As you can tell from my rather crude drawing, all of this is in extremely bad taste, so if you think you might be offended, please don't read on. And please don't think I'm being homophobic in the skit about the Abbot; heterosexuals get short shrift later on too! Misanthropic is probably the word :o)

 

Note my personification of death is female when the victim is male: an idea which I thought was reasonably original until I saw Cocteau's 'Orphee'...

 

For Hans Holbein's wonderful engravings of the Dance of Death, which inspired these skits, see:

www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod.htm

 

... and follow the links.

 

THE DANCE OF DEATH

a bawdy masque

  

Giles Watson

 

based on the engravings of

Hans Holbein

 

2001

 

THE CEMETERY

 

Death 1:

Beat the drum with knucklebones,

Let your kneecaps rattle.

All are dead, no god atones,

Dead, like bloated cattle.

Beat the drum, the skin stretched tight,

With jawbone castanet:

These fools, who hoped for love and light -

Darkness rules them yet.

Throbbing as their hearts once throbbed,

Robbed of breath, as once they robbed.

Beat the drum, the bodhran flay;

Consign their corpses to decay.

 

Death 2:

Blow the pipe through fleshless lips,

Blow, as squalid humour drips

Between the slats of coffins cold,

And spent blood nourishes the mould.

Pucker up and blow the pipe

For bodies black, flyblown and ripe,

Green with phosphorescent glow:

Putrid piper, pout and blow.

 

Chorus:

Every king and every pope

Shall die by cancer, blade or rope,

Every merchant, pauper, slave

Shall lie grinning in the grave.

All the wise, the Reaper culls:

All shall soon have empty skulls.

Every fool shall bend the knee

And Death shall have the victory.

  

THE ABBOT

 

Death (aside):

 

I’m going to enjoy this one:

He’s portly, and he’s plump!

I’ll warrant that he got that way

By sitting on his rump!

His rump! It cannot come with him

He must leave it behind!

I’d let him keep it for a while,

But I feel disinclined…

 

(Death stealthily approaches the Abbot, who sits beneath a tree, gloating over a mitre and crozier.)

 

Abbot:

 

(The abbot is fat and imperturbable. Death creeps behind and listens to his pederastic musings, occasionally reaching out for his shoulder, and then thinking the better of it. At last, she can bear the temptation no longer, and she begins to interrupt.)

 

Ah! My pert and pretty monks!

I have made it my mission

To confess each one of you

In a new position.

 

Ah! My pert and pretty monks,

You each took my dictation,

Or else I had your bottoms stripped

All pink, for flagellation!

 

Ah! My pert and pretty monks,

And now I’m getting old,

I’ve left our abbey half in ruins

And purloined all the gold.

 

Ah! My pert and pretty monks!

Your tonsures shaven neatly –

If I’d had my way you’d have shed

Your habits quite completely.

 

Ah! My pert and pretty monks!

I’ll tuck each in his bed –

 

Death:

 

And Abbot, you will pay the price

Now that you are dead.

 

Abbot:

 

Who said that? My pretty monks?

They wouldn’t be so cheeky!

Perhaps it is the Bishop? No!

He wouldn’t dare be sneaky.

 

Someone spoke – or else I’m mad

I heard it – someone said –

 

Death:

 

Abbot you will pay the price

Now that you are dead.

 

(The Abbot starts, turns, and sees Death. He is terrified.)

 

Abbot:

 

Oh! My pert and pretty monks!

My strong monks, white and brawny!

Hurry now to rescue me,

For this one’s far too scrawny!

 

(Death snatches the mitre and crozier, and leers at him.)

 

Oh! My pert and pretty monks!

She’s vile! She stinks! She’s slobbery!

My mitre and my crozier!

Why! This is daylight robbery!

 

Death:

 

Robbery? You did it well –

But stole no maidenhead!

You’ll make a pretty whipping boy

For all the living dead!

You’ve spent your flesh on novices –

Confessed them of their sin,

But now, my dear, that you are mine

You soon shall wear my grin.

 

(Death plucks him from his seat and drags him away screaming.)

  

THE ASTROLOGER

 

(The Astrologer sits and contemplates the heavens, surrounded by paraphernalia. )

 

Astrologer:

 

Our ancestors were dumb, and blind,

For man is nothing without mind –

‘Tis intellect makes humankind.

 

Mind will conquer natural forces,

Mind will plot the stellar courses,

And trace all creatures to their sources.

 

The astrolabe maps out the sky

To show us where our fortunes lie –

Foretell the future, past defy.

 

The quadrant gives us time, and place

To benefit the human race

More soundly than the Church’s grace.

 

And other planets shall we find,

The influence of each opined,

For intellect makes humankind.

 

(Death enters, holding forth a skull. As she speaks, the Astrologer tries to ignore her, but at last is compelled to listen. He cries out and dies, and Death’s last words are chanted triumphantly over his body.)

 

Death:

 

And yet your intellect deserts

The cavern in your head.

There shall be no more need for brains

When humankind is dead.

Your eyes opaque like Mercury;

You’ll say goodbye to Venus –

No floozy in a cockle shell

Shall ever come between us.

‘Twill be too dark to contemplate

Conundrums from the stars –

There’ll be nought but rats, with twinkling

Eyes as red as Mars.

Forget the moons of Jupiter;

They’ll only prove it’s time

To leave the firmament behind,

Your quadrants caked with grime.

You’ll not discover Saturn’s rings;

Neptune’s beyond your scope;

Appeals to Copernicus

Will not appease the Pope,

Besides, my minions own him too,

No prayer can contain us;

Enlightenment will fail you when

My worms crawl up Uranus.

The planets all are in their place

With every constellation –

So what? This bleached and fleshless skull

Demands your contemplation.

Your auguries have blinded you;

You’re starstruck with deceit.

A man is but a skeleton

Hung with bits of meat.

 

(Death takes hold of the astrologer by the hair, lifting up his head. She holds the skull alongside it, laughs, and drags him away.)

  

THE BLIND OLD MAN

 

(The Blind Old Man stands on a street corner, hoping to cross the road.)

 

Old Man:

 

Oh, who will help a blind old man

To cross the busy street?

For all I hear is clattering hooves

And sounds of tramping feet.

Will someone take me to a tavern

For a pint of best?

And sit me down before the hearth

That I might take my rest?

 

(Death comes up and takes him by the hand.)

 

Death:

 

I am well known for courtesy

And helping men to rest –

No other has, for ageing souls

Less grudging interest.

Take my hand, good gentleman,

For I have heard your pleading,

And no one ever went astray

Surrendered to my leading.

 

(Death leads him forward.)

 

Old Man:

 

‘Tis kind of you, dear lady,

This debt I shall repay –

I could not wish for firmer hand

To lead me on my way.

And yet, your hand is cold, my dear,

Like icicles, and bony –

And since I last went to the inn

The way has grown more stony.

 

(Death says nothing, but leads him on.)

 

Old Man (reaching out and grasping something):

 

What? Is this the tavern door?

It is of iron wrought!

Where are all the babbling voices,

The company I sought?

 

Death:

 

Your senses are deceiving you –

For herein sits a host

A-drinking ale beside the hearth,

And all as warm as toast.

 

Old Man (reaching out again):

 

Why does the bar feel like a slab

Of lichen-covered stone?

And why do all the pewter mugs

Feel like chalky bone?

 

(Death says nothing, but begins to play.)

 

Old Man:

 

Ah – at least there’s music here,

And yet, the carpet’s rank,

And never did a fireside

Smell so dull and dank.

Lead me now, I’ll take a seat,

This night I’ll pass away…

 

(He takes another step forward, and plunges straight into an open grave.)

 

Death:

 

Well chosen words! You will indeed!

And there’s no bill to pay.

A lych-gate was the tavern door;

A gravestone was the bar –

Your resting place a yawning grave

Left carelessly ajar.

 

(She throws soil into the grave.)

 

Good night, old gentleman, goodnight!

My wriggling worms, sup well –

Thus rings the bell to summon him

To heaven or to hell.

  

THE IDIOT FOOL

 

Fool:

 

(The fool has a bladder bauble and a bulging codpiece.)

 

Bedlam’s reject; I’m a Fool,

This bladder bauble is my tool.

I have another ‘twixt my legs –

Give it a pat – see how it begs!

I’ve tangled hair,

My feet are bare,

I caper on without a care,

And I have no need to be fed

For poverty’s all in the head.

 

Death:

 

(Death spits at the bauble, and blows on the Fool’s codpiece. The Fool groans a lot.)

 

Heaven’s reject, I am Death;

I blow my pipes to steal your breath.

My grimy jaw will spit forth acid

To make your bauble limp and flaccid.

Hear how he sighs

When blown by flies,

For no mortal Death defies:

Think me not some vain phantasm;

I’ll clutch you ‘til your final spasm!

 

Fool:

 

(The Fool knocks Death to the ground with his bauble, but then proceeds to put Death back together again.)

 

Be brave now bauble: fight the foe

Though the plump bluebottles blow!

Wrap your blubber round his jaw;

Bring him clattering to the floor!

Death’s too late!

He’s foiled by fate!

Death shall disarticulate!

See! To prove that I am clever

I’ll now put Death back together.

 

Death:

 

(Death arises once more, and dances away with the Fool.)

 

O! Fated Fool! Inflated Fool!

To prick your pride would be too cruel!

Methinks that I shall take you whole

And have you mounted on a pole!

For ne’er did I

Compel to die

A finer fool! Fum foe and fie!

Bedlam’s reject, Death’s elect,

Though you’re dead, you’re still erect!

  

THE KING

 

(The King sits at his table, eating and drinking. His Food Taster hovers obsequiously nearby.)

 

King:

 

The Queen is dead

(Or so I’m told) –

She’ll not inherit

All my gold.

Besides, she criticised

Of late

My interest in

Affairs of State –

Though she knew nought

Of my success

With that comely

French princess,

Or how I filled

All Italy

With my bastard

Progeny.

 

These women!

How they prate and prattle

Of faithfulness!

Fat chance that’ll

Ever win

A king his fame.

These preaching prelates

Are to blame;

They think that

Chastity’s the thing

That makes a strong,

Successful king.

Fiddlesticks!

Though they be vexed,

A good king’s always

Highly sexed:

He likes a bare

And ample bust,

A horn of wine,

Good food, and lust.

 

Food Taster:

 

Alas! Alack! Though ‘tis no matter,

I cannot offer you the latter,

But ‘ere you caper off to bed,

A man’s libido must be fed.

Pray, wrap your gullet round some food –

I swear, ‘twill much improve your mood.

 

(The Food Taster pours gruel into a dish. A sideways glance reveals her to the audience as Death. She grimaces, and tips in a phial of poison, then makes a show of tasting the gruel. The King takes the food and gulps it noisily.)

 

Death:

 

Delightful, ‘tis! To watch you feed – O!

Stimulant to your libido!

I’ll sit and watch your tongue turn black,

Choked on aphrodisiac.

 

(The King looks up at Death, now fully revealed, in horror. He spits out the remaining food, and claws desperately at his throat. He reaches for a jug of water, but Death snatches it away from him, and pours it out before him. The King dies, and Death leads him away, singing.)

 

Death:

 

Spilt, like water, is your life –

‘Twas I who took your Queen and wife,

And now you’re mine, as all must be!

Nought satisfies like royalty.

  

THE KNIGHT

 

Death’s Chorus:

 

(Recited after every second verse sung by the Knight..)

 

Tarsus flanged with metatarsus,

O! What fun arranging ‘em!

Click! Clack! All my vertebrae

Are flanging with my cranium!

Chop me up! Dismember me!

Mortus est! But then,

A little orthopaedic skill

Brings Death to life again!

 

Knight:

 

(As he sings the first verse, Death enters, visored, and they fight.)

 

I am a bold, courageous knight;

I’m fierce against the foe!

I chop off heads, and arms and legs

And balls, with every blow!

 

I shall hew you limb from limb,

And I’ll show no remorse-o!

I’ll leave you wriggling on the ground,

A bloody, legless torso!

 

(He cuts Death’s legs off. Death falls, and sings her Chorus, putting herself back together.

She stands up again. They fight.)

 

Knight:

 

I am a bold, courageous knight;

My foe gives me the shits!

That is why I swing my sword

And chop the chap to bits!

 

Chop, plop! Chop, plop! You horrid foe!

I’ll have your brains embalmed!

Chop, plop! Chop, plop! Surrender, fool!

For thou hast been disarmed!

 

(He chops Death’s arms off. Death sings her Chorus, and puts herself to rights. They fight.)

 

Knight:

 

I am a bold, courageous knight;

I chop the enemy,

And watch his limbs fall left and right

Like branches from a tree.

 

Aha! You bounder! Strike your blow!

I fear it is belated!

I struck first, you craven foe,

And you’re decapitated!

 

(He chops off Death’s head. Death sings her Chorus, and puts herself to rights. They fight.

Death aims a blow between his legs.)

 

Knight:

 

I am a bold, courageous knight!

Take that! Foe beware!

Ouch! That hurt! Below the belt!

Foul play! That isn’t fair!

 

Ouch again! You bloody bounder!

My balls, O! How they bleed!

Death has thwarted me, O woe!

And I shall die knock-kneed!

 

(The Knight dies dramatically and bloodily. Death exults over him, and sings her final Chorus:)

 

Sinews severed, gametes gashed!

Death always wins the fight!

All armour has a chink somewhere,

You poor, unmanly knight!

Can-opened, tin-snipped and castrated!

All your joints are dislocated!

Unflanged thou art, thou luckless knave

Fit for nothing but the grave!

  

THE MISER

 

(The Miser sits at his table, counting money.)

 

Miser:

 

Ten gold pieces – I despise

Those wastrels in the street,

Frittering their wealth away;

I hear them from my seat.

 

Twenty pieces – how I loathe

Those spendthrifts, reckless, rash!

None of them is worth a penny

From my petty cash!

 

Thirty pieces – hear them laugh

As though their lives were funny!

But will they make such idle sport

When they run out of money?

 

Forty pieces – all their children

Rot their teeth on candy;

Men waste their cash on prostitutes

When they are feeling randy.

 

Fifty pieces – they build fires –

The very thought’s offensive –

Enlightened men prefer the cold,

For it is less expensive.

 

Sixty pieces – they have lanterns –

What a heinous scandal!

For gold will glitter just as well

When held up to a candle.

 

Seventy pieces – they drink ale

And work it off in dances,

But ale and dancing will do nought

To rescue their finances.

 

Eighty pieces – they think themselves

Unfettered, fancy-free,

But every last one is my slave

By dint of usury.

 

Ninety pieces – when they’re sick,

They need not look to me –

Let each one dig his own grave;

I’m done with charity.

 

(Death appears, and sweeps all the money off the table and into a basket. The Miser looks on in horror.)

 

Death:

 

A hundred pieces! You’ll admit

With your last dying groans

That once you had a hundred gold;

Now you’re a hundred bones.

 

Hear them revelling outside –

Who cares if they owe rent?

A thousand grains of sand per coin,

But all of yours are spent!

 

(Death takes up her hour-glass, grabs him viciously by the wrist, and hauls him away. The table tips over, and the few remaining coins clatter to the floor.)

  

THE NUN

 

(The Nun and her Lover sit side by side on a chair, looking nervous. The lover plays aimlessly with a lute.)

 

Lover:

 

Your habit’s very fetching, dear;

I like the way your wimple

Reveals a wisp of comely hair.

You have a sexy dimple –

I’d rather like to kiss it, dear,

With your kind permission…

 

(He makes as if to kiss her cheek, but she turns away, and then kneels on the floor.)

 

Nun:

 

But I must pray, my love, before

You lead me to perdition.

 

(She lights a candle, and places it on the altar before her.)

 

Oh, I am such a naughty nun

But perhaps it’s not too late

To say a penitential psalm

Before we fornicate.

Oh, life is far too difficult

Stuck inside a cloister;

That’s why, when bed-time comes around

My sheets are often moister

And more disordered than you might

Expect a nun’s to be…

 

Lover (getting up):

 

Ahem. Excuse me. Won’t be long.

I think I need to pee.

 

Nun (ignoring him and fiddling with rosaries):

 

Oh, I am such a naughty nun;

I really should be spanked

The way they do with naughty monks

When they’re found to have wanked.

 

(As her speech continues, Death comes in and sits on the chair, in the space vacated by her lover. He waits patiently for his chance.)

 

Trying to cover up the stains –

It’s such a cause for stress,

And trying to stop the springs from creaking’s

Hard, I must confess,

But I must not confess too loud –

That would cause a to-do…

 

Death:

 

Not half the confab it’ll cause

When I’ve had my way with you!

 

Nun:

 

Oh, don’t talk dirty, dear, not now!

I’m trying to be prayerful –

And sorely must I now repent

Of all the ways we’re careful:

The rhythm method’s not for me;

A sheath’s far more protective…

 

Death:

 

Fear not, dear! I know a method

Infinitely more effective.

 

(She stops praying, and turns to look at Death. He grins, holding up the hourglass. She screams horribly, and dies. Death idly gets up from the seat, snuffs the candle with his fingers, and animates her corpse. He takes up the lover’s lute, and begins to play. They dance away together.)

 

Death (departing):

 

Priests and bishops, clerks and canons:

All of these are fun,

But if a good time’s what you want,

There’s nothing like a nun!

  

THE OLD WOMAN

 

(An old woman totters along, stooped over her rosary. Her lips tremble, but make no noise. Every step is clearly a trial. Death dances up to her, garlanded with laurels.)

 

Death:

 

Your fingers are gnarled, like the roots of an oak,

And stained like old parchment, sullied with smoke,

And yet you persist with your rosary prayer,

Though no angel listens and no god will care.

The coffin your cradle, your shroud will enfold,

And I shall release you, through mildew and mould.

 

I’ll crawl in your ear and bite through to the brain,

And your brittle old bones will feed the gold grain,

I’ll snap every tendon, like mandolin strings,

And tune you anew at the coming of spring,

For once you were sprightly, but now you are old,

So I shall release you, through mildew and mould.

 

No hero can help you; none succour nor save,

But the cold wind will sprinkle the seeds on your grave,

The orbs of your eyes will be plied with white roots,

The blood in your veins grows verdant green shoots.

My arms may be fleshless, but still, they can hold

While I release you, through mildew and mould.

 

(Death holds her tenderly, and she collapses in his arms. He gently lays her out on the ground, and covers her with his garlands. The masque ends.)

  

THE PARSON

 

(A Parson walks solemnly towards the bed of a dying man. He holds the monstrance before him, ready to give the sufferer his last rites. Unrecognised by the Parson, Death capers ahead of him, making obscene gestures.)

 

Death (aside to audience):

 

When I’m on earth, ‘tis normally right

To give a mortal man a fright

By appearing in my glory,

Announcing grim ends to the story.

Today, however, I’ve a mind

To keep this poor old parson blind –

Indeed! Delightful possibility!

I shall maintain invisibility,

While, with monstrance held aloft,

My parson, with his brains gone soft,

Goes, the last rites to administer.

He’ll find that I’ve done something sinister

When he gets there, for his sheep

Is dead already. Ahead I’ll creep…

 

Parson:

 

Griswald was not good, ‘tis true –

He beat his mistress black and blue –

He always was a naughty one.

Kyrie elaison.

 

Death:

 

‘Tis true, dear parson! You should know,

For when his mistress came to blow

You, she told all Griswald did.

Then you paid her fifty quid.

 

Parson:

 

Griswald was a drunk, I fear,

Always revelling in beer.

But now his drinking days are gone.

Kyrie elaison.

 

Death:

 

‘Tis true that beer was his drink –

You kept the whisky, though, I think!

That’s why your visit’s so belated –

Because you were inebriated.

 

Parson:

 

Griswald often stole, they say,

At times when all good Christians pray.

He liked to purloin, pinch and con.

Kyrie elaison.

 

Death:

 

‘Tis true that Griswald was a thief –

To pious souls, ‘tis such a grief.

Maggots make his dead limbs writhe

While you pilfer half the tithe.

 

Parson:

 

Here I come, from heaven sent

With the holy Sacrament.

May he repent before I’m gone.

Kyrie elaison.

 

(The Parson arrives at the dead man’s bedside, perceives that he is too late, and crosses himself. He is about to bless the corpse with the monstrance when Death reveals herself. At Death’s last words, the Parson trembles with fear, drops the monstrance, and runs away. Death takes up the corpse and dances off with it.)

 

Death:

 

Corpus Christi – holy smoke-us!

Done with all this hocus-pocus!

“This is my body” – very true:

White as fish-flesh, eyelids blue!

I’ve deprived you of your function:

He’s too extreme for any unction.

Go home, and hold your monstrance steady –

I’ve done the sinner in already.

  

THE PHYSICIAN

 

Physician:

 

The humours of the body;

The mysteries of the mind –

These I research, I wrestle Death:

I nurse the deaf, the sick, the blind.

Bring me urine, steamy still –

I’ll analyse, concoct a pill;

Stool samples too – o’er them I pore,

Suppositories made to salve the sore,

Balms for binding wounds of war –

 

One war I fight, ‘ere I have breath –

I fight to conquer grisly Death.

 

(Death enters, grinning widely, and offers the physician a flask of urine. The physician takes it, and examines it, as if he is looking into a crystal ball.)

 

Ah! Goodness gracious! Let me see!

Indeed! A piping pot of pee!

Colour: yellow; Smell: oh dear!

An ailing specimen, I fear!

This pee augurs dire thrombosis!

Woe is me! A grim prognosis!

 

Death (laughing):

 

Grim indeed! I can affirm

No patient could be more infirm –

He couldn’t hold the flask quite steady;

I have him in my grip already.

 

(The physician puts the flask down hurriedly, and wipes his hands.)

 

Physician:

 

And who are you, to speak so boldly?

Why do your sockets stare so coldly?

I’ve seen your face somewhere before,

On surgeon’s slab, or field of war.

 

Death:

 

I am your foe, you worthless quack,

Thanks to me, you’ve lost the knack!

Oft-times you have assisted me,

With your slapdash surgery!

 

(Death grasps the physician by the throat, then relents.)

 

I have a mind to take you now,

Whilst you are young and tender,

But, alas! You must yet live,

My services to render.

He prospers well, the man who teaches:

Anaemia is cured by leeches,

Put cyanide in every pill,

And arsenic ends every ill.

 

To kill you now? That wouldn’t do –

For Death owes far too much to you!

I’ll guide your knife, but let you be,

If you will serve me faithfully.

 

(Death tips the urine on the physician’s head and departs, leaving the physician staring in bewilderment at the empty flask.)

  

THE POPE

 

I wanted him in his finery, tiara on his head,

Little thinking how my worms were longing to be fed.

 

I wanted him upon his throne, when emperors bowed the knee

To kiss his foot - now gentle Death has come to set him free.

 

I’ll send my demons on ahead, one with warrant sealed;

The other one will taste his blood before it has congealed.

 

I’ll lean upon my crutch and watch him, pompous and obscene

And I shall never let him go until his skin turns green.

 

My fleshless fingers seize his shoulder, shattering his hope:

I wanted him when but a babe; I’ll have him now he’s Pope.

  

THE PREACHER

 

Preacher:

Hear the Word of life and love,

Vouchsafed to all, gift from above.

Press on, flock, your crowns to win,

Turn from darkness and from sin.

My lips anointed by the One…

 

But what is this I look upon?

My gorge is filling up with gall -

He beckons, bids my sermon stall!

My tongue is swallowed, breath is fled,

Come Christ, who quickens all the…

 

Death:

Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!

And worms shall twist your tongue instead!

For though your words were kindly meant

Death is far more eloquent!

The Word is truth? Why, mine is lies,

But crows shall still pick out your eyes.

You choke, and flail, and thresh about;

The glass inverted, sands run out.

You’ve cast your pearls before the swine:

You once were God’s, but now you’re mine!

  

THE PRINCE BISHOP

 

Fools in Chorus:

 

Hail! Our Prince Bishop! O how you resemble

A lion in his pride, for you never tremble!

Hail! Our Prince Bishop, don’t take us to task

For the rather grim nature of our little masque –

For we foretell the day when Death gives you greeting

And you lay down your crook, leave your little lambs bleating.

When Death comes a-piping, your mitre you’ll doff –

We have hopes, our dear patron, that day is far off.

 

(The Bishop, old and doddering, wanders about, leaning on his crook. Death approaches stealthily, and grasps him by the hand.)

 

Death:

 

Good evening, old codger,

You hoary Death-dodger –

My minions expect you;

I’ve come to collect you,

So shed all your livery

Ripe for delivery

Down in the shivery

Land of the shade.

Your flesh will be stinking,

Hear, Bishop, the clinking

Of the gravedigger’s spade.

 

Sir, are you afraid?

 

Bishop:

 

Welcome, co-traveller,

Life’s kind unraveller,

I fear not to meet you,

Nor seek to defeat you.

You knock at my door!

Should I quake to the core

At one funeral more?

My masque is all played.

All wrongs are amended,

The drama is ended

When I am unmade.

 

I am not afraid.

 

Death:

 

Are you failure or fool

To fear not a ghoul?

My stench will surround you,

My spectres will hound you.

They’ll purloin your gold

At my chilly threshold

All cloying with mould

Where devils deride.

And your gorge, it will rise,

At the buzzing of flies

That no flesh can abide.

 

Aren’t you terrified?

 

Bishop:

 

‘Tis my mission to bless,

Not to seek vain success,

And no demon nor ghoul

Can deride a true fool.

You will grant, it is well:

I have no sense of smell,

So lead me pell-mell

And I’ll dance by your side.

And as for the flies,

Let my flesh be their prize –

‘Tis no use now I’ve died.

 

I am not terrified.

 

Death:

 

You’re no fun! I feel cheated –

But I’ll not be defeated!

See my wolves! How they creep

To devour your sheep,

And you can do nought

My scheming to thwart,

Though your God be besought –

You are far from his ear.

For your crook, it lies broken

And there’s no other token

For those you hold dear.

 

Sir, do you not fear?

 

Bishop:

 

Kindly Death, soft thy sting,

Fun’s a relative thing –

Will wolves worrying my sheep

Disturb my deep sleep?

Nay! Providence rules you

As lifelessness cools you.

Each mourning soul fools you

By shedding a tear.

So, pray, lead the way;

I’ve no business to stay –

You’ve no reason to sneer,

 

For why should I fear?

 

(The Bishop offers Death the crook of his arm. She shrugs her shoulders despairingly, links arms with him, and reluctantly dances away with him.)

 

THE QUEEN

 

Queen:

 

Oh, how I long to be fulfilled, but I am left alone:

My husband’s mind’s on other things, since he took the throne.

Long perished is the amorous sport, which flourished when we wed:

I long for love; my sorry heart is empty as my bed.

Where’s my jester, full of cheer,

Belly full of frothing beer?

His coxcomb is my one delight;

His codpiece gets me through the night.

 

Death (disguised as a Fool):

 

Here I am, my mistress pretty –

Tell me, do you think me witty?

Your heart is empty as your bed?

Nay, ma’am, ‘tis empty as my head!

 

Queen:

 

Empty as your head, my dear?

Tease me not, but sit you here –

No hour with you was ever dull,

Yet you profess an empty skull.

 

Death:

 

My codpiece, ma’am, is empty too,

But much joy has it brought to you:

In airy dreams, behind my shroud,

You kindly call me well endowed.

 

And in my chest, there breathes no lung;

I jest, and yet possess no tongue,

But still my leering brings you cheer;

You giggle when I lick your ear.

 

Queen:

 

Oh, churlish Fool! Your humour’s black –

Be careful, or you’ll get the sack.

 

Death:

 

Your highness – careful what you say!

For I wear sackcloth every day.

 

(Death reveals herself, and grasps the Queen roughly by the wrist.)

 

Sackcloth, wrapping bones and dust:

And nought is left but lifeless lust.

 

Queen:

 

A lifeless lust, and humour vile –

And no lips to frame your smile!

A lustful Death? I heed your call –

‘Tis better than no lust at all.

 

I truly am your mistress now,

And you shall break my wedding vow:

Here, my charmer, take my ring,

For you have cuckolded the King.

  

THE SAILORS

 

Narrator:

 

Waves crash o’er the pitching deck,

The wind the fo’csle batters,

And rats are leaping o’er the side,

The sail’s in shreds and tatters.

The captain stands upon the bridge…

 

Captain:

 

This ship shall not go down

As long as I have breath to breathe

For I would sooner drown!

 

Narrator:

 

The captain, clinging to the helm

Will not desert his crew

Until his lungs are filled with brine;

Until his lips turn blue.

 

Captain:

 

Man the bilge-pumps, gallant crew,

And I shall hold her fast,

For no gale’s too much for her

While she still bears a mast.

 

Narrator (now revealed as Death):

 

On a little stick of Rowan

The captain’s faith is cast,

But I shall soon bring down his hope!

The crew shall watch aghast.

 

(Death clambers towards the mast.)

 

Death:

 

Food for urchins,

Food for eels;

Barnacles on broken keels.

Food for lobsters:

Dainty dish –

The candle is an angler fish.

Food for crabs

With jagged claws;

Food for sharks

With gaping jaws.

No bit of you shall rest in earth

Until your skull rolls in the surf.

 

(Death breaks down the mast; the Captain looks at her in horror and plunges into the sea.)

 

Death:

 

To drown is a poetic thing:

No human hand your lungs can wring.

They soak up water like a sponge.

Through icy depths you writhe, and plunge.

Your limbs will thresh about awhile

Until your lips begin to smile:

A stream of bubbles, then no more:

The darkness of the ocean floor.

 

(Death gloats over the sinking ship, and the masque ends.)

   

Diplomats who fought for the country's freedom and after retirement turned into formidable scholars are rare. A.K. Damodaran, who died in Delhi on Tuesday was one of them, and in all his endeavours his lifelong attachment to Nehruvian principles left an indelible stamp.

 

Imprisoned during the Quit India movement after having been on the colonial police's radar for his fiery speeches, Mr. Damodaran spent a decade in the immediate post-Nehru era finessing India's policy towards its two great neighbours — China and Russia — with his being among the decisive hands on the rudder when the Treaty of 1971 was crafted. “He was perhaps the last person alive who was involved with the Treaty,” recalled former diplomat G. Parthasarathy.

 

Post-retirement, he encouraged Rajiv Gandhi's rapprochement with China, despite spending the distrustful years immediately after the 1962 war as a diplomat in Beijing. Though he was one of the architects of the Indo-Soviet Treaty, Mr. Damodaran understood the need for a change in equations with the United States. “He was principled but never rigid,” recalls veteran diplomat Ronen Sen.

 

After retirement, ‘Damu Sir,' as he was known in the Indian Foreign Service, turned his formidable intellect towards scholarship, penning and editing books on India's foreign policy. “An excellent writer and exceptional individual. He was brilliant, erudite, wise and understanding,” recalled his Foreign Office colleague and former Minister, Natwar Singh.

 

His early years were anything but placid and gave no inkling of the path he would carve out as part of independent India's policy formulation think tank in the years ahead. He thought of his years in the Madras Christian College as that of “a happy wastrel who thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

 

This was characteristic A.K. Damodaran modesty. For this was the period he trode the precarious path of being a pro-Independence student-activist during which he achieved “dazzling success as the Speaker but total failure as student.” With Ravindra Varma, later head of the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi, he went to jail during the 1942 Quit India movement.

 

By then he had absorbed Nehru's Autobiography and felt it provided “a whole generation of boys and girls in their teens and the new apprentices in political activity in both the Congress and the Leftist groups, a new and contemporary near-ideology... As an introduction to a more activist view of Indian politics, it could not have been bettered in the Indian situation… It gave the reader an insight into one man's picture of India's future and a living relationship with similarly situated movements across the world, ideas which had become associated with Jawaharlal. The emphasis on socialism was pronounced, impatience with compromise equally clear.”

 

Strategic analyst Nandan Unnikrishnan said Mr. Damodaran was representative of the Nehruvian vision of foreign policy, which recognised that pragmatism had to be combined with values that were nationalist.

 

But above all, as Mr. Ronen Sen put it, “He was one of the finest diplomats I ever came across in terms of professional excellence. More important was his integrity. He would be scrupulous in setting out policy options regardless of his personal inclinations or what was acceptable to a particular dispensation. In a sense, he was a formidable scholar but also a lifelong student till the end.”

 

www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2848432.ece

The Hindu : 201/02/2012

In other words: get off of facebook, quit causing drama & do something meaningful with your life!

Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

 

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

 

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

 

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

 

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

 

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

 

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

 

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

 

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

 

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

 

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

 

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

 

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

 

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

 

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

 

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

 

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

 

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

 

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

 

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

 

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

 

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

 

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

 

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

 

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

 

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition.[174] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

 

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

 

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

 

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

 

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 

WIKIPEDIA

 

Quote by Leonardo da Vinci

 

Saraswati Yantra focalizes intellect and helps you to improve knowledge and retain it. Saraswati Yantra also helps you to improve your concentration.

Celastraceae (staff vine or bittersweet family) » Celastrus paniculatus

 

see-LAS-trus -- from the ancient Greek kelastros, the name of another tree

pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tus or pan-ick-yoo-LAH-tus -- referring to the flower clusters (panicles)

 

commonly known as: black-oil plant, celastrus, oriental bittersweet, intellect tree, staff tree • Bengali: kijri, malkangani • Gujarati: માલકંગના malkangana • Hindi: मालकंगनी malkangani • Kannada: ಭವಮ್ಗ bhavamga, ಜೊತಿಷ್ಮತಿ jotishmati, ಕರಿಗನ್ನೇ kariganne, ಕೊಉಗಿಲು kougilu • Konkani: माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Marathi: कांगुणी kanguni, माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Oriya: korsana, pengu • Sanskrit: अलवण alavan, ज्योतिषमति jyotishmati, कन्गु kangu • Tamil: குவரிகுண்டல் kuvarikuntal, மண்ணைக்கட்டி mannai-k-katti, வாலுளுவை valuluvai • Telugu: కాసరతీగె kasara-tige, మానెరు maneru • Urdu: کنگني مال malkanguni

 

Native to: India, China, Sri Lanka, south-east Asia

  

References: Flowers of India • Sahyadri Database • ENVIS - FRLHT • eFlora

"Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal."

 

R.I.P. HP Lovecraft

" A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses."

~ Oscar Wilde,

"An Ideal Husband (1895)," Act IV [6]

 

thanks, mquest!

For more info on our trip to the Forbidden City, check out

Postcard Intellect

intelligence concept

www.riverhillgardens.co.uk/

History

 

The John Rogers who bought Riverhill in 1840 was an only child, with a modest fortune, and a fine intellect. He became a classics scholar, a scientist and a friend of Charles Darwin. He was one of the first members of the Royal Horticultural Society and a patron of the plant collectors of the day.

 

He chose Riverhill because its sheltered situation offered an ideal lime free hillside where he could hope to establish newly introduced trees and shrubs. From his garden notebook, it can be seen that planting started in 1842. Subsequent generations, continued the planting and in 1910 Colonel John Middleton Rogers created what is now known as ‘The Wood Garden’ a fine collection of Japanese Maples, Rhododendrons and Azaleas. His wife, the infamous Muriel, created many additions including the now hidden Rock Gardens.

 

Until the beginning of the 2nd World War, eight full time gardeners kept Riverhill looking immaculate. Since the war years, however, a shortage of manpower and a lack of money has meant that the garden was allowed to deteriorate, with many parts of the original planting lost to everyday use and visitors.

 

Today, four generations of the Rogers family live at Riverhill,

 

The estate is managed by Edward Rogers (Great-great-great-grandson of the John Rogers who bought Riverhill in 1840) and his wife, Sarah.

  

(Bought the whole box for 10 bucks at another one of my favorite private thrift shops in South Florida. It's a place you don't go into if you're the least faint of heart. Some of the most down-on-their-luck men come in. They might be buying more than junk, I dunno, but it's made me wonder. The owner is an alcoholic with a heart of gold and a high intellect. I never miss the chance to visit when I'm down there.)

 

The box is FULL! Besides what you can see on top, there's a set or range S&P shakers, a grease can, a cake cover, and several miscellaneous molds.

 

I used to hate this stuff, but I've been picking it up a lot lately and it really grows on you. Or should I say, it has really grown on ME!

 

Is it tacky or terrific?

Featured Image from Swayam Jyotish Photobook

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

 

The light from this container of photographs is non-dual from the innate light within each one of us. So too is physical light reflected in a jar of water or subtle light projected from the Chitta (mind-heart) in dream state. At its best the camera is a simple tool to transfer light through a lens recorded by a censor. At its root, consciousness is all-pervading and who we are. Consciousness, the Light of lights, proceeds from us and lends itself into the moment. The practice of Vichar (self-inquiry) reminds us of that same light appearing as the Jiva (individual-soul) and leads us to the revelation of Atman (universal-soul) and "Who Am I?" With that realization Nkosi Sri Govindaji approaches India with complete adoration and awareness of the Absolute Self in all, Brahman

 

Leica M11 / Leica 21mm f 3.4 Super Elmar ASPH

 

www.Chancenkosigomez.com

www.Instagram.com/nkosiart

Nkosi.artiste@gmail.com

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

Chance Nkosi Gomez known initiated by H.H Swami Jyotirmayanda as Sri Govinda walks an integral yogic path in which photography is the primary creative field of expression. The medium was introduced during sophomore year of high school by educator Dr. Devin Marsh of Robert Morgan Educational Center. Coming into alignment with light, its nature and articulating the camera was the focus during that time. Thereafter while completing a Photographic Technology Degree, the realization of what made an image “striking” came to the foreground of the inner dialogue. These college years brought forth major absorption and reflection as an apprentice to photographer and educator Tony A. Chirinos of Miami Dade College. The process of working towards a singular idea of interest and thus building a series became the heading from here on while the camera aided in cultivating an adherence to the present moment. The viewfinder resembles a doorway to the unified field of consciousness in which line, shape, form, color, value, texture all dissolve. It is here that the yogi is reminded of sat-chit-ananda (the supreme reality as all-pervading; pure consciousness). As of May 2024 Govinda has completed his 300hr yoga teacher training program at Sattva Yoga Academy studying from Master Yogi Anand Mehrotra in Rishikesh, India, Himalayas. This has strengthened his personal Sadhana and allows one to carry and share ancient Vedic Technology leading others in ultimately directing their intellect to bloom into intuition. As awareness and self-realization grows so does the imagery that is all at once divine in the mastery of capturing and controlling light. Over the last seven years he has self-published six photographic books, Follow me i’ll be right behind you (2017), Sonata - Minimal Study (2018), Birds Singing Lies (2018), Rwanda (2019), Where does the body begin? (2019) & Swayam Jyotis (2023). Currently, Govinda is employed at the Leica Store Miami as a camera specialist and starting his journey as a practitioner of yoga ॐ

www.lonelydarkworld.com

Flickr friends here in AZ for a short visit. Today they are on their way up toward Jerome and Sedona, unless she changed her mind.

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Le Soleil-The Sun

 

The Sun is ruled by...the Sun, of course and as the Moon was your inner darkness, the wild, untamed, unconscious part of you, the Sun is your inner light, civilized and rational, yang to yin.

 

The Sun promises the querent their day in the sun. Glory, triumph, simple pleasures and truths. As the moon symbolized inspiration from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made wide awake. This is science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect and youthful energy.

  

Celastraceae (staff vine or bittersweet family) » Celastrus paniculatus

 

see-LAS-trus -- from the ancient Greek kelastros, the name of another tree

pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tus or pan-ick-yoo-LAH-tus -- referring to the flower clusters (panicles)

 

commonly known as: black-oil plant, celastrus, oriental bittersweet, intellect tree, staff tree • Bengali: kijri, malkangani • Gujarati: માલકંગના malkangana • Hindi: मालकंगनी malkangani • Kannada: ಭವಮ್ಗ bhavamga, ಜೊತಿಷ್ಮತಿ jotishmati, ಕರಿಗನ್ನೇ kariganne, ಕೊಉಗಿಲು kougilu • Konkani: माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Marathi: कांगुणी kanguni, माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Oriya: korsana, pengu • Sanskrit: अलवण alavan, ज्योतिषमति jyotishmati, कन्गु kangu • Tamil: குவரிகுண்டல் kuvarikuntal, மண்ணைக்கட்டி mannai-k-katti, வாலுளுவை valuluvai • Telugu: కాసరతీగె kasara-tige, మానెరు maneru • Urdu: کنگني مال malkanguni

 

Native to: India, China, Sri Lanka, south-east Asia

  

References: Flowers of India • Sahyadri Database • ENVIS - FRLHT • eFlora

Steve and Dan Case embrace after Dan, investment banker and chairman of JP Morgan H&Q, introduced his brother Steve,CEO of AOL Time Warner, as final keynote speaker at a technology conference. BY ERIC LUSE/THE CHRONICLE

 

Daniel H. Case III, who presided over technology banking boutique Hambrecht & Quist during the explosion of new-economy financing, died early Wednesday morning (June 27, 2002) after a 15-month battle with brain cancer. He was 44.

A Princeton University graduate and Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, Case was reputed to be a towering intellect who loved financial complexity and new ideas. Friends said he embraced the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley and enjoyed combining the business strategies of young startups with financing concepts that would help them grow and succeed.

Under Case's guidance, H&Q was either an investor in, or underwriter of, Genentech, Adobe, Netscape and about 600 other companies. H&Q was one of the original San Francisco investment banks that financed that explosion of new West Coast growth companies.

His achievements drew accolades from the financial press. Business Week named Case one of Silicon Valley's 25 Power Brokers, and Time listed him as one of the Top 50 Innovators in Technology.

Case started with H&Q as an intern in 1979 and returned after his Rhodes scholarship. "From the day he arrived, he was in a class by himself," said William R. Hambrecht, the founder of H&Q . "He was so bright and so fascinated by the subject. I never saw anybody learn quicker. He was a natural."

 

"Dan was a hero and inspiration to us all," Stephen Case, his brother and the chairman of AOL Time Warner, said in a statement.

H&Q was sold to Chase Manhattan in 1999 for $1.35 billion in cash, the last and largest in a wave of local firms sold to outside commercial banks. What remains of the firm is now part of JPMorgan Chase, the result of the 2000 merger between those two financial companies, both based in New York.

Case was diagnosed with brain cancer in March 2001 and underwent surgery within a week. Though he retained the title of chairman and was still available to H&Q staff, he turned over the reins of the operation to his successors while he focused his efforts to finding a cure for brain cancer. Case founded a nonprofit organization, ABC2 (Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure), that is dedicated to speeding up discoveries in brain cancer therapy.

 

He died at home at about 12:25 a.m. Wednesday June 27th, 2002 according to a spokeswoman for JPMorgan.

Among the companies Case embraced early was Quantum Computer Services, a predecessor to America Online, and he brought in his brother Steve Case to run it. Under Dan Case's leadership, H&Q was an early-stage investor in Quantum, but H&Q did not handle any of AOL's public offerings out of a concern for an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Hambrecht brought Case into H&Q as an intern at the recommendation of a friend at Princeton. During dinner at the former Jack's restaurant in San Francisco's Financial District one night, Case offered a detailed, often critical critique of the firm. Afterward, Hambrecht said, he called his wife told her, "I think I just had dinner with a kid who should run H&Q."

The firm hired Case after his return from Oxford, where he had studied management, and he never left. He rose through the ranks, becoming a partner in charge of venture capital investments, the co-head of mergers and acquisitions, and the head of investment banking.

He was named co-chief executive in 1992 and CEO in 1994. At the time of his death, he was the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan H&Q.

Despite his accomplishments, he remained humble, friends say. "It must've been difficult for him, because he was always the smartest guy in the room, to have such intellect and marry it with such humility," said David Golden, JPMorgan's head of West Coast investment banking. "He was best at seeing around corners, seeing the implications of a particular move. It was like a chess player who could see five or six moves ahead."

Case was born in Hawaii. In addition to his professional and cancer activities, he served on the boards of directors of AMB Property Corp., the Bay Area Council, Electronic Arts, and the National Science and Technology Medal Foundation.

He was on the executive committee of the Technology Network board and the nominating committee for the New York Stock Exchange. He was also a benefactor to the San Francisco Exploratorium, San Francisco Ballet and United Way.

He is survived by his wife, Stacey Black Case, and their two children,

John Daniel and Charlotte; sons Alexander and Winston, from his previous marriage to Marian Hudson; his parents, Dan and Carol Case;

his brothers, Steve and Jeff; and his sister, Carin.

The funeral will be held at Grace Cathedral on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. The family has asked that memorials be made to his foundation, ABC2, at www.abc2.org.

“All 7 and we'll watch them fall. They stand in the way of love, and we will smoke them all with an intellect and a savoir-faire…”

7: Prince, Symbol

 

I don’t know how to describe what it is that I like so much about this song… perhaps simply it is that it is so very unlike his other works. I have great memories of listening to this with my roommate in college. I wouldn’t take a stab at the true story behind the lyrics or the meanings intended. This song just always spoke to me on a subconscious level.

 

*** Artist Notes ***

The fallen seven…

 

Lyrics:

All 7 and we'll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all

With an intellect and a savoir-faire

 

No one in the whole universe

Will ever compare

I am yours now and u are mine

And together we'll love through

All space and time, so don't cry

One day all 7 will die

 

All 7 and we'll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all

With an intellect and a savoir-faire

 

No one in the whole universe

Will ever compare

I am yours now and u are mine

And together we'll love through

All space and time, so don't cry

One day all 7 will die

 

And I saw an angel come down unto me

In her hand she holds the very key

Words of compassion, words of peace

And in the distance an army's marching feet (1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4)

But behold, we will watch them fall

 

And we lay down on the sand of the sea

And before us animosity will stand and decree

That we speak not of love only blasphemy

And in the distance, 6 others will curse me

But that's alright, (that's alright)

4 I will watch them fall(1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

 

All 7 and we'll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all

With an intellect and a savoir-faire

No one in the whole universe

Will ever compare

I am yours now and u are mine

And together we'll love through

All space and time, so don't cry

One day all 7 will die

 

[(Just how old)]

 

And we will see a plague and a river of blood

And every evil soul will surely die in spite of

Their 7 tears, but do not fear

4 in the distance, 12 souls from now

U and me will still be here - we will still be here

 

There will be a new city with streets of gold

The young so educated they never grow old

And a, there will be no death 4 with every breath

The voice of many colors sings a song

That's so bold

Sing it while we watch them fall

 

All 7 and we'll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all

With an intellect and a savoir-faire

No one in the whole universe

Will ever compare

I am yours now and u are mine

And together we'll love through

All space and time, so don't cry

One day all 7 will die

 

Om gam ganapataye namaha!

 

This was taken at Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, MA in the Western Mass Berkshires.

 

Although he is known by many other attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles (Vighnesha, Vighneshvara), patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He is honored at the start of rituals and ceremonies and invoked as Patron of Letters during writing sessions.

 

I am invoking Ganesh as I get back into my (abandoned) yoga practice.

Year of the Monkey

 

Lunar Lanterns, giant lanterns representing animal signs of the Chinese zodiac in city centre locations from 6–14 February.

 

Goat

  

"People born in the Year of the Monkey are fun-loving, energetic and inquisitive. Their intellect allows them to adapt to any situation, they are confident, charismatic, loyal and inventive.

Sometimes, the Monkey can be a little too curious for his or her own good, as well as careless, restless, immature and arrogant."

  

whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/posts/lunar-lanterns

Yesterday I saw a very faint shadow of the lampshade on the wall in the study. It was cast by diffuse sunlight coming through the north facing window. Paradoxical thoughts about perception and representation haunted my mind for the rest of the day.

 

What was I looking at? A lampshade ... a shadow ... the wall with all its scratches and smudge marks ... the join in the paper ... or a representation of a lampshade?

 

Representation

In order to 're-present' something there has to be an intention, in a human mind, to make a representation. For example, a painter would decide to take a brush, oils and a canvas to make the physical, palpable representation that would be referred to as 'the painting'. However, what I saw on the wall was not created through any human intention ... it just occurred by chance. There was no palpable, tangible object on the wall that I could detect with the sense of touch. So no intention had made it and I couldn't touch it ... so what I saw on the wall can't then be a representation.

 

Palpability test

But there was something there ... I could see it ... I photographed it. I had an intention to make a representation of what I saw so that I could share with you my dilemma of paradoxes. I used a device called a digital camera ... it reduced what I had seen to an invisible string of codes stored electronically inside the device. I used another device called a computer to tweak those codes so that what I had originally seen would be somewhat exaggerated and more likely to appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of other humans living in this generation. As I looked at my digital representation on the computer screen I was underwhelmed ... it had none of the presence of the thing I saw. It was a representation of the thing I saw and displayed remotely on a computer it lacked palpability ... it was 'in my face' but it wasn't really 'there'. So I made a print on exhibition paper and it started to come to life and had some presence. I even put on it pencil marks to represent the label, ‘Graham’, that my late parents had given me all those years ago.

 

Print becomes code

Having made the print and stroked my hands on it and held it I considered its impact under different intensities and qualities of daylight. But now I have diminished its impact again by using a scanner to re-present that palpable thing as a digital image to be shared on Flickr and Facebook.

 

Why do I do this?

I'm still none the wiser about whether to define it as "a lampshade ... a shadow ... the wall with all its scratches and smudge marks ... the join in the paper ... or a representation of a lampshade" but I do now think I know why I went through that rigmarole. One of the intrinsic rewards I get from my photography is the satisfaction of curiosity and the enjoyment of playing of an intellectualised aesthetic game. I also realise now that I'm quite a show-off and so one of the extrinsic rewards for me would be the approbation of others.

 

An alternative hypothesis emerges

Which leaves me thinking what would others be seeing, my representations or "the thing itself"?

 

Is "the thing itself" a lampshade / shadow, a digital image of a lampshade / shadow or a print of a digital image of a lampshade / shadow?

 

Or is "the thing itself" not the thing photographed nor its representation but actually the spectator sport of someone playing an intellectualised aesthetic game?

 

Graham Barnes - 23 May 2017

with a little help from my hand otherwise a perfect fit ^^

"Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think."

 

Camera: Nikon D90

Objective: Nikkor 50mm 1/4

Edited in: Lightroom 4 and CameraBag 2

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad gita, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions.

 

I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

He uses his keen intellect and advanced blade to disassemble and reconfigure opponent machinery.

"Ipes/ Ayperos is a prince and count of hell, who commands 36 legions. He appears as an angel or lion with the head and feet of a goose and a short hair’s tail. Ipes knows of the past and future, gives men intellect and courage, and can tell of hidden treasures" -Collin de Plancy (translated, paraphrased)

 

THE DUCK OF DOOM

 

Sorry, had to.

 

ANYWAY... Ipos is kind of run-of-the-mill as far as Goetic demons go, at least in terms of what he does. I think there are like five who specifically tell the future and find treasure - but he ALSO makes people witty and valiant! And there's the problem - too much wit and too much blind courage will get you killed.

 

Though I still have a hard time being intimidated by Loosey Goosey's evil cousin. Really. I mean, look at him! Imagine him quacking at you! Eh, Geese are kind of vicious, anyway. Aren't they?

 

Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2013/01/23/life-in-plastic-obscure-toys-you-...

The hand is the instrument by which we execute our works, the sign of our nobility, the means by which the intellect gives form and shape to its artistic conceptions, by which it gives reality to the mandates of its will, by which it exercises the dominion that God conceded to man over all other creatures.

 

La mano è lo strumento delle nostre opere, il segno della nostra nobiltà, il mezzo attraverso il quale l'intelligenza riveste con una forma i suoi pensieri artistici, e dà esistenza alle creazioni della volontà, ed esercita l'imperio che Dio concesse all'uomo su tutte le creature.

 

Juan Valera

 

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John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.”

 

“Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.

 

“That was true for 2 million years of our evolution,” Hawks says. “But there has been a reversal.”

 

He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc. Possibly owing to said shrinkage, it takes me a while to catch on. “Are you saying we’re getting dumber?” I ask.

 

Hawks, a bearish man with rounded features and a jovial disposition, looks at me with an amused expression. “It certainly gives you a different perspective on the advantage of a big brain,” he says.

 

After meeting with Hawks, I call around to other experts to see if they know about our shrinking brain. Geneticists who study the evolution of the human genome seem as surprised as I am (typical response: “No kidding!”), which makes me wonder if I’m the world’s most gullible person. But no, Hawks is not pulling my leg. As I soon discover, only a tight-knit circle of paleontologists seem to be in on the secret, and even they seem a bit muddled about the matter. Their theories as to why the human brain is shrinking are all over the map.

 

Some believe the erosion of our gray matter means that modern humans are indeed getting dumber. (Late-night talk show hosts, take note—there’s got to be some good comic material to mine here.) Other authorities argue just the opposite: As the brain shrank, its wiring became more efficient, transforming us into quicker, more agile thinkers. Still others believe that the reduction in brain size is proof that we have tamed ourselves, just as we domesticated sheep, pigs, and cattle, all of which are smaller-brained than their wild ancestors. The more I learn, the more baffled I become that news of our shrinking brain has been so underplayed, not just in the media but among scientists. “It’s strange, I agree,” says Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist and expert on human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “Scientists haven’t given the matter the attention it deserves. Many ignore it or consider it an insignificant detail.”

 

But the routine dismissal is not as weird as it seems at first blush, Stringer suggests, due to the issue of scaling. “As a general rule,” he says, “the more meat on your bones, the more brain you need to control massive muscle blocks.” An elephant brain, for instance, can weigh four times as much as a human’s. Scaling is also why nobody seems too surprised by the large brains of the Neanderthals, the burly hominids that died out about 30,000 years ago.

 

The Homo sapiens with the biggest brains lived 20,000 to 30,000 years ago in Europe. Called the Cro-Magnons, they had barrel chests and huge, jutting jaws with enormous teeth. Consequently, their large brains have often been attributed to brawniness rather than brilliance. In support of that claim, one widely cited study found that the ratio of brain volume to body mass—commonly referred to as the encephalization quotient, or EQ—was the same for Cro-Magnons as it is for us. On that basis, Stringer says, our ancestors were presumed to have the same raw cognitive horsepower.

 

Now many anthropologists are rethinking the equation. For one thing, it is no longer clear that EQs flatlined back in the Stone Age. Recent studies of human fossils suggest the brain shrank more quickly than the body in near-modern times. More important, analysis of the genome casts doubt on the notion that modern humans are simply daintier but otherwise identical versions of our ancestors, right down to how we think and feel. Over the very period that the brain shrank, our DNA accumulated numerous adaptive mutations related to brain development and neurotransmitter systems—an indication that even as the organ got smaller, its inner workings changed. The impact of these mutations remains uncertain, but many scientists say it is plausible that our temperament or reasoning abilities shifted as a result.

 

Numerous phone calls later, it dawns on me that the world’s foremost experts do not really know why our organ of intellect has been vanishing. But after long ignoring the issue, some of them have at least decided the matter is of sufficient importance to warrant a formal inquiry. They have even drawn some bold, albeit preliminary, conclusions.

 

DUMBING DOWN

In search of a global explanation for our cranial downsizing, some scientists have pointed to a warming trend in the earth’s climate that also began 20,000 years ago. Since bulky bodies are better at conserving heat, larger frames may have fared better in the colder climate. As the planet warmed, selection might have favored people of slighter stature. So, the argument goes, skeletons and skulls shrank as the temperature rose—and the brain got smaller in the process. Stringer thinks there is something to that idea, but he doubts it is the whole explanation. As he points out, comparable warming periods occurred many times over the previous 2 million years, yet body and brain size regularly increased.

 

Another popular theory attributes the decrease to the advent of agriculture, which, paradoxically, had the initial effect of worsening nutrition. Quite simply, the first farmers were not very successful at eking out a living from the land, and their grain-heavy diet was deficient in protein and vitamins—critical for fueling growth of the body and brain. In response to chronic malnutrition, our body and brain might have shrunk. Many anthropologists are skeptical of that explanation, however. The reason: The agricultural revolution did not arrive in Australia or southern Africa until almost contemporary times, yet brain size has declined since the Stone Age in those places, too.

 

Which brings us to an unpleasant possibility. “You may not want to hear this,” says cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri, “but I think the best explanation for the decline in our brain size is the idiocracy theory.” Geary is referring to the eponymous 2006 film by Mike Judge about an ordinary guy who becomes involved in a hibernation experiment at the dawn of the 21st century. When he wakes up 500 years later, he is easily the smartest person on the dumbed-down planet. “I think something a little bit like that happened to us,” Geary says. In other words, idiocracy is where we are now.

 

discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-...

 

Males came to power about 5000 years ago.

Before, it was women who ruled the world.

Book, Messengers of the Dawn, Barbara Marciniak, Ed. Ariane}

 

"It is the woman who was chosen, from the beginning, by the Invisible to act prophetically on the White race, and it is to a prophecy of the woman in a state of ecstasy, of the Volupsa that the Whites last their salvation. On the point of coming to terms with their hands, two great white leaders were warned by the Volupsa that the black warriors, hidden in large numbers in the surrounding area, were only waiting for the end of the struggle between the whites to come and destroy the survivors. This supernatural revelation greatly struck the minds of the two leaders who united and exterminated the blacks. The authority of the Druidesses grew, but they eventually introduced terror and human sacrifice. Around 10,000 BC, some of the Celts left to flee the Druids. These are these wandering Celts or bodhones, part of whom later, after a thousand vicissitudes, constituted the Hebrew people.

A druid named Ram came to save the compatriots from leprosy and druids. A "revelation" taught him to prepare the oak mistletoe in a certain way to cure leprosy and a way for the college of druids to no longer be under the authority of the druids.

To avoid a civil war, Ram had to leave the country with several thousand Celts around 6700 BC. He eventually gave birth to Ram's Empire, which had a great influence on all the traditions of the White race.

He later changed his name from Ram (the Aries) to Lam (the lamb) and founded the Lamic cult in Tibet.

"It is here that secular historians begin history. They see the white or Aryan race coming from India to bring from there, the white tradition all over the Earth; but they do not know that the Whites had come from elsewhere and from the West to India. "

Various names given to Ram:

Rama (Hindus), Lama (Thibet), Fô (China), Pa (Japan), Pa-Pa, Pa-di-Shah or Pa-si-pa (North Asia), Giam-Shyd (Persians, Iranians), Dionysus (Arriens).

Book, Elementary treatise on occult sciences, Papus, Ed. Dangles}

 

www.infomysteres.com/histoire/histoire26.htm

  

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

 

Irish-Tyre: The Tribe of Dan in Northern Ireland

by Moe | History of the Brotherhood, Irish History, Latest Media

“The native rulers fled abroad in the episode known as the Flight of the Earls but, as with all the major Irish kingships, the line of descent continues into the present day.”

 

One of the oldest and most important kingdoms of Ancient Europe had originated in the Northern lands of Gaelic Ireland in a place that I would like to call the “New Tyre of the West.” It is from here where we can find the lost Tribe of Dan who is called in the Ancient Irish Annals the “Tuatha-da-Danaans.”

A tribe, people, and place who I believe along with the Tribe of Judah that one day may be credited with helping lay the cornerstone down for the foundation of Ireland and many other countries which spawned shortly thereafter.

The lost history of the Irish Tyranians who I believe is connected to the Biblical “Tribe of Dan” can be found secretly encoded into their long illustrious history, the geography of the region, and the hardships and success they have both endured and earned through countless centuries of fighting for God’s kingdom.

Today, we know of this location of the Irish Tyranians with their tribe the Tuatha-da-Danans in the province of Tyrconnell, also spelled Tirconnell, in the present-day County Donegal. Anciently, I have found that it was also spelled Tyr II, Tyrol, and or Tyrone.

ETYMOLOGY OF TYR-CONN-ELL

Before I delve into this fascinating history, it is important that I first quickly explain the etymology of the name Tyrconnell and also the County Donegal.

 

Tyrconnell is a compound word containing the words “Tyr, conn, and ell.”

In a previous article, Tyre-Egypt: God’s Ancient Stone Masons of the Tora, I had went over the etymology of Tyre where I show that it is derived for the old words in many different languages for rock, stone, and or mountain which was anciently called “Tur, Tsur, Tzor, Tor, Tora, Toorah, Tura, Tyr, Tir etc.”

I had also shown that the Phoenician Tyranians were world-traveling Master Masons who were the hereditary descendants of King Hiram in search of the Tyr Limestone. They were also world-famous throughout history to be the best shipbuilders, navigators, and businessmen who had a long tradition of naming their new settlements in a new language that can be proved had spawned from their Phoenician ports and alphabets which they took with them from the East.

After careful analyzation of their history, this proves to me that this was their simple secret formula for not only the birth of successful nation-states but also the legal identification of their landholdings ie: real estate titles.

They seem to follow the same exact Babylonian plan wherever they would venture around the globe as we find in Northern Ireland such as in Donegal County and Ulster where they governed. I would assume that if you are an ancient military and city planner for Tyre that they would both incorporate and honor the necessary ingredients for city planning from their ancestors which included cornerstones brought from their ancestral lands, language, names, laws, religion, and their main method of domination, commerce.

Their main military goal where they traveled was to find and seize all territory along a country’s largest waterways, rivers, and lakes for unlimited freshwater, agriculture and also the safest seaport for travel, commerce, exports, and imports.

In this areal photo of Northern Ireland, we can clearly see that any tribe that ruled from Donegal and Ulster controlled the largest waterways, ports, and from North Coast, they could easily deploy to Scotland and rule these lands with their boats and armies.

 

Not surprisingly, it was in these precise locations where they would not only find their prized white limestone (AKA – Tyr, Tir, Tur, Tor) for their immortal Masonic endeavors, but they would also be able to gain control of entire countries and sometimes multiple countries. Once they would become established, they would rule these lands through commerce, laws, religion, myths, and education which they created this system of conquering a native people’s mind, body, and soul which all coincide with one another.

Hence, what worked in Tyre, Egypt and even better in Tyre, Crete would also work wherever they would travel such as this new successful colony in what could be called the third Tyre – Tyrconnell, Ireland. They would also use place names to designate their specific domain (dan-ain), a compound word derived from dan-ain for the Tribe of Dan

This same military methodology that endures the test of time to this very day.

The meaning of the next word in Tyr-conn-ell is ‘conn or con’ which means ‘with’ and is related to the Gaelic ‘comh’ – a prefix denoting “with, com or con.”

Not surprisingly and as I have witnessed as a global fact, these Irish Masonic Builders of Solomon’s Temple from ancient Tyre had added the old name for God onto their name which is the Phoenician and Hebrew El also spelled ul,il, or al and can be variously translated as “God, Lord and or Governor”

With that said, the meaning of Tyrconnell is “Stone-Rock of God or “God’s Stone Masons.”

ETYMOLOGY OF DONEGAL COUNTY

As I mentioned above, the men of Tyre had honored their ancestor’s several ways and I have found that the main method by which they did so was the naming of geographic locations that they controlled like the city of Tyrconnell in their county which they named ‘Donegal.’

In this compound word of Donegal which is composed of the words “don or dan” and the word egal”, we can find the name of the lost Tribe of Dan who is called the “Tuatha-da-Danans” officially encoded into North Irelands ancient history.

The meaning of the Gaelic name Don is also Dan in English was applied to their territory Donegal in order to honor their Tribe of Dan. Since ancient times, the name Dan, Don and or Dom was a title of respect given in Ireland, Scotland, and England to learned or clever men.

For example, in the Lowland Scotch language, a Dominie was a “schoolmaster” and in Latin, a Dominus is a lord, a master and where we get the word dominate, to rule, and dominion, lordship, mastery, rule. Likewise, in Spanish, a Don is a title that is equivalent to “Sir or Master.”

This was the same title of Dom for the original Catholic Benedictine Priesthood which was first only applied to monks, but afterward was extended to persons of all respectable professions.

The next word in Donegal is ‘egal’ which simply means “equal or equal to”.

Therefore, we can say that the territory of Danites was the County Donegal which means the “County or Province Equal to Dan.” I believe this could be in reference to the “Western Branch” in which they being now masters of both Ireland and Scotland were equal in the West to their Eastern Brethren of the Tribe of Dan.

GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE SETS THEE WAYMARKS OF DAN

We find that the Tribe of Dan has Set thee waymarks in the places which were named after them meaning Dan’s resting place. This geography corresponds to ancient Irish history which says that in approximately 585, B. C, a ship landed at Ulster, Ireland, which was manned by the “Tuatha-da-Danans” (Tribe of Dan).

According to the annals, amongst their cargo on their voyage to Ireland they were in possession of a large oblong stone in which after their vessel had been temporarily disabled on the coast of Spain, during which the King of Spain attempted to obtain possession of the stone, but the king failed and the guardians of the stone, the Tuatha-da-Danans made it out of Spain to land on the beautiful coast of Northern Ireland.

In Ptolemy’s map of Ireland, we find Dan’s- Lough, Dan-Sowar, Dan-Sobairse, Dan’s resting place, and Dan’s habitation, and Dan-gan Castle (the birth-place of the Duke of Wellington).

Irish Historian, Thomas Moore had written that the Tuatha de Danaan (Tribe of Dana), “after sojourning for some time in Greece… proceeded from thence to Denmark and Norway”.

Author Geoffrey Keating (ca.1570 1646)had said that the Danaans were a people of great learning and wealth; they left Greece after a battle with the Assyrians and went to Ireland; and also to Danmark, and called it “DAN-mares”, “Dan’s country.”

According to The Essential Teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, the Tribe of Dan left their serpent waymarks at “Danslaugh,” “Dansower,” “Dundalke,” “Dundrum,” “Donegal Bay,” “Donegal City,” “Dunglow,” “Londonderry,” and ” Dingle,”

THE IRISH OLLAMS SAME AS SONS OF ULAM ALL OVER THE WORLD

It was said in the Irish Annals that among the passengers of the Danans was a princess of remarkable beauty named Tephi who was accompanied by her guardian, afterward known by the name Ollam Fola. In my previous article, I explain that King Ollamh (Ollam) Fodhla was known as the great lawgiver and patron of learning to early Ireland.

To this day in Ireland as it did then, an ollam or ollamh means “a doctor, professor and or scholar of any kind of learning.” In other countries around the world such as in the Islamic nation, these learned me are known as the Ulam of Mulah.

King Ollam is mentioned in the “Annals of the Four Masters,” p. 412, as a sage and law-giver. He was said to have founded a College of Ollams at Tara, or a ‘School of the Prophets.” There was actually a famous college at Tara called the Mur Ollam han, or the House of the Learned. Four Masters, p. 293.

“Besides all these reforms the great legislator founded a University at Tara, which, for rank and dignity, preceded all others of the kingdom, and which he called MurOllam-han, or the College of Doctors (vide O Halloran, Book iv., chap. 1, p. 132), which, since we have discovered the word to mean “Revealers,” would stand for the School of Revealers.

Ollam Fola ordered the sacred records to be kept at Tara. “These form the basis of ancient Irish history.” (Annals of the Four Masters, note p. 297.) Ollam Fola was called the “Chroni. cle’” (vide Moore, i, 114.)

The name we find in Ancient Irish history as Ollamh (Ollam) we can also connect Biblically to the Sons of Ulam who Bedan, meaning Son of Dan can also align to ancient Irish history.

Another passenger on the boat mentioned in the Irish annals that were associated with Tuatha-da-Danans was a man named Simon Baruch who we can identify as part of the global Sons of Ulam or in Gaelic – Ollamh (Ollam) who have been tasked to bring this knowledge to the world.

This man Simon I will discuss in a future article in which I will detail the fascinating history of the Irish Sons of Ulam of whom I believe one of the most famous is Saint Columba or Co-ulum-ba who was once a Supreme Ulam of Ireland.

THE TYRE MASONS OF TARA IRELAND

We learn that from Irish mythology that when the Tuatha-da-Danans landed in Ireland, they were newcomers and there was already a ruling king whose castle in Meath, was changed from Lothair Grofinn to Tara.

It is said that Princess Tephi upon her death was buried here in a sepulcher that is covered by a mound of earth 60 feet square whose remains are intact to this day and is called “Tara or The Hill of Tara.”

The Hill of Tara is an ancient ceremonial and burial site near Skryne in County Meath, Ireland. According to ancient tradition, it was the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

Here is an ancient depiction of the topography of this area.

 

It is here in Tara, where you will discover the ancient remnants of the Masons of the Tyranian Irish who left numerous limestone monuments and earthworks — including burial mounds, round enclosures, the “Mound of the Hostages”, and a standing stone that some believe to be the “Stone of Destiny” (Lia Fáil).

There is also a church and graveyard on the hill.

Modern-day Tara is part of a larger ancient landscape and Tara itself is a protected national monument under the care of The Office of Public Works, an agency of the Irish Government.

To reiterate from past research, the name Tara comes from the words “tor, tur, tyr, tir, tora, torah, tura etc.” which all mean “stone or rock and later also to mean “mountain, chief, Lord, God, and or prince for their descendants.”

I believe these precise locations were known well over 2,000 years ago and were shown on Ptolemy’s ancient map of Ireland.

In Isa. 66-19 we read, and I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escaped of them unto the nations, etc., to Tarshish and the Isles afar off. On an Ancient map of Ptolemy’s, England and Scotland are named Javan, and Spain, Portugal, and France are frequently mentioned as Tarshish, the ships of Tarshish, etc.

Ulam’s son, Bedan whose history and name we can bridge with the Tuatha-da-Danans and their Irish High King Baedan which means “Son of Dan” (King Tech- Baoithin, Baithen, Baithin, Baithan, Baetin, Baitan Mor, Báetán mac Muirchertaig, “Baithen the Great”.)

This King Baedan became the father of the senior line of the Hy-Niall kings (King of Ireland and Scotland) because he was the great-grandson of Niall of the Hostages and his grandmother was Scottish Princess of Dalriada named Erca which united the two ancient kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland into one.

The Pictish Chronicles informs us that they were from Ollamhan, whence comes Mur Ollamhan at Tara, to Fiacha, son of Baedan,” who fettered the hostages of Erin and Alba. Also, seven kings of the Alban Cruithnech governed Erin (Ireland and Scotland) at Tara.

For example, Of this king’s descendants, we see the name Olma encoded into their sirnames such as his son Colmán Rímid and Maeluma.

KING MILESIUS OF IRELAND THE SAME AS KING MILESIUS OF CRETE

As I mentioned above, in the tradition of honoring their mariner ancestors, they would rename these new lands they had conquered and even the characters in their myths and also importing the very language, laws, and history in the very boats that carried them.

This is where we meet with more of their ancient mythology encoded into the Irish Annals, which include volumes called the Annals of Ulster, the Annals of the Four Masters, etc.

A major clue to the original homeland of these people comes from the old Irish folklore which states that they arrived in Ireland with an expeditionary force from anywhere between the 17th to the 6th centuries B.C. They are said to have spawned from the fifth son of King Milesius who was the progenitor of the Milesian race and hereditary Father to some of the earliest tribes of Ireland and the noble families of Ulster.

This story of King Milesius in Ireland coincides exactly with the mythology of their homeland which I believe was both in old Tyre (Tora, Tura) Egypt and in new Tyre on the Holy Island of Crete.

The ancient homelands of their ancestors.

In researching the most remote mythology on this King Milesius, we will discover that the oldest reference takes us directly to the ancient mythology of Crete where we find it was King Melissus who first introduced sacrifice to the Gods, and introduced new rights and sacred ceremonies on this island.

He had two daughters Amalthea and Melissa, which nursed the child Jupiter, and fed him with goat’s milk and honey. Melisseus was the eldest and leader of the nine Curetes (Kuretes) of Crete. The meaning of the name Melisseus is “bee-man,”and another form of Melissus, in Cretan means, “honey-man.”

CURETES & CABIRI OF CRETE SAME AS CABIRI & DRUIDS OF IRELAND

According to Diodorus Siculus, the Curetes lived in the time of Rhea; The Father of History, Herodotus and Strabo writing later both had said that the Curetes were originally Phoenicians who accompanied Cadmus out of Phoenicia.

The ancient Curetes (Kuretes) of Crete I have written extensively about these various connections in history with the Priesthood of Zeus who were also known by many other names such as the Telchnines (Telknines, Telkhis, Telegonus, or Greek, Τελχῖνες), Corybantes, Dactyls, and Cabiri.

These same Priesthoods with their same history and myths bring us to another connection to Ancient Ireland that would be hard to refute which is through the history of a well-known but mysterious Priesthood called the Druids.

For example, both the Cretans and Egyptians had a priesthood that was called the Cabiri and so did the ancient Irish.

In a previous article, The Irish Druid Cabiri Are the Same As the Phoenician Cabiri, I explained that you will find that the Latin name Cabiri and Old Irish Cabur is derived from the Phoenician Hebrew word Kabir that is sometimes spelled Cabir, Chabir, Chabiru, and Chabireh. Cabur was once of the ancient God of Ireland being that of the ancient Irish pantheon of Gods known as Axire, Axcearas, Coismaol, and Cabur.

The priests of this God were called the Druid Caburi or Cabiri.

According to the ancient Phoenician historian, Sanchoniatho, the mysteries of the Cabiri were first celebrated by the Phoenicians, and introduced into Greece. He had written that first or original Cabiri were the eight Sons of Sydyc, who was a Canaanite.

They lived in the Days of Taaut of Thoth who is the same as the Phoenician Hermes. Pausanias, the Greek historian and geographer who lived in the time of his cousin, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, relates, that the Mother of the Gods was anciently worshiped at Thebes with the Cabiri, whose Names and Mysteries he durst not divulge.

THE FALL OF THE IRISH TYRE

The kingdom of Tyrconnell represented the core homeland of the Tribe of Dan who became known in the Irish Annals as the Tuatha-da-Danans with various families and subunits of families whose the most successful under the banners of the Ulaid, Northern Uí Néill, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Ulster all vying for power.

The chief seat of the ancient royal Irish families was sacked and ceased several times by English forces in their attempts to reduce the country to obedience to the royal authority. However, the warrior spirit of the Irish branches of the Tuatha-da-Danans proved to be a formidable fight to the invading English until the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when it would become the location of fighting during what was called Tyrone’s Rebellion at the end of the 15th Century.

It was said to be burned by Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, to prevent its falling into the hands of the queen’s forces in Ireland.

Their power continued to exist until the 17th century when before the English invaded their lands, the ancient native rulers of Ireland fled to the North and abroad in the episode known as the Flight of the Earls. It was then finally incorporated into the English-ruled Kingdom of Ireland.

But, as with all the major Irish kingships, the line of hereditary descent continues into the present day.

LEGAL BANNERS FOR THE WARRIORS OF GOD AND THE KING

In researching the Ancient History of Ireland, you will find that it was here that the first laws and legal system of the Western World was developed in the reign of Ollamh Fodhla who I have mentioned were the learned men who ruled over their people. This legal system was known as the Brehon Law which operated late into the 17th century and was abolished and later became the English common law system. After the English had conquered these lands in the time of Elizabeth I, the Brehon laws were considered to be old, lewd, and unreasonable.

However, one of the most important legal ordinances of Brehon Law was for Tribal Heraldry where their tribal insignias bearing various symbols and colors would identify their rank. It is my understanding that before this time in the West, tribal and royal heraldry was not governed by a legal assembly such as the Ollamh Fodhla.

The various Celtic Tribes who jostled for control of Ireland were distinguished by particular symbols and colors each class of society was to wear in their clothes were specially regulated by Brehon Law.

Servants wore clothes with one color and one step up was a rent-paying farmer who wore two colors. Military officers wore three colors and their chiefs wore five colors. The highest members of society being the ollamhs and poets wore six colors in the clothes and seven colors in the clothes of kings and queens.

This system of royal authority was left to the family and tribe to be in charge of their own heraldry and royal rankings which would leave this legal loophole open to corruption and fraud. In researching the royal families of the world and priesthood over the last 2,500 years, I would say with confidence that this fraud has most likely happened quite often. Especially under the English Common Law System.

The Rev. Geoffrey Keating, in his “General History of Ireland,” explains that in the reign of Ollamh Fodhla, in a “great triennial assembly at Tara, it was ordained by a law that every nobleman and great officer should, by the learned heralds, have a particular coat-of-arms assigned to him according to his merit and his quality, whereby he should be distinguished from others of the same rank, and be known wherever he appeared.”

An ancient historical account of the battle of “Magh Rath,” that was compiled from ancient manuscripts of Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare and later transcribed by John O’Donovan from the Book of Leinster shows us exactly the names, symbols, and colors of some of these families.

Finn Mac Gorman was Bishop of Kildare in the first half of the twelfth century and died in the year 1160. Here is Mac Gorman account of the various Tribal Banners which was published in 1842 by the Irish Archaeological Society (p. 227, see also p. 847):—

“Mightily advance the battalions of Congal

To us over the ford of Ornamh;

When they came to the contest of the men

They require not to be harangued.

The token of the great warrior of Macha—

Variegated satin on warlike poles;

The banner of each bright king with prosperity

Over his own head conspicuously displayed.

The banner of Scannlan—an ornament with prosperity,

And of Fiachna Mor, the son of Baedan,

Great symbol of plunder floating from its staff

Is over the head of Congal advancing towards us.

A yellow Lion on green satin,

The insignia of the Craebh Ruadh,

Such as the noble Conchobar bore,

Is now held up by Congal.

The standards of the sons of Eochaidh

In front of the embattled hosts,

Are dun-coloured standards like fire.

Over the well-shaped spear-handles of Crumthann.

The standard of the vigorous king of Britain,

Conan Rod, the royal soldier,

Streaked satin, blue and white,

In folds displayed.”

IRISH TYRE AND THE TRIBE OF DAN FROM IRELAND CONCLUSION

To some people of modernity, this history seems nothing but a mythological fairytale and or legend of days gone by. But to others like me, it is a beautiful homage to the true history of our people and the world in this 6th Age encoded into our Holy Scriptures, nation myths and the laws of our lands of which we are in the year 2019.

The facts of hiostory are well known that the Irish tradition tells us that they are a fighting race, and as it were, “mariners” (Ezek. xxvii. 8) or seafaring men. They have hung their shields on the walls of Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 10), and being insular, they have been vindicated by true history and their character as the Warriors for God via the Tribe of Dan.

Let it be said that legend informs us that the Tribe of Dan had also brought with them the famous Stone of Destiny, and is also known as the Stone of Scone and The Coronation Stone (Liagh Fail) on which all succeeding kings of that race were crowned. It was used for centuries in the coronation of the monarchs of Scotland, and later the monarchs of England and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Historically, the artifact was kept at the now-ruined Scone Abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob’s Pillow Stone and the Tanist Stone, and in Scottish Gaelic, clach-na-cinneamhain.

stone of destiny

Fergus the Great borrowed the Liagh Fail to be crowned on, after his invasion of North Britain; and, being deposited in the abbey of Scone, it continued there until the reign of Edward I., who had it conveyed to Westminster Abbey, where it is now placed beneath the inauguration chair, having its name changed for that of ‘Jacob’s stone.’

Its value appears to rest upon the destiny contained in a very ancient Scythian or Irish verse, the purport of which is, ‘that where the Stone of Destiny is preserved, there a prince of the Irish race should govern.’

 

gnosticwarrior.com/irish-tyre.html

Laura Amy Neuhaus of Infosys, Harbir Singh of Wharton, Narayana

Murthy of Infosys, David Boyles, Srinivas Uppaluri of Infosys

Grenadier - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) Dwellers Below

* Box Cover

Rust Monster, Intellect Devourer, Doggleganger, Cave Fisher, Otyugh, Aspis, Yuan Ti, Beholder, Roper

St Oswald, Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

 

Carrara marble monument to Penelope Boothby (1785-1791).

 

Daughter of Sir Brooke Boothby, Baronet & his wife Susannah.

 

By Thomas Banks (1735-1805), 1793.

 

The inscription is in four different languages - English, Latin, French & Italian, all of which Penelope spoke.

 

"She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark and the wreck was total.”

  

Thomas Banks (1735-1805) was apprenticed to a London mason, but also spent time working alongside the sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781). He enrolled in the life classes held at the St Martin's Lane Academy, and later at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1772 he became the first sculptor to win the Royal Academy's three-year travelling stipend, and went with his wife to Rome, where he eventually spent seven years. He specialised in ideal works, most of which were executed in Rome for British patrons, although he continued to produce similar work after his return to London. He was made a Royal Academician in 1786. Banks was one of the most original British Neo-classical sculptors, who dedicated his work to the antique spirit rather than to the fashionable classical style alone.

 

For more information see:-

 

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Boothby

 

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Brooke_Boothby,_6th_Baronet

  

St Oswald’s Church, Ashbourne

 

Grade I Listed

 

Early foundation. Present church is mainly Early English from circa 1220 but a few remnants of earlier Norman work survive and a Saxon cross shaft (part) in the south aisle. The church is believed to stand on the site of a pagan holy well, now thought to be concealed beneath tyre crossing. The tower and spire circa 1330. The spire, which has been rebuilt several times, has a height of 215ft. Perpendicular additions and alterations circa 1520. The battlements to the chancel were added by Sir G G Scott in 1878 and the church was restored by Cottingham earlier in the C19. Some fine monuments from C14, of which the most famous is probably the figure of Penelope Boothby 1791, by Thomas Banks. Some mediaeval glass remains. In 1644, the church was fired on by Parliamentarians and the marks are still visible in the west wall.

 

Nos 38, 40 and 72, together with Pegg's Almshouses, Owlfield's Almhouses, The Mansion, the Summerhouse and the cobbled pavements form a group with the parish Church of St Oswald and the churchyard gate piers, gates and walls.

 

Listing NGR: SK1763146443

 

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1207715

The Mind Stone

 

Lapis has been highly valued for many thousands of years. The most famous locality for fine quality Lapis Lazuli is in the same ancient deposit high in the mountains of Afghanistan where it was originally mined at least 6000 years ago. It was said to impart ancient knowledge, and the wisdom to use it thus enhancing one’s awareness, insight, and intellect.

 

Until the 19th century, it was ground Lapis that was the secret to the lovely blue pigments that so many painters used to depict the sky and the sea. Meaning that when one views all of the blue hues in Renaissance paintings, it is quite likely that they are due to the lovely Lapis Lazuli.

 

Lapis Lazuli is said to help create and maintain a connection between the physical and celestial planes, creating a strong spiritual connection. This may be related to its property of assisting in contact with guardian spirits. Lapis Lazuli is a manifestation stone. It is also an excellent meditation stone.

 

Meditating on a goal or quality you wish to manifest can bring this strong manifestation energy in. It is also a powerful crystal for positive or white magic. Lapis Lazuli has helpful energy. It can bring mental and emotional virility and strengthen the mind. It also is said to enhance creativity. Its energy can help organize daily life as well as organizing and quieting a busy or restless mind. Lessening confusion, and increasing concentration. It is found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and Chile.

 

Lapis Lazuli is said to be quite a powerful thought amplifier, stimulating the high faculties of the mind; bringing objectivity, clarity and encouraging creativity through attunement to The Source.

 

Lapis is also connected with Jupiter and thus expands the intellect, wisdom, and leadership qualities, as well as helping in legal matters that arise. The stone works as a shield from psychic attack. It is used to relieve insomnia and let go of anxieties.

 

Said to help bring one to confront the truth, wherever one may find it, as well as aid in expressing one’s own opinion with harmonizing effect to the conflict. Lapis Lazuli will also help one to allow truth to be the teacher when it is necessary; encouraging self awareness, standing up for oneself, and taking charge of one’s life.

 

Promoting clear understanding through intuition, Lapis Lazuli allows one to find the cause of and help to balance the function of the thyroid and hormones in to stave off depression. Assisting in the proper health and function of the head and neck, vocal cords, sore throats, headaches, eye ailments, or inflammation in this area of any kind.

 

Benefiting the immune system, Lapis overcomes hearing loss, eye issue, purifies the blood , relieves insomnia, and vertigo, as well as lowering the blood pressure.

 

The best bracelets for men are definitely from adrianjade. You can buy bracelets for men from adrianjade. They have hundreds of premium handmade bracelets made with natural gemstones www.adrianjade.com/

 

Adrianjade.com offers the best bracelets of Lapis Lazuli Stones. They sell custom hand-made bracelets for men. See this : www.adrianjade.com/buy-mens-bracelets/luxury-collection/n...

Celastraceae (staff vine or bittersweet family) » Celastrus paniculatus

 

see-LAS-trus -- from the ancient Greek kelastros, the name of another tree

pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tus or pan-ick-yoo-LAH-tus -- referring to the flower clusters (panicles)

 

commonly known as: black-oil plant, celastrus, oriental bittersweet, intellect tree, staff tree • Bengali: kijri, malkangani • Gujarati: માલકંગના malkangana • Hindi: मालकंगनी malkangani • Kannada: ಭವಮ್ಗ bhavamga, ಜೊತಿಷ್ಮತಿ jotishmati, ಕರಿಗನ್ನೇ kariganne, ಕೊಉಗಿಲು kougilu • Konkani: माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Marathi: कांगुणी kanguni, माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Oriya: korsana, pengu • Sanskrit: अलवण alavan, ज्योतिषमति jyotishmati, कन्गु kangu • Tamil: குவரிகுண்டல் kuvarikuntal, மண்ணைக்கட்டி mannai-k-katti, வாலுளுவை valuluvai • Telugu: కాసరతీగె kasara-tige, మానెరు maneru • Urdu: کنگني مال malkanguni

 

Native to: India, China, Sri Lanka, south-east Asia

  

References: Sahyadri Database • ENVIS - FRLHT • eFlora

i can't wait to leave.

only four months left.

i let so many people walk all over me

and i'm tired of it.

when i talk to you, i feel like a lot gets resolved.

but then, the moment we end the conversation, it's like i'm putting everything in a bag and shaking it until i'm blue in the face.

honestly, i don't know what to do.

i feel horrible all the time, and i feel like i'm doing everything wrong.

 

i guess i'll just do what comes naturally, or try to at least.

:/

FORT MCCOY, Wis. –

 

“Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended.”

 

~ Kevin O’Leary

 

Although O’Leary—a Canadian author, entrepreneur and television personality—was referring to his half billion dollar fortune, his words expose the Achilles Heel of nearly every individual and organization on the planet: money.

 

The U.S. Army, in particular, aligns with O’Leary’s analogy. With billions of dollars dedicated to training, equipping and caring for more than a million men and women in uniform, the Army seeks competent Soldiers who can conduct its countless and complex financial transactions. Those Soldiers are often assigned to sections and even platoon-sized elements dedicated to the understanding of all things pecuniary. Compartmentalizing financial intellect offers the Army the distinct advantage of enhancing readiness through realistic training in the art of money management.

 

Diamond Saber is an annual training exercise devoted to teaching, mentoring and certifying Soldiers operating within the Army’s intricate financial system. Conducted in Ft. McCoy, Wis., from Aug. 14-24, 2017, the exercise drew more than 650 Soldiers from the Army’s active, Reserve and National Guard components.

 

“Diamond Saber prepares units to deploy overseas by exposing Soldiers to financial activities found in theater,” said U.S. Army Col. Gregory T. Hinton, commander, 336th Financial Management Support Center. “The exercise combines classroom instruction with realistic training scenarios that cover a wide variety of tasks, missions and systems.”

 

These financial functions range from cashing checks and exchanging funds to resolving military pay issues and documenting captured currency. Based out of Lake Charles, La., the 336th FMSC demonstrated their expertise on these and other monetary subjects by developing policies, answering questions and providing technical support for Soldiers engaged in classrooms and simulations.

 

“We’re the financial advisors for this exercise,” said Hilton, a native of Fairmont, W. Va. “Our role here is very similar to what we do downrange.”

 

While the 336th FMSC supported the operational aspects of Diamond Saber, four Soldiers from the 143d Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), a 10,000 Soldier command headquartered in Orlando, Fla., immersed themselves in the exercise’s tactical side. Their participation marked a major milestone in the exercise’s 12-year history.

 

“This is the first time Diamond Saber has integrated Soldiers operating at the G8 (general officer, finance) level,” said U.S. Army Capt. Steven Andrews, comptroller, 143d ESC. “Prior to the exercise, our section attended several planning sessions to help ensure Diamond Saber’s curriculum was applicable to G8 level tasks.”

 

These planning sessions resulted in Andrews and his fellow 143d ESC Soldiers studying in a small classroom separated from the larger lecture halls housing hundreds of Soldiers at Ft. McCoy’s Financial Management Warrior Training Center.

 

“The specialized class size allowed our instructors to focus on G8 related functions such as vendor contracts, purchase orders and lines of accounting,” said Andrews, a Philadelphia, Pa., native. “The coursework also taught us how to provide better guidance and improved service to our downtrace units.”

 

The lectures and simulations also exposed Andrews and his team to the Army’s General Fund Enterprise Business System, a financial asset and financial accounting management web application.

 

“GFEBS is a powerful tool,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Victor T. Rosario, budget analyst, 143d ESC. “Its numerous features make it a bit overwhelming at first, but the daily practice, thorough instruction and graded tests should give us a firm foundation for our eventual mastery of this complex program.”

 

“Most Reserve Soldiers have little exposure to GFEBS prior to coming to Diamond Saber,” added Andrews. “As long as we continually take advantage of opportunities to maximize our exposure to GFEBS, then we will be successful in our mission.”

 

While most of the 143d ESC’s counterparts live and study in the relative comfort, the 143d ESC Soldiers must retain vast stockpiles of information while working in field conditions.

 

“Most of the 143d ESC is engaged in a CSTX (Combat Sustainment Support Exercise),” explained Rosario, a native of St. Cloud, Fla. “Since CSTX emulates a deployed environment, we must sleep in tents and walk through rugged terrain with our weapons and field gear during our daily commutes to and from the classroom.”

 

For Rosario, the long days are worth the effort as Diamond Saber also provides opportunities to complete online certifications.

 

“NCOs (Noncommissioned Officers) in my field must complete a series of online classes before we can attend our respective NCOES (Noncommissioned Officer Education System) courses,” said Rosario. “Completing these courses is essential to promotion and career progression. I am grateful Diamond Saber’s administrators afforded us the time to earn a few certifications.”

 

While Diamond Saber lacks the mass maneuvers and cinematic firefights found in front line field exercises, its presence signifies the Army’s understanding that ample funding and effective fighting are equally important in winning wars.

 

“Soldiers must be physically, mentally and financially ready to deploy,” said Hinton, who, when not wearing the uniform, serves as the command executive officer for the 79th Theater Support Command headquartered in Los Alamitos, Calif. “If the Army Reserve expects its Soldiers to deploy anywhere in the world in less than 30 days, then our financial units and sections must be masters of our craft. Diamond Saber helps ensure our Soldiers fight and win without the crippling effects of disputed contracts, misappropriated funds and unresolved pay issues.”

 

Story and Photos by Sgt. John L. Carkeet IV, 143d ESC

Fotomarathon Dag 7

 

The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don't let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!"

--Jerome K. Jerome (well, now, if you insist, Mr. Jerome)

 

My friend D. recommended Twinings tea.

So I doubled-rinsed my old diffusers, that's all.

 

Celastraceae (staff vine or bittersweet family) » Celastrus paniculatus

 

see-LAS-trus -- from the ancient Greek kelastros, the name of another tree

pan-ick-yoo-LAY-tus or pan-ick-yoo-LAH-tus -- referring to the flower clusters (panicles)

 

commonly known as: black-oil plant, celastrus, oriental bittersweet, intellect tree, staff tree • Bengali: kijri, malkangani • Gujarati: માલકંગના malkangana • Hindi: मालकंगनी malkangani • Kannada: ಭವಮ್ಗ bhavamga, ಜೊತಿಷ್ಮತಿ jotishmati, ಕರಿಗನ್ನೇ kariganne, ಕೊಉಗಿಲು kougilu • Konkani: माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Marathi: कांगुणी kanguni, माळकांगोणी malkangoni • Oriya: korsana, pengu • Sanskrit: अलवण alavan, ज्योतिषमति jyotishmati, कन्गु kangu • Tamil: குவரிகுண்டல் kuvarikuntal, மண்ணைக்கட்டி mannai-k-katti, வாலுளுவை valuluvai • Telugu: కాసరతీగె kasara-tige, మానెరు maneru • Urdu: کنگني مال malkanguni

 

Native to: India, China, Sri Lanka, south-east Asia

  

References: Flowers of India • Sahyadri Database • ENVIS - FRLHT • eFlora