongue is seen to denote the element (guna) of rajas (energy and action) controlled by sattva, spiritual and godly qualities.[22]
One South Indian tradition tells of a dance contest between Shiva and Kali. After defeating the two demons Sumbha and Nisumbha, Kali takes residence in a forest. With fierce companions she terrorizes the surrounding area. One of Shiva's devotees becomes distracted while doing austerities and asks Shiva to rid the forest of the destructive goddess. When Shiva arrives, Kali threatens him, claiming the territory as her own. Shiva challenges her to a dance contest, and defeats her when she is unable to perform the energetic Tandava dance. Although here Kali is defeated, and is forced to control her disruptive habits, we find very few images or other myths depicting her in such manner.[23]
Maternal Kali
Another myth depicts the infant Shiva calming Kali, instead. In this similar story, Kali again defeated her enemies on the battlefield and began to dance out of control, drunk on the blood of the slain. To calm her down and to protect the stability of the world, Shiva is sent to the battlefield, as an infant, crying aloud. Seeing the child's distress, Kali ceases dancing to take care of the helpless infant. She picks him up, kisses his head, and proceeds to breast feed the infant Shiva.[24] This myth depicts Kali in her benevolent, maternal aspect; something that is revered in Hinduism, but not often recognized in the West.
Ekamukhi or "One-Faced" Murti of Mahakali displaying ten hands holding the signifiers of various Devas
Mahakali
Main article: Mahakali
Mahakali (Sanskrit: Mahākālī, Devanagari: महाकाली), literally translated as Great Kali, is sometimes considered as greater form of Kali, identified with the Ultimate reality Brahman. It can also simply be used as an honorific of the Goddess Kali,[25] signifying her greatness by the prefix "Mahā-". Mahakali, in Sanskrit, is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death), an epithet of the God Shiva in Hinduism. Mahakali is the presiding Goddess of the first episode of Devi Mahatmya. Here she is depicted as Devi in her universal form as Shakti. Here Devi serves as the agent who allows the cosmic order to be restored.
Iconography
Statue from Dakshineswar Kali Temple, West Bengal, India; along with her Yantra.Kali is portrayed mostly in two forms: the popular four-armed form and the ten-armed Mahakali form. In both of her forms, she is described as being black in color but is most often depicted as blue in popular Indian art. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and in absolute rage, her hair is shown disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth and her tongue is lolling. She is often shown naked or just wearing a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. She is also accompanied by serpents and a jackal while standing on a seemingly dead Shiva, usually right foot forward to symbolize the more popular Dakshinamarga or right-handed path, as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive Vamamarga or left-handed path.[26]
In the ten armed form of Mahakali she is depicted as shining like a blue stone. She has ten faces and ten feet and three eyes. She has ornaments decked on all her limbs. There is no association with Siva.[27]
The Kalika Purana describes Kali as possessing a soothing dark complexion, as perfectly beautiful, riding a lion, four armed, holding a sword and blue lotuses, her hair unrestrained, body firm and youthful.[28]
In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And, because of her terrible form she is also often seen as a great protector. When the Bengali saint Ramakrishna once asked a devotee why one would prefer to worship Mother over him, this devotee rhetorically replied, “Maharaj, when they are in trouble your devotees come running to you. But, where do you run when you are in trouble?”[29]
According to Ramakrishna darkness is Ultimate Mother or Kali:
My Mother is the principle of consciousness. She is Akhanda Satchidananda; indivisible Reality, Awareness, and Bliss. The night sky between the stars is perfectly black. The waters of the ocean depths are the same; The infinite is always mysteriously dark. This inebriating darkness is my beloved Kali.
-Sri Ramakrishna
Throughout her history artists the world over have portrayed Kali in myriad poses and settings, some of which stray far from the popular description, and are sometimes even graphically sexual in nature. Given the popularity of this Goddess, artists everywhere will continue to explore the magnificence of Kali’s iconography. This is clear in the work of such contemporary artists as Charles Wish, and Tyeb Mehta, who sometimes take great liberties with the traditional, accepted symbolism, but still demonstrate a true reverence for the Shakta sect.
Popular form
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:
Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a sword, a trishul (trident), a severed head and a bowl or skull-cup (kapala) catching the blood of the severed head.
Two of these hands (usually the left) are holding a sword and a severed head. The Sword signifies Divine Knowledge and the Human Head signifies human Ego which must be slain by Divine Knowledge in order to attain Moksha. The other two hands (usually the right) are in the abhaya and varada mudras or blessings, which means her initiated devotees (or anyone worshiping her with a true heart) will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.[30]
She has a garland consisting of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a Japa Mala or rosary for repetition of Mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.[31]
She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities — she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, bad do not apply to her — she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adi-shakti.[32]
Mahakali form
The Dasamukhi MahakaliKali is depicted in the Mahakali form as having ten heads, ten arms, and ten legs. Each of her ten hands is carrying a various implement which vary in different accounts, but each of these represent the power of one of the Devas or Hindu Gods and are often the identifying weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali subsumes and is responsible for the powers that these deities possess and this is in line with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not displaying ten heads, an "ekamukhi" or one headed image may be displayed with ten arms, signifying the same concept: the powers of the various Gods come only through Her grace.
Shiva in Kali iconography
In both these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert or dead body of Shiva. There is a mythological story for the reason behind her standing on what appears to be Shiva’s corpse, which translates as follows:
Once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory. All the worlds or lokas began to tremble and sway under the impact of her dance. So, at the request of all the Gods, Shiva himself asked her to desist from this behavior. However, she was too intoxicated to listen. Hence, Shiva lay like a corpse among the slain demons in order to absorb the shock of the dance into himself. When Kali eventually stepped upon her husband she realized her mistake and bit her tongue in shame.[33]
The Tantric interpretation of Kali standing on top of her husband is as follows:
The Shiv tattava (Divine Consciousness as Shiva) is inactive, while the Shakti tattava (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva, or Mahadeva represents Brahman, the Absolute pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali, on the other hand, represents the potential (and manifested) energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind the entire content of all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him, i.e., Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, or Brahman, but is rather the dynamic power of Brahman.[34]
Kali in Traditional Form, standing on Shiva's chest.While this is an advanced concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the Nondual Trika philosophy of Kashmir, popularly known as Kashmir Shaivism and associated most famously with Abhinavagupta. There is a colloquial saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava" which means that without the power of action (Shakti) that is Mahakali (represented as the short "i" in Devanagari) Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive; Shava means corpse in Sanskrit and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The short letter "i" represents the female power or Shakti that activates Creation. This is often the explanation for why She is standing on Shiva, who is either Her husband and complement in Shaktism or the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism.
To properly understand this complex Tantric symbolism it is important to remember that the meaning behind Shiva and Kali does not stray from the non-dualistic parlance of Shankara or the Upanisads. According to both the Mahanirvana and Kularnava Tantras, there are two distinct ways of perceiving the same absolute reality. The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here that there is no matter, there is no universe and only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda — existence, knowledge and bliss. The second is an active plane, an immanent plane, the plane of matter, of Maya, i.e., where the illusion of space-time and the appearance of an actual universe does exist. This form of reality is known as Kali or Shakti, and (in its entirety) is still specified as the same Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is here in this second plane that the universe (as we commonly know it) is experienced and is described by the Tantric seer as the play of Shakti, or God as Mother Kali.[35]
Kali and Bhairava (the terrible form of Shiva) in Union, 18th century, NepalFrom a Tantric perspective, when one meditates on reality at rest, as absolute pure consciousness (without the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to this as Shiva or Brahman. When one meditates on reality as dynamic and creative, as the Absolute content of pure consciousness (with all the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to it as Kali or Shakti. However, in either case the yogini or yogi is interested in one and the same reality — the only difference being in name and fluctuating aspects of appearance. It is this which is generally accepted as the meaning of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva.[36]
Although there is often controversy surrounding the images of divine copulation, the general consensus is benign and free from any carnal impurities in its substance. In Tantra the human body is a symbol for the microcosm of the universe; therefore sexual process is responsible for the creation of the world. Although theoretically Shiva and Kali (or Shakti) are inseparable, like fire and its power to burn, in the case of creation they are often seen as having separate roles. With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire. This reminds us of the prakrti and purusa doctrine of Samkhya wherein prakāśa- vimarśa has no practical value, just as without prakrti, purusa is quite inactive. This (once again) stresses the interdependencies of Shiva and Shakti and the vitality of their union.[37]
Gopi Krishna proposed that Kali standing on the dead Shiva or Shava (Sanskrit for dead body) symbolised the helplessness of a person undergoing the changing process ( psychologically and physiologically) in the body conducted by the Kundalini Shakti.[38]
Development
In the later traditions, Kali has become inextricably linked with Shiva. The unleashed form of Kali often becomes wild and uncontrollable, and only Shiva is able to tame her. This is both because she is often a transformed version of one of his consorts and because he is able to match her wildness.
Bharatanatyam dancer portraying Kali with a tridentThe ancient text of Kali Kautuvam describes her competition with Shiva in dance, from which the sacred 108 Karanas appeared. Shiva won the competition by acting the urdva tandava, one of the Karanas, by raising his feet to his head. Other texts describe Shiva appearing as a crying infant and appealing to her maternal instincts. While Shiva is said to be able to tame her, the iconography often presents her dancing on his fallen body, and there are accounts of the two of them dancing together, and driving each other to such wildness that the world comes close to unravelling.
Shiva's involvement with Tantra and Kali's dark nature have led to her becoming an important Tantric figure. To the Tantric worshippers, it was essential to face her Curse, the terror of death, as willingly as they accepted Blessings from her beautiful, nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has only one side: as death cannot exist without life, so life cannot exist without death. Kali's role sometimes grew beyond that of a chaos — which could be confronted — to that of one who could bring wisdom, and she is given great metaphysical significance by some Tantric texts. The Nirvāna-tantra clearly presents her uncontrolled nature as the Ultimate Reality, claiming that the trimurti of Brahma, Visnu and Rudra arise and disappear from her like bubbles from the sea. Although this is an extreme case, the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra declare her the svarupa (own-being) of the Mahadevi (the great Goddess, who is in this case seen as the combination of all devis).
The final stage of development is the worshipping of Kali as the Great Mother, devoid of her usual violence. This practice is a break from the more traditional depictions. The pioneers of this tradition are the 18th century Shakta poets such as Ramprasad Sen, who show an awareness of Kali's ambivalent nature. Ramakrishna, the 19th century Bengali saint, was also a great devotee of Kali; the western popularity of whom may have contributed to the more modern, equivocal interpretations of this Goddess. Rachel McDermott's work, however, suggests that for the common, modern worshipper, Kali is not seen as fearful, and only those educated in old traditions see her as having a wrathful component. Some credit to the development of Devi must also be given to Samkhya. Commonly referred to as the Devi of delusion, Mahamaya, acting in the confines of (but not being bound by) the nature of the three gunas, takes three forms: Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshmi and Maha-Saraswati, being her tamas-ika, rajas-ika and sattva-ika forms. In this sense, Kali is simply part of a larger whole.
1947 TIME Magazine cover by Boris Artzybasheff depicting a self-hurting Kālī as a symbol of the partition of IndiaLike Sir John Woodroffe and Georg Feuerstein, many Tantric scholars (as well as sincere practitioners) agree that, no matter how propitious or appalling you describe them, Shiva and Devi are simply recognizable symbols for everyday, abstract (yet tangible) concepts such as perception, knowledge, space-time, causation and the process of liberating oneself from the confines of such things. Shiva, symbolizing pure, absolute consciousness, and Devi, symbolizing the entire content of that consciousness, are ultimately one and the same — totality incarnate, a micro-macro-cosmic amalgamation of all subjects, all objects and all phenomenal relations between the "two." Like man and woman who both share many common, human traits yet at the same time they are still different and, therefore, may also be seen as complementary.[39]
Worshippers prescribe various benign and horrific qualities to Devi simply out of practicality. They do this so they may have a variety of symbols to choose from, symbols which they can identify and relate with from the perspective of their own, ever-changing time, place and personal level of unfolding. Just like modern chemists or physicists use a variety of molecular and atomic models to describe what is unperceivable through rudimentary, sensory input, the scientists of ontology and epistemology must do the same. One of the underlying distinctions of Tantra, in comparison to other religions, is that it allows the devotee the liberty to choose from a vast array of complementary symbols and rhetoric that which suits one’s evolving needs and tastes. From an aesthetic standpoint, nothing is interdict and nothing is orthodox. In this sense, the projection of some of Devi’s more gentle qualities onto Kali is not sacrilege and the development of Kali really lies in the practitioner, not the murthi.
A TIME Magazine article of October 27, 1947 used Kālī as a symbol and metaphor for the human suffering in British India during its partition that year.[40]
In New Age and Neopaganism
A Western Shacan representation of KaliAn academic study of Western Kali enthusiasts noted that, "as shown in the histories of all cross-cultural religious transplants, Kali devotionalism in the West must take on its own indigenous forms if it is to adapt to its new environment."[41] The adoption of Kali by the West has raised accusations of cultural misappropriation:
"A variety of writers and thinkers [...] have found Kali an exciting figure for reflection and exploration, notably feminists and participants in New Age spirituality who are attracted to goddess worship. [For them], Kali is a symbol of wholeness and healing, associated especially with repressed female power and sexuality. [However, such interpretations often exhibit] confusion and misrepresentation, stemming from a lack of knowledge of Hindu history among these authors, [who only rarely] draw upon materials written by scholars of the Hindu religious tradition. The majority instead rely chiefly on other popular feminist sources, almost none of which base their interpretations on a close reading of Kali's Indian background. [...] The most important issue arising from this discussion – even more important than the question of 'correct' interpretation – concerns the adoption of other people's religious symbols. [...] It is hard to import the worship of a goddess from another culture: religious associations and connotations have to be learned, imagined or intuited when the deep symbolic meanings embedded in the native culture are not available."[42]
The man who popularised the religion of Wicca, Gerald Gardner, was reportedly particularly interested in Kali whilst he was in the far east, before returning to England to write his seminal works on Wicca[citation needed
A divine synchronicity that Pope Francis’ death falls between Resurrection Sunday and Earth Day? God trying to “get through” to us? Francis’ message is increasingly relevant as we see the suffering we humans are inflicting on the Earth which Genesis declares Good, and which the Gospel says God loves. For those Christians who deny humans are destroying our planet, consider what the 24 Elders chant around the Creator’s “Throne”: “The time has come…to reward those who revere you…and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” (Revelation 11:16-18). They also chanted, “You are worthy, O God, to receive glory…for You created ALL things for your pleasure [KJV].” (Revelation 4:11). How dare supposed believers in a Creator destroy the Creator’s life-giving artistry! To revere Earth and its interdependent ecosystems of all things is to revere its Creator, however the Universe and Earth came to be.
From Pope Francis' preface:
My appeal
13. The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Here I want to recognize, encourage and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world's poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.
14. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. The worldwide ecological movement has already made considerable progress and led to the establishment of numerous organizations committed to raising awareness of these challenges. Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity. As the bishops of Southern Africa have stated: "Everyone's talents and involvement are needed to redress the damage caused by human abuse of God's creation." All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.
15. It is my hope that this Encyclical Letter, which is now added to the body of the Church's social teaching, can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face. I will begin by briefly reviewing several aspects of the present ecological crisis ... letting them touch us deeply and provide a concrete foundation for the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows. I will then consider some principles drawn from the Judaeo-Christian tradition which can render our commitment to the environment more coherent. ....
Vajrasatva Mahaa Aakasha Pushti Nama Yogenii Tantra, rDo rJe Sems dPa' Nam mKha' Che rGyas Pa Shes Bya rNal 'Byor Ma'i rGyud
Vol: Kha P. 595 Line 3
In the Language of India:
Vajrasatva Mahaa Aakasha Pushti Nama Yogenii Tantra
In the Tibetan Language:
rDo rJe Sems dPa' Nam mKha' Che rGyas Pa Shes Bya rNal 'Byor Ma'i rGyud
I fold my hands to the One Who Transcends Dominion and Possession, the Glorious Bearer of The Stone of Transformation!
On one occasion I spoke out these words:
He who transcends dominion and possession, the true Master of all those who leave behind dominion and possession and conduct themselves accordingly, whose personal character is physical, vocal, and psychological, and who is Supreme Bliss (bDe ba'i mChog) was, naturally, engaging the Lotus of Great Bliss, his honored wife. He erected a crystal palace from the powerful waves of tremendous happiness, a happiness that comes from working towards happiness, for his honored wife. Its architecture and dimensions were beyond measure.
The entire audience entered [the crystal palace], including:
Vajra Maker of All Vision
Vajra Stability
Vajra Glory of Supreme Rarity [596]
Vajra Endless Life, and
Vajra Accomplishment Free From Demonic Consumption
Their Honored Wives:
Wide Eyes (Yangs pa'i sPyan)
Feminine Stability
She Who Splendors in Jewels
She Whose Life is Unending
She who's Accomplishments Are Free from Demonic Consumption
Furthermore, there were the Enlightened Ones of Strong Mind:
Heart of the Land
He with the Power of Transformation in His Hands
Heart of the Sky
Dominator of the World
Kind
Polite Voice
Cleanser of Darkness
Goodness in All Things
And Their Honored Wives:
Dancer
Flower Garland
Singer
Actress
Perfume Lady
Flower
Candle
Sweet Water
The Honored Tylers were:
Killer of the Lord of the Dead
Victory in All Things
He Who Takes the Lotus to the End
He Who Puts the Soup of Life on the Stove (Thab or Thabs?)
Their Honored Wives:
She Who Kills the Lord of the Dead
She Who Wins at Everything
She Who Takes the Lotus to the End
She Who Puts the Soup of Life on the Stove
An audience of those already mentioned, and many others, all came together there, with no disparity between any of them. What is more, they came together just like sesame seeds, filling the whole place.
Their light made the dominions of the world visible. It filled [the world]. It pervaded [the world]. Suddenly it was there, looking like a glowing shimmer. [597]
Then, from the waves of the power of that great happiness, which comes out of working for happiness, there emerged Grand Masters numbering three thousand great thousands. All the dominions of the world were shaken by their might (mThu). Very Shaken. Totally shaken. They were wiped out. Very much wiped out. Totally wiped out. Totally and completely wiped out. They were blasted. Very blasted. Totally blasted. They crackled. Crackled loudly. Crackled all up.
Then the periphery was equalized with the center. All living beings were brought into submission. They also used the power of prayer to bring all the many kinds of physical realities, the many kinds of speech, and the many kinds of psychological realities into submission.
Through physical submission one manifests oneself in the work and deeds of a human being. One is born, studies, does things that are difficult to do, turns the wheel of truth, and so on. There are also methods of submission by which one does the work and deeds of a lion or the work and deeds of an elephant.
Submission through speech is an act of submission in which divine beings use divine language and dragons use dragon language.
Psychological submission is the act of submitting in the shining light of absorption as well as through magical ritual. [598]
This is the First Chapter of The Vast Tantra of the Magnificent Sky: The True Character of All Those Who Travel through Reality. It is called "The Topic under Discussion."
II
Then He Who Leaves behind Dominion and Possession smoothly moved into the absorption of Great Happiness which comes out of working towards happiness. It is called "Generous Royalty." He smiled with his face to those in the audience.
Then all those who had left behind dominion and possession, travelers through reality, addressed, in a single voice, the Master of those who leave behind dominion and possessions, travelers through reality, with these words:
Aye Ma Oh!
O Supreme Master of physical, vocal, and psychological realities!
Allow us, through your compassion,
To utilize a physical writing implement
To retain the methodology of your wisdom!
Then the Master of those who have left behind dominion and possession, those who travel through reality, took on the body of Goodness in All Things. All the Travelers through Reality saw him as having three faces and six arms.
Then those Travelers Through Reality, including Maker of All Visions, made a very pure sacrifice, an offering of what is external, what is internal, and what is secret, to Goodness In All Things, The Master of all those who have left behind dominion and possession, who travel throughout reality. [599]
They held their hands together and said these words:
"We request that the Master of all those who have left behind dominion and possessions, those who travel through reality, perform for us the transmission of empowerment into the Secret Mandala, and after that turn the wheel of the truth for that which has no symbol!"
They said this.
The Master of all those who travel reality, who leave behind dominion and possessions, listened to this, and said: "So be it!"
He gave instruction with these words:
Aye Ma Oh!
All of you want to request this Tantra,
For it is difficult to understand!
Good! Good! O Great Enlightened Ones!
Good! Good! Listen with respect!
Then all those who travel through reality repeatedly folded their hands, their eyes full with the greatest joy. They addressed him with these words:
Aye Ma Oh!
O Buddha, What a Buddha!
Aye Ma Oh!
The Buddha's announcement is Good!
Aye Ma Oh!
We request that you,
The one who has left behind dominion and possessions,
Explain to us the Supreme Magnificent Enlightenment!
Aye Ma Oh!
We request you,
Most Direct One (gZu bo che),
To explain that supreme secret word that,
When properly applied,
Consolidates a strategy
For bringing about the Great Enlightenment of All Living Beings!
Then the Master of all travelers through reality, those who have left behind dominion and possessions, [600] gave instructions to all those who travel through reality with these words:
You, The Unsurpassed,
Wish to quickly acquire
The perfect Ati Yoga,
The strategy for bringing about
The enlightenment of living beings.
So listen!
I will give you an explanation.
Then the Master of all those who travel through reality, those who have left behind dominion and possessions, smoothly moved into the absorption that is called "The Bedazzling Stone of Transformation." He positioned the audience in a Secret Mandala. Then he performed the transmission of the empowerment. After that he explained the truth of it, from the very beginning:
Reality itself is the true identity of everything.
Everything has been worked out to make this real.
The strategy is to engender wisdom.
This cannot be seen through perspectives based on differentials.
The true identity of all things
Cannot be seen by anyone whosoever!
Even the Buddha cannot see it!
The wisdom of enlightenment has no visible abode!
This is the real reason it has no true identity!
Nothing brings a harvest of Nothing!
A duality of Something and Nothing does not exist!
This is called "The Inconceivable Center."
The only thing real about a true identity
Is that there is nothing whatsoever to say about it!
Anything that can be an object of sensory perception
Cannot be proven to exist!
The true identity of all things [601]
Has no beginning and no end.
It neither lasts nor does it stop.
It is not plural nor is it single.
It does not come nor does it go.
Speculation is pacified through recognition.
Respected intentions have no substance!
This cannot be perceived by the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind (yid)!
The attitude that one is perceptive is a deception!
True purity cannot be understood!
There are no superior attitudes with regard to Samsara and Nirvana.
When one dwells in the way things really are
Stability and instability are both fine.
When what is taken in and what is saved are clear,
There are no specifics or generalities,
No endings and no beginnings.
The unspeakable is completely inconceivable!
Words that are not written down are the best.
(Yi ge Med pa – This is the Title of key tractate in the Great Sky cycle)
If you give up on words
The delusions of the mind will stop!
This is the second chapter of the Vast Tantra of the Magnificent Sky, the true nature of all those who travel through reality. It is called "Dwelling in Reality,"
III
Then the Master of travelers through reality, those who have left behind dominion and possessions, considered the previous request that had been presented by the audience. He intentionally spoke out the following intentional statement:
The truth about dwelling in reality
Is that there is no peace
Through acquisition or rejection.
It is difficult to determine,
And difficult to teach. [601]
It stands apart from linguistic conventions.
The physical aspect of the Stone of Transformation
Is not a compound.
The physical aspect of the immutable (gyung drung sku)
Has no birth or death.
It is not compounded in tripartite temporality.
That which is called "This,"
Magnificent and permanent,
The light of all things,
Cannot be taught symbolically.
I myself am incapable of seeing it.
It is not something that can be directly perceived.
It pervades all things.
It is actually a treasure that does not decay.
The true identity of all things
Is none other than their true potential (stong pa nyid).
There is no differential or difference whatsoever
Between Samsara and Nirvana.
There is not even a single thing to distinguish these two.
Things like conglomerates (phung po), domains (khams),
and generative forces (skye mched)
Along with their interdependent origination,
Are nothing but potentialities.
Those who are born into the true reality,
Which is their own potential,
Cannot see it.
The true reality
Is therefore known as "Travelling Through Reality."
It is as if all things move through bliss.
You will not find it by looking anywhere else.
No one who looks for true purity
Will be able to see the purity.
Some of those who are blind
Have a great insight into this.
Those who cannot see Nirvana
Or the position of the Buddha
Instantly achieve genuine enlightenment
Through Lotus Wisdom (Padma'i Ye shes).
The true Master has a single identity
But appears in many different ways.
The Master of distorted designations
Deceives living beings,
As if he was sticking them into a trap.
The transcendence of dominion and possessions
Is a magnificent occurrence.
The minds of those who do not make conceptual designations
Remain clear,
For they leave behind dominion and possessions.
Just as every living being dwells in reality,
Every Buddha is his own true origin.
Living beings bring themselves into life.
This [life] does not come from anything else.
It is on account of their ignorant designations
That all sentient beings,
Beings that [already] have Buddha Hearts (sangs rgyas snying po),
Come to experience all kinds of sorrow,
Both subtle and gross.
.
The Bhaga,
Which is the domain of what is true
Is the real condition of all sentient beings.
This is the sky.
It pervades everything.
Those who do not see this
Do not see it.
It is a serious error for them to put shadows over it.
It is vast, tremendous, and profound in depth.
It is understood by the wise (she rab can).
That which comes from nowhere, goes nowhere.
It has nothing to do with coming and going.
The heart of pure intent
Will not be found,
No matter where one looks,
No matter how many approaches one takes.
Purity is unshadowed self awareness (rang rig).
There is no origin
To all those material things.
They are not pure;
They are complete fabrications.
There is no difference whatsoever
Between the real domain of truth
And the heart that turns away from it.
Reality is without attachment.
It is not born and does not die.
It cannot be imagined nor conceived of.
It is bliss.
This is the Third Chapter of The Vast Tantra of the Magnificent Sky, a realistic paradigm for all travelers through reality. It is called "Teachings on the Unchanging Truth."
IV
Then the Master of all travelers through reality, those who have left behind dominion and possessions, longed, most delightfully, to manifest his own greatness. The Master of both the corporeal and of wisdom proclaimed the following:
Even the Buddha does not see
The reality that pervades all things.
It is not available to direct awareness,
While it pervades all things.
This comprehensive Light
Is not a compound.
It is actually permanent.
It is the corpus of the Stone of Transformation.
This, from amongst all pure embodiments,
Is the supreme body.
The explanation of the truth
Is called "The Corpus of Truth."
This is clearly understood by means of
A grand self-generated wisdom.
The One with the Lotus (Pad ma can) has put together
A series of tactics
Involving an inclusive basis (kun gzhi) as essential elements.
The corpus of actual enlightenment is not conceptual.
How, then, is this perfect corpus put together?
The actualization of perfect enlightenment
Is instantaneously realized
Through the Wisdom of its own potential.
This is the Corpus of Truth.
There is no other.
The Magnificent Mandala of what is real [605]
Becomes evident by virtue of its waves of power.
Attitudes based on conventional intentions
Give birth to tactics that do not prevent apparitions.
The field that is a Mandala for the Stone of Transformation
Has it dawn with the true instructions on Mantra and Mudra.
The Corpus of Enjoyment,
Supreme in its interconnectedness,
Is stationed, with its symbol and allegories,
In the massive collections of Letter Wheels (yi ge 'khor lo).
The corpus of good deeds (bsod nams)
Maintains the purest wisdom
With the continuity of a river.
The Lord (mgon po), The Grand Master,
Turns the wheel of the stone of transformation.
He uses his tongue's powers to send forth
The turning of the wheel of truth.
There is interconnectedness between prayers
And the magnificent Aware Ones.
They appear in manifest embodiments
Throughout every domain in the world.
Utilizing impermanent things,
They demonstrate a way
To get from birth right up to Nirvana.
They bring everyone that has distorted ideas
Into the fields of those with Great Hearts.
Through the stages of the physical, the verbal, and the psychological,
They bring fulfillment to the lives of living beings.
This is the forth chapter of The Vast Tantra of the Magnificent Sky, a realistic paradigm for all travelers through reality. It is called "Teaching that the Master of the Harvest has a Physical nature along with his Wisdom." [606]
V
Then the Master of all travelers through reality, those who have left behind dominion and possessions, spoke out a strategy on the Mandalas of the corporeal, the vocal, and the psychological so that they should be realized.
The reality of any truth
Is not masculine, nor feminine, nor neuter.
There is something essential
About bringing in the harvest.
Do not talk about the various sorts of Mandalas!
They are made from shapes,
Which pervade all things.
The corpuses of truth and of perfect enjoyment,
Along with their innumerable manifest embodiments
Are dispersed [everywhere],
But are not elaborated upon.
That which is pure is not a potential.
It shows itself to every living being in the three spheres
[of Desire, Form, and Formlessness]
In a physical form that will be suitable
For the purpose of making them submit.
Potentialities cannot be removed from shapes.
The Masters,
Who are not spoken of,
Have the power to make them submit.
They send out all kinds of sounds and words
To control all kinds of conjectures.
I have taught the single transport (theg pa),
The dual transport, the triple transport,
The five transports, and inconceivable others. [607]
This was to prevent the separation of the center
From the periphery.
The purity of the Sonic Mandala
Is the inconceivable way that it spreads out everywhere.
There is something about the supreme Sonic Mandala
That makes the eighty four thousand bounteous worlds
Melt into Sonic Spaciousness.
He said this.
Then the entire Sonic Mandala melted into the spaciousness of truth, and became invisible.
Then he spoke on the Magnificent Mandala of the Heart.
The Mahamudra shines out
From the mudra of reality.
The clan of the real (de bzhin)
The clan of the Stone of Transformation (rdo rje)
And the clan of Precious Things (rin chen)
Blaze in the light of the Mahamudra!
Just like the blazing Udum flowers
That are sometimes found on lonely pathways.
You alone perceive all the Mandalas of Illusion.
For others, there is nothing there at all.
Thus he spoke.
Then all the Mandalas of the Heart were transformed beyond the imagination.
This is the fifth chapter of The Vast Tantra of the Magnificent Sky, a realistic paradigm for all travelers through reality. It is called "A Non-conceptual Teaching on the Physical, Vocal and Heart Mandalas." [608]
--
Peace on Earth
Translated by Christopher Wilkinson
It's been a year since I made a clothing item and I came back at it with what I think is a beautiful and inspired jacket.
This handmade spring jacket combines linen and cotton fabrics for a light and airy feel, floral prints, hand stitching details, and a waist belt. Would be beautiful for a brazen self confident woman in role play or just a romantic boho women on the scene.
Comes in 7 different versions, the Khaki proceeds go 100% to charity. The Collector is HUD driven to pick between the 6 different jackets and change the belt color interdependently.
High rise office towers (including reflections) occlude together giving the impression that there is no space, just office space. Even then, what we are actually looking at is structural skeletons with facades. This is a photograph with no background, only interdependent subject. Taken in the Financial District, San Francisco.
Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.
The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.
The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.
There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.
Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.
Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.
Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.
Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.
Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.
All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.
Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.
After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.
Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.
Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).
Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.
Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.
Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.
Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).
Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.
So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).
Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.
The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.
Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.
In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.
Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.
Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.
Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.
The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.
The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.
The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.
The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.
The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.
Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.
Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.
Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.
The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.
The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.
Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.
Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.
Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.
The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.
Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.
Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.
Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.
The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.
The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.
The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.
The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).
The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.
Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.
There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.
Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.
Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.
As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.
The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).
The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.
Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.
Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.
Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.
Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.
A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.
An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.
Although a great many fossil fishes have been found and described, they represent a tiny portion of the long and complex evolution of fishes, and knowledge of fish evolution remains relatively fragmentary. In the classification presented in this article, fishlike vertebrates are divided into seven categories, the members of each having a different basic structural organization and different physical and physiological adaptations for the problems presented by the environment. The broad basic pattern has been one of successive replacement of older groups by newer, better-adapted groups. One or a few members of a group evolved a basically more efficient means of feeding, breathing, or swimming or several better ways of living. These better-adapted groups then forced the extinction of members of the older group with which they competed for available food, breeding places, or other necessities of life. As the new fishes became well established, some of them evolved further and adapted to other habitats, where they continued to replace members of the old group already there. The process was repeated until all or almost all members of the old group in a variety of habitats had been replaced by members of the newer evolutionary line.
The earliest vertebrate fossils of certain relationships are fragments of dermal armour of jawless fishes (superclass Agnatha, order Heterostraci) from the Upper Ordovician Period in North America, about 450 million years in age. Early Ordovician toothlike fragments from the former Soviet Union are less certainly remains of agnathans. It is uncertain whether the North American jawless fishes inhabited shallow coastal marine waters, where their remains became fossilized, or were freshwater vertebrates washed into coastal deposits by stream action.
Jawless fishes probably arose from ancient, small, soft-bodied filter-feeding organisms much like and probably also ancestral to the modern sand-dwelling filter feeders, the Cephalochordata (Amphioxus and its relatives). The body in the ancestral animals was probably stiffened by a notochord. Although a vertebrate origin in fresh water is much debated by paleontologists, it is possible that mobility of the body and protection provided by dermal armour arose in response to streamflow in the freshwater environment and to the need to escape from and resist the clawed invertebrate eurypterids that lived in the same waters. Because of the marine distribution of the surviving primitive chordates, however, many paleontologists doubt that the vertebrates arose in fresh water.
Heterostracan remains are next found in what appear to be delta deposits in two North American localities of Silurian age. By the close of the Silurian, about 416 million years ago, European heterostracan remains are found in what appear to be delta or coastal deposits. In the Late Silurian of the Baltic area, lagoon or freshwater deposits yield jawless fishes of the order Osteostraci. Somewhat later in the Silurian from the same region, layers contain fragments of jawed acanthodians, the earliest group of jawed vertebrates, and of jawless fishes. These layers lie between marine beds but appear to be washed out from fresh waters of a coastal region.
It is evident, therefore, that by the end of the Silurian both jawed and jawless vertebrates were well established and already must have had a long history of development. Yet paleontologists have remains only of specialized forms that cannot have been the ancestors of the placoderms and bony fishes that appear in the next period, the Devonian. No fossils are known of the more primitive ancestors of the agnathans and acanthodians. The extensive marine beds of the Silurian and those of the Ordovician are essentially void of vertebrate history. It is believed that the ancestors of fishlike vertebrates evolved in upland fresh waters, where whatever few and relatively small fossil beds were made probably have been long since eroded away. Remains of the earliest vertebrates may never be found.
By the close of the Silurian, all known orders of jawless vertebrates had evolved, except perhaps the modern cyclostomes, which are without the hard parts that ordinarily are preserved as fossils. Cyclostomes were unknown as fossils until 1968, when a lamprey of modern body structure was reported from the Middle Pennsylvanian of Illinois, in deposits more than 300 million years old. Fossil evidence of the four orders of armoured jawless vertebrates is absent from deposits later than the Devonian. Presumably, these vertebrates became extinct at that time, being replaced by the more efficient and probably more aggressive placoderms, acanthodians, selachians (sharks and relatives), and by early bony fishes. Cyclostomes survived probably because early on they evolved from anaspid agnathans and developed a rasping tonguelike structure and a sucking mouth, enabling them to prey on other fishes. With this way of life they apparently had no competition from other fish groups. Cyclostomes, the hagfishes and lampreys, were once thought to be closely related because of the similarity in their suctorial mouths, but it is now understood that the hagfishes, order Myxiniformes, are the most primitive living chordates, and they are classified separately from the lampreys, order Petromyzontiformes.
Early jawless vertebrates probably fed on tiny organisms by filter feeding, as do the larvae of their descendants, the modern lampreys. The gill cavity of the early agnathans was large. It is thought that small organisms taken from the bottom by a nibbling action of the mouth, or more certainly by a sucking action through the mouth, were passed into the gill cavity along with water for breathing. Small organisms then were strained out by the gill apparatus and directed to the food canal. The gill apparatus thus evolved as a feeding, as well as a breathing, structure. The head and gills in the agnathans were protected by a heavy dermal armour; the tail region was free, allowing motion for swimming.
Most important for the evolution of fishes and vertebrates in general was the early appearance of bone, cartilage, and enamel-like substance. These materials became modified in later fishes, enabling them to adapt to many aquatic environments and finally even to land. Other basic organs and tissues of the vertebrates—such as the central nervous system, heart, liver, digestive tract, kidney, and circulatory system— undoubtedly were present in the ancestors of the agnathans. In many ways, bone, both external and internal, was the key to vertebrate evolution.
The next class of fishes to appear was the Acanthodii, containing the earliest known jawed vertebrates, which arose in the Late Silurian, more than 416 million years ago. The acanthodians declined after the Devonian but lasted into the Early Permian, a little less than 280 million years ago. The first complete specimens appear in Lower Devonian freshwater deposits, but later in the Devonian and Permian some members appear to have been marine. Most were small fishes, not more than 75 cm (approximately 30 inches) in length.
We know nothing of the ancestors of the acanthodians. They must have arisen from some jawless vertebrate, probably in fresh water. They appear to have been active swimmers with almost no head armour but with large eyes, indicating that they depended heavily on vision. Perhaps they preyed on invertebrates. The rows of spines and spinelike fins between the pectoral and pelvic fins give some credence to the idea that paired fins arose from “fin folds” along the body sides.
The relationships of the acanthodians to other jawed vertebrates are obscure. They possess features found in both sharks and bony fishes. They are like early bony fishes in possessing ganoidlike scales and a partially ossified internal skeleton. Certain aspects of the jaw appear to be more like those of bony fishes than sharks, but the bony fin spines and certain aspects of the gill apparatus would seem to favour relationships with early sharks. Acanthodians do not seem particularly close to the Placodermi, although, like the placoderms, they apparently possessed less efficient tooth replacement and tooth structure than the sharks and the bony fishes, possibly one reason for their subsequent extinction.
**Fort Pulaski National Monument** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 66000064, date listed 10/15/1966
17 mi. W of Savannah, Cockspur Island
Savannah, GA (Chatham County)
Fort Pulaski, under construction from 1829 to1847, was one of a chain of brick coastal fortifications in the eastern U.S. On Cockspur Island in the mouth of the Savannah River, it guarded the city of Savannah from water-borne invasion. Associated with it are various ancillary structures and sites that predate, contemporize with, or postdate the main building.
Fort Pulaski is the best preserved and most original of a system of eastern coastal forts designed by the French military engineer Simon Bernard while in the employ of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Its massive brick walls, backed by heavy piers, and casemated rooms reflected the continuing search for security against increasingly large caliber smoothbore cannon of the period.
Ancillary structures include: numerous cisterns, workmen's village house foundations and a stone pier, all associated with the fort's construction; Cockspur Island Lighthouse (1840) prominent in local navigational history and architecturally significant; Battery Hambright (1895) which represents the continuing evolution of coastal fortifications; and, the park residence (1896), once headquarters of the U. S. Quarantine Station on the island. (1)
A five-sided (truncated hexagon) brick structure, with 7 ½ foot-thick outer walls two tiers high, and approximately 350 feet long on each side, this casemated fort is in excellent condition. Opposite the gorge face is a triangular demilune with sides approximately 400 feet long. The fort and its demilune are separated by, and completely surrounded by, a wet moat approximately 40 feet wide and 7 feet deep. Extending from the fort in all directions over an area of roughly 100 acres is a system of dikes and drainage ditches. All of the above elements were designed and built as an integrated, militarily interdependent unit. (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg...
Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.
The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.
The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.
There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.
Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.
Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.
Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.
Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.
Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.
All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.
Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.
After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.
Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.
Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).
Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.
Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.
Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.
Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).
Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.
So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).
Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.
The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.
Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.
In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.
Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.
Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.
Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.
The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.
The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.
The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.
The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.
The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.
Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.
Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.
Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.
The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.
The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.
Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.
Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.
Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.
The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.
Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.
Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.
Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.
The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.
The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.
The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.
The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).
The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.
Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.
There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.
Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.
Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.
As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.
The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).
The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.
Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.
Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.
Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.
Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.
A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.
An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.
"The Octagon House, also known as the Colonel John Tayloe III House, is located at 1799 New York Avenue, Northwest in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. After the British destroyed the White House during the War of 1812, the house served as the temporary residence of James Madison, President of the United States, for a period of six months. It is one of only five houses to serve as the presidential residence in the history of the United States of America and one of only three (along with the White House and Blair House) that still stand.
Colonel John Tayloe III, for whom the house was built, was born at Mount Airy – which he later inherited – the colonial estate built by his father, John Tayloe II on the north bank of the Rappahannock River across from Tappahannock, Virginia. By this time, it was the centerpiece of a roughly 60,000 acre department of interdependent plantation farms-known as the Mount Airy department, located approximately one hundred miles south of Washington, D.C., in Richmond County, Virginia. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University in England, served in the Virginia state legislature, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1800.
John Tayloe III married Ann Ogle, daughter of Benjamin Ogle and granddaughter to Samuel Ogle of Ogle Hall Annapolis, Maryland, in 1792 at her family's country home Belair Mansion. Ann was only a year younger than her husband. Tayloe was reputed to be the richest Virginian planter of his time, and built the house in Washington at the suggestion of George Washington on land purchased from Gustavus W. Scott or Benjamin Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy. The Octagon was originally constructed to be a winter residence for the Tayloe family, but they lived in the house year-round from 1818 to 1855. The Octagon property originally included a number of outbuildings, including a smokehouse, laundry, stables, carriage house, slave quarters, and an ice house (the only surviving outbuilding). The Tayloes were involved in shipbuilding, horse breeding and racing, and owned several iron foundries—they were fairly diversified for a plantation family. The Tayloes owned hundreds of slaves, and had between 12 and 18 who worked at the Octagon.
Foggy Bottom is one of the oldest late 18th- and 19th-century neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., located west of the White House and downtown Washington, in the Northwest quadrant. It is bounded roughly by 17th Street NW to the east, Rock Creek Parkway to the west, Constitution Avenue NW to the south, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW to the north.
Foggy Bottom is thought to have received its name due to an atmospheric quirk of its low lying, marshy riverside location, which made it susceptible to concentrations of fog, and later, industrial smoke. The United States Department of State gained the metonym "Foggy Bottom" when it moved its headquarters to the nearby Harry S Truman Building, originally planned and constructed to be the new United States Department of War headquarters building, from the State, War, and Navy Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) near the White House in 1947.
Foggy Bottom includes the main campus of the George Washington University (GWU), and residents have convenient access to the nearby historic Georgetown area. In 1877 the moons of Mars (Phobos and Deimos) were discovered from the old Naval Observatory in Foggy Bottom, which was located here until 1893.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia, also known as just Washington or simply D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River, which forms its southwestern and southern border with the U.S. state of Virginia, and it shares a land border with the U.S. state of Maryland on its other sides. The city was named for George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, and the federal district is named after Columbia, the female personification of the nation. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S. with over 20 million annual visitors as of 2016.
The U.S. Constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; the district is not a part of any U.S. state (nor is it one itself). The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district located along the Potomac River near the country's East Coast. The City of Washington was founded in 1791, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. In 1801, the territory, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia (including the settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria), officially became recognized as the federal district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the district. There have been efforts to make the city into a state since the 1880s, a movement that has gained momentum in recent years, and a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021.
The city is divided into quadrants centered on the Capitol, and there are as many as 131 neighborhoods. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 689,545, which makes it the 23rd most populous city in the U.S. as of 2020, the third most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and gives it a population larger than that of two U.S. states: Wyoming and Vermont. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington's metropolitan area, the country's sixth largest (including parts of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia), had a 2020 estimated population of 6.3 million residents; and over 54 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the District.
The three branches of the U.S. federal government are centered in the district: Congress (legislative), the president (executive), and the Supreme Court (judicial). Washington is home to many national monuments and museums, primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 177 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profits, lobbying groups, and professional associations, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, AARP, the National Geographic Society, the American Red Cross, and others.
A locally elected mayor and a 13-member council have governed the district since 1973. Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. The District of Columbia does not have representation in Congress, although D.C. residents elect a single at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives who has no vote. District voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961." - info from Wikipedia.
The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.
Now on Instagram.
Yin Yang is a Chinese symbol illustrating "how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn." This simple shape of mirrored inverted images is represents many concepts and a variety of religious, and cultural practices including Taoism, the I Ching, Tai Chi and more. Continue reading on Wikipedia.
Yin, Yang, slow, fast, soft, hard, yielding, solid, diffuse, focused, cold, hot, wet, dry, passive, aggressive, water, fire, earth, sky, moon, sun, femininity, masculinity, nighttime, daytime.
Excerpted from Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities:
"The two sorts of ecosystems-one created by nature, the other by human beings-have fundamental principles in common. For instance, both types of ecosystems-assuming they are not barren-require much diversity to sustain themselves. In both cases, the diversity develops organically over time, and the varied components are interdependent in complex ways. The more niches for diversity of life and livelihoods in either kind of ecosystem, the greater its carrying capacity for life. In both types of ecosystems, many small and obscure components-easily overlooked by superficial observation can be vital to the whole, far out of proportion to their own tininess of scale or aggregate quantities. In natural ecosystems, gene pools are fundamental treasures. In city ecosystems, kinds of work are fundamental treasures; furthermore, forms of work not only reproduce themselves in newly created proliferating organizations, they also hybridize, and even mutate into unprecedented kinds of work. And because of their complex interdependencies of components, both kinds of ecosystems are vulnerable and fragile, easily disrupted or destroyed."
What an amazing woman, especially considering the era she succeeded in. I got the chance to hear her speak in Portland in a sardine-packed lecture room with throngs of people relegated to the hallways trying to listen to her meager, aged voice. She died about a year later in 2006. But her principles live on in many ways, in many people. Her signature book, The Death and Life... remains a vital read after almost 50 years.
Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.
The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.
The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.
There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.
Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.
Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.
Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.
Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.
Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.
All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.
Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.
After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.
Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.
Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).
Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.
Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.
Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.
Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).
Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.
So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).
Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.
The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.
Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.
In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.
Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.
Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.
Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.
The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.
The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.
The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.
The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.
The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.
Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.
Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.
Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.
The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.
The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.
Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.
Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.
Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.
The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.
Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.
Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.
Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.
The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.
The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.
The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.
The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).
The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.
Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.
There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.
Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.
Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.
As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.
The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).
The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.
Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.
Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.
Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.
Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.
A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.
An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.