The rich rural scenery of North Fife, Scotland, provides variety from the historic city of St Andrews and the quaint harbours of the East Neuk of Fife. A Royal Palace in Falkland, a Folk Museum in Ceres, a National Trust Mansion House near Cupar, Balmerino Abbey, Lindores Abbey, Newburgh, Dunbog, Glenduckie, Creich, Birkhill, Ballinbreich, Abdie, Upper Flisk and more in beautiful North East Fife. Also the occasional wander.
Losar February 22nd 2012, New Moon. The year of the Male Water Dragon, here clutching jewels in its claws heralding all happiness prosperity and good health. What else can one wish for? Happy New Year May all beings be happy and free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
Losar Greetings Card by Lama Thubten Kunsal, from a monastery in Derge, Eastern Tibet.
Losar 2012 Tibetan New year, This year starting 22nd February is Male Water Dragon, on this day, Losar is celebrated in homes and with friends, eating special food and drinking jugs of barley chang. On the first day in Lhasa pilgrims go to pay homage to the most sacred statue of Sakya Muni in Jokhang temple and burning incense all around Jokhang as well as at all Tibetan homes and Monasteries, every one dresses in his/her finest clothes to do holy circuit around monasteries and temples.
The last two weeks of the year in monasteries Mahakala prayers are offered to neutralise the negativity of the preceding year. These energies are directed into a coloured string edifice to be later consumed by fife.
Assembled around the burning mass locals grab at the imbued coloured string and in essence retain and perpetuate some of the negativity, such is non understanding.
Gyaltsap Rinpoche as Dorje Lopon making offerings prior to the Mahakala Torma being consumed.
A Chinese Cloisonne bowl depicting an imperial dragon. The dragon is a legendary animal and was a symbol of the Chinese Emperors.Since the Dragon is coated with mysterious colour, Chinese consider that the dragon is unpredictable, untouchable and people cannot see its head and tail at the same time. Therefore, we can maybe see something unexpected happening in 2012. Also a person with too many dragons in the Chinese astrology birth chart will become smarter, sly and unpredictable in the coming year.
The Dragon personality. The Dragon is a creature of myth and legend. A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Oriental Dragon is regarded as a divine beast - the reverse of the malicious monster that Westerners felt necessary to find and slay. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority. Therefore, those people born in Dragon years are to be honoured and respected.
Water has a calming effect on the Dragon's fearless temperament. Water allows the Dragon to re-direct its enthusiasm, and makes him more perceptive of others. These Dragons are better equipped to take a step back to re-evaluate a situation because they understand the art of patience and do not desire the spotlight like other Dragons. Therefore, they make smart decisions and are able to see eye-to-eye with other people. However, their actions can go wrong if they do not research or if they do not finish one project before starting another. Louise.
New Age: A Guide. 40 odd years ago I was shocked into a search for more Knowledge and understanding. These were pre-internet times but never-the-less libraries and bookshops offered relatively cheap paper backs, amongst the many religious/philosophical/ spiritual publications. I read G.I. Gurdjieff.
All and Everything - Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson (First published 1950; reprinted Penguin Arkana 1999)
Meetings with Remarkable Men
Views from the Real World.
In Meetings with Remarkable Men I found some of Gurgieff's ways uncomfortable, however that is a reflection of how my mind was at the time.
Gurdjieff.
Gurdjieff was born in Armenia around 1870. Although his first tutor was a priest, he received a scientific education, but in surroundings and a way of life that had changed little for centuries. To his questions: Who am I? Why am I here? he found no answer either in religion or in science, but suspected that the truth lay hidden behind what had come down from the past in religious traditions and those strange myths and legends which he learned from his father, a traditional bard or 'ashokh'. Inspiring like-minded companions, he set out to find in Asia and Africa the truth he sought, learning many languages, and acquiring many practical skills to earn the money for his journeys.
In 1912 he brought to Moscow an unknown teaching, a teaching that was not a religion, nor a philosophy, but a practical teaching to be lived. To follow the way he proposed, nothing is to be believed until verified by direct experience and life in the world is not to be renounced. It is a way in life, on which - gradually, for it cannot be done all at once - everything has to be questioned - one's beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, one's whole outlook on the life of man on this Earth.
Man is asleep, said Gurdjieff, he has no real consciousness or will. He is not free; to him, everything happens. He can become conscious and find his true place as a human being in the creation, but this requires a profound transformation.
Gurdjieff calls us to awaken, telling us:
"Man's possibilities are very great. You cannot even conceive a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the consciousness of a sleeping man his illusions, his 'dreams' are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he lives in only a small part of himself."
In his a time a powerful influence in alternative ways of understanding. His book "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson" the bone is buried so deep few if any have found it. Peter D Ouspensky, a peer, promulgated similar views and support amongst which was a fundamental understanding of an enneagram. The Law of Three and seven. This is an example, all else fits.
"Man's possibilities are very great. You cannot even conceive a shadow of what man is capable of attaining..."
New Age: A Guide
Review
This guide to the New Age is a helpful introduction that not only provides insightful descriptions of practices and beliefs, but also reviews a wide range of academic and nonacademic perspectives. For the serious student or researcher! Kemp provides an excellent guide to the academic resources that can be brought to bear on the phenomenon. Concise but challenging. An excellent guide to the academic resources that can be brought to bear on the phenomenon. This is a very good book. Indeed, as a basic introduction to the many facets of the 'New Age' phenomenon, it would be hard to beat. It manages to combine descriptive accounts of various aspects of New Age spirituality with reflection on its wider significance, and to do so in a highly readable format. Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is the way it offers summaries of a vast number of existing studies, both published and unpublished, demonstrating a remarkable ability by the author to combine large amounts of material into a readable synthesis ... a well written book that deserves to be widely read and appreciated.
I never cease to marvel at the skies here in North Fife, I frequently record the evenings, the mornings can be equally beautiful though these I usually miss as it's not my time of day.
Primordial Purity, Golden World, a calligraphic artwork by my No 1 son Tashi Mannox. This along with two others are for an exhibition of calligraphy, Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial 2012.
To view the construction Click here.
Over the last couple of days the distinctive sound of approaching Chinook helicopters has reverberated over North Fife, in this instance one booming a thrump thrump thrump at about 250rpm, 50 miles an hour 300ft above and turning to a few degrees of due East, skirting Normans Law heading for Leuchars Airfield 9 miles to touchdown as the crow flies. Alerted by the sound there was plenty of time to gather up camera and wander outside to wait.
Approaching Chinook at Flisk.
Boeing CH-47 Chinook passing overhead.
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is an American twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter. Its top speed of 170 knots (196 mph, 315 km/h) is faster than contemporary utility and attack helicopters of the 1960s. It is one of the few aircraft of that era, such as the C-130 Hercules and the UH-1 Iroquois, that is still in production and front line service with over 1,179 built to date. Its primary roles include troop movement, artillery emplacement and battlefield resupply. It has a wide loading ramp at the rear of the fuselage and three external-cargo hooks.
Enlarge the image. to visibly see squaddies watching the ground unfurl beneath from the open cargo bay, one standing, the other reclining with feet overhanging, I imagine it to be a wonderful experience, one I would love,us all playing I-spy.
I don't know about you but I've reached that time of C.R.A.F.T moments and will be buying this publication. Consider Buying now before you forget.
100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's: and Age-Related Memory Loss [Paperback] By Jean Carper.
Product Description
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