Plastic

 

Source http://mugginglace.tumblr.com/post/6554733048

Beltane – celebration of bright fire

Am Beannachadh Bealltain (The Beltaine blessing)

“Bless, O threefold true and bountiful,
Myself, my spouse, my children.
Bless everything within my dwelling and in my possession,
Bless the kine and crops, the flocks and corn,

From Samhain Eve to Beltane Eve,
With goodly progress and gentle blessing,
From sea to sea, and every river mouth,
From wave to wave, and base of waterfall.

Be the Maiden, Mother, and Crone,
Taking possession of all to me belonging.
Be the Horned God, the Wild Spirit of the Forest,
Protecting me in truth and honor.
Satisfy my soul and shield my loved ones,
Blessing every thing and every one,
All my land and my surroundings.
Great gods who create and bring life to all, I ask for your blessings on this day of fire.“

(source: paganwiccan.about.com)

(photo by Calum Hutchinson, source: Wikipedia, permission: CC-BY-SA-2.5)

 

What’s it all about?

Beltane is one of the oldest known holidays, mostly associated with maypole dancing and love magick. It’s also known as May Day, Bealteinne, Beltaine, Calin Mai, Roodmas, Valpurga, Mean Earraigh. The word itself means “bright fire” or “lucky fire” which makes it one of the two great fire festivals (another is Samhain). It is believed that on these two days the veil between the worlds is thin.

Beltane’s planetary ruler is Venus and it is celebrated on May the 1^st or when the sun is at the 15 degrees Taurus. The date marks the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice.

It is the time of great fertility for all – earth, animals and people. Through time it was celebrated in a variety of ways but almost all are connected to the principle of fertility and celebration of gods of forest, goddesses of passion and motherhood and agricultural deities. Great Mother is about to reunite with her young Horned God. This Great Rite symbolizes their sexual union and sacred marriage. In old times, villagers would go into the woods and engage in sexual magick between themsleves believing that would have a positive effect on land (for crop-fertility), animals and themselves.

(source http://weidendrache.monologic.ch)

But it’s not just fertility, it’s new beginnings and vitality, too. The winter has passed and nature is awakening – everything blossoms, the buds and flowers of early May remind us of the endless cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth that we see in the earth. Faeries are afoot and spirits of earth, animals and people are at their peek.

 

Rituals: what can I do

When they hear Beltane many people think love making. And that’s completely true, but Beltane is not just about love magicks. It represents the appearance of the matured Horned God Who is connected to fertility, fire and protection of animals and gardens.

Here are some of the things you can do (most quoted from “Solitary witch: the ultimate book of shadows for the new generation” by Silver Raven Wolf)

• erect your own maypole using a Christmas tree stand and a large pole; decorate with ribbons
• hang prayer ribbons on the trees and bushes on your property
• jump the balefire
• sew ribbons onto a white handkerchief, then empower each ribbon for a different goal or wish; keep the handkerchief safe until all the wishes are granted
• collect the morning dew for magickal use (May morning is a magickal time for wild water, like dew, springs or flowing streams which can be collected and used to bathe in for beauty, or drink for good health)
• gather the first wild herbs of the season, plants and flowers and use them to decorate your home
• make garland of wild spring flowers and cast it into lake, river or stream to bless the water spirits
• hang a branch of rowan tied with red thread above your bedroom door for protection
• add spells for self-esteem and self-love to your Beltane ritual
• bless your garden or the nearest field
• make love in the woods
• walk the woods and hug trees giving them your blessings (some trees are associated with Beltane, like Ash, Oak and Hawthorn)
• commune with the faeries (if you believe in faeries you can leave them food and other treats in your garden or yard)
• Beltane occurs when the sun is in the earthy, fixed sign of Taurus; any magick done now will last (and work hard) for a long time; this is an excellent time of the year for prosperity work, for adding to the stability of your lifestyle, and making those needed repairs around at home.

 To find out some more you can read Beltane – Holiday detalis and history at Witchvox.com.

 Enjoy the spirit of Beltane and blessed be!

Brief guide to life

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

(source: http://zenhabits.net)

In the beginning there was only one language! No, there wasn’t!

A new study claims that all world languages (about 6,000 of them) evolved out of one proto-language spoken by early African humans. But there’s another study that casts some doubt on language universality idea. The first study was published in the journal Science by author Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. The second was published in Nature where leading author Michael Dunn, an evolutionary linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, explains how they used methods from evolutionary biology to show that each of the language families evolves according to its own set of rules.

This is very interesting topic for al the linguists and as one of them, I still haven’t decided ‘which club to join’. To find out more about it I suggest you read the full articles.

“You don’t need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.”

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, that none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not the man less, but Nature more …

(George Gordon, Lord Byron)

Virtual or real, which is true? That which you choose!

Virtual reality and Cro-Magnons

In 1986. Jaron Lanier popularized the term virtual reality. He also appeared in the documentary Synthetic pleasures (1995), a movie that explores the influence of technology on our culture in terms of virtual reality, biotechnology, plastic surgery, even mood-altering drugs. From that point, VR becomes our ‘destiny’.

But this is not the first time that VR is being questioned and explored. It doesn’t take a cutting edge technology to discuss this semantically justified oxymoron. To comprehend the world that is virtual you need to be able to visualize it and that is something that explains our inclination to virtuality.

It all began with our ancestors living in caves like Lascaux or Altamira. The walls of those caves are full of prehistoric drawings and some of them, as we know today, are great examples of paleolithic sympathetic magic. Drawings can represent the visions shamans got while being in trance or consecration of the animal that was about to be killed in hunt. Those drawing are nothing but visualizations of reality that still didn’t happen, but could or will, and the only technology available was fire which spread its light across the walls of the cave feeding the people’s need to visualize.

Again, in ancient Greece, Plato tried to explain his fellowmen that world is run by ideas and to see those ideas they need to use their spiritual eye and not their senses, they need to visualize.

In 18^th century G. W. Leibniz discussed the idea of possible worlds where the best of all possible worlds actualizes all genuine possibilities.

Today quantum mechanics talks about the power of mind and how thoughts can shape our reality, affect the creation of synapses in human brain which then affect the world around us and our perception of it. Visualization is something that is in our genes.

 

There’s no land, but we have it mapped

So, possibilities, visualization, consecration, ideas, all that is linked to the term VR as we see it today. But there’s one more term that can be linked to virtuality – simulacra. Mostly used by Jean Baudrillard, simulacra denies reality as we know it and determinates it as hyperreality, simulation compossed of references with no referents (like having a map of the land when there’s no land). For Baudrillard simulation is ruled by information, models and cybernetics. It is a world of new values influenced mostly by virtuality as a part of new information and communication technologies. Eros and thanatos are no longer important, there’s no need for emotions or empathy for we are “more human than human”.

 

I can see it, but I can also see myself seeing it

Most of the immersive systems, which are the ultimate VR systems completely immersing user’s personal viewpoint inside the virtual world, can be divided into two groups – those equipped with HMD (Head Mounted Display) or those using multiple large projection displays to create a CAVE or a room in which person is standing. In the first case you can see things in the virtual reality as if you were there, but in the second case you can see yourself seeing and interacting with people and objects in your virtual world.

Both cases can result in visual and kinesthetic discrepancy, i.e. when your senses fall behind you when you leave one world and enter another.

 

Play the game

Yesterday I ran into a great short movie called Play. It’s a movie about society’s obsession with gaming and how virtual environments are becoming more and more indistinguishable from the physical world. Movie is great and very interesting. It takes about 20 minutes of your time to watch it, but it’s worth every minute.

It actually confirms what many theoreticians of new media and technology are saying about the influence of virtual reality on our every day lives. How visual and kinesthetic discrepancy appears and how our perceptual sensitivity is affected by spending time immersed in virtual reality.

(P. S. I like how one of the comments describes this short movie – “It’s like Kubrick meets Freud meets Brave New World meets Willy Wonka meets GTA meets Alice in Wonderland all in one.”)

 

What does the future hold?

Though in the early 1990′s the MIT researchers didn’t accept the term VR, today they’re doing quite a lot to pursue it and it’s a great thing, I must admit. More and more projects around the world are developing the concept of virtual reality, sometimes even beyond our thoughts.

At the end, what is real and what is not can always be argued. Space, and therefore place, is relative term and your reality is the one you percieve as such, the one you dive into suspending your ego. When you identify yourself with the world (place, time), it becomes your reality, even if it’s virtual.

Cyclogs

Spring is almost here (in 43 days) and if your bicycle was hibernating this winter here’s the list of few blogs on bikes and cycling to inspire you to go back to your two wheels. You can find great articles, amazing videos, beautiful photos and inspiring and useful news and tips & tricks. There are many blogs on cycling so I decided to mention just some that I personally find to be the most interesting ones.

Bicycles and Icicles – As they state themselves it’s a blog about riding bikes in Alaska. Now you can find out what it’s like to expose yourself and your two-wheel-friend to an original winter experience.

EcoVelo – Alan’s and Michael’s blog celebrating the beauty of the bicycle and the joys of everyday bike riding and inspiring others to do the same. The photos are pure bike prOn.

BikeHugger – Yes, all the TreeHugger fans will probably become BikeHugger fans. I know I did. Couple of guys bring you great and useful articles on bikes and … gear, travelling, racing, design, commuting, and all the other great stuff.

Cyclelicious – Their About page says it all: “cy·cle·lic·ious adj. Wondericiously full of bicycles. Example: “Hmmm, this website is yummy and cyclelicious.”

Urban Velo – This blog brings news on cycling culture in modern day cities. There’s also the magazine Urban Velo available online for free.

Commute by Bike – A place where bike commuters can find some news, tips & tricks, reviews and safety tips.

Bike Shop Girl – Girl power! Their mission is to empower women in cycling but also to rise the awareness of the fact that bicycles can solve many of the worlds issues, relieve stress and contirbue to a healthy lifestyle.

Utility cycling – Great blog and online resource for all the issues regarding utility cycling. Their mission is to help bring clarity to and better define the concept of utility cycling.

Rides a Bike – I guess you all know this. Here you can find great photos of movie stars and their “self-propelled vehicles”.

London Cyclist – It’s not just meant for Londoners but anyone who cycles anywhere in the world. It brings awesome articles, stories and ideas about cycling.

Bike Commuters – Created by the trio of RL, Moe and Jack “Ghost Rider” Sweeney this site brings news, articles, product reviews, and howto’s of anything that is related to bike commuting.

Guardian’s Bike Blog – Guardian’s blog on cycling in the UK and around the world. ‘Love it!

Lovely Bicycle – great blog on beautiful, functional and comfortable bicycles, specially vintage and classic models. You can find useful information, helpful tips, beautiful photos and great articles.

BikeMyDay – Last but not least, new Croatian initative/project/blog on bikes and cycling. Except bringing news, reviews, articles and interviews, they organize different activities, presentations, exhibitions and events in order to promote cycling in all its forms.

At the end, all I can say is enjoy the ride through cyclogs!