In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
Men do not quarrel about the meaning of sunsets; they never dispute that the hawthorn says the best and wittiest thing about the spring.
~ G.K. Chesterton, “A Defence of Heraldry” (1901)
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
~ Steve Jobs
The Gāyatrī Mantra is a highly revered mantra, based on a Vedic Sanskrit verse from a hymn of the Rigveda (3.62.10), attributed to the rishi Viśvāmitra. The mantra is named for its vedic gāyatrī metre. As the verse invokes the deva Savitr, it is also called Sāvitrī. Its recitation is traditionally preceded by oṃ and the formula bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ, known as the mahāvyāhṛti (“great utterance”).
The Gayatri Mantra is repeated and cited very widely in vedic literature, and praised in several well-known classical Hindu texts such as Manusmṛti, Harivamsa, and the Bhagavad Gita. The mantra is an important part of the upanayanam ceremony for young males in Hinduism, and has long been recited by Brahmin males as part of their daily rituals. Modern Hindu reform movements spread the practice of the mantra to include women and all castes and its use is now very widespread.
Gayatri Mantra
Om Bhur Bhuvah Svaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat
Translation
Om: Para Brahman
Bhur: The Physical plane
Bhuvah: The Astral plane
Svaha: The Celestial plane
Tat: Ultimate Reality
Savitur: The Source of All
Varenyam: Fit to be worshiped
Bhargo: The Spiritual effulgence
Devasya: Divine Reality
Dhimahi: We meditate
Dhiyo: Intellect
Yo: Which
Nah: Our
Prachodayat: Enlighten
General Translation
We meditate upon the spiritual effulgence of that adorable supreme divine reality
Who is the source of the physical, the astral and the heavenly spheres of existence.
May that supreme divine being enlighten our intellect, so that we may realise the supreme truth.
Judy Davis never buys anything new if she can help it. A 58-year-old freelance marketing consultant who lives in Red Bluff, California, she favors thrift store clothing and secondhand furniture. Instead of buying gifts, she gives plants from her garden or bags she has sewn from cut-up vintage gowns. Judy is part of a Bay Area group called the Compact. The Compacters have vowed not to buy anything new for a year except bare essentials: food, medicine, cleaning products, and underwear (although not, of course, lingerie from Paris). Although few people take frugality quite as seriously as the Compacters do, more and more of us are voluntarily cutting back on buying and consumption. Many individuals choosing this lifestyle happen to be yogis. The seminal work of yoga philosophy, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, frowns on materialism, and some yogis find that their asana practice alone helps them be happier with less.
The pursuit of the simple life is nothing new, of course. From Quakers to Transcendentalists, America has always had its share of those who associate simplicity with spiritual growth. Back-to-the-land hippies of the ’60s and ’70s found simplicity appealing for more secular reasons, such as ecological sustainability. But those who practice pared-down living today are not necessarily spiritual ascetics or off-the-grid granola types. Most are ordinary people modifying their everyday behavior-trying to be conscious about what they eat, drive, and buy.
In the past 15 years, “voluntary simplicity,” as it is called, has gained thousands of converts. Many books on the subject have been published, such as Janet Luhrs’s The Simple Living Guide, Cecile Andrews’s Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life, and Linda Breen Pierce’s Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World. Dozens of websites have sprung up, and nonprofits like Seeds of Simplicity and Simple Living America champion the cause. When the Compacters publicized their manifesto in January 2006, their Yahoo group swelled from about 50 in February to 1,225 in July, with members across America.
Most spiritual traditions encourage simple living, and yoga is no exception. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali laid out the yamas (moral restraints) and niyamas (observances), a set of 10 principles that are crucial to one’s progress along the yogic path. One of the yamas is aparigraha, often translated as “greedlessness.” But it means more than just taking only what you need, explains David Frawley, founder and director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies and author of Yoga and the Sacred Fire. Aparigraha also means “not having a lot of unnecessary things around yourself and not hankering after what other people have,” Frawley says. In other words, aparigraha also means keeping only what you need and wanting only what you need.
Aparigraha leads naturally to one of the niyamas: santosha, or “contentment,” being satisfied with the resources at hand and not desiring more. Ultimately, Frawley says, “Yoga is about transcending the desire for external things, which is the cause of suffering, and finding peace and happiness within.”
The desire for external wealth causes unhappiness on both a practical level and a spiritual one. In order to afford things, you have to work long hours, leaving you less time for what truly sustains you, whether that’s yoga and meditation, a hobby, or time with your kids. An expensive lifestyle also limits your choice of career, forcing you to take a high-paying job that may not be fulfilling. It’s hard to transcend the desire for external things when we see hundreds of ads implying that happiness lies in a new iPod, laptop, or car. But despite those commercial messages, acquisition doesn’t equal happiness. Many yogis find that if they transcend their material cravings, they can lead more satisfying, albeit more modest, lives.
Les Leventhal was once trapped in the joyless cycle of overwork and overconsumption. He held an investment banking job, toiling long hours with lots of travel, which kept him away from his partner and friends. But his lavish salary allowed him to buy vacations in Hawaii, dinners in trendy restaurants, expensive jackets, and pair after pair of Kenneth Cole shoes. In the past, Leventhal had kicked drug and alcohol addictions, but now he realized he’d simply replaced them with a new addiction: shopping. Yet the high he got from retail therapy never lasted. “Each time I bought something, I expected to feel better, but the emptiness inside was still there. Then I’d buy something else. “
As Leventhal’s experience shows, materialism can be a form of self-violence, cutting you off from what makes you happy. It thus violates the yama of ahimsa, or nonviolence, as well as aparigraha. Materialism also hurts others, since overconsumption leads to taking an unfair share of the world’s resources, exploiting developing nations for cheap labor, and destroying the environment. Darren Main, a yoga teacher and the author of Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic, says, “We understand the obvious part of ahimsa—not killing…But we need to look at more subtle stuff. Driving a gas-guzzling car drives the U.S. to war—but because this is a step removed, we tend to be unconscious of it.”
Leventhal’s unhappiness drove him to quit his job last year. Reflecting on what truly satisfied him, he realized that every time he left a yoga class, he was filled with lightness and happiness. “I got a rush from yoga, exactly the rush I was looking to get from drugs and alcohol but never quite could,” he says. Pursuing teacher training meant radically scaling back. Leventhal stopped shopping for clothes and very rarely eats out. He donated most of his Kenneth Cole shoes to charity, and these days he wears clogs, flip-flops, or tennis shoes. The sacrifice has been worth it because he’s gained time to immerse himself in interests he loves.
Many of us fail to make the connection between everyday shopping and what members of the Compact call “the negative global impact of U.S. consumer culture.” Darcy Lyon, a 36-year-old yoga teacher in Berkeley, California, leads a simple life (although she’s not a Compacter). She bicycles or takes public transport, wears the same clothes for years, and takes her own bags to the grocery store. She decided to cut down on her consumption six years ago after trekking along Nepal’s Annapurna circuit. Tourists had the option to bring a water filter and purify their own water, but instead many bought water en route, using 50 to 70 bottles each. “I saw piles of hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles that visiting Westerners had discarded, ” Lyon recalls. “The piles are just left there, since the Nepalis have no means to recycle them.” The destructiveness of this lifestyle was vividly driven home.
Focus on the Positive
Most people on a spiritual path eventually recognize that happiness can’t be bought. To find the peace we truly seek, it’s necessary to stop mindlessly acquiring possessions—and embrace simplicity. How, exactly, do you do that? The first step is to figure out why you want to simplify. Bruce Elkin, the author of Simplicity and Success and a life coach who helps clients simplify, distinguishes between “reactive” and “purposeful” simplicity. “If you clean out clutter to declutter, it’s a temporary fix,” he says. “But if you clean out the clutter to make a meditation space or a reading area, then you have a clear purpose. The clutter doesn’t return.
Andrews compares simplifying to dieting. Self-denial will backfire. “Don’t say to yourself, ‘I’m not going to have this or that.’ Instead of focusing on what you’re denying yourself, focus on what’s really healthy or, in this case, on whatever gives you true satisfaction. “
Leventhal is focused on what he has gained: time to volunteer for community service and time with his partner and dogs. Davis doesn’t miss shopping either. She’s too busy concentrating on her essentials: “writing, reading, dreaming, socializing, music, dance, sunshine, exercise, cooking.” She also makes movies in her spare time. And Lyon doesn ‘t pine for a nice car or fashionable clothes, because her modest lifestyle allows her to pursue her passions: teaching yoga and working toward an M.A. in psychology.
Allow Yourself Luxuries
Those who embrace voluntary simplicity sometimes take it to extremes. Some members of the Compact, for example, restrict their consumption so much that they make their own deodorant from baking soda and water. Some even refuse to buy toilet paper; in an email exchange on the Compact’s Yahoo group, one member advises using squares cut from cotton T-shirts and laundering them weekly.
But voluntary simplicity doesn’t require you to make a fetish of frugality. In fact, if you take that attitude, you set yourself up for a relapse. Instead, the keyword is moderation. You can have toilet paper (thankfully). You can even go shopping. Living simply means selecting what luxuries truly matter to you, rather than giving up frills altogether. “For example,” Luhrs says, “I like clothes. Looking my best makes me feel good. But I try to shop like the French. I buy fewer things that I really, really love. “
The list of “essential luxuries” is different for each individual. Lyon splurges on massages, flowers, and dry-cleaning her precious cashmere sweaters. Leventhal cut back on treating friends to dinner but plans to buy a hybrid car. Main treasures his iPod. But he has given up vacations abroad and having a place of his own (he shares a rented apartment). Main says that simplicity is a little more complicated than it was in Patanjali’s time: “Yoga was developed for people living very simple lives. Most people practicing yoga today are not drawn to or willing to live that lifestyle.” Instead, people must decide how far they are willing to go what they can give up and what they truly want.
Practice Conscious Buying
Train yourself to reflect before you buy something. Why do you want it? Do you really need it, or are you trying to escape negative emotions? Yoga can help you do without retail therapy, Main says: “The word asana means ‘sit’ … Yoga teaches us to sit with uncomfortable physical sensations, to breathe and relax into them. So when a negative emotion arises, instead of trying to bury it under a new pair of shoes or an iPod or whatever, let it bubble to the surface, look at it, and let it go.” Davis says her yoga practice of 14 years helps her stick to the Compact. “Yoga makes you deal with what’s really going on inside, instead of medicating it through shopping.”
Luhrs says she loves clothes but not as much as she loves the freedom of being debt free. In order to avoid running up credit card bills, she asks herself five questions before buying anything: “Do I have the cash to pay for it? Do I have room in my closet for this outfit? Do I want another outfit? Do I want to care for more clothes? Will I really wear this item a lot? ” You can run through a similar checklist of questions whenever you’re considering buying something new. If it’s an item for the home, Luhrs suggests, “Ask yourself if your eyes need one more thing to look at, or would they rather rest in open space?”
Of course, after reflection, you may decide that you genuinely need something. Before you buy it new, consider alternatives. Can you mend yours? Can you borrow it? Can you buy it used? The obvious places to look for secondhand stuff are thrift stores, garage sales, and secondhand furniture stores. But you can also try craigslist or Freecycle, a network of local groups whose members give each other unwanted items. In San Francisco, Compacters use Building REsources for salvaged architectural material like windows and doorknobs, and SCRAP (Scroungers’ Center for Reusable Art Parts) for low-cost fabric and art supplies. You may be able to find similar resources in your area.
Be Creative
Simplicity requires creativity. Some Compacters make their own nontoxic household cleaning products from baking soda and vinegar. And a homemade gift or card is often more meaningful than one that is store bought. Lyon has found a creative way to spread Christmas cheer without putting herself out of pocket. Each year, she sells simple candles to her friends for them to give as gifts. There’s nothing special about the candles, except that each one has a label explaining that for every candle she sells, Lyon gives a homeless person a gift-wrapped sweater or pair of gloves she strives to knit herself.
And Davis says living simply has taught her to be creative with junk. For example, when she saw an almost-new wheelchair poking out from a Dumpster, she rescued it and turned it into a wheeled dolly for her cameraman to perch on while shooting one of her movies.
Get Support and Stick with It
Living simply is not easy. Elkin says the pressure to conform is the biggest cause of relapse. It can be embarrassing to have a smaller house than your peers or drive an old banger or wear secondhand clothes. When your friends invite you to dinner, it can be hard to insist on preparing food at home instead. Leventhal says that initially, when friends invited him to expensive restaurants, he felt shame at having to say, “I can ‘t afford it.”
When challenges arise, a like-minded community can offer support, Davis says: “It helps that I can go online every day and read emails and share ideas on how to save money and help the environment. ” Andrews recommends starting a “simplicity circle,” whose members can share ideas. She launched the first one in Seattle; now they exist across the country.
Living moderately often requires extra time and energy. Lyon says, “I get tired bicycling home from teaching class at 9 at night and then making my own food from scratch. “But, she says, the effort is worth it. In addition to the obvious benefits, like having time for what matters to her, living moderately gives her something else: “The more I simplify and do my practice, the more I find strength and certainty within.”
The good news is that voluntary simplicity grows easier over time. Leventhal no longer feels the impulse to shop for shoes. As you do more of what matters to you, you will gain a deep satisfaction that renders buying and consumption less interesting. Luhrs says that with the clutter and distraction cleared away, she has a deeper appreciation for the pleasures that remain. “I taste my food more. I inhale the scent of lilac or I luxuriate in the way a shower feels. That gives my life depth, so I don’t have to fill myself up with overconsumption or buying entertainment. “Saying no to the things you don’t need—practicing aparigraha—means that you recognize the abundance at hand. Paradoxically, once you truly embrace simplicity, you end up with richness.
Helena Echlin is the author of Gone, a novel published in 2002 by Secker (Random House). She recently completed a second novel, Pink Pill.
http://www.yogajournal.com/article/lifestyle/when-less-is-more/
Prevent computer vision syndrome with these seven simple eye-saving tips.
By Anna Soref
Yoga Journal
You’ve been sitting in front of your computer for two hours trying to ignore your stinging, dry eyes and get through your work. You can’t quit now….If only your eyes would stop burning.
Tired eyes and blurry vision are but two symptoms of what is now recognized as a broader problem called computer vision syndrome, or CVS. As computer use continues to rise, so do cases of CVS. A recent study showed that nearly 90 percent of employees who work with computers for more than three hours a day suffer from some form of eye trouble.
CVS has a host of causes, from improper lighting, screen glare, and an ill-adapted workspace, to poor posture and glasses or contact lenses with incorrect prescriptions, according to Kent M. Daum, O.D., Ph.D., of the School of Optometry of the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Infrequent blinking is another culprit. We blink to keep the eyes lubricated, explains Daum. When staring at a computer screen, we blink less, so the eyes become dry. And the more we concentrate, the less we blink, so casually surfing the Web may be easier on the eyes than focused work, he says. Also, deficiencies of vitamin A may cause severe eye dryness, so be sure to get enough.
While CVS has not yet been shown to damage vision, there is no need to put up with its uncomfortable symptoms. Proper workspace ergonomics, frequent breaks from the computer, and eye drops are easy solutions that work. (When choosing eye drops, stay away from those containing phenylephrine or other whitening agents that can worsen symptoms over time.)
Dimming the lights in the workspace can also reduce eye fatigue. “The eye adjusts to the relatively dim computer screen. If you have a brightly lit office, whenever you look away from the screen, your eyes have to adjust to that brighter light, which can lead to eye fatigue,” Daum explains.
In addition, Judith Lasater, Ph.D., author of Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times (Rodmell, 1995), recommends adjusting the computer so that the eyes rest at the level just below the tips of the ears; this will put the head in a more relaxed, comfortable position. She also says to pull your shoulder blades down, “like tucking in a shirt,” for a long back and open chest.To release overall tension (which she feels contributes to eye distress), Lasater suggests a version of Savasana (Corpse Pose) tailored for the eyes. Lie down in Savasana with a stack of several books lying nearby on the floor by the top of your head. Place either a five-pound bag of rice or some sandbags halfway on the books and halfway on your forehead. Relax for 15 minutes. This will help the muscles in the head to loosen and relax.
How to be useful in wartime: practical patriotism
The Times, 1914
We are receiving a constant stream of letters containing suggestions for personal conduct or useful action in the national emergency. We publish a selection below.
They vary, no doubt, in value. But they all reflect the intense interest and desire to help which animates the whole population, and they will, we hope, encourage the spirit of duty, unselfishness, restraint, and consideration for others which it behoves us all to cherish to the utmost.
The science, which teaches arts and handicrafts
Is merely science for the gaining of a living;
But the science which teaches deliverance from worldly existence,
Is not that the true science?
~ Nagarjuna in the Prajñadanda (The Staff of Wisdom)
In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for “descent” [viz., from heaven to earth]) refers to a deliberate descent of a deity from heaven to earth, and is mostly translated into English as “incarnation”, but more accurately as “appearance” or “manifestation”.
The term is most often associated with Vishnu, though it has also come to be associated with other deities. Varying lists of avatars of Vishnu appear in Hindu scriptures, including the ten (Daśāvatāra) of the Garuda Purana and the twenty-two avatars in the Bhagavata Purana, though the latter adds that the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable. The avatars of Vishnu are a primary component of Vaishnavism. An early reference to avatar, and to avatar doctrine, is in the Bhagavad Gita.
In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, director James Cameron was asked about the meaning of the term “Avatar“, to which he replied, “It’s an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form.” On the specific reason for the choice of blue as the Avatar’s skin color, Cameron said “I just like blue. It’s a good color … plus, there’s a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually.
The king of Orchard Road
Legendary property tycoon was Singapore’s richest man
MR SIMON Cheong remembers the day he was discussing the vagaries of the property market with real estate tycoon Ng Teng Fong a couple of decades ago.
‘I was a young banker then, and we were sitting in his office debating supply and demand. Mr Ng then said to me, ‘You sit there arguing with me but just look at my showroom. It is packed,” recalled the chief executive of property developer SC Global.
‘As a young banker, I was analysing things to death but he cut out all the jargon. He could see through noise and spot trends, true hallmarks of a real entrepreneur.’
Mr Cheong, 51, who is president of the Real Estate Developers Association of Singapore (Redas), added: ‘In land tender, he was a world leader. As a property player, he was world class. By any standard, he was clearly an icon.’
Indeed, Mr Ng – who died yesterday aged 82 after suffering a brain haemorrhage late last month – was one of the most astute property men Singapore has seen.
Ranked by Forbes for the last three years as the country’s richest man, with an estimated fortune of US$8 billion (S$11.3 billion), he founded Far East Organization, Singapore’s largest private property developer.
Survived by his wife, two sons and six daughters, Mr Ng did not have much formal education, and was comfortable speaking mainly Hokkien and Mandarin.
That did not stop him from being nicknamed the King of Orchard Road, for his properties that sprouted one after the other in the shopping strip from the 1970s.
The oldest, Far East Shopping Centre, was followed by Lucky Plaza, Far East Plaza, Pacific Plaza. The newest, Orchard Central, opened just last year.
His hotels included the Orchard Parade Hotel as well as the Fullerton Hotel, which turned the old General Post Office into a grand new landmark on the Singapore River.
With subsidiary Sino Group, Mr Ng also became the largest overseas Chinese investor in the Hong Kong property market.
In all, his property empire spanned more than 1,000 hotels, malls and condominiums here and in Hong Kong.
Elder son Robert is in charge of his Hong Kong operations, while younger son Philip oversees Singapore.
In the mid 1990s, the late tycoon moved in to buy Yeo Hiap Seng, a household name for soft drinks and canned food, when the founding Yeo family became mired in factional squabbles.
Yeo Hiap Seng deputy chairman S. Chandra Das said Mr Ng belonged ‘to the pioneer group of Singapore businessmen who didn’t become rich overnight’.
‘He became a tycoon because of his foresight and vision,’ he said.
Mr Ng was born in a small village in Putian, in China’s Fujian province. The eldest of 11 children, he came to Singapore with his family when he was six. He had little formal education, and at an early age was helping at his father’s soya sauce factory and even worked as a bicycle repairman for a while.
Although the family hoped that he would take over the business, the young Ng dreamt of building and selling houses.
By 1962, he had saved enough money to develop a small housing estate behind Serangoon Gardens – 72 single-storey terrace houses which he sold at $20,000 apiece.
He never looked back.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has held him up as a role model for entrepreneurs.
‘Ng Teng Fong never went to university (but) I think he has a pretty powerful computer up there when figures are concerned,’ said Mr Lee in 1996.
GK Goh Holdings chairman Goh Geok Khim remembers Mr Ng as someone ‘who spent a lot of time just looking at properties in Singapore’.
‘He lived, breathed and dreamt property. Architects who expected to go for dinner after showing him plans…ha ha…no such thing. He would go over everything with them with a fine tooth comb,’ he said.
Tycoon Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of the Hong Leong Group, said he used to be active with Mr Ng in Redas in the 1980s.
‘He was a man who worked extremely hard, day and night,’ he said in a statement. ‘We used to study the property market together at his office while we were dealing with property matters.
‘More often than not, we would find that we were still deep in discussion long after the official Redas meetings were over and everyone else had left.’
In fact, Mr Ng was so passionate about his business that he not only worked 18 hours a day, but also reportedly would take a penlight along when he went to the occasional movie with his wife so that he could do his planning and calculations in the dark.
Fellow hotel and property developer Ong Beng Seng said that although Mr Ng lacked formal education, he made up for it with business acumen and gut feel.
‘He was a legend in property and real estate development and left behind a great legacy.’
Mr Cheong agreed. ‘He went into the Hong Kong property market in a big way in the 1970s when even Hong Kong players dared not.
‘They thought he was crazy. Today, just look at what he owns in Tsim Sha Tsui,’ he said referring to Sino Group’s string of properties in one of Hong Kong’s busiest tourist belts.
Mr Ng was a tycoon who guarded his privacy jealously, and never liked to have his picture taken. As he told The Straits Times in 1981: ‘I’m an ordinary working man. And I often take my $2 mee from the Newton hawker centre after work.
‘If my picture appears in the papers, people will know who I am. I am rich and someone may kidnap me.
‘If someone kidnaps me and I’m killed, all my companies will collapse. And what will happen to my family? I have my worries.’
He had a penchant for racehorses and Rolls-Royces, but he rarely granted interviews. When he did speak to reporters, he delivered piquant quotes.
In a 1996 interview with Apple Daily, the Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper, he was asked to explain his unerring property picks.
His response: ‘If you want to be in the property business, it is not possible to invest in every region.
‘You open the map. If you can’t see the place (because it’s too small) but only the name, that’s the place to invest in…Singapore and Hong Kong are the best examples.’
On an earlier occasion, in 1984, he said he was not a risk-taker, but ‘a long-term entrepreneur’.
He said he did not believe in developing projects only when the property market was buoyant and laying off people when it was down.
‘It is like saying Singapore Airlines will fly to Hong Kong only when the weather is good, and won’t fly when the weather is bad,’ he said.
His son Philip gave an insight into his father in a speech at the Global Leadership Congress two years ago.
‘My father is a mentor, but a tough one. As you know the term, tough love,’ he said.
‘When I was younger, he’d always tell me, ‘I have to tell you, even if it hurts because only I can tell you. When you’re at the position you’re in, everybody’s going to say nice things to you.”
Client: Louis Vuitton
Title: A Journey
Agency: Ogilvy, Paris
Creative: Christian Reuilly
Agency Producer: Laure Bayle
Production Company: Quad Productions, Paris
Director: Bruno Aveillan
Producer: Martin Coulais
DP: Philippe Lesourd
Cameraman: Bruno Aveillan
Post-Production: WIZZ Paris
Post-Producer: Manuel Beard
Editor: Fred Olszak
Flame Artist: Bruno Maillard
Special Effects/Processes: WIZZ, Paris
Music: Gustavo-Santaolalla
Taken with a Nikon D3 + Angenieux AF 28-70 F2.6
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
WILLIAM BLAKE, Proverbs of Hell
All morons hate it when you call them a moron.
J. D. SALINGER, The Catcher in the Rye
Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?
OBI-WAN KENOBI, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
“Invisible” is a song by English electronic music group Tilt, composed of Mick Park and Nic Britton, which reached the UK top 20 charts when it was released in 1999. The song was co-written by Dominique Atkins, who also provided the vocals.
Listen to my voice
You won’t see me
You won’t see me with your eyes
Listen to my voice
You will feel me deep inside
You will feel me deep inside
And I’m feeling invisible
You won’t see me anywhere
And I’m feeling invisible
When you need me I’ll be there
I’m everywhere
But you cannot see
Open your heart
Meet me in your dreams
(Meet me in your dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams…)
And I’m feeling invisible
You won’t see me anywhere
And I’m feeling invisible
When you need me I’ll be there
And I’m feeling invisible
You won’t see me anywhere
And I’m feeling invisible
When you need me I’ll be there
Lost Tribe Vocal Mix
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
Thursday
Inspect property – done
Friday
Collect keys- done
Visit new home to tailor furniture location – decide which furniture to stay in old home- done
Clean new home and remove debris- done
Do laundry- done
Saturday
Change Locks- done
Visit and clean new home, register Octopuses – done
Locate handover manuals and documents
Decide what to hand carry and pack into rimowa
Decide what clothes and items to give to charity
Pack Home – Kitchen, Bookshelves, Tea, Records and CDs, Clothes, Toilets
Indicate what items are fragile, and label each box as to where it should be placed in the new house
Dismantle TV and Hifi and Computer
Dismantle Fish Tank
Sunday
Make a final inspection of the house checking for any left items
Move in the morning
Set up Fish Tank
Set up Computer
Set up TV and Hifi
Set up boxes
Hang clothes in wardrobes
Visit drycleaners
Enjoy
Paradise is where I am.
Le paradis terrestre est où je suis.
Voltaire, Le Mondain (1736)
This is quite simply one of the biggest vocal anthems of all time. You have the absolutely amazing Andy Moor remixing, featuring the delightful and sublime vocal talents of Eleanor Kenny. Uplifting moments take place throughout the 9 minutes of the track only to kick in for an exciting hands-in-the-air feel that is impossible to ignore. Not only was it absolutely caned by Armin van Buuren in almost all of his live sets, even Tiësto showed his appreciation by playing it on day one of his monumental concert.
They always leave the best ’till last
Have understanding, no questions asked
You find yourself in what you see
You find yourself in me.
The day is short, the night is cool
And this night, it was made for fools
You won’t find fools like me and you
I found myself in you..
You found.. yourself..
You found.. yourself..
The endless knot or eternal knot (Sanskrit: Shrivatsa; Tibetan Dpal be’u) is a symbolic knot and one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols. It is an important cultural marker in places significantly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism such as Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Kalmykia, and Buryatia. It is also sometimes found in Chinese art and used in Chinese knots.
The endless knot has been described as “an ancient symbol representing the interweaving of the Spiritual path, the flowing of Time and Movement within That Which is Eternal. All existence, it says, is bound by time and change, yet ultimately rests serenely within the Divine and the Eternal.”
Drawn into the backdrop here
You could fade, you could fade away
Bright lights on a starless night
Burn a hole in the dying day
Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you’ll find
You’ll find yourself
You’ll find yourself alone
You’ll find yourself
You’ll find yourself
Drawn into the darkness here
With your eyes on the prize at stake
Faint hearts on an endless path
Letting go of the ones we break
Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you’ll find
You’ll find yourself
You’ll find yourself alone
You’ll find yourself
You’ll find yourself
Drawn into the backdrop here
You could fade, you could fade away
Bright lights on a starless night
Burn a hole in the dying day
Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you’ll find
“The only thing Oriental about me is my face.”
The girl’s voice is Tori Amos and this is the epitome of classic trance – It was good 15 years ago and it is good now.
Michael Woods Remix (as played by Tiesto)
If you have doubts about the walking of mountains it means you do not yet know the walking of your own self. It is not that your self does not walk, but that you do not yet know, have not made clear its walking. And those who would know their own walking must also know the walking of the blue mountains.
“American people: This address to you is a reminder of the causes of 11 (September) and the wars and consequences that followed and the way to settle it once and for all. I mention in particular the families of those who were hurt in these events and who have recently called for opening an investigation to know its causes. This is a first and important step in the right direction among many other steps that have deliberately gone in the wrong direction over eight barren years that you have experienced.
“The entire American people should follow suit, as the delay in knowing those reasons has cost you a lot without any noteworthy benefit.
“If the White House administration, which is one of the two parties to the dispute, has made it clear to you in the past years that war was necessary to maintain your security, then wise persons should be eager to listen to the two parties to the dispute to know the truth, so listen to what I am going to say.
“At the beginning, I say that we have made it clear and stated so many times for over two decades that the cause of the quarrel with you is your support for your Israeli allies, who have occupied our land, Palestine. This position of yours, along with some other grievances, is what prompted us to carry out the 11 September events. Had you known the magnitude of our suffering as a result of the injustice of the Jews against us, with the support of your administrations for them, you would have known that both our nations are victims of the policies of the White House, which is in fact a hostage in the hands of pressure groups, especially major corporations and the Israeli lobby.
“One of the best persons to explain to you the causes of the events of the 11th is one of your citizens, a former veteran CIA agent, whose conscience awoke in his eighth decade and decided to tell the truth despite the threats, and to explain to you the message of the 11th. So he carried out some activities for this purpose in particular, including his book “Apology of a Hired Assassin.”
“As for explaining the suffering of our people in Palestine, Obama has recently acknowledged in his speech from Cairo the suffering of our kinfolk there, who are living under occupation and siege. Things will become clearer if you read what your former president, Carter, wrote about the racism of the Israelis against our kinfolk in Palestine, and also if you listened to his statement weeks ago during his visit to the destroyed and besieged Gaza Strip. He said in that statement that the people of Gaza are treated more as animals than human beings. For us God suffices, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
“We should have a lengthy pause at this point. Any person with an iota of mercy in his heart cannot but sympathize with those oppressed elderly, women, and children living under the deadly siege. Above that, the Zionists pound them with US-made incendiary phosphorous bombs. Life there is tragic beyond limits, to the point that children die b etween the arms of their parents and doctors due to the lack of food and medicine and the power outages. It is indeed a disgrace for world politicians who are content with that, and their loyalists, who are behaving as such with prior knowledge and premeditation, and under the influence of the Israeli lobby in America. The details of that are explained by two of your fellow citizens. They are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book “The Israel Lobby” in the United States.
“After reading the suggested books, you will know the truth and you will be severely shocked at the magnitude of deception that has been practiced against you. You will also know that those who make statements from inside the White House today and claim that your wars against us are necessary for your security are in fact working along the same line of Cheney and Bush, and propagating the former policies of intimidation to market the interests of the relevant major corporations, at the expense of your blood and economy. Those in fact are the ones who are imposing wars on you, not the mujahidin. We are just defending our right to liberate our land.
“If you thoroughly consider your situation, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups. You should have made efforts to liberate it rather than fight to liberate Iraq, as Bush claimed. The White House leader, under such circumstances, and regardless of who he is, is like a train driver who cannot but travel on the railways designed by these pressure groups. Otherwise, his way would be blocked and he would fear that his destiny would be like that of former President Kennedy and his brother.
“In a nutshell, it is time to free yourselves from fear and intellectual terrorism being practiced against you by the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. You should put the file of your alliance with the Israelis on the table of discussion. You should ask yourselves the following question so that you can determine your position: Do you like the Israelis’ security, sons, and economy more than your security, blood, sons, money, jobs, houses, economy, and reputation? If you choose your security and stopping the wars — and this has been shown by opinion polls — then this requires that you act to stop those who are tampering with our security on your end. We are prepared to respond to this option on sound and fair foundations that have been mentioned before.
“Here is an important point that we should pay attention to with regard to war and stopping it. When Bush assumed power and appointed a defense secretary who had made the biggest contribution to killing more than two million persecuted villagers in Vietnam, sane people predicted that Bush was preparing for new massacres in his era. This was what took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama assumed power and kept the men of Cheney and Bush — namely, the senior officials in the Defense Department, like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus — sane people knew that Obama is a weak person who will not be able to stop the war as he had promised and that he would procrastinate as much as possible. If he were to decide, then he would hand over command to the generals who oppose this aimless war, like the former commander of troops in Iraq, General Sanchez, and the commander of the Central Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the White House due to his opposition to the war. He appointed instead of him a person who would escalate the war. Under the cover of his readiness to cooperate with the Republicans, Obama made the biggest trick as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary from Cheney’s men to continue the war. The days will show you that you have changed only faces in the White House. The bitter truth is that the neoconservatives are still a heavy burden on you.
“Once again, if you stop the war, then that is fine. If you choose not to stop the war, then we have no other option but to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, just as we did with the Soviet Union for 10 years until it disintegrated, with the grace of God. Continue the war for as long as you wish. You are fighting a desperate, losing war that is in favor of others. There seems to be no end in sight for this war.
“Russian generals, who learned lessons from the battles in Afghanistan, had anticipated the result of the war before its start, but you do not like those who give you advice. This is a losing war, God willing, as it is funded by money that is borrowed based on exorbitant usury and is fought by soldiers whose morale is down and who commit suicide on a daily basis to escape from this war.
“This war was prescribed to you by two doctors, Cheney and Bush, as a cure for the 11 September events. However, the bitterness and losses caused by this war are worse than the bitterness of the events themselves. The accumulated debts incurred as a result of this war have almost done away with the US economy as a whole. It has been said that disease could be less evil than some medicines.
“Praise be to God, we are carrying our weapon on our shoulders and have been fighting the two poles of evil in the East and the West for 30 years. Throughout this period, we have not seen any cases of suicide among us despite the international pursuit against us. We praise God for this. This proves the soundness of our belief and the justice of our cause. God willing, we will continue our way to liberate our land. Our weapon is patience. We seek victory from God. We will not give up the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We hold on to Palestine more than we hold on to our souls. Continue the war as long as you wish, we will never bargain over it (Palestine).
“Endless war will not tire me
“For I am now fully grown and strong
“For this, my mother begot me (lines of poetry)
“Peace be upon those who follow guidance.”
~ Al-Qa’ida leader Usama Bin Ladin
Taking Their Tea, and Past, Seriously
Teapot makers use age-old methods to create functional objets d’art.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
August 02, 2001|VALERIE REITMAN
MORIOKA, Japan — When Shiiko Kumagai’s grandfather, a legendary craftsman who made exquisite handmade cast-iron teapots, died, she was making jewelry in Tokyo, a few hundred miles and light-years away.
A few years later, her father died, and the family teapot-making business, which had survived for 15 generations, was in danger of collapse. “This family has a long history,” she says. “Someone had to take over.”
And so, 12 years ago, Kumagai, a petite woman with delicate features, adopted the business name of her grandfather and those before him: Morihisa Suzuki. She donned work clothes and repaired to the primitive workshop tucked just behind the family’s storefront and home, where as a child she would watch her grandfather pour molten iron into molds for the teakettles that had won him the government’s prized designation as a “living national treasure.”
Kushime Tetsubin Small 櫛目丸形鉄瓶 1.0 Liter
Prime Minister Book Prize
The techniques of Kumagai, now 54, remain much the same as her grandfather’s–and, for that matter, differ little from those of her 17th century ancestors. Her forefathers were vassals making household goods for the daimyo, or lord, who ruled an area, then known as Nambu, on the northern part of Japan’s main island.
She was skeptical that the other dozen or so men who still make teapots in Morioka–many of them also descendants of 17th century craftsmen–would accept and respect a woman in this small city renowned for its cast-iron wares. Their solid, heavy pots with a dull luster convey a feeling of strength and substance, and many feature a raised-knob pattern.
“It’s not a matter if you’re a man or a woman, but this is really heavy physical work,” says Takahiro Koizumi, a male Morioka teapot maker.
But with help from the two craftsmen who worked for her grandfather, she has managed not only to keep the business afloat, but also to win the respect and admiration of her peers with the delicate shapes of her teapots.
One lovely creation, which retails for about $600, is shaped somewhat like a rounded version of Cinderella’s coach, with vertical lines delicately enveloping the orb’s sides. She created the pot by painstakingly etching a pattern into a sand-and-clay mold, into which iron is poured.
“Women are more imaginative, creative than men,” says her male counterpart, Tomoyuki Maeda, who also makes teapots in a craft village on the city’s fringe. “Her works are very sensitive. She can draw very thin drawings like hair–the kind of thing men can never imagine or think about doing.”
Turning their Nanbu tetsubin , as the teapots are called in Japanese, into more objets d’art than kettles is one way these traditional craftspeople are trying to keep their livelihoods intact.
The challenge for Morioka’s dozen or so tetsubin makers is to keep their traditional cast-iron tea ceremony vessels and tetsubin alive and relevant in an era in which electric hot-water heaters are the norm and a lingering economic decline has tightened pocketbooks.
Teapot maker Koizumi, for example, is advertising on the Internet and also sells ceramics in his store. Others, such as Nobuho Miya, have tried to find more contemporary uses for cast iron, rendering it into fashionable casserole dishes with wooden handles and trivets, to supplement teapot sales.
Until a recent resurgence, the use of once-requisite tetsubin –usually perched on a charcoal-burning hibachi inside the home–had been declining for decades. The iron teapots are no longer a necessity for daily life, thanks first to the advent of propane burners, then gas stoves and now the electric thermos-like water heaters that are omnipresent in Japanese homes these days. The thermoses provide a ready supply of hot water to make ocha, Japanese green or brown tea.
The electric thermoses are far easier to use than the iron pots, from which water must be dumped immediately or rust will form. And they’re far less expensive than the handmade tetsubin, which start at about $200 and can cost 10 to 20 times as much. The similar cast-iron pots used for boiling water in the refined Japanese tea ceremony can easily cost several thousand dollars.
The pots last forever if well cared for, so there’s little demand for replacements. “Ironware is too strong,” tetsubin- maker Koizumi says jokingly. “We need to sell something that’s easily broken.”
And the handmade pots are also being supplanted by sales of machine-made tetsubin, some of which are manufactured in Southeast Asia. Others are made right in Morioka by the huge Iwachu factory.
The factory, which makes handsome cast-iron pots, pans, skillets, woks and decorative ware, exports brightly colored cast-iron teapots with raised knobs that can be seen in department stores from France to Los Angeles. The pots exported to the U.S. have an enamel surface, to prevent rusting, an Iwachu spokesman says.
While also making them rust-proof, the enamel coating eliminates one of the key factors that have helped the handmade pots enjoy a resurgence in Japan in recent years: Water boiled in the tetsubin is infused with iron, purportedly helping to counteract widespread anemia in Japan. Water boiled in the pots also tastes sweeter, somehow eliminating the chlorine-taste of city water.
Those who do use tetsubin often combine old and new, boiling the water in the teapots, then dumping it into the thermos to keep it warm throughout the day.
It’s a wonder the tetsubin craft has survived at all. The beautiful pots made before World War II are scarce because the tetsubin- makers were required to donate any pots in their stores to the war effort, and the pots were melted down to make ammunition. Kumagai has just two pots that were made by her grandfather.
Craftsmen were endangered during the war as well because the Japanese government required most men to serve in the war. But some craftsmen successfully petitioned the government to spare them from having to serve, while also allowing them to make a few pots annually to preserve their skills. Koizumi’s family, for example, was allowed to make 20 pots annually, a coup because making the pots also consumed precious fuel.
Museums and books show the beauty of the old teapots–some in shapes such as Mt. Fuji, others with flowers or wild horses in relief. Among the most prized were silvery kettles formed from the sand-iron panned from local river beds–a kind of material known as a phantom metal said to possess extraordinary qualities. Today, however, most of the pots contain iron imported from Brazil and elsewhere.
Making the pots is still painstaking. The molds contain an inner core on which sand and clay are laid and then patterns–ranging from sprays of flowers to thousands of dots that form knobs of sorts on the exterior–are etched or punched by hand.
Shape is also important. It’s said that the sound the teapot makes when it boils should sound like the wind blowing through pine trees. The lid should rise up and click slightly when the water is boiling.
The inner mold for the teapots is contained within two outer pieces that fit together and resemble an old cask. The molds are filled with molten iron, then delicately opened, and imperfections are hammered out. (The molds can be reused if they remain intact; they are easily broken when the iron is poured or when the mold is opened.)
The pots are then oven-fired to remove the carbon and burnished with a lacquer made from pine-tree ash and a mixture of brown rust, vinegar and green tea.
The teapot-makers’ workshops–usually located behind their shops and adjacent to their homes in downtown, urban Morioka, resemble ancient blacksmiths’ quarters, with lots of old-fashioned tools and no modern machinery.
They are a study in browns, with the cask-like moldings piled high on dirt or sand floors.
Miya, whose grandfather founded his store a century ago, has developed a technique to help prevent–or, more accurately, disguise–rusting: He melts rusted Japanese cast-iron items such as tubs and pots, then reuses the iron in his very expensive tea-ceremony kettles. The pots take on an attractive, burnished-red finish that essentially is already rusted so won’t show any more rust.
Some Japanese are willing to shell out thousands of dollars for these items. “People need something to depend on mentally, and they have started getting tired of mass-produced items,” Miya says.
On a recent day, Nobuyoshi Tanabe, 72, and his wife, Ichii, 73, traveled five hours north to Morioka to buy a tea-ceremony pot, known as a chagama, at Maeda’s shop. The couple–who met for the first time on their wedding day in an arranged marriage–were looking for a tea-ceremony pot to commemorate their 55th wedding anniversary next year.
On their 45th anniversary, Nobuyoshi Tanabe drew a family tree that took 15 years to research–but would be gone instantly in a fire, he notes. For their 50th anniversary, they went to a hot spring, inviting many friends and relatives along. When that was over too, nothing remained, he said. “This time,” he says, “I wanted to have something that will remain forever with our name on it.”
The couple settled on a custom-made pot on which Maeda’s shop will put the kanji characters for their names, along with “55th wedding anniversary.” And they settled on a price: about $1,600.
They’ll particularly savor it, Nobuyoshi Tanabe says, because they live in a farmhouse with a traditional wood-burning irori hearth, where they can boil the water and perform the tea ceremony along with their son, daughter-in-law, grandson and his new wife in the house they all share.
“As I became older, I wanted to drink tea longer, and water boiled in Nambu ware is superior–it’s different than in an electric pot,” he says. “I want to boil water over charcoal. I want to really taste the tea.”
Gabriel & Dresden Remix