Post No. 641 - Reading

Enjoy :)

G'day, hello, howdy, hi, zdravstvujtye (some of my work colleagues are Russian, including an absolutely invaluable administrator who has recently taken maternity leave - may she and young one and family be blest), guten tag (where I have connection owing to a recent past life), sveiki, czesc (I have friends, not just colleagues, at work who are Polish), bonjour (colleagues at a former workplace were French, and we practised and tried to extend my woeful and limited range of this language), selamat pagi (one of the best junior engineers I ever worked with was Malaysian, and she taught me a few words), annyeonghaseyo, pryvit, bitaem, como vai (a friend of mine a few years ago, although not Brazilian, had Portuguese ancestry), ¡Hola (a former work colleague and friend, a VERY talented artist - with a Mexican sensibility to her artwork, particularly around the Day of the Dead - used to teach me Mexican Spanish), Selamat pagi, ni hao (ah, my work trips to Asia, and the many wonderful, wonderful people I have met there - and some excellent work colleagues and friends here, as well), bongiorno (my current home city of Melbourne has lots of Greeks and Italians, who have made our culture far richer - and made us coffee snobs :) ), hoschakal, hejsan, ciao, jo napolt kivanu, chào bà, chào ông, yiassou (from the city which has, I understand, the largest collection of Greek people outside of Greece), ceau, salam wa aleikum, sawas dee ka, dia duit, hoi, hei, namaste, marhaba, dobry den.

• http://www.paganawareness.net.au/PAN/events-mainmenu-85/victoria-mainmenu-80/1028-melbourne-goddess-festival;
• http://paganwrites.com/2015/01/13/spiritual-wagon/;
• http://www.gedeparma.com/?p=615;
• http://wildhunt.org/2014/12/confronting-darkness-kari-tauring.html;
• http://karitauring.com/oorlog-and-wyrd/;
• http://karitauring.com/volva-stav/ihg/, and also this, from another source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xivovaVyVdI, and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_trauma;
• http://karitauring.com/high-functioning-behavior/;
• http://karitauring.com/volva-stav/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/VolvaStav/videos;
• from a different site (http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/LadyoftheLabyrinth/videos): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InloGBsMaOo;
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBpGeCVv9Po;
• an interesting perspective on the symbology behind the Norse Deities, and the reverence for peace and wisdom in pre-Viking Age and Viking Age Scandinavia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5scOASzTuPU (in this, this reference was interesting: "The Old Norse word for "stupid", "ignorant" and "narrow-minded" was HEIMSKI - "Homebound"; I also think the comments about women being buried with weapons may not be entirely correct, as I’ve read recent research which suggests sexist bias led to some graves of women being misidentified as small men, an error corrected by DNA research);
• interesting – to me - quote from this article is:
  “Many societies were like this, societies that saw no gender oppression, societies where men and women were treated with the same degree of respect and held the same sense of self-worth. In some of the societies that I remembered, gender roles were explicit, in others they were fluid, but life as a self-respecting, worthy member of the community was a given for both genders. All these societies offered rich, full lives to their members regardless of gender or gender identity. And all of them shared the wisdom of letting adolescent people separate from the rest of society and experience life in a group of peers – people of the same gender or gender identity – for the time it took to learn how to grow and become a whole person.” Personally, being stuck with the teenagers I grew up with would have led me to commit suicide - quite literally, given my personal circumstances, so I have considerable reservations about this - including the possibility of a William Goldberg “Lord of the Flies” type scenario, one that could harm those more mature souls who don’t need this approach in order to become adults: http://www.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/some-thoughts-on-ancient-symbols-past-life-memories-and-reptile-aliens/;
• Correllian thoughts on hurt vs. harm, in the context of the Rede. Most of this is reasonable, but I’m still digesting it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrRDud9hi-E;
• this is good news: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/india-csr-law-debate-business-ngo;
• this is interesting, and shows some of the flaws I’ve been aware of in scientific method for a while (and succinctly states clearly the flaws in engineering systems theory): http://www.uowblogs.com/smartinfrastructure/2015/01/06/thinking-systems-3-thinking-about-systems-theory/;
• http://www.patheos.com/blogs/quakerpagan/2015/01/every-minute-peace-releasing-my-inner-corgi.html;
• I recently complained about the stupidity of Australian post-World War Part Two house building: here is an article about another aspect of this shortcoming, although they’ve got into the stupidity of things like cross-ventilation for cooling (if the air is over 40°C it doesn’t matter how much it is moving, it will not substantially cool you, you ****wits!). The perforated shutters idea is similar to what I plan to do with verandahs – put roller doors (or a cheaper version of them) to protect that space. Not having verandahs makes the house hotter, and that will kill people during week-long heatwaves: http://theconversation.com/we-can-build-homes-to-survive-bushfires-so-why-dont-we-35899?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+8+January+2015+-+2278&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+8+January+2015+-+2278+CID_9e6625b2b7d4c64fb6b9731d7fb5847b&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=We%20can%20build%20homes%20to%20survive%20bushfires%20so%20why%20dont%20we;
• a good Correllian post about how passing over does not prevent interaction, and enables a better, healthier interaction with those who have passed over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YXIXPdEqmA;
• this Correllian post attempts to deal with the issue of working with people who are blind. I’m not as happy with this post, as I consider there are other foci that can be used, such as sound, smell, etc. I’ve covered this in a range of posts, including here, here, here, here, and here, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FJzJCrpe7E;
• some interesting views about the Goddess Isis in ancient Germany: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrXgZIkFoI;
• “Manipulation of the Concept of Witchcraft”, by Crick: http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=uspa&c=words&id=15760;
• http://zenhabits.net/limits/;
• I quite like the jewellery that David Weitzman (Ka Gold Jewellery) makes, and subscribe to his email newsletter (although it’s all out of my price range – at the moment, at any rate). In the last such newsletter, he writes about the classical elements – that view of reality many Pagans use in their magickal practices which came to us via the Hermeticists, and he has crafted some rings to express his elements (after a conversation with his young daughter, who had been watching the TV show “Avatar the Last Airbender”), and talks about the origins of this concept, with the ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles. Naturally, I had to look Empedocles up, and, amongst other things, found the following diagram (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Empedocles_cosmic_cycle_concept_map.svg; author listed as Paolo Anghileri), which covers the additional dynamic aspects of Empedocles’ theory, attributes that he called ‘love’, which brings the elements together, and ‘strife’, which drives them apart (not hate, in this approach). When only pure love or pure strife are present, life is absent: it is the dynamic interplay between these two which makes life possible … akin to the Scandinavian ideas around fire and ice, or the Eastern ideas about yin and yang:
  ;
• overcrowding is affecting us now: this sort of proposal will only make it worse – the solution is population control: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/is-melbourne-an-intense-place-nowhere-near-intense-enough-for-planners-and-architects-20150112-12lxi7.html;
• http://polytheist.com/speaking-of-syncretism/2015/01/12/syncretism-and-shinto-a-short-examination/;
• http://polytheist.com/wyrd-ways/2015/01/07/compromise-is-not-an-option/;
• http://www.thorncoyle.com/blog/2015/01/08/kindness-justice/;
• http://www.besom.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/an-example-of-poor-group-process.html;
• some interesting intercultural experiences here, which led to an interesting time looking up joiks (or yoiks) on YouTube, and Mongolian throat singing (e.g., here), which I also like: http://www.besom.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/aar-annual-meeting-iii.html;
• http://alisonleighlilly.com/blog/2014/druids-blade-and-witchs-broom-an-ode-to-mistletoe/;

On other matters:

• this is actually an opportunity to do psychic work to (a) encourage the problem to be fixed, and (b) stop the problem being used by the nonBPLF – don’t just see this as a case of ‘the authorities’ or ‘the experts’ got it wrong (although that may indeed be the case). The fact that you’re aware of it indicates that there is a spiritual expectation as well: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/huge-flaw-that-undermines-privacy-of-mobile-phone-networks-revealed-by-german-researchers-20141220-12bg4i.html;
• http://www.fastcoexist.com/3039235/the-countries-where-its-best-and-worst-to-be-a-woman;
• http://www.genderindex.org/; 
• http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/policeman-faces-new-sacking-bid-over-racist-stubby-holders-20150103-12haz3.html;
• my experience is that a lot of doctors do exactly this sort of fat-shaming – and any moron who even thinks of making the comment alluded to (that the doctor was just doing her job) is a moron who needs to read and understand the coming link (and also here): http://www.dailylife.com.au/health-and-fitness/dl-wellbeing/i-was-fatshamed-by-my-doctor-20141201-11xki7.html;
• http://www.essentialkids.com.au/family-life/family-home/because-i-am-a-man-boys-react-to-being-asked-to-slap-a-girl-20150106-12ijst.html;
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-08/levi-cultural-imperialism-and-rewriting-surf-history/6004000;
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-08/stowell-and-savidis-who-should-compensate-abuse-survivors/6002706;
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-06/richards-the-imitation-game-and-the-straightwashing-of-film/6001864;
• http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/depression-could-have-physical-origins/6003650;
• this is good: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-carnivores-in-the-neighbourhood/article6768460.ece?homepage=true;
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-gloudeman/confessions-of-a-yoga-far_b_6436750.html;
• http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2014/09/18/4090397.htm;
• this is potentially good: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-14/actu-welcomes-telstra-domestic-violence-leave/6016212;
• this sounds like a good move. Many people take on such roles without knowing what the rules are - there may, in fact, be a need for more widespread use of such training: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/education-department-to-run-training-to-rein-in-unruly-school-councils-20150114-12o542.html;
• some good changes in society, it seems: http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/i-was-groped-on-public-transport-and-decided-to-fight-back-20150112-12mg7i.html;
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-14/migratory-shore-birds-risk-extinction-yellow-sea-habitat-loss/6015022;
• with apologies for those who cannot access LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/civilisation-uncertainty-ethics-graham-harris;
• interesting, an reasonably objective: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-15/bradley-charlie-hebdo-and-18c-could-coexist-in-australia/6018068;
• these women are all obviously heterosexual: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/the-connection-between-womens-self-esteem-and-what-men-want/384492/;
• this is good: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Position_Paper_Sexual_Identification_and_Gender_Identity_12_Nov_2014(2).pdf;
• http://www.theage.com.au/comment/busting-myths-about-baby-boomer-burdens-20150104-12gy58.html;
• this is NOT a new story! http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/lack-of-exercise-deadlier-than-obesity-study-20150115-12rdfk.html;
• and finally, on a lighter note (but with some valid points!): http://www.smh.com.au/comment/stay-home-in-sydney--it-will-give-everyone-a-laugh-on-facebook-20150102-12flq6.html/.

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Wéofodthegn 

(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … Would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible. 

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness, but, as words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life. 
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
• The means shape the end.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Our greatest struggle with, to borrow from pop culture, the Jedi-Sith scale, is not with the Sith, whether they are hiding or not: it is with the annoying, snotty-nosed, heroine/hero-worshipping little kid who keeps intruding, stopping us from being cool enough to be with our heroines/heroes, the big kids ...

Gnwmythr

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.

Jane Elliott

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.

(based on writing by) Edmund Burke

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

Tags: attitudes, coming events, discrimination, elements, ethics, magick, myths, reading, society, Viking,

First published: Manadagr, 19^th January, 2015

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Monday, 19^th January, 2015