30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die {Via studioflowerpower on etsy} “Rather than money, than fame, than love…give me truth.” ~ Thoreau I woke up this morning and my life clock marked 30. My first sleep-deprived idea was to pack a small suitcase, get on the first train, move to another country, change my name, change my hair color (or get plastic surgery if needed), and start from scratch. When I don’t know how to deal with life, I hide sometimes. By now, I’m good at both: fighting and disappearing. A true warrior doesn’t feel forced to do either, but moves through and with and for life, like water. So after I washed my face and considered the costs of running and those of fighting, I decided to do neither and have some juice instead. {Alkaline Espresso / Click for recipe.} We are a constant process, an event, we’re change. As such, our smaller houses, our temporary homes can only be made of cards. Loving the questions means to love yourself. So here is an exercise we can do together: a tweak to your usual bucket list. You.
Your Cosmic Horoscope 25th August 2014 (Virgo New Moon) Whether it’s your physical health or your mental stability, it’s time to clean up the act a bit and get into some routine that is actually working to keep you healthy. Yet, no conventional practice is going to cut it. Also a word about your work. For the latest Cosmic Update click here There is enough insight and wisdom among your friends and (perhaps online) community to inspire you to take a magic carpet ride into the vast unknown areas of your subconscious. Yet don’t get too excited. A way out. Just like returning a gift that you have not opened, if you do not claim any nasty criticism it returns back to its source. Since it’s really hard to work out exactly where you’re heading in life right now you turn your attention inwards this month and assess your home and private matters. Sometimes it is as important to be diligent in forgetting as in remembering, otherwise the whole exercise of living becomes one of pedantry, not culture. Respect that is.
Maya Angelou on Identity and the Meaning of Life by Maria Popova “Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.” The light of the world has grown a little dimmer with the loss of the phenomenal Maya Angelou, but her legacy endures as a luminous beacon of strength, courage, and spiritual beauty. Reflecting on her life, Angelou — who rose to cultural prominence through the sheer tenacity of her character and talent, despite being born into a tumultuous working-class family, abandoned by her father at the age of three, and raped at the age of eight — tells Rich: I’ve been very fortunate… I seem to have a kind of blinkers. She later revisits the question of identity, echoing Leo Buscaglia’s beautiful meditation on labels, as she reflects on the visibility her success granted her and the responsibility that comes with it: What I represent in fact, what I’m trying like hell to represent every time I go into that hotel room, is myself. The kindnesses … I never forget them. Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Zentangle: Pattern-Drawing as Meditation by Maria Popova If greater creativity and more mental balance are among your new year’s resolutions, look no further than Zentangle — a type of meditation achieved through pattern-making, created by artist duo Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. Each pattern is built one line at a time, organically combining simple patterns into complex zentangles in unplanned, unexpected ways that grow, change and unfold on the page as you enter an immersive state of flow. Totally Tangled offers a fantastic introduction to the relaxing and beautiful practice through step-by-step instructions and over 100 original tangles. We’re particularly taken with Zentagle because its basic principle — building on simple shapes and combining different patterns into complex creativity — is such a beautiful visual metaphor for our core philosophy of combinatorial creativity. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. Share on Tumblr
Myth, Legend, Folklore, Ghosts Apollo and the Greek Muses Updated July 2010 COMPREHENSIVE SITES ON MYTHOLOGY ***** The Encyclopedia Mythica - SEARCH - Areas - Image Gallery - Genealogy tables - Mythic Heroes Probert Encyclopaedia - Mythology Gods, Heroes, and MythDictionary of Mythology What is Myth? MESOPOTAMIAN MYTHOLOGYThe Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ Sumerian Mythology FAQ Sumerian Mythology Sumerian Gods and Goddesses Sumerian Myths SUMERIAN RELIGION Mythology's Mythinglinks: the Tigris-Euphrates Region of the Ancient Near East Gods, Goddesses, Demons and Monsters of Mesopotamia The Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ More info on Ancient Mesopotamia can be found on my Ancient River Valley Civilizations page. GREEK MYTHOLOGYOrigins of Greek MythologyGreek Mythology - MythWeb Greek-Gods.info (plus a fun QUIZ)Ancient Greek Religion Family Tree of Greek Mythology Greek Names vs. VARIOUS FAIRIES, ELVES, UNICORNS, MERMAIDS, & OTHER MYTHICAL TOPICS HERE BE DRAGONS!
Andy Warhol on Sex and Love by Maria Popova “Romance is finding your fantasy in people who don’t have it.” “Is sex necessary?” young E.B. White and James Thurber asked in their endlessly delightful 1929 collaboration. “When we hook up with another, in sex or love (or, more rarely, both) we prove that our isolation is not permanent,” Dorion Sagan, son of Carl and a terrific science storyteller in his own right, wrote in his fascinating history of sex. Warhol, who identified as gay and whose work drew heavily on his participation in the LGBT community, confessed to his biographer in 1980, at the age of fifty-two, that he was still a virgin. Portrait of Andy Warhol by Jack Mitchell Warhol’s central premise is that our greatest anguish about love and sex comes from the buildup of our fantasies and their inevitable clash with reality — the bodily counterpart to Stendhal’s “crystallization” theory. The most exciting thing is not-doing-it. There should be a course in the first grade on love. Donating = Loving
50 Life Secrets and Tips Memorize something everyday.Not only will this leave your brain sharp and your memory functioning, you will also have a huge library of quotes to bust out at any moment. Poetry, sayings and philosophies are your best options.Constantly try to reduce your attachment to possessions.Those who are heavy-set with material desires will have a lot of trouble when their things are taken away from them or lost. Possessions do end up owning you, not the other way around. Read “Zen and the Art of Happiness” by Chris Prentiss.This book will give you the knowledge and instruction to be happy at all times regardless of the circumstances.
List of unusual deaths This is a list of unusual deaths. This list includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources. Some of the deaths are mythological or are considered to be unsubstantiated by contemporary researchers. Oxford Dictionaries defines the word "unusual" as "not habitually or commonly occurring or done" and "remarkable or interesting because different from or better than others."[1] Some other articles also cover deaths that might be considered unusual or ironic, including List of entertainers who died during a performance, List of inventors killed by their own inventions, List of association footballers who died while playing, List of professional cyclists who died during a race and the List of political self-immolations. Antiquity[edit] Middle Ages[edit] Renaissance[edit] 18th century[edit] 19th century[edit] 20th century[edit] 1920s[edit] 1950s[edit] 1960s[edit] 1961: U.S. 1970s[edit] 1980s[edit] 1990s[edit]
Artist Francis Bacon on the Role of Suffering and Self-Knowledge in Creative Expression by Maria Popova “An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.” “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer… his unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden,” Viktor Frank wrote in his spectacular 1946 treatise on the human search for meaning. From The Artist Observed: 28 Interviews with Contemporary Artists (public library) by the prominent dance and art critic John Gruen — the magnificent out-of-print tome fifteen years in the making that also gave us Agnes Martin on art, happiness, pride and failure — comes a wide-ranging conversation with artist Francis Bacon, known for his highly graphic, emotionally charged imagery with strong undertones of anxiety, terror, and turmoil. Portrait of Francis Bacon by Irving Penn I think that life is violent and most people turn away from that side of it in an attempt to live a life that is screened. Three Studies of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon, 1969 Of course I suffer. Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Sankhyakarika The miracle of a perpetually dynamic Universe is enabled when two opposing factors in an interactive state occur simultaneously. Compression and expansion are two opposing activities but when it takes place simultaneously, activity time is conserved and the dynamic state continues. The theoretical clue, lacking in Physics and Cosmology is the numerical algorithm that defines the threshold of simultaneously interactive states, which is also the key to gravitation phenomena. Newtons gravity constant and the fine structure constant are an approximation of precise axiomatic ratios that governs all phenomena in the Universe. The consequence of eternal dynamism in space is the ability to extract abundant, clean and perpetual energy at the highest efficiency with minimum effort; all of which forms the greatest gift to humanity. The component forming space is defined dimensionally. Why is Sankhya theory, derived by Maharishi Kapilla 33000 (
All About Orbs Have you ever seen an orb and wondered what it meant? Are you aware that different colored orbs have various meanings? The following is research material that I compiled together on the subject of orbs: Orb Chart: These suggested meanings are a compiled consensus of several different color interpretations. source What do the different colors of orbs mean? Orbs of light, or energy orbs, often appear in photographs, on videos, and even floating across our living room before our very eyes. Most orbs appear to be white, but some orbs are pink, purple, blue, green, etc., or even multi-colored. All living beings have auras of various colors that depict their personality, state of mind, health, traumas, etc. source Orb Color Theory Everything in the universe is composed of energy vibrating at its own rate or frequency. The interpretation of the meanings of orb colors relates to orbs that are perceived as conscious, sentient beings. Posts related to All About Orbs