A small offering of cream, poured onto the earth in a special location, to the Almother is a thoughtful gesture.
*************************
Full Snow Moon Saturday evening, although specifically the early morning hours of Sunday, February 9th @ 2:34 EST.
************
the moon "Wow, what can I say? I love the moon. I hate cloudy nights when you cannot see the moon, ya know?" -- Alex *************************
Quote "The game of life is a game of booerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy." -- Florence Scovel Shinn *************************
It's Time To Stop Breeding 'Frankencats' Adam M. Roberts and Born Free USA - TheDodo.com - October 22, 2014 I'm stunned. Just stunned. In a world in which so many animals are in need of loving homes, it is mystifying that bespoke breeding of animals occurs-but, even worse, that state legislatures would allow the cross-breeding of domestic and wild cats for profit. At least Born Free and our allies, such as the Animal Legal Defense Fund, can right this wrong. Wrong. At a meeting on October 8 in Mt. Shasta, California, California Department of Fish and Wildlife council members rejected the jointly-filed petition to remove an exemption in state regulations that allowed cross-breeding of domestic and wild cats. con't....
************
Lion-Leopard mix
Mixing big cats How about the absolute irresponsible travesty of mixing the big cats? Zoos around the world house large cats together, and they mix! Some, such as the Lion-Leopard mix, are NOT pretty. The Lion-Tiger mix has a strong tendency of gigantism and could not possibly survive in the wild. Now we're seeing the continuation down to 3/4 lion and 1/4 tiger, ruining these big beautiful specialized cats. Another issue is the intrinsic specialized breeding of house cats. Cats are perfect, graceful, and sightly, as a general rule... with plenty of natural variation. They already have small faces, short legs, and small ears... yet unspiritual breeders continue to up the ante of breeding small scrunched faces, even shorter legs, even smaller ears, hairless, etc. Feline genes are not like canines, where simple wolf genes can be manipulated from the ferocious wolf to the timid chihuahua. I've never seen anything close to an improvement. Also, in regards to the wildcat admixtures, mixing in for example bobcat dna adds the genes for a big powerful cat. In this way, further generations may not be so kind to a home; tearing up the walls and furniture! Maybe injuring a small dog, when these issues would be much less likely to occur otherwise.
*************************
A Chat with Homicide Hunter's Carl Marino! Kiki Garcia I had a chance to chat one on one with Homicide Hunter's Carl Marino. I asked him all about playing one of the most popular Detectives on ID and he could not be more down to earth!
************
"This actor carl marino makes my heart melt love u carl want to see more of u in acting" -- Bridget Turner, YouTube user
************
Carl Marino IMDb Homocide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda is over now. I don't see any reason that Carl Marino couldn't be like maybe Gary Sinise who took up acting late but moved along quickly.
************************* Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Remastered)
Roman Festival Of Veneralia For The Goddess Venus On April 1, 2010 MichaelTheResearcher Thursday, April 1, 2010 - the day of the Roman Festival of Veneralia dedicated to The Goddess Venus. I endeavored some ancient reenacting today, and did as the Romans did. I tried to be as historically-accurate as possible. I erected a nice Shrine and Altar. Therein you will see a soaking-wet and dripping Venus Statue. On this day in antiquity, the Romans washed all of the Venus Statues and adorned Them with flowers. In that spirit, I made sure She has been ritually cleaned and prepared with the proper offerings. She was originally associated with vegetation so I added plenty of vegetables in addition to fruit and some peanut snacks (German import purchased at Aldi). The Venus De Milo to the right is a clay statue I made earlier this year. The image to the left is an albumen print photo dating to the late 1800s. It features the specific Capitoline Venus (based on the Aphrodite Of Cnidus or Aphrodite Of Menophantos). Happy Veneralia!! Photos of the Shrine/Altar can be seen at these links: http://michaeltheresearcher.blogspot.com/2010/04/roman-festival-of-veneralia-dedicated.html
Veneralia Observed by: Ancient Romans Type: Classical Roman religion Observances: Adornment of statues of Venus with flowers Date: April 1 The Veneralia was an ancient Roman festival celebrated April 1 (the Kalends of Aprilis) in honor of Venus Verticordia ("Venus the changer of hearts") and Fortuna Virilis ("Manly" or "Virile Fortune"). The cult of Venus Verticordia was established in 220 BC, just before the beginning of the Second Punic War, in response to advice from a Sibylline oracle, when a series of prodigies
was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans
of every category and class, including several men and three Vestal Virgins. Her statue was dedicated by a young woman, chosen as the most pudica
(sexually pure) in Rome by a committee of Roman matrons. At first, the
statue was probably housed within the temple to Fortuna Virilis. This
cult, much older than any cult to Venus
but possibly perceived as weak or gone to seed, may have benefited from
the moral and religious support of Venus as a relatively new but senior
deity; for Ovid,
Venus's acceptance of the epithet and its responsibilities represented
the goddess' own change of heart. In 114 BC Venus Verticordia was given
her own temple.
She was meant to persuade Romans of both sexes and every class, whether
married or unmarried, to cherish the traditional sexual proprieties and
morality
known to please the gods and benefit the State. During the Veneralia,
her cult image was taken from her temple to the men's baths, where it
was undressed and washed in warm water by her female attendants, then
garlanded with myrtle. At the Veneralia, women and men asked Venus Verticordia for her help in affairs of the heart, sex, betrothal and marriage. Fortuna Virilis was given cult on the same day. ************
To our pagan ancestors, April 1st was "New Years Day," therefore the Roman festival of Veneralia was something of a carryover from earlier traditions. I'm not really a believer that Stregheria is from the Etruscan or Roman religions; but that the Old Religion melded with new nation states as they came into existence. Of course, there is much crossover there, and throughout pagan Europe. Apparently, and maybe someone can verify this, the Vernal Equinox ("Ostara"; March 19-22) was separate from the "Pagan New Years Day." I've read items to this effect, but I'm not certain. I think this concept should be given another serious look.
A challenging quote "I'm tired of being told who to admire in this country. Aren't you sick of being told of who your heroes ought to be? You know? Being told who you ought to be looking up to. I'll choose my own heroes, thank you very much." -- George Carlin
Leap year My mother has always recited a variation of this old leap year poem. Thirty days hath September Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. Thirty-one hath all the rest, Except for February clear which has 28 and 29 in a leap year. Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November All the rest have 31, Except for February. Thirty days hath September, April, June and November All the rest have thirty-one But February's but how much ~ Mother Goose ~
How Dangerous Is The Deep Web? Alltime Conspiracies The deep web makes up about 99% of the internet. To most of us it remains an unfamiliar entity. The media often portrays it as a dark and secretive place. Is this true? Alltime Conspiracies investigates.
Deep web (search) The deep web, deep net, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard search engines for any reason. The deep web is opposite to the surface web. Computer scientist Mike Bergman is credited with coining the term in 2000. The term "deep web" is often conflated with its subset dark web, which refers to the content that is purposefully obscured from the public internet by requiring specific software, configurations or authorization to be accessed. DEEP WEB
Bobbie Gentry - Son Of A Preacher Man
jackhogan1 Country version of Dusty Springfield song
************ I personally like this version best. .
Tonight, Sunday morning as I'm writing this, is the full "Flower Moon" of May. Sometimes Sunday evenings can be a good time to get out on a nearby trail, despite the strong feeling of it as a strange weekly transition period. Once you're out there, the environment will create it's own energy with you. A few days ago during twilight, I spoke to a nice family of four whom I ran into on one trail. They were excited because they had just had a close up encounter with a coyote. I saw the animal as well, from a distance. I think there is a need for some simple mystery in our lives. Even if we live in an urban area, there often still is something... such as, perhaps that mountain in the distance. What's going on up there? What creatures roam free up there?
One odd bat story I recall hiking about a year and a half ago along a mountain trail in the northernmost Santa Cruz Mountain range. It had been a hot day, and it was twilight. It was still very warm and still with no wind, and an orange sky in one direction... which graduated into a small light blue part of the sky. I recall seeing one lone bat leaving the top of a particularly tall tree line on one side of a valley ridge, and towards a taller 1,300-plus foot peak on the other side of the valley in the distance. It struck me as so strange that a bat would just take off towards such a high altitude.. at least for them. I just shrugged it off as just a fluke of nature, and perhaps the bat would turn back towards another nearby grove of trees after I had passed though. I remembered it because it was somewhat eery, and almost ethereal, to see it flapping its wings and aiming for such a lofty summit against that orange sky.
Just about two months ago, as bizarre as it may sound, I saw the same thing at roughly the same location. It had been an unusually warm day, with no winds from the Pacific, and it was early twilight. Again I saw a bat coming from one of those tall tree lines, and start to make its way toward the peak. If it did indeed continue on, it would have been well over one thousand feet above the lower valley in short time. Bats don't sour like a bird, and it would have had to just flap its way all the way across... about a mile. I just wonder what would prompt it to do that? It appeared that there would be no better prospects for insects on the other side. Would it know it's way back?
Old original movies... of remakes
I'm going off topic here, but the other evening I saw the 1941 movie 'Here Comes Mr. Jordan', which was the original for its 'Heaven Can Wait' remake in 1978. I wanted to see it because I remember how, as a young boy, I was emotionally drained by 'Heaven Can Wait'... as it didn't have the overt feel-good ending that I had hoped for. Although, that was part of the intrigue of the film. The original was a little like seeing it again with fresh eyes, as it was very similar. Some time back, I finally saw the 1935 version of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' starring Clark Gable. There had actually been two earlier Australian versions, and a 1984 version starring Mel Gibson. I had been fascinated by the more well-known 1962 film, starring Marlon Brando, when I was a child. The adventure of the high seas, mixed with great characters and cinematography.
Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)
For so long I wanted to know the name of this song. It's another one of those great 70s hits. I didn't even realize that it was by The Hollies. It reminds me of the open rural road, as I can remember listening to it while traveling as a child. I think, like the vast majority of Americans, there's "Americana" that I like.. and parts that I could do very well without. That song is very much in the "LIKE" category. It's a song that just resinates with the land, and time. 'The Air That I Breathe' is another one, also by the Hollies, that the same thing could be said about. Timeless. This is why, I believe, there is now a sub-trend of young adults who are discovering earlier music.
Luciano's "vampire ring" Although it has not been confirmed, an episode of the reality TV program 'Pawn Stars' featured what one guy claimed had been Lucky Luciano's ring. It looks occultic in style, and possibly in its meaning or purpose as well.
"Let your heart be your compass, your mind your map, your soul your guide and you will never get lost." --Author unknown Rather than do--as we all tend to do--and dismiss this as just another touchy-feely "thought"--something momentarily curious, then we move on as before.... we can see this as personal evolutionary struggle. Society today really is a wildly incongruent social jungle, where it's so easy to be distracted, and forget who our real friends and what our real values are. Rather than put a picture of a butterfly... I think the bobcat is more appropriate for the above words to make any real sense. If a bobcat was cornered by a bear, they would at least go down fighting. They would never just.. quit. There is no confusion, they know their path, and won't be distracted from that path, or from their objectives.
"If you allow yourself to become distracted, you allow yourself to fail." --Cus D'Amato, famous boxing trainer .
Looking for some help in the garden? Many of nature's most useful critters lie literally at our feet, underappreciated and ignored despite their ability to eliminate insects, condition soils and pollinate plants.
Turtles, moths, moles, dragonflies, snakes, toads and spiders are among the many wild things that can help maintain a landscape. The payback is minimal — food, water, shelter, and easing off on harsh lawn and garden chemicals.
"I believe in teamwork, using all the creatures that live in your garden," said Sharon Lovejoy, author of "Trowel and Error" (Workman Publishing, 2003). "Start from the ground up with night crawlers as part of your workforce."
Add to the earthworms already in your plant beds with commercially available red worms.Looking for some help in the garden? Many of nature's most useful critters lie literally at our feet, underappreciated and ignored despite their ability to eliminate insects, condition soils and pollinate plants.
Turtles, moths, moles, dragonflies, snakes, toads and spiders are among the many wild things that can help maintain a landscape. The payback is minimal — food, water, shelter, and easing off on harsh lawn and garden chemicals.
"I believe in teamwork, using all the creatures that live in your garden," said Sharon Lovejoy, author of "Trowel and Error" (Workman Publishing, 2003). "Start from the ground up with night crawlers as part of your workforce."
Add to the earthworms already in your plant beds with commercially available red worms.
"Build a worm bin or a place where they can't get out," Lovejoy said. "Use all of your leftovers — your kitchen compost. Worms can process up to 6 pounds of garbage in a week."
"Grow an assortment of native plants, which will draw a great many bird species," Lovejoy said. "Add plant hosts as food for butterfly and moth larvae."
That list would include milkweed (monarch butterflies), borage (green lacewings), sunflowers (ladybugs) and yarrow (hoverflies). Many insects in the larval stage are voracious predators. Green lacewings as juveniles are aptly named "aphid lions" because of their appetite for the sap-sucking pests."I would certainly place spiders near the top of underappreciated life in the garden," said Whitney Cranshaw, an extension entomologist with Colorado State University. "Although sometimes I think it is less that they are not appreciated but rather people don't want to think of them."
Spiders are credited for as much as 80 percent of all predator control in the garden. Jumping spiders, wolf spiders, lynx spiders and crab spiders are the standouts, Cranshaw said.
Also great garden helpers are:
— Toads. "Harmful insects make up 62 percent of a toad's daily food supply," said Lovejoy, who stacks rocks and wood in secluded spots to shelter toads, frogs, turtles, salamanders and lizards.
— Dragonflies that can capture over 400 mosquitoes a day.
— Moles. "They eat their body weight in insects, slugs and grubs while aerating the soil," Lovejoy said.
— Sphinx wasps that can pollinate 200 flowers in less than seven minutes, Lovejoy said.
— Snakes. "Most snakes — about 99 percent of those found in gardens — are harmless helpers, and eat rodents and insect pests," Lovejoy said. Garter and gopher snakes top her "beneficial" list.
— Box turtles that feast on slugs, snails, insects, larvae and grubs. "They're slow but sure," Lovejoy said.
— Bats. These nocturnal aerialists pollinate flowers, spread seeds and devour upwards of 600 mosquitoes an hour.
Most predatory insects aren't selective, though, feeding on anything that comes within reach. "Praying mantises are generalists," said James Dill, a pest management specialist with University of Maine Extension. "So are many spiders. They're very efficient but don't discriminate in what they eat. They'd just as soon grab a honeybee if it happens by."
Maintain a healthy garden with ample spacing if you hope to attract beneficial insects, Dill said.
"Spacing allows you to observe things better if you're walking around, looking for trouble," he said. "It also reduces the odds for (plant) disease."
Apparently there are pagan links with Easter from the ancient Near East and other places over time, but I just wanted to put out a few from European traditions from Wikipedia. Etymology
The modern English term Easter, cognate with modern German Ostern, developed from the Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre, which itself developed prior to 899. This is generally held to have originally referred to the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess, Ēostre, a form of the widely attested Indo-European dawn goddess. The evidence for the Anglo-Saxon goddess, however, has not been universally accepted, and some have proposed that Eostre may have meant "the month of opening" or that the name Easter may have arisen from the designation of Easter Week in Latin as in albis.
Computations
In 725, Bede succinctly wrote, "The Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox will give the lawful Easter." However, this does not reflect the actual ecclesiastical rules precisely. One reason for this is that the full moon involved (called the Paschal full moon) is not an astronomical full moon, but the 14th day of a calendar lunar month. Another difference is that the astronomical equinox is a natural astronomical phenomenon, which can fall on 19, 20 March, or 21, while the ecclesiastical date is fixed by convention on 21 March.
Ēostre Ēostre or Ostara (Northumbrian Old English: Ēostre; West Saxon Old English: Ēastre; Old High German: *Ôstara) is a goddess in Germanic paganism who, by way of the Germanic month bearing her name (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ; West Saxon: Ēastermōnaþ; Old High German: Ôstarmânoth), is the namesake of the festival of Easter.
Jacob Grimm, *Ostara, and Easter customs
In his 1835 Deutsche Mythologie, Jacob Grimm cites comparative evidence to reconstruct a potential continental Germanic goddess whose name would have been preserved in the Old High German name of Easter, *Ostara. Addressing skepticism towards goddesses mentioned by Bede, Grimm comments that "there is nothing improbable in them, nay the first of them is justified by clear traces in the vocabularies of Germanic tribes." Specifically regarding Ēostre, Grimm continues that:
We Germans to this day call April ostermonat, and ôstarmânoth is found as early as Eginhart. The great christian festival, which usually falls in April or the end of March, bears in the oldest of OHG remains the name ôstarâ ... it is mostly found in the plural, because two days ... were kept at Easter. This Ostarâ, like the [Anglo-Saxon] Eástre, must in heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries.
Hares and Freyja
In Northern Europe, Easter imagery often involves hares and rabbits. Citing folk Easter customs in Leicestershire, England where "the profits of the land called Harecrop Leys were applied to providing a meal which was thrown on the ground at the 'Hare-pie Bank'", late 19th-century scholar Charles Isaac Elton theorizes a connection between these customs and the worship of Ēostre. In his late 19th-century study of the hare in folk custom and mythology, Charles J. Billson cites numerous incidents of folk custom involving the hare around the period of Easter in Northern Europe. Billson says that "whether there was a goddess named Eostre, or not, and whatever connection the hare may have had with the ritual of Saxon or British worship, there are good grounds for believing that the sacredness of this animal reaches back into an age still more remote, where it is probably a very important part of the great Spring Festival of the prehistoric inhabitants of this island."
Some scholars have linked customs and imagery involving hares to Ēostre and the Norse goddess Freyja. Writing in 1972, John Andrew Boyle cites commentary contained within an etymology dictionary by A. Ernout and A. Meillet, where the authors write that "Little else [...] is known about [Ēostre], but it has been suggested that her lights, as goddess of the dawn, were carried by hares. And she certainly represented spring fecundity, and love and carnal pleasure that leads to fecundity." Boyle responds that nothing is known about Ēostre outside of Bede's single passage, that the authors had seemingly accepted the identification of Ēostre with the Norse goddess Freyja, yet that the hare is not associated with Freyja either. Boyle writes that "her carriage, we are told by Snorri, was drawn by a pair of cats — animals, it is true, which like hares were the familiars of witches, with whom Freyja seems to have much in common." However, Boyle adds that "on the other hand, when the authors speak of the hare as the 'companion of Aphrodite and of satyrs and cupids' and point out that 'in the Middle Ages it appears beside the figure of Luxuria', they are on much surer ground and can adduce the evidence of their illustrations."
Modern popular culture and modern veneration
Jacob Grimm's reconstructed *Ostara has had some influence in popular culture since. The name has been adapted as an asteroid (343 Ostara, 1892 by Max Wolf), a Mödling, Austria-based German nationalist book series and publishing house (1905, Ostara), and a date on the WiccanWheel of the Year (Ostara, 21 March). In music, the name Ostara has been adopted as a name by the musical group Ostara, and as the names of albums by :zoviet*france: (Eostre, 1984) and The Wishing Tree (Ostara, 2009). Eostre appears in Neil Gaiman's novel, American Gods.
In some forms of Germanic Neopaganism, Eostre (or Ostara) is venerated. Regarding this veneration, Carole M. Cusack comments that, among adherents, Eostre is "associated with the coming of spring and the dawn, and her festival is celebrated at the spring equinox. Because she brings renewal, rebirth from the death of winter, some Heathens associate Eostre with Idunn, keeper of the apples of youth in Scandinavian mythology." .
The earth is cool and dark, and far below, new life begins. May the soil be blessed with fertility and abundance, with rains of life-giving water, with the heat of the sun, with the energy of the raw earth. May the soil be blessed as the womb of the land becomes full and fruitful to bring forth the garden anew. .
