Thursday, October 31, 2013

A Dream of Beauty

 
 
 
Your love is like a soldier, loyal till you die.
And I’ve been looking at the stars for a long, long time.
I’ve been putting out fires all my life.
Everybody wants a flame, but they don’t want to get burnt.
And today is our turn.
 
Days like these lead to nights like this leads to love like ours,
You light the spark in my bonfire heart.
People like us, we don’t need that much.
Just someone that starts, starts the spark in our bonfire hearts
.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"I never shall forget the disappointments that followed my early attempts. Here I was, with this expensive apparatus which had been given to me so reluctantly. I had been sure that I could do wonderful thins with it, but I failed over and over again. I could get nothing but a faint image on the plate, so dim that it was practically worthless.


If there had only been someone to explain what was wrong. but away off here on a farm there was nobody to help me. Again and again I failed. The winter slipped away and I was almost heartbroken. But by the next season I had found the secret of my trouble. I began to use a very small 'stop'--a thin plate, with a tiny opening to shut out most of the light. With this, and a longer exposure, I got a clear image of greater intensity.


The day that I developed the first negative made by this method, and found it good," said Bentley with genuine emotion, "I felt almost like falling to my knees beside that apparatus. I knew then that what I had dreamed of doing was possible. It was the greatest moment of my life.


"That was in 1884., when I was nineteen years old." ~ William Bentley, February 1925
 
 
 
 
 
 

Master Magician: Prince Valiant


The Incomparable Harry Houdini
Broken Wand ~ Woken Brand
image credit


Date With Destiny: June 5 1975


Dear Diary,


Today I went dancing. It was tremendous. I'm rapt in this Irish kid. I don't know his name.




1954
 
 
 
For the next minute or so, the audience caught
fleeting glimpses of a wriggling bundle of
white shirt and dress clothes as it bounced and
kicked itself about the stage.... In a minute and a quarter
the white shirt "rather kicked about but a good one still"
straightened into shape and the audience found itself gazing at
a gasping Houdini.
 
 
 
Houdini opened at the New Opera House on Monday Evening, February 7th 1910. He was part of a long programme of songs, dances and comedic sketches, which all began around 8pm and lasted for almost two hours. The theatres in 1910 were more formal places than they had been forty or fifty years before. The audiences were encouraged to show their appreciation by cheering or clapping rather than throwing objects on stage. It was a time when manners and politeness mattered, and the whole of society was undergoing major technological, cultural and social changes.

Houdini was fully ensconced in this age. He was a man of formal manners, a man who projected himself as a respectable married gentleman. His act was firmly associated with the popular brand of entertainment.

 
 
When Houdini appeared at the New Opera House, he was accompanied by acts such as Fred Curran, the quaint comedian, and Teddie, Decima and Roy McClean, the Australian Dartos. Ted Kalman, the comic singer, and a host of other performers also appeared on the same bill. Houdini was due to appear in the second half of the programme, after interval, second from last, a prime headlining spot.

During his early February performances , The Donnelly family immediately preceded Houdini. They were a dance troupe. Their little daughter Kitty, was the highlight of their turn. After the orchestra had escorted them off the stage it was time for the headliner of the night.

The theatre was full. Approximately fourteen hundred people were in the audience waiting for Houdini to appear. It was late evening, they had been entertained, had laughed and cheered and were now prepared to be befuddled by the mysteriarch. [read more] - HAT: History of Australian Theatre
 
 
 
"It's a little tight across the chest"
Harry Houdini in Melbourne Australia
February 7, 1910
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Master Magician: Aloha, Bobby & Rose



two young lovers in a city of dreams
68 Camaro
whichcar.com



Stardate: 29587.2


Dear Diary,


Today I went out to see Aloha, Bobby & Rose. I am going with Russell. It was absolute fun. Thank you Lord. (p)


Digger's Rest
the incomparable Harry Houdini





Billy-Ray was a preacher's son
And when his daddy would visit he'd come along
When they gathered around and started talkin'
That's when Billy would take me walkin'
Out through the back yard we'd go walkin'
Then he'd look into my eyes
Lord knows to my surprise
The only one who could ever reach me
Was the son of a preacher man
The only boy who could ever teach me
Was the son of a preacher man
Yes he was, he was, ooh, yes he was
Bein' good isn't always easy
No matter how hard I try
When he started sweet-talkin' to me
He'd come and tell me everything is alright
He'd kiss and tell me everything is alright
Can I get away again tonight?
Songwriters
DRUMMOND WILLIAM, ERNEST

White Privilege: Choice of Straws


"They pass by the bridge and me"
Elegba
 

A professor of neuroscience at Rockefeller University, Bruce McEwen investigates how stress affects the mind and brain. TIME spoke with him recently about stress and health.

What are some common misconceptions about stress?

I’ll start with several pet peeves: that all stress is bad for you and that cortisol [a stress hormone] is bad for you because it’s easy to measure as a marker of stress. These stress systems were put there to help the body adapt and survive. They have a good side and a bad side.

That’s the essence of [what I have labelled] allostatic load:  these systems, which help us adapt and survive can also cause problems when they are overused. [That idea] gets away from the use of the word stress, but when we talk about stress, there’s good stress and toxic stress.


What is good stress?

Good stress is rising to a challenge, feeling exhilarated when your body and brain are working properly to help you do so.


And toxic stress?

It’s intolerable stress. When you lose your job and you’ve got friends and enough material and social support, you can weather it and come out strong. [But] toxic stress is where bad things happen, perhaps because you don’t have the inner or external resources [needed to cope] and perhaps because you have had early life adversity, which makes you more vulnerable to adverse outcomes.


On the other hand, don’t many of the people who have difficult childhood experiences remain resilient and able to cope with stress?
It’s very important to separate that out. You’ve got the family, the caregiver and child relationship, which, if it’s consistent over time and doesn’t involve lots of up-down swings toward the kid and there is stability within the family, even in bad external environments, children can do well.

It’s amazing that children do find brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbours to find steady guidance. [Even] among kids who have not, there are these examples of kids who manage to survive.



Laurence Fishburne
Matrix Reloaded [2003]
 

So what increases the risk for problems like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

One of the greatest risk factors is often, as a result of early life adversity, [that] a child develops low self esteem and doesn’t have the ability to control [his stress response]. Vulnerability to problems like substance abuse and PTSD or depression comes with [adverse childhood experiences] but it doesn’t happen in everybody and we have to acknowledge that there are genes and variations that confer increased or decreased risk for this kind of outcome.


But it’s not just a matter of whether certain genetic mutations are present or not. The effects of some genes seem to depend on the environment in which children are raised. So, for example, these genes may make people smarter or kinder if they are activated in a good environment, while they might increase the risk of problems like depression or aggression if they are present in a chaotic one.

That’s the whole area of risk-reactive alleles or variants of genes that are risky [in some situations] but in a nurturing environment lead to better than average outcomes.  They have been called orchid and dandelion genes.



Sidney Poitier
Lilies of the Field [1963]


The orchid and dandelion idea seems to suggest that some people’s talents or best qualities are forever lost if they have the wrong childhood: is that really the case or can they recover later?

That’s where you come into the area of plasticity, that’s newly recognized.  It seems likely [that they can recover] and there is some evidence that the reactivity of those alleles not only determines the outcome in good or bad [early] environments but also confers greater ability for plasticity later if you can find the right intervention.


Can exercise also promote the growth of new brain cells and connections between cells?

The poster child of the ability to change the brain is work on exercise. If you take sedentary people in their 60s and they start to walk  an hour a day, five days a week, the hippocampus gets larger.
Mindfulness-based stress programs can also cause [these kinds of] brain changes.




Esther Anderson & Sidney Poitier
A Warm December [1973]
 
Whether he was playing a student or a teacher, a policeman or a prisoner, a polished professional or a desperate working man, a jazz musician or handyman or doctor, Sidney Poitier, a man of Caribbean heritage, was the image and sound of African-American intellect and pride.


Of course, not all social contact is beneficial, such as the toxic stress that can come from being on the bottom of a social hierarchy.

That can be seen in studies on baboons. The subordinate animal is continually watching and can be attacked from anywhere. The dominant has to watch for a few enemies, but generally has it under control. The subordinate has the posture of low self esteem.

In human terms, the whole idea is that, well, this is why there is a subjective  socioeconomic status (SES) ladder. It’s people’s perception of where they stand that is a predictor of health outcomes.
The lower you are, the more resentment there is and it’s that perception that drives things like a sense of autonomy and other factors [that can determine your response to stress].  It’s also history: people in lower SES groups are more likely to have had adverse childhood experiences and are living in [lousy] neighbourhoods where there is not access to good food, no safe places to exercise and there’s chaos and noise all the time. It’s a vicious cycle.

But it’s where you perceive yourself that matters.  The brain is the key because it perceives and decides what is stressful in the traditional sense of the word and regulates behaviour and physiology.
There are buffering factors. [For example] a person may be a janitor but is the deacon of his church and has a wonderful family, and that buffers [the effect]. And perception is as good [a measure] as objective SES.


Sidney Poitier
To Sir, With Love [1967]


So what else can we do to fight toxic stress?

Many of the obvious things we’ve talked about. Be physically active, get a good diet, [get] adequate sleep, [create] social support, have a good hobby, meditate.  All of these things really are common sense and now we know they do have the benefits of improving our brain architecture.

I think that’s the bottom line. But the bigger question has to do with the social environment we live in, which is determined by the policies we set and politics. The pressure is on us for, ‘faster, faster, faster.’  They’re all working against what our bodies were intended to do. Spend more, do more, faster: that just doesn’t work.


Interview sourced from Healthland


"Papa"
Dr. Edward R. Braithwaite
[1920 -
Ricky's autobiography To Sir, With Love was published in 1959
 
 
 
Further Reading

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Master Magician: House of Wax




“I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge.”



Stardate: 28160.7

Dear Diary,
Today was went out to Lake Tyers. We caught two fish. We went to Shelly Beach and got treasures.





My Beautiful Picture
Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner
[1875-1943]
Bess Houdini



I don't like those high-class cats that purr
on the couch in the parlor.
I adore cats that have turned wild,
their hair standing on end.

They hunt birds, prowl,
roam the streets like demons.
They cast their wild eyes at you,
ready to pounce on your face.

Have you noticed that female cats in the wild
are always pregnant?
Obviously, they think of
nothing but love.
Picasso's cats
by Amy Schreibman Walter
 


 
 

Monday, October 28, 2013

Master Magician: Lipstick



image found
Lipstick Alley.com




Stardate: 30297.1


Dear Diary


Today Martin rang up twice; the first time to see if I was going to the dance, secondly to the pictures. We saw Lipstick.




You learn that a man who felt overtaken and overlooked in life, who felt others, especially women,
had all the glory and privileges and wealth – and respect – he craves, is instead
going to  punish and dominate those women,
as it’s all he thinks he has.  
 
 
 
 
 
Black Fingernails, red wine
I wanna make you
All mine
A lot of people underground
You wanna get there
You gotta go straight down, straight down

 There's a culture everywhere
Smoke clouds hang in the air
It's so loud, can't hear you talk
You and I should take a walk downtown
Straight down, Downtown, Straight down


 The argument over god continues
In this house
All of us stand and point our fingers
At the ground
All of us stand and point our fingers
Straight down
 
 
 

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Master Magician: Rollerball


Panem et circenses


Stardate: 29289.5


Dear Diary,


Rollerball - it was a terrific picture. I enjoyed myself.  So did Ian.  He is great. 7 times kissed.


Stardate: 29295 [3 days later]


Dear Diary,


Today we had dancing. Ian was there. I was feeling crook. 





The Skirball Cultural Center salutes the life, career and influence of
enigmatic magician and escape artist Harry Houdini 

Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh
"Wait for me, wait for me"
I'll be coming home, wait for me!
Oh, my love, my darling
I've hungered, hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Ageless. Evergreen. Hereafter.

I am haunted by waters
Warrandyte River Walk
image by Bob Padua

Edelene M. Hook
1924 - 1955

G. Ronald Glenn
1920 - 1955

Ruth Hornby
1926 - 1955


As All Hallows' Eve approaches,
 I am numinous-ly reminded of the many ways in which we are all
empowered to tell a Story of Us
which is kind
which is real
which is mercy-moistened

She was not that woman
He was not that man

Magdalen

Ma mere
Mon pere

L'chaim



Master Magician: Dr Zhivago



The Incomparable Harry Houdini
1925



Stardate: 29692.9


Dear Diary,


Today we went to see Dr Zhivago. It was fantastic. So moving. So touching
.

Where the Grass is Whiter
Varykino
 
 
 
Somewhere, my love there will be songs to sing
Although the snow covers the hope of spring
Somewhere a hill blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams all that your heart can hold

Someday we'll meet again my love
Someday whenever the spring breaks through

You'll come to me out of the long ago
Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow
Lara my own, think of me now and then
God speed my love till you are mine again

Friday, October 25, 2013

Master Magician: A Star is Born



Barbra Streisand in full belt
Image credit



Stardate: 30700.1


Dear Diary,


Today me, Lynda & Jenny went to see A Star is Born that was beautiful.




The Incomparable Harry Houdini
1903





I'm the master magician
Who'll help you escape
From the lies you've been told


 When they're breaking your back
Bring the last straw to me
I turn straw into gold

 I break chains made of boredom that others have lived with for years
I leave good news on doorsteps
And laughs where there used to be tears

 I'm gonna need you later
When you're not around
But I can take it
I won't look down

 Watch closely now
Are you watching me now?
Watch me now
Are you watching me now?

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Frango Ut Patefaciam

 
 
Artist: Michael Reedy
image credit
 
 
 
From The Pony Fish's Glow and Other Clues to Plan and Purpose in Nature, by George C. Williams. Copyright 1997 by George C. Williams.  Transmigrated from The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive
 
 
 
Many traditional religions foster attitudes that ought to have disappeared as biological understanding accumulated over the last century. One of these might be termed the holy-corpse fallacy. When people die, their relatives and friends behave as if there were some moral significance in the dead body. They ignore the fact that the "last remains" are just that, material that happened, at the time of death, to provide the medium of expression for a human life. However long this complex human message was expressed is the duration of time in which the materials were coming and going. The tons of matter that at one time or another were part of a dead senior citizen are already dispersed throughout the terrestrial ecosystem. A small minority of the dead person's molecules are in orbit around the earth or sun. Cremation of the matter that happened to be there at the last minute merely hastens an inevitable process.
 
 
 
 
Artist: Michael Reedy
image credit - as above
 
 
The holy-corpse fallacy once had support from the biological concept of protoplasm, the special living matter of an organism. Other matter may be entering and leaving a living cell, but it's protoplasm was presumably a stable entity that regulated this material flux. A dead person may have dead protoplasm, but it was presumably that person's very own protoplasm, and had been throughout his or her life. Protoplasm was often discussed in the biology courses I took in the 1940s. It is a term almost never heard today.
 
 
Another error is the moment-of-conception fallacy. The joining of a human egg and sperm defines a new and unique human genotype. It does not produce any human hopes and fears and memories or anything else of moral importance implied by the term human. The newly fertilized egg may have the potential for a fully human existence, but that potential was there even before fertilization. The same can be said of all the fertilizations that might have been. The penetration of that egg by one sperm meant an early death for millions of competing sperm. It destroyed all hope for those millions of other unique human genotypes.
 
 
 
 
Artist: Michael Reedy
image credit - as above
 
 
 
The moment-of-conception fallacy implies that fertilization is a simple process with never a doubt as to whether it has or has not happened. In reality, the "moment" is a matter of some hours of complex activity. There are elaborate biochemical interactions between the sperm and various layers of the egg membrane. The sperm gradually breaks up, and only its nucleus is established in the egg. Then both egg and sperm nuclei initiate radical changes before the fusion of the two nuclei. Many of the developmental events following this fusion were predetermined during the production of the egg. Genes provided by the sperm do not have discernible effects until embryonic development is well under way. A strictly biological definition of humanity would have to specify some point in this elaborate program at which the egg and sperm have suddenly been endowed with a single human life.
 
 
Who moved my cheese Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator?
Artist: Michael Paulus
 
 
There are other difficulties with defining humanity this way. If that single human life develops for a while and then divides to produce identical twins or triplets, are they to be considered one human being? This would be contrary to almost everyone's moral sensibilities. Recent observations have raised additional questions about the connection between biological and moral individuality. Early in development, fraternal twins from two separate, fertilized eggs may fuse and develop into what, at birth, is physically a single baby. Molecular techniques available today may show that such an individual is genetically different in various parts of its body. An apparently normal woman may have some genetically male tissues from what originated as her twin brother, or vice versa. The only realistic view is that a human life arises gradually, which is not much help in making personal decisions or devising public policy.
 
 
 
 
Frango ut patefaciam
~I break in order to reveal~
Artist: Michael Reedy
 
 
 
 
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was among the best known and widely read scientists of the late 20th century. A palaeontologist and educator at Harvard University, Gould made his largest contributions to science as the leading spokes-person for evolutionary theory. His monthly columns in Natural History magazine and his popular works on evolution have earned him numerous awards and one of the largest readerships in the popular-science genre — penning altogether over twenty successful books throughout his career.
 On this website you will find articles by Gould and his colleagues focusing on the finer points of his work, the nature of life's evolution, and the general ontogeny of evolutionary theory.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Fear Alert System

Queen Amygdala
 
 
The limbic systems is the part of the brain that operates the autonomic nervous system (ANS). In evolutionary terms, it is the oldest structure in the brain, and one that we have in common with our mammalian ancestors.  The limbic system acts as a trauma control centre; in this role, it regulates fear conditioning and memory storage - the two processes central to our reactions to trauma. The specific parts of the limbic centre that operate these processes are the amygdala and the hippocampus.
 
 
The amygdala is the brain's gatekeeper for incoming emotional information. Located at the top of the brainstem, it controls a variety of brain functions - most notably emotional memory, fear and anxiety. In particular, it assesses incoming information for its emotional significance. People whose amygdala is damaged lack the ability to judge the emotional significance of events. They remain as impassive when confronted with threatening events as when they are facing pleasant situations.
 
 
 
Harry "Breaker" Morant
 
 
In everyday circumstances, information is passed from the amygdala to the frontal cortex, where higher-order thinking takes place. But under threatening circumstances in which speedy reaction time is essential for survival, the amygdala takes a 'short cut' and alerts the hypothalamus directly. In response, the hypothalamus releases a chemical called corticotropin-releasing factor, which, in turn, stimulates the release of adrenocorticotropin hormone from the pituitary gland. This hormone then stimulates the adrenal glands release of cortisol, which activates the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and gets the body ready for fight or flight. Conversely, in situations where neither flight nor fight is possible, the limbic system actives the PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) and the body goes into the submission state known as tonic immobility.
 
 
Gin & tonic immobility
 
 
The amygdala is like a smoke detector for the brain. In an emergency it runs the show, making decisions before they are filtered through conscious awareness, compelling us to respond before we have time to think. Responses triggered by the amygdala are automatic and reflexive: soldiers who fall to the ground immediately upon hearing a car backfire are being led by their amygdala. Their training and battlefield experience has kicked in, beyond any conscious control.
 
If the amygdala is to take centre stage, however, it must 'inform' other parts of the brain to shut down - specifically, brain structures such as the hippocampus (the part of the brain that stores memories of time and space, orders memories along our life's timeline and makes connections between memories) and Broca's area (the part concerned with translating emotional experiences into language). These mechanisms are too time-consuming at a time when immediate reactions to the current situation are necessitated.
 
 
 

 
 
Under normal circumstances the hippocampus plays an important role in processing and storing memories. It is believed to act like a USB cable that transfers information from the right side of the brain (where information is held as it actively awaits processing) to the left side (where it is stored in memory). In contrast to the amygdala, the hippocampus is associated with a conscious, explicit, verbal route to learning and the storage of memories. When someone is rehearsing a talk or planning a travel route, it is the hippocampus that is responsible for transferring memories into long-term storage.
 
During trauma, however, the activity of the hippocampus is suppressed. Many scientists believe that this outcome is related to excessive stress, which kills neurons in the hippocampal pathway. It is as if a fuse has blown in the brain, shutting down the usual transfer of information. In these circumstances, memories lack detail. 
 
In normal circumstances, memories are filed away as representations of past events. But following trauma, they remain in an active state, and thus seem to float in the present. At the same time, they are difficult to talk about coherently: an overload of information is associated with the traumatic experience, information that the individual is unable to manage.  In many cases, traumatic memories are filed away over time.  When this does not happen, the re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD are the result.
 
 
German officials examine the pile of abandoned luggage left on the platform after the departure of a deportation train on its way to the Belzec death camp  


In short, PTSD is a disorder of information processing. The PTSD sufferers' traumatic memories remain active because the brain structures concerned with memory storage and language have shut down, leaving the individual 'on alert' until these parts of the brain are reactivated. It usually takes around a month for the brain to repair the 'blown fuse' in the hippocampal pathway, so that the usual memory-processing mechanisms can come back on line. For some people, however, it takes longer. This difference could be due to a number of factors, including natural variations in the capability of the hippocampal pathway, the occurrence of other traumatic events that subsequently slow the repair process or continued activation of the amygdala, even though the danger has passed.


An intriguing possibility suggested by research is that vulnerability to PTSD has its roots in the early years of childhood. During a period when the brain is still forming, a lack of parental care or other stressors can alter the neural systems responsible for cognitive-emotional processing of traumatic information, leading to a reduced hippocampal volume. One implication of this finding is that some people are more susceptible to PTSD than others because they file their memories away less efficiently. Another is that they have traumatic memories from early childhood that are reactivated by a later trauma, in which case the memories would be old ones that were laid down before language was formed. This would explain why some PTSD sufferers experience disorganised and distressing mental states that they are unable to meaningfully 'pin-down' to actual events in their lives, leading, in turn to difficulty processing their current situation.




A butterfly made perfect by a dart through it
Sabian Symbol
Libra 0

 
 
 
Text source: What Doesn't Kill Us: the new psychology of post-traumatic growth, Professor Stephen Joseph, p.55-57.
 
 
 
 

 


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Surprised by Gor' Blimey: Dulcie and the Oliphant




The Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus)
is a brightly coloured worm species that can be found living throughout the coral reefs of the world.


Dulcie was a young woman who lived in the walled town of Worms in the Rhineland area of Germany. To begin to encounter Dulcie, we must prepare ourselves to confront a haunting tale of two ageless extremes: the powers of pure goodness and the basest evil.  Dulcie's is a story of a dedicated young mother and sage whose life was abruptly terminated in savage murder. 

Ironically, it was her brutal end, which occurred just before Chanukah in 1196[1], that immortalized Dulcie. Like that of so many women whose lives were illuminated with the sacred but were ignored by historians, Dulcie's life would probably never have been chronicled had it not been for her husband's anguish and the eulogy he was moved to write after losing her[2].

How sad it is only because of her harsh end that we have a glimpse at the life of such a holy woman as Dulcie.


[1] The Hebrew date recorded by her husband is 22 Kislev (November 15), 1196 (hence her yahrzeit is celebrated on 22 Kislev).  All dates place Dulcie's death between the Second and Third Crusades.

[2] Dulcie's husband, Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (1165-1230), eulogized her in the opening dedication to his book Sefer Hachochmah, published in 1217.  Although the entire book has not been translated, the elegy, Eyshet Chayil, "Woman of Valor", has been. It is from this poem that we learn the details of Dulcie's life.


Source: The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women's Wisdom, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, p.142


image and text credit
Buzzards Bay, MA
 
 
Christmas Tree Worm – The Christmas tree worm is named after its cone-shaped spirals of plumes. They come in many colours including orange, yellow, blue, and white. The colourful plumes, or tentacles, are used for feeding on food particles and plankton in the water and for respiration. They can be found worldwide in tropical waters. Christmas tree worms are very sensitive to disturbances and will rapidly collapse into their burrows at the slightest threat.
 
 
Kingdom of Heaven
 
 
Worms was encircled, as many medieval European towns were, by a great stone wall. In the shadow of its wall ran the narrow, sinuous streets and alleys in which the Jews were confined. Much hatred was directed here; the insults and abuse that Jews suffered in these dark streets during and after the Crusades are famous.

 
Although the Crusades have been romanticized as the height of Christian ideals and nobility, they were, in truth, tainted by appalling violence and greed. Many of the soldiers who held high the standard of the Cross failed to uphold its truest values of justice and humanity, falling pretty to the bases of human impulses. For much of Europe's Jewry, the Crusades were a time of stark terror, when their villages were plundered and their communities decimated. 
There is little information about the two knights of the Cross who stormed Dulcie's home on that winter night. It was a common enough incident during that barbaric period when countless acts of wanton violence such as this one took place. To the two soldiers, the crime may have been as arbitrary as any other night of drunken sport in the Jewish quarter, as meaningless as a child's game of crunching leaves or smashing beetles.

 
 "I, right from the beginning, have been terribly worried by the existence of
nuclear weapons and very much against their use."
~ Sir Mark Oliphant,
 
Two extant texts tell of the events that befell Dulcie and her family that night. Eleazar was studying Torah with his students in the adjacent quarters of their house while Dulcie prepared food for the Sabbath. Swinging their great axes, the soldiers flew into their home, running after the family, splitting open the heads of Dulcie's two daughters, who died in front of their mother's eyes, and then striking Jacob, the young son, who was knocked unconscious.

 
Then they came for Dulcie. She was hit in the head yet managed to escape and run out of the house crying for help. None came.  The soldiers pursued her and finished their work in the street, "splitting her head down to the windpipe and shoulder, and from the shoulder to the girdle."


 
Little Jacob did not die until the following week. Dulcie's husband's head and hand were injured; why he and his students were not killed or injured more seriously is unclear.


 
 
Source: Ibid p.148-149
 
 
 
Cathedral of St Peter
Worms
 
 
The power of evil is understood in Judaism to be part and parcel of creation, built into the very fabric and design of the world. God tells us this directly: "I form light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things." The tension between the polarities of light and darkness, good and evil, is planted into the very nature of all created things. And because human beings are seen as an olam katan, a microcosm or a fractal of the whole, each of us enters life with all of the same polarities found in the universe latent within us.

We will never know what went on in Dulcie's heart as she struggled with the darkness that consumed her physical form. Was her soul wounded or did she emerge on the other side of this life with a shining new identity?  Did she lose her faith or was she confirmed in it?  Did she feel betrayed by God as she was quartered like an animal in the streets, or did she die saying the Shema Yisrael, ascending to God with greater wholeness?


Heiliger Sand
Worms
 

The desire to make a difference fades with time. Old age is an age of good intentions but it’s not a time of good works. Australians are curious people, not too interested in the properties of their strange land with its lack of moisture and beautiful scenery. I suppose it’s the driest country in the world. Most people don’t give much thought to Australia and its future... they just exist. And people who do something towards Australia and its future are not that common. And sometimes those who are interested in Australia and its future are cranky. I am cranky, I suppose. I know a lot of cranky people (laughter) but I think one has to care in order to be cranky and those who care are going to build the future of this country.


It was nice to be honoured but I like ‘Mark’ not ‘Sir Mark’. When one’s young, one’s brash and all-knowing; when one’s old, one realises how little one knows. You asked me earlier if I believed in God and the hereafter. I would tend to say no but when one dies one could well be surprised. - Sir Mark Oliphant (1901-2000) 

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Monday, October 21, 2013

Twelve: The Light-Bringer

Le Genie du Mal
 
 
 
 
“All there is to thinking, is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren’t noticing, which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.”
~ Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It
 
 
 
 
Rorschach Inkblot
 
 
In pre-Christian times, when the dual nature of the divine was honoured, the archetypes of Lucifer and Satan were distinctly different.  The Lucifer archetype was depicted as a man, while the Satan archetype was always depicted as a woman
 
The imbalance or the overload of one energy is what causes the “evil” archetypes.
 
 
The Divine Masculine energy is what we call Grace or The Light. This energy is given by or falls from Father Sky. It was believed that all men were naturally endowed with this masculine energy of intellect and logic. Initiating the upward rise of the Divine Feminine creates the balance of energies required to attain wholeness, enlightenment, or Holiness. We see this practice played out in the king’s requirement of  ‘Honouring the Goddess’ in an annual ceremony in ancient times. The king who did not honour the goddess or who did not initiate the Kundalini to rise within his spiritual system was deemed an evil king.

The overload of Grace creates the Lucifer archetype of the evil king.


The Divine Feminine energy is what we now call Passion or Kundalini. This energy is given or rises up from Mother Earth. It was believed that all women were naturally endowed with this feminine energy of creativity and emotion. Bringing down the Divine Masculine creates the balance of energies required to attain wholeness, enlightenment, or Holiness. Ancient rituals included marriage to the male godhead as the first step of the spiritual path. (This ceremony is still performed today when a Catholic nun takes her vows.) An overload of Passion or Kundalini creates the Satan archetype. Every culture has a wrathful goddess who rampages and destroys.


When Judaism and later Christianity moved to having only one god, the mechanism of enlightenment for the dual personality types was lost.


This is what created the schism between the apostles of Jesus and the Apostle Paul.
Jesus was hailed as the Prince of Peace.

 Peace is the fruit of Grace.
 
 
Text swiped from Jesus' Wedding
 
 
 
 
Love and War: The necks of two Black Swans form a heart shape in this photo, but there is no love felt between these two birds. These mature swans, probably rival males, are facing off in a show of size and strength. These kinds of confrontations occur frequently but they rarely develop into much more than a bit of posturing