View allAll Photos Tagged Unshakable

This was simply too good an opportunity to walk past.

 

While I have wrestled with doubts about my skills and vision of late; I have an unshakable confidence that I can always find something to amuse myself. This is one of those times.

We’ve reached that magical midpoint of 2025 — a time when the past six months feel like a whirlwind of memories, and the next six hold endless potential. Standing among wildflowers and weathered steel numbers, the year’s mark feels bold and unshakable, yet softened by the blooms of growth and change.

 

The air carries a quiet reminder: every goal, dream, and adventure still has time to flourish. Just like the field that’s alive with blossoms despite the rugged metal standing in its midst, life’s beauty comes from contrast — the balance between challenges and the joy they frame. As we step forward into the second half of 2025, there’s a promise in the horizon’s glow: the best is yet to come.

  

Pose: Den Den - "Bring On 25"

* Get ready to embrace 2025 with this stunning collection of photo poses! Featuring three exquisite Bento poses and a beautifully customizable 2025 prop, this set is designed to elevate your photography to new heights. Please keep in mind that only the 2025 prop is included—no additional props are part of this collection. Plus, the raw poses are provided, giving you the freedom to pair them with any props you desire. Capture the essence of the new year in style!

 

Den Den Poses

Flikr Group: DenDen Poses Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/185524262@N05/

 

Flikr: DenDen Poses Flickr Group: www.flickr.com/groups/14707318@N20/

 

MP: DenDen Poses Marketplace: marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/224676/

 

IW: DenDen Poses In World Store: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kiwi%20Island/229/89/21

   

The air outside the Ravenwood Tavern was crisp and biting, the kind of chill that seemed to sharpen resolve. Inside, the tavern’s warm glow did little to chase away the shadows that clung to Vivienne Ravenwood’s thoughts. She stood near the large front windows, her silhouette framed by the soft glow of gaslight filtering through the glass. Her hands rested lightly in front of her, and her gaze was fixed on the quiet streets outside, where the faint movement of snowflakes blurred the edges of the cobblestones. The flicker of lamplight reflected in her eyes, but it was the weight of her thoughts that gave her presence a striking stillness. She was alone, and the solitude amplified the storm brewing within her.

 

The events of the Governor's Solstice Ball replayed in her mind like a broken reel, each moment more vivid than the last: the elegance of Miss Frost’s address, her stunning admission of her connection to Gabriella, and the sharp crack of a gunshot that shattered the illusion of safety. Vivienne could still hear Jed’s voice yelling, “Persi, get down!” before throwing herself in front of the bullet meant for Frost. The second assassin’s knife had been swift and deadly, cutting through the chaos to find its mark.

 

And then there were Frost’s final words: “I thought we would have more time.” Words that weighed heavily on Vivienne’s conscience. Time was a luxury none of them had been afforded.

 

Gabriella’s grief haunted her. The image of Gabriella cradling Perspicacity Frost's bloodied body, her crimson gown darkened and her cries echoing through the ballroom, was burned into Vivienne’s mind. The usually unshakable Gabriella had been reduced to heartbreak, and her pain was a sharp reminder of all they had lost.

 

The Academy had closed its doors indefinitely, leaving the young women who had once filled its halls adrift. Miss Dagger, though alive, bore the weight of guilt and sorrow. She had saved Frost from the first bullet but had been unable to stop the knife. The regret in her eyes when she spoke to Vivienne after the attack was a burden Vivienne understood too well.

 

Vivienne clenched her fists as the memories swirled. She had refused the contract to kill Frost, knowing the cost would be high. Percival Frost had ensured it was higher than she could have imagined. Her refusal had set these events in motion, forcing Percival to hire another to do what she would not. But it wasn’t guilt alone that sat heavy in her chest—it was anger. Frost had stood for something, for the dignity and strength of New Victoria Township, and her death was a message from Percival and those who sought to undermine everything she’d built.

 

Vivienne turned away from the window, her steps purposeful as she crossed the empty tavern. She paused by the bar, her reflection catching in the polished wood. She couldn’t let Frost’s death be the end of the story. It had to be the beginning of something greater. Her mind raced with the faces of the women who had stood with Frost, women who had the courage to fight for her legacy.

 

She moved to her desk, where parchment and ink waited. With deliberate strokes, she began to write.

 

Outside, the wind howled, carrying with it the promise of a storm. But inside the Ravenwood Tavern, Vivienne had already resolved to face it head-on. Alone, she would light the spark. Together, they would make it a fire that burned bright enough to honor Frost’s legacy and consume those who sought to extinguish it.

 

New Victoria Township.

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kasieopeia/204/18/32

In Dublin for one night with work, I threw my camera and a couple of reflectors in my only bag. Late on after an intense day I hit the streets for a quick walk to clear my mind.

 

It was a bright, sunny evening, so I thought I would head up to St Stephen's Green, which is pretty much my favourite part of the town (competing with Howth for the similarity to my surname and seals). However, Grafton Street was busy with people and a dark wall up the side of the Molton Brown shop offered a background right amidst the main footfall.

 

Shortly after taking up residence, Borja caught my eye. A dashing chap in suit and bright red tie, he passed in one direction with a purposeful stride and I hesitated, not wanting to disturb a man on a mission. A few minutes later, however, he came back with a small group of people - his wife and parents visiting from Basque country.

 

Still a little concerned at interrupting an intense conversation, I nonetheless approached and met the most fantastic chap you could hope to encounter.

 

His wife Noemi and he listened to my explanation of the project, and kindly, excitedly even agreed to take part. Both had a wonderful, positive, international energy and together we set up in the alleyway.

 

We shot with the light chiefly coming from behind Borja, as I wanted to give him some separation from the dark wall. He's holding one reflector, and Noemi the other, just next to me to bounce the backlight back onto him from the rightside. I popped a Canon 600EX-RT beneath his reflector (to mask it) firing at Noemi's, to add an extra zap of fill - fired ETTL at -1 comp.

 

Though we experimented with a "serious" shot, I opted for this one of Borja's incredible natural smile. Noemi spoke about his kindness and warmth, and in speaking with them I felt a wonderful mix of humility and unshakable confidence from him. He was a lovely, hugely charismatic chap.

 

He's in Dublin as a civil engineer. We chatted about his most interesting project - the M50 motorway - and the challenges people outside of his profession don't anticipate. He explained that the human element was the most complex and difficult to resolve; so many stakeholders, views, objectives and conflicting agendas to balance. It made great sense to me that he work in this field given his aura of calm, his friendly energy and a serious, focused gaze.

 

When we parted I wandered on, up to St Stephen's Green... wondering about taking another portrait, yet feeling it was not needed. No sooner than I'd arrived, I bumped into Borja and Noemi again by the central fountains. Meeting them there I knew my work for the evening was complete, and, smiling I headed back to my hotel to tidy up my day's work.

 

Borja - eskerrik asko! Thank you so much for your time, and for checking out my project! I'm so pleased you took a moment to be part of it and hope you like your portrait.

 

This is portrait #78 of my 100 Strangers Project - check out the group page and get involved.

 

You might also enjoy my photography blog, including tips for street portraits. It's relatively new, but growing quickly and I'd appreciate a visit and your thoughts!

Holi, also called the Festival of Colours, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India, Nepal, and countries with large Hindu diaspora such as Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, the UK, Mauritius and Fiji. In West Bengal of India and Bangladesh, it is known as Dolyatra (Doljatra) or Boshonto Utsav ("spring festival").

 

The main day, Holi, also known as Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other. Bonfires are lit the day before, also known as Holika Dahan (death of Holika) or Chhoti Holi (little Holi). The bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlad had when Demoness Holika, sister of Hiranyakashipu, carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion. Holika Dahan is referred to as Kama Dahanam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

Holi is celebrated on the full moon day in the month of Phalugna or Falguna (Phalgun Purnima), which usually falls in the later part of February or March. In 2009, Holi (Dhulandi) was on 11th March and Holika Dahan was on 10th March.

Courtesy:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Title: The other side.

  

( LUMIX G3 shot )

 

Manhattan. New York. USA. 2017. … 4 / 8

 

Images:

Beck - Cycle + Morning

youtu.be/crpKXePB714?si=wjcQgBn5Rcp1WFzV

  

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My new novel.

B♭ (B flat)

Volume 11. 😄

What follows is still in its first-draft stage. It will go through further revisions.

The crucial passages have not been made public.

(Of course, this is not the final manuscript.)

 

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My New Novel.

 

B♭ (B Flat)

 

— The darkest hour comes just before dawn —

The dawn in New York brought that phrase back to mind.

It was something Amir once heard from Professor Zakaria of the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University.

The professor, in his lifetime, had struggled between theory and reality, yet instilled in his disciples a calm and unshakable resolve.

Amir studied electrical engineering; Rafi Ghannam, architecture.

Each possessed talents that complemented the other.

After mastering the structures of the world, Rafi had gone on to extend his knowledge into electrical engineering, reaching from machinery to programs.

To the two of them, the vulnerabilities of America’s IT networks were but an open book.

In the dim underground floor, where bare fluorescent lights flickered, Rafi crouched at the intersection of the switchboard and the drainage duct.

Beneath his electrician’s vest and helmet, the red earth–colored scarf of Gaza wrapped his neck.

Amir stood beside him, scuffing his dusty work boots against the floor, fighting down his unease.

“Hurry. The morning shift will be here soon.”

“Quiet. Every sound echoes down here.”

Rafi answered evenly, opening his toolbox.

Inside lay a modified pressure switch and a block of C4, black and light-absorbing, gleaming like coal.

The device was to be set in the hidden recess where the structural beam and wiring shaft crossed—a “node” that, once sealed, could never be retrieved.

“Once it’s buried here, no one will ever find it.”

“...But are you sure? Is five years really the right time?”

“It must be five years. When the building stands complete, when it has been forgotten—then the blast will become the return of memory.”

Amir studied his profile and nodded silently.

Every motion of Rafi’s hand, each measured breath, carried the authority of a father, a teacher.

The hand that once learned to build was now preparing to destroy.

A slow tide of trust and kinship welled in Amir’s chest.

The sound of a fan turning, the rasp of chalk on blackboard—these rose in Rafi’s memory.

In the night lecture hall of the university, he had filled his notebook with shear angles of beams and the breaking points of concrete.

The lecturer, pointing to the diagram on the blackboard, had said quietly:

“When a structure collapses, it is not from defect. It follows the very will of its design.”

The classroom had fallen utterly silent at those words.

To know what would sway, what would endure, what would crack with sound during a vibration test—that knowledge was what could transform collapse into form.

That winter, Rafi’s family lost their home to an Israeli airstrike along the coast.

Despair turned to rage, rage to resolve, and resolve gave strength to his hands.

Amir, too, carried the same wound, and shared in that resolve.

Five years earlier, Rafi had begun to set up pirate radio.

Through networks of Caribbean and Hispanic immigrant communities, he passed messages quietly.

Every social platform and smartphone was under watch.

They restricted themselves to the barest communications, leaving only casual, trivial exchanges for daily use.

When he pressed the switch, a faint click was swallowed into the night’s silence.

A small red lamp lit up, linking him to nearby companions.

At two in the morning, a woman’s voice drifted from FM 87.9.

Through the static hush, a poem unfurled:

“If the world should end, I want to be singing alone.”

The verse Rafi chose was the emblem of his quiet resolve.

Amir listened to that voice while gazing at Rafi’s back.

What they undertook was not mere destruction—it was the embodiment of lost memory and anger, the crystallization of their trust and mutual understanding.

In darkness and silence, their plan advanced steadily.

The theory of architecture and the principles of electrical engineering, the pain of the past, and the will of those who had survived—all of it flowed quietly forward, converging toward a future act of ruin.

 

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My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

There’s still more to come. 😃

(This is not the final draft.)

Set in New York City.

 

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Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

Note: I gave a brief explanation of this novel in the following video:

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

iTunes Playlist Link::

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b/pl.u-47DJGhopxMD

 

My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

Notes

1. "Bombay Blood Type (hh type)"

•Characteristics: A rare blood type that lacks the usual ABO antigens — cannot be classified as A, B, or O.

•Discovery: First identified in 1952 in Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay).

•Prevalence: Roughly 1 in 10,000 people in India; globally, about 1 in 2.5 million.

•Transfusion Compatibility: Only compatible with blood from other Bombay type donors.

2. 2024 Harvard University Valedictorian Speech – The Power of Not Knowing

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

3. Shots Fired at Trump Rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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Title.

向こう側。

  

( LUMIX G3 shot )

  

マンハッタン。ニューヨーク。アメリカ。2017. … 4 / 8

  

Images.

Beck - Cycle + Morning

youtu.be/crpKXePB714?si=wjcQgBn5Rcp1WFzV

  

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僕の新しい小説。

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

  

第11弾。 😄

以下は、まだ初稿の段階です。まだ推敲します。

重要な部分は公開していません。

(もちろん最終稿ではありません。)

 

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僕の新しい小説。

 

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

 

ーー 夜明け前が、一番暗い ーー

 ニューヨークの夜明けは、その言葉を思い出させた。アミールが、イスラム大学工学部のザカリア教授から聞いた言葉だ。教授は生前、理論と現実の狭間で苦悩しつつも、弟子たちに冷静な意思を植え付けた。アミールは電気工学を、ラフィ・ガンナムは建築学を学び、互いに補完し合う才能を持っていた。ラフィは世界中の構造物を理解した後、電気工学へ知識を広げ、電子機器からプログラムまで手を伸ばしていた。アメリカの脆弱なITネットワークを熟知することなど、二人にとっては容易いことだった。

 地下フロアの蛍光灯がむき出しの薄暗い空間で、ラフィは配電盤と排水ダクトの交差部にしゃがみ込んだ。電工業者のベストとヘルメットの下、ガザの赤土色のスカーフが彼の首を覆う。アミールはその横で、埃まみれの作業靴を床で擦りながら、緊張を抑えていた。

「早くしてくれ。もうすぐ朝の組が来る」

「静かにしろ、音が響く」

 ラフィは冷静に答え、工具箱を開いた。中には改造された圧力スイッチと、光を吸い込むように黒光りするC4が収まっていた。仕掛けるのは、構造梁と配線シャフトが交差する“ノード”の背面——完成すれば、二度と取り外すことのできない場所だ。

「ここに埋めたら、二度と誰にも見つからない」

「……でも、本当に5年後でいいのか?」

「5年経った時こそ意味がある。建物が完成し、忘れ去られた時に——爆破は記憶の復活になる」

 アミールは横顔を見つめ、静かに頷いた。ラフィの手の動き、呼吸の一つ一つが、師としての父のように頼もしく感じられた。建築を学んだ者の手が、今、建築を破壊する準備をしている。信頼と共感の感覚が、胸の奥にじわりと広がった。

 扇風機の回る音と乾いた黒板の響きが、ラフィの記憶を呼び覚ます。大学の夜の講義室で、彼は梁の剪断角とコンクリートの破断点をノートに描き込んだ。講師は黒板の図を指し、静かに言った。

「構造が崩壊するのは、欠陥ではなく“設計の意思”に従ったときです」

 その言葉に教室は静まり返った。振動試験でどこが揺れ、どこが耐え、どこが音を立てるか。それを理解することが、崩壊を“形”に変える。

 その冬、ラフィの家族はイスラエルによる湾岸の空爆で家を失った。絶望は怒りに、怒りは意思に変わり、ラフィの手に力を宿した。アミールもまた、同じ痛みを知る者として、その意思を分かち合っていた。

 5年前、ラフィはパイレーツラジオを設置し始めた。カリブ系やヒスパニック系の移民コミュニティのネットワークを利用し、伝令を静かに届ける。SNSやスマートフォンはすべて監視されている。彼らは必要最小限の通信にとどめ、日常的な他愛ないやり取りだけに絞った。

 スイッチを押すと微かなクリック音が夜の静けさに吸い込まれる。小さな赤いランプが灯り、近隣の同胞たちに接続された。

 午前2時、FM87.9から女の声が流れた。砂嵐のような静寂の中、詩が紡がれる。

「この世界が終わるなら、私はひとりで歌っていたい」

 ラフィが選んだ一節は、彼の静かな決意の象徴だった。

 アミールはその声を聞きながら、ラフィの背中を見つめた。彼らが行うのは単なる破壊ではない——失われた記憶と怒りの象徴であり、互いの信頼と理解の結晶でもあった。闇と静寂の中で、二人の計画は着実に進行する。建築の理論と電気工学、過去の痛み、そして生き延びた者の意志が、未来の破壊へと静かに繋がっていくのだ。

 

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僕の新しい小説。

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

 

舞台はニューヨークです。

 

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Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

追記 この小説を多少説明しました。

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

メモ

 

1

「Bombay型(ボンベイ型、hh型)」

•特徴:通常のABO血液型を持たない(A、B、Oに分類されない)特殊な型。

•発見地:1952年、インド・ムンバイ(旧ボンベイ)で初めて確認。

•発生頻度:インドでは1万人に1人程度だが、世界的には約250万人に1人とも。

•輸血制限:同じBombay型しか輸血できない。

 

2

2024年ハーバード大学首席の卒業式スピーチ『知らないことの力』

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

 

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Shots fired at Trump rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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Belgian Landscapes -

 

As solid and unshakable as we think our civilization is, its grip on nature is tenuous at best. If any cracks appear in the faces of our buildings or our machines, nature is quick to move in and take over. 1 photo in place and things that nature is in the process of reclaiming.

Quite a bit of thought has been given to the idea of what Earth might look like once we’re gone. Indeed, many books and TV shows on the topic have found that nature would take our places fairly quickly. Many cities would be re-colonized within a year or two, and many of our buildings would begin crumbling soon after without human maintenance or energy sources. The Life After People series on the History Channel has a comprehensive timeline of collapses detailing when various famous landmarks of human civilization throughout the world might give way to nature.

I was very excited to be able to show this to all. This outfit represents something very particular, I got so sick last week that I thought I wouldn't make it and now seeing the result I'm thrilled. So I wanted to dedicate it to all the strong women who fight every day to prove their worth to this society, and who never think about giving up absolutely anything. Yes, we are unshakable and above all, we are #womanpowered

George Rutherford: Mapping Epidemics, Defining Public Health

 

Dr. George Rutherford sits at his desk, surrounded by the artifacts of a life devoted to global public health—books stacked in teetering towers, old epidemiological maps, globes with well-worn latitudes, and photographs chronicling decades of disease response. His office in Piedmont, where I photographed him on May 4, 2021, felt like a command center of knowledge, an apt setting for a man who has spent his career at the forefront of epidemics, from HIV to COVID-19.

 

It was the height of the pandemic, and much of our conversation revolved around the crisis at hand—UCSF’s response, the evolving science, and the challenge of communicating uncertainty to a world desperate for answers. Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, had become one of the leading voices of reason during the pandemic, providing clear-eyed analysis in a time of confusion.

 

His path to public health was not linear but shaped by a restless intellect and an instinct for where he could do the most good. Trained initially as a pediatrician, Rutherford found himself drawn to epidemiology—the study of how diseases move through populations, how patterns emerge, and how outbreaks can be stopped before they spiral into catastrophe. He worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and a host of other public health institutions, always placing himself at the nexus of policy and science, where decisions must be made quickly and lives hang in the balance.

 

In the 1980s and 1990s, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic devastated communities, Rutherford played a pivotal role in shaping public health responses. His work at the San Francisco Department of Public Health helped establish critical interventions, from early testing initiatives to harm reduction strategies that would later become global models. Unlike some scientists who remain in the abstract, Rutherford was always on the ground, always in the fray, deeply engaged with the real-world impact of his work.

  

When COVID-19 arrived, he was uniquely positioned to provide both historical context and real-time guidance. His ability to translate complex epidemiological data into actionable public health advice made him an essential figure in California’s response. He was a frequent presence in the media, offering a steady voice amid the noise, often reminding the public that pandemics are not just biological events but social ones—that the way we respond to a crisis is as important as the virus itself.

 

Our conversation that day in Piedmont drifted across time zones and epidemics, touching on smallpox eradication efforts, tuberculosis control in sub-Saharan Africa, and the decades-long fight against malaria. His perspective is vast, drawn from years of experience in international public health, and yet he is not weighed down by cynicism. If anything, there is an optimism that runs through his work—an unshakable belief that science, if communicated well and applied correctly, can turn the tide of even the most daunting outbreaks.

 

The books in his office, some dating back to the earliest days of epidemiology, are reminders that this work is both ancient and ever-evolving. The globes reflect the scale of his concerns—pandemics do not recognize borders, and neither does public health. And the photographs, many of them taken in field hospitals and conference halls, tell the story of a career spent in service of a singular mission: to understand how disease spreads and to stop it before it takes too many lives.

 

Rutherford remains a professor, a mentor, and an advocate for evidence-based public health. His presence at UCSF is a reminder that science is not just about discovery but about responsibility—to educate, to inform, and to act. And as we sat in his office that day, in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic, it was clear that he was exactly where he needed to be—translating knowledge into action, as he has always done.

Inspired by and reimagined

 

“Even in circuits, logic endures.”

 

On the bridge of a starship drifting through violet nebulae, the Vulcan ideal has been reforged in steel. A fully robotic figure, his alloyed ears sharpened, his eyes glowing with digital fire, raises the timeless salute: Live Long and Prosper. Etched across his plating are patterns of circuitry that pulse like Vulcan runes, merging logic with machine precision. He is no longer flesh, yet his presence embodies the same unshakable principle — logic eternal, now housed in an immortal frame of chrome and light.

 

🔹 Done in AI, Refined in Bloom, Finalized in Photoshop

Sailing meant Learning from Hardship:First a Priest... Serenity, Freedom and unshakable Certainty depicted Michel Jaouen. Sailing on "Le Bel Espoir"; Noahs Ark of Modern Times www.flickr.com/people/frenchvintagetreasures/

Link to the large size

Always the one playing baseball with friends as the sunlight comes and goes through the puffy white clouds of a late spring afternoon in Texas, even if I am not there, it is where I will always wish to be.

 

Like everything else in life, memory is not perfect. It is not even neat and orderly. It is messy like life itself. Over time, the things that we once did in everyday life diminish to specks and events of varying importance. But those elements can fade to become impossible to prioritize, even in retrospect. Seemingly significant meetings are sometimes reduced in our memories to chance encounters only to become barely noticed details. Some less meaningful events can emerge as clearly influential moments. Time will enhance some memories and dull the focus on others.

 

My memory of my father’s father serves up an ideal that continues to be difficult to live up to. He was an example to aspire to be like. I always have that in mind. Always. What better legacy could a man leave on this earth?

 

Riding with my grandfather in his car on a Sunday afternoon in 1960, I remembered that my grandmother said he had once declined the offer of a live chicken for his services. He accepted some eggs instead. She said my grandfather “cut many heads for free” when people were down on their luck. He would trade a haircut and a shave for some bacon or some fresh eggs or butter, some shelled pecans or even for just a promise. Her reveal of his generosity involved admiration but with a dash of frustration on top. I think Grandma liked to eat and worried more than Grandpa about how they would keep doing so. Of course, I just thought it would have been great to have a live chicken around the house. I was a city kid.

 

The upholstery of a car made in the 1950s had an odor like old, hot, dry foam rubber and a dirty shirt. Maybe it was the heat of Texas summers that brought out such a smell. There was no air conditioning. Everybody looked for shade and a cool drink or they went for a drive to enjoy air that was in motion. The only way to enjoy air in motion during a Texas summer is to put it in motion once the sun is going down. Texas summer air is heavy, moist and as still as a corpse.

 

My grandfather drove out to a farmhouse where a man was sick and unable to come to him. Not only did he wear his Sunday suit with a white shirt and tie, he always wore a hat. His hats were lightweight and stylish looking. Clearly, he was unaware of hats being in or out of style. He just liked his hats. The inside of his hats always smelled like the flower flavored hair tonic he splashed on me after cutting my hair. I liked Rosewater the best. It smelled like roses and cotton candy which, to this day, I consider an unbeatable combo in the smell department. He always waited until after Sunday “dinner” to visit his shut-ins. In places other than Texas, it is my experience that Sunday “dinner” is usually referred to as “lunch”, although it might be considered by some to be a late lunch.

 

More times than could be counted, my grandfather would give a shave and a haircut to a man who was dying in his own bed in the farmhouse of a cotton farm. This was almost always a man that Grandpa had known for many years. Grandpa said that a shave would especially make a man feel clean and normal for a minute, even in the face of the worst sickness. I have not forgotten. I will not forget.

 

Our arrival was always uncomfortable to me even if I had been there before. But it never seemed so for him and never for the family at the farmhouse. Peoples’ comfort with my grandfather was always evident. He was an easy man to be around. There were almost always young kids in dirty clothes, holding broken toys. Farm dogs and other farm animals almost always came to greet us…except the cows. Cows were always busy chewing. Some cows would look up, but always continued chewing. This is where I formed the unshakable opinion that cows are stupid.

 

Talk was always of the weather, the crops, people at church and the price of everything imaginable. None of this was remotely interesting to a kid like me. All I wanted to do was go outside to play baseball and escape the stale smell of sick.

 

Before going outside to play with kids or animals, I would always watch my grandfather’s preparation for the shave. Even when his preparations became familiar to me, it was a show worth watching. It included easy conversation and easier smiles. My grandfather did not even come close to noticing such trivial things as odors. It is now clear to me that this was simply lack of acknowledgement by him. My grandfather usually opened the window in the bedroom, whether it was the freezing cold of winter or the stifling heat of a Texas summer Sunday. It always surprised me when he would do this. It seemed bold to open someone’s window in their own house. The sick man never appeared to be surprised when my grandfather opened the window. I am now certain that the sick man was busy thinking about important things and opening a window was not an important thing.

 

From a huge, very experienced leather bag, Grandpa pulled out both manual and electric clippers, scissors, towels, a shaving kit with cup and brush, a straight razor and a long, wide leather strap. There seemed to be other things he took out and never used. Taking things out of that worn leather bag was an essential part of the show. The oxygen mask and tubing to the huge tanks were temporary inconveniences. My grandfather moved masks, tubes or any other medical equipment with confidence, as if he was also a doctor and it was clear that it was best to set these things aside for a few minutes. And so it was.

 

Left over in my memory is a pungent, cloudy, stinging smell of tobacco…both stale smoke and the smell of moist chewing tobacco in a spittoon in the corner. As awful as the smell of stale smoke can be, the sight and smell of a spit-stained copper spittoon was worse than the sick smell of any dying man’s farmhouse bedroom.

 

A few times the sick man for that Sunday afternoon was barely awake and appeared unaware of what was happening. After one such shave and when we were back in his car, I asked my grandfather if he had ever shaved a dead man. Whether they ask or not, these are always the questions that occur to a young boy. In the manner that defines my memory of my grandfather, he thought for a minute until I finally looked away from him. There was no surprise on his face as he considered his answer. Once he sensed me looking away, he said, “Many times.” When I looked immediately back at his face there was no more information or reaction available on that spectacular comment. When I asked, “What was that like?”, the only response was talk of weather, the crops, people at church and the price of everything imaginable. As wholly unsatisfying as it was at the time, I can now appreciate that my grandfather was a particularly thoughtful, kind and good man. Having now read extensively about his experiences in Europe during WWI, I am confident that my grandfather saw things and knew things that should not ever be told to any young boy. They never were.

 

The alternating slow and fast slap of the razor being honed on the long leather strap is an audio and visual memory that I consider to be wonderfully unique. Very few things smell as fresh and clean as shaving cream mixed by hand with a stiff horsehair brush. It smells like creamy, fresh soap, but man-soap. No flower perfume smells are involved. My grandfather was sure and unhesitant in his actions. He always appeared to me to be as comfortable as if he was in his barbershop. His clear intent and knowledge is a comforting memory. The shaving cream was whipped in a heavy, white glass cup with a stiff brush. It felt right for him to mix it himself rather than succumb to the convenience of an aerosol can of creamed soap. It was all part of the experience that he offered. All his movements felt so right and they still do.

 

The sick man’s wife usually brought in a teakettle full of boiling-hot water. She poured the steaming water over a fresh, white towel that Grandpa had brought from the leather bag. The sick man always smiled when Grandpa put that steamy towel over his face so only his nose and mouth showed. I was always the only one in the room to flinch at the sight and conjured feeling of such heat on my own face. Even the barely awake sick men smiled. The clear pleasure of such an act always struck me as odd, until I was grown.

 

I can now ponder the trust issues involved with allowing a man to scrape the skin of your face with an amazingly sharp razor. It was not a matter of submission for a sick man to allow my grandfather to do such a thing. There was trust. This truth is clear to me now and it was good.

 

About that time, my thoughts usually returned to me being the one playing baseball with friends as the sunlight comes and goes through the puffy white clouds of a late spring afternoon in Texas. Hair was trimmed and oiled. The comb and rosewater tonic finished the job.. The temperature, smell and feeling of the room were changed. Things were a little bit better for a while. The dark cloud that had been covering hope was blown away for a few moments. My grandfather did some important things in his life.

 

I never saw any money, eggs, bacon, live chickens or anything else change hands in these times. But I always saw smiles and handshakes exchanged. It always smelled wonderful, like a barbershop when we left…like my grandfather’s barbershop.

 

www.ericluck.net

 

Queer Nation, Gays Against Guns, LGBTQ groups and allies, and anti-gun violence advocates held a protest outside Trump Tower in New York City on the first night of the Republican National Convention to express to Donald Trump and the Republican Party their thoughts and feelings about them, their anti-LGBT platform, and the blood money that continues to flow to them from the NRA. The Republican Party, with its unrelenting anti-LGBT rhetoric, bears ultimate responsibility for the anti-LGBT killings in Orlando on June 12. Its unshakable, blind allegiance to the NRA is responsible for the unrelenting epidemic of gun violence in the United States—in Columbine, Aurora, Santa Barbara, Newtown, and, most recently, Dallas.

 

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963

Majestueux et imperturbable, ce chat règne sur le temple de Philae, observant d’un air nonchalant les visiteurs qui passent. Son regard marqué par le temps et son pelage usé racontent l’histoire d’un survivant au cœur de ces ruines antiques. Ici, entre les pierres millénaires, il incarne l’âme du lieu, témoin silencieux de l’éternité.

Majestic and unshakable, this cat rules over the Temple of Philae, watching the passing visitors with a nonchalant gaze. His weathered expression and worn fur tell the story of a survivor in the heart of these ancient ruins. Here, among the millennia-old stones, he embodies the spirit of the place, a silent witness to eternity.

For Me again Monday and Shelly's creative month of 'Shocktober' themes, starting with Fears and Phobias.

 

My list of phobias is pretty run-of-the-mill, so today I decided to play with the out of the ordinary sort. As a general rule I don't regularly watch horror movies - I've always had way too over-active an imagination and am way too good at scaring myself once I have an image in my head. (I can't walk around in the dark or venture down into the basement without eventually scaring myself into a high-pitched "meeeep" and a running jump back to where I started).

 

But once in a while, I can't resist putting myself through the heart racing thrill of a good scare (and isn't that part of the fun this time of year?).

 

I'm not bothered by the guts and gore movies with parts flying five ways from Friday - what really gets me is the sudden, shocking, appearance of what wasn't, just moments earlier. The awakening. The unshakable sense that once revealed, it can't be contained again. And worse - the lingering thought left behind, that things that are passing, out-of-sight, behind me...right...now.

 

Bonus fear: Sequels. Dammit - just when I finally manage to convince myself that there was a reasonable resolution, somebody goes and stirs that business up again?

 

Happy MAM!

Baron Antoine-Jean Gros - Portrait of Françoise Simonnier and Her Daughter

 

We are grateful to Gérard Auguier for confirming this portrait to be by Antoine-Jean Gros, based on firsthand inspection. Though he knows of no other instance of Gros painting a repetition, he believes this work to be an autograph second version of the portrait of Françoise Simonnier and her Daughter which is now in the collection of the Wallraf-Richarz Museum, Cologne (WRM2682).

 

Françoise Simonnier was a laundress and the mistress of Gros, with whom she had a daughter in 1827. Gros depicts her as a radiant young woman holding their child on her lap; the girl pulls gently at the bodice of her mother’s dress revealing her breast. Both sitters engage the viewer directly, drawing them into this intimate moment. Gros, who had been in a long and unhappy marriage, arranged for Françoise to live in Brussels where he set her up with a regular income and legally adopted their child, Françoise-Cécile, in 1830. In a letter written in October 1829 to his friend, the artist Joseph-Denis Odevaere, Gros described Françoise as unschooled but “active, adroite, d’un probité à toute épreuve, généreuse jusqu’à l’imprudence envers les malades ou les malheureux, trop confiante envers les emprunteurs (energetic, adroit, possessing unshakable integrity, generous to the point of imprudence with the sick and unfortunate, and too trusting with borrowers."). In another letter to Odevaere, dated 12 November 1829, Gros worried that she might sell a painting that he was sending to her.

 

The painting he refers to is probably identifiable with the portrait now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and which descended in the family of Gros’s daughter. It is tempting to speculate that the reason Gros painted two versions, a unique occurrence in the artist’s oeuvre, was in order to send one to Françoise in Brussels and, perhaps, keep another for himself. Gros’s wife eventually agreed to accept the child into their home in Paris. This arrangement, however, did not last long due to her jealousy of the girl and Gros arranged for his daughter to live at a pension where he would secretly visit her. Françoise died in 1835 and Gros, who had been suffering from depression, due not only to his troubled domestic life but, perhaps, even more so to the perceived failure of his career, drowned himself in the Seine later that same year. Françoise-Cécile eventually married the Marquis Léon de Lestang-Parade (1812-1887), a history and portrait painter.

 

www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.101.html/2015...

We had an unshakable faith in Santa Claus and a penchant for silly photos.

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***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on April 12th 2015

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/tbc MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

 

This photograph became my 642nd frame to be selected for inclusion and sale in the Getty Images 'Moment' collection and I am very grateful to them for such a wonderful opportunity.

  

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BABUSHKA - SNAPSHOT OF A KILLER (Chapter Three)

  

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Экстаз УБИТЬ (Из уст СМЕРТИ)

 

THE ECSTASY OF THE KILL

(FROM THE LIPS OF AN ASSASSIN)

  

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Only a fool or a blind woman could fail to witness the irony of the location as Mother nature nestles me close to her bosom and blood flows freely over the serenity and solitude of the field in which I kneel. Mercifully I am neither a fool nor a blind woman, though my burdens and failings are many fold and plain to see if you would but prick the surface of my being, care to look deep within my psyche.

 

The flesh writhes beneath me, eyes glazing over as the last vestiges of life pulse and pump through the failing arteries like the final spurts of fuel in a boat engine, the power fading rapidly, fits and starts and the vessel left floundering on a sea of tranquillity. There is a moment of sublime ecstasy, an inner peace as my victim looks me in the eye, the realization of their demise registering upon wide eyes and trembling lips. The sweet beauty of the kill as my blade or bullet enters unwilling flesh and the shock and pain of the act of supreme violation gives way to the calm sensation of painless inevitability.

 

I hold them close to my flesh, their life force ebbing away with every second as the death throes take a hold of their carcass and those beautiful eyes glaze over with a resigned acceptance that this life has all but ended. Prayers to false prophets and metal Gods, the repenting of a life of sin, or the simple and elegant demise of those no longer in denial as the truth hits home and whatever awaits them in the afterlife comes knocking. I will never tire of the sheer poetry of the kill, the romance of it all, the orgasmic pleasure that no other act could bring. There is a power over another living being that is far deeper and more satisfying than any other experience or pleasure I have ever encountered.

  

On this occasion the kill is swift as I retract the cold steel of my trusty blade from the warmth of those pierced ribs where it lay embedded just seconds previously. Powell expels a breath as I cradle his head in my palm, his left hand still tightly gripping my knife hand as I peel his clammy digits from my flesh one by one, liking unravelling the legs of a house spider from one's grip, placing his hand down at his side. The rich ruby red blood spurting with rhythmic pulses from the puncture mark begins to slow as his heart ceases and eyes glaze over to the lifeless form that signals his demise. I swear you can see the moment of death as life pails to insignificance and a whitish haze wafts over those pupils like a soft velvety sheet. The clean up begins, and my gloves are bagged along with the cloth to clean my knife and the anti bacterial cleaning agent which removes all traces of DNA before evaporating into thin air.

 

The fluids are my recipe, learned years previously and containing chemicals sufficient to halt the invasive probing of even the most ardent of crime scene investigators looking to solve a major crime and rise to fame on the back of my handy work. Not a chance pal, this gal's been around the block a few times in her career.

 

You know, it's funny what a mark will offer you when he realizes that his time has come to face the grim reaper and depart this life he so loves, or at least believe that he does. Gleaming new Ferrari's, safety deposit numbers and the promise of a lifetime's wealth, his word that he will skip town and disappear like a ghost never again to surface, earnest assurances, desperate claims that always fall upon deaf ears and blinkered eyes. That's not to say that I've never been tempted by such lucrative offers, I'm flesh and blood after all.

 

In my younger days I recall how one mark, bound and tied, bleeding profusely from the slit in his nostril that induced him to spill the beans and tell me the number to his house safe in which were located the documents I required to complete my mission, omitted to inform me of the two hungry Doberman's like Cerberus at the gates of Hades, taking me by surprise as, unprepared and ill equipped I made good my entrance into his abode. Pinning me to the kitchen worktop and ripping at my flesh with venomous intent and sharpened teeth, the dogs from Hell brought out in me a determination and will to prevail the likes of which I had until that point in my life never realized. Lightning quick reflexes and the assistance of my ankle holstered Smith & Wesson Model 36, despatched the hounds, rather messily if my recollections serve me right before I returned to my captive and relieved him entirely of his bodily skin. Those final hours as he bled out must have been the very epitome of agony itself.

  

As I rise to my feet, standing over Powell's body, I hold in my hand the worthless homage to a God who cared little, a gold crucifix taken as a memento of the kill, a foible of mine I guess. I take one final look at the face of betrayal. Biting the hand that feeds you in any organisation is a foolish and deadly game, but in our profession, it is the gravest error of judgement, no matter the financial reward. With Dmitri safely in hiding, kidnapped to all intents and purposes to the outside world, dwelling in the darkest recesses where only his shadow knows his true whereabouts, I am free to roam the realms of possibility, tracking down the internal mole responsible for the deaths of two of my finest peers. Vladimir, Dmitri's most trusted driver and head bodyguard is by now decomposing, along side that other buffoon who fell so easily at my hand, their carcasses disposed of by the organisation as housekeeping and self preservation rules go swiftly into operation. Vladimir's part in the betrayal exposed and punished with the brutal force that all parties in the underworld live and die by, those same rules now governing the capture of Dmitri's hostage taker, operative Babushka, little old me.

 

Under suspicion, on the run from those on my own team as the undercover investigations proceed, I must follow my orders, taking out those like Powell who were little fish in the pool of deception. Only Dmitri's second in command, operative 'Snake', is now privy to Dmitri's orders and movements as they unleash me, their most fearsome operative to hunt down the mole within. I'm buzzing with adrenalin, high on the thrill of being once more so close to Dmitri, a team reunited just like the old days.

  

Looking at that gold crucifix angers me so. Mankind's interpretation of religious belief has for centuries been the root of all evil as civilisations clash and bloody wars are fought with all denominations fighting in the name of their token God's and false prophets. My own family were destroyed by such religious divide as my mothers deeply routed Orthodox Christianity fell battered and bruised at the feet of the Armenian Gregorian hypocrisy of the man she loved and bore children for. Rarely sober, ever lecherous, he brutalised any poor fool who crossed his path, whether with fists or sexual deviance, he was feared and loathed in equal measures by all who knew him, and hated everything and everyone from the bottom of his whiskey glass.

  

By sixteen, I had attracted the attention of many young men, thankfully inheriting the beauty of my Mother's side, though my father refused me permission to date anyone unless first vetted by him for wealth and prospects. Sweet Arkady was my first love, tall and muscular with beautiful green eyes like jewels that shone with an intensity that etched forever their mark on my soul. Penniless and full of wistful ideals, just a nobody from the poorer section of Vorobyevy Gory near the State University where he was a student, and a handful of years my senior when we first met, he was kind hearted and gentle of touch, a smile that could light up an entire room and a demeanour which won over all and everyone who were blessed enough to have him cross their paths.

 

We would lay in the grass and talk for hours against the backdrop of Moscow in all it's glory, and how he made me laugh and cry, in the same instance as my heart felt fit to burst with love and happiness. He took me to Izmaylonsky Park and told me how he loved me the night I last ever touched his face and kissed his gentle lips. If ever I had known what fate would await him in the shadows of the night I would surely have never let him leave my side, or else slit my own wrists in a pact of eternal love. His battered body was discovered a week after his disappearance in Tverskaya street, though neither the apathy of the general public nor the corruption of the Police, firmly bought and paid for in the pocket of the higher forces of violence, could care less about a poor boy or his unfortunate demise. A pauper's funeral, a shallow grave, three lines in the local press and life went about it's business as if nothing had occurred.

 

My father laughed and gloated at my heartbreak, nights of sobbing into my damp pillow for fear of waking him and receiving yet another beating with his thick leather belt which hung over the fireplace as a warning to us all when not adorning his odious flesh. I can still hear those pitiful cries of my mother begging for mercy though powerless to prevent his actions. It was not so long after Arkady's murder that I discovered the characteristics that I had genetically inherited from my dear father. My mother lay in Novaya Basmannaya Hospital after her husband had taken retribution with a porcelain statue of Christ, for a passing comment made in jest that little pleased the overbearing pig. The irony of such a weapon used against a woman of such unerring faith and unshakable belief is all too painful to take. A beating so severe that she would never again view the world through both eyes, a life of servitude at the monsters beck and call as he amused himself with worthless whores, including the many weeks that she clung onto life in her hospital bed, and the growing tide of resentment within my tortured soul, finally welled up.

  

Like a caged tiger, seizing opportunity and relishing every second, I summoned up every ounce of strength from within, fuelled by the anger and resentment I had clutched like a worthless rag doll for so many years harboured against this vile and odious man.

  

Retribution was swift and relentless. Felled with a succession of blows to the head from the simple glass paperweight my mother had given me for my eighteenth birthday, I pummelled his skull until a mosaic of blood and brain matter resembling a map of Africa adorned our family home and the bastard breathed no more than shallow snorts through the cavities not wholly destroyed by my anger. I finished him off with the symbol of his very own aggression, wrapping his precious leather belt around that thick neck of his and pulling until the veins in his neck and face seemed fit to burst.

 

For the very first time in his life, this worthless creature of vile intentions and odious character was powerless and without the menace to bully and cajole as he had done since his days as a street fighter, earning change on the tough streets. And you know, I swear as his weakening breath allowed one final lunge at my flesh with those monstrous arms of his, I saw in his red and watering eyes the merest hint of fear as I tightened the belt one final notch and he choked his last seconds of life before falling limp below my vengeful hands. Not an ounce of remorse, nor a pang of guilt for what I had just done, I felt an immense euphoria, a great release. A fitting way to watch the monster draw his last breath, and a first taste of the euphoria of the kill that wetted my appetite in ways I could not have imagine.

 

When the act was done I summoned my broken mother, foolishly expecting her to be thankful for her daughters actions, free at last to live and breathe without the shadow of violence and oppression constantly overhead. Instead, my mother wept and fell upon the still warm body, lamenting her loss, and declaring her undying love for the source of all of her woes. I learned a lot about the weakness within us all that day, and vowed never again to shed a tear over another human being. I grew stronger with the courage of my convictions, the blackness of my heart and became whole through my bloody vengeance which shaped my character and fashioned my outlook on the perils of love and life. A custodial sentence of eight years in Mozhaisk 5, a prison camp situated in a Moscow suburb along with nine hundred other inmates and three hundred female civilian staff was my punishment for discovering my father's aggression and rage that pulsed through my veins on the night that I killed him. And within those walls, how quickly my young body adapted to the survival instincts necessary in the dog eat dog environment where one eye kept open whilst sleeping was your only insurance of not waking up dead.

 

My mother passed away a broken hearted, lonely shadow of her former self, and true to my vow, not a tear was shed upon receiving the news. Soon, I had a reputation for violence, an appetite for pain and with the help of the resident alpha females from all walks of the underworld, I was earmarked for recruitment upon my sudden and unexpected release. Never underestimate the reach and corruption of the underworld, and I dare say my freedom came at a hefty price. For is anybody ever truly free in this life? For my part, I am tethered inexorably to a machine that is more powerful and far reaching than anyone could ever imagine.

 

But enough of life viewed through rose tinted spectacles, enough foolhardy reminiscing. Life is a series of actions and consequences, twists of fate beyond our control, a ride of the wildest fucking nature that we attempt to tame and control but never really succeed in doing so. Time now for me to make my exit as Powell's body begins to cool amidst the bramble and weeds. A hire car and false name, tracks covered and a shallow grave to hide the rotting flesh amongst the shit where it will feel at home. A minnow in the big scheme of things, drawn into the open by the lure of my demise, he showed his hand too soon and paid for his ineptitude with his life. But there are bigger fish to catch and spear, and I must await my next orders from Dmitri, wherever he may be right now.

    

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Rewritten in July 2011 from an original story penned in August 2010

 

Photograph taken at 06:16am on July 28th 2011 off Beachy Head Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England.

 

Nikon D700 62mm 1/640s f/8.0 iso1100

 

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. UV filter. Manfrotto 055XPro Carbon fibre tripod & Manfrotto 327 RC2 pistol grip magnesium ball head. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1

   

Despite its fortified appearance, the moated Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk was intentionally built as a family home. It was completed in 1482 for Sir Edmund Bedingfeld and the Bedingfelds have lived here ever since, surviving Civil War, periods of near dereliction, and, in the 20th century, the threat of demolition.

 

The Bedingfelds’ unshakable Catholic faith and commitment to preserving their history are a potent combination, expressed throughout this remarkable place in its architecture, collections and landscape. Add to this the family’s strong royal connections, and a powerful story unfolds.

 

From the National Trust

Title:

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( LUMIX G3 shot )

 

Manhattan. New York. USA. 2017. … 7 / 8

 

Images:

Beck - Cycle + Morning

youtu.be/crpKXePB714?si=wjcQgBn5Rcp1WFzV

  

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My new novel.

B♭ (B flat)

Volume 11. 😄

What follows is still in its first-draft stage. It will go through further revisions.

The crucial passages have not been made public.

(Of course, this is not the final manuscript.)

 

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My New Novel.

 

B♭ (B Flat)

 

— The darkest hour comes just before dawn —

The dawn in New York brought that phrase back to mind.

It was something Amir once heard from Professor Zakaria of the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University.

The professor, in his lifetime, had struggled between theory and reality, yet instilled in his disciples a calm and unshakable resolve.

Amir studied electrical engineering; Rafi Ghannam, architecture.

Each possessed talents that complemented the other.

After mastering the structures of the world, Rafi had gone on to extend his knowledge into electrical engineering, reaching from machinery to programs.

To the two of them, the vulnerabilities of America’s IT networks were but an open book.

In the dim underground floor, where bare fluorescent lights flickered, Rafi crouched at the intersection of the switchboard and the drainage duct.

Beneath his electrician’s vest and helmet, the red earth–colored scarf of Gaza wrapped his neck.

Amir stood beside him, scuffing his dusty work boots against the floor, fighting down his unease.

“Hurry. The morning shift will be here soon.”

“Quiet. Every sound echoes down here.”

Rafi answered evenly, opening his toolbox.

Inside lay a modified pressure switch and a block of C4, black and light-absorbing, gleaming like coal.

The device was to be set in the hidden recess where the structural beam and wiring shaft crossed—a “node” that, once sealed, could never be retrieved.

“Once it’s buried here, no one will ever find it.”

“...But are you sure? Is five years really the right time?”

“It must be five years. When the building stands complete, when it has been forgotten—then the blast will become the return of memory.”

Amir studied his profile and nodded silently.

Every motion of Rafi’s hand, each measured breath, carried the authority of a father, a teacher.

The hand that once learned to build was now preparing to destroy.

A slow tide of trust and kinship welled in Amir’s chest.

The sound of a fan turning, the rasp of chalk on blackboard—these rose in Rafi’s memory.

In the night lecture hall of the university, he had filled his notebook with shear angles of beams and the breaking points of concrete.

The lecturer, pointing to the diagram on the blackboard, had said quietly:

“When a structure collapses, it is not from defect. It follows the very will of its design.”

The classroom had fallen utterly silent at those words.

To know what would sway, what would endure, what would crack with sound during a vibration test—that knowledge was what could transform collapse into form.

That winter, Rafi’s family lost their home to an Israeli airstrike along the coast.

Despair turned to rage, rage to resolve, and resolve gave strength to his hands.

Amir, too, carried the same wound, and shared in that resolve.

Five years earlier, Rafi had begun to set up pirate radio.

Through networks of Caribbean and Hispanic immigrant communities, he passed messages quietly.

Every social platform and smartphone was under watch.

They restricted themselves to the barest communications, leaving only casual, trivial exchanges for daily use.

When he pressed the switch, a faint click was swallowed into the night’s silence.

A small red lamp lit up, linking him to nearby companions.

At two in the morning, a woman’s voice drifted from FM 87.9.

Through the static hush, a poem unfurled:

“If the world should end, I want to be singing alone.”

The verse Rafi chose was the emblem of his quiet resolve.

Amir listened to that voice while gazing at Rafi’s back.

What they undertook was not mere destruction—it was the embodiment of lost memory and anger, the crystallization of their trust and mutual understanding.

In darkness and silence, their plan advanced steadily.

The theory of architecture and the principles of electrical engineering, the pain of the past, and the will of those who had survived—all of it flowed quietly forward, converging toward a future act of ruin.

 

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My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

There’s still more to come. 😃

(This is not the final draft.)

Set in New York City.

 

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Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

Note: I gave a brief explanation of this novel in the following video:

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

iTunes Playlist Link::

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b/pl.u-47DJGhopxMD

 

My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

Notes

1. "Bombay Blood Type (hh type)"

•Characteristics: A rare blood type that lacks the usual ABO antigens — cannot be classified as A, B, or O.

•Discovery: First identified in 1952 in Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay).

•Prevalence: Roughly 1 in 10,000 people in India; globally, about 1 in 2.5 million.

•Transfusion Compatibility: Only compatible with blood from other Bombay type donors.

2. 2024 Harvard University Valedictorian Speech – The Power of Not Knowing

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

3. Shots Fired at Trump Rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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Title.

ショウウィンドウ。

  

( LUMIX G3 shot )

  

マンハッタン。ニューヨーク。アメリカ。2017. … 7 / 8

  

Images.

Beck - Cycle + Morning

youtu.be/crpKXePB714?si=wjcQgBn5Rcp1WFzV

  

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僕の新しい小説。

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

  

第11弾。 😄

以下は、まだ初稿の段階です。まだ推敲します。

重要な部分は公開していません。

(もちろん最終稿ではありません。)

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

僕の新しい小説。

 

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

 

ーー 夜明け前が、一番暗い ーー

 ニューヨークの夜明けは、その言葉を思い出させた。アミールが、イスラム大学工学部のザカリア教授から聞いた言葉だ。教授は生前、理論と現実の狭間で苦悩しつつも、弟子たちに冷静な意思を植え付けた。アミールは電気工学を、ラフィ・ガンナムは建築学を学び、互いに補完し合う才能を持っていた。ラフィは世界中の構造物を理解した後、電気工学へ知識を広げ、電子機器からプログラムまで手を伸ばしていた。アメリカの脆弱なITネットワークを熟知することなど、二人にとっては容易いことだった。

 地下フロアの蛍光灯がむき出しの薄暗い空間で、ラフィは配電盤と排水ダクトの交差部にしゃがみ込んだ。電工業者のベストとヘルメットの下、ガザの赤土色のスカーフが彼の首を覆う。アミールはその横で、埃まみれの作業靴を床で擦りながら、緊張を抑えていた。

「早くしてくれ。もうすぐ朝の組が来る」

「静かにしろ、音が響く」

 ラフィは冷静に答え、工具箱を開いた。中には改造された圧力スイッチと、光を吸い込むように黒光りするC4が収まっていた。仕掛けるのは、構造梁と配線シャフトが交差する“ノード”の背面——完成すれば、二度と取り外すことのできない場所だ。

「ここに埋めたら、二度と誰にも見つからない」

「……でも、本当に5年後でいいのか?」

「5年経った時こそ意味がある。建物が完成し、忘れ去られた時に——爆破は記憶の復活になる」

 アミールは横顔を見つめ、静かに頷いた。ラフィの手の動き、呼吸の一つ一つが、師としての父のように頼もしく感じられた。建築を学んだ者の手が、今、建築を破壊する準備をしている。信頼と共感の感覚が、胸の奥にじわりと広がった。

 扇風機の回る音と乾いた黒板の響きが、ラフィの記憶を呼び覚ます。大学の夜の講義室で、彼は梁の剪断角とコンクリートの破断点をノートに描き込んだ。講師は黒板の図を指し、静かに言った。

「構造が崩壊するのは、欠陥ではなく“設計の意思”に従ったときです」

 その言葉に教室は静まり返った。振動試験でどこが揺れ、どこが耐え、どこが音を立てるか。それを理解することが、崩壊を“形”に変える。

 その冬、ラフィの家族はイスラエルによる湾岸の空爆で家を失った。絶望は怒りに、怒りは意思に変わり、ラフィの手に力を宿した。アミールもまた、同じ痛みを知る者として、その意思を分かち合っていた。

 5年前、ラフィはパイレーツラジオを設置し始めた。カリブ系やヒスパニック系の移民コミュニティのネットワークを利用し、伝令を静かに届ける。SNSやスマートフォンはすべて監視されている。彼らは必要最小限の通信にとどめ、日常的な他愛ないやり取りだけに絞った。

 スイッチを押すと微かなクリック音が夜の静けさに吸い込まれる。小さな赤いランプが灯り、近隣の同胞たちに接続された。

 午前2時、FM87.9から女の声が流れた。砂嵐のような静寂の中、詩が紡がれる。

「この世界が終わるなら、私はひとりで歌っていたい」

 ラフィが選んだ一節は、彼の静かな決意の象徴だった。

 アミールはその声を聞きながら、ラフィの背中を見つめた。彼らが行うのは単なる破壊ではない——失われた記憶と怒りの象徴であり、互いの信頼と理解の結晶でもあった。闇と静寂の中で、二人の計画は着実に進行する。建築の理論と電気工学、過去の痛み、そして生き延びた者の意志が、未来の破壊へと静かに繋がっていくのだ。

 

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僕の新しい小説。

 B♭ (ビーフラット)

 

舞台はニューヨークです。

 

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Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

追記 この小説を多少説明しました。

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

メモ

 

1

「Bombay型(ボンベイ型、hh型)」

•特徴:通常のABO血液型を持たない(A、B、Oに分類されない)特殊な型。

•発見地:1952年、インド・ムンバイ(旧ボンベイ)で初めて確認。

•発生頻度:インドでは1万人に1人程度だが、世界的には約250万人に1人とも。

•輸血制限:同じBombay型しか輸血できない。

 

2

2024年ハーバード大学首席の卒業式スピーチ『知らないことの力』

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

 

3

Shots fired at Trump rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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Festival of Colours

HoliFestival of Colours

Lord Krishna playing Holi with Radha and other Gopis

Observed by Hindus, mainly in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Begins Phalgun Purnima or Pooranmashi (Full Moon)

Date Feb – March

2010 date Burning of Bonfire 28th Feb & Playing Holi (Colours) March 1

2011 date March 20

Celebrations 3 – 16 days

 

Holi (होली), is a spring religious festival celebrated by Hindus. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka,[1] and countries with large Indic diaspora populations, such as Suriname, Malaysia, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, United Kingdom, United States, Mauritius, and Fiji. In West Bengal and Orissa of India it is known as Dolyatra (Doul Jatra) (Bengali: দোলযাত্রা), or Basanta-Utsav ("spring festival")(Bengali: বসন্তোৎসব), . The most celebrated Holi is that of the Braj region, in locations connected to the Lord Krishna: Mathura, Vrindavan, Nandagaon, and Barsana. These places have become tourist destinations during the festive season of Holi, which lasts here to up to sixteen days.[2]

 

The main day, Holi, also known as Dhuli Vandana in Sanskrit, also Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other. Bonfires are lit the on the eve of the festival, also known as Holika Dahan (burning of Holika) or Chhoti Holi (little Holi). The bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlad accomplished when Demoness Holika, sister of Hiranyakashipu, carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of god Vishnu, escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion. Holika Dahan is referred to as Kama Dahanam in South India.

 

Holi is celebrated at the end of the winter season on the last full moon day of the lunar month Phalguna (February/March), (Phalgun Purnima), which usually falls in the later part of February or March. In 2009, Holi (Dhulandi) was on March 11 and Holika Dahan was on March 10. In 2010, Holi was on March 1 and Holika Dahan was on February 28.

 

In 2011, Holi was on March 20 and Holika Dahan was on March 19.

 

Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festivities involving colours

I am proud to announce the third addition to my store VVitch's Wandery that will focus on the release of wands for those who use contraption's wand scripts for their wands.

 

This wand I bring to you is called the Noxira Wand

 

Wood: Black Walnut

Core: Dragon Heartstring

Length: 12½ inches

Flexibility: Rigid

 

The Noxira Wand is as striking in presence as it is in magical potential crafted from black walnut, a wood famed for choosing fiercely independent and introspective wielders. This wand demands clarity of intention; it cannot be easily mastered by the indecisive or false hearted. Its magic is deep, unshakable, and often instinctual.

 

Coming to Mischief Managed's Wizarding Faire

⭐ SPECTRE - Sakura Cherry Blossom Walk March 22th, 2025 ⭐

 

📌 Walk Type:🌸 [Freestyle]

 

_______________________

  

📌 Model:➡️ [Model's Name] WYATT FROST-REYES

  

🎭 Model’s Description:📖

  

_______________________

 

🎤 Show Walk Description:📝

Wyatt strides forward, the embodiment of a samurai, wearing his Cassio jacket like a work of art, every inch of him radiating power. Dragon earrings, sakura choker, and a warrior’s heart – he’s the total package.

Wyatt stands tall, the deep-down belt cinching his waist, his gaze intense. The sakura choker around his neck? A subtle reminder that even warriors can appreciate beauty in the chaos.

Wyatt’s presence commands attention. Dragon accessories, warrior spirit – he’s fierce and graceful, with each step moving like the wind, while the sakura headpiece perched atop his head bobs gently, as if even the blossoms bow to his strength.

Wyatt lifts his chin, intensity in his eyes, confidence in every move. He’s a warrior – unbreakable, unshakable. And the cherry blossoms? They add the perfect touch of softness to his hard-as-steel presence.

  

_______________________

 

✨ Styling Details:

 

🔹 Outfit:👗Cassio jacket-Varsity

Baekho Pants-Oneday

Deep Down Belt-Dope & Mercy

 

💇 Hair:💈 B130/DURA

 

💄 Makeup:🎨 Sakura Makeup/Glitter Art

 

💍 Accessories:👑 Blossom Choker/Mossu

Dragon Egg Earrings/Hipster Style

Real Evil Industries/Mystical Rings

Sakura Hairpiece.Poison Rouge

Yoshito Tattoo/Taocx

  

👠 Shoes: Nishi Geta-Dope&Mercy

 

_______________________

 

Thank you for your interest! I hope you enjoy the stylings!

  

With kind regards,

 

Jayden Mercury

SPECTRE Agency

 

_______________________

  

📌 Stay Connected:

 

🔹 Discord: discord.gg/m52UnvHFM2

 

🔹 Website: spectre-modelagency.blogspot.com/

 

🔹 Facebook: www.facebook.com/SpectreModelAgency

 

🔹 Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/202416893@N04/

 

🔹 Flickr-Group: www.flickr.com/groups/14873003@N24/

  

_______________________

 

© 2025 SPECTRE Model Agency. All rights reserved.

All images, designs, and content associated with SPECTRE – Sakura Cherryblossom are the exclusive property of SPECTRE Model Agency and may not be reproduced, distributed, or used without written permission.

This content is protected by copyright laws.

  

*

 

Gary Grant ( Archibald Alec Leach )

 

1904 - 1986

 

Myrna Loy ( Mirna Adele Williams )

 

1905-1993

   

"He could be smooth, classy, and debonair, dressed to the nines with a look and a line to both mesmerize and hold at bay any female around; yet, his cool exterior could also spontaneously evaporate, leaving behind a tumbling, bumbling bespeckled paleontologist or a brash, energetic newspaper editor with a lightning-fast wit and an unshakable deadpan. In the history of movies, only Cary Grant has managed to combine charm, chaos, charisma and gothic good looks into such an unique and universally appealing screen personality. From screwball comedies to romantic dramas to suspense thrillers, he created characters who were simultaneously singular and familiar. He was an everyman to whom every other man looked up -- a cinema god who somehow kept his feet on the ground. "

 

“Reel Classics “

    

“Wings in the Dark”

  

Character's Name: Ken Gordon

Release Date: February 1, 1935

Director: James Flood

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Running Time: 68 minutes

 

Cast: Myrna Loy (Sheila Mason), Cary Grant (Ken Gordon), Roscoe Karns (Nick Williams), Hobart Cavanaugh (Mac), Dean Jagger (Tops Harmon), Bert Hanlon (Yipp Morgan), James Burtis (Joy BUrns), Russell Hopton (Jake Brashear), Arnold Korff (Doctor)

   

Plot:

 

- by Zoë Shaw

 

Ken is a flier trying to perfect instruments for safe flying in the dark or fog. As his devices near completion, he is blinded in a gas explosion. Sheila, a writer/flier is in love with him, but the feeling is not mutual. Ken goes to live in the country with his mechanic and dog for company. He tries to be a writer but never knows the cheques he cashes are from Sheila. Sheila attempts a dangerous flight from Moscow to New York. When she gets into trouble, Ken realizes he loves her. He and his dog go up in the fog, and lead her to safety by means of the instruments he perfected.

 

Review:

 

- by Debbie Dunlap

 

Ken Gordon is a pilot who has invented a blind flying apparatus for airplanes. Moments before he's to make the final tests on the instruments and thereby prove to the world the benefit of this new invention, Ken is blinded in an accident.

Barnstormer, Sheila Mason, has worshiped Ken from afar. She has finally met him, face to face, when his accident occurs.

Ken doesn't want to be pitied or to be a burden on anyone, so he retires to a country home to eke out a dark, lonely existence. Sheila, however, won't allow him to wallow in seclusion and self-pity. She convinces Ken that he is not useless even though sightless, and persuades Ken to move back to the land of the living and continue his work. Ken begins diligently documenting his progress on the blind flying apparatus and submits these documents for publication to what I assume are aeronautical journals. His articles are rejected, but Sheila hides this from him. She takes on numerous dangerous barnstorming jobs, handing the paycheck over to Ken in order to continue the ruse that Ken is being paid for his articles.

All is going well, until Ken's plane is repossessed. Ken discovers that Sheila has been lying to protect him. Ken is bitter and sends her packing.

Hoping to cancel the debt on Ken's plane (and perhaps win Ken back?), Sheila accepts a dangerous job to fly from Moscow to New York, nonstop, that pays $25,000. She's doing fine until she reaches New York and a dense, blinding fog settles over the whole east coast.

With just 20 minutes worth of fuel left (and only 5 minutes left to the movie), Ken hears a radio announcement about her flight, realizes he loves her, confiscates his repossessed plane, flies "blind" into the air, finds her, tells her he loves her, contemplates suicide because he'll never see again (and therefore be a "real" man in Sheila's eyes), then guides her safely back to the airfield using his blind flying equipment. Whew!! What an unbelievable ending! Literally!

Oh, and lest I forget to mention the last tender scene...as the photographers are snapping their pictures, Ken says, "I see flashes of light." Sheila says, "Of course, they ARE flashes of light. OH!" The end

  

www.carygrant.net

   

( manipulated by me, using an original photo of my private colection)

 

Atheist myths debunked - Abiogenesis - the spontaneous generation of life from sterile matter.

 

Abiogenesis - the atheist and evolutionist belief - that life can spontaneously generate itself from sterile matter, whenever environmental conditions are conducive .... And the belief that this actually happened in the early Earth.

 

Is it possible?

 

IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO INFORMATION THEORY.

Three fundamentals are essential for the material universe to exist: matter - energy - information.

 

Obviously, all theories about how the universe operates, and its origins, must take account of all three. However, every evolutionary, origin of life hypothesis yet devised (primordial soup, hydrothermal vent, etc. etc.) concentrates on the chemistry/physics of life, i.e. the interaction of matter and energy.

 

Atheists and evolutionists have virtually ignored the essential role and origin of information. We should demand to know why? Especially as we are told (through the popular media and education system) that an evolutionary, origin of life scenario, should be regarded as irrefutable, scientific fact.

 

Atheists and evolutionists are well aware that the information required for life cannot just arise of its own accord in a primordial soup. So why do they usually omit this crucial fact from their origin of life story?

 

In order to store information, a storage code is required. Just as the alphabet and language is the code used to store information in the written word, life requires both the information itself, which controls the construction and operation of all living things, and the means of storing that information. DNA is the storage code for living things.

 

No evolutionary, origin of life hypothesis has ever explained either how the DNA storage system was formed, or how the information encoded within that DNA storage system originated. In fact, even to attempt to look for the origin of information in physical matter is to ignore the natural laws about information.

 

Information theory completely rules out the spontaneous generation of life from non-life.

 

Information theory tells us: ANY MODEL FOR THE ORIGIN OF LIFE BASED SOLELY ON PHYSICAL AND/OR CHEMICAL PROCESSES, IS INHERENTLY FALSE. And: THERE IS NO KNOWN LAW OF NATURE, NO KNOWN PROCESS AND NO KNOWN SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, WHICH CAN CAUSE INFORMATION TO ORIGINATE BY ITSELF IN MATTER… So information theory not only rules out all evolutionary hypotheses which cannot explain the origin of information in original life, it also rules out all evolutionary hypotheses which cannot explain the origin of the completely new, increasingly complex information which would be required to be added to a gene pool for progressive evolution to take place in existing life.

 

Because of their zealous and unshakable faith in Darwinian evolution, most evolutionists choose to ignore this. They simply refuse to face this most important question of all, where does the complex information essential for all life come from? The reason seems obvious, it is because there are only two answers which could be compatible with the evolution fable, both are unscientific nonsense which violate information theory. They are: 1. That information can just arise magically out of nowhere. OR 2. That the material universe is an intelligent entity, which can actually create information.

(See more on genetic information and the DNA code later on)

 

Verdict of science - abiogenesis is not possible.

 

IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF BIOGENESIS.

The Law of Biogenesis rules out the spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter under all known circumstances. All modern scientists now accept this well tested law as valid. In fact, the whole concept of medical sterilisation, hygiene & food preservation is totally dependent on this law.

 

No sensible scientist would dare to claim that spontaneous generation of life ever happens in the world today, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this Law (like every natural law) is not always valid, in all places and at all times, within the material universe.

 

Yet, amazingly, in order to support biological evolution, evolutionists are quite prepared to flout this well, established Law and to resurrect the ancient belief in abiogenesis (life arising from non-life). Like latter-day advocates of the ancient Greek belief (that the goddess Gea could make life arise spontaneously from stones), evolutionists and atheists routinely present to the public, the preposterous notion that, original life on earth (and even elsewhere in the universe) just spontaneously generated itself from inert matter. Apparently, all that was required to bypass this well established Law was a chance accumulation of chemicals in some alchemist’s type brew of ‘primordial soup’ combined with raw energy from the sun, lightning or geothermal forces. (Such is their faith in the creative powers of matter). They call this science? Incredible!

 

Verdict of science - abiogenesis is not possible.

 

IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS.

The second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the spontaneous generation of life from non-life as a chance event. Even if we ignore the above reasons why spontaneous generation of life is impossible, the formation and arrangement by chance of all the components required for living cells is also impossible. The arrangement of all the components within the simplest of living cells is extremelprecise; these components cannot just arrange themselves by chance.

 

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, when left to themselves, things naturally become more disordered, rather than more ordered. Or in other words, things will naturally go to more probable arrangements and disorder is overwhelmingly more probable than order. Disorder actually increases with the passage of time and also with the application of raw (undirected) energy (for example, heat).

 

Yet we are repeatedly told the evolution fable, that the numerous components required to form a first, self-replicating, living cell just assembled themselves in precise order, by pure chance, over a vast period of time, aided by the random application of raw, undirected energy.

 

Verdict of science - abiogenesis is not possible.

 

IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.

A fundamental principle of science is the law of cause and effect. It is a primary law of science, and the very basis of the scientific method.

 

The law of cause and effect tells us that an effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.

 

Life is not an intrinsic property of matter/energy - so it is beyond the capabilities of matter/energy to produce a property (life) it doesn't possess.

 

The interaction of matter and energy cannot produce an effect with properties extra and superior to its own properties, that would violate the law of cause and effect.

 

Can chemistry create biology - which has entirely different properties to its own?

Of course it can't.

 

Biology includes such properties as genetic information, the DNA code, consciousness and intelligence. To believe that chemistry can create biology - means believing that something inanimate can create additional, new properties that it doesn't possess. To exceed the limitations of its own properties would violate the law of cause and effect.

 

For matter/energy to be able to produce life whenever environmental conditions permit, it would have to be inherently predisposed to produce life.

 

It would have to embody an inherent plan/blueprint/instructions for life, as one of its properties. The inevitable question then has to be - where does an inherent predisposition for life come from? It can only signify the existence of purpose in the universe and that is something atheists could never accept.

 

A purpose, order or plan can only come from a planner or intelligent entity. So it is a catch 22 situation for atheists ... the atheist/ evolutionist belief in abiogenesis either violates the law of cause and effect, OR is an admission of purpose in the universe. It can only be one or the other. Atheists cannot possibly accept the existence of purpose in the universe, because that would be the end of atheism. So the atheist belief in abiogenesis violates the law of cause and effect.

 

Verdict of science - abiogenesis is not possible.

 

IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO MATHEMATICS.

Even if we ignore the Law of Biogenesis, Information Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which all completely rule out the spontaneous generation of a living cell from non-living matter). Mathematical probability also rules out the spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter.

 

The laws of probability are summed up in the Law of Chance. According to this Law, when odds against a chance event are 10 to the power of 15, the chance of that event happening are negligible on a terrestrial scale. At odds of 10 to the power of 50, there is virtually no chance, even on a cosmic scale. The most generous and favourable, mathematical odds against a single living cell appearing in this way by chance are a staggering 10 to the power of 40,000. A more likely calculation would put the odds at an even more awesome 10 to the power of 119,850. Remember odds of 10 to the power of 50 is sufficient to make an event virtually impossible (except, perhaps, by magic!!).

 

Verdict of science - abiogenesis is not possible

 

Fred Hoyle, The Big Bang in Astronomy, New Scientist 19 Nov 1981. p.526. On the origin of life in primeval soup.

“I don’t know how long it is going to be before astronomers generally recognise that the combinatorial arrangement of not even one among the many thousands of biopolymers on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on the Earth. Astronomers will have a little difficulty at understanding this because they will be assured by biologists that it is not so. The biologists having been assured in their turn by others that it is not so. The “others” are a group of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles. They advocate the belief that tucked away in nature, outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles.”

 

“Since science does not have the faintest idea how life on earth originated, it would only be honest to confess this to other scientists, to grantors, and to the public at large. Prominent scientists speaking ex cathedra, should refrain from polarising the minds of students and young productive scientists with statements that are based solely on beliefs.” Bio-informaticist, Hubert P. Yockey. Journal of Theoretical Biology [Vol 91, 1981, p 13].

 

Conclusion: Abiogenesis is impossible - it is just another atheist myth debunked by science.

 

Evolutionists and atheists are quite entitled to abandon the scientific method and all common sense by choosing to believe that all the necessary information for life can just appear in matter, as if by magic. They can also choose to believe that: the Laws of; Biogenesis, Mathematical Probability, Cause and Effect and Second Law of Thermodynamics, were all somehow magically suspended to enable their purported evolution of life from sterile matter to take place. They can believe whatever they like. But they have no right to present such unscientific, flights of fancy through the media and our education system, as though they are supported by science.

 

More about DNA and the origin of life.

The discovery of DNA should have been the death knell for evolution. It is only because atheists and evolutionists tend to manipulate and interpret evidence to suit their own preconceptions that makes them believe DNA is evidence FOR evolution.

 

It is clear that there is no natural mechanism which can produce constructional, biological information, such as that encoded in DNA.

 

Information Theory (and common sense) tells us that the unguided interaction of matter and energy cannot produce constructive information.

 

Do atheists/evolutionists even know where the very first, genetic information in the alleged Primordial Soup came from?

 

Of course they don't, but with the usual bravado, they bluff it out, and regardless, they rashly present the spontaneous generation of life as a scientific fact.

However, a fact, it certainly isn't .... and good science it certainly isn't.

 

Even though atheists/evolutionists have no idea whatsoever about how the first, genetic information originated, they still claim that the spontaneous generation of life (abiogenesis) is an established scientific fact, but this is completely disingenuous. Apart from the fact that abiogenesis violates the Law of Biogenesis, the Law of Cause and Effect and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it also violates Information Theory.

 

Evolutionists/atheists have an enormous problem with explaining how the DNA code itself originated. However that is not even the major problem. The impression is given to the public by evolutionists that they only have to find an explanation for the origin of DNA by natural processes - and the problem of the origin of genetic information will have been solved.

 

That is a confusion in the minds of many people that evolutionists/atheists cynically exploit,

 

Explaining how DNA was formed by chemical processes, explains only how the information storage medium was formed, it tells us nothing about the origin of the information it carries.

 

To clarify this it helps to compare DNA to other information, storage mediums.

 

For example, if we compare DNA to the written word, we understand that the alphabet is a tangible medium for storing, recording and expressing information, it is not information in itself. The information is recorded in the sequence of letters, forming meaningful words.

 

You could say that the alphabet is the 'hardware' created from paper and ink, and the sequential arrangement of the letters is the software. The software is a mental construct, not a physical one.

 

The same applies to DNA. DNA is not information of itself, just like the alphabet it is the medium for storing and expressing information. It is an amazingly efficient storage medium. However, it is the sequence or arrangement of the amino acids which is the actual information, not the DNA code.

 

So, if evolutionists are ever able to explain how DNA was formed by chemical processes, it would explain only how the information storage medium was formed. It will tell us nothing about the origin of the information it carries.

 

Thus, when atheists and evolutionists tell us it is only a matter of time before 'science' will be able to fill the 'gaps' in our knowledge and explain the origin of genetic information, they are not being honest. Explaining the origin of the 'hardware' by natural processes is an entirely different matter to explaining the origin of the software.

 

Next time you hear evolutionists/atheists skating over the problem of the origin of genetic information with their usual bluff and bluster, and parroting their usual nonsense about science being able to fill such gaps in knowledge in the future, don't be fooled. They cannot explain the origin of genetic information, and never will be able to. The software cannot be created by chemical processes or the interaction of energy and matter, it is not possible. If you don't believe that. then by all means put it to the test, by challenging any evolutionist to explain how genetic information (not DNA) can originate by natural means? I can guarantee they won't be able to do so.

 

Atheists often argue that the energy from the Sun can overcome the problem of entropy enabling an increase in comlexity that the origin of life requires - because the Earth is an open system, but that is clearly erroneous.

We can see entropy happening here and now, it happens everyday on Earth.

We are living in the OPEN system of the Earth, and yet we are well aware of entropy.

We see that the Sun does not halt or reverse entropy, in fact we see the opposite.

The raw energy and heat from the Sun, unless harnessed, does damage, things all around us obey the law - they deteriorate, rot, erode and decay, they do not naturally improve.

If you paint your house, the Sun, and the weather effects caused by the Sun, will eventually damage the paintwork, it will crack and peel after a few years. The hotter the Sun (the greater the energy input) the quicker it will happen.

Secondly, even if it were true that in an open system things can defy the law of entropy, natural laws are laws for the whole universe, and the universe, as a whole, is a closed system.

 

So what can we deduce from this?

Can the effects of entropy ever be reversed of halted? Obviously when you paint your house, you are reversing the bad effects of entropy for a short period, but you have to keep doing it, it is not permanent. Moreover, the energy you are using to repair and temporarily reverse the effects of entropy, is directed and guided by your skill and intelligence.

The atheist argument about the Earth being an open system is clearly not a valid one.

 

There are only 2 ways the effects of entropy can be temporarily decreased, halted or reversed by an input of energy. That is:

1. A directive means guiding the energy input.

OR,

2. A directive or conversion mechanism possessed by the recipient of the energy to utilise it in a constructive way.

 

For their argument to be valid atheists would have to

explain what it is that guides or directs the energy from the Sun to enable it to perform the task of creating order from disorder in the so-called primordial soup? And they are unable to do so.

 

Evolutionism: The Religion That Offers Nothing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=znXF0S6D_Ts&list=TLqiH-mJoVPB...

  

FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE

The Law of Cause and Effect. Dominant Principle of Classical Physics. David L. Bergman and Glen C. Collins

www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/b...

 

"The Big Bang's Failed Predictions and Failures to Predict: (Updated Aug 3, 2017.) As documented below, trust in the big bang's predictive ability has been misplaced when compared to the actual astronomical observations that were made, in large part, in hopes of affirming the theory."

kgov.com/big-bang-predictions

  

Evoke

 

Fragile sweetness and fierce mystery...her gaze holds tragedies and triumphs, stirring the souls of the mighty. She is a paradox, a quiet storm, bewildering hearts that thought themselves unshakable...she is magic veiled in a beauty beyond convention, an enigma that stirs ours hidden dreams...

 

by me

 

Photography and file processing; LC Nevermind(Luis Campillo)

Artistic direction, MUAH, props, caption and model; Lis Xia

Gear; Nikon D2h & Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm F3.5 SLII, 400 ISO

Kaleido Models Opens with “A Potpourri of Fashion”

 

From backstage jitters to runway triumphs, Kaleido Models officially made its dazzling debut with the opening show “A Potpourri of Fashion” on September 27, 2025.

 

The celebration was more than a fashion event. It was a manifesto. Kaleido, short for “kaleidoscope,” stands for ever-changing beauty and unshakable individuality. Their mission? To REFRACT fashion, not follow it, giving a stage to every angle, every shade, every identity.

 

The show itself was a bold trifecta:

✦ Grunge brought the raw, underground edge.

✦ Maximalism exploded with color and extravagance.

✦ Orchestra-Inspired closed with sculptural elegance and avant-garde drama.

 

On the runway, I wore the Historical Dress by Madame Noir. The gown channels the grandeur of another era while keeping its lines clean and modern. Its silhouette spoke for itself: strong, statuesque, and timeless. To bring the look alive, I moved with poses from Sky Puppy and Pink Moon, shaping each moment with attitude and grace.

 

The verdict? A resounding success. The debut was a fashion revolution, proving that when diversity leads, the runway becomes more than a stage, it becomes a statement.

  

★ KALEIDO MODELS ★

“Every Angle, Every Shade.”

Darth Talon was a female Lethan Twi'lek who became a Sith Lady in Darth Krayt's One Sith in 137 ABY. Talon was styled with black Sith tattoos covering her body, including her head and lekku; each tattoo had been earned in ritual combat and inscribed by Krayt himself. As a Sith apprentice, she was trained by a fellow Twi'lek Sith Lord named Darth Ruyn, whom she later killed on Krayt's command with a swift decapitating strike of her lightsaber, shortly before ascending to the rank of a full-fledged Sith in Krayt's Order.

 

Recognizing her unshakable loyalty, Krayt anointed Talon as one of his two Hands, thus making her an extension of the Dark Lord's own will. In this capacity, Talon worked alongside her Hand counterpart, Darth Nihl. Talon was often tasked with her Master's most critical missions, including the capture of the Jedi fugitive Cade Skywalker and his training in the ways of the Force's dark side until her apprentice renounced the One Sith. Talon always remained loyal to her lord Darth Krayt, even during Darth Wyyrlok's attempted takeover of the One Sith, aiding Krayt's recovery and with Nihl, fighting off the Sith who stood between Krayt and his former Voice, witnessing his return to power. When Darth Krayt finally fell during the Battle of Coruscant, she entered hiding along with the rest of the One Sith, working from concealment to achieve their goals by less overt means.

The scale of virtues

  

We have reached the fourth Sunday of Lent and our Church projects the face of San Giovanni del Sinai, the so-called Scala. He was born in the 6th century in Syria. At the age of sixteen he became a probationary monk in the holy monastery of Sinai. He practiced obedience and humility at Abba Martirio, having previously acquired secular circular wisdom. At the age of twenty, after four years of constant struggle, he became a monk and was renamed John. He then received the first two degrees of priesthood, deacon and elder, to serve the needs of the monastery. He remained in the Sinai Monastery for nineteen consecutive years.

 

Then, at the age of thirty-five, he retired to a deserted place in the Sinai where he practiced in silence and studied his father's books. At the age of seventy-five he became Abbot of the Sinai Monastery where he remained in this position for four years. He then retired to the desert and at the age of eighty he died on March 30th.

   

The Honorable Santo was today a great scholar and anatomist of the human soul, he was. Man of prayer, temperance, constant love for God, man with ardent divine love and always lit by the fire of divine love, as Synaxari tells us. He was a man who led his soul along the paths of Christ, who led him whole from hell to heaven, from the devil to God, from sin to sin, as Saint Justin Popovic tells us. It is no coincidence that our Holy Church has named this day in honor of St. John. In the sea that we cross during Lent, in the phase of struggles and spiritual virtues, St. John of Sinai is an example to imitate for each of us.

 

The reason why the Saint is called with this name is because he wrote an important book, considered one of the masterpieces of our Ecclesiastical Secretariat, the famous "Scala", a spiritual and ascetic book. It consists of thirty reasons of virtue, each of which includes a virtue, which he wrote himself.

 

The ladder, that is, the ladder, describes the path to divinization as an ascent like an ascent to a ladder that leads to heaven. Every step of him is a virtue that the believer in difficulty must conquer to achieve his goal. This book begins with the more practical virtues, the virtues that are easily acquired and have mainly a practical character, such as the virtue of repentance, obedience, and ends with the theoretically elevated ones, such as humility and discrimination. Each virtue is classified to presuppose the previous one and this is a condition for the next.

 

The first three reasons, which constitute the introduction of this book, refer to the self-denial of the worldly and concern the monks. The next four reasons, which highlight the same number of fundamental virtues, and these are those of obedience, repentance, remembrance of death and joyful mourning, which appear like the roots of a tree that offers its fruits to his faithful in difficulty. From 8 to 25 discourse the hard passions that every Christian must fight and the corresponding virtues that he must recover are described. The 26th discourse generally mentions their passions, virtues, thoughts and simple distinctions. The latter reasons are the fruits of labor and toil and are the symbolic ascent to the top of the ladder of virtues.

 

At this point I would like to refer to three of the Saint's speeches mentioned in the Scala. The first reason refers to the apostasy of this vain life. That is, as the author of the book says, to begin life in Christ, one must renounce the vanity of the present world. And the word world in the Bible does not have the meaning we perceive in the world today. It means the worldly mind, the worldly life and not our fellow men, those around us. One cannot approach God without saying no to sin and above all to his selfish desires. Because these wills hold us captive in the sinful world. According to the Holy Shepherd, man's will is a bronze wall that separates him from God.

 

So, getting away from the world means changing your worldly mind, the worldly way of thinking about life and getting the mind of Christ, that is, the spiritual way in which you see things around you. We see, therefore, that St. John places it as the basis of life in Christ. This also refers us to the word of the Lord "whoever wants to return to me, I renounce myself and see his cross and follow me" [2]. The word of the Lord is understandable. It is the same as our Saint says, to save his own vain life. What the Lord says "I renounce myself" does not mean that man denies himself, his existence, his body, but he renounces sin, the old, his passionate and sinful self "plus sufferings and desires" [3].

 

The other reason I would like to mention is the ninth reason for resentment. Revenge means remembering with disgust the evils that have been done to me by others and finding it difficult to forgive them. Unfortunately, sometimes we also want their revenge. The evangelist John mentions "you go half brother of him is a murderer" [4]. That is, if we want to hurt our brother, it is as if we wanted to kill him. Saint Chrysostom states: "God is not abhorred as a man of vengeance and anger". That is, nothing disgusts God as much as he does not like the man who is vindictive and holds his anger against the other.

   

Passion is fought with forgiveness, which is the most effective medicine that cures this disease. How will God forgive us if we do not forgive those who have wronged us? So, in order for God to forgive us, it is necessary to forgive our enemies. Love them, so that God can love us too. St. Maximus the Confessor says that we find forgiveness for our transgressions by forgiving our brothers and we find God's mercy by having mercy on our brothers. The more long-suffering we show our brothers that they have offended us, the more we enjoy divine long-suffering.

 

Through the Bible we see that the spirit prevails over revenge. In the Old Testament there are several testimonies that condemn resentment. The prophet Zechariah says: "Don't let each of you take revenge on this brother." In the book of Proverbs we read that the vindictive are illegal "he who does not resent, illegal" [7] and their end will be physical and spiritual death "the way of the vindictive to death" [8]. In the New Testament, resentment is unequivocally condemned and forgiveness is taught.

 

The last word refers to love, hope and faith. These virtues are the last because all three maintain the connection of all the other virtues, according to the apostle Paul, faith, hope, love "and love is greater than these" [9]. As John of Klimakos says, I see one as a ray, the other as light and the other as your solar disk, but all three together as a luminous splendor and the same brilliance. Faith can accomplish anything, hope is surrounded by God's mercy and does not shame the hopeful. Love never falls from his height, nor does it stop running, nor does it allow those who have been wounded by its arrows to calm down from the blissful mania it caused them. [10]

 

Love is a cornerstone of the Orthodox faith. Love is a good disposition of the soul, which makes it prefer none of beings more than the knowledge of God [11], says St. Maximus the Confessor. And he goes on to say that without love, salvation is problematic.

 

The New Testament promotes love not only as a good human sentiment, but as a mystery determined by the essence of God and imbued with the cross of Christ. God's love was expressed to the world through the incarnation of the second person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ. With love man becomes perfect and according to love we will be judged on the Day of Judgment, as the evangelist Matthew tells us [12].

 

Hope in God removes despair, takes away divine mercy and salvation, redeems all men who sin, raises the wounded and the afflicted, rejuvenates man, tones hearts and highlights them strong and courageous to face adversity . Hope is the original creative force of all goods, according to Saint Nektarios.

 

What is faith? Our definition is given by the apostle Paul in the letter to the Hebrews: "Faith is in you, the hope of your being, the control of things seen" [14]. Faith is absolute certainty and unshakable conviction, that I as a believer will enjoy in the future goods that do not exist now, it seems that they do not exist, but I hope, that is, I wait for them with lively hope, I wait to realize them and enjoy them, like the resurrection of the dead, the Second Coming, the eternal judgment.

 

Faith is the key with which the divine treasure is opened, it is the spiritual mouth, says St. John of Krostand [15]. And the same father goes on to say that the more the mouth of faith moves, the more ruthlessly we believe in the omnipotence of God, the more divine mercies will be upon us. The Holy Successor of the Light says that faith without works and works without faith will be rejected by God in the same way. This is why the believer must offer God the faith that is manifested through works.

 

My dear brothers and sisters, our celebrated Saint, Saint John of Klimakos, is a great example for every Christian in need. He urges us not to hesitate, but also not to be shy in the arising of our spiritual struggle. Let us strive every day to carry on our spiritual struggle, so that, by the grace of God, we can claim to ascend to spiritual levels, just like him. Amen!

Patrice Lumumba is shown in Brussels Belgium on January 26, 1960.

 

Lumumba was a long-time anti-colonial activist in the Congo where he founded the Movement National Congolais—a broad based anti-colonial group.

 

The Movement National Congolais won the majority in the general election held in May, 1960, and Lumumba became prime minister of the Congo, with his political rival Joseph Kasavubu as president.

 

Lumumba’s scathing denunciation of colonialism ruffled feathers not only in Belgium but also in the United States and Great Britain. Unfortunately, his tenure was brief and marred in crises. It began with the army revolt and secession in Katanga and Southern Kasai.

 

When the United Nations ignored his repeated appeals for intervention, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union. This move only strengthened western opposition to his regime. Using the crises as an excuse,

 

Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba as Prime Minister. Though reinstated by the National Assembly, Lumumba was subsequently overthrown by Col. Joseph (later Sese Seko) Mobutu, and placed under house arrest.

 

He made the fateful attempt to escape to Stanleyville where his supporters had gained control. He was apprehended by secessionist rebels and assassinated on January 18, 1961.

 

The involvement of colonial powers in his assassination was later documented. The Belgians had ordered his execution. The United States made several attempts to assassinate him, including poison toothpaste. The British had their own operation to kill him. While none were found directly involved in his actual murder, they essentially “green-lighted” the killing by opposition forces.

 

Lumumba became a martyr and symbol of Congolese and African freedom. He is remembered today as one of only a handful of African leaders truly dedicated to national unity and genuine independence.

 

The following is Lumumba’s last letter to his wife Pauline:

 

My beloved companion,

 

I write you these words not knowing whether you will receive them, when you will receive them, and whether I will still be alive when you read them.

 

Throughout my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant that the sacred cause to which my comrades and I have dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end. But what we wanted for our country — its right to an honorable life, to perfect dignity, to independence with no restrictions — was never wanted by Belgian colonialism and its Western allies, who found direct and indirect, intentional and unintentional support among certain high officials of the United Nations, that body in which we placed all our trust when we called on it for help.

 

They have corrupted some of our countrymen; they have bought others; they have done their part to distort the truth and defile our independence.

 

What else can I say? ‘That whether dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the colonialists, it is not my person that is important. What is important is the Congo, our poor people whose independence has been turned into a cage, with people looking at us from outside the bars, sometimes with charitable compassion, sometimes with glee and delight.

 

But my faith will remain unshakable. I know and feel in my very heart of hearts that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, foreign and domestic, that they will rise up as one to say no to the shame and degradation of colonialism and regain their dignity in the pure light of day.

 

We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and the free and liberated peoples in every corner of the globe will ever remain at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there will be no more colonizers and no more of their mercenaries in our country.

 

I want my children, whom I leave behind and perhaps will never see again, to be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that their country expects them, as it expects every Congolese, to fulfill the sacred task of rebuilding our independence, our sovereignty; for without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.

 

Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me to beg for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles.

 

History will one day have its say; it will not be the history taught in the United Nations, Washington, Paris, or Brussels, however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid themselves of colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history and both north and south of the Sahara it will be a history full of glory and dignity.

 

Do not weep for me, my companion; I know that my country, now suffering so much, ‘will be able to defend its independence and its freedom. Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!

 

PATRICE

 

--The biography of Lumumba is largely excerpted from The Black Past

 

For other random radicals, see www.flickr.com/gp/washington_area_spark/665MWE

 

Photo by Harry Pott. Source: Nationaal Archief Fotocollectie Anefo

 

In ancient times, back in my town there was a myth that if you draw a circle around you, the paranormal forces wouldn’t be able to harm you. The village was remote, population was sparse and travelling mode was by foot or using animals. So, this myth helped the solitary travellers keep moving during lone nights of burning summer.

 

Indeed, there is wall, a boundary that protects us from all cruelties of world and nurtures our soul; home and our family. Family isn’t a mere relationship between a group of fellows living together. It’s a bond of hearts and connection between souls. It’s not about sharing space or food but falling in lifelong selfless love and building unshakable trust.

 

Family is happiness.. discover it (if you haven't yet)!

Our January series entitled, "Unshakable" is about knowing that in uncertain times, an uncertain economy, and an uncertain future that there are things that are certain and unshakable.

 

The background image is from istockphoto. I have changed some of the headlines to include things besides the economy. The title, tag line and paper behind are all my additions.

 

Please let me know your thoughts, comments. Thanks.

Despite its fortified appearance, the moated Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk was intentionally built as a family home. It was completed in 1482 for Sir Edmund Bedingfeld and the Bedingfelds have lived here ever since, surviving Civil War, periods of near dereliction, and, in the 20th century, the threat of demolition.

 

The Bedingfelds’ unshakable Catholic faith and commitment to preserving their history are a potent combination, expressed throughout this remarkable place in its architecture, collections and landscape. Add to this the family’s strong royal connections, and a powerful story unfolds.

 

From the National Trust

There is a certain subset of people, mostly male, who refer to their workaholic lifestyle as "grinding" and that philosophy as the "grindset". This always comes with some sky-high economic expectation, like being a millionaire by thirty, retiring at forty, or owning luxury cars and homes. I suppose you could mistake me for one of them, since I've worked seven days a week for fifteen years, and never take time off unless it's a planned vacation. But I'm not pushing this hard from some obsession over wealth, or deep-seated love of capitalism – I'm just making up the shortfall for a poorly-paying occupation. There's an anecdote I heard once, how an art college teacher started every semester by advising his students to quit. If they ever thought it was a viable career, odds are they were mistaken.

 

Within a year of starting my daily journal in 2007, something in me got stuck. I knew that, despite all evidence or advice to the contrary, I stood no chance of making my life about anything else. That unshakable drive might serve you well as a lawyer, doctor, entrepreneur, or other potentially high-paying occupation – but there's too much luck in an artist's life to believe that all hard work pays off. Maybe you'll make it, or maybe you'll toil in obscurity for eternity. I was pretty sure from the start that I needed to give most of myself away. Free time, privacy, and comfort came secondary to telling tales to however would listen. I owe my audience everything, they're all that keeps me afloat. More than just the love we share for what I see and how it makes me feel, they've got my heart in their hands.

 

Despite sometimes feeling like all my time is spoken for, I love the push and pull of it. This is what keeps me rattling down beaches, hiking deep through the forest, playing with words and mining my mind through the late evening hours. Life is like that rush of water behind me, the falls called Merry Pisser that incessantly crashes to the coast. Working daily is a drive that suits my anxiety well, gives me lots to do so inactivity doesn't tempt my will to a premature surrender. I'm never bored, never out of adventures or short on the thrill of what's next. But I'm no workaholic, I'm only addicted to living and experiencing adventures with all my heart. If you want to support this daily adventure, I hope you will. For just pocket change per month, you can join the journey here: www.patreon.com/steveskafte

 

June 29, 2023

Victoria Beach, Nova Scotia

 

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Kamera: Nikon F3 (1982)

Linse: Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f1.4 (1970)

Film: Kodak 5222 @ ISO 250

Kjemi: Rodinal (1:50 / 9 min. @ 20°C)

 

Wikipedia: Gaza Genocide

 

- ATHENS, GREECE / 3 September 2025The Hind Rajab Foundation announces that on 3 September 2025, it has formally submitted a criminal complaint (μηνυτήρια αναφορά) before the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Greece, represented by its legal counsel Ms. Evgenia Kouniaki, against Major Yair Ohana, an officer of the Israeli armed forces. Ohana served as a company commander and logistics officer in the Givati Brigade’s 432nd Infantry Battalion “Tzabar”, one of the core units deployed in the genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

 

Mr. Ohana is now visiting Greece as a tourist.

 

The complaint, supported by a comprehensive evidentiary report prepared by the Foundation, demonstrates that Major Ohana bears individual criminal responsibility for war crimes, torture, and genocide. As a company commander within the 432nd Battalion, and an officer responsible for logistics, Ohana played a critical role in supporting the Battalion’s operations in Gaza and was therefore directly involved in its criminal conduct.

 

Nature of the Crimes

 

Systematic Attacks on Civilian Objects Without Military Necessity

 

As part of the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” the 432nd Battalion executed the wholesale devastation of Netzarim and Jabaliya, destroying homes, schools, hospitals, and essential infrastructure. These attacks were deliberate and controlled demolitions aimed at rendering large areas of northern Gaza permanently uninhabitable and served the strategic aim of erasing entire communities. Such acts may amount to directing attacks against civilian objects, extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity, as well as attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives, war crimes under the Rome Statute and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

 

Torture and Inhumane Treatment

 

Evidence shows Ohana’s involvement in the transfer of Palestinians detained in Gaza under conditions of humiliation and abuse — blindfolded, bound, and transported to Israel. These acts violate the UN Convention Against Torture and constitute war crimes.

 

Genocidal Conduct

 

By creating conditions of life designed to prevent the survival of the civilian population in northern Gaza — through the destruction of entire residential neighborhoods and other civilian objects — the acts contribute to the crime of genocide, as defined in Article 6(c) of the Rome Statute: “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people, in whole or in part.”

 

By transferring Palestinians arrested by the army in inhumane conditions to places where they were likely subjected to torture and ill-treatment, he also “caused serious bodily or mental harm,” as defined in Article 6(b) of the Rome Statute.

 

Jurisdiction of Greece

 

The presence of Yair Ohana on Greek territory establishes the obligation of the Greek state to act:

 

Article 28 of the Greek Constitution: international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture form part of domestic law and prevail over conflicting provisions.

 

Article 8 of the Greek Penal Code: Greek criminal law applies to crimes committed abroad when international treaties so require.

 

Article 7 of the UN Convention Against Torture (Law 1782/1988) and Articles 49, 50, 129, and 146 of the Geneva Conventions (Law 3481/1955) impose an absolute duty on states to prosecute or extradite perpetrators of torture and grave breaches (“aut dedere aut judicare”).

 

Accordingly, Greece cannot ignore the presence of a suspected war criminal and genocidaire within its territory. The law requires the initiation of a criminal investigation and, where evidence is substantiated, prosecution before Greek courts.

 

Regional and International Cooperation

 

The complaint and the full dossier of evidence against Yair Ohana were also shared with all neighboring countries of Greece — Turkey, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Cyprus — to encourage parallel action and prevent safe haven for suspected war criminals in the region. Furthermore, the report was also transmitted to Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, South Africa, Brazil, and Peru, countries that have taken a leading role in supporting accountability for international crimes. A copy has also been submitted to Interpol, to facilitate international arrest mechanisms, and to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, thereby forming part of the Court’s broader consideration of atrocities committed in Gaza.

 

The filing against Major Yair Ohana represents not only a demand for justice for the victims of Gaza, but also a test of Greece’s adherence to its international obligations. The crimes documented are not abstract violations — they are acts of calculated brutality, aimed at extinguishing a civilian population through destruction, displacement, and terror.

 

By opening proceedings against Ohana, Greece has the opportunity to stand on the side of international law, justice, and humanity, and to send a clear message that impunity for war crimes and genocide will not be tolerated on its soil.

 

- Source - Hind Rajab Foundation: No Safe Haven: HRF Seeks Prosecution of Israeli War Criminal Yair Ohana in Greece (Publ. 3 September 2025)

  

- BRUSSELS, BELGIUM / 31 August 2025Today, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) submitted a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the massacre at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on 25 August 2025. The attack killed 22 civilians, including five journalists, three hospital staff, one doctor, a civil defense worker, and one child, 14-year-old Rayan Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar. More than fifty others were injured in what can only be described as a deliberate double-tap strike carried out with full knowledge of the civilian presence.

 

Golani at the Center of the Operation

 

The Golani Brigade, under the command of Col. Bar Ganon, was at the heart of this atrocity. Evidence demonstrates that Golani forces engineered the attack from its inception. Their reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Golani (Recon 631), Lead by Lt. Col. Bar Veakart, conducted continuous UAV surveillance over Nasser Hospital and may have executed the first strike themselves using a drone-fired munition. The footage and testimonies establish that Golani’s operators had uninterrupted “eyes on the target,” observing the stairwell where Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri positioned his live camera every day. They knew precisely who was present — journalists in clearly marked press vests, civil defense workers in uniform, doctors, patients, and even a child.

 

The first strike killed al-Masri and cut his live broadcast. Nine minutes later, once rescue workers and journalists had gathered to assist the wounded, Golani requested and coordinated a second strike. The timing and method show that this was no accident, but a calculated decision to maximize civilian casualties.

 

Tactical Execution by the 188th Armored Brigade

 

The 188th Armored Brigade, commanded by Col. Miki Sharvit, executed the second strike. Forensic analysis of debris and video footage confirms that at least two LAHAT laser-guided missiles were fired in near-simultaneous salvo from Merkava tanks, striking the exact same stairwell landing within a second of each other. This precision was only possible because Golani’s UAVs provided the laser designation that guided the missiles directly onto the stairwell filled with civilians.

 

The 188th Armored Brigade therefore carried out the tactical launch of the massacre, fully aware—thanks to drone oversight—of who their victims would be.

 

Divisional Oversight by the 36th Armored Division

 

Above these units stood the 36th Armored Division (“Ga’ash”), commanded by Brig. Gen. Moran Omer. This division held operational responsibility over both the Golani Brigade and the 188th Armored Brigade in Khan Younis. Brig. Gen. Omer personally toured the area in the days before the attack, meeting with his subordinate commanders and overseeing their deployment. His division had ultimate control over fire missions in the sector, and the precision strikes against the hospital stairwell could not have taken place without his approval.

 

Sectoral Authorization by the Southern Command

 

The next level of responsibility lies with the Southern Command, led by Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor (b. 1972). All operations in Gaza fell under his authority, including the approval of attacks on highly sensitive sites such as hospitals. Reports confirm that the first strike on Nasser Hospital was approved specifically as a drone attack due to the sensitivity of the location. The second strike, launched with guided missiles only minutes later, likewise required his approval. His authorization allowed the escalation that transformed one lethal strike into a massacre.

 

Strategic Oversight by the Chief of Staff

 

The overall command rested with Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir (b. 1966), Chief of Staff of the Israeli military. Zamir visited Khan Younis just days before the massacre, together with Maj. Gen. Asor and Brig. Gen. Omer, meeting directly with Golani and 188th commanders. As Chief of Staff, Zamir was responsible for the rules of engagement and permitted the use of double-tap tactics: an initial strike, followed by a second strike once journalists, doctors, and rescue teams had rushed to assist the wounded. By endorsing such methods, Zamir effectively institutionalized a strategy designed to maximize terror and death among civilians.

 

Political Responsibility of the Prime Minister

 

At the very top stands Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949), who provided the political and ideological framework that made this massacre possible. By repeatedly branding journalists as “Hamas affiliates” and hospitals as “terrorist infrastructure,” without offering evidence, Netanyahu legitimized attacks on civilians and created an environment in which the targeting of hospitals and journalists became state policy. His leadership role makes him not only an enabler but also an architect of this policy of extermination and erasure.

 

Weapons Analysis: Precision and Intent

 

The weapons analysis carried out by HRF’s forensic team underscores the deliberate nature of the attack. The first strike was carried out with a drone-fired munition, consistent with eyewitness accounts and the localized damage that killed Hussam al-Masri without collapsing the hospital building. The second strike involved at least two LAHAT guided missiles launched from Merkava tanks, homing in on the stairwell designated by Golani’s UAV. Debris collected at the site showed modular alloy casings consistent with guided missile systems, not conventional shells.

 

The presence of UAVs over the hospital during the entire attack confirms that the perpetrators saw exactly who was on the ground. The choice to strike the same spot twice, with such precision, proves that this was intentional killing rather than incidental harm.

 

War Crimes and Genocide

 

The massacre at Nasser Hospital is not an isolated event but part of a wider pattern. Since October 2023, more than 270 journalists have been killed in Gaza, making it the deadliest conflict for media workers in modern history. At the same time, 94% of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed. This systematic targeting of both healthcare and the press shows a dual strategy: to deprive Palestinians of survival and to erase the evidence of their suffering. Such acts are consistent with a genocidal policy.

 

HRF and PCHR therefore conclude that the Nasser Hospital massacre constitutes war crimes under the Rome Statute, including willful killing, deliberate attacks on a hospital, and disproportionate harm. It also constitutes genocide, as it involves the intentional killing of members of a protected group and the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to destroy that group in whole or in part.

 

A Call for Justice

 

With today’s filing before the ICC, the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights demand that the Court open proceedings and issue arrest warrants against those responsible — from the Golani operators who designated the target, to the tank commanders who launched the missiles, to the generals who approved the attack, and ultimately to Prime Minister Netanyahu who provided political cover.

 

This massacre was not the result of chaos or confusion but of a carefully executed plan under a clear chain of command. Journalists, doctors, rescue workers, and even a child were killed deliberately, under the watching eyes of Israeli drones. This was not only a war crime — it was an act of genocide.

 

The world cannot allow impunity to continue. Justice for the victims of Nasser Hospital demands accountability at the highest level.

  

- Source - Hind Rajab Foundation: HRF and PCHR File ICC Complaint on the Nasser Hospital Massacre: Exposing the Command Chain Behind the Killing of 22 Civilians (Publ. 31 August 2025)

  

- BRUSSELS, BELGIUM / 12 August 2025By any measure, Anas Al-Sharif (1996-2025) should still be alive.

 

On the morning of 10 August 2025, the 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent was doing what he had done since the first days of the Gaza onslaught — reporting from the frontlines, armed only with a camera and a press vest. Outside the main gate of Al Shifa Hospital, in one of the last corners of northern Gaza where journalists could still work, Al-Sharif was filing footage of bombardments that shook the streets around him. Moments later, a missile struck the tent where he and his colleagues were sheltering.

 

Seven people died instantly. Among them: Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa — four Al Jazeera journalists who, like Al-Sharif, had refused to stop documenting the Genocide.

 

Mohammed Al-Khaldi, also a journalist who worked for Sahat Media Platform, and Saad Jundiya, a Palestinian civilian who happened to be present in the scene at the time of attack were also killed.

 

The Israeli military would later admit the strike was deliberate. Their justification? The same recycled accusation used in killing over 220 journalists since October 2023: that the victims were “terrorists in press vests.”

 

For the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), this was not just another tragedy in a long war on the press. This was a clear-cut criminal act — a war crime and part of a broader genocidal campaign — and it demanded a direct, targeted legal response.

 

A Joint Case to The Hague

 

The new Article 15 Communication to the International Criminal Court was filed jointly by HRF and PCHR. While HRF focused its investigation on the chain of command and operational decisions that led to Al-Sharif’s killing, PCHR brought to the case its meticulous documentation of the other Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza — cases that fit the same pattern of premeditation and deliberate targeting.

 

PCHR’s files cover the assassinations of Hossam Shabat (2001-2025), Ismail Al-Ghoul (1997-2024), Ahmed Al-Louh, Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh (1996-2024), and Samer Abu Daqa (d. 2023), among others — all journalists marked by Israel as “terrorists” before being eliminated in targeted strikes. These cases show that Al-Sharif’s killing was not an isolated event but part of an established policy.

 

Following the Chain of Command

 

When HRF investigators began reconstructing the strike, they followed the trail from the moment a drone camera locked onto Al-Sharif’s position to the instant the missile hit.

 

Using operational patterns, signals intelligence reports, and expert military analysis, the foundation identified the chain of command behind the killing:

 

* Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir (b. 1966) – IDF Chief of the General Staff

 

* Maj.-Gen. Tomer Bar (b. 1969) – Commander of the Israeli Air Force

 

* Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor (b. 1972) – Southern Command Commander

 

* Brig.-Gen. Yossi Sariel (b. 1978) – Former Commander of Unit 8200 (Israel’s signals intelligence branch)

 

* General A. : Current Commander of Unit 8200

 

* Palmachim Airbase Commander – Name undisclosed

 

* 161 “Black Snake” Squadron Commander – Name undisclosed

 

* Col. Avichay Adraee (b. 1982) – IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Arab Media Division, responsible for a sustained smear campaign against Al-Sharif

 

At the political summit stands Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949), the Prime Minister who presided over — and encouraged — a strategy to eliminate journalists as part of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

 

The Smear Before the Strike

 

If the missile was the killing blow, the campaign to delegitimize Anas Al-Sharif (1996-2025) had begun long before. For nearly two years, Avichay Adraee (b. 1982), Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, used social media to accuse Al-Sharif of being a Hamas operative. He mocked the journalist’s emotional reporting, called his on-camera tears “crocodile tears,” and framed his work as propaganda.

 

This smear playbook is familiar. Before being killed, journalists such as Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh (1996-2024), Ismail Al-Ghoul (1997-2024), and Hossam Shabat (2001-2025) — whose cases PCHR has fully documented — were branded “terrorists” by Israeli officials. Days or weeks later, they were dead — killed in precision strikes on clearly marked press vehicles or while wearing “PRESS” vests.

 

A War on Witnesses

 

The killings of Anas Al-Sharif and his colleagues are not isolated incidents. Together, HRF and PCHR’s investigations reveal a systematic policy targeting Al Jazeera journalists:

 

1. Label them terrorists without any plausible proof.

 

2. Smear them publicly to dehumanize and justify their killing.

 

3. Eliminate them in targeted strikes.

 

In the Gaza war, local journalists are not just chroniclers—they are the last line of independent witness to a conflict foreign reporters are barred from entering. Silencing them is not collateral damage; it is strategic.

 

From Evidence to Action

 

The joint submission to the ICC does not mince words. It accuses the identified military and political figures of:

 

* War crimes under Article 8(2)(a)(i) of the Rome Statute (willful killing)

 

* Genocide under Article 6(a) of the Rome Statute (as part of the broader campaign to destroy the Palestinian people and erase those documenting their suffering)

 

And it makes three urgent demands to the ICC Prosecutor:

 

1. Issue arrest warrants for the military officials named in the submission.

 

2. Expand Netanyahu’s arrest warrant to include crimes against journalists.

 

3. Formally include all 220+ journalist killings in the ICC’s Palestine investigation.

 

Hunting the Perpetrators

 

This is not symbolic litigation. HRF is tracking these individuals, identifying their roles, and preparing to pursue them in any jurisdiction willing to act. The case is being built not only for The Hague, but also for prosecution in national courts that recognize universal jurisdiction for war crimes and genocide.

 

“The assassination of Anas Al-Sharif was so blunt, so arrogant, and so drenched in contempt for human life, truth, the legal order, and humanity itself, that it cannot and will not be allowed to pass into silence.” says HRF Chairman Dyab Abou Jahjah (b. 1971).

 

The Message to The ICC

 

The evidence is there. The legal foundation is unshakable. The jurisdiction is established beyond question. What remains is for the International Criminal Court to move past statements of “grave concern” and take the decisive step that justice demands: act.

 

The killing of journalists in Gaza is not a footnote to the story — it is the method by which every other war crime is hidden from the world. It is the deliberate blinding of humanity’s eyes, the extinguishing of the witnesses who stand between atrocity and oblivion. To ignore this is not neutrality — it is complicity. It is to give the perpetrators the silence they seek.

 

Anas Al-Sharif (1996-2025) knew this better than anyone. His last words, prepared in anticipation of his own assassination, still echo across the digital world:

 

“If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”

 

But voices like his are not so easily buried. The joint HRF–PCHR case ensures that his words will rise again—in the courtroom of the ICC, in the ink of arrest warrants, and in the unyielding memory of history. They will stand as testimony not only to his courage but to the moral imperative that binds us all: that truth must be defended, justice must be pursued, and those who kill to hide their crimes must one day answer for them.

  

- Source - Hind Rajab Foundation: The Hunt for Anas Al-Sharif’s Killers: HRF and PCHR Bring Israel’s War on Journalists to the ICC (Publ. 12 August 2025)

An endless ocean sprinkled with beautiful, golden sand beaches. That is the core of SL and as the sun was beginning to set over the eternal blue sky, on one of those pristine beaches, Arwen and Strider gathered their closest friends and loved ones to witness their love and commitment as they joined their destinies in the bonds of matrimony.

 

Standing in front of the officiant, Winter Cromwell, and sided by their party, the maid of honor, Gittrika Rizzo and the best man, Rudeboy Lovell, the couple professed their unshakable bond of love and their will to be one for eternity. They exchanged the rings under the loving gaze of all present and so were pronounced Husband and Wife.

 

Soon after the ceremony it was time to celebrate as the newlyweds took to the dance floor for their first dance as a married couple, being followed by their guests soon after in an atmosphere of perfect joy.

 

The most special moments of this unforgettable day were kept for posterity in beautifully crafted photographs taken by the talented artist, Sarahelisebeth Brenham.

  

BlueMoon Weddings and Event Planning is honored to announce the wedding of Arwen Lannock & Strider Maximus, held on May 24th, 2024 in Second Life.

 

"This love story will be eternal" ♥

  

Masters, Adepts and Initiates

and thus contact them in full waking consciousness,registering those contacts with his physical brain apparatus.Hence the

necessity of becoming aware of one's own light, of trimming one'slamp

and of using the light that is in one, to the full. By use and care, the power of the spiritual lightgrows and waxes and develops a dual function….here are two inferences here which have nothing to correspond to them in modern thought. One is,that there is a

light in the head

; and the other, that

there are divine beings who maybe seen by those who thus concentrate upon the 'light in the head.

' It is heldthat a certain nerve, or psychic current, called Brahmarandhra-nadi, passes out through the brain near the top of the head.

In this there collects more of the luminous principle innature than elsewhere in the body

and it is

called jyotis—the light in the head

.And, as every result is to be brought about by the use of appropriate means, the seeing of divine beingscan be accomplished by concentration upon that part of the body more nearly connected with them.This point—the end of Brahmarandhra-nadi—is [Page 315] also the place where the connection ismade between man and the solar forces."It is

this light which causes the "face to shine

" and is responsible for the halo depictedaround the head of all saints and Masters and which is seen by those with clairvoyant vision aroundthe head of all advanced aspirants and disciples.Dvivedi also gives the same teaching in the following words:"The light in the head is explained to be that

collective flow of the light of sattva

which isseen at the Brahmarandhra which is variously supposed to be somewhere near the coronal artery, the pineal gland, or over the medulla oblongata. Just as the light of a lamp burning within the four wallsof a house presents a luminous appearance at the keyhole,

so even does the light of sattvashow itself at the crown of the head.

This light is very familiar to all acquainted evenslightly with Yoga practices and

is seen even by concentration on the space betweenthe eyebrows

. By Samyama (meditation) on this light the class of beings called siddhas— popularly known in theosophic circles as Mahatmas or high adepts—able to walk through spaceunseen, are immediately brought to view, notwithstanding obstacles of space and time."33. All things can be known in the vivid light of the intuition.There are

three aspects of knowledge associated with the light in the head.First, there is that knowledge which the ordinary [Page 316] man canpossess, which perhaps is best expressed in the word theoretical. It makes a

man aware of certain hypotheses, possibilities and explanations. It gives to him an understanding of ways, means and methods, and enables him to take the first step towards correct ascertainment andachievement. This is true of that knowledge which Patanjali deals with. By acting upon thisknowledge and by conforming to the requirements of the intended investigation or development, theaspirant

becomes aware of the light in the head.Secondly, discriminative knowledge is the next type utilized by the aspirant

.The light having been contacted, is used, and the result is that the pairs of opposites become apparent,duality is known, and the question of choice comes in. The light of God is cast upon either side of the

razor edged path the aspirant is endeavouring to tread, and at first this "noble middle" path is not soapparent as that which lies on either side. By the addition of dispassion or non-attachment todiscriminative knowledge, hindrances are worn away, the veil which hides the light becomesincreasingly thin until eventually the

third or highest light is touched

.

Thirdly, the "light of the intuition

" is one of the terms which can be applied to this type of illuminative knowledge. It results from the treading of the path and the overcoming of the pairs of opposites, and is the forerunner of complete illumination and the full light of day. Ganganatha Jha inhis brief commentary touches on all these three. He says:"Intelligence is the emancipator—the forerunner of discriminative knowledge, as the dawn is of sunrise. On the production of intuitional insight, the yogi comes to know everything."….Through

concentration, therefore, on the light in the head

, knowledge of thespiritual worlds and of those pure spirits who work and walk in them is achieved, for Atma or spiritshines there. Similarly through concentrated meditation upon the heart, knowledge of the secondaspect, of the conscious intelligent principle which makes a man a son of God, is gained.(SAIM 143) Another effect claimed for this relationship between the two head centres and their corresponding glands is that the

interplay between the two produces the shiningforth of a light

. There is much corroborative evidence in this connection in the Scriptures of theworld, including Christ's injunction to His followers to "let their light shine." There is cumulativeevidence also in the lives of [Page 143] the mystics, who again and again in their writings bear testimony to a light that has been seen. I sent out a letter to a group of students (who have beenstudying meditation for several years) asking if they were aware of any phenomena of interest as theresult of their work. The letter was not sent to neurotics and visionary types, but to men and women of good standing in the business, artistic and literary fields, and with accomplishment to their credit.

Seventy-five per cent testified to seeing a light in the head

. Were they hallucinated?Were they the victims of their imaginations? What was it they saw? and constantly see?An interesting field for investigation lies here also, and the results may have a basis in the fact, nowrecognised by science, that light is matter, and matter is light. When the soul is functioning and theman has achieved conscious union with that soul, he may then, through the extra stimulation involved, become aware of the light of the etheric body at its main point of junction with the physical body atthe most important centre in the body, the head centre. Professor Bazzoni says:"We have seen that all forms of matter on the earth are made up of 92 different kinds of atoms groupedinto molecules which, taken together in countless millions, form all of the bodies which we see aboutus and indeed for that matter, our own bodies. Now, any one of these 92 kinds of atoms when

stimulated in certain ways well known to science can be made to give off light

—generally coloured light—and the nature of [Page 144] this light is peculiar and characteristicfor each of the 92 atoms."(EP1 131) The achievement of full awareness is of course the goal of the evolutionary process.Again symbolically speaking, the unevolved man emits or manifests no light. The

light in thehead is invisible, though the clairvoyant investigators would see the dimglow of the light

within the elements which constitute the body, and the light hidden in the atomswhich constitute the form nature.

As evolution proceeds, these dim points of "dark light" intensify their glow; the

light within thehead flickers at intervals

during the life of the average man, and becomes a shining light as heenters upon the path of discipleship. When he becomes

an initiate, the light of the atomsis so bright, and the light in the head so intense

(with a paralleling stimulation of thecentres of force in the body), that the light body appears. Eventually this body of light becomesexternalised and of greater prominence than the dense tangible physical body. This is the body of lightin which the true son of God consciously dwells.

After the third initiation, the dual lightbecomes accentuated and takes on a still greater brilliancy

through the

blending with it of the energy of spirit.

This is not really the admission or the re-combining of a third light, but the

fanning of the light of matter and the light of thesoul into a greater glory

through the Breath of the spirit. Something anent this light has beenearlier indicated in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire.(EP1 231) The mineral kingdom is governed astrologically by Taurus, and there is a symbolic relation between the "

eye" in the head of the Bull, the third eye, the light in the head,and the diamond

. The consciousness of the Buddha has been called the "diamond-eye."(EPII 594) 2. The rhythm of psychic life. This is, in reality, the revelation of where the man stands inrelation to consciousness and its contacts. The adept, when seeking information upon this point, looksfirst of all at the solar plexus centre and then at the heart and head, for in

these three centresand in their relative "light and radiant brightness", the whole story of theindividual stands revealed

. [Page 594] The head centre, looked at for the average or belowaverage man, is the centre between the eyebrows. In the case of the aspirant, mystic and disciple, it isthe highest head centre.(WM 433) there are energies which emanate from...the

Heart of the Sun

; these sweep throughone or other of the

planets in seven great streams

...and produce the

seven types of souls or rays.

(EPII 610) The registering of this inner light often causes serious concern and difficulty to theinexperienced person and the intensity of their concern and fear leads them to think so much of the problem that they become what we occultly call "

obsessed with the light and so fail tosee the Lord of Light

and that which the Light reveals". I would point out here that

allaspirants and occult students do not see this light.

Seeing it is dependent upon

several factors—temperament, the quality of the physical cells of the brain,the nature of the work

which has been done or of the particular task, and the extent of themagnetic field. There never need be any difficulty if the [Page 610] aspirant will use the light which isin him for the helping of his fellowmen. It is the

self-centred mystic who gets intodifficulty

, as does the occultist who uses the light which he discovers within himself for selfish purposes, and personal ends.An incidental difficulty is sometimes found when the "

doorway out into the other worlds"is discovered

and becomes, not a door for rightful and proper use, but a way of escape from thedifficulties of life and a short cut out of conscious physical experience. The connection then betweenthe mystic and his physical vehicle becomes less and less firmly established and the link gets looser and looser until the man spends most of his time out of his body in a condition of semi-trance or adeep sleep condition

(EPII 610) Students should make

no effort to see the light in the head

, but when it issensed and seen—then there should be a careful regulation and registration of it.

Second raytypes will respond to this phenomenon more easily

and more frequently than first or third ray types.

First ray people will register the inflow of force and power

withfacility and will discover that their problem lies in the control and the right direction of such energies.Much of the present impasse to be found in the personalities of the aspirants of the world is due to thefact that the

light that is in them remains undirected and the power that isflowing through them remains unused or misapplied.

Much of the

physicalblindness and the poor sight

to be found in the world today (unless the result of accident) is

due to the presence of the light of the head—unrecognised and unused

—andthus producing or exciting a definite effect upon the eyes and upon the optic nerve. Technicallyspeaking, the light of the soul—localised in the region of the pineal gland—works through and would be directed through the right eye which is (as you have been told) the organ of the buddhi, [Page 611]whilst the light of the personality—localised in the region of the pituitary body—functions through theleft eye. The time has not yet come when this statement means much except to very advancedstudents, but it should be on record for the future use of disciples and aspirants.I would also like to point out that one of the difficulties today is that the

light of thepersonality is more active within the head than is the light of the soul

and thatit has far more of the quality of burning than has soul light. The

effect of the soul light isstimulating and occultly cool.

It brings the brain cells into functioning activity, evokingresponse from cells at present quiescent and unawakened. It is as these cells are brought into activity by the inflow of the

light of the soul that genius appears

, accompanied often by some lack of balance or control in certain directions.(RI 274) The two types of triangles now being created by a mere handful of people are related to that basic triangle. A

third type of triangle will at some much later date

be constructed but only when these two earlier types are well established in the consciousness of humanity. Then theactivity of all the three Buddhas will be involved and present, and a major planetary integration willtake place. This is symbolised in man when the

three centres in the head (the ajnacentre, the brahmarandra centre, and the alta major centre)

are [Page 274] allfunctioning and unshakably related, thereby

constituting a triangle of light within thehead.

(RI 671) What is oft omitted from normal consideration is the fact that the increasing activity of these

two "points of light within the head

" is basically related to what is occurring in the sacraland throat centres, as the transmutative process proceeds and the energies of the sacral centre aregathered up into the throat centre—without, however, withdrawing all the energy from the lower centre; thus its normal activity is properly preserved. The two centres in the head then becomecorrespondingly active; the negative and the positive elements affect each other, and the

light inthe head shines forth; a line of light,

permitting free interplay, is established

betweenthe ajna centre and the head centre, and therefore between the pituitarybody and the pineal gland

. When this line of light is present and there is an

unobstructed relation between the two centres and the two glands, then thefirst initiation becomes possible

. When this takes place, it must not be inferred that the task of transmutation going on between the lower and the higher centres and the relationship between

two head centres is fully and finally completed and established. The line of light is still tenuous andunstable, but it is in existence. It is the energy let loose at the first initiation and distributed into thesacral and the throat centres (via the slowly awakening head centre) which brings the transmutation process to a successful conclusion and stabilises the relationship within the head. This process maytake several lives of steadily intensifying effort on the part of the initiate-disciple.…Just as the antahkarana has to be constructed and established as a bridge of

light between theSpiritual Triad and the soul-infused personality,

so a similar bridge or correspondence is established between the soul and the personality, and, in connection with themechanism of the disciple, between the two head centres and the two glands within the head.(WM 41) The personality hides within itself, as a casket hides [Page 41] the

jewel, that point of soul light which we call the light in the head.

This is found within the brain, and isonly discovered and later used when the highest aspect of the personality, the mind, is developed andfunctioning. Then the union with the soul is made and the soul functions through the lower personalnature.(WM 96) When, however, the sutratmic sushumna, the central nerve channel and its energy isemployed, the soul, as a magnetic intelligent creator, transmits its energies. The plans can then matureaccording to divine purpose and proceed with their building activities "in the light". The

point of egoic and lunar contact emits ever the point of light,

as we have seen from our Rulesfor Magic, and that has its

focus at the point in the sutratma

which has its correspondencein the light in the head of the aspirant.(WM 98) The Solar Orb shines forth in radiant splendor. The

illuminated mind reflects thesolar glory.

The lunar orb rises from the centre to the summit, and is transformed into a radiantsun of light. When these three suns are one, Brahma breaks forth. A lighted world is born.This literally means that when the

soul (symbolized as the Solar Orb) the mind, andthe light in the head form one unit,

the creative power of the solar Angel can express itself in the three worlds, and can construct a form through which its energy can actively express itself. The

lunar orb is a symbolic way of expressing the solar plexus

which eventually mustdo two things:1. Blend and fuse the energies of the

lower two centres of force

, and2. Raise these fused energies and so, blending with the energies of the other and higher centres, reachthe head.(WM 98) I would like also to point out the nature of the service humanity as a whole is rendering inthe general plan of evolution. The rule under our consideration applies not only to the individual man but to the predestined activity of the fourth Kingdom in Nature. Through his meditation, disciplineand service, man

fans into radiant light, illuminating the three worlds, thatpoint of light

which flickered into being at the time of his individualization in past ages. This

finds its reflection in the light in the head

. Thus a rapport is set up, which permits notonly of vibratory synchronization but of a radiation and display of magnetic force, permitting of itsrecognition in the three worlds of a man's immediate environment.(WM 105) Let us now consider the words at the end of the previous rule: "The lower light is thrownupward and the

greater light illuminates the three

; the

work of the fourproceedeth

."

 

Home to the Bedingfeld family for 500 years, Oxburgh reveals one family's unshakable Catholic faith and story of endurance

It’s hard not to fall in love with Oxburgh Hall, when you catch your first glimpse of the imposing brick manor house reflected in the tranquil moat.

 

Built by the Bedingfeld family in 1482 as a statement of power, Oxburgh and the family have endured turbulent times. Through religious persecution, Civil War devastation, near dereliction and threatened demolition, Oxburgh’s story is one of survival.

 

Step inside to discover the legacy of the 6th Baronet who created much of what you see today, from the Victorian Gothic interiors to the ornate architectural additions that reflect a romantic view of Oxburgh's medieval past.

 

Outside, the gardens are a mixture of formal and wilderness, with the kitchen garden, orchard and herbaceous border adding colour and seasonal interest. And for those wanting to explore further, you can follow one of the estate walks through woodland, along the River Gadder, and out into open meadows.

youtu.be/nTnkLTRR6v8

Hammer Film Productions’ 1959 The Mummy (not so much a remake of the 1932 film as a composite of all five Universal mummy movies) is everything all those über-famous Universal Studios flicks from the 30’s and 40’s should have been, but mostly weren’t. This is perhaps an unfair comparison, as Hammer had an extra 15-30 years to overcome the staginess that plagued so many very old movies, but considering how far The Mummy towers over even its contemporaries, I really think there must be something more at work than time alone. If I had to guess, I’d say that something is a combination of pacing, an unusually astute script, and top-notch performances from Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who in this film acts the pants off just about everybody in Hollywood today, using his eyes alone.

 

After more than 40 years, the story of this film probably offers no surprises, but here goes. The year is 1895, and the famous archaeologist Stephen Banning (Felix Aylmer) is in Egypt with his brother Joseph (Raymond Huntley, from The Ghost Train and So Evil My Love) and his son John (a startlingly young Cushing), excavating what he hopes is the long-lost tomb of the 20th-dynasty princess Anankha. John is currently unable to take full part in the dig, because he broke his leg some five days earlier, but he is determined to stay in the field-- he has no intention of missing the excitement in the event that his father really has found Anankha’s tomb. Just after the Bannings’ laborers finally break through the layers of rubble blocking the entrance, a well-dressed Egyptian man (George Pastell, Hammer’s favorite ethnic actor-- we’ll later learn that the character’s name is Mehmed Akhim) arrives to warn the Bannings of a curse laid upon the tomb in ancient times. Stephen thinks this curse to be nothing but ridiculous superstition, and enters the tomb anyway, his brother at his side.

 

The tomb proves to be all that he had hoped. Not only is it really the tomb of Anankha, it has miraculously been spared the depredations of the 4000 years’ worth of grave robbers who ravaged so many of the ancient tombs. Anankha’s mummy is there, along with her vast fortune in grave-goods, including a hitherto-considered-legendary text called the Scroll of Life, the latter preserved in a cartouche-shaped box inlaid with lapis lazuli. Stephen sends Joseph to tell John of the discovery, and the younger Banning brother hurries away. Moments after Joseph has left the tomb, however, he hears his brother screaming within. When he reaches Stephen’s side, the latter man has collapsed across the princess’s sarcophagus, and looks to be in deep shock, muttering incoherently to himself and seemingly oblivious to his surroundings.

 

Three years later, John has come to see his father at the nursing home to which he has been confined since that day in Egypt. For the first time in all those years, the elder Banning has emerged from his catatonia, and asked to see his son. The reason for Stephen’s concern stems from what he saw back in the tomb. The way he tells it, he did not have a stroke (the doctors’ best guess as to his affliction). Rather, as he read aloud the text of the Scroll of Life, the ancient incantations brought to life a mummy (Anankha’s? Someone else’s?), which attacked him, bringing on his present debility. Stephen is unshakably convinced that this living mummy is now coming to England to kill him, along with Joseph and John, who were accomplices in his violation of the tomb. John takes the old man’s ramblings as well as could be asked (though, watching him, one gets a clear sense of “I came all the way out here for this?!”), and tries to persuade him that he is mistaken, and is simply suffering from an attack of nerves. Disgusted at his son’s disbelief, Stephen sends him away.

 

Not much time has passed, however, before we begin seeing evidence that Stephen knew what he was talking about. A pair of cartmen are sitting in a tavern, discussing over drinks their current assignment. Apparently a “foreigner” has commissioned them to transport a crateful of ancient Egyptian relics to his newly-acquired home in the countryside about half a mile away from the tavern. The trip to the house takes them past Stephen’s nursing home, which doubles as an insane asylum, just as the asylum’s alarm begins to sound. Afraid that the alarm heralds the escape of some dangerous lunatic, the cartmen whip their horses to a higher speed, despite the worsening condition of the road ahead. Predictably, the cart hits a massive bump in the road, causing their employer’s crate to fall overboard into a deep bog. The cartmen don’t much care; at this point, they just want to get away from the asylum.

 

The next day, the police are questioning one of the cartmen as they attempt to dredge up the crate. Just then, the “foreigner” who hired them shows up to see what all the fuss is about. You probably don’t need me to tell you that this man is none other than Mehmed Akhim. Mehmed is suspiciously unconcerned about the fate of his relics. I don’t know about you, but if I’d just lost thousands of pounds’ worth of irreplaceable Egyptian artifacts because of the clumsiness of the movers, I’d be pretty fucking pissed. But not Mehmed; he just nods his head and goes back home when the police inform him that his crate is in all probability irrecoverable.

 

He comes back that night, though, with a familiar-looking papyrus in his hands, and begins to read it over the bog. The incantation is full of worrisome phrases like, “Make supple these limbs, and strong these sinews, and give them not to corruption,” and it is rather less than surprising that the recitation results in Christopher Lee, wrapped in bandages and clotted with mud, rising from the bog. Mehmed Akhim instructs the mummy to seek out and destroy those who have desecrated Princess Anankha’s grave, and the next thing we know, the moldy old hulk is smashing his way into Stephen Banning’s hospital cell to strangle him.

 

Now, it should be fairly obvious that Christopher Lee is not Princess Ananakha, so some explanation is clearly in order. Back in 20th dynasty days, Anankha made a pilgrimage to the Temple of Karnack to perform some important religious observance or other. She never reached the temple alive. Her actual fate remains unknown, but her body was recovered by Kharis, priest of the Temple of Karnack (Lee), and was buried with all the grandeur due a princess and a priestess-- with one exception. Instead of following the customary practice of sending the body back to the royal capital for interment, Kharis had Anankha buried locally, in a location known only to him and to the builders of the tomb-- all of whom he immediately had killed. The reason for Kharis’s departure from orthodoxy was that the priest was in love with the princess, but was kept from her by her religious vows. The trick is that Anankha’s vows were only binding during her lifetime. With her death, she was released from them, and was free to do what she wished. The ever-resourceful Kharis was not troubled by the obstacle that the princess’s death would seem to present to a fulfilling relationship, because he possessed the Scroll of Life, whose incantations held the power to raise the dead. So he naturally wanted to keep the body of his love close by. Unfortunately for Kharis, he was discovered before he could complete the spell, and sentenced to be buried alive in Anankha’s tomb. Before he died, a spell was placed over him pressing him into service to stand guard over Anankha forever.

 

The collision course with Kharis on which that spell places the Bannings should be obvious, and the main outlines of the film’s principal conflict should be equally so. The complication that will get us to the all-important scene in which the mummy staggers off into the night carrying a beautiful, unconscious girl is similarly predictable. John Banning’s wife, Isabel (Yvonne Furneaux) bears a striking resemblance to Anankha. I’m sure you see where this is going.

 

The thing is, though, that The Mummy suffers not a bit from all this predictability. Sure, all but the most dim-witted viewers will be two or three steps ahead of the film the entire time, but in this case, that somehow adds to the film’s effectiveness. Watching The Mummy is like watching a complex but graceful and elegant machine at work. You already know what the end result will be, but the pleasure is in seeing the process itself. The Mummy’s predictability is the predictability of rightness rather than of intellectual laziness, and the only misstep in the entire film is the conspicuous lack of an explanation for Isabel’s unconsciousness when the mummy absconds with her-- one moment, we see her menaced by the mummy, the next, we see it carry her through the door. Sure, several obvious explanations present themselves, but something in the structure of the scene makes it seem like we were supposed to see her faint or be knocked out or whatever. But it’s a minor flaw, and is vastly outweighed by the film’s many strengths. Especially satisfying is the way screenwriter Jimmy Sangster weaves together all the best elements from The Mummy, The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse into a narrative far more coherent and compelling than those upon which it was based. Though much longer than any of the Universal films, and more deliberately paced than any but the original The Mummy, this version holds the viewer’s attention in a way that none of its models do-- not even the ones that are only an hour long! Finally, even if this version of The Mummy had nothing else to recommend it, it could still succeed on the strength of the awesome screen presence of Christopher Lee. Even with scarcely any dialogue (and none at all as the mummy), Lee dominates the film, even upstaging Peter Cushing for once. His Kharis is the only living mummy ever filmed that doesn’t make you say, “why the fuck doesn’t anybody just go around him and toss a match at him from behind?”-- in a way that Boris Karloff, Tom Tyler, and Lon Chaney Jr. never could, Lee makes the mummy seem genuinely threatening. It’s going to take a lot more than zillion-dollar CGI visual effects to make a mummy film that can stand up to this one.

   

There's a moon slowly rising on the battered hull of the White Owl. She's been moored up here a good while now, must be decade or so since I first took notice. Seems an appropriate sight to stumble over in the deep, dark evening. I'm a nighthawk myself, swaying low through the murky places, hunting for sights that make my heart worthwhile. Why do I wander when it's so still and clear and cold? The sun shines blindingly from dawn till dusk, but I can't shed the unshakable draw of darkness. The whole soul of heaviness, like a blanket I can lay and wrap around my shoulders. It's not about warmth – it's a question of comfort. That's what I find on the edge of the light, the all-embracing shadow, the get-low of life. Here lie the transitionary forces. They get me through to morning, every time.

 

May 6, 2023

Margaretsville, Nova Scotia

 

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The view is of the town of Quatre Bornes seen from the Mountain Temple.

 

The temple is commonly known as "Kovil Montagne", and in Tamil Sri Siva Subramanya Thirukovil.

 

Setting foot on the island in 1884, Velamurugan, an Indian labourer, had the dream of erecting a temple on the flanks of the Corps de Garde Mountain. In 1907, his unshakable determination came to fruition, with hundreds of steps leading to the modest temple higher up the mountain. Today, it has been transformed into a divine Dravidian piece of art, dedicated to lord Murugan (Hindu god of war). The temple is now a major pilgrimage site in Mauritius, especially during the Thaipusam Cavadee.

Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, was an 8th century Indian Buddhist master. Although there was a historical Padmasambhava, nothing is known of him apart from helping the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samye, at the behest of Trisong Detsen, and shortly thereafter leaving Tibet due to court intrigues.

 

A number of legends have grown around Padmasambhava's life and deeds, and he is widely venerated as a 'second Buddha' across Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Himalayan states of India.

 

In Tibetan Buddhism, he is a character of a genera of literature called terma, an emanation of Amitābha that is said to appear to tertöns in visionary encounters and a focus of guru yoga practice, particularly in the Rimé schools. The Nyingma school considers Padmasambhava to be a founder of their tradition.

 

MYTHOS

SOURCES

Nyangrel Nyima Özer (1136-1204) was the principal architect of the Padmasambhava mythos according to Janet Gyatso. Guru Chöwang (1212–1270) was the next major contributor to the mythos. Padmasambhava's Namtar (biography) is Zanglingma (Jeweled Rosary) revealed by Nyang Ral Nyima Özer and is in the Rinchen Terdzö terma collection.

 

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there were several competing terma traditions surrounding Padmasambhava, but also for example Vimalamitra, Songtsän Gampo, and Vairotsana. At the end of the 12th century, there was the "victory of the Padmasambhava cult," in which a much greater role is assigned to the role of Padmasambhava in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet.

 

EARLY YEARS

BIRTH

According to tradition, Padmasambhava was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating in Lake Dhanakosha, in the kingdom of Oḍḍiyāna in Ancient India and in modern times identified with the Swat Valley of South Asia present-day Pakistan. His special nature was recognized by the childless local king of Oḍḍiyāna and was chosen to take over the kingdom, but he left Oḍḍiyāna for northern parts of India.

 

TANTRA

In Rewalsar, known as Tso Pema in Tibetan, he secretly taught tantric teachings to princess Mandarava, the local king's daughter. The king found out and tried to burn him, but it is believed that when the smoke cleared he just sat there, still alive and in meditation. Greatly astonished by this miracle, the king offered Padmasambhava both his kingdom and Mandarava.

 

Padmasambhava left with Mandarava, and took to Maratika Cave in Nepal to practice secret tantric consort rituals. They had a vision of buddha Amitāyus and achieved what is called the "phowa rainbow body," a very rare type of spiritual realization. Both Padmasambhava and one of his consorts, Mandarava, are still believed to be alive and active in this rainbow body form by their followers. She and Padmasambhava's other main consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, who reputedly hid his numerous termas in Tibet for later discovery, reached Buddhahood. Many thangkas and paintings show Padmasambhava in between them.

 

TIBET

SUBJECTION OF LOCAL RELIGIONS

According to Sam van Schaik, from the 12th century on a greater role was assigned to Padmasambhava in the introduction of tantric Buddhism into Tibet:According to earlier histories, Padmasambhava had given some tantric teachings to Tibetans before being forced to leave due to the suspicions of the Tibetan court. But from the twelfth century an alternative story, itself a terma discovery, gave Padmasambhava a much greater role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, and in particular credited him with travelling all over the country to convert the local spirits to Buddhism.According to this enlarged story, King Trisong Detsen, the 38th king of the Yarlung dynasty and the first Emperor of Tibet (742–797), invited the Nalanda University abbot Śāntarakṣita (Tibetan Shiwatso) to Tibet. Śāntarakṣita started the building of Samye. Demonical forces hindered the introduction of the Buddhist dharma, and Padmasambhava was invited to Tibet to subdue the demonic forces. The demons were not annihilated, but were obliged to submit to the dharma. This was in accordance with the tantric principle of not eliminating negative forces but redirecting them to fuel the journey toward spiritual awakening. According to tradition, Padmasambhava received the Emperor's wife, identified with the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal, as a consort.

 

TRANSLATIONS

King Trisong Detsen ordered the translation of all Buddhist Dharma Texts into Tibetan. Padmasambhava, Shantarakṣita, 108 translators, and 25 of Padmasambhava's nearest disciples worked for many years in a gigantic translation-project. The translations from this period formed the base for the large scriptural transmission of Dharma teachings into Tibet. Padmasambhava supervised mainly the translation of Tantra; Shantarakshita concentrated on the Sutra-teachings.

 

NYINGMA

Padmasambhava introduced the people of Tibet to the practice of Tantric Buddhism.

 

He is regarded as the founder of the Nyingma tradition. The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma tradition actually comprises several distinct lineages that all trace their origins to Padmasambhava.

 

"Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as "Nga'gyur" " or the "early translation school" because it is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan, in the eighth century.

 

Nyingma maintains the earliest tantric teachings. The Nyingmapa incorporates mysticism and local deities shared by the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, which has shamanic elements. The group particularly believes in hidden terma treasures. Traditionally, Nyingmapa practice was advanced orally among a loose network of lay practitioners. Monasteries with celibate monks and nuns, along with the practice of reincarnated spiritual leaders are later adaptations, though Padmasambhava is regarded as the founder of Samye Gompa, the first monastery in the country. In modern times the Nyingma lineage has been centered in Kham in eastern Tibet.

 

BHUTAN

In Bhutan he is associated with the famous Paro Taktsang or "Tiger's Nest" monastery built on a sheer cliff wall about 500m above the floor of Paro valley. It was built around the Taktsang Senge Samdup (stag tshang seng ge bsam grub) cave where he is said to have meditated in the 8th Century. He flew there from Tibet on the back of Yeshe Tsogyal, whom he transformed into a flying tigress for the purpose of the trip. Later he travelled to Bumthang district to subdue a powerful deity offended by a local king. Padmasambhava's body imprint can be found in the wall of a cave at nearby Kurje Lhakhang temple.

 

ICONOGRAPHY, MANIFESTATIONS AND ATTRIBUTES

 

ICONOGRAPHY

GENERAL

- He has one face and two hands.

- He is wrathful and smiling.

- He blazes magnificently with the splendour of the major and minor marks.

 

HEAD

- On his head he wears a five-petalled lotus hat, which has

- Three points symbolizing the three kayas,

- Five colours symbolizing the five kayas,

- A sun and moon symbolizing skilful means and wisdom,

- A vajra top to symbolize unshakable samadhi,

- A vulture's feather to represent the realization of the highest view.

- His two eyes are wide open in a piercing gaze.

- He has the youthful appearance of an eight-year old child.

 

SKIN

- His complexion is white with a tinge of red.

 

DRESS

- On his body he wears a white vajra undergarment. On top of this, in layers, a red robe, a dark blue mantrayana tunic, a red monastic shawl decorated with a golden flower pattern, and a maroon cloak of silk brocade.

- On his body he wears a silk cloak, Dharma robes and gown.

- He is wearing the dark blue gown of a mantra practitioner, the red and yellow shawl of a monk, the maroon cloak of a king, and the red robe and secret white garments of a bodhisattva.

 

HANDS

- In his right hand, he holds a five-pronged vajra at his heart.

- His left hand rests in the gesture of equanimity,

- In his left hand he holds a skull-cup brimming with nectar, containing the vase of longevity that is also filled with the nectar of deathless wisdom and ornamented on top by a wish-fulfilling tree.

 

KHATVANGA

The khaṭvāńga is a particular divine attribute of Padmasambhava and intrinsic to his iconographic representation. It is a danda with three severed heads denoting the three kayas (the three bodies of a Buddha, the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya), crowned by a trishula, and dressed with a sash of the Himalayan Rainbow or Five Pure Lights of the Mahabhuta. The iconography is utilized in various Tantric cycles by yogis as symbols to hidden meanings in transmitted practices.

 

- Cradled in his left arm he holds the three-pointed khatvanga (trident) symbolizing the Princess consort (Mandarava). who arouses the wisdom of bliss and emptiness, concealed as the three-pointed khatvanga trident.

- Its three points represent the essence, nature and compassionate energy (ngowo, rangshyin and tukjé).

- Below these three prongs are three severed heads, dry, fresh and rotten, symbolizing the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.

- Nine iron rings adorning the prongs represent the nine yanas.

- Five-coloured strips of silk symbolize the five wisdoms

- The khatvanga is also adorned with locks of hair from dead and living mamos and dakinis, as a sign that the Master subjugated them all when he practised austerities in the Eight Great Charnel Grounds.

 

SEAT

- He is seated with his two feet in the royal posture.

 

SURROUNDING

- All around him, within a lattice of five-coloured light, appear the eight vidyadharas of India, the twenty-five disciples of Tibet, the deities of the three roots, and an ocean of oath-bound protectors

 

There are further iconographies and meanings in more advanced and secret stages.

 

EIGHT MANIFESTATIONS

Padmasambhava is said to have taken eight forms or manifestations (Tib. Guru Tsen Gye) representing different aspects of his being, such as wrath or pacification for example. According to Rigpa Shedra the eight principal forms were assumed by Guru Rinpoche at different points in his life. The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava belong to the tradition of the Revealed Treasures (Tib.: ter ma).

 

- Guru Orgyen Dorje Chang (Wylie: gu ru U-rgyan rDo-rje ‘chang, Sanskrit: Guru Uddiyana Vajradhara) The vajra-holder (Skt. Vajradhara), shown dark blue in color in the attire of the Sambhogakaya. Depicted in union with consort.

- Guru Shakya Senge (Wylie: shAkya seng-ge, Skrt: Guru Śākyasimha) of Bodh Gaya, Lion of the Sakyas, who learns the Tantric practices of the eight Vidyadharas. He is shown as a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

- Guru Pema Gyalpo (Wylie: gu ru pad ma rgyal-po, Skrt: Guru Padmarāja) of Uddiyana, the Lotus Prince, king of the Tripitaka (the Three Collections of Scripture). He is shown looking like a young crowned prince or king.

- Guru Pema Jungne (Wylie: pad ma ‘byung-gnas, Skrt: Guru Padmakara) Lotus-arisen, the Saviour who teaches the Dharma to the people. He is shown sitting on a lotus, dressed in the three robes of a monk, under which he wears a blue shirt, pants and heavy Tibetan boots, as protection against the cold. He holds the diamond-scepter of compassionate love in his right hand and the yogi's skull-bowl of clear wisdom in his left. He has a special trident called khatvanga of a wandering Yogi, and wears on his head a Nepalese cloth crown, stylistically designed to remind one of the shape of a lotus flower. Thus he is represented as he must have appeared in Tibet.

- Guru Loden Chokse (Wylie: gu ru blo ldan mchog sred; Skrt: Guru Mativat Vararuci) of Kashmir, the Intelligent Youth, the one who gathers the knowledge of all worlds. He is shown in princely clothes, beating a hand-drum and holding a skull-bowl.

- Guru Nyima Ozer (Wylie: gu ru nyi-ma ‘od-zer, Skrt: Guru Suryabhasa or Sūryaraśmi), the Sunray Yogi, who illuminates the darkness of the mind through the insight of Dzogchen. He is shown as a naked yogi dressed only in a loin-cloth and holding a Khatvanga which points towards the sun.

- Guru Dorje Drolo, (Wylie: gu ru rDo-rje gro-lod, Skrt: Guru Vajra ?) the fierce manifestation of Vajrakilaya (wrathful Vajrasattva) known as "Diamond Guts", the comforter of all, imprinting the elements with Wisdom-Treasure.

- Guru Senge Dradog (Wylie: gu ru seng-ge sgra-sgrogs, Skrt: Guru Simhanāda) of Nalanda University, the Lion of Debate, promulgator of the Dharma throughout the six realms of sentient beings. He is shown in a very fierce form, dark blue and imitative of the powerful Bodhisattva Vajrapani, holding a thunderbolt scepter in one hand and a scorpion in the other.

 

Padmasambhava's various Sanskrit names are preserved in mantras such as those found in the Yang gsang rig 'dzin youngs rdzogs kyi blama guru mtshan brgyad bye brag du sgrub pa ye shes bdud rtsi'i sbrang char zhe bya ba

 

ATTRIBUTES

PURE-LAND PARADISE

His Pureland Paradise is Zangdok Palri (the Copper-Coloured Mountain).

 

SAMANTABHADRA AND SAMANTABHADRI

Padmasambhava said:

My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ). My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་མོ). I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times.

 

FIVE WISDOM DAKINS

Padmasambhava had five major female tantric companions, the so-called 'Five Wisdom Dakinis' (Wylie: Ye-shes mKha-'gro lnga) or 'Five Consorts.' In Padmasambhava's biography, they are described as the five women "who had access to the master's heart", and practiced tantric rites which are considered to have exorcised the previous demons of Tibet and converted them into protectors of the country.' They were:

 

- Mandarava of Zahor, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Body;

- Belwong Kalasiddhi of (north-west) India, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Quality, Belmo Sakya Devi of Nepal;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Mind, Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Speech

- and Mangala or Tashi Kyedren of "the Himalayas", the emanation of Vajravarahi's Activity.

 

PRINCESS SAKYA DEVI FROM NEPAL

On Padmasambhava's consort practice with Princess Sakya Devi from Nepal it is said:

- In a state of intense bliss, Padmasambhava and Sakyadevi realized the infinite reality of the Primordial Buddha Mind, the All-Beneficent Lord (Samantabhadra), whose absolute love is the unimpeded dynamo of existence. Experiencing the succession of the four stages of ecstasy, their mutual state of consciousness increased from height to height. And thus, meditating on Supreme Vajrasattva Heruka as the translucent image of compassionate wrathful (energized) activity, they together acquired the mahamudra of Divinity and attained complete Great Enlightenment.

 

TEACHINGS AND PRACTICES ASCRIBED TO PADMASAMBHAVA

 

THE VAJRA GURU MANTRA

The Vajra Guru (Padmasambhava) mantra Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum is favoured and held in esteem by sadhakas. Like most Sanskritic mantras in Tibet, the Tibetan pronunciation demonstrates dialectic variation and is generally Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung. In the Vajrayana traditions, particularly of the Nyingmapa, it is held to be a powerful mantra engendering communion with the Three Vajras of Padmasambhava's mindstream and by his grace, all enlightened beings. In response to Yeshe Tsogyal's request, the Great Master himself explained the meaning of the mantra although there are larger secret meanings too. The 14th century tertön Karma Lingpa has a famous commentary on the mantra.

 

THE SEVEN LINE PRAYER TO PADMASAMBHAVA

The Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) is a famous prayer that is recited by many Tibetans daily and is said to contain the most sacred and important teachings of Dzogchen.

 

Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso composed a famous commentary to the Seven Line Prayer called White Lotus. It explains the meanings, which are embedded in many levels and intended to catalyze a process of realization. These hidden teachings are described as ripening and deepening, in time, with study and with contemplation. Tulku Thondup says:

- Enshrining the most sacred prayer to Guru Padmasambhava, White Lotus elucidates its five layers of meaning as revealed by the eminent scholar Ju Mipham. This commentary now makes this treasure, which has been kept secret among the great masters of Tibet for generations, available as a source of blessings and learning for all.

 

There is also a shorter commentary, freely available, by Tulku Thondup himself. There are many other teachings and Termas and widely practiced tantric cycles incorporating the text as well as brief ones such as Terma Revelation of Guru Chöwang.

 

TERMAS

Padmasambhava also hid a number of religious treasures (termas) in lakes, caves, fields and forests of the Himalayan region to be found and interpreted by future tertöns or spiritual treasure-finders. According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol (commonly referred to as the Tibetan Book of the Dead) was among these hidden treasures, subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.

 

TANTRIC CYCLES

Tantric cycles related to Padmasambhava are not just practiced by the Nyingma, they even gave rise to a new offshoot of Bon which emerged in the 14th century called the New Bön. Prominent figures of the Sarma (new translation) schools such as the Karmapas and Sakya lineage heads have practiced these cycles and taught them. Some of the greatest tertons revealing teachings related to Padmasambhava have been from the Kagyu or Sakya lineages. The hidden lake temple of the Dalai Lamas behind the Potala called Lukhang is dedicated to Dzogchen teachings and has murals depicting the eight manifestations of Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava established Vajrayana Buddhism and the highest forms of Dzogchen (Mengagde) in Tibet and transformed the entire nation.

 

TWENTY-FIVE MAIN DISCIPLES

Twenty-five Main Disciples of Padmasambhava (Tibetan: རྗེ་འབངས་ཉེར་ལྔ, Wylie: rje 'bangs nyer lnga) -also called the disciples of Chimphu - in various lists these include:

 

- King Trisong Detsen (Tibetan: ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེའུ་བཏཟན, Wylie: khri srong lde'u btzan)

- Denma Tsémang (Tibetan: ལྡན་མ་རྩེ་མང, Wylie: ldan ma rtse mang)

- Dorje Dudjom of Nanam (Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་བདུད་འཇོམ, Wylie: rdo rje bdud 'joms)

- Khyechung Lotsawa (Tibetan: ཁྱེའུ་ཆུང་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ, Wylie: khye'u chung lo tsā ba)

- Gyalwa Changchub of Lasum (Tibetan: ལ་སུམ་རྒྱལ་བ་བྱང་ཆུབ, Wylie: la sum rgyal ba byang chub)

- Gyalwa Choyang (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བ་མཆོག་དབྱངས, Wylie: rgyal ba mchog dbyangs)

- Gyalwe Lodro of Dré (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས, Wylie: rgyal ba'i blo gros)

- Jnanakumara of Nyak (Tibetan: གཉགས་ཛཉའ་ན་ཀུ་མ་ར, Wylie: gnyags dzny' na ku ma ra)

- Kawa Paltsek (Tibetan: སྐ་བ་དཔལ་བརྩེགས, Wylie: ska ba dpal brtsegs)

- Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal, the princess of Karchen (Tibetan: མཁར་ཆེན་བཟའ་མཚོ་རྒྱལ, Wylie: mkhar chen bza' mtsho rgyal)

- Konchog Jungné of Langdro (Tibetan: ལང་གྲོ་དཀོན་མཆོག་འབྱུང་གནས, Wylie: lang gro dkon mchog 'byung gnas)

- Lhapal the Sokpo (Tibetan: སོག་པོ་ལྷ་དཔལ, Wylie: sog po lha dpal)

- Namkhai Nyingpo (Tibetan: ནམ་མཁའི་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: nam mkha'i snying po)

- Zhang Yeshe De (Tibetan: ཞང་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ, Wylie: zhang ye shes sde)

- Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje (Tibetan: ལྷ་ལུང་དཔལ་གྱི་རྡོ་རྗེ, Wylie: lha lung dpal gyi rdo rje)

- Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: dpal gyi seng ge)

- Palgyi Wangchuk (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Wangchuk of Odren (Tibetan: འོ་དྲན་དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: 'o dran dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Yeshe (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: dpal gyi ye shes)

- Rinchen Chok of Ma (Tibetan: རྨ་རིན་ཆེན་མཆོག, Wylie: rma rin chen mchog)

- Sangye Yeshe (Tibetan: སངས་རྒྱས་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: sangs rgyas ye shes)

- Shubu Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: ཤུད་བུ་དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: shud bu dpal gyi seng ge)

- Vairotsana, the great translator (Tibetan: བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན, Wylie: bai ro tsa na)

- Yeshe Yang (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་དབྱངས, Wylie: ye shes dbyangs)

- Yudra Nyingpo of Gyalmo (Tibetan: ག་ཡུ་སྒྲ་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: g.yu sgra snying po)

 

Also:

- Vimalamitra (Tibetan: དྲུ་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན, Wylie: dru med bshes gnyen)

- Tingdzin Zangpo (Tibetan: ཏིང་འཛིན་བཟང་པོ, Wylie: ting 'dzin bzang po)

  

WIKIPEDIA

Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, was an 8th century Indian Buddhist master. Although there was a historical Padmasambhava, nothing is known of him apart from helping the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samye, at the behest of Trisong Detsen, and shortly thereafter leaving Tibet due to court intrigues.

 

A number of legends have grown around Padmasambhava's life and deeds, and he is widely venerated as a 'second Buddha' across Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Himalayan states of India.

 

In Tibetan Buddhism, he is a character of a genera of literature called terma, an emanation of Amitābha that is said to appear to tertöns in visionary encounters and a focus of guru yoga practice, particularly in the Rimé schools. The Nyingma school considers Padmasambhava to be a founder of their tradition.

 

MYTHOS

SOURCES

Nyangrel Nyima Özer (1136-1204) was the principal architect of the Padmasambhava mythos according to Janet Gyatso. Guru Chöwang (1212–1270) was the next major contributor to the mythos. Padmasambhava's Namtar (biography) is Zanglingma (Jeweled Rosary) revealed by Nyang Ral Nyima Özer and is in the Rinchen Terdzö terma collection.

 

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there were several competing terma traditions surrounding Padmasambhava, but also for example Vimalamitra, Songtsän Gampo, and Vairotsana. At the end of the 12th century, there was the "victory of the Padmasambhava cult," in which a much greater role is assigned to the role of Padmasambhava in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet.

 

EARLY YEARS

BIRTH

According to tradition, Padmasambhava was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating in Lake Dhanakosha, in the kingdom of Oḍḍiyāna in Ancient India and in modern times identified with the Swat Valley of South Asia present-day Pakistan. His special nature was recognized by the childless local king of Oḍḍiyāna and was chosen to take over the kingdom, but he left Oḍḍiyāna for northern parts of India.

 

TANTRA

In Rewalsar, known as Tso Pema in Tibetan, he secretly taught tantric teachings to princess Mandarava, the local king's daughter. The king found out and tried to burn him, but it is believed that when the smoke cleared he just sat there, still alive and in meditation. Greatly astonished by this miracle, the king offered Padmasambhava both his kingdom and Mandarava.

 

Padmasambhava left with Mandarava, and took to Maratika Cave in Nepal to practice secret tantric consort rituals. They had a vision of buddha Amitāyus and achieved what is called the "phowa rainbow body," a very rare type of spiritual realization. Both Padmasambhava and one of his consorts, Mandarava, are still believed to be alive and active in this rainbow body form by their followers. She and Padmasambhava's other main consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, who reputedly hid his numerous termas in Tibet for later discovery, reached Buddhahood. Many thangkas and paintings show Padmasambhava in between them.

 

TIBET

SUBJECTION OF LOCAL RELIGIONS

According to Sam van Schaik, from the 12th century on a greater role was assigned to Padmasambhava in the introduction of tantric Buddhism into Tibet:According to earlier histories, Padmasambhava had given some tantric teachings to Tibetans before being forced to leave due to the suspicions of the Tibetan court. But from the twelfth century an alternative story, itself a terma discovery, gave Padmasambhava a much greater role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, and in particular credited him with travelling all over the country to convert the local spirits to Buddhism.According to this enlarged story, King Trisong Detsen, the 38th king of the Yarlung dynasty and the first Emperor of Tibet (742–797), invited the Nalanda University abbot Śāntarakṣita (Tibetan Shiwatso) to Tibet. Śāntarakṣita started the building of Samye. Demonical forces hindered the introduction of the Buddhist dharma, and Padmasambhava was invited to Tibet to subdue the demonic forces. The demons were not annihilated, but were obliged to submit to the dharma. This was in accordance with the tantric principle of not eliminating negative forces but redirecting them to fuel the journey toward spiritual awakening. According to tradition, Padmasambhava received the Emperor's wife, identified with the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal, as a consort.

 

TRANSLATIONS

King Trisong Detsen ordered the translation of all Buddhist Dharma Texts into Tibetan. Padmasambhava, Shantarakṣita, 108 translators, and 25 of Padmasambhava's nearest disciples worked for many years in a gigantic translation-project. The translations from this period formed the base for the large scriptural transmission of Dharma teachings into Tibet. Padmasambhava supervised mainly the translation of Tantra; Shantarakshita concentrated on the Sutra-teachings.

 

NYINGMA

Padmasambhava introduced the people of Tibet to the practice of Tantric Buddhism.

 

He is regarded as the founder of the Nyingma tradition. The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma tradition actually comprises several distinct lineages that all trace their origins to Padmasambhava.

 

"Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as "Nga'gyur" " or the "early translation school" because it is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan, in the eighth century.

 

Nyingma maintains the earliest tantric teachings. The Nyingmapa incorporates mysticism and local deities shared by the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, which has shamanic elements. The group particularly believes in hidden terma treasures. Traditionally, Nyingmapa practice was advanced orally among a loose network of lay practitioners. Monasteries with celibate monks and nuns, along with the practice of reincarnated spiritual leaders are later adaptations, though Padmasambhava is regarded as the founder of Samye Gompa, the first monastery in the country. In modern times the Nyingma lineage has been centered in Kham in eastern Tibet.

 

BHUTAN

In Bhutan he is associated with the famous Paro Taktsang or "Tiger's Nest" monastery built on a sheer cliff wall about 500m above the floor of Paro valley. It was built around the Taktsang Senge Samdup (stag tshang seng ge bsam grub) cave where he is said to have meditated in the 8th Century. He flew there from Tibet on the back of Yeshe Tsogyal, whom he transformed into a flying tigress for the purpose of the trip. Later he travelled to Bumthang district to subdue a powerful deity offended by a local king. Padmasambhava's body imprint can be found in the wall of a cave at nearby Kurje Lhakhang temple.

 

ICONOGRAPHY, MANIFESTATIONS AND ATTRIBUTES

 

ICONOGRAPHY

GENERAL

- He has one face and two hands.

- He is wrathful and smiling.

- He blazes magnificently with the splendour of the major and minor marks.

 

HEAD

- On his head he wears a five-petalled lotus hat, which has

- Three points symbolizing the three kayas,

- Five colours symbolizing the five kayas,

- A sun and moon symbolizing skilful means and wisdom,

- A vajra top to symbolize unshakable samadhi,

- A vulture's feather to represent the realization of the highest view.

- His two eyes are wide open in a piercing gaze.

- He has the youthful appearance of an eight-year old child.

 

SKIN

- His complexion is white with a tinge of red.

 

DRESS

- On his body he wears a white vajra undergarment. On top of this, in layers, a red robe, a dark blue mantrayana tunic, a red monastic shawl decorated with a golden flower pattern, and a maroon cloak of silk brocade.

- On his body he wears a silk cloak, Dharma robes and gown.

- He is wearing the dark blue gown of a mantra practitioner, the red and yellow shawl of a monk, the maroon cloak of a king, and the red robe and secret white garments of a bodhisattva.

 

HANDS

- In his right hand, he holds a five-pronged vajra at his heart.

- His left hand rests in the gesture of equanimity,

- In his left hand he holds a skull-cup brimming with nectar, containing the vase of longevity that is also filled with the nectar of deathless wisdom and ornamented on top by a wish-fulfilling tree.

 

KHATVANGA

The khaṭvāńga is a particular divine attribute of Padmasambhava and intrinsic to his iconographic representation. It is a danda with three severed heads denoting the three kayas (the three bodies of a Buddha, the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya), crowned by a trishula, and dressed with a sash of the Himalayan Rainbow or Five Pure Lights of the Mahabhuta. The iconography is utilized in various Tantric cycles by yogis as symbols to hidden meanings in transmitted practices.

 

- Cradled in his left arm he holds the three-pointed khatvanga (trident) symbolizing the Princess consort (Mandarava). who arouses the wisdom of bliss and emptiness, concealed as the three-pointed khatvanga trident.

- Its three points represent the essence, nature and compassionate energy (ngowo, rangshyin and tukjé).

- Below these three prongs are three severed heads, dry, fresh and rotten, symbolizing the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.

- Nine iron rings adorning the prongs represent the nine yanas.

- Five-coloured strips of silk symbolize the five wisdoms

- The khatvanga is also adorned with locks of hair from dead and living mamos and dakinis, as a sign that the Master subjugated them all when he practised austerities in the Eight Great Charnel Grounds.

 

SEAT

- He is seated with his two feet in the royal posture.

 

SURROUNDING

- All around him, within a lattice of five-coloured light, appear the eight vidyadharas of India, the twenty-five disciples of Tibet, the deities of the three roots, and an ocean of oath-bound protectors

 

There are further iconographies and meanings in more advanced and secret stages.

 

EIGHT MANIFESTATIONS

Padmasambhava is said to have taken eight forms or manifestations (Tib. Guru Tsen Gye) representing different aspects of his being, such as wrath or pacification for example. According to Rigpa Shedra the eight principal forms were assumed by Guru Rinpoche at different points in his life. The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava belong to the tradition of the Revealed Treasures (Tib.: ter ma).

 

- Guru Orgyen Dorje Chang (Wylie: gu ru U-rgyan rDo-rje ‘chang, Sanskrit: Guru Uddiyana Vajradhara) The vajra-holder (Skt. Vajradhara), shown dark blue in color in the attire of the Sambhogakaya. Depicted in union with consort.

- Guru Shakya Senge (Wylie: shAkya seng-ge, Skrt: Guru Śākyasimha) of Bodh Gaya, Lion of the Sakyas, who learns the Tantric practices of the eight Vidyadharas. He is shown as a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

- Guru Pema Gyalpo (Wylie: gu ru pad ma rgyal-po, Skrt: Guru Padmarāja) of Uddiyana, the Lotus Prince, king of the Tripitaka (the Three Collections of Scripture). He is shown looking like a young crowned prince or king.

- Guru Pema Jungne (Wylie: pad ma ‘byung-gnas, Skrt: Guru Padmakara) Lotus-arisen, the Saviour who teaches the Dharma to the people. He is shown sitting on a lotus, dressed in the three robes of a monk, under which he wears a blue shirt, pants and heavy Tibetan boots, as protection against the cold. He holds the diamond-scepter of compassionate love in his right hand and the yogi's skull-bowl of clear wisdom in his left. He has a special trident called khatvanga of a wandering Yogi, and wears on his head a Nepalese cloth crown, stylistically designed to remind one of the shape of a lotus flower. Thus he is represented as he must have appeared in Tibet.

- Guru Loden Chokse (Wylie: gu ru blo ldan mchog sred; Skrt: Guru Mativat Vararuci) of Kashmir, the Intelligent Youth, the one who gathers the knowledge of all worlds. He is shown in princely clothes, beating a hand-drum and holding a skull-bowl.

- Guru Nyima Ozer (Wylie: gu ru nyi-ma ‘od-zer, Skrt: Guru Suryabhasa or Sūryaraśmi), the Sunray Yogi, who illuminates the darkness of the mind through the insight of Dzogchen. He is shown as a naked yogi dressed only in a loin-cloth and holding a Khatvanga which points towards the sun.

- Guru Dorje Drolo, (Wylie: gu ru rDo-rje gro-lod, Skrt: Guru Vajra ?) the fierce manifestation of Vajrakilaya (wrathful Vajrasattva) known as "Diamond Guts", the comforter of all, imprinting the elements with Wisdom-Treasure.

- Guru Senge Dradog (Wylie: gu ru seng-ge sgra-sgrogs, Skrt: Guru Simhanāda) of Nalanda University, the Lion of Debate, promulgator of the Dharma throughout the six realms of sentient beings. He is shown in a very fierce form, dark blue and imitative of the powerful Bodhisattva Vajrapani, holding a thunderbolt scepter in one hand and a scorpion in the other.

 

Padmasambhava's various Sanskrit names are preserved in mantras such as those found in the Yang gsang rig 'dzin youngs rdzogs kyi blama guru mtshan brgyad bye brag du sgrub pa ye shes bdud rtsi'i sbrang char zhe bya ba

 

ATTRIBUTES

PURE-LAND PARADISE

His Pureland Paradise is Zangdok Palri (the Copper-Coloured Mountain).

 

SAMANTABHADRA AND SAMANTABHADRI

Padmasambhava said:

My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ). My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་མོ). I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times.

 

FIVE WISDOM DAKINS

Padmasambhava had five major female tantric companions, the so-called 'Five Wisdom Dakinis' (Wylie: Ye-shes mKha-'gro lnga) or 'Five Consorts.' In Padmasambhava's biography, they are described as the five women "who had access to the master's heart", and practiced tantric rites which are considered to have exorcised the previous demons of Tibet and converted them into protectors of the country.' They were:

 

- Mandarava of Zahor, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Body;

- Belwong Kalasiddhi of (north-west) India, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Quality, Belmo Sakya Devi of Nepal;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Mind, Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Speech

- and Mangala or Tashi Kyedren of "the Himalayas", the emanation of Vajravarahi's Activity.

 

PRINCESS SAKYA DEVI FROM NEPAL

On Padmasambhava's consort practice with Princess Sakya Devi from Nepal it is said:

- In a state of intense bliss, Padmasambhava and Sakyadevi realized the infinite reality of the Primordial Buddha Mind, the All-Beneficent Lord (Samantabhadra), whose absolute love is the unimpeded dynamo of existence. Experiencing the succession of the four stages of ecstasy, their mutual state of consciousness increased from height to height. And thus, meditating on Supreme Vajrasattva Heruka as the translucent image of compassionate wrathful (energized) activity, they together acquired the mahamudra of Divinity and attained complete Great Enlightenment.

 

TEACHINGS AND PRACTICES ASCRIBED TO PADMASAMBHAVA

 

THE VAJRA GURU MANTRA

The Vajra Guru (Padmasambhava) mantra Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum is favoured and held in esteem by sadhakas. Like most Sanskritic mantras in Tibet, the Tibetan pronunciation demonstrates dialectic variation and is generally Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung. In the Vajrayana traditions, particularly of the Nyingmapa, it is held to be a powerful mantra engendering communion with the Three Vajras of Padmasambhava's mindstream and by his grace, all enlightened beings. In response to Yeshe Tsogyal's request, the Great Master himself explained the meaning of the mantra although there are larger secret meanings too. The 14th century tertön Karma Lingpa has a famous commentary on the mantra.

 

THE SEVEN LINE PRAYER TO PADMASAMBHAVA

The Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) is a famous prayer that is recited by many Tibetans daily and is said to contain the most sacred and important teachings of Dzogchen.

 

Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso composed a famous commentary to the Seven Line Prayer called White Lotus. It explains the meanings, which are embedded in many levels and intended to catalyze a process of realization. These hidden teachings are described as ripening and deepening, in time, with study and with contemplation. Tulku Thondup says:

- Enshrining the most sacred prayer to Guru Padmasambhava, White Lotus elucidates its five layers of meaning as revealed by the eminent scholar Ju Mipham. This commentary now makes this treasure, which has been kept secret among the great masters of Tibet for generations, available as a source of blessings and learning for all.

 

There is also a shorter commentary, freely available, by Tulku Thondup himself. There are many other teachings and Termas and widely practiced tantric cycles incorporating the text as well as brief ones such as Terma Revelation of Guru Chöwang.

 

TERMAS

Padmasambhava also hid a number of religious treasures (termas) in lakes, caves, fields and forests of the Himalayan region to be found and interpreted by future tertöns or spiritual treasure-finders. According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol (commonly referred to as the Tibetan Book of the Dead) was among these hidden treasures, subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.

 

TANTRIC CYCLES

Tantric cycles related to Padmasambhava are not just practiced by the Nyingma, they even gave rise to a new offshoot of Bon which emerged in the 14th century called the New Bön. Prominent figures of the Sarma (new translation) schools such as the Karmapas and Sakya lineage heads have practiced these cycles and taught them. Some of the greatest tertons revealing teachings related to Padmasambhava have been from the Kagyu or Sakya lineages. The hidden lake temple of the Dalai Lamas behind the Potala called Lukhang is dedicated to Dzogchen teachings and has murals depicting the eight manifestations of Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava established Vajrayana Buddhism and the highest forms of Dzogchen (Mengagde) in Tibet and transformed the entire nation.

 

TWENTY-FIVE MAIN DISCIPLES

Twenty-five Main Disciples of Padmasambhava (Tibetan: རྗེ་འབངས་ཉེར་ལྔ, Wylie: rje 'bangs nyer lnga) -also called the disciples of Chimphu - in various lists these include:

 

- King Trisong Detsen (Tibetan: ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེའུ་བཏཟན, Wylie: khri srong lde'u btzan)

- Denma Tsémang (Tibetan: ལྡན་མ་རྩེ་མང, Wylie: ldan ma rtse mang)

- Dorje Dudjom of Nanam (Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་བདུད་འཇོམ, Wylie: rdo rje bdud 'joms)

- Khyechung Lotsawa (Tibetan: ཁྱེའུ་ཆུང་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ, Wylie: khye'u chung lo tsā ba)

- Gyalwa Changchub of Lasum (Tibetan: ལ་སུམ་རྒྱལ་བ་བྱང་ཆུབ, Wylie: la sum rgyal ba byang chub)

- Gyalwa Choyang (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བ་མཆོག་དབྱངས, Wylie: rgyal ba mchog dbyangs)

- Gyalwe Lodro of Dré (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས, Wylie: rgyal ba'i blo gros)

- Jnanakumara of Nyak (Tibetan: གཉགས་ཛཉའ་ན་ཀུ་མ་ར, Wylie: gnyags dzny' na ku ma ra)

- Kawa Paltsek (Tibetan: སྐ་བ་དཔལ་བརྩེགས, Wylie: ska ba dpal brtsegs)

- Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal, the princess of Karchen (Tibetan: མཁར་ཆེན་བཟའ་མཚོ་རྒྱལ, Wylie: mkhar chen bza' mtsho rgyal)

- Konchog Jungné of Langdro (Tibetan: ལང་གྲོ་དཀོན་མཆོག་འབྱུང་གནས, Wylie: lang gro dkon mchog 'byung gnas)

- Lhapal the Sokpo (Tibetan: སོག་པོ་ལྷ་དཔལ, Wylie: sog po lha dpal)

- Namkhai Nyingpo (Tibetan: ནམ་མཁའི་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: nam mkha'i snying po)

- Zhang Yeshe De (Tibetan: ཞང་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ, Wylie: zhang ye shes sde)

- Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje (Tibetan: ལྷ་ལུང་དཔལ་གྱི་རྡོ་རྗེ, Wylie: lha lung dpal gyi rdo rje)

- Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: dpal gyi seng ge)

- Palgyi Wangchuk (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Wangchuk of Odren (Tibetan: འོ་དྲན་དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: 'o dran dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Yeshe (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: dpal gyi ye shes)

- Rinchen Chok of Ma (Tibetan: རྨ་རིན་ཆེན་མཆོག, Wylie: rma rin chen mchog)

- Sangye Yeshe (Tibetan: སངས་རྒྱས་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: sangs rgyas ye shes)

- Shubu Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: ཤུད་བུ་དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: shud bu dpal gyi seng ge)

- Vairotsana, the great translator (Tibetan: བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན, Wylie: bai ro tsa na)

- Yeshe Yang (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་དབྱངས, Wylie: ye shes dbyangs)

- Yudra Nyingpo of Gyalmo (Tibetan: ག་ཡུ་སྒྲ་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: g.yu sgra snying po)

 

Also:

- Vimalamitra (Tibetan: དྲུ་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན, Wylie: dru med bshes gnyen)

- Tingdzin Zangpo (Tibetan: ཏིང་འཛིན་བཟང་པོ, Wylie: ting 'dzin bzang po)

  

WIKIPEDIA

Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, was an 8th century Indian Buddhist master. Although there was a historical Padmasambhava, nothing is known of him apart from helping the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samye, at the behest of Trisong Detsen, and shortly thereafter leaving Tibet due to court intrigues.

 

A number of legends have grown around Padmasambhava's life and deeds, and he is widely venerated as a 'second Buddha' across Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Himalayan states of India.

 

In Tibetan Buddhism, he is a character of a genera of literature called terma, an emanation of Amitābha that is said to appear to tertöns in visionary encounters and a focus of guru yoga practice, particularly in the Rimé schools. The Nyingma school considers Padmasambhava to be a founder of their tradition.

 

MYTHOS

SOURCES

Nyangrel Nyima Özer (1136-1204) was the principal architect of the Padmasambhava mythos according to Janet Gyatso. Guru Chöwang (1212–1270) was the next major contributor to the mythos. Padmasambhava's Namtar (biography) is Zanglingma (Jeweled Rosary) revealed by Nyang Ral Nyima Özer and is in the Rinchen Terdzö terma collection.

 

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there were several competing terma traditions surrounding Padmasambhava, but also for example Vimalamitra, Songtsän Gampo, and Vairotsana. At the end of the 12th century, there was the "victory of the Padmasambhava cult," in which a much greater role is assigned to the role of Padmasambhava in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet.

 

EARLY YEARS

BIRTH

According to tradition, Padmasambhava was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating in Lake Dhanakosha, in the kingdom of Oḍḍiyāna in Ancient India and in modern times identified with the Swat Valley of South Asia present-day Pakistan. His special nature was recognized by the childless local king of Oḍḍiyāna and was chosen to take over the kingdom, but he left Oḍḍiyāna for northern parts of India.

 

TANTRA

In Rewalsar, known as Tso Pema in Tibetan, he secretly taught tantric teachings to princess Mandarava, the local king's daughter. The king found out and tried to burn him, but it is believed that when the smoke cleared he just sat there, still alive and in meditation. Greatly astonished by this miracle, the king offered Padmasambhava both his kingdom and Mandarava.

 

Padmasambhava left with Mandarava, and took to Maratika Cave in Nepal to practice secret tantric consort rituals. They had a vision of buddha Amitāyus and achieved what is called the "phowa rainbow body," a very rare type of spiritual realization. Both Padmasambhava and one of his consorts, Mandarava, are still believed to be alive and active in this rainbow body form by their followers. She and Padmasambhava's other main consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, who reputedly hid his numerous termas in Tibet for later discovery, reached Buddhahood. Many thangkas and paintings show Padmasambhava in between them.

 

TIBET

SUBJECTION OF LOCAL RELIGIONS

According to Sam van Schaik, from the 12th century on a greater role was assigned to Padmasambhava in the introduction of tantric Buddhism into Tibet:According to earlier histories, Padmasambhava had given some tantric teachings to Tibetans before being forced to leave due to the suspicions of the Tibetan court. But from the twelfth century an alternative story, itself a terma discovery, gave Padmasambhava a much greater role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, and in particular credited him with travelling all over the country to convert the local spirits to Buddhism.According to this enlarged story, King Trisong Detsen, the 38th king of the Yarlung dynasty and the first Emperor of Tibet (742–797), invited the Nalanda University abbot Śāntarakṣita (Tibetan Shiwatso) to Tibet. Śāntarakṣita started the building of Samye. Demonical forces hindered the introduction of the Buddhist dharma, and Padmasambhava was invited to Tibet to subdue the demonic forces. The demons were not annihilated, but were obliged to submit to the dharma. This was in accordance with the tantric principle of not eliminating negative forces but redirecting them to fuel the journey toward spiritual awakening. According to tradition, Padmasambhava received the Emperor's wife, identified with the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal, as a consort.

 

TRANSLATIONS

King Trisong Detsen ordered the translation of all Buddhist Dharma Texts into Tibetan. Padmasambhava, Shantarakṣita, 108 translators, and 25 of Padmasambhava's nearest disciples worked for many years in a gigantic translation-project. The translations from this period formed the base for the large scriptural transmission of Dharma teachings into Tibet. Padmasambhava supervised mainly the translation of Tantra; Shantarakshita concentrated on the Sutra-teachings.

 

NYINGMA

Padmasambhava introduced the people of Tibet to the practice of Tantric Buddhism.

 

He is regarded as the founder of the Nyingma tradition. The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma tradition actually comprises several distinct lineages that all trace their origins to Padmasambhava.

 

"Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as "Nga'gyur" " or the "early translation school" because it is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan, in the eighth century.

 

Nyingma maintains the earliest tantric teachings. The Nyingmapa incorporates mysticism and local deities shared by the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, which has shamanic elements. The group particularly believes in hidden terma treasures. Traditionally, Nyingmapa practice was advanced orally among a loose network of lay practitioners. Monasteries with celibate monks and nuns, along with the practice of reincarnated spiritual leaders are later adaptations, though Padmasambhava is regarded as the founder of Samye Gompa, the first monastery in the country. In modern times the Nyingma lineage has been centered in Kham in eastern Tibet.

 

BHUTAN

In Bhutan he is associated with the famous Paro Taktsang or "Tiger's Nest" monastery built on a sheer cliff wall about 500m above the floor of Paro valley. It was built around the Taktsang Senge Samdup (stag tshang seng ge bsam grub) cave where he is said to have meditated in the 8th Century. He flew there from Tibet on the back of Yeshe Tsogyal, whom he transformed into a flying tigress for the purpose of the trip. Later he travelled to Bumthang district to subdue a powerful deity offended by a local king. Padmasambhava's body imprint can be found in the wall of a cave at nearby Kurje Lhakhang temple.

 

ICONOGRAPHY, MANIFESTATIONS AND ATTRIBUTES

 

ICONOGRAPHY

GENERAL

- He has one face and two hands.

- He is wrathful and smiling.

- He blazes magnificently with the splendour of the major and minor marks.

 

HEAD

- On his head he wears a five-petalled lotus hat, which has

- Three points symbolizing the three kayas,

- Five colours symbolizing the five kayas,

- A sun and moon symbolizing skilful means and wisdom,

- A vajra top to symbolize unshakable samadhi,

- A vulture's feather to represent the realization of the highest view.

- His two eyes are wide open in a piercing gaze.

- He has the youthful appearance of an eight-year old child.

 

SKIN

- His complexion is white with a tinge of red.

 

DRESS

- On his body he wears a white vajra undergarment. On top of this, in layers, a red robe, a dark blue mantrayana tunic, a red monastic shawl decorated with a golden flower pattern, and a maroon cloak of silk brocade.

- On his body he wears a silk cloak, Dharma robes and gown.

- He is wearing the dark blue gown of a mantra practitioner, the red and yellow shawl of a monk, the maroon cloak of a king, and the red robe and secret white garments of a bodhisattva.

 

HANDS

- In his right hand, he holds a five-pronged vajra at his heart.

- His left hand rests in the gesture of equanimity,

- In his left hand he holds a skull-cup brimming with nectar, containing the vase of longevity that is also filled with the nectar of deathless wisdom and ornamented on top by a wish-fulfilling tree.

 

KHATVANGA

The khaṭvāńga is a particular divine attribute of Padmasambhava and intrinsic to his iconographic representation. It is a danda with three severed heads denoting the three kayas (the three bodies of a Buddha, the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya), crowned by a trishula, and dressed with a sash of the Himalayan Rainbow or Five Pure Lights of the Mahabhuta. The iconography is utilized in various Tantric cycles by yogis as symbols to hidden meanings in transmitted practices.

 

- Cradled in his left arm he holds the three-pointed khatvanga (trident) symbolizing the Princess consort (Mandarava). who arouses the wisdom of bliss and emptiness, concealed as the three-pointed khatvanga trident.

- Its three points represent the essence, nature and compassionate energy (ngowo, rangshyin and tukjé).

- Below these three prongs are three severed heads, dry, fresh and rotten, symbolizing the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.

- Nine iron rings adorning the prongs represent the nine yanas.

- Five-coloured strips of silk symbolize the five wisdoms

- The khatvanga is also adorned with locks of hair from dead and living mamos and dakinis, as a sign that the Master subjugated them all when he practised austerities in the Eight Great Charnel Grounds.

 

SEAT

- He is seated with his two feet in the royal posture.

 

SURROUNDING

- All around him, within a lattice of five-coloured light, appear the eight vidyadharas of India, the twenty-five disciples of Tibet, the deities of the three roots, and an ocean of oath-bound protectors

 

There are further iconographies and meanings in more advanced and secret stages.

 

EIGHT MANIFESTATIONS

Padmasambhava is said to have taken eight forms or manifestations (Tib. Guru Tsen Gye) representing different aspects of his being, such as wrath or pacification for example. According to Rigpa Shedra the eight principal forms were assumed by Guru Rinpoche at different points in his life. The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava belong to the tradition of the Revealed Treasures (Tib.: ter ma).

 

- Guru Orgyen Dorje Chang (Wylie: gu ru U-rgyan rDo-rje ‘chang, Sanskrit: Guru Uddiyana Vajradhara) The vajra-holder (Skt. Vajradhara), shown dark blue in color in the attire of the Sambhogakaya. Depicted in union with consort.

- Guru Shakya Senge (Wylie: shAkya seng-ge, Skrt: Guru Śākyasimha) of Bodh Gaya, Lion of the Sakyas, who learns the Tantric practices of the eight Vidyadharas. He is shown as a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

- Guru Pema Gyalpo (Wylie: gu ru pad ma rgyal-po, Skrt: Guru Padmarāja) of Uddiyana, the Lotus Prince, king of the Tripitaka (the Three Collections of Scripture). He is shown looking like a young crowned prince or king.

- Guru Pema Jungne (Wylie: pad ma ‘byung-gnas, Skrt: Guru Padmakara) Lotus-arisen, the Saviour who teaches the Dharma to the people. He is shown sitting on a lotus, dressed in the three robes of a monk, under which he wears a blue shirt, pants and heavy Tibetan boots, as protection against the cold. He holds the diamond-scepter of compassionate love in his right hand and the yogi's skull-bowl of clear wisdom in his left. He has a special trident called khatvanga of a wandering Yogi, and wears on his head a Nepalese cloth crown, stylistically designed to remind one of the shape of a lotus flower. Thus he is represented as he must have appeared in Tibet.

- Guru Loden Chokse (Wylie: gu ru blo ldan mchog sred; Skrt: Guru Mativat Vararuci) of Kashmir, the Intelligent Youth, the one who gathers the knowledge of all worlds. He is shown in princely clothes, beating a hand-drum and holding a skull-bowl.

- Guru Nyima Ozer (Wylie: gu ru nyi-ma ‘od-zer, Skrt: Guru Suryabhasa or Sūryaraśmi), the Sunray Yogi, who illuminates the darkness of the mind through the insight of Dzogchen. He is shown as a naked yogi dressed only in a loin-cloth and holding a Khatvanga which points towards the sun.

- Guru Dorje Drolo, (Wylie: gu ru rDo-rje gro-lod, Skrt: Guru Vajra ?) the fierce manifestation of Vajrakilaya (wrathful Vajrasattva) known as "Diamond Guts", the comforter of all, imprinting the elements with Wisdom-Treasure.

- Guru Senge Dradog (Wylie: gu ru seng-ge sgra-sgrogs, Skrt: Guru Simhanāda) of Nalanda University, the Lion of Debate, promulgator of the Dharma throughout the six realms of sentient beings. He is shown in a very fierce form, dark blue and imitative of the powerful Bodhisattva Vajrapani, holding a thunderbolt scepter in one hand and a scorpion in the other.

 

Padmasambhava's various Sanskrit names are preserved in mantras such as those found in the Yang gsang rig 'dzin youngs rdzogs kyi blama guru mtshan brgyad bye brag du sgrub pa ye shes bdud rtsi'i sbrang char zhe bya ba

 

ATTRIBUTES

PURE-LAND PARADISE

His Pureland Paradise is Zangdok Palri (the Copper-Coloured Mountain).

 

SAMANTABHADRA AND SAMANTABHADRI

Padmasambhava said:

My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ). My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་མོ). I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times.

 

FIVE WISDOM DAKINS

Padmasambhava had five major female tantric companions, the so-called 'Five Wisdom Dakinis' (Wylie: Ye-shes mKha-'gro lnga) or 'Five Consorts.' In Padmasambhava's biography, they are described as the five women "who had access to the master's heart", and practiced tantric rites which are considered to have exorcised the previous demons of Tibet and converted them into protectors of the country.' They were:

 

- Mandarava of Zahor, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Body;

- Belwong Kalasiddhi of (north-west) India, the emanation of Vajravarahi's Quality, Belmo Sakya Devi of Nepal;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Mind, Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet;

- the emanation of Vajravarahi's Speech

- and Mangala or Tashi Kyedren of "the Himalayas", the emanation of Vajravarahi's Activity.

 

PRINCESS SAKYA DEVI FROM NEPAL

On Padmasambhava's consort practice with Princess Sakya Devi from Nepal it is said:

- In a state of intense bliss, Padmasambhava and Sakyadevi realized the infinite reality of the Primordial Buddha Mind, the All-Beneficent Lord (Samantabhadra), whose absolute love is the unimpeded dynamo of existence. Experiencing the succession of the four stages of ecstasy, their mutual state of consciousness increased from height to height. And thus, meditating on Supreme Vajrasattva Heruka as the translucent image of compassionate wrathful (energized) activity, they together acquired the mahamudra of Divinity and attained complete Great Enlightenment.

 

TEACHINGS AND PRACTICES ASCRIBED TO PADMASAMBHAVA

 

THE VAJRA GURU MANTRA

The Vajra Guru (Padmasambhava) mantra Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum is favoured and held in esteem by sadhakas. Like most Sanskritic mantras in Tibet, the Tibetan pronunciation demonstrates dialectic variation and is generally Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung. In the Vajrayana traditions, particularly of the Nyingmapa, it is held to be a powerful mantra engendering communion with the Three Vajras of Padmasambhava's mindstream and by his grace, all enlightened beings. In response to Yeshe Tsogyal's request, the Great Master himself explained the meaning of the mantra although there are larger secret meanings too. The 14th century tertön Karma Lingpa has a famous commentary on the mantra.

 

THE SEVEN LINE PRAYER TO PADMASAMBHAVA

The Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) is a famous prayer that is recited by many Tibetans daily and is said to contain the most sacred and important teachings of Dzogchen.

 

Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso composed a famous commentary to the Seven Line Prayer called White Lotus. It explains the meanings, which are embedded in many levels and intended to catalyze a process of realization. These hidden teachings are described as ripening and deepening, in time, with study and with contemplation. Tulku Thondup says:

- Enshrining the most sacred prayer to Guru Padmasambhava, White Lotus elucidates its five layers of meaning as revealed by the eminent scholar Ju Mipham. This commentary now makes this treasure, which has been kept secret among the great masters of Tibet for generations, available as a source of blessings and learning for all.

 

There is also a shorter commentary, freely available, by Tulku Thondup himself. There are many other teachings and Termas and widely practiced tantric cycles incorporating the text as well as brief ones such as Terma Revelation of Guru Chöwang.

 

TERMAS

Padmasambhava also hid a number of religious treasures (termas) in lakes, caves, fields and forests of the Himalayan region to be found and interpreted by future tertöns or spiritual treasure-finders. According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol (commonly referred to as the Tibetan Book of the Dead) was among these hidden treasures, subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.

 

TANTRIC CYCLES

Tantric cycles related to Padmasambhava are not just practiced by the Nyingma, they even gave rise to a new offshoot of Bon which emerged in the 14th century called the New Bön. Prominent figures of the Sarma (new translation) schools such as the Karmapas and Sakya lineage heads have practiced these cycles and taught them. Some of the greatest tertons revealing teachings related to Padmasambhava have been from the Kagyu or Sakya lineages. The hidden lake temple of the Dalai Lamas behind the Potala called Lukhang is dedicated to Dzogchen teachings and has murals depicting the eight manifestations of Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava established Vajrayana Buddhism and the highest forms of Dzogchen (Mengagde) in Tibet and transformed the entire nation.

 

TWENTY-FIVE MAIN DISCIPLES

Twenty-five Main Disciples of Padmasambhava (Tibetan: རྗེ་འབངས་ཉེར་ལྔ, Wylie: rje 'bangs nyer lnga) -also called the disciples of Chimphu - in various lists these include:

 

- King Trisong Detsen (Tibetan: ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེའུ་བཏཟན, Wylie: khri srong lde'u btzan)

- Denma Tsémang (Tibetan: ལྡན་མ་རྩེ་མང, Wylie: ldan ma rtse mang)

- Dorje Dudjom of Nanam (Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་བདུད་འཇོམ, Wylie: rdo rje bdud 'joms)

- Khyechung Lotsawa (Tibetan: ཁྱེའུ་ཆུང་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ, Wylie: khye'u chung lo tsā ba)

- Gyalwa Changchub of Lasum (Tibetan: ལ་སུམ་རྒྱལ་བ་བྱང་ཆུབ, Wylie: la sum rgyal ba byang chub)

- Gyalwa Choyang (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བ་མཆོག་དབྱངས, Wylie: rgyal ba mchog dbyangs)

- Gyalwe Lodro of Dré (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས, Wylie: rgyal ba'i blo gros)

- Jnanakumara of Nyak (Tibetan: གཉགས་ཛཉའ་ན་ཀུ་མ་ར, Wylie: gnyags dzny' na ku ma ra)

- Kawa Paltsek (Tibetan: སྐ་བ་དཔལ་བརྩེགས, Wylie: ska ba dpal brtsegs)

- Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal, the princess of Karchen (Tibetan: མཁར་ཆེན་བཟའ་མཚོ་རྒྱལ, Wylie: mkhar chen bza' mtsho rgyal)

- Konchog Jungné of Langdro (Tibetan: ལང་གྲོ་དཀོན་མཆོག་འབྱུང་གནས, Wylie: lang gro dkon mchog 'byung gnas)

- Lhapal the Sokpo (Tibetan: སོག་པོ་ལྷ་དཔལ, Wylie: sog po lha dpal)

- Namkhai Nyingpo (Tibetan: ནམ་མཁའི་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: nam mkha'i snying po)

- Zhang Yeshe De (Tibetan: ཞང་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ, Wylie: zhang ye shes sde)

- Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje (Tibetan: ལྷ་ལུང་དཔལ་གྱི་རྡོ་རྗེ, Wylie: lha lung dpal gyi rdo rje)

- Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: dpal gyi seng ge)

- Palgyi Wangchuk (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Wangchuk of Odren (Tibetan: འོ་དྲན་དཔལ་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག, Wylie: 'o dran dpal gyi dbang phyug)

- Palgyi Yeshe (Tibetan: དཔལ་གྱི་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: dpal gyi ye shes)

- Rinchen Chok of Ma (Tibetan: རྨ་རིན་ཆེན་མཆོག, Wylie: rma rin chen mchog)

- Sangye Yeshe (Tibetan: སངས་རྒྱས་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: sangs rgyas ye shes)

- Shubu Palgyi Senge (Tibetan: ཤུད་བུ་དཔལ་གྱི་སེང་གེ, Wylie: shud bu dpal gyi seng ge)

- Vairotsana, the great translator (Tibetan: བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན, Wylie: bai ro tsa na)

- Yeshe Yang (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་དབྱངས, Wylie: ye shes dbyangs)

- Yudra Nyingpo of Gyalmo (Tibetan: ག་ཡུ་སྒྲ་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: g.yu sgra snying po)

 

Also:

- Vimalamitra (Tibetan: དྲུ་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན, Wylie: dru med bshes gnyen)

- Tingdzin Zangpo (Tibetan: ཏིང་འཛིན་བཟང་པོ, Wylie: ting 'dzin bzang po)

  

WIKIPEDIA

I have an unshakable love of cemeteries, but there are few as beautiful as Oak Grove. She's sandwiched just barely, precariously between the buzzing Highway 1 to the south and marshland to the north, plots cut and terraced into what little land remains. They'd never do it this way now, modern graveyards are mostly planted in treeless fields, devoid of heart but easy to maintain. There is nothing simple or predicable about these centuries of barely contained coffins, withholding erosion in a mass of hasty masonry, moss-slick steps from cairn to cairn, and root systems under the surface. Maybe a stone will be smashed by falling branches, perhaps fake flowers will be disturbed and blown away with the autumn's lost leaves. I have a deep abiding passion for the desperation of this place, and she insists on calling me back.

 

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Photobooth Bert

11"x14" acrylic

 

Bert enters BBQ Bar alone, grabs a PBR and proceeds to sit by the balcony. The cheap, hipster-favored beer is downed almost as fast as his clothes soak up the smell of cigarettes permeating throughout the place. He gets up for another but someone recognizes him and then asks about Ernie. Bert answers "Ahh... well, we don't talk anymore." He never gets that next beer, his desire to drink spoiled by the unshakable memories dug up during his one brief conversation of the night. Before leaving, he decides to go into the photo booth for a new profile shot, but can't hide his foul mood from the camera. He keeps the photo, but hides it away, in a futile attempt to hide that old scar.

i am just a list of symptoms.

 

There are four main symptoms associated with a psychotic episode:

 

hallucinations, delusions, confused and disturbed thoughts, and a lack of insight and self-awareness.

 

Hallucinations

A hallucination is when you think you perceive something that does not exist in reality. Hallucinations can occur in all five of your senses.

 

Sight - someone with psychosis may see colours and shapes, or imaginary people, or animals.

Sounds - someone with psychosis may hear voices that are angry, unpleasant or sarcastic.

Touch - a common psychotic hallucination is that insects are crawling on the skin.

Smell - usually a strange, or unpleasant, smell.

Taste - some people with psychosis have complained of having a constant unpleasant taste in their mouth.

Delusion

A delusion is having an unshakable belief in something that is implausible, bizarre or obviously untrue. There are two common types of psychotic delusion that are described below.

 

Paranoid delusion

 

A person with psychosis will often believe that an individual or organisation is making plans to hurt or kill them, which in turn can lead to unusual behaviour. For example, a person with psychosis may refuse to be in the same room as a mobile phone because they believe they are actually mind-control devices.

 

Delusions of grandeur

 

A person with psychosis may have delusions of grandeur where they believe that they have some imaginary power, or authority. For example, they may think they are president of a country, or that they have the power to bring people back from the dead.

 

Confusion of thought

People with psychosis often have disturbed, confused and disrupted patterns of thought. Signs of this include:

 

their speech may be rapid and constant,

the content of their speech appears random; they may switch from one topic to another in mid-sentence, and

their train of thought may suddenly stop, resulting in an abrupt pause in conversation or activity.

Lack of insight

People who are experiencing a psychotic episode often totally unaware that their behaviour is in any way strange, or that the delusions or hallucinations that they are experiencing could be imaginary.

 

They may be capable of recognising delusional or bizarre behaviour in others, but lack the self-awareness to recognise it themself. A person with psychosis who is being treated in a psychiatric ward will often complain that all of their fellow patients are mentally ill while they are perfectly normal.

   

The Skull of St. Agnes of Rome

 

St. Agnes, whose name means “pure” in Greek and “lamb” in Latin, was a beautiful Roman girl who turned away all her suitors because of her consecration to Christ. This angered the men very much, and finding Agnes’ resolution unshakable, they accused her of being a Christian. They grabbed Agnes and tied her to the back of a horse and had her dragged through the streets of Rome naked. They brought her to a brothel to rape her, but those who ventured to touch her were all instantly blinded. At this, the men had enough. St. Agnes was to be burned at the stake, but the wood would not burn even the slightest bit. One frustrated soldier decided to take matters into his own hands. Hesitant to behead her, Agnes encouraged the executioner with the words: "Strike, without fear, for the bride does her Spouse [Jesus] an injury if she makes Him wait". She was martyred at the age of twelve.

 

Agnes' bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed Agnes' tomb. Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Rome's Piazza Navona.

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