Here Paola appears in a old shed carrying a pair of baby booties with a hydraulic cart, in a metaphor about the weight - even if composed of love - of the responsibility of raising a child.

On the same diagonal line of life appears very discreetly the Darwin´s book "The Origin of Species" which reflects our dialectical-materialist view of motherhood.

The mother-to-be is heading toward the light, which is her naturally way.

She is also naked, but not completely because of boots, which also metaphorically ironizes the hypocritical view of pregnant woman.

The main focus is on the wall in the background, representing the aridity of the pregnant woman's walk.

The picture has no colors, because gestation is not a colorful phase for women, despite the male vision preaching the opposite; it is a complicated time in a woman's life, with difficulty walking, nausea, hormonal changes, medical monitoring and anxiety - both in relation to childbirth and the health of her child.

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea,

That is the sky;

There is one spectacle grander than the sky,

That is the interior of the soul.”

Victor Hugo

“The soul is an infinite ocean of just beautiful energy and presence made manifest in human form.”

Panache Desai

“If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how different our ideals of beauty would be.”

Lauren Jauregui

“Materialistic things do not impress me. Your soul does.”

Anonymous

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

attributed to C.S. Lewis

“In a world where everyone wears a mask, it’s a privilege to see a soul.”

Anonymous

* UPDATE: After a mutual agreement with our neighbours it was decided that Dusty had made his choice to live with us. So Dusty is now officially (according to the microchip) a member of our family. Our neighbours have plenty of other creatures and children to look after, so they were happy that such a free spirit as Dusty had made himself at home with us.

The original story as I told it:

Dusty is a good example of how our love can extend to the animal kingdom as well. He is a Balinese cat with the bluest eyes you can imagine. His eyes are very intense, because that's the sort of creature he is.

Dusty is also a two house cat. He is really the pet of our neighbours two doors up (who also have a menagerie of other dogs and cats), but he spends more time with us most days. It's a bit embarrassing really, but there's not much we can do about it. Dusty has adopted us!

Last year he turned up out of the blue (pardon the pun about his eyes) and introduced himself. It was like he knew us and was coming home. Don't ask me to explain it, but Dusty insisted he was moving in (but going home to his other folks at dinner time of course).

Alright if you are a Materialist or a Realist or a non-Romantic, look away right now, because you won't believe a word I'm about to say. Those who believe there is more to life than we can dream of, read on...

Anyone who has cried their way through the book or film of "A Dog's Purpose" will understand exactly what we feel. Several years ago we lost our beloved Corgi-Jack Russell cross dog Shelby. Shelby was nearly 18 when her kidneys gave out and we still miss her very much. That's the thing about love you see, it never goes away, it's the very essence of the Universe.

I love the teaching in Tibetan Buddhism of the "conservation of consciousness". It is very much like the Sufi concept that our conscious "self" is really an expression in part of The One. For the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides (a priest of Apollo) all living things cannot die. The material husk goes, but our consciousness returns to The One (or God if your prefer the traditional term). Now if you believe that, then animals too have this divine spark of Consciousness. I can see it in Dusty's eyes!

So to cut a long story short, and I can offer you no proof at all of it, when Dusty invited himself into our lives last year it was like a gift. As in "A Dog's Purpose" we have seen aspects of Shelby in Dusty (though he's a cat not a dog, and another sex). But Consciousness might not be bound to what we confuse it with, "Ego Consciousness".

One little thing that is interesting for us: Shelby never did tricks. She was a serious dog, and so is Dusty. Marjorie bought him a little ball with a bell in it. Most cats would play for hours with it. Not Dusty. The same as Shelby.

Do we believe Dusty is Shelby "reincarnate"? No, that would be a category error to my mind. But if you say that Shelby has a little "spirit" that somehow has found its way into Dusty's consciousness, then perhaps it might explain why he has made himself so at home with us.

Regardless, we love you Dusty.

P.S. I just added a comment to my friend Paul in England, but I think this reference would be useful to some readers:

Consciousness at some level is a feature of life itself (and there are those like Rupert Sheldrake who believe that consciousness runs far deeper than we ever imagined). If you want a good read sometime, try Sheldrake's, "Dog's That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home and other Unexplained Powers of Animals." (Hutchinson).

We spoke for a while and he seemed so happy and contained. My materialistic mind couldn't get over it.... He owed exactly what he's carrying. This picture was taken exactly 3 days before the infamous earthquake in April 2015.

It is a great temptation to attribute the apparent naivety of the Holy Scriptures to the "human margin", stretched out as it is in the shadow of Divine inspiration; it goes without saying that there is no connection between the two, unless we take this margin in a transposed and altogether different way, as we will do later, but it is clearly no such transposition that modern critics have in view when they bring up as arguments against the sacred books the apparent scientific errors which they contain.

The data - said to be naive – of Genesis for example prove, not that the Bible is wrong, but that man ought not to be told any more; needless to say, no knowledge is harmful in itself, and there are necessarily always men who are capable of spiritually integrating all possible knowledge; but the only kinds of knowledge that the average man can cope with are those which come to him through elementary, universal, age-old and therefore normal experience, as the history of the last centuries clearly proves.

It is a fact not only that scientific man (rough-cast by classical Greece and developed by the modern West) loses religion in proportion to his involvement with physical science but also that the more he is thus involved, the more he closes himself to the infinite dimension of suprasensory knowledge - the very knowledge that gives life a meaning.

It is true that Paradise is described in the Scriptures as being "up above", "in Heaven", because the celestial vault is the only height that can be empirically or sensorially grasped; and for an analogous reason, hell is "down below", "under the earth", in darkness, heaviness, imprisonment. Similarly, for the Asiatics, samsaric rebirths (when they are neither celestial nor infernal) take place "on earth", that is, on the only plane that can be empirically grasped; what counts, for Revelation, is the efficacy of the symbolism and not the indefinite knowledge of meaningless facts. It is true that no fact is totally meaningless in itself, otherwise it would be nonexistent, but the innumerable facts which escape man's normal experience and which the scientific viewpoint accumulates in our consciousness and also in our life are only spiritually intelligible for those who have no need of them.

Ancient man was extremely sensitive to the intentions inherent in symbolic expressions, as is proved on the one hand by the efficacy of these expressions throughout the centuries and on the other hand by the fact that ancient man was a perfectly intelligent being, as everything goes to show; when he was told the story of Adam and Eve, he grasped so well what it was all about - the truth of it is in fact dazzlingly clear - that he did not dream of wondering "why" or "how"; for we carry the story of Paradise and the Fall in our soul and even in our flesh.

The same applies to all eschatological symbolism: the "eternity" of the hereafter denotes first of all a contrast in relation to what is here below, a dimension of absoluteness as opposed to our world of fleeting and therefore "vain" contingencies, and it is this and nothing else that matters here, and this is the divine intention that lies behind the image. In transmigrationist symbolisms, on the contrary, this "vanity" is extended also to the hereafter, at least in a certain measure and by reason of a profound difference of perspective; and here likewise there is no preoccupation with either "why" or "how", once the penetrating intention of the symbol has been grasped as it were in one's own flesh.

In the man who is marked by the viewpoint of modern science, intuition of the underlying intentions has vanished, and that is not all; modern science, axiomatically closed to the suprasensory dimensions of the Real, has endowed man with a crass ignorance and thereby warped his imagination.

The modernist mentality is bent on reducing angels, devils, miracles (in a word all non-material phenomena which are inexplicable in material terms) to the domain of the "subjective" and the "psychological", when there is not the slightest connection between the two, except that the psychic itself is also made - but objectively - of substance which lies beyond matter; a contemporary theologian, speaking of the Ascension, has gone so far as to ask slyly, "where does this cosmic journey end?", which serves to measure out the self-satisfied imbecility of a certain mentality that wants to be "of our time". It would be easy to explain why Christ was "carried up" into the air and what is the meaning of the "cloud" which hid him from sight, and also why it was said that Christ "will come after the same fashion"; every detail corresponds to a precise reality which can easily be understood in the light of the traditional cosmologies; the key lies in the fact that the passage from one cosmic degree to another is heralded in the lower degree by "technically" necessary and symbolically meaningful circumstances which reflect after their fashion the higher state and which follow one another in the order required by the nature of things.

In any case, the deficiency of modern science lies essentially in its neglect of universal causality; it will no doubt be objected that science is not concerned with philosophical causality but with phenomena, which is untrue, for evolutionism in its entirety is nothing other than a hypertrophy, thought out as a means of denying real causes, and this materialistic negation, together with its evolutionist compensation, belongs to philosophy and not to science.

From an altogether different point of view, it must be admitted that the progressives are not entirely wrong in thinking that there is something in religion which no longer works; in fact the individualistic and sentimental argumentation with which traditional piety operates has lost almost all its power to pierce consciences, and the reason for this is not merely that modern man is irreligious but also that the usual religious arguments, through not probing sufficiently to the depths of things and not having had previously any need to do so, are psychologically somewhat outworn and fail to satisfycertain needs of causality.

If human societies degenerate on the one hand with the passage of time, they accumulate on the other hand experience by virtue of old age, however intermingled with errors their experience may be; this paradox is something that any pastoral teaching bent on efficacy should take into account, not by drawing new directives from the general error but on the contrary by using arguments of a higher order, intellectual rather than sentimental; as a result, some at least would be saved (a greater number than one might be tempted to suppose) whereas the demagogic scientistic pastoralist saves no one.

----

Frithjof Schuon: Islam and the Perennial Philosophy

Sometimes, the realization of our dreams unfolds in ways we never anticipated. This is keenly illustrated by an abandoned relic of the Cold War: a former monitoring and broadcasting station for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), now lost to time.

Formed by the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) and the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, RFE and Radio Liberty initially had different target audiences but the same goal: to broadcast uncensored news to communist countries. By 1976, both stations were operating out of Munich and eventually merged into one entity.

The photograph you see captures one of the critical technical facilities of RFE/RL, the Monitoring and Broadcasting Station located at Oberschleißheim Airport. From 1953 until its abandonment in 1995, this station was the ears and voice of free Europe. Its mission was both simple and Herculean: to break through the Iron Curtain using state-of-the-art technology.

But as history turned its pages, the winds changed. The Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the station's mission seemed fulfilled. Yet the aftermath brought its own challenges. RFE/RL found itself an expensive relic in a changed world. The transition wasn't smooth for everyone. Many employees who specialized in Russian broadcasts found themselves jobless and directionless.

The station was eventually deserted in 1992, and since then, it has been deteriorating, left with no purpose or future.

My own life was profoundly shaped by the fall of the Soviet Union. Growing up in Kiev, I wished for the communist regime to end, not for political reasons, but for a more materialistic future. When the Union did collapse, my family and I found ourselves destitute in the new capitalistic society that emerged. Despite gaining access to a world of material goods, we were left with empty pockets.

This station, like my personal history, stands as a testament to the unpredictability of fulfilled dreams. While its walls may be crumbling, the stories they contain—of geopolitical shifts, of personal tragedies and triumphs—remain as relevant as ever.

In a world that had undergone nuclear fallout, everything needed to look 70% cooler so people liked it enough that they value it so much that it would never happen again. too much to lose for the materialistic minds of the future...

The future sucks, but they do have cool spaceships!

My build for Ma.ktober, after Simon guilt tripped me into building it by sending me a Ma.ktober brick early >.>

inspiration from Calin, Ryan and Google, plus i stole Maelvins stand concept cause it's neat ;)

More of the same images on my facebook page!:

www.facebook.com/davidhenselLego

Enjoy!

David

Try hard.

Blend in with your materialistic city.

Who wants to be THE ODD ONE STANDING OUT?

No, all you want is to be JUST ANOTHER FACE IN THE CROWD.

Le Rouge et le Noir meaning The Red and the Black is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830.

The title refers to the contrasting uniforms of the army and the church.

The adventures of the hero satirise early 19th-century French society, accusing the aristocracy and Catholic clergy of being hypocritical and materialistic, foretelling the radical changes that will soon depose them from their leading roles in French society.

This two were found by chance... good fortune I should say.

flower, dark, red, black, two, design, "conceptual art", portrait, colour, blooms, horizontal, "Magda indigo"

Three birthdays in a row....

today: me

tomorrow: Emory [ my husband]

Weds: Step mother

As I get older I feel this urgency to do more....to be more compassionate and to help others.....two and four footed. I used to be so self centered in my 20-30's....materialistic too. But had a life altering change in my 40's....and reversed course 180 degrees.

As I age, I become more bold and less concerned about what is the accepted norm. I'd love to leave this world a better place than I found it. Doubt that I'll do that....but am determined to help as many animals as I can before my days are over.

Oh...below is a necklace I found at Nordstrom's. Isn't it cute? [ Yea, I'm still somewhat materialistic. ha.]

To my dear friends around the world,

1x | Facebook | Twitter | 500px | GooglePlus | Instagram | Tumblr | Website

Cars and cameras are the two things I let myself be materialistic about. I don't care about other stuff.

- Louis C K

©2015 - Sagar Mohanty - All Rights Reserved.

DO NOT USE ANY OF MY IMAGES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

The use of my images, in whole or in part, for any purpose, including reproduction, storage, manipulation, digital or otherwise, is strictly prohibited

500px || Instagram || Flickr

2019 aug 11

abstract optical materialism macropaintograph with household materials

Camera: Pentax K-50 16 Mpixel Digital SLR + Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/50mm via extension tube

Shoes and shoes. Moving out to San Francisco in a small car meant not being able to take all of my clothes, shoes, books, furniture..

I'm probably too materialistic, thinking that 5 pairs of shoes are too few. But I miss my Doc Martens, too.

Sidenote of happy news:

I recently won the lightwriting contest at JPG MAG for this photo, and the "half" contest at Veer.com for this photo.

I've said in a previous seascape (one of the Phillip Island series) that the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich is one of my favourite artists. In this shot I have in mind his enigmatic painting, "Monk By the Sea".

www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticis...

Here is another almost abstract shot, where line, form and colour are critical to the composition.

Neil Kent writes that Friedrich "came of age during a period when, across Europe, a growing disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise to a new appreciation of spirituality. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable sought to depict nature as a 'divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization'."

That quote sums up what I feel is a similar experience for people today. Rationalist Materialism has stripped us of our spiritual hopes and dreams and replaced it with consumerism. As we've seen in recent days, this resulting Nihilism produces bad fruit indeed. Ego, greed, selfishness and in the end the destruction of the human soul itself.

I had an inkling (there's a word the secularists hate) as I looked out on this scene last Saturday night, that I saw Caspar's ghost walking along the stone field like the monk in his painting. And I also thought of Hamlet.

A novice monk in Mandalay. Theravada Buddhism is the main religion in Southeast Asia and is embedded into the historical, social and political life of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. It is expected that young boys and men be ordained, usually before the age of 20 or before being married. It is regarded as a way for him to repay his parents by making merit through ordination. Monks must give up all materialistic possessions and are only allowed to have three robes, a girdle, a bowl for receiving alms, a needle, a razor and a water strainer.

Our Daily Challenge 3-9 July : On my Bucket List

A difficult one for me.

I am travel averse, non materialistic, have every thing I need and am content.

I only have 2 ambitions, to outlive my dogs and die in an almost empty house.

But I really would like to have time first to read all these books, but first I need my cataract operation!

If liberty is to be saved, it will not be by the doubters, the men of science or the materialists; it will be by religious conviction, by the faith of individuals, who believe that God wills man to be free but also pure.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Mark Water, The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations (Alresford, Hampshire: John Hunt Publishers Ltd, 2000), 379.

Cars and cameras are the two things I let myself be materialistic about. I don't care about other stuff.

- Louis C K

©2017 - Sagar Mohanty - All Rights Reserved.

DO NOT USE ANY OF MY IMAGES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

The use of my images, in whole or in part, for any purpose, including reproduction, storage, manipulation, digital or otherwise, is strictly prohibited

500px || Instagram || Flickr

Despite in over the top, in your face materialistic, consumerism KLCC and Suria Mall shove down your throat, Central Park which surrounds the area is quite the urban oasis. It's very green and tranquil. Even with lots of busy people you can still find plenty of quite places on the grass, near the lagoon, or a bench to park yourself and take in the scenery.

Isn't it? Of course it is... I'm really not too much of a materialistic guy. I think my three biggest expenses are travel, good food, and camera equipment.

Speaking of that last one, the Nikon D3x was finally made official, and I'm gonna be the first (or so they tell me) person to get one in Austin! Sadly, I think I will have more fun with that camera than with this car.

from my daily photo blog at www.stuckincustoms.com

One was the first formal portrait project I undertook. 1977GB Brian the Marxist I used to call him. At the time I was an immature, emotional leftist and he was someone who had crushed all feeling out of his politics by being a marxist materialist. I found his condescension and his guffaws at my naivety so infuriating. So FU Brian #blackandwhite #1-27 #berlinstagram #brianthemarxist #scientificmarxism #panatomicx #6x6 #analogue #art #realpeople #reallives #portraits #b&w #photography #instagram #street www.hughes-photography.eu www.hughes-photography.eu www.flickr.com/photos/michael_hughes www.flickr.com/photos/michael_hughes www.hughes.berlin @michaelcameronhughes

"Hard Times - For These Times" is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. Dickens was appalled by what was, in his interpretation, a selfish philosophy, which was combined with materialist laissez-faire capitalism in the education of some children at the time, as well as in industrial practices. In Dickens' interpretation, the prevalence of utilitarian values in educational institutions promoted contempt between millowners and workers, creating young adults whose imaginations had been neglected, due to an over-emphasis on facts at the expense of more imaginative pursuits.

I hate...that you were never there for me when I needed you the most.

This could be speaking of several people in my life. But I am working on self here, most I have forgiven and let go of. But one that has so shaped my life, so close to me, I have not forgiven. They probably don't even know this has bothered me for years.....my parents.

No one really "knows" me because I don't let too many people in. But do we REALLY know anyone? Anyways, just a few years ago, my mother started trying to tell me "I Love you." and tried to hug me. Let me remind you, I am 31 years old. I, of course, never told her back or let her hug me. I would actually back away. So from then on, my family has made fun of me, saying...ohhh, Sara is sooo sensitive and won't give anyone hugs. So they make it a game, to make fun and try to give me a hug when I least expect it. It's not funny at all to me. My parents have NEVER been there for me emotionally. When I went through my divorce, my mother would say "You made your bed, you lie in it." When I would try and tell her about the kids fathers not helping financially or emotionally it would be "Well, You picked them." When I was 10 and up, there was no more hugs, no more "I love you's." I am sure they did it when I was a small child, but I do not remember it.

One day about 6 months ago, my mom asked really, why I would never hug her. I told her how can you start now? You never did it when I was a teenager or younger. She said.."Well, when you got to be 11 or 12 or so, you pushed us away. You wouldn't let us." I didn't say anything else. I thought, how can you come back 15 years later and expect me to do this. I was a child for God's sake. Obviously I was telling you something, that doesn't mean give up on me at that age, does it???

They have always supported me financially. But never emotionally. Funny thing is, I am so non-materialistic, that all the money in the world doesn't count for you accepting me for me and just being there ONCE for me emotionally. They don't get it. I'm sure this is a lot of the reason I am so "hard" or I can come across as a heartless bitch at times, because well, I was taught to be that way.

In the next two shots of this series I'll get very photo/philosophical. In other words, I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking and you can apply your own subjective interpretation.

But a brief word on "Spirit of Place". Modernity has problems with "Spirit", and we wonder why so many people are "dis-spirited". We have "dis-enchanted" the world, and wonder why the environment is in such a terrible mess. Aboriginal people the world over have become so "dis-couraged" because we Moderns are too clever for all that mythology and won't recognise the "spirit of place".

We live in a world of spirits, because essentially when humans are stripped back to their fundamental identity, we are spirit too. So sorry, I won't apologise for being an heretical non-Materialist/Rationalist. I have history on my side.

Rationalism is sadly an acid that eats away at the stories that gave us meaning ever since Homo Sapiens emerged from the African grasslands. Rationalism is a powerful tool for getting things done, but is fundamentally useless in telling us who and why and what we should be as human beings.

I happen to believe that we Moderns should stand humbled by the supreme belief systems developed by the Ancients.

The current state of the world is sadly one of Forgetfulness. We have sold our "birthright for a mess of pottage" (from that great early biblical story of Esau and Jacob). Back to the Future indeed.

So imagine with me for a moment. We are facing an altar where devout people once consecrated sacred acts. And we should remove our shoes, be silent and drink in the Spirit of (this) Place.

link to full size image for texture and details.

august '07: christiania, copenhagen's autonomous favela, has just been given a new lease of life by the Danish government. no buildings will be torn down in the next year while negotiations on future developments continue. the fine examples of a modern "architecture without architects" like this glass house are safe for now.

but christiania's troubles are many and cannot be reduced to the hostile attitude held by our right wing government. what was initially a squatters' community has become a permanent settlement. it has been called a flawed experiment but the truth of the matter is that the experiment is over and has been for many years.

the rich cultural life that sent out subversive theatre groups into the 'real' world is long gone. the brilliant santa army happening of 1974 when large numbers of fake santas doled out goods from the shelves to christmas shoppers in copenhagen department stores would make little sense today: christiania is every bit as comfortably materialistic as the rest of denmark...the inhabitants' parked cars line the borders of this self-proclamed pedestrian community and hypocracy is rife. any criticism today would need to be self-criticism, never a real strength of the activist left.

to many, the final straw has been the ruthless exploitation of christiania's naively liberal marijuana politics by drug dealers. threats and violence form the worst chapter in this, the decline and fall of copenhagen's hippies, and a poignant reminder as to why the rest of the world chooses the rule of law above utopian anarchy.

but if the loss of ideals is felt so keenly here, it is only because those ideals had promise and beauty in the first place. in the words of architectural sage steen eiler rasmussen, in his 1976 defense of christiania:

"understood correctly, christiania may become an important corrective to a consolidated consumer society run amok. if it didn't exist, we would have to invent it".

as a corrective, the place doesn't exist anymore and we may need to reinvent it.

till then, we have the houses.

le corbusier famously claimed that all architecture could communicate was ideas. and the original ideas of christiania are well put by the best buildings out there: an open community of equals; a deep distrust, no, dismissal of authorities - including architects; a deep trust in the creative potential of ordinary people when left to govern their own lives. modesty. individualism. sustainability.

today, there is a strong political will to tear the houses down. they are illegal, follow no building code, have no permits. the old copenhagen defense line on which they are situated must be cleared to protect the city's cultural heritage.

but these buildings are cultural heritage too. and while the 20th century has left us all with a distrust of utopian and idealist thinking, tearing them down will be acting in a dangerous denial of history.

all my photos of the glass house.

more words, yada, yada, yada.

2019 july 24

abstract optical materialism macropaintograph with household materials

Camera: Pentax K-50 16 Mpixel Digital SLR + Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/50mm via extension tube

If all the mothers look like this we have a world over populate

humor got to love the craziness...

On a more series thought

MOTHERS DAY has a special meaning to me

few years ago I heard GOD CALL MY NAME most think this is crazy its ok most of you are sleeping ..... today my child thank me for teaching her to be kind and to be kind to others

that's has more more values to me then any thing materialistic from this world I am so proud of you

God gave me the most amazing gift you ..For my 💕 daughter 💕

your Supermom as you call me hehheh .

IT REALLY PAYS OFF YOU PRIORITIZE YOUR ALL IN YOUR CHILDREN AFTER GOD .

a song for you 💕

Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfmkgQRmmeE&t=3s

A beautiful sun sets on a dark day for my hometown as wildfires razed sections of Santa Rosa, California. Ultimately lives were lost. Not as devastating as for the family and friends whom lost loved ones, property and belongings reduced to ash will be missed, not for the materialistic values but the memories and emotions ingrained in them. Shout out to the first responders in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County and all other agencies that made the trip from their own locals. Of course hats off to the citizens of our great city, county and state that came together to help each other. -LDM 707

Using my iPhone 8 and available light I was unable to rid myself of reflections so I decided to try to make the reflections work for me.

You will have to judge if I succeeded or failed in this regard.

You know, I'm trying to be less materialistic than I used to be. I've never been all that much into "things" but the more years that click by the less inclined I am toward the tangible.

Who knows why this is...

Still, I do love this watch. I bought it used back in 2011 when it was three years old. I've worn it often since then.

Back in the day, I owned an average of six Swiss watches at once. One by one, they found their way to new homes.

When I bought this Sinn 103 I assumed that it would also be a short-timer and that I'd soon flip it off to another owner.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, I got to know it and I gradually fell in love with its elegance and purity as well as its faults and limitations.

Back in October of 2018 its date wheel got stuck.

Horrors.

This lead to a trip home to Sinn in Frankfort. A week or so ago it found its way back to me and I could not be happier to have it on my wrist again.

Is there an irony that it has made the trip home to Germany while I've never even been to Europe?

Maybe, but we'll leave that for another day.

Ausstellung in Arlesheim: Heinz Messerli - Spiralen.

Zu meiner Malerei

Das materialistische Gegenstandsbewusstsein, welches uns die Welt ja nur in ihrer Oberfläche zeigt, versuche ich nicht als Endziel zu nehmen, sondern als Voraus-Setzung. Die Erscheinungen bergen in sich eine Fülle von Potenzial von Kräften; sie sind mir Beunruhigung und Ansporn zugleich. Auch tragen Hell-Dunkel und Farbe mehr als nur Koloristische Funktion, lassen sich nicht einzwängen in Oberflächenstarre; sie sind gestaltungswillig.

Das Hell-Dunkel dient mir als in sich bewegtes Gefäss, die Farben als beeigenschaftende und stimmungsmässig prägende Wesen.

Das Zusammenspiel der Pinselstriche gibt mir die Bildgestalt; ihre Spannung und Lösung soll als Malerei sich selbst genügen. Die Richtung, die ich dabei gebe, liegt in der tätig erwartenden Aufmerksamkeit. Der Art der malerischen Führung entspricht das Entgegenkommen der Bildgestalt; ist Abenteuer und manchmal Überraschung. Meine Bilder sind Versuche dieser Art.

Heinz Messerli

A Fish out of Water cannot be Happy

Everyone in the material world is engaged in all kinds of political, philanthropic and humanitarian activities to make material life happy and prosperous, but this is not possible. One should understand that in the material world, however one may try to make adjustments, he cannot be happy. To cite an example I have given many times, if you take a fish out of water, you can give it a very comfortable velvet bedstead, but still the fish cannot be happy; it will die. Because the fish is an animal of the water, it cannot be happy without water. Similarly, we are all spirit soul; unless we are in spiritual life or in the spiritual world, we cannot be happy.

The Vedic injunction is that people are searching after knowledge, and that when one understands the Absolute Truth, he understands everything.

People are trying to approach an objective, but they do not know that the final objective is God. They are simply trying to make adjustments with so many materialistic revolutions. They have no knowledge that they are spiritual beings and that unless they go back to the spiritual world and associate with the Supreme Spirit, God, there is no question of happiness. We are like fish out of water. Just as a fish cannot be happy unless he is in the water, we cannot be happy apart from the spiritual world. We are part and parcel of the Supreme Spirit, but we have left His association and fallen from the spiritual world because of our desire to enjoy this material world. So unless we reawaken the understanding of our spiritual position and go back home to the spiritual world, we can never be happy.

A fish that is taken out of the water cannot be happy by any arrangement on land. He must be supplied with water.

P.S. …THIS FISH WAS RELEASED BACK INTO THE WATER … 

Day 339. 01/06/2011

The world lures you with all its materialistic components, and in return demands your soul.

In a time when the world is going faster than ever, we are almost becoming machines.

A few things remind me that there’s still a lot of love left in this world.

Title Help: Vasudha

[Explored]

I will never love you more - by Soko.

MWUAHAHAHAHA.

This work is dedicated to and done for my cousin, Dr. Carole Ulanowsky, and her work. It is based on the paper she wrote Sustaining the Family in Changing Times which she wrote for the United Nations International Family Day 2021.

Carole was awarded a Ph.D. for her intergenerational study of Motherhood, she is a mother of four and grandmother of six, an educator and researcher. She explores early life connections between mother and child and the link between attachment, early communication, and emotional wellbeing. New research shows a critical connection between a child’s genetic makeup and their environment of care.

As you all know my original and ongoing theme is "Save the Family". Carole and I share many of the same views so I wanted to share with you, for those interested some of her research findings:

Below is an outline of her speech:

SUSTAINING THE FAMILY IN CHANGING TIMES

Through centuries, faith groups have prioritised and valued the family for its role in the care, education and guidance of children. And now science provides incontrovertible proof how critical it is to do JUST THAT – PRIORITISE THE FAMILY

The needs of our children today are no different from those of the 1920s/the 1950s or any other generation. Increasingly, however, modern lifestyles do not recognise this and undermine the natural processes of family life. And the pressured and fast-changing, insecure, materialistic, overstimulating, insensitive, and often screen-led environments of western society deny the innate need of our little ones to travel at their own pace, in their own time. So, I believe strongly we must not leave our children in the wake of this turmoil. Parents have a critical part to play to challenge and alleviate the ills of modern life. And the family requires renewed recognition, respect and support for the critical part it can, and must, play.

LIFE EXPERIENCE

As an academic and researcher over many years aiming for neutral appraisal of evidence I’m unused to communicating in ‘personal’ mode. And, as a member of a pre-social media generation I’m unused to telling how it was/is for me. However, perhaps just a few words of personal context are in order…

I look back on a long life ‘teeming with children’ and that is how I hope it will continue to be. I am a thankful member of a large extended family. Then, in my late 20s I went on to marry, very happily, and we were blessed with a daughter and three sons. However, early widowhood forced me down a non-traditional route – well, for those times anyway – a mother returning to academic study and building a new career as a single parent of 4 children – the youngest boy just 3 years old.

My key aim at that time was to try to support my children as best I could, to remain positive and to build and sustain positive lives. Thankfully, so far, I’ve not been disappointed. They are all graduates and have developed successful careers and good families themselves. And the

siblings are always there, supporting each other, which gives me a profound sense of peace and contentment

LET’S BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING… in the womb

The focus in what I am to say next is on the first 3 years of life, from conception.

The mother’s voice and her rhythm of life for the unborn child, is an acoustic and emotional link between pre and post birth. Her touch and smell are the warp and weft of early experience which can reverberate through life. In my role coordinating the Science and Research Group for the charity, What about the Children, I access increasingly more research demonstrating the impact of ‘environment’ on the wellbeing children, or otherwise. Here is the science, but everyday accounts from mothers also have much to tell us about their experiences and the environmental nest a mother builds can have impact even before her baby is born. For example, Jane, one of the Mums I worked with at the children’s club told me:

‘Right the way through my pregnancy with Henry, I worked as a hairdresser. Once my baby was born, I noticed that the sound of a hairdryer would seem to have a calming effect on him. Even to this day, if I’m drying my hair, Henry, now a teenager, will remark “You know, I love that sound, it makes me feel really calm”’.

More and more we learn to understand the ways in which a baby’s experiences in the womb can have significant effect beyond the security of the mother’s heartbeat and the muffled sound of her voice …

Once born, early life is experienced through the lens of the earliest relationships. And secure emotional attachment to at least one parent, initially the mother, is a critical part of this

The newly born have an in-built capacity to form attachments - it’s a survival instinct driving the young to maintain close proximity to the familiar and first relationship - generally the mother. Attachment behaviour is at its most intense between 6 and 24 months. When attachment is secure, infants will confidently explore beyond their safe base: moving from ‘fusion’ with the parent, to ‘individuation’ (Ulanowsky, 2019). And secure and contented children feeling at peace become ‘learning’ and sociable children – able to develop to full potential in every way. In summary, the attachment status formed in those early months can impact on the young child’s holistic development, inner security, resilience, and potential to form relationships, life-long.

As the writer Philip Britts put it, the love of a truly caring parent is ‘water at the roots’ of the growing child, sustaining it through life. I personally believe in the transforming alchemy of reliably-available love. And the wonderful Harvard project ‘The Developing Child’ informs us from the science that ‘Children’s emotional development is built into the architecture of their brains establishing a foundation for life… and it all begins with relationships’.

And every human baby would like to say to its parents: ‘I want you to stay around me, I need you to be there in my life, and you need me to be there in yours…

THE NATURE/NURTURE DEBATE. What Science is telling us

The case for committed nurture and reliable care is strongly proven through the fast-developing area of neuroscience and Epigenetics. Be very clear, the nature/nurture debate is now settled. It’s both. As part of my role coordinating the Science and Research group at Whataboutthechildren, I access numerous research studies proving that the child’s genes are in constant dialogue with its experiences. A simple swab of saliva can detect a young child’s stress, for example, if left with an unfamiliar Carer by measuring the level of the hormone, cortisol. If unnaturally high and persistent it seems the very architecture of the brain can be distorted, if only in a small way, through the modification, even silencing, of particular genes. As the scientists put it ‘Epigenetic signatures are left on the genes, for good, or ill’ (Harvard, 2020)

Evidence is so strong that loving and reliable early relationships with a familiar carer, especially in the first 30 months or so is the single most important factor in ensuring a strong foundation. Thus, getting the environment right will be critical for emotional and social well -being. From a state of dependence children can gradually develop resilience and move towards secure independence. If their core is sound, healthy and strong confident independence and positive lifestyles will happen for our young people, going forward.

As Families: What are our values?

As a volunteer Prison Visitor, I devised a programme ‘Making Changes’. This required the male inmates to reflect on their past lives to encourage them to make plans for more positive futures… Sadly, not one of the many participants said ‘I had a happy family life with good parents who taught me well and I feel I let them down’. Not one. The accounts they gave were of neglect and of abuse and lack of moral guidance from those who should have provided good role models for building a positive life – their parents and wider family.

Carrying a baby for 9 months and then, once born, meeting its persistent needs is not for the faint-hearted. The broken nights of sleep and exhaustion at that time understandably can cause some parents to forget that this child, every child, is a work of art and the very embodiment of potential. Parenting is a ‘needs led’ enterprise, requiring supreme selflessness and watchfulness …. Yet our 21st century context can be undermining of parenting and the values parents would wish to establish and sustain. But I believe that very family can resume its role in the shaping of society’s direction. With positive role models from the adults around them lived out day by day, youngsters can develop notions of ‘the good’ – what is best for them, for others and for the society of which they are a part. As Freud explained, they can transform their natural ID and ego in favour of the superego –in other words, to be the best they can be. As one Jamaican grandmother put it : ‘Obey the rules (about how best to live) and LIVE!’

But all this needs recognition and support – critically at government level. We need a Minister for Families. One who can ensure that its not just the Treasury that dictates policy, but the needs and wellbeing of families are absolutely prioritised. It may seem far-fetched, but why not offer ‘ furlough’ arrangements to working parents – Mum or Dad, or a shared arrangement in the first critical 2 or 3 years of their child’s life to care for their own babies if they so wish, without the economic pressures of needing to continue to earn to pay the mortgage. Why not? It’s happened in these COVID times …

But getting all parents to recognise how critical their role is may yet be another massive enterprise. This is called ‘Education for Parenthood’. Don’t get me started!

Centuries ago Aristotle said: ‘ The role of the shared life is human flourishing’

And never more so than in the shared life of the family.

Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

This is the area I suspect one of the point of interest by the treasure hunters, but they can't start digging this place as 80 meters below this small waterfall few villagers congregate mostly on days washing their clothes on the pool stream. This area has been occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army in WW2, so does come the lure to treasure hunters of digging the Yamashita dream, but not on our land and secretly destroying it.

My first time ever visiting this small waterfall on my late Papa's land, which has been subject to abuse lately.

I can't see any gold, but the water is more a treasure than anything else. We can't eat silver and gold directly, when the food supplies run out, the channels of supplies shut. Because this will happen. Yet we can survive when there's a little land under God's grace and living back to basics, unless it dries out. So having natural water is more than a treasure. My sister inherited the whole land but by swapping arrangement she kindly understand me that I'd like this smaller part which has the waterfall. I just wish to preserve this spot, in memory of my Papa and for nature.

I know everything belongs to the Most High, this is not loving the world or being materialistic, but as we live, we are stewards of what is handed to us at this present life. We have to handle it with care, what God created. When it's time t go, then somebody will have it.

I was talking to one of my friends who works in New York and he wrote -

"y'day we were in timessq. one of the most materialistic places in the world, and amidst all show biz a giant tv screen is showing videos of bombing in lebanon -cnn i think, and a guy is crying, not hard but just a small shed a tear and his prgnant wife is too tired to move away from shelling, and this is happening in the other side of the world and for us it was just another video footage while worrying about whether to watch pirates 2 or not for the matinee show. oh man, i dont know how we all grew to remain so unaffected by our surroudings"

This picture was taken with a very similar setup.

"An old world is crumbling, let it.

The agenda is becoming painfully obvious, let it.

People are questioning fabricated lies they've been told, let them.

Others, are achingly intertwined in a dark domain of inverted reality - let them be.

Even as the matrix slowly collapses, it still uses mind games and manipulation to distort the truth, let it.

Allow the old reality to crumble.

The disproportionate ideologies of Rome to fall.

Let an inorganic reality built on global pessimism and materialistic addiction collapse.

There is an organic process trying to emerge... let it.

Those who have awakened from the matrix will not find salvation in desperately attempting to prove the matrix to itself.

Let the matrix reap its own karma, its life cycle unwind, as it has no choice but to reveal itself through clumsy missteps of parabolic paranoia and pathological persuasion.

Allow those who have a trauma bond with the matrix, to fall in love with systemic deceit.

Humans have to make mistakes to learn. Let them.

The time and focus spent detailing the corruption and mechanistic means of a dying society, can be spent building and creating anew.

Let the old world meet its fate.

No amount of psychoanalysis will cure or stop a broken system from dying.

Be the doula for a new earth.

You're infinite potential woven into the tapestry of a new timeline.

You're free now, if you'd like to be.

A new earth emerges, let it."

- Mary Allison ♡

A friend sent me this heartening piece of writing today and it prompted a contemplative journal entry and I pass on its energy to you. Peace and Love to you all who visit.

247/365

Nothing artistic for today. Just a snapshot to show what my day was like. I told myself I wasn't going to be lazy and add snapshots like this into my 365, but I don't even care anymore. This needs to be apart of my project.

Last time I came here, I came with my family and only spent very minimal time with the children.

Today, whilst all 30 of my family members were at the resort, celebrating, partying, and having fun, I decided to go into town, catch a local van, walk on the streets, call for taxi's, lug a whole suitcase full of clothes and toys, and let all the little kids trample on me. I truly can't understand how happy this made me. Coming here will forever make me content and I am more than glad that I got to spend an entire day singing, playing, dancing, talking, running around, playing football and soccer, and teaching these children.

A lot of you don't know, that I've been interested in volunteer work all my life. I always dreamt of helping people. I'm planning on visiting africa this year also, to volunteer in orphanages, and coming to fiji made me realise, yet again, just how much I love contributing to these kids' happiness in any way I can. I live to make others happy. That is my goal. And these children, and these people, and this culture reminds me, every time I visit, that it is worthwhile.

I had an amazing day. No, more than amazing. A completely rewarding and beautiful day. No luxury, no spa treatments, no fancy 5-star meals, no spectacular transport, no expensive meals, but beautiful people. And that's all I could ever ask for.

The way these people live is so incredible. They're limited to everything, from clothes, to food, toys to water, health care to transport fares. Yet one thing they're not limited to is happiness. Although they live a simple and hard-working (and boy, they're so hard working) life, they live the happiest. They have their families. They have their friends. They have their church. It makes me wish that when I go back home in 9 days, I could live a life like that.

Everyone back home tells me, "Oh going in and spending time with the locals will change you and make you appreciate everything so much more" and all that jazz, it truly does. However, this time I travelled here, I got a completely different affect. I think coming alone and spending an entire day with them, doing what they do, living how they live, trying to find my way around an entire country on my own on less than $10 Australian dollars, completely changed me. I saw how they were affected by the floods, this village in particular was heavily affected, and I saw how they're fighting their way through, getting back up on their feet and building their lives back.

And oh my, one last thing. The fijian's are the most beautiful and friendly, kind-hearted, gentle race of people you may ever meet.

I then travelled back to the resort and brought my aunty back to the village. She was thrilled to see and experience this. We managed to get back to the resort afterwards, scraping time, just before it was completely dark outside, and I had a lovely dinner with my mum before her wedding on sunday. We spoke about my day and I told her how everything. We've hardly had any time for one another for the past 5 or so months, and taking a break from routine made me realise how much I miss her and how much our completely hectic schedules at home have slowly caused our relationship to deterierate. Seeing this today, also helped me remember that family comes first. No matter what.

I don't think that going there today changed them, despite the songs I taught them or the materialistic items I gave them, the hugs we exchanged or the games we played. I think their simplicity and their happiness changed me.

I don't consider myself a materialistic kind of person, but I have never been happier about a gift. Except maybe about the camera itself. My aunt gave it to me as a 8th of March gift (before 8th of March obviously). I'm a perfectionist: sometimes that makes my life so much difficult. Maybe I look quiet, calm and a little naive at the beginning, but I'm not. I can swear and shout when I'm angry too, which comes as a surprise to some people. I wish it snowed in Barcelona because I miss snow so much. That's one of the (many) reasons why I come back to Russia as often as I can. Once I leave, I know I'll miss some little things that may seem stupid to some people, but that for me are little parts of the whole. Like the voice that announces the next station in the tram. Or the long and steep escalators in the underground. If I could go back in the time, I'd do a lot of things differently. I know I can't so I try to look at things positively. But it not always works and since I tend to keep things inside, I am more likely to have a breakdown than to shout at friends and family (although I can too). I've kept a diary since I was ten. It feels awkward and even uncomfortable to read your own words ten years later but I'm glad I can. Because it reminds how much I've changed.

Listen. The song it's not related to the photo. I don't even play to that game. But I love rock and I love that song, so I guess it's related to how I am.

PS: As usually, Flickr sharpener killed this. It looks better on black and bigger. Press L?

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352/365

1/18/14

smu.gs/1bai6Ck

Cars and cameras are the two things I let myself be materialistic about. I don't care about other stuff. - Louis C. K.

2015 04 12 165646 Cyprus Pafos

[DISCLAIMER: The meaning of any artwork is found in the dialogue between the artist and the viewer. The meanings I suggest here are NOT necessarily those held by Josh Foley.]

You really need to enlarge this shot to begin to see all of Josh Foley's elements in this strange and poignant work.

I'll confess right now, this is my title for this work (so largely my reading of the work). Josh has not given it one, because he likes the viewer to make up his or her own mind. I have chosen this photograph as the last in the series from Josh Foley's exhibition, "Calculating Infinity" for a reason.

To be honest, when I first saw this work I immediately thought of the incredible, pregnant and bizarre paintings in Carl Jung's 'The Red Book'. This is fundamentally an archetypal work. It only works specifically on the unconscious, because this is precisely the realm from which it emerged. As such it is, by definition, prophetic.

I am no philologist, so I can't interpret the mish-mash of scripts on the wall behind. Part Hebrew letters (but some clearly aren't), some ancient Greek, but not explicitly so. It reminds me of a scene from the Bible. You know it by the saying that has come down in most languages today: "The writing is on the wall."

Please follow me. This is very important. The scene in the Book of Daniel chapter 5, is a feast in the court of the evil Babylonian king Belshazzar. Suddenly, a hand appears and begins to write upon the wall. The young Hebrew prophet Daniel (yes the same one who was thrown into a lions den and survived), interpreted the words as signaling the downfall of the mighty Global empire of its day, Babylon.

From that day on, Babylon has become synonymous with evil empires. Subtle because they tempt us with so many materialistic goods and pleasures as the tempting serpent did in the Garden of Eden. Now please look at what is hidden behind the red curtain on the altar. (the curtain was closed, but viewers are allowed to open it for interaction).

There is the Serpent, the Leviathan, the Dragon revealed for all to see. Suddenly Belshazzar's feast was turned from celebration to fear in an instant. The writing is on the wall!

The digital revolution has led us to the verge of Artificial Intelligence once and for all replacing the human soul. We humans have become the creators of our own demise. If that sounds too stark and bizarre a prospect, then welcome to Belshazzar's feast. A New World Order is about to reveal itself. But here is our hope Eternal.

The writing is on the wall! It is finished. The work is almost done.

Now is the time to prepare for the triumph of Light over Darkness, when all souls are held in the balance.

In the 4th century AD, under severe persecution, the Gnostics fled to desert caves in Egypt and hid their beloved texts in clay vessels. In 1945 they were discovered at Nag Hammadi, and for the first time in 1500 years their message was revealed to the world. This is the end of one such text, 'On the Origin of the World':

“The heavens of the gods of chaos will collapse upon one another and their powers will be consumed. Their realms will also be overthrown. The chief creator’s heaven will fall and split in half. His stars in their sphere will fall down to the earth, and the earth will not be able to endure them. They will fall down to the abyss, and the abyss will be overthrown.

Light will overcome the darkness and banish it. Then the darkness will be like something that never was, and the source of darkness will be dissolved…”

I did not want to share this, and this may prove to only be the beginning of the end of worldly kingdoms (and you have every right to disagree if you will!). But I say it to warn you. The writing is on the wall! Every human civilisation stands judged.