Immediate task

Degree necessary

Consequently predictable

 

Poetic power

Disposition concept

Precondition spectatorship

 

The lion's mane is the most recognizable feature of the species.It starts growing when lions are about a year old. Mane color varies and darkens with age; research shows its color and size are influenced by environmental factors such as average ambient temperature.

 

Mane length apparently signals fighting success in male–male relationships; darker-maned individuals may have longer reproductive lives and higher offspring survival, although they suffer in the hottest months of the year. The presence, absence, color and size of the mane are associated with genetic precondition, sexual maturity, climate and testosterone production; the rule of thumb is that a darker, fuller mane indicates a healthier animal.

 

In Serengeti National Park, female lions favor males with dense, dark manes as mates. The main purpose of the mane is thought be the protection of the neck and throat in territorial fights with rivals.

*Working Towards a Better World

 

Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.

Susan B. Anthony

 

A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where everyone can be themselves.

Gloria Steinem

 

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.

Kofi Annan

 

Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone's responsibility.

Ban Ki-moon

 

I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.

Audre Lorde

 

Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

 

The climb to the top of Uluru is being closed on 26 October 2019, marking the day in 1985 when Uluru and Kata Tjuta were handed back to the Anangu tribe. Apparently there are queues of up to 1000 people waiting to do the climb before it closes and resorts are overflowing.

 

Being good at neither climbing nor heights I made it up only as far as (maybe) the top of the guide rope before having to turn back.

 

The path of the climb is associated with Mala ceremonies. Anangu believe that during the time when the world was being formed, the Uluru climb was the traditional route taken by Mala men when they arrived at Uluru.

 

Before Uluru was reclaimed by the Anangu as a men's sacred site it was known as Ayers Rock. It has a management plan which aimed to close the climb when one of three preconditions were met. Those included that less than 20 per cent of visitors climb and that cultural and natural experiences were the main reasons why people visit the park.

 

From a geological point of view, the Uluru rock is mostly arkose, a coarse grained sandstone with a high proportion of feldspar. The 'spines' of Uluru show the layers of sediment eroded from the Petermann Ranges, tilted on their side. At its highest point, Uluru is 863 metres tall.

 

The area is on the edge of what was 900 million years ago a mountainous area near the Amadeus Basin, which became a shallow sea. The sea receded and the sandy sediments from erosion compacted over time. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are considered the visible tips of huge rock slabs that extend as much as six kilometres underground.

Historical research reveals that diverse political rationalities have framed the political means and objectives of state frontiers and borders, just as the difficult work of making borders actual has drawn upon a great variety of technologies

The single word ”border” conceals a multiplicity and implies a constancy where genealogical investigation uncovers mutation and descent. Historical research reveals that diverse political rationalities have framed the political means and objectives of state frontiers and borders, just as the difficult work of making borders actual has drawn upon a great variety of technologies and heterogeneous administrative practices, ranging from maps of the territory, the creation of specialized border officials, and architectures of fortification to today’s experimentation with bio- digitalized forms of surveillance. This chapter argues that we are witnessing a novel development within this history of borders and border-making, what I want to call the emergence of the humanitarian border. While a great deal has been written about the militarization, securitization and fortification of borders today, there is far less consideration of the humanitarianization of borders. But if the investment of border regimes by biometric technologies rightly warrants being treated as an event within the history of the making and remaking of borders (Amoore 2006), then arguably so too does the reinvention of the border as a space of humanitarian government.

Under what conditions are we seeing the rise of humanitarian borders? The emergence of the humanitarian border goes hand in hand with the move which has made state frontiers into privileged symbolic and regulatory instruments within strategies of migration control. It is part of a much wider trend that has been dubbed the ”rebordering” of political and territorial space (Andreas and Biersteker 2003). The humanitarian border emerges once it becomes established that border crossing has become, for thousands of migrants seeking, for a variety of reasons, to access the territories of the global North, a matter of life and death. It crystallizes as a way of governing this novel and disturbing situation,and compensating for the social violence embodied in the regime of migration control.The idea of a humanitarian border might sound at first counterintuitive or even oxymoronic. After all, we often think of contemporary humanitarianism as a force that, operating in the name of the universal but endangered subject of humanity, transcends the walled space of the inter-national system. This is, of course, quite valid. Yet it would be a mistake to draw any simple equation between humanitarian projects and what Deleuze and Guattari would call logics of deterritoralization. While humanitarian programmes might unsettle certain norms of statehood, it is important to recognize the ways in which the exercise of humanitarian power is connected to the actualization of new spaces. Whether by its redefinition of certain locales as humanitarian ”zones” and crises as ”emergencies” (Calhoun 2004), the authority it confers on certain experts to move rapidly across networks of aid and intervention, or its will to designate those populating these zones as ”victims,” it seems justified to follow Debrix’s (1998) observation that humanitarianism implies reterritorialization on top of deterritorialization. Humanitarian zones can materialize in various situations – in conflict zones, amidst the relief of famine, and against the backdrop of state failure. But the case that interests me in what follows is a specific one: a situation where the actual borders of states and gateways to the territory become themselves zones of humanitarian government. Understanding the consequences of this is paramount, since it has an important bearing on what is often termed the securitization of borders and citizenship.

Foucault and Frontiers

It is probably fair to say that the theme of frontiers is largely absent from the two courses that are today read together as Foucault’s lectures on ”governmentality” (Foucault 1991; 2007; 2008). This is not to suggest that frontiers receive no mention at all. Within these lectures we certainly encounter passing remarks on the theme. For instance, Foucault speaks at one point of ”the administrative state, born in the territoriality of national boundaries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and corresponding to a society of regulation and discipline” (Foucault 1991: 104).1 Elsewhere, he notes how the calculation and demarcation of new frontiers served as one of the practical elements of military-diplomatic technology, a machine he associates with the government of Europe in the image of a balance of power and according to the governmental logic of raison d’état. ”When the diplomats, the ambassadors who negotiated the treaty of Westphalia, received instructions from their government, they were explicitly advised to ensure that the new frontiers, the distribution of states, the new relationships to be established between the German states and the Empire, and the zones of influence of France, Sweden, and Austria be established in terms of a principle: to maintain a balance between the different European states” (Foucault 2007: 297).

But these are only hints of what significance the question of frontiers might have within the different technologies of power which Foucault sought to analyze. They are only fragmentary reflections on the place borders and frontiers might occupy within the genealogy of the modern state which Foucault outlines with his research into governmentality.2

Why was Foucault apparently not particularly interested in borders when he composed these lectures? One possible answer is suggested by Elden’s careful and important work on power-knowledge and territory. Elden takes issue with Foucault for the way in which he discusses territorial rule largely as a foil which allows him to provide a more fully-worked out account of governmentality and its administration of population. Despite the fact that the term appears prominently in the title of Foucault’s lectures, ”the issue of territory continually emerges only to be repeatedly marginalized, eclipsed, and underplayed” (Elden 2007: 1). Because Foucault fails to reckon more fully with the many ways in which the production of territory – and most crucially its demarcation by practices of frontier marking and control – serves as a precondition for the government of population, it is not surprising that the question of frontiers occupies little space in his narrative.But there is another explanation for the relative absence of questions of frontiers in Foucault’s writing on governmentality. And here we have to acknowledge that, framed as it is previously, this is a problematic question. For it risks the kind of retrospective fallacy which projects a set of very contemporary issues and concerns onto Foucault’s time. It is probably fair to speculate that frontiers and border security was not a political issue during the 1970s in the way that it is today in many western states. ”Borders” had yet to be constituted as a sort of meta-issue, capable of condensing a whole complex of political fears and concerns, including globalization, the loss of sovereignty, terrorism, trafficking and unchecked immigration. The question of the welfare state certainly was an issue, perhaps even a meta-issue, when Foucault was lecturing, and it is perhaps not coincidental that he should devote so much space to the examination of pastoralism. But not the border. The point is not to suggest that Foucault’s work evolved in close,

Humanitarian Government

Before I address the question of the humanitarian border, it is necessary to explain what I understand by the humanitarian. Here my thinking has been shaped by recent work that engages the humanitarian not as a set of ideas and ideologies, nor simply as the activity of certain nongovernmental actors and organizations, but as a complex domain possessing specific forms of governmental reason. Fassin’s work on this theme is particularly important. Fassin demonstrates that humanitarianism can be fruitfully connected to the broader field of government which Foucault outlined, where government is not a necessary attribute of states but a rationalized activity than can be carried out by all sorts of agents, in various contexts, and towards multiple ends. At its core, ”Humanitarian government can be defined as the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle which sees the preservation of life and the alleviation of suffering as the highest value of action” (Fassin 2007: 151). As he goes on to stress, the value of such a definition is that we do not see a particular state, or a non-state form such as a nongovernmental organization, as the necessary agent of humanitarian action. Instead, it becomes possible to think in terms of a complex assemblage, comprising particular forms of humanitarian.reason, specific forms of authority (medical, legal, spiritual) but also certain technologies of government – such as mechanisms for raising funds and training volunteers, administering aid and shelter, documenting injustice, and publicizing abuse. Seen from this angle humanitarianism appears as a much more supple, protean thing. Crucially, it opens up our ability to perceive ”a broader political and moral logic at work both within and outside state forms” (ibid.).

If the humanitarian can be situated in relation to the analytics of government, it can also be contextualized in relation to the biopolitical. ”Not only did the last century see the emergence of regimes committed to the physical destruction of populations,” observes Redfield, ”but also of entities devoted to monitoring and assisting populations in maintaining their physical existence, even while protesting the necessity of such an action and the failure of anyone to do much more than this bare minimum” (2005: 329). It is this ”minimalist biopolitics,” as Redfield puts it, that will be so characteristic of the humanitarian. And here the accent should be placed on the adjective “minimalist” if we are not to commit the kind of move which I criticized above, namely collapsing everything new into existing Foucauldian categories. It is important to regard contemporary humanitarianism as a novel formation and a site of ambivalence and undecideability, and not just as one more instance of what Hardt and Negri (2000) might call global “biopolitical production.”The Birth of the Humanitarian Border

In a press release issued on June 29, 2007, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) publicized a visit which its then Director General, Brunson McKinley, was about to make to a ”reception centre for migrants” on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa (IOM 2007). The Director General is quoted as saying: ”Many more boats will probably arrive on Lampedusa over the summer with their desperate human cargo and we have to ensure we can adequately respond to their immediate needs.... This is why IOM will continue to work closely with the Italian government, the Italian Red Cross, UNHCR and other partners to provide appropriate humanitarian responses to irregular migrants and asylum seekers reaching the island.”

The same press release observes that IOM’s work with its ”partners” was part of a wider effort to improve the administration of the ”reception” (the word ”detention” is conspicuously absent) and ”repatriation” of ”irregular migrants” in Italy. Reception centers were being expanded, and problems of overcrowding alleviated. The statement goes on to observe that IOM had opened its office on Lampedusa in April 2006. Since that time ”Forced returns from Lampedusa [had] stopped.”

Lampedusa is a small Italian island located some 200 km south of Sicily and 300 km to the north of Libya. Its geographical location provides a clue as to how it is that in 2004 this Italian outpost first entered the spotlight of European and even world public attention, becoming a potent signifier for anxieties about an international migration crisis (Andrijasevic 2006). For it was then that this Italian holiday destination became the main point of arrival for boats carrying migrants from Libya to Italy. That year more than 10,000 migrants are reported to have passed through the ”temporary stay and assistance centre” (CPTA) the Italian state maintains on the island. The vast majority had arrived in overcrowded, makeshift boats after a perilous sea journey lasting up to several weeks. Usually these boats

are intercepted in Italian waters by the Italian border guards and the migrants transferred to the holding center on the island. Following detention, which can last for more than a month, they are either transferred to other CPTAs in Sicily and southern Italy, or expelled to Libya.Finally, there is a point to be made about humanitarianism, power and order. Those looking to locate contemporary humanitarianism within a bigger picture would perhaps follow the lead of Hardt and Negri. As these theorists of ”Empire” see things, NGOs like Amnesty International and Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) are, contrary to their own best intentions, implicated in global order. As agents of ”moral intervention” who, because they participate in the construction of emergency, ”prefigure the state of exception from below,” these actors serve as the preeminent ”frontline force of imperial intervention.” As such, Hardt and Negri see humanitarianism as ”completely immersed in the biopolitical context of the constitution of Empire” (Hardt and Negri 2000: 36).Humanitarianism, Borders, Politics

Foucauldian writing about borders has mirrored the wider field of governmentality studies in at least one respect. While it has produced some fascinating and insightful accounts of contemporary strategies and technologies of border-making and border policing, it has tended to confine its attention to official and often state-sanctioned projects. Political dynamics and political acts have certainly not been ignored. But little attention has been paid to the possibility that politics and resistance operate not just in an extrinsic relationship to contemporary regimes, but within them.12 To date this literature has largely failed to view politics as something constitutive and productive of border regimes and technologies. That is to say, there is little appreciation of the ways in which movements of opposition, and those particular kinds of resistance which Foucault calls ”counter conduct,” can operate not externally to modes of bordering but by means of ”a series of exchanges” and ”reciprocal supports” (Foucault 2007: 355).

There is a certain paradox involved when we speak of Foucault and frontiers. In certain key respects it could be said that Foucault is one of our most eminent and original theorists of bordering. For at the heart of one of his most widely read works – namely Discipline and Punish – what does one

find if not the question of power and how its modalities should be studied by focusing on practices of partitionment, segmentation, division, enclosure; practices that will underpin the ordering and policing of ever more aspects of the life of populations from the nineteenth century onwards. But while Foucault is interested in a range of practices which clearly pertain to the question of bordering understood in a somewhat general sense, one thing the reading of his lectures on security, governmentality and biopolitics reveals is that he had little to say explicitly about the specific forms of bordering associated with the government of the state. To put it differently, Foucault dealt at length with what we might call the microphysics of bordering, but much less with the place of borders considered at the level of tactics and strategies of governmentality.Recent literature has begun to address this imbalance, demonstrating that many of Foucault’s concepts are useful and important for understanding what kinds of power relations and governmental regimes are at stake in contemporary projects which are re-making state borders amidst renewed political concerns over things like terrorism and illegal immigration. However, the overarching theme of this chapter has been the need for caution when linking Foucault’s concepts to the study of borders and frontiers today. While analytics like biopolitics, discipline and neoliberalism offer all manner of insights, we need to avoid the trap which sees Foucault’s toolbox as something ready-made for any given situation. The challenge of understanding the emergent requires the development of new theoretical tools, not to mention the sharpening of older, well-used implements. With this end in mind the chapter has proposed the idea of the humanitarian border as a way of registering an event within the genealogy of the frontier, but also, although I have not developed it here, within the genealogy of citizenship.

 

What I have presented previously is only a very cursory overview of certain features of the humanitarianization of borders, most notably its inscription within regimes of knowledge, and its constitutive relationship to politics. In future research it would be interesting to undertake a fuller mapping of the humanitarian border in relation to certain trajectories of government. While we saw how themes of biopolitical and neoliberal government are pertinent in understanding the contemporary management of spaces like the detention center, it would seem especially relevant to consider the salience of pastoralism. Pastoral power has received far less attention within studies of governmentality than, say, discipline or liberal government (but see Dean 1999; Golder 2007; Hindess 1996; Lippert 2004). But here again, I suspect, it will be important to revise our concepts in the light of emergent practices and rationalities. For the ways in which NGOs and humanitarians engage in the governance of migrants and refugees today have changed quite significantly from the kinds of networks of care, self-examination and salvation which Foucault identified with pastoralism. For instance, and to take but one example, the pastoral care of migrants, whether in situations of sanctuary or detention, is not organized as a life-encompassing, permanent activity as it was for the church, or later, in a secular version, the welfare state. Instead, it is a temporary and ad hoc intervention. Just as Foucault’s notion of neo-liberalism was intended to register important transformations within the genealogy of liberal government, it may prove useful to think in terms of the neo-pastoral when we try to make better sense of the phenomenon of humanitarian government at/of borders, and of many other situations as well.

williamwalters.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2011-Foucau...

“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.”

Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

(Bronica SQ w/ Portra 400)

Male African Lion (Panthera leo leo) in Burgers Safari, part of Burgers Zoo, the Netherlands.

The mane of the adult male lion, unique among cats, is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the species. It makes the lion appear larger, providing an excellent intimidation display; this aids the lion during confrontations with other lions and with the species' chief competitor in Africa, the spotted hyena.

The presence, absence, color, and size of the mane is associated with genetic precondition, sexual maturity, climate, and testosterone production; the rule of thumb is the darker and fuller the mane, the healthier the lion.

Sexual selection of mates by lionesses favors males with the densest, darkest mane.

 

Afrikaanse mannetjesleeuw (Panthera leo leo) in Burgers Safari, deel van Burgers Zoo in Arnhem.

De leeuw is de enige kattensoort, waarvan de vrouwtjes en mannetjes er heel anders uitzien. De volwassen mannetjes hebben imponerende manen, de vrouwtjes niet.

Jonge leeuwen (welpjes) krijgen vanaf hun derde jaar manen. Wanneer ze manen krijgen betekent dat ze de groep moeten verlaten en op eigen benen moeten staan.

Deze manen zijn eerst lichtbruin van kleur. Hoe ouder de leeuw wordt hoe donkerder zijn manen worden. De manen kunnen zelfs bijna zwart worden.

De manen van de leeuw kunnen 20 tot 30 cm lang worden.

Uit recent onderzoek is gebleken dat de manen informatie bieden over de gezondheidstoestand van de leeuw. Donkere en indrukwekkende manen zouden een teken zijn van ervaring en van lichamelijke kracht. Leeuwinnen kiezen daarom vaker een leeuw met dergelijke manen als vader voor hun kleintjes.

De leeuwinnen denken: Wauw, die heeft veel manen! Wat een sterk en lekker ding!______________________________________________________________________

 

All rights reserved. Copyright © Martien Uiterweerd. All my images are protected under international authors copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without my written explicit permission.

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

 

Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Four across panorama plus five each for HDR. Processed in Photomatix then Photoshop.

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium (or MBA, founded 1984) is located on the former site of a sardine cannery on Cannery Row of the Pacific Ocean shoreline in Monterey, California. It has an annual attendance of 1.8 million visitors. It holds thousands of plants and animals, representing 623 separate named species on display. The aquarium benefits by a high circulation of fresh ocean water which is obtained through pipes which pump it in continuously from Monterey Bay.

 

Among the aquarium's numerous exhibits, two are of particular note: The centerpiece of the Ocean's Edge Wing is a 10 meter (33-foot) high 1.3 million liter (1/3 million gallon) tank for viewing California coastal marine life. In this tank, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow live California Giant Kelp using a wave machine at the top of the tank (water movement is a necessary precondition for keeping Giant Kelp, which absorbs nutrients from surrounding water and requires turbidity), allowing sunlight in through the open tank top, and circulation of raw seawater from the Bay. The second exhibit of note is a 4.5 million liter (1.2 million gallon) tank in the Open Sea galleries (formerly the Outer Bay), which features one of the world's largest single-paned windows (crafted by a Japanese company, the acrylic window is actually five panes seamlessly glued together through a proprietary process).[1]

 

Sealife on exhibit includes stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters, and numerous other native marine species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is also one of only two aquariums in the world to exhibit bluefin and yellowfin tuna (the other is Aquamarine Fukushima in Japan). For displaying jellyfish, the MBA uses an aquarium called a Kreisel tank which creates a circular flow to support and suspend the jellies. Visitors are able to inspect the creatures of the kelp forest at several levels in the building. The aquarium does not house mammals other than otters.

 

The province of Zeeland has a coastline of 650 kilometers. In Waterdunen, the interplay between water and land is expressed. Waterdunen is an icon for Zeeland and proof that Zeeland is dealing with water differently today. Waterdunen is a delta work. But it is different from the delta works that we know as big works to protect Zeeland from the water. Waterdunen combines nature, recreation and tidal effects in an innovative coastal reinforcement with safety as a precondition.

The walk runs for a large part in the former polders and also goes partly through the dunes. This is where the river Schelde flows into the North Sea, a busy shipping route that leads to the port of Antwerp (Belgium). On the other side lies Flushing

  

All the photos and editing by me.

 

Prints available on my website HERE.

 

A little tribute to René Magritte, the famous Belgian surrealist artist. His work challenges observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality, which makes it particularly interesting in my opinion. Here, I chose to depict an imagined muse, who symbolizes Magritte's passion for creative expression and breaking free of constraints. Once again, my dear wife accepted to pose for me, while I photographed myself with a bowler hat for the silhouette.

 

Oh, and the apple ended her career in a delicious crumble!

The habitat of the lynx is one of wide-spreading forest land offering it sufficient cover and enough prey. Lynxes are solitary hunters with a very wide radius of action of up to a hundred square kilometres. They only move to conquer fresh terrain if these are directly connected to their existing ones – in this they differ from wolves who can settle in completely new areas. Unbroken stretches of country and plentiful food are preconditions for the survival of lynxes.

Male African Lion (Panthera leo) in Burgers Safari, part of Burgers Zoo, the Netherlands.

The mane of the adult male lion, unique among cats, is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the species. It makes the lion appear larger, providing an excellent intimidation display; this aids the lion during confrontations with other lions and with the species' chief competitor in Africa, the spotted hyena.

The presence, absence, color, and size of the mane is associated with genetic precondition, sexual maturity, climate, and testosterone production; the rule of thumb is the darker and fuller the mane, the healthier the lion.

Sexual selection of mates by lionesses favors males with the densest, darkest mane.

 

Afrikaanse mannetjesleeuw in Burgers Safari, deel van Burgers Zoo in Arnhem

De leeuw is de enige kattensoort, waarvan de vrouwtjes en mannetjes er heel anders uitzien. De volwassen mannetjes hebben imponerende manen, de vrouwtjes niet.

Jonge leeuwen (welpjes) krijgen vanaf hun derde jaar manen. Wanneer ze manen krijgen betekent dat ze de groep moeten verlaten en op eigen benen moeten staan.

Deze manen zijn eerst lichtbruin van kleur. Hoe ouder de leeuw wordt hoe donkerder zijn manen worden. De manen kunnen zelfs bijna zwart worden.

De manen van de leeuw kunnen 20 tot 30 cm lang worden.

Uit recent onderzoek is gebleken dat de manen informatie bieden over de gezondheidstoestand van de leeuw. Donkere en indrukwekkende manen zouden een teken zijn van ervaring en van lichamelijke kracht. Leeuwinnen kiezen daarom vaker een leeuw met dergelijke manen als vader voor hun kleintjes.

De leeuwinnen denken: Wauw, die heeft veel manen! Wat een sterk en lekker ding!______________________________________________________________________

 

All rights reserved. Copyright © Martien Uiterweerd. All my images are protected under international authors copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without my written explicit permission.

______________________________________________________________________

Unity is the precondition for rejoicing love, freedom, peace and happiness.

 

গহীন হৃদয়ে

মোরা এক দেহের পাখী

হাতে হাত রাখি!

- হাইকু/ সংগতি/ শাহজাহান সিরাজ (

Bengali Haiku and Photography by: Shahjahan Siraj​ )

 

#unity #love #couple #nature #yin #yong #tao #zen #momiji #taozenphotography #photooftheday #artphotography #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #blackandwhiteartphotography #poeticphotography #photographyislife #fineartphotography #finearephotographer #conceptualphotography #beauty #freedom #peace #haiku #poetry #bengali #artisticphotography #emotive #artofvisuals #tokyocameraclub

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaterialism

 

Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is the monistic metaphysical doctrine that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do not exist.

 

It is the contrary of eliminative materialism, the doctrine that only material things, and no mental things, exist.

 

Subjective idealism: This form of idealism is "subjective" not because it denies that there is an objective reality, but because it asserts that this reality is completely dependent upon the minds of the subjects that perceive it.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

Kant believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience, as are our concepts of cause and effect. One important consequence of this view is that one never hasdirect experience of things, the so-called noumenalworld, and that what we do experience is thephenomenal world as conveyed by our senses.

  

Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical andrationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions.

  

The notion of the "thing in itself" was much discussed by those who came after Kant. It was argued that since the "thing in itself" was unknowable its existence could not simply be assumed. Rather than arbitrarily switching to an account that was ungrounded in anything supposed to be the "real," as did the German Idealists, another group arose to ask how our (presumably reliable) accounts of a coherent and rule-abiding universe were actually grounded. This new kind of philosophy became known as Phenomenology, and its founder was Edmund Husserl.

  

Kant, however, contests this: he claims that elementary mathematics, like arithmetic, is synthetic a priori, in that its statements provide new knowledge, but knowledge that is not derived from experience. This becomes part of his over-all argument for transcendental idealism. That is, he argues that the possibility of experience depends on certain necessary conditions — which he calls a priori forms — and that these conditions structure and hold true of the world of experience. In so doing, his main claims in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" are that mathematic judgments are synthetic a priori and in addition, that Space and Time are not derived from experience but rather are its preconditions.

  

Kant asserts that experience is based both upon the perception of external objects and a priori knowledge.[39] The external world, he writes, provides those things that we sense. It is our mind, though, that processes this information about the world and gives it order, allowing us to comprehend it. Our mind supplies the conditions of space and time to experience objects. According to the "transcendental unity of apperception", the concepts of the mind (Understanding) and the perceptions or intuitions that garner information from phenomena (Sensibility) are synthesized by comprehension. Without the concepts, intuitions are nondescript; without the intuitions, concepts are meaningless — thus the famous statement, "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."

Judgments are, for Kant, the preconditions of any thought. Man thinks via judgments, so all possible judgments must be listed and the perceptions connected within them put aside, so as to make it possible to examine the moments when the understanding is engaged in constructing judgments.

Kant ran into a problem with his theory that the mind plays a part in producing objective knowledge. Intuitions and categories are entirely disparate, so how can they interact? Kant's solution is the schema: a priori principles by which the transcendental imagination connects concepts with intuitions through time. All the principles are temporally bound, for if a concept is purely a priori, as the categories are, then they must apply for all times. Hence there are principles such as substance is that which endures through time, and the cause must always be prior to the effect

Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that directly (and therefore without any obvious causal link) comprehends the things as they are in and of themselves.

Xenophanes of Colophon in 530 BC anticipated Kant's epistemology in his reflections on certainty. "And as for certain truth, no man has seen it, nor will there ever be a man who knows about the gods and about all the things I mention.

Briefly, Schopenhauer described transcendental idealism as a "distinction between the phenomenon and the thing in itself, and a recognition that only the phenomenon is accessible to us because "we do not know either ourselves or things as they are in themselves, but merely as they appear."[4] Some of Schopenhauer's comments on the definition of the word "transcendental" are as follows:

Transcendental is the philosophy that makes us aware of the fact that the first and essential laws of this world that are presented to us are rooted in our brain and are therefore known a priori. It is called transcendental because it goes beyond the whole given phantasmagoria to the origin thereof. Therefore, as I have said, only the Critique of Pure Reason and generally the critical (that is to say, Kantian) philosophy are transcendental.

Realism can also be promoted in an unqualified sense, in which case it asserts the mind-independent existence of a visible world, as opposed to skepticism and solipsism. Philosophers who profess realism state that truth consists in the mind's correspondence to reality.[1]

Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality.[2] In its Kantian sense, realism is contrasted with idealism. In a contemporary sense, realism is contrasted with anti-realism, primarily in the philosophy of science.

Naïve realism[edit]

Naïve realism, also known as direct realism, is a philosophy of mind rooted in a common sense theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, some forms of idealism assert that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas and some forms of skepticism say we cannot trust our senses. The realist view is that objects are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly. We perceive them as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them

  

Stuckists claim that conceptual art is justified by the work of Marcel Duchamp, but that Duchamp's work is "anti-art by intent and effect". The Stuckists feel that "Duchamp's work was a protest against the stale, unthinking artistic establishment of his day", while "the great (but wholly unintentional) irony of postmodernism is that it is a direct equivalent of the conformist, unoriginal establishment that Duchamp attacked in the first place"

  

Obscurantism (French: obscurantisme, from the Latin obscurans, "darkening") is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two common historical and intellectual denotations to Obscurantism: (1) deliberately restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the public; and, (2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness.

Fast of the Firstborn

 

Fast day in Judaism, preceding Passover

 

Fast of the Firstborn (Hebrew: תענית בכורות, Ta'anit B'khorot or תענית בכורים, Ta'anit B'khorim) is a unique fast day in Judaism which usually falls on the day before Passover (i.e., the fourteenth day of Nisan, a month in the Jewish calendar; Passover begins on the fifteenth of Nisan). In modern times, the fast is usually broken at a siyum celebration (typically made at the conclusion of the morning services), which, according to prevailing custom, creates an atmosphere of rejoicing that overrides the requirement to continue the fast (see Breaking the fast below). Unlike all other Jewish fast days, only firstborn children are required to fast on the Fast of the Firstborn.

 

Quick Facts Official name, Observed by ...

This fast commemorates the salvation of the Israelite firstborns during the Plague of the Firstborn (according to the Book of Exodus, the tenth of the ten plagues wrought upon Ancient Egypt prior to the Exodus of the Children of Israel), when, according to Exodus (12:29): "...God struck every firstborn in the Land of Mitzrayim (Ancient Egypt)...."

 

Origins

The primary source quoted for this custom is Tractate Soferim 21:3, where it is stated that firstborns fast "in commemoration of the miracle that they were saved from the Plague of the Firstborn". Asher ben Jehiel and Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen quotes the Jerusalem Talmud as an additional source for the fast, though the same passage can also be understood to mean that firstborns do not fast.

 

The Shulchan Aruch records the custom of fasting. However, Moses Isserles records that some people instead "redeem" the fast. Later commentaries suggest that this redemption could be done by holding a siyum or by giving charity. Yosef Eliyahu Henkin suggested that since the custom is absent from the Babylonian Talmud, it is not universally binding but rather depends on current practice, allowing the current practice of replacing the fast with a siyum or charity (Henkin preferred charity).

 

Meaning of the fast

Fasts in Judaism can have a number of purposes, including atonement for sins; commemorative mourning, and commemorative gratitude (see Ta'anit).

 

The Fast of the Firstborn incorporates commemorative gratitude for salvation from the Plague of the Firstborn, as detailed above.

 

According to Rabbi Jacob Emden, the Fast of the Firstborn also commemorates the salvation of the Jews from the plot of Haman. This is because Haman advanced his plot on the thirteenth of Nisan, and Esther reacted by instructing all Jews of Susa to undertake a three-day fast beginning the next day, the fourteenth of Nisan. For this reason, even some non-firstborns maintain the custom of fasting on the fourteenth of Nisan.[citation needed]

 

According to Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the Fast of the Firstborn also includes an aspect of mourning: firstborns fast to mourn the loss of their priestly status which had initially been granted them on the fourteenth of Nisan. Furthermore, during the Temple period, this loss was most profoundly felt on the fourteenth of Nisan, which was the busiest day of the year for the kohenim and Levites.

 

Yehuda Grünwald, the rabbi of Satu Mare and student of Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, suggests that the firstborn Israelites fasted in trepidation in advance of the Plague of the Firstborn; despite a divine guarantee of safety, they felt a need to fast in repentance to achieve greater divine protection. Grunwald thus posits that this was the precedent for the Fast of the Firstborn.

 

Qualifications for fasting

There is disagreement among the early halakhic authorities (authoritative scholars of Jewish law) as to who qualifies as a firstborn for purposes of the Fast of the Firstborn. All authorities agree, however, to the conditions of halakhic adulthood (generally speaking, this is 12 years for a female and 13 years for a male) and sanity, preconditions for all positive mitzvot, to obligate one to fast. (Other rare conditions, such as deaf-muteness, also exempt one from positive mitzvot).[citation needed]

 

According to Joel Sirkis, Alexander Suslin, and arguably Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, both men and women are obligated to fast. This is based upon the midrash, which states that both men and women among the firstborn Egyptians perished in the plague. Following a precedent common in Jewish commemorative rituals, the above authorities ruled that all those who were miraculously saved should participate in commemoration (see also Pesahim 108b). Since both men and women died from the plague, all firstborn Jewish men and women alive at that time are considered to have been miraculously saved. Moses Isserles and the Vilna Gaon rule that women are exempt from the fast. As the Book of Exodus (13:12–15) mentions the biblical commandment of Redemption of the Firstborn as commemorative of the salvation of Jewish firstborns in Egypt, and as this command only applies to firstborn males, Isserlies and the Vilna Gaon rule similarly that only males are obligated to fast. Common practice is that only males fast.[citation needed]

 

While a firstborn to both parents, or a firstborn to only the mother, must fast according to all authorities, there is a dispute among the early halakhic authorities regarding the status of a firstborn to only the father. The Shulchan Aruch codifies that a firstborn to only the father is obligated to fast, while most printings of the Arba'ah Turim indicate that such a person would be exempt. Common practice follows the Shulchan Aruch.[citation needed]

 

Typically, if the oldest in the family died, the next oldest is not required to fast. However, if the oldest child had died within 30 days of birth, the next oldest is required to fast. Yechezkel Landau maintains that this only applies if the oldest child had been born prematurely or was not born viable.[citation needed]

 

Many authorities, including Isserlies, note the custom that the father of a firstborn should fast on his child's behalf until the child reaches halakhic adulthood. The Rema rules that if the father is a firstborn himself, the mother should fast on behalf of the child. The Mateh Moshe and Yaakov ben Moshe dispute this and rule in such a scenario that the mother need not fast. Avraham Gombiner ruled that it is appropriate to follow the lenient opinion if fasting causes the mother excessive discomfort or if she is pregnant or nursing, but he adds that a mother who begins following the former opinion must maintain that custom and fast in subsequent years.[citation needed]

 

Jacob ben Joseph Reischer ruled that the above-cited custom of the father fasting for the child goes into effect as soon as the child is born, except where the child is born after chatzot ha'laila (halakhic midnight, which generally corresponds to solar midnight) on the 14th of Nisan of that year. (Since the child had not yet been born by the equivalent time that the Plague of the Firstborn had occurred in Egypt, the father need not fast for his child until the following year) Nathaniel Weil disagreed. He wrote that the custom only goes into effect from the time the child is 30 days old. This relates, again, to the command to redeem the firstborn, which does not go into effect until the child is 30 days old.[citation needed]

 

There is some discussion among the posqim (halakhic authorities) regarding whether a firstborn born through caesarean section is required to observe this fast, given that he is not obligated in the Redemption of the Firstborn. Jacob Reischer (470:2) suggests that such a firstborn may be required to fast, while Yaakov Chaim Sofer (470:3) rules that he need not fast. To circumvent this question, as well as a dispute regarding a firstborn proselyte, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv suggests that such firstborns participate in a seudat mitzvah.

 

Duration of the fast

As with most Jewish fast days, the fast begins at dawn. The common practice is that it is subsequently broken in the morning at a seudat mitzvah (celebratory meal) following a siyum. If the fast is not broken at a seudat mitzvah, there is a dispute among halakhic authorities regarding the duration of the fast. Normally, all Jewish fasts continue until nightfall (most authorities rule that this is somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes after sunset, but varies by location and time of year). However, the presence of a fast immediately before a holiday presents a unique quandary. Normally, one may not enter a Shabbat (Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath) or Yom Tov (festival) in a state of fasting. The Talmud (Eruvin 41a) discusses what one should do when a formal fast day (other than Yom Kippur) falls directly before Shabbat or Yom Tov. The sages of the Talmud are divided over two options: Either one should break the fast shortly before sundown, or one should fast through nightfall, regardless. Since the Talmud arrives at no clear conclusion, disagreement arose among halakhic authorities. The Maharil rules that the fast continues until nightfall, while others rule that it should be broken before sundown.[citation needed]

 

Breaking the fast

In modern times, however, this fast is rarely observed, as most firstborns opt to attend a siyum (festive meal celebrating the completion of a tractate of the Talmud) instead. This is considered a legitimate form of "breaking" the fast, and therefore the firstborn may eat during the rest of the day.

 

The Mishnah Berurah quotes three opinions regarding circumstances in which the fast may be broken. According to the first, a healthy individual must fast if he can sustain the fast without undue suffering and without any subsequent weakening that would affect his ability or inclination to heartily partake of his Passover Seder meal (and specifically the matzah). (If one is obligated to partake of a festive meal that day, such as if he is the father of an infant on the day of circumcision, this opinion requires him to undertake a reciprocal fast at the soonest opportunity.) According to the second custom (quoted by the Magen Avraham in the name of the Maharash Levi), the fast may be broken at any festive meal celebrating a circumcision or a redemption of the firstborn. According to the third custom, based upon the Maharshal, the fast may even be broken at a seudat mitzvah for a siyum celebrating the completion of study of a tractate of Talmud. The latter custom is commonly observed.

 

If a firstborn attending a siyum does not hear the completion of the tractate, or if he does not understand what he hears, or if he is in the shiva period of mourning and is thus forbidden from listening to the Torah material being taught, some authorities rule that subsequent eating would not qualify as a seudat mitzvah and he would therefore be forbidden to break his fast. Other authorities allow a firstborn to break his fast under such circumstances. The Minchas Yitzchak (ibid.) suggests that a firstborn in such a position should at least try to contribute to the siyum in some way, such as by sponsoring or helping to prepare the meal.[citation needed]

 

In order to break one's fast on a seudat mitzvah, many authorities rule that one must partake of at least a kotevet of food (around 1.5 to 2 oz.) or a melo lugmav of liquid (at least around 1.7 oz.) at the seudah. Other authorities rule that a firstborn need not eat anything at the siyum itself, and that he may break his fast anytime after the siyum.

 

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein extends the possibility of breaking the fast to include even breaking it at a festive meal celebrating the completion of any mitzvah that required regular, continual involvement. According to these authorities, such a meal would be considered a seudat mitzvah of adequate caliber to exempt one from continuing the fast.[citation needed]

 

Additionally, the Mordechai quotes the ruling of his father-in-law Rabbeinu Yechiel that firstborns need not fast at all on the day before Passover; firstborns need only limit their diet to snacks. (The Bigdei Yesha commentary suggests the rationale behind this ruling was to avoid holding a fast during the month of Nisan, which is generally prohibited.) The Mishnah Berurah states that it is appropriate for a weak individual to follow this ruling.[citation needed]

 

Nevertheless, there are communities, including many North African communities and the Sephardic community in Amsterdam, where the firstborns do fast.

 

When Passover begins after Shabbat

If the eve of Passover is on Shabbat, many authorities rule that the fast is not observed at all, which is common practice in Sephardic communities. Others fast on the previous Thursday, which is common practice in Ashkenazi communities. This is because it is forbidden to fast on Shabbat except when Yom Kippur falls on it, and fasts are preferably not set for Friday.

 

In such a scenario, the ritual of Bedikat Chametz (the formal search for forbidden leaven that is conducted before Passover) is set for Thursday night. Normally, it is forbidden to eat (starting from nightfall) before conducting the Bedikat Chametz. However, for a firstborn who is fatigued or uncomfortable from the fast, the Mateh Moshe and Yaakov Moelin rule that some food may be eaten before the search or that another person may be appointed to perform the search on behalf of the firstborn.[citation needed]

 

Moshe Feinstein (OC 4:69:4) raises the possibility, based on Isserlies that one who breaks the adjusted Thursday fast might be required to fast on Friday, as perhaps the fast is considered to have been moved to whichever earlier day is more appropriate, and not to Thursday specifically. Since many opinions dispute Isserlies, Feinstein wrote that practically speaking, one should not fast on Friday in such circumstances. This rationale may be based on Nathaniel Weil, who wrote that excessive strictures regarding keeping the Fast of the Firstborn should not come at the expense of possibly fasting unnecessarily during the month of Nisan.[citation needed]

 

The above halakhic quandary is avoided completely if a firstborn fasts the entire day on Thursday. However, Rabbi Feinstein makes no mention of this requirement. For a firstborn who eats on Thursday to comply with the ruling of Issserlies, the Piskei T'shuvot suggests participating in a second siyum on Friday, while Tzvi Pesach Frank suggests partaking on Friday of leftovers from the previous day's siyum.

 

Status of the fast

In halakha, there are two general types of fast: the communal fast and the individual fast. Among other differences between the two, a special prayer is added by the hazzan or prayer leader on communal fasts whenever both ten fasting individuals congregate and the hazzan is fasting. While Avraham Gombiner treats the fast as an individual's fast, the Chaim Benveniste, Hezekiah da Silva, and Isaac ben Moses of Vienna view it as a communal fast. To avoid the practical implications of the controversy, the Mishnah Berurah suggests that a firstborn should not serve as Chazzan on the day of the fast.

 

Additionally, this fast differs from many other fasts established in the Jewish calendar in that this fast is not indicated in the Tanakh. This lessens the severity of the fast, and someone who experiences significant discomfort as a result of fasting may break his fast (Mishnah Berurah, based on Isserlies).

 

Modern practice

The custom of the Fast of the Firstborn is today observed nearly universally throughout Orthodox Ashkenazic communities. However, some Sefardic and Mizrahi communities have not fully adopted the custom.[citation needed] It is not traditionally observed by Yemenite Jews and its practice was discouraged by Moroccan-Israeli rabbi Joseph Messas.

 

Amongst Conservative Jews, the custom is endorsed by various communities and cited positively in their response.

 

Jacob Petuchowski at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, taught that Tsom B'chorot was the clearest example of a fast with a moral, social action message. Concern for life, even the lives of enemies and oppressors, is the reason for the fast.[citation needed]

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

This tragicomic portrait shows a clownish man with blue lips and a red nose. He smokes several pipes while others sprout from his forehead, eye and beard. Magritte called the seemingly juvenile picture 'The Cripple', a grim reminder of WWII that, in 1948, had only recently ended. Pipes and clocks....surrealist symbols that the artist had taken up early in his career...are rendered here with loose broad brushstrokes. Appearing to have been hastily painted, the canvas parodies Magritte's careful, philosophical work of the previous two decades.

 

The Magritte original painting was seen and photographed at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

Among his most recognizable images 'The Son of Man', painted in 1964, is one of just four oil paintings that the artist identified as a self-portrait. The apple, illustrated here, is confounding in its placement, hovering and evocatively revealing a corner of an eye while concealing the rest of the face. A persistent tension is maintained by our desire to see what is hidden, even as we may imagine that we know who or what is there.

 

This painting, seen and photographed at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, is one of Magritte's bowler hat series.

The bowler hat theme appears more than 50 times in his work between 1926 and 1966, making it one of the motifs for which the Belgian Surrealist is best known.

The lion's mane is the most recognizable feature of the species. It starts growing when lions are about a year old. Mane colour varies and darkens with age; research shows its colour and size are influenced by environmental factors such as average ambient temperature. Mane length apparently signals fighting success in male-male relationships; darker-maned individuals may have longer reproductive lives and higher offspring survival, although they suffer in the hottest months of the year. The presence, absence, colour and size of the mane are associated with genetic precondition, sexual maturity, climate and testosterone production; the rule of thumb is that a darker, fuller mane indicates a healthier animal. The main purpose of the mane is thought to be the protection of the neck and throat in territorial fights with rivals.

=========

Info source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion

Rudolf Steiner

Steiner um 1905.jpg

BornRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

27 (25?) February 1861

Murakirály, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (now Donji Kraljevec, Croatia)

Died30 March 1925 (aged 64)

Dornach, Switzerland

Alma materVienna Institute of Technology

University of Rostock (PhD, 1891)

Spouse(s)

Anna Eunicke (1899–1911)

Marie Steiner-von Sivers (1914–1925)

Era20th-century philosophy

RegionWestern philosophy

SchoolMonism

Holism in science

Goethean science

Anthroposophy

Main interests

Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, esotericism, Christianity

Notable ideas

Anthroposophy, anthroposophical medicine, biodynamic agriculture, eurythmy, spiritual science, Waldorf education, holism in science

Influences[show]

Influenced[show]

Steiner Seven Apocalyptical Seals Transparent.png

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vte

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 (or 25) February 1861[5] – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist.[6][7] Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published philosophical works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy; other influences include Goethean science and Rosicrucianism.[8]

 

In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality.[9] His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,[10]:291 differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, the movement arts (developing a new artistic form, eurythmy) and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts.[11] In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked to establish various practical endeavors, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture,[12] and anthroposophical medicine.[13]

 

Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, in which "Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas."[14] A consistent thread that runs from his earliest philosophical phase through his later spiritual orientation is the goal of demonstrating that there are no essential limits to human knowledge.[15]

  

Contents

1Biography

1.1Childhood and education

1.2Early spiritual experiences

1.3Writer and philosopher

1.4Theosophical Society

1.5Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities

1.6Political engagement and social agenda

1.7Attacks, illness, and death

1.8Spiritual research

1.9Esoteric schools

2Breadth of activity

2.1Education

2.2Biodynamic agriculture

2.3Anthroposophical medicine

2.4Social reform

2.5Architecture and visual arts

2.6Performing arts

3Philosophical ideas

3.1Goethean science

3.2Knowledge and freedom

3.3Spiritual science

3.4Steiner and Christianity

3.4.1Christ and human evolution

3.4.2Divergence from conventional Christian thought

3.4.3The Christian Community

4Reception

4.1Scientism

4.2Race and ethnicity

4.2.1Judaism

5Writings (selection)

6See also

7References

8Further reading

9External links

Biography[edit]

Childhood and education[edit]

 

The house where Rudolf Steiner was born, in present-day Croatia

Steiner's father, Johann(es) Steiner (1829–1910), left a position as a gamekeeper[16] in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras, northeast Lower Austria to marry one of the Hoyos family's housemaids, Franziska Blie (1834 Horn – 1918, Horn), a marriage for which the Count had refused his permission. Johann became a telegraph operator on the Southern Austrian Railway, and at the time of Rudolf's birth was stationed in Murakirály (Kraljevec) in the Muraköz region of the Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (present-day Donji Kraljevec in the Međimurje region of northernmost Croatia). In the first two years of Rudolf's life, the family moved twice, first to Mödling, near Vienna, and then, through the promotion of his father to stationmaster, to Pottschach, located in the foothills of the eastern Austrian Alps in Lower Austria.[13]

 

Steiner entered the village school, but following a disagreement between his father and the schoolmaster, he was briefly educated at home. In 1869, when Steiner was eight years old, the family moved to the village of Neudörfl and in October 1872 Steiner proceeded from the village school there to the realschule in Wiener Neustadt.[17]:Chap. 2

  

Rudolf Steiner, graduation photo from secondary school

In 1879, the family moved to Inzersdorf to enable Steiner to attend the Vienna Institute of Technology,[18] where he enrolled in courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and mineralogy and audited courses in literature and philosophy, on an academic scholarship from 1879 to 1883, at the end of which time he withdrew from the Institute without graduating.[2]:122,443,446,456,503[19]:29 In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers, Karl Julius Schröer,[17]:Chap. 3 suggested Steiner's name to Joseph Kürschner, chief editor of a new edition of Goethe's works,[20] who asked Steiner to become the edition's natural science editor,[21] a truly astonishing opportunity for a young student without any form of academic credentials or previous publications.[19]:43

 

Before attending the Vienna Institute of Technology, Steiner had studied Kant, Fichte and Schelling.[22]

 

Early spiritual experiences[edit]

 

Rudolf Steiner as 21-year-old student (1882)

When he was nine years old, Steiner believed that he saw the spirit of an aunt who had died in a far-off town asking him to help her at a time when neither he nor his family knew of the woman's death.[23] Steiner later related that as a child he felt "that one must carry the knowledge of the spiritual world within oneself after the fashion of geometry ... [for here] one is permitted to know something which the mind alone, through its own power, experiences. In this feeling I found the justification for the spiritual world that I experienced ... I confirmed for myself by means of geometry the feeling that I must speak of a world 'which is not seen'."[17]

 

Steiner believed that at the age of 15 he had gained a complete understanding of the concept of time, which he considered to be the precondition of spiritual clairvoyance.[22] At 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, Steiner met an herb gatherer, Felix Kogutzki, who spoke about the spiritual world "as one who had his own experience therein".[17]:39–40[24] Kogutzki conveyed to Steiner a knowledge of nature that was non-academic and spiritual.

 

Writer and philosopher[edit]

In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of Goethe's works, Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. As well as the introductions for and commentaries to four volumes of Goethe's scientific writings, Steiner wrote two books about Goethe's philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886),[25] which Steiner regarded as the epistemological foundation and justification for his later work,[26] and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897).[27] During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and the writer Jean Paul and wrote numerous articles for various journals.

  

Rudolf Steiner around 1891/92, etching by Otto Fröhlich

In 1891, Steiner received a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Rostock, for his dissertation discussing Fichte's concept of the ego,[10][28] submitted to Heinrich von Stein, whose Seven Books of Platonism Steiner esteemed.[17]:Chap. 14 Steiner's dissertation was later published in expanded form as Truth and Knowledge: Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom, with a dedication to Eduard von Hartmann.[29] Two years later, he published Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom or The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity—Steiner's preferred English title) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a way for humans to become spiritually free beings. Steiner later spoke of this book as containing implicitly, in philosophical form, the entire content of what he later developed explicitly as anthroposophy.[30]

  

Marie Steiner 1903

In 1896, Steiner declined an offer from Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche to help organize the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg. Her brother by that time was non compos mentis. Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher; Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.[31] Steiner later related that:

 

My first acquaintance with Nietzsche's writings belongs to the year 1889. Previous to that I had never read a line of his. Upon the substance of my ideas as these find expression in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Nietzsche's thought had not the least influence....Nietzsche's ideas of the 'eternal recurrence' and of 'Übermensch' remained long in my mind. For in these was reflected that which a personality must feel concerning the evolution and essential being of humanity when this personality is kept back from grasping the spiritual world by the restricted thought in the philosophy of nature characterizing the end of the 19th century....What attracted me particularly was that one could read Nietzsche without coming upon anything which strove to make the reader a 'dependent' of Nietzsche's.[17]:Chap. 18

 

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became part owner of, chief editor of, and an active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. Many subscribers were alienated by Steiner's unpopular support of Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair[32] and the journal lost more subscribers when Steiner published extracts from his correspondence with anarchist John Henry Mackay.[32] Dissatisfaction with his editorial style eventually led to his departure from the magazine.

 

In 1899, Steiner married Anna Eunicke; the couple separated several years later. Anna died in 1911.

 

Theosophical Society[edit]

Main article: Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society

 

Rudolf Steiner in Munich with Annie Besant, leader of the Theosophical Society. Photo from 1907

In 1899, Steiner published an article, "Goethe's Secret Revelation", discussing the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical Society, becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902 without ever formally joining the society.[10][33] It was also in connection with this society that Steiner met and worked with Marie von Sivers, who became his second wife in 1914. By 1904, Steiner was appointed by Annie Besant to be leader of the Theosophical Esoteric Society for Germany and Austria. In 1904, Eliza, the wife of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, became one of his favourite scholars[34]. Through Eliza, Steiner met Helmuth, who served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914[35].

 

In contrast to mainstream Theosophy, Steiner sought to build a Western approach to spirituality based on the philosophical and mystical traditions of European culture. The German Section of the Theosophical Society grew rapidly under Steiner's leadership as he lectured throughout much of Europe on his spiritual science. During this period, Steiner maintained an original approach, replacing Madame Blavatsky's terminology with his own, and basing his spiritual research and teachings upon the Western esoteric and philosophical tradition. This and other differences, in particular Steiner's vocal rejection of Leadbeater and Besant's claim that Jiddu Krishnamurti was the vehicle of a new Maitreya, or world teacher,[36] led to a formal split in 1912/13,[10] when Steiner and the majority of members of the German section of the Theosophical Society broke off to form a new group, the Anthroposophical Society. Steiner took the name "Anthroposophy" from the title of a work of the Austrian philosopher Robert von Zimmermann, published in Vienna in 1856.[37] Despite his departure from the Theosophical Society, Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life.[8]

 

Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities[edit]

RudolfSteiner.jpeg

The Anthroposophical Society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find an artistic home for their yearly conferences, which included performances of plays written by Edouard Schuré and Steiner, the decision was made to build a theater and organizational center. In 1913, construction began on the first Goetheanum building, in Dornach, Switzerland. The building, designed by Steiner, was built to a significant part by volunteers who offered craftsmanship or simply a will to learn new skills. Once World War I started in 1914, the Goetheanum volunteers could hear the sound of cannon fire beyond the Swiss border, but despite the war, people from all over Europe worked peaceably side by side on the building's construction. Steiner moved from Berlin to Dornach in 1913 and lived there to the end of his life.[38]

 

Steiner's lecture activity expanded enormously with the end of the war. Most importantly, from 1919 on Steiner began to work with other members of the society to found numerous practical institutions and activities, including the first Waldorf school, founded that year in Stuttgart, Germany. At the same time, the Goetheanum developed as a wide-ranging cultural centre. On New Year's Eve, 1922/1923, the building burned to the ground; contemporary police reports indicate arson as the probable cause.[13]:752[39]:796 Steiner immediately began work designing a second Goetheanum building - this time made of concrete instead of wood - which was completed in 1928, three years after his death.

 

At a "Foundation Meeting" for members held at the Dornach center during Christmas, 1923, Steiner spoke of laying a new Foundation Stone for the society in the hearts of his listeners. At the meeting, a new "General Anthroposophical Society" was established with a new executive board. At this meeting, Steiner also founded a School of Spiritual Science, intended as an "organ of initiative" for research and study and as "the 'soul' of the Anthroposophical Society".[40] This School, which was led by Steiner, initially had sections for general anthroposophy, education, medicine, performing arts (eurythmy, speech, drama and music), the literary arts and humanities, mathematics, astronomy, science, and visual arts. Later sections were added for the social sciences, youth and agriculture.[41][42][43] The School of Spiritual Science included meditative exercises given by Steiner.

 

Political engagement and social agenda[edit]

Steiner became a well-known and controversial public figure during and after World War I. In response to the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, he proposed extensive social reforms through the establishment of a Threefold Social Order in which the cultural, political and economic realms would be largely independent. Steiner argued that a fusion of the three realms had created the inflexibility that had led to catastrophes such as World War I. In connection with this, he promoted a radical solution in the disputed area of Upper Silesia, claimed by both Poland and Germany. His suggestion that this area be granted at least provisional independence led to his being publicly accused of being a traitor to Germany.[44]

 

Steiner opposed Wilson's proposal to create new European nations based around ethnic groups, which he saw as opening the door to rampant nationalism. Steiner proposed as an alternative "'social territories' with democratic institutions that were accessible to all inhabitants of a territory whatever their origin while the needs of the various ethnicities would be met by independent cultural institutions."[45]

 

Attacks, illness, and death[edit]

The National Socialist German Workers Party gained strength in Germany after the First World War. In 1919, a political theorist of this movement, Dietrich Eckart, attacked Steiner and suggested that he was a Jew.[46] In 1921, Adolf Hitler attacked Steiner on many fronts, including accusations that he was a tool of the Jews,[47] while other nationalist extremists in Germany called for a "war against Steiner". That same year, Steiner warned against the disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.[46]:8 In 1922 a lecture Steiner was giving in Munich was disrupted when stink bombs were let off and the lights switched out, while people rushed the stage apparently attempting to attack Steiner, who exited safely through a back door.[48][49] Unable to guarantee his safety, Steiner's agents cancelled his next lecture tour.[32]:193[50] The 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich led Steiner to give up his residence in Berlin, saying that if those responsible for the attempted coup [Hitler and others] came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country.[51]

 

From 1923 on, Steiner showed signs of increasing frailness and illness. He nonetheless continued to lecture widely, and even to travel; especially towards the end of this time, he was often giving two, three or even four lectures daily for courses taking place concurrently. Many of these lectures focused on practical areas of life such as education.[52]

  

Steiner's gravestone at the Goetheanum

Increasingly ill, he held his last lecture in late September, 1924. He continued work on his autobiography during the last months of his life; he died on 30 March 1925.

 

Spiritual research[edit]

Steiner first began speaking publicly about spiritual experiences and phenomena in his 1899 lectures to the Theosophical Society. By 1901 he had begun to write about spiritual topics, initially in the form of discussions of historical figures such as the mystics of the Middle Ages. By 1904 he was expressing his own understanding of these themes in his essays and books, while continuing to refer to a wide variety of historical sources.

 

"A world of spiritual perception is discussed in a number of writings which I have published since this book appeared. The Philosophy of Freedom forms the philosophical basis for these later writings. For it tries to show that the experience of thinking, rightly understood, is in fact an experience of spirit." (Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom, Consequences of Monism)

 

Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.[53] He believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.[32] Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love.[54] His philosophical ideas were affected by Franz Brentano,[32] with whom he had studied,[55] as well as by Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.[32][56][57]

 

Steiner followed Wilhelm Dilthey in using the term Geisteswissenschaft, usually translated as "spiritual science".[58] Steiner used the term to describe a discipline treating the spirit as something actual and real, starting from the premise that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind what is sense-perceptible.[59] He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality,[60] and required close attention to the particular period and culture which provided the distinctive character of religious qualities in the course of the evolution of consciousness. In contrast to William James' pragmatic approach to religious and psychic experience, which emphasized its idiosyncratic character, Steiner focused on ways such experience can be rendered more intelligible and integrated into human life.[61]

 

Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology[62] and that the form of external nature would be more comprehensible as a result of insight into the course of karma in the evolution of humanity.[63] Beginning in 1910, he described aspects of karma relating to health, natural phenomena and free will, taking the position that a person is not bound by his or her karma, but can transcend this through actively taking hold of one's own nature and destiny.[64] In an extensive series of lectures from February to September 1924, Steiner presented further research on successive reincarnations of various individuals and described the techniques he used for karma research.[52][65]

 

Esoteric schools[edit]

See also: Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development

Steiner was founder and leader of the following:

 

His independent Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break with Theosophy but was disbanded at the start of World War I.

A lodge called Mystica Aeterna within the Masonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim, which Steiner led from 1906 until around 1914. Steiner added to the Masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references.[66]

The School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923 as a further development of his earlier Esoteric School. This was originally constituted with a general section and seven specialized sections for education, literature, performing arts, natural sciences, medicine, visual arts, and astronomy.[41][43][67] Steiner gave members of the School the first Lesson for guidance into the esoteric work in February 1924.[68] Though Steiner intended to develop three "classes" of this school, only the first of these was developed in his lifetime (and continues today). An authentic text of the written records on which the teaching of the First Class was based was published in 1992.[69]

Breadth of activity[edit]

After the First World War, Steiner became active in a wide variety of cultural contexts. He founded a number of schools, the first of which was known as the Waldorf school,[70] which later evolved into a worldwide school network. He also founded a system of organic agriculture, now known as biodynamic agriculture, which was one of the very first forms of, and has contributed significantly to the development of, modern organic farming.[71] His work in medicine led to the development of a broad range of complementary medications and supportive artistic and biographic therapies.[72] Numerous homes for children and adults with developmental disabilities based on his work (including those of the Camphill movement) are found in Africa, Europe, and North America.[73] His paintings and drawings influenced Joseph Beuys and other modern artists. His two Goetheanum buildings have been widely cited as masterpieces of modern architecture,[74][75][76][77][78] and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of buildings to the modern scene.[79] One of the first institutions to practice ethical banking was an anthroposophical bank working out of Steiner's ideas; other anthroposophical social finance institutions have since been founded.

 

Steiner's literary estate is correspondingly broad. Steiner's writings, published in about forty volumes, include books, essays, four plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse, and an autobiography. His collected lectures, making up another approximately 300 volumes, discuss an extremely wide range of themes. Steiner's drawings, chiefly illustrations done on blackboards during his lectures, are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and sculptural work.

 

Education[edit]

 

The Waldorf school in Verrières-le-Buisson (France)

Main article: Waldorf education

As a young man, Steiner was a private tutor and a lecturer on history for the Berlin Arbeiterbildungsschule,[80] an educational initiative for working class adults.[81] Soon thereafter, he began to articulate his ideas on education in public lectures,[82] culminating in a 1907 essay on The Education of the Child in which he described the major phases of child development which formed the foundation of his approach to education.[83] His conception of education was influenced by the Herbartian pedagogy prominent in Europe during the late nineteenth century,[80]:1362, 1390ff[82] though Steiner criticized Herbart for not sufficiently recognizing the importance of educating the will and feelings as well as the intellect.[84]

 

In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture to his workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. Out of these lectures came a new school, the Waldorf school. In 1922, Steiner presented these ideas at a conference called for this purpose in Oxford by Professor Millicent Mackenzie. He subsequently presented a teacher training course at Torquay in 1924 at an Anthroposophy Summer School organised by Eleanor Merry.[85] The Oxford Conference and the Torquay teacher training led to the founding of the first Waldorf schools in Britain.[86] During Steiner's lifetime, schools based on his educational principles were also founded in Hamburg, Essen, The Hague and London; there are now more than 1000 Waldorf schools worldwide.

 

Biodynamic agriculture[edit]

Main article: Biodynamic agriculture

In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help. Steiner responded with a lecture series on an ecological and sustainable approach to agriculture that increased soil fertility without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.[12] Steiner's agricultural ideas promptly spread and were put into practice internationally[87] and biodynamic agriculture is now practiced in Europe,[88] North America, South America[89], Africa[90], Asia[88] and Australasia.[91][92][93]

 

A central aspect of biodynamics is that the farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a largely self-sustaining system, producing its own manure and animal feed. Plant or animal disease is seen as a symptom of problems in the whole organism. Steiner also suggested timing such agricultural activities as sowing, weeding, and harvesting to utilize the influences on plant growth of the moon and planets; and the application of natural materials prepared in specific ways to the soil, compost, and crops, with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces. He encouraged his listeners to verify his suggestions empirically, as he had not yet done.[91]

 

Anthroposophical medicine[edit]

Main article: Anthroposophical medicine

From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create a new approach to medicine. In 1921, pharmacists and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a pharmaceutical company called Weleda which now distributes natural medical products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr. Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic (now the Ita Wegman Clinic) in Arlesheim.

 

Social reform[edit]

Main article: Threefold Social Order

For a period after World War I, Steiner was active as a lecturer on social reform. A petition expressing his basic social ideas was widely circulated and signed by many cultural figures of the day, including Hermann Hesse.

 

In Steiner's chief book on social reform, Toward Social Renewal, he suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society need to work together as consciously cooperating yet independent entities, each with a particular task: political institutions should establish political equality and protect human rights; cultural institutions should nurture the free and unhindered development of science, art, education and religion; and economic institutions should enable producers, distributors and consumers to cooperate to provide efficiently for society's needs.[94] He saw such a division of responsibility, which he called the Threefold Social Order, as a vital task which would take up consciously the historical trend toward the mutual independence of these three realms. Steiner also gave suggestions for many specific social reforms.

 

Steiner proposed what he termed a "fundamental law" of social life:

 

The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others.

 

— Steiner, The Fundamental Social Law[95]

He expressed this in the motto:[95]

 

The healthy social life is found

When in the mirror of each human soul

The whole community finds its reflection,

And when in the community

The virtue of each one is living.

Architecture and visual arts[edit]

 

First Goetheanum

  

Second Goetheanum

  

Detail of The Representative of Humanity

 

English sculptor Edith Maryon belonged to the innermost circle of founders of anthroposophy and was appointed to head the Section of Sculptural Arts at the Goetheanum.

 

Steiner designed 17 buildings, including the First and Second Goetheanums.[96] These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house significant theater spaces as well as a "school for spiritual science".[97] Three of Steiner's buildings have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.[98]

 

His primary sculptural work is The Representative of Humanity (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon. This was intended to be placed in the first Goetheanum. It shows a central, free-standing Christ holding a balance between the beings of Lucifer and Ahriman, representing opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction.[99][100][101] It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves.[102] The sculpture is now on permanent display at the Goetheanum.

 

Steiner's blackboard drawings were unique at the time and almost certainly not originally intended as art works.[103] Josef Beuys' work, itself heavily influenced by Steiner, has led to the modern understanding of Steiner's drawings as artistic objects.[104]

 

Performing arts[edit]

See also: Eurythmy

Steiner wrote four mystery plays between 1909 and 1913: The Portal of Initiation, The Souls' Probation, The Guardian of the Threshold and The Soul's Awakening, modeled on the esoteric dramas of Edouard Schuré, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.[105] Steiner's plays continue to be performed by anthroposophical groups in various countries, most notably (in the original German) in Dornach, Switzerland and (in English translation) in Spring Valley, New York and in Stroud and Stourbridge in the U.K.

 

In collaboration with Marie von Sivers, Steiner also founded a new approach to acting, storytelling, and the recitation of poetry. His last public lecture course, given in 1924, was on speech and drama. The Russian actor, director, and acting coach Michael Chekhov based significant aspects of his method of acting on Steiner's work.[106][107]

 

Together with Marie von Sivers, Rudolf Steiner also developed the art of eurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and song". According to the principles of eurythmy, there are archetypal movements or gestures that correspond to every aspect of speech – the sounds (or phonemes), the rhythms, and the grammatical function – to every "soul quality" – joy, despair, tenderness, etc. – and to every aspect of music – tones, intervals, rhythms, and harmonies.

 

Philosophical ideas[edit]

Live through deeds of love, and let others live understanding their unique intentions: this is the fundamental principle of free human beings.

Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom. Chapter 9

 

Goethean science[edit]

See also: Goethean science

In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where both accurate perception and imagination were required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze), and postulated that Goethe had sought but been unable to fully find the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom.[108] Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.[108] Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception.

 

Particular organic forms can be evolved only from universal types, and every organic entity we experience must coincide with some one of these derivative forms of the type. Here the evolutionary method must replace the method of proof. We aim not to show that external conditions act upon one another in a certain way and thereby bring about a definite result, but that a particular form has developed under definite external conditions out of the type. This is the radical difference between inorganic and organic science.

 

— Rudolf Steiner, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Chapter XVI, "Organic Nature"

Knowledge and freedom[edit]

See also: Philosophy of Freedom

Steiner approached the philosophical questions of knowledge and freedom in two stages. In his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as Truth and Knowledge, Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which posits that all knowledge is a representation of an essential verity inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in the sensory and mental world to which we have access. Steiner considered Kant's philosophy of an inaccessible beyond ("Jenseits-Philosophy") a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.[109]

 

Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. He sees in thinking itself an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus considered what appears to human experience as a division between the spiritual and natural worlds to be a conditioned result of the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking. These two faculties give us not two worlds, but two complementary views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete understanding of the world. In thinking about perception (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of spiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.[54]:Chapter 4 Truth, for Steiner, is paradoxically both an objective discovery and yet "a free creation of the human spirit, that never would exist at all if we did not generate it ourselves. The task of understanding is not to replicate in conceptual form something that already exists, but rather to create a wholly new realm, that together with the world given to our senses constitutes the fullness of reality."[110]

 

In the Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached gradually with the aid of the creative activity of thinking. Thinking can be a free deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our instincts and drives. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world,[111] and the real activity of acting in full consciousness.[54]:133–4 This includes overcoming influences of both heredity and environment: "To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts – not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality."[10]

 

Steiner affirms Darwin's and Haeckel's evolutionary perspectives but extended this beyond its materialistic consequences; he sees human consciousness, indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself. For Steiner, nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. Steiner's description of the nature of human consciousness thus closely parallels that of Solovyov:[112]

 

Spiritual science[edit]

See also: Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development

 

Rudolf Steiner 1900

In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.[32] From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,[113] while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work, The Philosophy of Freedom.[114]

 

In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine "Lucifer-Gnosis" and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world.[115] Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as How to Know Higher Worlds (1904/5) and Cosmic Memory. The book An Outline of Esoteric Science was published in 1910. Important themes include:

 

the human being as body, soul and spirit;

the path of spiritual development;

spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and

reincarnation and karma.

Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis that spiritual science is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter[116][117]

 

For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity.[32] Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:[54]:Pt II, Chapter 1

 

Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;

Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation (situational ethics); and

Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.

Steiner termed his work from this period onwards Anthroposophy. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent judgment; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to logical understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results.[54] Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and freedom.[10]

 

Steiner and Christianity[edit]

In 1899 Steiner experienced what he described as a life-transforming inner encounter with the being of Christ; previously he had little or no relation to Christianity in any form. Then and thereafter, his relationship to Christianity remained entirely founded upon personal experience, and thus both non-denominational and strikingly different from conventional religious forms.[10] Steiner was then 38, and the experience of meeting the Christ occurred after a tremendous inner struggle. To use Steiner's own words, the "experience culminated in my standing in the spiritual presence of the Mystery of Golgotha in a most profound and solemn festival of knowledge."[118]

 

Christ and human evolution[edit]

Steiner describes Christ as the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and human history, redeeming the Fall from Paradise.[119] He understood the Christ as a being that unifies and inspires all religions, not belonging to a particular religious faith. To be "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes[119]:102–3 and the ability to manifest love in freedom.[10]

 

Central principles of his understanding include:

 

The being of Christ is central to all religions, though called by different names by each.

Every religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born.

Historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed in our times in order to meet the ongoing evolution of humanity.

In Steiner's esoteric cosmology, the spiritual development of humanity is interwoven in and inseparable from the cosmological development of the universe. Continuing the evolution that led to humanity being born out of the natural world, the Christ being brings an impulse enabling human consciousness of the forces that act creatively, but unconsciously, in nature.[120]

 

Divergence from conventional Christian thought[edit]

Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements.[108] However, unlike many gnostics, Steiner affirms the unique and actual physical Incarnation of Christ in Jesus at the beginning of the Christian era.

 

One of the central points of divergence with conventional Christian thought is found in Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma.

 

Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew; the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke.[94] He references in this regard the fact that the genealogies in these two gospels list twenty-six (Luke) to forty-one (Matthew) completely different ancestors for the generations from David to Jesus. See Genealogy of Jesus for alternative explanations of this radical divergence.

 

Steiner's view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual. He suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but rather, meant that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, in the "etheric realm" – i.e. visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life – for increasing numbers of people, beginning around the year 1933. He emphasized that the future would require humanity to recognize this Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of how this is named. He also warned that the traditional name, "Christ", might be used, yet the true essence of this Being of Love ignored.[108]

 

The Christian Community[edit]

In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin, who asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer – mostly Protestant pastors and theology students, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the spiritual potency of the sacraments while emphasizing freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life. He envisioned a new synthesis of Catholic and Protestant approaches to religious life, terming this "modern, Johannine Christianity".[94]

 

The resulting movement for religious renewal became known as "The Christian Community". Its work is based on a free relationship to the Christ, without dogma or policies. Its priesthood, which is open to both men and women, is free to preach out of their own spiritual insights and creativity.

 

Steiner emphasized that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of his anthroposophical work.[94] The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality.[119] He recognized that for those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.

 

Reception[edit]

See also: Anthroposophy § Reception

Steiner's work has influenced a broad range of notable personalities. These include philosophers Albert Schweitzer, Owen Barfield and Richard Tarnas;[32] writers Saul Bellow,[121] Andrej Belyj,[122][123][124] Michael Ende,[125] Selma Lagerlöf,[126] Edouard Schuré, David Spangler,[citation needed] and William Irwin Thompson;[32] child psychiatrist Eva Frommer;[127] economist Leonard Read;[128] artists Josef Beuys,[129] Wassily Kandinsky,[130][131] and Murray Griffin;[132] esotericist and educationalist George Trevelyan;[133] actor and acting teacher Michael Chekhov;[134] cinema director Andrei Tarkovsky;[135] composers Jonathan Harvey[136] and Viktor Ullmann;[137] and conductor Bruno Walter.[138] Olav Hammer, though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of the Esoteric Tradition."[139]

 

Albert Schweitzer wrote that he and Steiner had in common that they had "taken on the life mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of humanity and to encourage people to become truly thinking beings".[140]

 

Anthony Storr stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional."[141]

 

Robert Todd Carroll has said of Steiner that "Some of his ideas on education – such as educating the handicapped in the mainstream – are worth considering, although his overall plan for developing the spirit and the soul rather than the intellect cannot be admired".[142] Steiner's translators have pointed out that his use of Geist includes both mind and spirit, however,[143] as the German term Geist can be translated equally properly in either way.[144]

 

The 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's birth was marked by the first major retrospective exhibition of his art and work, 'Kosmos - Alchemy of the everyday'. Organized by Vitra Design Museum, the traveling exhibition presented many facets of Steiner's life and achievements, including his influence on architecture, furniture design, dance (Eurythmy), education, and agriculture (Biodynamic agriculture).[145] The exhibition opened in 2011 at the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany,[146]

 

Scientism[edit]

See also: Anthroposophy: Scientific basis

Olav Hammer has criticized as scientism Steiner's claim to use scientific methodology to investigate spiritual phenomena that were based upon his claims of clairvoyant experience.[139] Steiner regarded the observations of spiritual research as more dependable (and above all, consistent) than observations of physical reality. However, he did consider spiritual research to be fallible[2]:p. 618 and held the view that anyone capable of thinking logically was in a position to correct errors by spiritual researchers.[147]

 

Race and ethnicity[edit]

Steiner's work includes both universalist, humanist elements and historically influenced racial assumptions.[148] Due to the contrast and even contradictions between these elements, "whether a given reader interprets Anthroposophy as racist or not depends upon that reader's concerns".[149] Steiner considered that by dint of its shared language and culture, each people has a unique essence, which he called its soul or spirit.[139] He saw race as a physical manifestation of humanity's spiritual evolution, and at times discussed race in terms of complex hierarchies that were largely derived from 19th century biology, anthropology, philosophy and theosophy. However, he consistently and explicitly subordinated race, ethnicity, gender, and indeed all hereditary factors, to individual factors in development.[149] For Steiner, human individuality is centered in a person's unique biography, and he believed that an individual's experiences and development are not bound by a single lifetime or the qualities of the physical body.[33] More specifically:

 

Steiner occasionally characterized specific races, nations and ethnicities in ways that have been termed racist by critics.[150] This includes descriptions by him of certain races and ethnic groups as flowering, others as backward, or destined to degenerate or disappear.[149] He presented explicitly hierarchical views of the spiritual evolution of different races,[151] including—at times, and inconsistently—portraying the white race, European culture or Germanic culture as representing the high point of human evolution as of the early 20th century, although he did describe them as destined to be superseded by future cultures.[149]

Throughout his life Steiner consistently emphasized the core spiritual unity of all the world's peoples and sharply criticized racial prejudice. He articulated beliefs that the individual nature of any person stands higher than any racial, ethnic, national or religious affiliation.[13][94] His belief that race and ethnicity are transient and superficial, and not essential aspects of the individual,[149] was partly rooted in his conviction that each individual reincarnates in a variety of different peoples and races over successive lives, and that each of us thus bears within him or herself the heritage of many races and peoples.[149][152] Toward the end of his life, Steiner predicted that race will rapidly lose any remaining significance for future generations.[149] In Steiner's view, culture is universal, and explicitly not ethnically based; he saw Goethe and idealist philosophy in particular as the source of ideas that could be drawn upon by any culture, and he vehemently criticized imperialism.[153]

In the context of his ethical individualism, Steiner considered "race, folk, ethnicity and gender" to be general, describable categories into which individuals may choose to fit, but from which free human beings can and will liberate themselves.[33]

 

Judaism[edit]

During the years when Steiner was best known as a literary critic, he published a series of articles attacking various manifestations of antisemitism[154] and criticizing some of the most prominent anti-Semites of the time as "barbaric" and "enemies of culture".[155] On a number of occasions, however, Steiner suggested that Jewish cultural and social life had lost all contemporary relevance[156] and promoted full assimilation of the Jewish people into the nations in which they lived. This stance has come under severe criticism in recent years.[149]

 

Steiner was a critic of his contemporary Theodor Herzl's goal of a Zionist state, and indeed of any ethnically determined state, as he considered ethnicity to be an outmoded basis for social life and civic identity.[157]

 

Towards the end of Steiner's life and after his death, there were massive defamatory press attacks mounted on him by early National Socialist leaders (including Adolf Hitler) and other right-wing nationalists. These criticized Steiner's thought and anthroposophy as being incompatible with National Socialist racial ideology, and charged him of being influenced by his close connections with Jews and even that he himself was Jewish.[46][155]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

Magritte' paintings provoke unsettling thoughts. He described them as visible images that conceal nothing, but evoke mystery. They challenge the assumptions of human perception and force the viewer to reconsider things usually taken for granted. Magritte pondered 'The Glass Key' for three years, dismissing 50 titles before finally calling it after the novel by Dashiell Hammett. This imaginary landscape features a rock sitting improbably on a mountain top that he described as 'absent of thought---the absolute."

 

This Magritte original painting was seen and photographed at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.

Natural mummies came to exist in Egypt as early as the pre-dynastic period when the dead were buried in earth pits without a coffin. Dry and hot climates and sandy soils provided favourable conditions for mummification. The Egyptians began to mummify their deceased themselves at the stage when a coffin burial was introduced, i.e., the deceased was separated from the sand to be dried.

During the dynastic period, it was thought that the preservation of the body of the deceased was a precondition for entering life after death. Mummification techniques were developed and attention was also paid to aesthetic aspects such as decoration.

This mummy is probably an adult man. The mummy's head is missing, it may have been stolen from the grave in later times. Although the mummy is carefully wrapped in linen, the mummification technique itself is quite poor.

Organic material, linen

Late Period

 

Egypt of Glory exhibition, Amos Rex Art Museum, Helsinki

From the collection of Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy

9.10.2020-21.3.2021

Wishing everyone a great start into a new very Lucky week!

 

1.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have

not danced at least once. And we should call every truth

false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

2.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but

in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature,

placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

3.

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist,

a certain physiological precondition is indispensable:

intoxication.

4.

I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more

wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal,

also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he

knows, his "divine service."

5.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

 

-FRIEDRICH NIETZCHE

 

PHOTO:

Gypsy dance.

Israeli tour of State Academic Ensemble of Folk Dance under the auspice of Igor Moiseev (Moscow, Russia; please, see my notes above - on the photo) .

Taken in "Heichal ha-Tarbut", Tel-Aviv, Israel. 23 October, 2006

René François Ghislain Magritte, 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.

 

Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.

 

From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913. Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico's The Song of Love (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes saw thought for the first time." The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former's painting The Blind House (1892) and Magritte's variations or series on The Empire of Lights.

 

In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.

 

Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years. In 1929 he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.

 

On 15 December 1929 he participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of Images.

 

Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising.[10] He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years. In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.

 

During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, Le Principe du Plaisir (The Pleasure Principle) and La Reproduction Interdite, a painting also known as Not to Be Reproduced.

 

During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir period", as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.

 

In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight. During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period," he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son" Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.

 

In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.

 

Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.

 

Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art. In 2005 he was 9th in the Walloon version of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian); in the Flemish version he was 18th.

``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''

 

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

 

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

 

--taken from www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html - The Free Software Definition

inspired by peace ... visiting our neighbors, our new friends ... learning and respecting both countries history ...

Info : The Prespa agreement (Greek: Συμφωνία των Πρεσπών, Macedonian: Преспански договор), also known as the Prespes agreement, Prespa accord or Treaty of Prespa, is an agreement reached on 12 June 2018 between Greece and North Macedonia, under the United Nations auspices, resolving a long-standing dispute over the latter's name.

The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced on 12 June 2018 that an agreement had been reached with his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev on the dispute, "which covers all the preconditions set by the Greek side".The proposal would result in the Republic of Macedonia being renamed the Republic of North Macedonia (Macedonian: Република Северна Македонија Greek: Δημοκρατία της Βόρειας Μακεδονίας, with the new name being used for all purposes (erga omnes), that is, domestically, in all bilateral relations and in all regional and international organizations and institutions. The agreement was signed at Lake Prespa, a body of water which forms a partial common border between the Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Albania ...

Personal Values (1952) depicts a bedroom framed by cloud-filled walls, with an oversized comb and shaving brush dwarfing the furniture on which they rest. This alteration of scale by enlarging daily objects was often used by Belgian surrealist artist, Rene Magritte (1898-1967). The method, based on the “disturbing objects” theory extolled by surrealist Paul Nougé (1895-1967), was one of the ways to unhinge the spectator, causing a poetic shock and uneasiness in front of intentional surreality. Magritte became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

This original Magritte painting was seen and photographed at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in an exhibit entitled 'Rene Magritte: The Fifth Season'.

   

Hasselblad 50mm Distagon, Efke IR820 (715 filter - @ 3 ASA) in eco film developer 1+40

 

Softly lithed Fotokemika Varycon

With contrasty IR-negatives an extremly strong overexposure is required for the lights, but then the shadows come too fast. To prevent this, an interruption of lith development might be the best methode of choice.

The lith developer should be strong with a high amount of D (bromide),

e.g. A+B+water+D 50+50+600+30ml.

Developer 3 mins - water bath 1 min - developer 1 min - water bath 1 min

So far no deep blacks should achieve but all densities must increase expecially mid tones and lights.

Develope again until blackening of the deepest shadows, then an alkaline solution (instead water) - here Lith Omega 1+400 until a full tonal range is visable (1-3 mins). The longer the time, the softer and warmer the tones.

 

A treatment with Omega is a precondition for this result after toning with polysulfide toners like MT4 Siena.

 

René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that fell under the umbrella of surrealism. His work challenges observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality.

 

www.rene-magritte.org/

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have become anathemas to liberals, people of color, and anyone who believes all Americans deserve equal access to the institutions of this country. They aren’t the only ones, but they’re front and center for their refusal to change filibuster rules allowing a simple majority of the Senate to pass critical voting rights legislation.

 

Manchin and Sinema stand on the tip of a colossal iceberg of political posturing, spin, and dishonesty. At the end of last year, Washington Post opinion writer, Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote, “In basically every major institution in America, there are powerful figures who I doubt voted for Donald Trump but nonetheless play down the radicalism of the Republican Party, belittle those who speak honestly about it or otherwise act in ways that make it harder to combat that radicalism.” His list includes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, NBC’s Chuck Todd, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman, and even former acting Obama solicitor general Neal Katyal. All of them “elites” in their fields.

 

Bacon offers many reasons these and others are not calling out the Republican Party for their outlandish and overt power grabs, their lack of any substantial legislation (even when they were in power), and for their support of “The Big Lie.” But he culls it down to elites wanting to remain elites: to put their best interests above the American people’s.

 

When we talk about women’s rights (and the right to choose whether to have an abortion), institutional racism, and income inequality, the Republicans aren’t the only bad actors. The self-interest of the American aristocracy in academia, the judiciary, and the media is also problematic. We also have a systematic dilemma. Our founders designed our political system for compromise.

 

Here’s the Problem

 

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, larger states wanted representation based on population, while smaller states wanted equal representation in Congress, fearful of abuses of power. Each side vowed to veto the Constitution if it didn’t get its way. Enter The Great Compromise, which is the foundation of our government today.

 

Proposed by Connecticut statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, they suggested a bicameral legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate. A state’s population would determine the number of its representatives. In contrast, regardless of its size, each state would have two senators chosen by its legislature (in 1913, the Constitution’s 17th Amendment changed that to allow voters to elect senators directly). In addition, voters wouldn’t elect presidents directly but through electors to the Electoral College.

 

Our founders never envisioned the considerable disparity in states’ populations we have today (California has 68 times the population of Wyoming, yet each has equal votes in the Senate). Smaller states have a disproportionately more significant say in Congress. This also skews the balance in the Electoral College since the number of electors in each state is based on their total number of representatives and senators. Also, when our country won its independence, only White landowners could vote, further skewing fair representation. The 15th Amendment gave Black men this right in 1870. But this is still being contested today by Gerrymandering and state laws that impede minority rights. And women weren’t given the right to vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. And, like racial discrimination, we are still dealing with gender inequality.

 

Early decisions about states’ rights versus the federal government’s rights also affect our ability to pass legislation today. The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” In disputes between the states and the federal government, the Supreme Court can upend this balance by its interpretations of the Constitution. And with many accusing justices of being political activists, the line between states’ and federal rights has become even more clouded. Texas’ law severely limiting abortion is on the Supreme Court’s schedule. And many are concerned that the conservative-leaning court will rule for Texas, even though Roe v. Wade has become established law. Our country’s balance of power has shifted in ways our founders could not have envisioned.

 

We the People

 

What do the American people want? In 2014, Princeton Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern Professor Benjamin Page conducted a study of almost 1800 instances between 1981 and 2002, where public opinion was clearly in favor of specific policies. Yet, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests [had] substantial independent impacts on US government policy.” In contrast, “average citizens and mass-based interest groups [had] little or no independent influence.” Lobbyists and the wealthy have more leverage on policy than average Americans, even though they represent a small percentage of the population.

 

Matt Grossman, Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, says, “We have status-quo-biased institutions that limit (even popular) policymaking without bipartisan support and wide interest group support.” And, with the Republican Party more interested in retaining power than in compromise, we’re going nowhere. As former Senator John Edwards made it clear during his 2008 presidential campaign, “You cannot negotiate with political thugs.”

 

Grossman states, “Democrats are closer than ever to supporting institutional changes that would make the status quo more vulnerable, but they would probably need a sustained large national majority (that isn’t forthcoming) to implement them because many of the pivotal elections are on conservative ground.” Without consensus, our arrested status quo remains. Politicians ignore the will of the people. This is the failure that Manchin and Sinema represent.

 

Are We Headed For a Civil War?

 

In his 1991 book, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, sociologist Jack Goldstone compared “‘selfish elites’ who ‘protect their private wealth, even at the expense of a deterioration of state finances, public services, and long-term international strength,’ as a troubling parallel to the preconditions of the French Revolution, the English Civil War and similar examples of state breakdown.” Working with mathematician Peter Turchin, they have suggested that the United States could be heading towards a civil war.

As early as 2010, Turchin predicted that 2020 would be a chaotic and violent year. Writing in the publication Nature, Turchin said, “In the United States, we have stagnating or declining real wages, a growing gap between rich and poor, overproduction of young graduates with advanced degrees, and exploding public debt. Historically, such developments have served as leading indicators of looming political instability.”

 

Goldstone and Turchin suggest what is apparent to many of us: “inequality, selfish elites, and polarization have crippled the ability of the US government to mount an effective response to the pandemic, hampered our ability to deliver an inclusive economic relief policy, and exacerbated the tensions over racial injustice.” In mid-2020, Goldstone predicted that instability would increase if Republicans or Democrats contested the presidential election. And that’s precisely what happened. Trump continues to push “The Big Lie” of election corruption.

 

The non-profit Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index tracks these indicators and countries’ ability to cope with shocks to their systems. This index shows America’s ability to do so is deteriorating. Out of 179 countries studied, the US comes in at 143.

 

Looking Ahead

 

In Paul Rosenberg’s commentary, The center cannot hold: Manchin and Sinema are wrecking America — here’s how to beat them, he and Goldstone agreed, how can you achieve bipartisanship when the Republicans aren’t interested, and Senators Manchin and Sinema continue to say that bipartisanship must be achieved?

Progressives are getting the blame for this breakdown. But as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on MSNBC’s 11th Hour, “Biden has governed pretty much exactly the way [moderates] have asked him to. But the problem is that the way they have asked him to govern has been to slow down, not do too much, and we are now seeing the political consequences of not directly improving people’s lives quickly.” Manchin, she says, changes his mind every day. He and Sinema even blocked the voting rights bill, legislation they co-sponsored.

 

Former US secretary of labor Robert Reich asks why these two senators demand bipartisanship when they knew this wouldn’t happen? Why couldn’t they support a change in the filibuster rules to pass the voting rights bill when they had just agreed to change the rules the month before allowing Democrats to pass debt ceiling legislation? He says that part of the reason is a large amount of cash they’re receiving from special interests (much of Sinema’s coming from Republicans). But the most straightforward explanation is simply ego:

 

Before February of last year, almost no one outside West Virginia had heard of Manchin, and almost no one outside Arizona (and probably few within it) had ever heard of Sinema. Now, they’re notorious. They’re Washington celebrities. Their photos grace every major news outlet in America.

 

This sort of attention is addictive. Once it seeps into the bloodstream, it becomes an all-consuming force. I’ve known politicians who have become permanently and irrevocably intoxicated. I’m not talking simply about power, although that’s certainly part of it. I’m talking about narcissism—the primal force driving so much of modern America but whose essence is concentrated in certain places such as Wall Street, Hollywood, and the United States Senate.

 

Manchin and Sinema are blocking critical institutional change for their own selfish purposes.

 

So what can be done?

 

The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Jr. suggests three possibilities:

 

President Biden should issue as many executive actions as he can. David Roberts, author of a newsletter on clean energy and politics called Volts, suggests Biden should sign so many in quick succession, the right-wing media would have no time to make up lies about them, and the Supreme Court couldn’t hear them all.

 

Biden should use his informal power aggressively. “He can visit the headquarters of companies that pay their blue-collar workers a decent wage and offer parental and sick leave, encourage Americans to purchase products from these companies, and urge other businesses to emulate them. He can implore others to adopt and support initiatives that are meaningfully improving Americans’ lives right now, such as the privately funded universal basic income program happening in the Atlanta area or the historically Black colleges that are forgiving the loans of some students.”

 

Biden should leverage his popularity and influence in blue America. Forget bipartisanship. Stop trying to compromise with Republicans and conservative Democrats. “In many ways, Biden is the president of only blue America, but that’s more than half of American adults, 70 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product, the vast majority of its big cities, its most populous state (California) and virtually the entire industries of education, entertainment, Big Tech, and philanthropy. Instead, he suggests talking with people like “MacKenzie Scott, Melinda Gates, Ford Foundation head Darren Walker, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, and others with money and influence who are likely to embrace causes that Biden points them toward.”

 

Both Senators Manchin and Sinema are gambling our lives away. If they continue to throw snake eyes, we’ll all lose. By refusing to pander to their egos, Biden can open the way for significant governmental change. Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because his message was anti-establishment. We were sick of decades-old election promises that never materialized. The GOP isn’t interested in bettering Americans’ lives. They just want to win. But if we’re going to change the status quo, we’ll need to take a vastly different approach. And time is running out.

  

Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).

 

See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.

 

Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.

The province of Zeeland has a coastline of 650 kilometers. In Waterdunen, the interplay between water and land is expressed. Waterdunen is an icon for Zeeland and proof that Zeeland is dealing with water differently today. Waterdunen is a delta work. But it is different from the delta works that we know as big works to protect Zeeland from the water. Waterdunen combines nature, recreation and tidal effects in an innovative coastal reinforcement with safety as a precondition.

The walk runs for a large part in the former polders and also goes partly through the dunes. This is where the river Schelde flows into the North Sea, a busy shipping route that leads to the port of Antwerp (Belgium). On the other side lies Flushing

  

Mnemosyne is written in Python, which allows for its use on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. A client program for review on Android devices is also available but needs to be synchronized by the desktop program. Users of the software usually make their own database of cards, although pre-made Mnemosyne databases are available, and it is possible to import SuperMemo collections and text files.Each day, the software displays each card that is scheduled for repetition. The user then grades their recollection of the card's answer on a scale of 0-5. The software then schedules the next repetition of the card in accordance with the user's rating of that particular card and the database of cards as a whole. This produces an active, rather than passive, review process.

Muse...The Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts in Greek mythology. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and ceramicThe Muses /ˈmjuːzᵻz/ (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, Moũsai; perhaps from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "to think" or from root *men- "to tower, mountain", since all the most important cult-centres of the Muses were on mountains or hills.The earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin.[4] There, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number.[5] In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus quotes Hesiod to the contrary, observing:Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.Diodorus also states (Book I.18) that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the Satyrs or male dancers, while passing through Ethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went. According to Hesiod's account (c. 600 BC), generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (i. e. "Memory" personified), figuring as personifications of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music.The Roman scholar Varro (116–27 BC) relates that there are only three Muses: one born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were called Melete or "Practice", Mneme or "Memory" and Aoide or "Song". Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch's (46–120 AD) Quaestiones Convivales(9.I4.2–4).However, the classical understanding of the muses tripled their triad, and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance. It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions was assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy).According to Pausanias in the later second century AD, there were three original Muses, worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Aoidḗ ("song" or "tune"), Melétē ("practice" or "occasion"), and Mnḗmē ("memory"). Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshiped as well, but with other names: Nḗtē, Mésē, and Hýpatē, which are assigned as the names of the three cords of the ancient musical instrument, the lyre. Alternatively they later were called Kēphisṓ, Apollōnís, and Borysthenís, which names characterize them as daughters of Apollo. In later tradition, a set of four Muses were recognized: Thelxinóē, Aoidḗ Archē, and Melétē, said to be daughters of Zeus and Plusia or of Uranus.One of the people frequently associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father (by a Pimpleian nymph, called Antiope by Cicero) of a total of seven Muses, called Neilṓ (Νειλώ), Tritṓnē (Τριτώνη), Asōpṓ (Ἀσωπώ), Heptápora (Ἑπτάπορα), Achelōís, Tipoplṓ (Τιποπλώ), and Rhodía (Ῥοδία).According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they were daughters of Zeus, the second generation king of the gods, and the offspring of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the early deities, Uranus and Gaia. Gaia is Mother Earth, an early mother goddess who was worshipped at Delphi from prehistoric times, long before the site was rededicated to Apollo, possibly indicating a transfer to association with him after that time.

  

Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon (1680) by Claude Lorrain

Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. It was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born.[11] Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses. (Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae, the Völva of Norse Mythology and also the apsaras in the mythology of classical India.Classical writers set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs ("Apollo Muse-leader"). In one myth, the Muses judged a contest between Apollo and Marsyas. They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. In a later myth, Thamyris challenged them to a singing contest. They won and punished Thamyris by blinding him and robbing him of his singing ability.According to a myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses—alluding to the connection of the Muses with Pieria—King Pierus, king of Macedon, had nine daughters he named after the nine Muses, believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the Pierides, being turned into chattering magpies for their presumption.Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first are the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia (the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares), which contradicts the myth in which they were dancing at the wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus.Some Greek writers give the names of the nine Muses as Kallichore, Helike, Eunike, Thelxinoë, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Eukelade, Dia, and Enope.In Renaissance and Neoclassical art, the dissemination of emblem books such as Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1593 and many further editions) helped standardize the depiction of the Muses in sculpture and painting, so they could be distinguished by certain props. These props, or emblems, became readily identifiable by the viewer, enabling one immediately to recognize the Muse and the art with which she had become associated. Here again, Calliope (epic poetry) carries a writing tablet; Clio (history) carries a scroll and books; Euterpe (song and elegiac poetry) carries a flute, the aulos; Erato (lyric poetry) is often seen with a lyre and a crown of roses; Melpomene (tragedy) is often seen with a tragic mask; Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) is often seen with a pensive expression; Terpsichore (choral dance and song) is often seen dancing and carrying a lyre; Thalia (comedy) is often seen with a comic mask; and Urania (astronomy) carries a pair of compasses and the celestial globe.Greek mousa is a common noun as well as a type of goddess: it literally means "art" or "poetry". According to Pindar, to "carry a mousa" is "to excel in the arts". The word probably derives from the Indo-European root men-, which is also the source of Greek Mnemosyne, English "mind", "mental" and "memory" and Sanskrit "mantra".The Muses, therefore, were both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: mousike (whence the English term "music") was just "one of the arts of the Muses". Others included Science, Geography, Mathematics, Philosophy, and especially Art, Drama, and inspiration. In the archaic period, before the widespread availability of books (scrolls), this included nearly all of learning. The first Greek book on astronomy, by Thales, took the form of dactylic hexameters, as did many works of pre-Socratic philosophy. Both Plato and the Pythagoreans explicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of mousike.[15] The Histories of Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, were divided by Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses.For poet and "law-giver" Solon,[16] the Muses were "the key to the good life"; since they brought both prosperity and friendship. Solon sought to perpetuate his political reforms by establishing recitations of his poetry—complete with invocations to his practical-minded Muses—by Athenian boys at festivals each year. He believed that the muses would help inspire people to do their best.Ancient authors and their imitators invoke Muses when writing poetry, hymns or epic history. The invocation occurs near the beginning of their work. It asks for help or inspiration from the Muses, or simply invites the Muse to sing directly through the author.Originally, the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working inside the poetic tradition, according to the established formulas. For example:Homer, in Book I of The Odyssey:"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turnsdriven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy." (Robert Fagles translation, 1996)Virgil, in Book I of the Aeneid:O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began.To persecute so brave, so just a man; [...](John Dryden translation, 1697)Besides Homer and Virgil, other famous works that included an invocation of the muse are the first of the carmina by Catullus, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Amores, Dante's Inferno (Canto II), Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Book II), Shakespeare's Henry V (Act 1, Prologue), his 38th sonnet, and Milton's Paradise Lost (opening of Book).When Pythagoras arrived at Croton, his first advice to the Crotoniates was to build a shrine to the Muses at the center of the city, to promote civic harmony and learning. Local cults of the Muses often became associated with springs or with fountains. The Muses themselves were sometimes called Aganippids because of their association with a fountain called Aganippe. Other fountains, Hippocrene and Pirene, were also important locations associated with the Muses. Some sources occasionally referred to the Muses as "Corycides" (or "Corycian nymphs") after a cave on Mount Parnassos, called the Corycian Cave. The Muses were venerated especially in Boeotia, in the Valley of the Muses near Helicon, and in Delphi and the Parnassus, where Apollo became known as Mousagetes ("Muse-leader") after the sites were rededicated to his cult.Often Muse-worship was associated with the hero-cults of poets: the tombs of Archilochus on Thasos and of Hesiod and Thamyris in Boeotia all played host to festivals in which poetic recitations accompanied sacrifices to the Muses. The Library of Alexandria and its circle of scholars formed around a mousaion (i. e. "museum" or shrine of the Muses) close to the tomb of Alexander the Great. Many Enlightenment figures sought to re-establish a "Cult of the Muses" in the 18th century. A famous Masonic lodge in pre-Revolutionary Paris was called Les Neuf Soeurs ("The Nine Sisters", that is, the Nine Muses); Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Danton, and other influential Enlightenment figures attended it. As a side-effect of this movement the word "museum" (originally, "cult place of the Muses") came to refer to a place for the public display of knowledge.Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an artistic inspiration, as when one cites one's own artistic muse, but they also are implicit in words and phrases such as "amuse", "museum" (Latinised from mouseion—a place where the muses were worshipped), "music", and "musing upon".[17] In current literature, the influential role that the muse plays has been extended to the political sphere.[18] Along with a majority of the Greek Gods, five of the Muses (Thalia, Clio, Calliope, Melpomene and Terpsicore) appeared in the Walt Disney animated film Hercules (based on Hercules), where they narrate the film through song and dance. These versions of the Muses are modeled after African American Gospel singers. All nine muses appeared in several paintings in the 72-piece art collection of Dante's Inferno by Dino Di Durante, which is printed in books titled "Inferno - The Art Collection" available in 33 languages. This said collection was also featured in the medium length film Dante's Hell Animated by Boris Acosta.There is a modern tendency to speak of Kinema as the tenth Muse.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

 

In Hesiod's Theogony, kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses.Zeus and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights, thus birthing the nine Muses. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool in Hades, counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.For more about the incriptions' connection with Orphic poetry, see Zuntz, 1971.lthough she was categorized as one of the Titans in the Theogony, Mnemosyne didn’t quite fit that distinction.Titans were hardly worshiped in Ancient Greece, and were thought of as so archaic as to belong to the ancient past.They resembled historical figures more than anything else. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, traditionally appeared in the first few lines of many oral epic poems—she appears in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, among others—as the speaker called upon her aid in accurately remembering and performing the poem he was about to recite. Mnemosyne is thought to have been given the distinction of “Titan” because memory was so important and basic to the oral culture of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks of civilization in their creation myth.Later, once written literature overtook the oral recitation of epics, Plato made reference in his Euthydemus to the older tradition of invoking Mnemosyne. The character Socrates prepares to recount a story and says “ὥστ᾽ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ (275d) ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶ Μνημοσύνην ἐπικαλεῖσθαι.” which translates to “Consequently, like the poets, I must needs begin my narrative with an invocation of the Muses and Memory” (emphasis added).[6] Aristophanes also harked back to the tradition in his play Lysistrata when a drunken Spartan ambassador invokes her name while prancing around pretending to be a bard from times of yore.Mnemosyne was one of the deities worshiped in the cult of Asclepius that formed in Ancient Greece around the 5th century BC.[8] Asclepius, a Greek hero and god of medicine, was said to have been able to cure maladies, and the cult incorporated a multitude of other Greek heroes and gods in its process of healing.[8] The exact order of the offerings and prayers varied by location,and the supplicant often made an offering to Mnemosyne.[8] After making an offering to Asclepius himself, in some locations, one last prayer was said to Mnemosyne as the supplicant moved to the holiest portion of the asclepeion to incubate.[8] The hope was that a prayer to Mnemosyne would help the supplicant remember any visions had while sleeping there.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemosyne

 

Dactylic hexameter (also known as "heroic hexameter" and "the meter of epic") is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme in poetry. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry. The premier examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Ovid's Metamorphoses.The meter consists of lines made from six (in Greek ἕξ, hex) feet, hence "hexameter". In strict dactylic hexameter, each of these feet would be a dactyl (a long and two short syllables), but classical meter allows for the substitution of a spondee (two long syllables) in place of a dactyl in most positions. Specifically, the first four feet can either be dactyls or spondees more or less freely. The fifth foot is frequently a dactyl (around 95% of the time in Homer).

 

Because of the anceps (a short or long syllable), the sixth foot can be filled by either a trochee (a long then short syllable) or a spondee. However, because of the strong pause at the end of the line (which prevents elision and correption between lines in the dactylic hexameter), it is traditionally regarded as a spondee. Thus the dactylic line most normally looks as follows:

 

— u u | — u u | — u u | — u u | — u u | — X

(Note that — = a long syllable, u = a short syllable, u u = either one long or two shorts, and X = anceps syllable.)

 

As in all classical verse forms, the phenomenon of brevis in longo is observed, so the last syllable can actually be short or long.

 

Hexameters also have a primary caesura — a break in sense, much like the function of a comma in prose — at one of several normal positions: After the first syllable in the third foot (the "masculine" caesura); after the second syllable in the third foot if the third foot is a dactyl (the "feminine" caesura); after the first syllable of the fourth foot (the hephthemimeral caesura); or after the first syllable of the second foot (the latter two often occur together in a line, breaking it into three separate units). The first possible caesura that one encounters in a line is considered the main caesura. A masculine caesura can offset a hiatus, causing lengthening of an otherwise light syllable.In Greek Homeric poetry (not in Latin), also, hexameters have two bridges, places where there very rarely is a break in a word-unit. The first, known as Meyer's Bridge (or Law), is in the second foot: if the second foot is a dactyl, the two short syllables generally will be part of the same word-unit. Stated another way, an iambic word (like θεά at Il. 1.1) should not precede the midline caesura. The second, known as Hermann's Bridge, is the same rule in the fourth foot: if the fourth foot is a dactyl, the two short syllables generally will be part of the same word-unit. Even in Homer, these bridges are not prescriptive: the first line of the Iliad violates Meyer's Bridge (Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος) since there is a word break between ἄειδε and θεὰ.Hexameters are frequently enjambed, which helps to create the long, flowing narrative of epic. They are generally considered the most grandiose and formal meter.An English language example of the dactylic hexameter, in quantitative meter:Down in a | deep dark | dell sat an | old cow | munching a | bean stalkAs the absurd meaning of this example demonstrates, quantitative meter is extremely difficult to construct in English. Here is an example in normal stress meter (the first line of Longfellow's "Evangeline"):This is the | forest pri | meval. The | murmuring | pines and the | hemlocksThe "foot" is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to half notes (minims) and quarter notes (crotchets), respectively.The hexameter was first used by early Greek poets of the oral tradition, and the most complete extant examples of their works are the Iliad and the Odyssey, which influenced the authors of all later classical epics that survive today. Early epic poetry was also accompanied by music, and pitch changes associated with the accented Greek must have highlighted the melody, though the exact mechanism is still a topic of discussion.[1]

 

The Homeric poems arrange words in the line so that there is an interplay between the metrical ictus—the first long syllable of each foot—and the natural, spoken accent of words. If these two features of the language coincide too frequently, they overemphasize each other and the hexameter becomes sing-songy. Nevertheless, some reinforcement is desirable so that the poem has a natural rhythm. Balancing these two considerations is what eventually leads to rules regarding the correct placement of the caesura and breaks between words; in general, word breaks occur in the middle of metrical feet, while accent and ictus coincide only near the end of the line.

The first line of Homer’s Iliad—"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles"—provides an example:

 

μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

Dividing the line into metrical units:

 

μῆνιν ἄ | ειδε, θε | ά, Πη | ληϊά | δεω Ἀχι | λῆος

dactyl, dactyl, spondee, dactyl, dactyl, trochee.

Note how the word endings do not coincide with the end of a metrical foot; for the early part of the line this forces the natural accent of each word to lie in the middle of a foot, playing against the natural rhythm of the ictus.This line also includes a masculine caesura after θεά, a natural break that separates the line into two logical parts. Unlike later writers, Homeric lines more commonly employ the feminine caesura; an example occurs in Iliad I.5 "...and every bird; thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment":

οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή,

οἰω | νοῖσί τε | πᾶσι, Δι | ὸς δ’ ἐτε | λείετο | βουλή,

Homer’s hexameters contain a far higher proportion of dactyls than later hexameter poetry. They are also characterised by a laxer following of verse principles that the authors of later epics almost invariably adhered to. For example, Homer allows spondaic fifth feet (albeit not often), whereas many later authors virtually never did. There are also exceptions to Meyer’s Bridge and Hermann’s Bridge in Homer (albeit rare), but such violations are exceedingly rare in a later author like Callimachus.Homer also altered the forms of words to allow them to fit the hexameter, typically by using a dialectal form: ptolis is an epic form used instead of the Attic polis wherever it is necessary for the meter. On occasion, the names of characters themselves actually seem to have been altered: the spelling of the name of Homer’s character Polydamas, Pouludamas, appears to be an alternative rendering of the metrically unviable Poludamas ("subduer of many").

 

Finally, even after accepting the various alterations admitted by Homer, some lines remain impossible to scan as they stand now, e.g. Iliad I.108 "not a good word spoken nor brought to pass":ἐσθλὸν δ’ οὐτέ τί πω εἶπας ἔπος οὔτ’ ἐτέλεσσας

The first three feet of this line scan spondee-dactyl-spondee, but the fourth foot of -πας ἔπος has three consecutive short syllables. These metrical inconsistencies (along with a knowledge of comparative linguistics) have led scholars to infer the presence of a lost digamma consonant in an old form of that line. In this example, the word ἔπος was originally ϝέπος in Ionian; this consonant lengthens the last syllable of the preceding εἶπας and corrects the apparent defect in the meter. This example demonstrates the oral tradition of the Homeric epics that flourished long before they were written down sometime in the 7th century BC.In spite of the occasional exceptions in early epic, most of the later rules of hexameter composition have their origins in the methods and practices of Homer.The hexameter came into Latin as an adaptation from Greek long after the practice of singing the epics had faded. Consequentially, the properties of the meter were learned as specific "rules" rather than as a natural result of musical expression. Also, because the Latin language generally has a higher percentage of long syllables than Greek, it is by nature more spondaic than Greek. These factors caused the Latin hexameter to take on distinct Latin characteristics.

 

The earliest example of the use of hexameter in Latin poetry is that of the Annales of Ennius, which established the dactylic hexameter as the standard for later Latin epic. Later Republican writers, such as Lucretius, Catullus and even Cicero, wrote their own compositions in the meter and it was at this time that many of the principles of Latin hexameter were firmly established, ones that would govern later writers such as Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Juvenal. Virgil's opening line for the Aeneid is a classic example of Latin hexameter:

 

– u u|– u u|– –|– – | – u u| – –

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

"I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy..."

As in Greek, lines were arranged such that the metrically long syllables—those occurring at the beginning of a foot—avoided the natural stress of a word. In the first few feet of the meter, meter and stress were expected to clash, while in the final few feet they were expected to resolve and coincide—an effect that gives each line a natural "dum-ditty-dum-dum" ("shave and a haircut") rhythm to close. Such an arrangement is a balance between an exaggerated emphasis on the metre—which would cause the verse to be sing-songy—and the need to provide some repeated rhythmic guide for skilled recitation.

 

In the following example of Ennius's early Latin hexameter composition, metrical weight (ictus) falls on the first and last syllables of certabant; the ictus is therefore opposed to the natural stress on the second syllable when the word is pronounced. Similarly, the second syllable of the words urbem and Romam carry the metrical ictus even though the first is naturally stressed in typical pronunciation. In the closing feet of the line, the natural stress that falls on the third syllable of Remoramne and the second syllable of vocarent coincide with the metrical ictus and produce the characteristic "shave and a haircut" ending:

 

– –|– –| – –|– u u|– u u|– –

certabant urbem Romam Remoramne vocarent. (Annales 1.86)

"they were disputing whether they should call the city 'Roma' or 'Remora'."

Like their Greek predecessors, classical Latin poets avoided a large number of word breaks at the ends of foot divisions except between the fourth and fifth, where it was encouraged. In order to preserve the rhythmic close, Latin poets avoided the placement of a single syllable or four-syllable word at the end of a line. The caesura is also handled far more strictly, with Homer's feminine caesura becoming exceedingly rare, and the second-foot caesura always paired with one in the fourth.

 

One example of the evolution of the Latin verse form can be seen in a comparative analysis of the use of spondees in Ennius' time vs. the Augustan age. The repeated use of the heavily spondaic line came to be frowned upon, as well as the use of a high proportion of spondees in both of the first two feet. The following lines of Ennius would not have been felt admissible by later authors since they both contain repeated spondees at the beginning of consecutive lines:

 

– –| – – | – u u|– – | – u u|– –

his verbis: "o gnata, tibi sunt ante ferendae

– –| – – | – u u|– –| – u u|– –

aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet." (Annales 1.42f)

"with these words: 'o daughter, tribulations must first be borne by you;

later your fortune will rise again from the river.'"

However, it is from Virgil that the following famous, heavily spondaic line comes:

 

– –| – –| – –| – –| – u u|– –

monstr' horrend' inform' ingens, cui lumen ademptum. (Aeneid III.658)

"a huge shapeless horrendous monster, whose eye had been removed"By the age of Augustus, poets like Virgil closely followed the rules of the meter and approached it in a highly rhetorical way, looking for effects that can be exploited in skilled recitation. For example, the following line from the Aeneid (VIII.596) describes the movement of rushing horses and how "a hoof shakes the crumbling field with a galloping sound":

 

– u u|– u u| – u u|– u u| – u u| – –

quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum

 

This line is made up of five dactyls and a closing spondee, an unusual rhythmic arrangement that imitates the described action. A similar effect is found in VIII.452, where Virgil describes how the blacksmith sons of Vulcan "lift their arms with great strength one to another" in forging Aeneas' shield:

 

– –| – –|– –| – –| – uu| – –

illi inter sese multa ui bracchia tollunt

The line consists of all spondees except for the usual dactyl in the fifth foot, and is meant to mimic the pounding sound of the work. A third example that mixes the two effects comes from I.42, where Juno pouts that Athena was allowed to use Jove's thunderbolts to destroy Ajax ("she hurled Jove's quick fire from the clouds"):

 

– u u|– u u|– u u|– –| – u u| – –

ipsa Iovis rapidum iaculata e nubibus ignem

This line is nearly all dactyls except for the spondee at -lata e. This change in rhythm paired with the harsh elision is intended to emphasize the crash of Athena's thunderbolt.

 

Virgil will occasionally deviate from the strict rules of the meter to produce a special effect. One example from I.105 describing a ship at sea during a storm has Virgil violating metrical standards to place a single-syllable word at the end of the line:

 

...et undis

– u u | – u u|– u u|– –| – u u | – –

dat latus; insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons.

The boat "gives its side to the waves; there comes next in a heap a steep mountain of water." By placing the monosyllable mons at the end of the line, Virgil interrupts the usual "shave and a haircut" pattern to produce a jarring rhythm, an effect that echoes the crash of a large wave against the side of a ship.

 

One final, amusing example that comments on the importance Roman poets placed on their verse rules comes from the Ars Poetica of Horace, line 263:

 

– –|– u u| – u u|– u u|– u u| – –

Non quivis videt inmodulata poemata iudex,

 

The line, which lacks a proper caesura, is translated "Not every critic sees an inharmonious verse."

 

Silver Age and later heroic verse[edit]

The verse innovations of the Augustan writers were carefully imitated by their successors in the Silver Age of Latin literature. The verse form itself then was little changed, as the quality of a poet's hexameter was judged against the standard set by Virgil and the other Augustan poets, a respect for literary precedent encompassed by the Latin word aemulatio.[2] Deviations were generally regarded as idiosyncrasies or hallmarks of personal style, and were not imitated by later poets. Juvenal, for example, was fond of occasionally creating verses that placed a sense break between the fourth and fifth foot (instead of in the usual caesura positions), but this technique—known as the bucolic diaeresis—did not catch on with other poets.

 

In the late empire, writers experimented again by adding unusual restrictions to the standard hexameter. The rhopalic verse of Ausonius is a good example; besides following the standard hexameter pattern, each word in the line is one syllable longer than the previous, e.g.:

 

Spes, deus, aeternae stationis conciliator,

si castis precibus veniales invigilamus,

his, pater, oratis placabilis adstipulare.

Also notable is the tendency among late grammarians to thoroughly dissect the hexameters of Virgil and earlier poets. A treatise on poetry by Diomedes Grammaticus is a good example, as this work (among other things) categorizes dactylic hexameter verses in ways that were later interpreted under the golden line rubric. Independently, these two trends show the form becoming highly artificial—more like a puzzle to solve than a medium for personal poetic expression.By the Middle Ages, some writers adopted more relaxed versions of the meter. Bernard of Cluny, for example, employs it in his De Contemptu Mundi, but ignores classical conventions in favor of accentual effects and predictable rhyme both within and between verses, e.g.:Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt — vigilemus.

Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.

Imminet imminet ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,

Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet.

(I.1-4: These are the last days, the worst of times: let us keep watch.

Behold the menacing arrival of the supreme Judge.

He is coming, he is coming to end evil, crown the just, reward the right, set the worried free, and give the skies.)

Not all medieval writers are so at odds with the Virgilian standard, and with the rediscovery of classical literature, later Medieval and Renaissance writers are far more orthodox, but by then the form had become an academic exercise. Petrarch, for example, devoted much time to his Africa, a dactylic hexameter epic on Scipio Africanus, but this work was unappreciated in his time and remains little read today. In contrast, Dante decided to write his epic, the Divine Comedy in Italian—a choice that defied the traditional epic choice of Latin dactylic hexameters—and produced a masterpiece beloved both then and now.[citation needed]With the New Latin period, the language itself came to be regarded as a medium only for "serious" and learned expression, a view that left little room for Latin poetry. The emergence of Recent Latin in the 20th century restored classical orthodoxy among Latinists and sparked a general (if still academic) interest in the beauty of Latin poetry. Today, the modern Latin poets who use the dactylic hexameter are generally as faithful to Virgil as Rome's Silver Age poets.In addition to modern Latin poets, examples of dactylic hexameter in modern use can frequently be found in hip-hop and rap lyrics, though it is not definitively researched enough to declare whether it is derived from the ephemeral notion of "flow" (such as in the music of Jay-Z[3]) or more intentionally employed by major artists in the poetic creation of their lyrics. The relationship between dactylic hexameter and hip-hop/rap has been notably used in teaching classic poetry to young students.[4] Dactylic hexameter in rap/hip-hop is most frequently mentioned in discussions of the song "Bring the Noise" by the musical artists Public Enemy. "Bring the Noise" has been sampled and remixed by other artists, and both the original song and cover versions have performed well on industry trackers such as the Billboard charts – across musical genres and different countries/linguistic groups – which may anecdotally indicate the strength of dactylic hexameter in conveying lyrical quality to the human ear, particularly when it is considered that the meter has had enduring success for artists from the time of Homer through the modern day.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_hexameter

For more than 20 years I have been a great admirer and enthusiast of Taiwan-made trucks. I knew, already in 1990s, that one day we will miss them and now this day has arrived and these vehicles have become rare. Once you could find them everywhere across the island, particularly in the countryside, and every township had different brands and designs. Some were quite original, I remember one model had 5 wheels (one in the front and four in the back). I even considered making a book about them back in the days, with photos, but I didn't own a camera at that time and didn't like to take photos so that project didn't have ideal preconditions.

 

You may find they look rather do-it-yourself and that's not far from the truth. These trucks are not produced by famous automotive multinationals but hand made in small village workshops for the very local market. This particular model is a CE (or ₠?), as you can tell from the logo in the grille - see enlargement in the comments.

A Precondition of

Doing Violence To

Any Group Of People

Or Nation Is to Make

Them Less Than Human

 

by Rajko Radovanovic

Marigny at North Villere

New Orleans, Louisiana

 

Rajko Radovanovic originally employed the above statement in a series of works and installations dealing with the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Frequently combining text and image, Radovanovic explored the ways in which people’s moral standards can be ‘re-set’ and modified to allow them to support and accept the brutalisation of their fellow citizens. Radovanovic comments, “Our modern political establishments, by influencing public opinion through the media, create the notion of ‘other’ – the modern word for ‘enemy’. It is through this concept of ‘difference’ that they seek to provide a moral justification for harming or oppressing fellow human beings.”

 

Working in close collaboration with AORTA Projects, Radovanovic is installed this text in the Upper 9th neighborhood of St.Roch. Painted directly onto an exterior wall of a still flood-damaged home, the visual context of the statement remains that of a community attempting to rebuild itself in the aftermath of disaster. This public collaboration serves to highlight the fact that acts of oppression are not confined to military conflict and that the resultant trauma is universal.

(as per: www.aortaprojects.blogspot.com/ )

BEST seen in LARGE size.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je8MXiwmNIk

  

THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED: "According to Freud, the history of man is the history of his repression. Culture constrains not only his societal but also his biological existence, not only parts of the human being but his instinctual structure itself. However, such constraint is the very precondition of progress. Left free to pursue their natural objectives, the basic instincts of man would be incompatible with all lasting association and preservation: they would destroy even where they unite. (...) The return of the repressed makes up the tabooed and subterranean history of civilization. And the exploration of this history reveals not only the secret of the individual but also that of civilization. Freud’s individual psychology is in its very essence social psychology. Repression is a historical phenomenon. The effective subjugation of the instincts to repressive controls is imposed not by nature but by man. The primal father, as the archetype of domination, initiates the chain reaction of enslavement, rebellion, and reinforced domination which marks the history of civilization." (H. MARCUSE)

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/eros-civ...

 

THE REPTILIAN BRAIN: "The reptilian complex, also known as the R-complex or "reptilian brain", was the name MacLean gave to the basal ganglia, structures derived from the floor of the forebrain during development. The term derives from the fact that comparative neuroanatomists once believed that the forebrains of reptiles and birds were dominated by these structures. MacLean contended that the reptilian complex was responsible for species typical instinctual behaviors involved in aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXyp9p1UDPg

 

THE DEVIL: The 15th major arcanum of the TAROT decks. "Though many decks portray a stereotypical Satan figure for this card, it is more accurately represented by our bondage to material things rather than by any evil persona. It also indicates an obsession or addiction to fulfilling our own earthly base desires. Should the Devil represent a person, it will most likely be one of money and power, one who is persuasive, aggressive, and controlling.

In Jungian terms, he is The Shadow: all the repressed, unmentioned or unmentionable desires that lurk beneath."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_(Tarot_card)

  

Skin (LIZARD), hat (CHART MAN) and cravat (CHART MAN) created by CapCat Ragu and Meilo Minotaur

 

Eyes: Theoretical Afterthought

 

Second Life - Menagerie Island

Canon EOS 6D - f/3.2 - 1/16sec - 100 mm - ISO 200

 

These are not five pipes...

 

after Magritte

www.wikiart.org/en/rene-magritte

 

René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that fall under the umbrella of surrealism. His work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality.

 

Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, 'The Treachery of Images' (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe"), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. When Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging his viewers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

Though the title of this painting draws attention to the central green structure, the more captivating element is the large oversized violin. Casually nestled between two townhouses, the instrument is accompanied by the cloth used to pad a musician's shoulders, suggesting that a sizeable street scene with a fading effect Magritte described as "shading off the image towards the edges," using arcing lines to produce a memory-like haze.

 

This Magritte original was seen and photographed on display at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The painting was recently auctioned at Christie's for 725,000 British Pounds (GBP).

René François Ghislain Magritte, 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.

 

Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.

 

From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913. Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico's The Song of Love (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes saw thought for the first time." The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former's painting The Blind House (1892) and Magritte's variations or series on The Empire of Lights.

 

In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.

 

Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years. In 1929 he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.

 

On 15 December 1929 he participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of Images.

 

Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising.[10] He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years. In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.

 

During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, Le Principe du Plaisir (The Pleasure Principle) and La Reproduction Interdite, a painting also known as Not to Be Reproduced.

 

During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir period", as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.

 

In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight. During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period," he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son" Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.

 

In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.

 

Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.

 

Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art. In 2005 he was 9th in the Walloon version of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian); in the Flemish version he was 18th.

Yesterday was foggy and... for the first time in ages... I had the photography urge, so I skipped work and went out to play with my camera.

 

I'd forgotten the importance of pure and simple play.

 

Somehow this photography thing has become all cluttered with the passing years. I find myself setting all kinds of ridiculous preconditions... and wasting so much time on them that I never get around to any actual shooting.

 

So yesterday I just played. And played and played. And it was great.

 

Today, of course, I'm feeling my age. I'm stiff and scabbed up and skeeter-bit and sore. And I have to double down on the work but... man, it's definitely worth it.

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

The 'bowler hat' first appeared in Magritte's work in the 1920's. In the 1950's the bowler-hatted man became synonymous and was associated with many of his paintings. Normally centering the torso on a vertical canvas, in this painting (1951) he placed the figure in its natural habitat: a modern European city suggestive of his native Brussels. According to Magritte, the presence of the white rose signified that "wherever man's destiny leads him, he is always protected by an element of beauty."

 

This original Magritte painting was seen and photographed at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in an exhibit entitled 'Rene Magritte: The Fifth Season'.

  

Kamera: Nikon FE2

Linse: Nikkor-O Auto 35mm f2 (1970)

Film: Kodak 5222 @ ISO 250

Kjemi: Rodinal (1:50 / 9 min. @ 20°C)

 

Wikipedia: UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (17 Nov. 2025)

 

The Electronic Intifada: Arab states betray Palestine as UN hands Gaza to Trump with Craig Mokhiber (b. 1960) (Publ. 21 Nov. 2025)

 

---

 

The association of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (b. 1953) with the Gaza Trusteeship builds on the tradition of Western humanitarians who sought to humanize colonialism by grafting onto it a duty of care.

 

Trusteeship assumes a world divided between childlike people deemed incapable of looking after themselves; a characterization now applied to the Palestinian people of Gaza - and the supposed adults; Donald Trump (b. 1946), Tony Blair, and others.

 

At the heart of this model is racism.

 

My name is Ralph Wilde.

 

I am professor of International Law at the Faculty of Laws of University College London; part of the University of London.

 

Yesterday; the 17th of November 2025 - United Nations Security Council passed Security Council resolution 2803 purporting to authorize a 2-year trusteeship over Gaza.

 

Today; I will explain how this shameful act follows a long tradition in international diplomacy.

 

I'm speaking in Ramallah, Palestine in a personal capacity only.

 

The Gaza trusteeship would replace the more than half-century long occupation by Israel which has involved serious violations of fundamental rules of international law in its conduct:

 

Racial discrimination, apartheid, torture, grave breaches of the laws of war, crimes against humanity and genocide.

 

At the heart of these rules of international law is the duty of trusteeship. Dominion by the trustee - Israel - should be exercised selflessly in the interests of the ostensible beneficiary; the Palestinians of Gaza - not selfishly. There should be protection; not abuse.

 

Befitting his role as an icon of Western liberal interventionism, the association of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair with the Gaza Trusteeship builds on the tradition of Western humanitarians who sought to humanize colonialism by grafting onto it a duty of care.

 

This concept of trusteeship over people was adopted by Europeans for colonial rule over Africa at the Berlin conference (1884-1885) in the late 19th century; by the League of Nations after the First World War for the mandate territories - including the mandate here; in Palestine [i.e. Mandatory Palestine] - and by the United Nations after the Second World War for the trust territories and all other non-settler colonies.

 

Trusteeship assumes a world divided between childlike people deemed incapable of looking after themselves - a characterization now applied to the Palestinian people of Gaza - and the supposed adults; Donald Trump, Tony Blair, and others who are deemed able to rule over not only their own people, but also others.

 

Falling into the child category is the rationale for being subjected to trusteeship.

 

In the League of Nations covenant (1919), the people of the mandates were, and I quote;

 

"not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world."

 

End of quote.

 

The child / adult relationship is the rationale for the duty of care.

 

The adult is in charge, but must act in the interest of the ward.

 

The adult's responsibility is to bring up the child so that it will eventually attain maturity to conduct tutelage enabling development.

 

The Gaza trusteeship will thus be temporary because it is transitional.

 

The adults will build up local capacities for self-administration.

 

The children will consequentially mature and attain adulthood - and the need for trusteeship will then end.

 

At the heart of this model is racism.

 

In the colonial era, a racist global standard of civilization adopted within a system; dominated by Europeans, determined who the adults and children were.

 

No prizes for guessing who conceived themselves as the adults.

 

Trusteeship was a self-serving sham invoked in bad faith serving as an alibi to rationalize colonial rule which could now be justified as a civilizing mission.

 

But the consequence of colonial liberation-struggles after the Second World War - the end of formal colonization for non-settler colonies - was the adoption in international law of the right of self-determination.

 

This was a repudiation of trusteeship. There were no more childlike and adult-like people in the world.

 

The racist child / adult distinction between peoples was supposedly abolished:

 

All peoples were equal and deserved freedom as adults.

 

As the United Nations General Assembly stated 65 years ago next month on the 14th of December 1960; and I quote:

 

"Inadequacy of political, economic, social, or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence."

 

End of quote.

 

Despite this; trusteeships continued, mostly conducted by international organizations - as in Bosnia and Herzegovina ...

 

[i.e. the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995 ->> )]

 

[See also: Dayton Agreement (1995)]

 

... and East Timor / Timor-Leste.

 

Global human rights rules were invoked as a seemingly non-racist standard of civilization that could determine, supposedly legitimately, where trusteeship was needed.

 

International organizations were seen as capable of acting selflessly and thus performing the duty of trustee in good faith.

 

In contrast, the states:

 

- The US-led occupation of Iraq (2003-2011): BAD

 

- The UN in East Timor (1999-2002): GOOD

 

and temporary arrangements when actually followed -

 

- YES, East Timor

 

- NO, Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

- were seen as genuine trusteeships in that they didn't endlessly defer independence as the sham colonial versions had.

 

I wrote a book on these arrangements and their antecedance in the colonial era.

 

I am told that this book is being used as the manual for the Gaza trusteeship.

 

This horrifies me.

 

At the ICJ advisory opinion case [on the legality of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories] last year, I had the privilege to argue for the League of Arab States based on my academic research that the Palestinian people had a legal entitlement to be free of the Israeli occupation without preconditions - and simply because of their right to self-rule, not because they were being treated abusively.

 

In its landmark ruling last year (2024), the court agreed.

 

This was a conclusion about the right to self-determination pure and simple in and of itself. It would therefore apply equally to any form of foreign administration, however ostensibly humanitarian and time limited.

 

Replacing an abusive trustee with another form of trusteeship is not self-determination and would be illegal.

 

We might be told that somehow this arrangement has been rendered lawful because the representatives of the Palestinian people have somehow agreed to it - just as, supposedly, [the Oslo Accords] (1993) legitimated the continuation of certain elements of the occupation here in the West Bank.

 

But agreements brought about through an unlawful use of force as this one has been and contrary to peremptory or jus cogens norms of international law norms covering fundamental subject matter which for this reason can't be limited by any other norms of international law as this one is. The right of self-determination is a permptory norm.

 

Such agreements are void.

 

As I argued for the Arab League before the International Court of Justice, and also the International Criminal Court also last year, the best approach in such situations is to say that such agreements may be in force in so far as they are compatible with the peremptory legal rights of the Palestinian people.

 

For example; if they are concerned with providing the resumption of urgently needed humanitarian aid, but those provisions which are not; such as permitting the trusteeship, are void.

 

We might also be told that these illegalities have been somehow cured by UN Security Council 2803, which was passed yesterday.

 

Indeed, a commonplace description of that resolution is that it has legalized the trusteeship.

 

The council did in the past purport to provide legal authority for those other trusteeships - in Bosnia and Herzegovina and East Timor.

 

Moreover, the Security Council does have the power in the United Nations Charter to provide legal authority for something that would otherwise be illegal and for this to be binding on all member states of the UN who have accepted this by being parties to the UN charter.

 

The State of Palestine is not of course a UN member state because the security council itself cannot agree due to the threat of a US veto to admit it.

 

Moreover, in any case, the council's power is limited. It can only act in a way that is compatible with the purposes and principles of the UN charter (1945).

 

Those purposes and principles stipulate that the adjustment or settlement of disputes must take place, and I quote:

 

"in conformity with the principles of justice and international law"

 

- end of quote.

 

As the trusteeship is not in conformity with the international legal rule of self-determination and this legal rule has peremptory status - In purporting to authorize the trusteeship, the council is acting beyond its lawful powers ultra vires.

 

As such, the authorization is legally void.

 

This is the same problem the Palestinian people faced over a century ago when the Council of the League of Nations, very roughly speaking, equivalent to the UN Security Council, purported to vary the provisions of article 22 of the League Covenant, which stipulated that Palestine was in a class of mandated territories that should be provisionally recognized as independent states, to instead instead permit the UK to retain control as trustee to implement the Balfour Declaration (1917) commitment to establishing a Jewish state here in Palestine.

 

As I argued in my academic publications and before the International Court of Justice last year for the League of Arab States, the council had no legal authority to bypass the covenant in this way, and, therefore acted ultra vires and so the authority it therefore attempted to give to the UK to implement the Balfour Declaration (1917) was void.

 

Just as then trusteeship is back here in Palestine and again with a British character to it in the form of Tony Blair.

 

So too again the executive organ of the global organization is attempting to legalize this by acting beyond the lawful limits of its constituent instrument.

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose..

 

I will end by quoting from parts of the statement issued by the representatives of Hamas today in response to Security Council resolution 2803 adopted yesterday - quotations of which accurately encapsulate what international law requires.

 

And I quote;

 

"This resolution does not meet the level of our Palestinian people's political and humanitarian demands and rights.

 

The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip which our people and their factions reject.

 

We call on the international community and the security council to uphold the international law and humanitarian values and to adopt resolutions that achieve justice for Gaza and the Palestinian cause through the actual cessation of the brutal genocidal war on Gaza; reconstruction, ending the occupation, and enabling our people to self-determination and establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital."

 

End of quote.

 

Source: Professor Ralph Wilde: UN resolution imposes illegal trusteeship over Palestinians (Publ. 19. November 2025 - Middle East Eye]

René François Ghislain Magritte 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.

 

Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and had first met Magritte when she was only 13 and he was 15. They met again in Brussels in 1920 and Georgette subsequently became Magritte's model and muse. In 1936 Magritte's marriage got into trouble when he met a young artist, Sheila Legge, and began an affair. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between his wife and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940.

 

Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels.

 

Artwork by TudioJepegii

I've started writing this entry a good half-dozen times, but kept starting over because I felt I wasn't explaining well enough the profound changes that have manifested - and sharing a look at those, along with my past, whilst celebrating the sheer awesomeness (I over-use that word, but feel it's entirely appropriate!) of the people who helped me get here is my aim, so that others might be inspired that the journey is worth traveling because there are wonderful destinations along the way!. That, and keeping it shorter than a small novel - yes it's long anyway, but I've tended not to share so much of myself to the 'net at large in the past. I'm cashing in credit for that.

 

I don't expect there's anything I can write that'll make anyone see precisely how to achieve this for themselves in a step by step fashion; I believe it needs to be personally realised and experienced directly, built from our own individual experiences without coercion or duress. I do hope reading of my experience can generate just a little faith, though, that even for the most depressed and worn-out among us simple, complete and deep happiness exists without the ever-present push against a wall of mercurial moods. I hope to play a part in guiding minds to the doorway out of there. I hope to sow a seed.

 

I think it's a fine balancing line I have to take, and I respect that for folk deep in mid-depression this may sound like nothing but feel-good platitudes - I may be too far removed from that state to directly relate any more. Still, there are those I know who're starting to see, and taking their first steps out of the mire. If that sounds familiar, then this is probably more for you :)

 

What I write below will only make any sense if you've already read this little piece I wrote in May 2010 about an event I've come to call my first enlightenment, a night where I stopped the quotidian trudging, step by slow step, and launched further forwards than I knew was possible. I was thrown to a place where discovery of how everything works came in waves that I've still not entirely caught up with. It was a trip!

 

(If the term 'Enlightenment' bothers you, perhaps a Singularity may sit better; a point where advancement is based on countless preconditions all coming together, and nothing afterwards is anything like before. Indeed, it may describe it all quite a bit better, as it didn't appear from nowhere, but was the result of years of slow change, accelerating in the months beforehand.)

 

So to it.

 

Like most folk, over my lifetime I had accumulated so much crud that I believed was my identity - habits, memories, fears, roles, desires and so on. I thought these defined me and couldn't really be changed. I thought I could only add to this built-up collection that was me through learning and experience. And for some horrors within, all I could do was cover up and bury them. If I wanted to truly change anything back then, I expected I could only make waves in the external world, because I saw my Self as fixed. Humanity, I'd been taught, could adapt the world to suit ourselves - that was supposed to be our great legacy over all other life.

 

But instead, by practicing my existence as no more than consciousness and letting go of all else, my attachment to those things I'd once considered Self eased off. So many things that weren't really Me fell away - great masses of want, desire, clinging and ego. Since almost everything I'd once thought was Me was now equivalent to Not Me, my whole concept of what that Me could be widened further than I could have imagined.

 

With false identity dissolving, choices far beyond just making changes 'externally' revealed themselves. What I am, what I fear, what I desire and what I believe all became choices - because after seeing 'myself' as merely consciousness, I became aware that all of those other parts to my identity are external to 'Me'. Being human wasn't limited to adapting the world outside myself - I could adapt myself, and all of myself, on a whim!. The world changes constantly, sometimes in tune with but often regardless of my will, what sense is there in not being able to let go and change fully with it?

 

Especially as in the end it's all the same thing - or at least, the line I used to see demarcating me and everything else is now very very fuzzy. A kind of beautiful Self-bokeh.

 

I suppose I could better label my old false identity as my random collection of stuff that happened to me identity. Now though, my new identity is a non-identity, no-self, where this consciousness that looks out through my body gets to pick and choose how to be from day to day, in order to best satisfy some core beneficial tenets. Compassion, kindness, openness, respect, love...

 

I saw firmly on that night 365 days ago how extraordinarily powerful pure consciousness can be, and how everything that manifested in my life began with thought derived from it. It's become more and more obvious since then that thought is a thousand-tonne karma train on a high speed track; every single one has consequences, and everything that happens to me is a consequence that began who knows how far back.

 

Thoughts don't just include my plans for the day, what I'd like for breakfast, or the occasional large scale decision like moving house or marrying, but every self-doubt, lie, or validation about my worth, every awareness or non-aware presumption, every creative notion or destructive want. They all manifest consequences. I manifest them, by thinking them.

 

Becoming aware of how this works allowed me to see clearly some chains of consequence and responsibility I'd been ignorant of, and those consequences I'd once thought were simply how-things-were, were the end result of decisions I'd made - and that could change. Of course, it's easy to rationalise that the smallest actions in our lives can have huge effects; I only need look back to some beautiful changes in my life occurring because of a chance meeting in 2006 with someone who became a very close friend - but not everything is so black and white. I can also be aware that every thought or action I perform has a direct chain to consequences I may not know at the time (a buddhist concept of karma), and that's a strong and constant guide to doing aware and thoughtful good by myself and others.

 

So, with this new-found awareness and without a substantial ego in place, I saw my depression was a choice I made based on what I told myself, and all those lies I believed about myself. I may have had prompting events happen to me, but I chose all my reactions to those. I discovered my anxiety was precisely the same, and I could simply let go of the thoughts that brought it on. Depression and anxiety were both irretrievably lost like smoke in fog. I'm not sure I even remember what anxiety feels like, and the angst-infused tears of depression are becoming difficult to recall...

 

I cringe now when I read the writing of friends and acquaintainces who're still deep in depression, with statements like I wouldn't be me without this or I've always been too smart to trick myself into being happy and you can't just BE happy, or the worst: This is just who I am. They're words spoken as if the depression is the person, as if the negativity we create for ourselves is something solid and comforting but the happiness we can equally will up from the same place is an ethereal thing with no substance, or even some creepy insidious evil.

 

I know those lies, I know how shallow and deceptive but appealing they are, because they feel true by cloaking themselves as validation - and I know thinking like that does work to ease the ache, just a little. Ultimately though, it still feeds back into the beast inside and strengthens it. I lived it almost constantly, often suicidally so, since I was 16. Now I'm within spitting distance of forty, I've survived all the tricks of long-term depression, and its not Me. It never was. Depression, like happiness itself, is what I do not what I am.

 

I realised being overweight was also a choice, and it caused the majority of my health issues. It was a choice reached by the thoughts I entertained about food and movement, and the lies I told myself about them that resulted in a body so out of condition it hurt - I used to tell myself that my weight had little to do with my health, until I saw myself with awareness; as I treated myself better my weight fell away and my health improved simultaneously and dramatically - I'd been overweight for so long I'd forgotten what real physical well-being felt like!.

 

Dozens of little pains, difficult movement, over-sweating, difficult breathing, fat rashes, postural hypotension, migraines, sleep apnoea, easy bruising and endless other little cumulative physical ills caused by my weight - I now know they were choices. They may have been several steps removed from conscious thought in that chain of consequences, but they were no less a direct result of my own thought. I took responsibility for them and decided no more.

I'd like to reiterate that I didn't consciously choose my ills, of course, by refusing to make choices that'd improve my life - it's that I didn't know how to make those choices, or in many cases simply didn't believe I could. I'd taken on the beliefs of others and made them my own.

 

I realised that my triggers (for the most part revolving around religiosity, sexual abuse, abandonment and responsibility) weren't events that forced an uncontrollable firestorm of anxiety within me, although it felt like that. They were simply events that reminded me of past horrors, and my head did the rest. It was real terror, but what destroyed me inside was a reaction that I owned. Once again that was based on that false identity I no longer carried. Those memories used to bring on such strong reactions that they could undo a whole week's good mood work - now most of them have no effect, and the ones that still do are... mild. I could never have seen that for what it is, and I would have argued against the description I've just given as fairytale wishful thinking bullshit, if I didn't have the awareness I now carry.

 

The smell of chai at sunrise in summer with the plaintive call of Koels outside was once enough to sour any good mood. Together they remind me of lost love as they took me back to a time lost too. Now that I know the awful feeling that came upon me with those memories was a choice based on what I carried, and because I choose now to carry love and memories of love, I only remember that was love, and it was beautiful!

 

I realised getting up off my arse and doing just about anything was worth more than uncountable signatures on a petition, retweets, 'likes' on facebook (or whatever simplified expression of 'support' that isn't really much of one at all is doing the rounds today) and that in the scheme of things it's not that much more difficult. I realised I could fly planes, rescue and ease the suffering of Australia's beautiful wildlife, be a morning person, be a much better photographer, be a better friend, write, love and trust freely without needing love or trust given first, improve and inspire human lives, and be that person who renews others' faith in humanity - so I do that and more. It's not effort, it's fun!

 

I realised that the dichotomy of Conscious and Unconscious mind is a bit of a lie in itself. It's all Mind, and there's no hard line where the unconscious does its thing without me knowing and then the conscious reacts. They fade into and feed off one another constantly without clear demarcation, and they can be observed with an awareness that's above either; an awareness that holds no words, judgments, or anything but What Is. Unconscious may lie in dappled shadows, but it can still be fed quality food. I choose to feed it love, and it no longer springs horrific surprises on me that leave me feeling small, alone and unfixable at 2am.

 

If I had to summarise the last twenty something paragraphs succinctly and more colloquially, it's that when I realised everything I lived was all in my head, from my worst terror to my most sublime blissful joys, I was freed from it. 'I' was no longer trapped by having to be 'Me'. Sounds self explanatory, no?

 

Because I began this journey by being opened to a wisdom I couldn't be sure existed and appeared to make little practical sense (but subsequently changed me entirely overnight) I discovered not only the power of choosing thoughts, but in belief - in faith. I combine those to create my own beliefs so strong they become knowledge that I can't so much explain other than with an analogy.

 

Imagine being given a placebo, a sugar pill that you've been convinced is the best painkiller for relieving your headache - as placebo demonstrations go, it's a standard one that works effectively, and you'll more than likely get a measurable dose of pain relief. I can now both know it's a placebo and believe it'll work, and still find relief. That's powerful. Choosing to believe is my superpower.

 

And there's a whole lot of super in my life right now.

 

So anyway, I couldn't have reached where I was this time last year without some very special people who gave and still give of themselves. I'm sure anyone reading my tumblr has seen the number of entries attributed to l.c.h.; they're the initials of the individuals I credit most with lifting me to a point I could haul myself up and not fall back. They're in no order other than letters that sounded good together - I can't rank friends, or indeed most human capabilities, we're just too complex for that.

 

I attribute my posts to these friends because it was through their combined aid that I could recognise the sense and usefulness in each (and many more I noticed but wasn't near a computer to place online). Those realisations, my friends, are yours as much as mine.

(I must add that I have many other friends I love and adore, who I know care for me deeply and who're very important to me in all manner of ways. They're no less worthy of my time & love, but when it comes to this particular chapter of my life, not all had the opportunity to play. That's ok!. We have more time, and there's a lot more life to live!)

 

So to my blessed ones.

 

Leticia - @sweet_libertine. Thank you Tish, for so pleasantly surprising me. Thank you for being my rescuer when I was at my worst, both to myself and to others. Thank you for being my protector, my white lady. Thank you for picking me up and carrying me, a burden I know was heavy through very important times to you. Thank you for trusting me to know what I needed, and thank you for applying tough love when I showed I didn't. I know my mind is a surreal landscape of strange fruit to you, but that only makes my appreciation for your acceptance stronger. You are my Sergeant major, my commanding officer, my kick in the arse; you know precisely how hard a kick I need, and precisely when.

 

Char - @cmoliver. Thank you Char, for being my sounding board for Every Goddamned Insecurity I Ever Had. Thank you for propping me up when I couldn't stand, thank you for growing with me, thank you for listening, for sharing of yourself equally, and thank you for keeping in touch with me through all the changes in both our lives for good and bad. You are my Doctor, the psych at the end of my couch, the one I ramble at who agrees wholeheartedly with me whether or not I make sense, and who slips in the tiniest little confronting wisdom, sometimes just a single word, that makes me reconsider so much.

 

Helen - @Invisiblepixels. Thank you Hamsterkins, for being my bestie for so many years. Thank you for being so very blunt with me, but also for validating my sharing, from the stupidest little obsessions to the most profound changes in my flakey, flitty, oh-so-variable life. Thank you for your entirely practical questioning and criticism, and for sharing that brilliant intelligence of yours. Thank you for sharing and giving so much of yourself, and thank you for so unconditionally accepting everything I was and am. Thank you for sticking around, for laughter, for your patience, thank you for just about bloody everything while you write the story of my life with me. You are my Companion, my reflection, my sparring partner and you are in my pocket when I'm not in yours.

 

With such praise, it wouldn't be unfair to think that I'm placing dependence of my well-being on my friends in an unnecessarily unhealthy way, and you may have been right in the past. Post-enlightenment though, I've become aware that my appreciation and gratitude is no longer for my wonderful people as a need; I don't and can't cling to that, because I know what I genuinely need is welling up inside, that inside is everywhere, and there's an endless supply to share for everyone.

 

To survive, I might not need you all - but by Gods I'm glad you're here.

 

Or as Amanda Palmer sings in her cover of 'I Want You But I Don't Need You':

 

I like you, and I'd like you to like me to like youBut I don't need you, don't need you to need me to like you Because if you didn't like me, I would still like you, you see.

 

La la laaa - It's all good.

 

Of course, my friends are more than just the narrow descriptions above, and we all share each of those roles among one another to some level, but again that's beyond the scope of this piece.So here I am after a year recovered - more than recovered! Twelve months in a state so unlike my old depressed self, where I felt I was constantly looking up and wondering how the hell other folk found happiness. I felt scared, and clueless about how I could get to that point, wondering if it was even possible for broken ol' me to be fixed. Twelve months in a state where now I've arrived at that high, gone way past the other side, and found a few other folk there. Now I'm longing to reach out to my fellow humans and drag everyone forward while screaming "Come in! the water's AWESOME!".

 

Twelve months with three or four bad days, instead of every previous year containing no more than that number of merely OK ones, and no sign of this bliss abating. Twelve months since I finished pecking at my shell from the inside, cracked it open, and took my first real deep breath of free air with the ability to begin growing. It was rebirth.

 

That makes today, December 8th, my new birthday - because this is the day the closest thing to Me was born, and not just an arbitrary cutoff remembering when biology laid eyes on even more gooey screaming biology.

 

I gush, for very good reason, because now I get to share all this with everyone else!

 

2010; Gods, what a year. I hope for everyone to have a year like this, a year that overflowed with such pure existential bliss that events which would have once unraveled me entirely simply came, passed, and I got to watch and learn. Even now, mortal and painful events are unfolding within my closest family, and will certainly involve some major changes directly to my life - but that's OK, it's not the entirety of anything. Onwards and upwards!

 

There can't help but be another year as good, and another, and so on... simply because I get to make them so.

 

Happy birthday, me!

In the D-Wave Board meeting in Canada this morning. Today's news: Google buys a quantum computer for machine learning and artificial intelligence: "We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics." — Google Blog

 

This is an interesting development in a larger trend I call Deus Ex Machina — machine learning innervates everything.

 

Under the covers, just about every new research initiative at Google is driven by machine learning — whereby the machine learns patterns in the data without explicit models or traditional solution design. It’s what makes “Big Data” BIG this time around. The approach requires a humble relaxation of the presumption of control, and so it starts with companies like Google and eventually revolutionizes all businesses, even those with a delusion of control, like Investment bankers. =)

 

As a precondition to purchase, Google gave the company a number of performance benchmarks to prove that the quantum computer is faster than anything Google has in house. The NYT reports:

 

“For most problems, it was 11,000 times faster, but in the more difficult 50 percent, it was 33,000 times faster. In the top 25 percent, it was 50,000 times faster.”

 

"The machine Google and NASA will use makes use of the interactions of 512 quantum bits, or qubits, to determine optimization. They plan to upgrade the machine to 2,048 qubits when this becomes available, probably within the next year or two. That machine could be exponentially more powerful."

 

St Peter and St Paul, Salle, Norfolk

 

During their awesome reign over the other great teams of Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool football club placed a huge sign in the changing room corridor, so that it was the last thing visiting teams saw before they walked out on to the pitch: This is ANFIELD, it warned. The name alone was enough. Similarly, the cover of the guidebook here proclaims, in a single word, SALLE. Again, it suffices; the word, pronounced to rhyme with call, stands for the building. Perhaps only the name Blythburgh has the same power in all East Anglia.

 

The greatest East Anglian churches were built in the 15th century. It is often observed that there can never have been enough people to fill them, but this is to miss the point. They were never intended for the forms of worship to which they now play host.

 

The shape of a late medieval church is not an accident. East Anglian parish churches of the 15th century had many common features; wide aisles to enable liturgical processions, a chancel for the celebration of Mass, places for other altars, niches for devotional statues, a focus towards the Blessed Sacrament in the east, a large nave for social activities, large windows to fill the building with light, a roof of angels to proclaim a hymn of praise, a pulpit for the preaching of orthodox doctrine, benches to enable the people to hear the preaching, and carvings, stained glass and wall paintings of the sacraments, Gospels and rosary mysteries, of the catechism and teaching of the Catholic Church.

 

As Le Corbusier might have said if he'd been around at the time, a late medieval East Anglian church was a machine for making Catholicism happen.

 

No longer, of course. The radical and violent fracture in popular religion in the middle years of the 16th century gave birth to the Church of England, and the new Church inherited buildings that were often unsuitable for congregational protestant liturgy - a problem that the Church of England has never satisfactorily solved.

 

Over the centuries, the problem has been addressed in different ways; celebrating Communion at a table in the nave, for example, and blocking off the chancel for other uses. Although this was challenged by the Laudian party in the early part of the 17th century, it was the way that many parishes reinvented their buildings, and most were to stay like that until the middle years of the 19th century. Some went further: a pulpit placed halfway down the nave, or even at the back of the church, meant that the seating could be arranged so that it no longer focused towards the east, thus breaking the link with Catholic (and Laudian) sacramentalism. For several centuries, Anglican churches focused on the pulpit rather than the altar.

 

With the rise of the 19th century Oxford Movement, all this underwent another dramatic change, with the great majority of our medieval parish churches having their interiors restored to their medieval integrity, reinventing themselves as sacramental spaces. This Victorian conception of the medieval suited itself to congregational worship, and responded in a satisfactory way to the structure of the building. But still, of course, they weren't full.

 

This 19th century re-imagining is the condition in which we find most of them today, and Anglican theologians everywhere are asking the question that the Catholic Church asked itself at Vatican II in the 1960s - is a 19th century liturgical space really appropriate for the Church of the 21st century?

 

It requires a shift in the mind to recall that these were not originally Anglican buildings, but it is a shift we need to make. The idea of a previously unchanging Church now confronting the demands of the modern age is wholly incorrect. These buildings have faced a variety of challenges over the centuries; they have only ever been truly suitable for the use for which they were originally built six hundred years ago.

 

Two of the largest late medieval churches in East Anglia are just three miles apart, at Cawston and Salle in the middle of Norfolk. These clusters are not uncommon; think of Blythburgh, Southwold and Walberswick in Suffolk, for example, or Lavenham and Long Melford in the same county. But Cawston and Salle are really close - you can see the tower of one from the other. St Peter and St Paul is a complete example of a 15th century rebuilding; St Agnes at Cawston retains its elegant earlier chancel.

 

If not merely for congregational worship, why were these churches built so big? Impressive as they seem now, they must have been awesome at the time they were built, since they were the only substantial buildings outside of the towns, and would have dwarfed the houses of the parish. Some were in villages; but many were not. Salle church has always been out in the fields. Why are earlier East Anglian churches not so massive? Certainly, East Anglia has its cathedrals; Norwich and Ely pre-date the great churches by several centuries, and Bury Abbey was bigger than either before its destruction. The great majority of East Anglia's churches are piecemeal affairs; typically, a 13th century chancel, which must have been the most substantial part of the building when it was first erected, an early 14th century nave and tower, and perhaps later elaborations of the piece with aisles and a clerestory. Salle and Cawston churches are both rebuildings of earlier structures, but a surprising number of East Anglian churches were not rebuilt, until perhaps the Victorians saw the need for a new chancel, or new aisles. Often, these smaller churches are exquisitely beautiful, as if beauty rather than grandeur was the imperative.

 

And then, towards the end of the 1340s, a great pestilence swept across Europe; in East Anglia, outside of Norwich which got off lightly, it killed perhaps a half of the population. In emptying the countryside, it completely altered the economic balance; a shortage of labour gave new power to the survivors, perhaps setting in place the preconditions for the capitalism that we can recognise by the 16th century. And, in extinguishing the flower of Decorated architecture, it also gave birth to the great love affair between the late medieval mind and death.

 

In Catholic theology there is no great divide between the dead and the living. For the medieval Christian, communion was something that existed between all members of the parish, whether alive or dead. Thus, prayers were said for the souls of the dead (who, it was presumed, were saying prayers for the souls of the living).

 

To ensure that prayers were said for them after their death, the very richest people endowed chantries. These were foundations, by which priests could be employed to say masses for their souls in perpetuity. A priest in such a capacity was called a chantry priest. The masses would be said at a chantry altar, probably in the nave; if the person was rich enough, this might be enclosed in a specially constructed chantry chapel. Many churches had them. After the Reformation, many were pressed into service as family mausoleums or pews.

 

For the poorest people, there was the opportunity to join a guild, where, for a penny or so a week, they could ensure that the guild chantry priest would say masses for their soul after their death (along with those of the other dead members of the guild). Many of these guilds were organised around particular occupations or devotions, and became a focus of social activity. The investment that produced the income to pay the chantry priests was most commonly in land. The church or guild oversaw the management of the land, which is one of the reasons we have an image of a wealthy pre-Reformation church. Land bought to produce income in this way was known as chantry land, a name surviving in many places today. Those who invested in chantries (and few and far between must have been those who didn't) presumed that they were ensuring prayers and masses in perpetuity; but, of course, this was not to be.

 

Bequests and chantries seem to have reached their peak in the 15th century. Perhaps the Black Death reinforced the urgency of the task. People did not merely want to be remembered; they wanted to be prayed for. And so, those who could afford it ensured that this was not forgotten by leaving their wealth in the very place that was at the centre of communion: the parish church. The richest paid for the additions of aisles and chapels, or for a new font or rood screen. This was not just a naked desire for the recognition of their family status. There was an underlying insecurity to the new landed classes. They wanted to control their destiny beyond their deaths. And so, their gift would be recorded in the form of a dedicatory inscription. One of these survives on the screen at Cawston, and another on the base of the font at Salle. Orate pro anima, they begin, "Pray for the soul of...", an injunction urgently emphasised by the pre-Reformation liturgy, only to be cursed and defaced by the later Anglicans and puritans. Stained glass was another common gift, as well as images, candlesticks, furnishings. Thus were many churches developed piecemeal.

 

But sometimes, where a parish could rely on a steady supply of substantial bequests, they might be channelled into a complete rebuilding, as at Salle, a summa cum laude apothesosis, where the new church of the late 15th century survives in pretty much its original form. Sometimes, a single wealthy family would shape and direct the rebuilding of a church. One of the richest families in East Anglia in the 14th and 15th centuries was the de la Poles, the Earls of Suffolk. Their mark can be found throughout East Anglia, but most famously and substantially at Wingfield in Suffolk, and at Cawston in Norfolk. Theirs was a long term project; at Cawston, the tower predates the furnishings of the nave and chancel by almost a century.

 

So why so vast? Certainly, it was ad maiorem deo gloria, to the Greater Glory of God; but it was also to the greater glory of the de la Poles and their contemporaries. The great landed families of England came into the late middle ages full of confidence, and they were determined to demonstrate it. They had survived the Black Death. They had grown richer on its consequences. They had assumed a political power unthinkable a few centuries before. They controlled not just the wealth but the imagination of their parishes. They asserted orthodox Catholic dogma in the face of rural superstitions and abuses. They imposed a homogenised Catholicism on late medieval England. And, as they increased their secular power and influence, a time would come when they would embrace the Great Idea already beginning to take shape on the continent - protestantism. But that was still in the future.

 

And so, to Salle. St Peter and St Paul is big. This is accentuated by the way in which it stands almost alone in the barley fields, with only a couple of Victorian buildings and a cricket pitch for company. What an idyllic spot! And yet there is an urban quality to the building, as if this was some great city church in the middle of Norwich or Bristol. It went up in the course of the 15th century, a replacement for an earlier building on the same site, broadly contemporary with neighbouring Cawston. While Cawston was largely the work of a single family, here the building benefited from an accident of history; several very wealthy families owned manors and halls in the parish at the same time, and it so happened that the time was the greatest era of rural church building.

 

Among them were the Boleyns, the Brewes, the Mautebys, the Briggs, the Morleys, the Luces and the Kerdistons, and some of their shields appear above the great west door, along with two mighty censing angels, characteristic of late medieval piety. A steady stream of hefty bequests meant that no expense needed to be spared, and the mighty tower with its vast bell openings was topped with battlements and pinnacles on the very eve of the Reformation.

 

As at Blythburgh, St Peter and St Paul benefited from the restraint of a late restoration, and the building as we see it now has no external Victorian additions. It is all of a piece. The porches either side are huge affairs, matching the transepts, and give the effect of a vast animal, a dragon perhaps, sprawling with erect head in the Norfolk countryside. Its tail is the chancel, in itself longer and higher than many Norfolk churches. The aisles are tall, austere, parapeted, the Perpendicular windows arcades of glass. In the porches, the vaulted ceilings are studded with bosses; the central one in the north porch depicts Christ in Majesty, sitting on a rainbow in judgement.

 

You enter the building from the west, an unusual experience in East Anglia, and your first sight is of the seven sacraments font with its tall 15th century canopy, similar to the cover at Cawston. This one is so big it is supported by a crane attached to the ringing gallery under the tower. The font below is interesting because each panel is supported by an angel holding a symbol of the sacrament above - a pot of chrism oil beneath Baptism, for example. The panels themselves are simply done, and are not particularly characterful, apart from the way that Mary turns away and is comforted at the Crucifixion. This panel faces west, and then anticlockwise are the Mass (viewed sideways, as at nearby Great Witchingham), Ordination (the candidate kneeling), Baptism (a server holds the book up for the Priest to read), Confirmation (the candidate obviously a child), Penance (perhaps the most interesting panel - the penitent kneels in a shriving pew), Matrimony (the couples' hands joined by a stole, she in late 15th century dress) and finally Last Rites (the dying man on the floor under blankets also as at Great Witchingham). The font step has a dedicatory inscription to John and Agnes Luce, asking for prayers for their souls. We know that John died in 1489. Perhaps the fabric of the building was complete by this date.

 

Beyond the font stretches the vastness of the building, the arcades gathering the eyes and leading them forward to the great east window. The chancel arch is barely there at all, just a simple high opening; but as MR James pointed out, it was never intended to be seen.The sheer bulk of the rood screen dado tells us quite how vast the rood apparatus must have been here, and the arch would have been pretty well hidden. Everything is built to scale; although everything has been cut off above the panels, probably in the late 1540s, the panels themselves are enormous, almost six feet high. As at Cawston, St Gregory, St Jerome, St Ambrose and St Augustine, the four Doctors of the Church, are on the doors. Either side are just two surviving paintings; to the north are Thomas and James, to the south are Philip and Bartholomew. The empty panels are a mystery; the screen stood here for a century before its destruction, so it must have been finished; and the dado seems too high to have been hidden by nave altars. And yet, it has all the appearance of never having been painted.

 

Because the building is so vast, the surviving medieval glass seems scattered, but there is actually a lot of it and some of it is very significant. Some was moved during the restoration of the early 20th century, when the modern glass in the north transept was installed, and the yellow galley lozenges were thankfully replaced with clear glass in the 1970s. The images in the east window are mainly figures; old kings kneel before young princes, there are armoured men and angels, the remains of a scaly dragon. In the centre at the bottom is a perfect Trinity shield, displayed by an angel looking askance.

 

Some of the panels are now in the south transept. These include fragments of a set of the orders of angels. A kneeling figure is Thomas Brigg, donor of the transept; the scroll behind him begins Benedicat Virgo, 'Blessed Virgin'. The mother of God sits surrounded by red glory, and two women holding croziers, one of them crowned, may be St Etheldreda and St Hilda. Certainly, the crowned figure holding a cross is St Helena.

 

Despite the wonders of the font, the screen and the glass, the crowning glory of the building is the set of bosses that line the roof of the chancel. They are easily missed, being very high. There are nine altogether, the first and last set against the walls at the ends of the roof ridge, and they form a kind of rosary sequence of joyful and glorious mysteries. They start with the Annunciation in the west (see left) and then continue with the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension into Heaven.

 

There is a fine set of return stalls in the chancel. Although Salle probably never had a college of Priests, all those Masses for the dead must have provided plenty of employment, because we know that there were seven Priests here at a time when the population of the parish was barely 200. Bench ends include heads, a dragon tied up in a knot, a cock, a restored pelican in her piety, and a monkey. The misericord seats feature faces, including one that is quite extraordinary.

 

Although the roof isn't up to the glory of neighbouring Cawston, it includes lots of original angels and paintwork, including sacred monograms, and around the wallplate part of the Te Deum Laudamus and Psalm 150. These particular texts seem to have provided the inspiration for many late 15th century interiors; the angels in the roof, the animals on the bench ends, the Saints on the rood screen all in harmony: Let everything that has breath Praise ye the Lord!

 

The nave benches are mostly renewed now, but the pulpit is an elegant example of the 15th century, from the time when a priority began to be placed on preaching. Curiously, it has been rather awkwardly converted into a three-decker arrangement, probably in the 18th century, with the addition of a platform and desk from a set of box pews. A large sounding board has been placed overhead. The box pews suggest that the medieval furnishings were replaced at an early date, although the replacements too have gone now.

 

Salle is one of those churches full of intriguing little details that might easily pass you by, so great is the wonder of everything around. Those two little corbel heads above the south door, for instance - what were they for? Perhaps they supported an image that could be seen from the north doorway as people entered, although not a St Christopher as the guidebook suggests, I think. There is a pretty piscina in the unfortunate north transept that has been outlined in wood, a memorial and helm above, a tall image bracket in the corner of the wall of the south transept, a floreated piscina nearby.

 

There are many brasses and brass inlays in the nave floor; one of the most interesting is a chalice brass (although the chalice is now gone) to Simon Boleyn, a Priest, who died in 1489, and to the east of it a pair of brasses to Geoffrey and Alice Boleyn, great-grandparents to Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII. Another pair of brasses are to Thomas and Katherine Rose and their eight children. Unlike many churches, Salle actually retains some of the 'missing' brasses, now locked away for safety. It would be nice to think they could eventually be reset in the floor.

 

One part of the building that many visitors must miss is the chapel above the north porch. There is no sign indicating it; but the doorway, at the west end of the north aisle, is always open. Inside, the vaulted roof is punctuated by spectacularly pretty bosses which you can view at close quarters. The colour is a bit fanciful, but they are fascinating, particularly the central boss of the Coronation of the Queen of Heaven - how on earth did that survive the Reformation?

 

This is a tremendous building, a box of fascinating delights. What purpose does it serve now? As I said in the introduction, its size was not in response to the needs of a congregation, and as far as worship is concerned it will never be full. It remains constantly in use, however; for regular services in the chancel, sometimes for concerts and recordings, but also of course for the poshest sort of wedding, the kind only the Church of England can provide, and no doubt other elements of the core business of CofE PLC. It is easy to be cynical, but if they ensure the survival of the building, then so be it.

The province of Zeeland has a coastline of 650 kilometers. In Waterdunen, the interplay between water and land is expressed. Waterdunen is an icon for Zeeland and proof that Zeeland is dealing with water differently today. Waterdunen is a delta work. But it is different from the delta works that we know as big works to protect Zeeland from the water. Waterdunen combines nature, recreation and tidal effects in an innovative coastal reinforcement with safety as a precondition.

The walk runs for a large part in the former polders and also goes partly through the dunes. This is where the river Schelde flows into the North Sea, a busy shipping route that leads to the port of Antwerp (Belgium). On the other side lies Flushing

  

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3 Principles for How to Meditate on the Word of God

 

By Xiao Xiao, France

 

Contents

1. When reading the Bible, quieting your heart before God is a precondition for gaining the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment and guidance.

2. Don’t read aimlessly, but select corresponding passages according to your actual problems and difficulties.

3. Focus on pondering God’s words and understanding their inner meaning.

 

Let’s look at the following words from the Lord: “Truly I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). “But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil” (Matthew 5:37). We can see in God’s words that He loves honest people and is disgusted by liars and cheaters. Only honest people can enter the kingdom of heaven, while sinister and crafty people cannot pass its gates. Only by praying and pondering God’s words can we understand that God wants us to be honest people, as innocent and open as a child with no trickery or deception. Once we’ve thought about things to that point, we can continue to seek: Do we have dishonest parts? By reflecting on our thoughts and actions, we can see that we still display a lot of deceitfulness. Sometimes when we’re before God in prayer, we say all sorts of wonderful things and set our resolve many times, but in our real lives we hardly ever match up to that. Sometimes we do something wrong and want to acknowledge our mistake to someone else, but we’re afraid they’ll look down on us, so in order to preserve our own face and name, we tell a half truth and cover up the truth. Sometimes when we’re talking about our experiences, we’re willing and ready to talk about how we do put God’s words into practice, but very rarely speak of the ways we defy and resist God, and our manifestations of not practicing the truth. We often pretend to be something we’re not so that others will maintain a good image of us. Sometimes we see brothers and sisters doing things that are not in line with God’s will and want to share fellowship with them, but we’re concerned about injuring their pride, or afraid that they won’t accept our opinion and will judge us, so we go on with one eye open and one eye closed, pretending we don’t know anything. The list goes on. Through reflection, we can see how much deceitfulness we display—we are not at all honest people who are pleasing to God. So, how could people such as us enter the kingdom of heaven? After understanding these things, we must continue to mull over the path to becoming an honest person in God’s words. First, we cannot lie with our words, but must speak in accordance with the truth. One is one, and two is two. But primarily, we need to have honest hearts. We cannot have crookedness or deceitfulness within our hearts; anything we say or do is subject to God’s scrutiny. We cannot lie or cheat to protect our own status, reputation, or face, but when we encounter an issue we should be able to forsake our own incorrect motives, speak honestly, and speak out what’s in our hearts. If we can live up to this, we start to enter into the truth of being honest people. If we always earnestly ponder God’s words in this way, seeking to understand the essence of the truth through the literal meaning of God’s words, we will understand the finer points of the truth more and more, and then what we practice in our lives will be more correct. We will become closer to God’s will and requirements and we will feel more and more steady, at peace, and content in our souls.

  

Related Reading：

3 Practices to Develop a Powerful Prayer Life in 2020

 

Image Source: The Church of Almighty God

 

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