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How often does William go there? Spoilt b*stards aren’t you.
This is only the Beginning of What HSBC?
August 11, 2017
HSBC are known for having posters of people doing things with inspirational quotes about their achievement accomplished with the bank’s funding… But what the hell is this?
A human (presumably) surrounded by Blue humanoid beings seemingly connected by wiring behind them and he’s modifying one of them!
They remind me Avatar (2009) and my post Who/What are the Blue beings, why are we inspired by them?
This is not the same as their usual posters showing people jumping for joy on holiday or opening their first business.
Creepy.
This is the medicine I take:
and there’s more to come and that doesn’t include the masses of vitamins and supplements.
Do you call that quality of life? I’m not living and I never have really, I’ve just been surviving. It’s not good enough, I’m just dying slow and painfully.
We need euthanasia and patient assisted suicide in this country, it’s too expensive to travel abroad to die with some sense of yourself left so many of us will never afford it and just continue to fervently wish that the next minute heck the next second will be better than the next. I’ve seen one charity which is an alternative to being able to legally die in this country give advice on how to pass on as easily as possible and it’s still daunting as hell and that’s something coming from me and a heck of a lot of others who’ve suffered their entire lives.
We have no choice and so more and more of us fall to the wayside in silence either unable to talk or feeling that there’s no point, or commit suicide or end up in an accident or end up in ‘care’ having to rely on others for daily needs. I already have a full time (my Mother) in that I’m ‘lucky’ in comparison to people who have no one who loves them, a GP, a care co-ordinator, support worker, psychiatrist and psychologist as well as emergency staff to call if I need to which I do every day actually but I refrain and have only called up once on the non-emergency line because I didn’t want to be a bother but just couldn’t cope. Another time I was sat I was unable to move, breathing very difficulty, only able to whisper, in serious pain and vomiting. Instead of 999 I was to call the non-emergency/non-immediate threatening 111, I couldn’t even speak, I was dragging the words out but they didn’t want to speak to my Mum they wanted to speak to me and for ages I might add getting every detail while I was gasping for air and then they decided to send an ambulance out. When they finally turned up quite some time later ‘my’ voices said “we’ll stop the pain now” (after all those hours of laughing at me “so this is what pain feels like”, “this is fun”, “does it hurt, yes it does, does it hurt” and being hyenas) so I guess I felt some kind relief that help had arrived. But did it? No. The paramedics decided I was fit and well enough to go to A&E by myself (how??? We don’t drive nor is there easy access to transport late night and who can afford minicabs) and wait to be seen but they didn’t want to take me because of the stomach pain/vomiting. Nevermind all the other problems I have and that people with my conditions have gastric problems as a result but they kept saying it might be a virus so they couldn’t risk it, that I might infect a ward and they’d have to shut it down but were somehow ok with me going there myself and waiting. One of the ambulance workers actually told me not to go certain hospitals because they were rubbish and uncaring. According to one of the nurses I saw a while after “unless you’ve got a limb falling off they don’t really want to give you a bed on the NHS” and we all know how long waiting lists are.
It’s taboo for medical professionals to talk about euthanasia and patient assisted suicide in this country and it’s more than time that that changed.
This is just a therapeutic post for myself. There is a game with no name, played all over the world by people of a mercenary nature. Like spies and bounty hunters they have to protect some people and attack others and ultimately regardless of who they work for, it’s for their own ego boost/gain to […]
That might be a strange title but people who are aware that they have any kind of ‘mental health’ issue (be it anxiety, depression, stress, cognitive disorder, anti-social, fear of being around others or mixed mental/physical dis-ease) are people who have to face the struggle of gaining or re-gaining self control and to a much more enduring level than ‘regular’ people. (Bear in mind most people will experience mental health ‘deviance’/issues at some point in their lives or at least know someone who will.) This ever increasing number of people are constantly struggling to be in more control of themselves and at peace and positive – ‘peace and positivity’ sounds very zen/yogi doesn’t it? Well it is. Yoga practitioners/healthy living fans are not the only ones trying to achieve self control, mental health sufferers are more on the level of initiates trying to achieve a level that sometimes seems superhuman or divine. Why is that? For sufferers it’s because they’re seen as dangerous or a threat and start believing it themselves with intrusive thoughts and stigma which turns into self-harm and/or introverted-ness, much public perception sees them as linked to criminal behaviour and that’s a common yet extreme stereotype. For spiritual practitioners and religious people who are not Masonic/club members the ethos is that we can’t control our surroundings or society but we can control ourselves and we reach within ourselves to be at peace with the space without. Gaining or re-gaining self-control doesn’t mean that you’re dangerous to society, no one thinks that of priests/equivalent public/civil figures that way until they realize the scale of molestation, punishment and discrimination that goes on in most organized religion not to mention that religion is constantly used as a tool/excuse for resource grabbing and ethnic cleansing i.e. war, they are seen as the forefront of and to spirituality. Gaining or re-gaining self-control just means you’re trying to achieve it consciously rather than unconsciously e.g. trying to modify or get rid of a habit or addiction such as food, smoking or alcohol. But unlike spirituality (‘positive mental health’ where people are happy or comfortable being aware of and perhaps reaching out to people and places we can’t see) people with ‘negative mental health’ (where they’re being overwhelmed) struggle an every day battle with every thing; they might love something/one very much but have horrible thoughts about them or feel propelled to do something they don’t want to do so are constantly fighting it, trying to make peace with it, trying to control the ‘urge’. The point is they know they don’t want the pressure/’desire’ to think/do these possible things and so they’re constantly trying to be stronger to make sure they don’t, perhaps even making it so that they can’t do those things.
Terms I use:
(Obviously ‘mental health’ just means your mental health but it’s become a phrase that mean problems with your mental health and associated with illness.)
Positive ‘mental health’ – people who are ok with being called and/or calling themselves psychic, medium, spiritualist, priest, very religious person (meta-narrative believer), person who hears/feels comforting presences, person who purposely trains/opens themselves up to be aware of more (a part of Hinduism and Buddhism for example).
Negative ‘mental health’ – hear/feels/sees presences and/or thoughts that are not welcome.
Both are the same thing, both are aware of something else or a deeper part of consciousness whether mental, physical or both (imo they’re interconnected, I don’t believe the body is just temporal or merely a ‘suit’, I believe it to very important and capable of memory/consciousness, I don’t think it’s all in the brain where many think the mind is based, I think the mind is all over) but both don’t have the same effects for people.
There’s also the problem of ‘fantasy’ – believing in something that differs from general sensory reality such as believing in miracles and miraculous people/beings in religions or having a psychosis on an individual basis doesn’t mean it’s all fictitious. It’s easy to say ‘oh that’s their belief’ or ‘that’s their psychosis’ and the more time that passes and if the belief system becomes normalized we are able to see it as less threatening (remember when most religions or new branches of religion comes into being there is conflict and usually bloodshed). It’s part of their fantasy, it didn’t really happen, it doesn’t happen, they’re paranoid, susceptible, gullible, open to persuasion, a somnambulist etc. With one label the whole experience can be discredited or made easier to ignore, we assume that we understand their situation because we associate them with the things we’ve come across but that isn’t necessarily fair.
It’s a quandary; public opinion is becoming more informed and slightly more tolerant of people who hear voices for example (and many people do and will hear them at some point in their lives, not constantly but will hear a voice now and then and rationalize it ‘oh I thought I heard something, must have been this or that’, put it down as one of those strange experiences and possibly forget it) so the name ‘schizophrenia’ for example is met with a bit more compassion. However in the medical industry the labels and even diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’, ‘multiple personality disorder’ and such are being discouraged with the general term ‘psychosis’ preferred partially because there’s so much about the mind and consciousness that we don’t know and that can affect us all in different ways. There are overlying patterns but it has to be seen on a more patient by patient basis rather than a one-size-fits-all model. But the word ‘psychosis’ hits a fear trigger in public, it’s compared with ‘psycho’, ‘socio’, ‘off-kilter’, ‘problem’, ‘dangerous’ etc so there’s a conflict between public and medical/associated institution perception which doesn’t help sufferers. That’s a factor of labeling in general and affects everybody in some way, we all fall into groups and classifications but ‘psychosis’ is pretty controversial in public even if common in healthcare.
I was told specialists that my sympathy and empathy are a ‘gift’, “a really beautiful gift that can’t be developed or learned easily, it’s not a talent in people it’s something you just have or don’t, a beautiful gift” (because I’m an easy crier and very easily relate to people and am able to get them to relate to each other) but when it’s taken advantage of such as in my situation it can be detrimental to me [or/and not to those who’d benefit]. That’s not to say I shouldn’t be but it has taken over. Another told me “what you’re going through is no judgement on you, you have to constantly remember that, it’s not judgement on you, this is not who you are or what you’re like, it shows, it really shows that it’s the opposite of you, these things playing out so horribly shows that you care so much about everybody and everything and that you have so much love.” I innately know that but it means so much to be told. My psychosis takes needing to know that I’m still a good person and a beautiful person, always have been and always will be to another level – it’s such a deep trauma and hurts so badly, like I’ve known nothing but war and home invasion my entire life and I just need respite and my privacy respected and to know that I’m not a bother, a burden nor an embarrassment and I don’t need to be hidden away either. I know how terrible it is for people to feel awful, in so much pain and in practically a merciless/pitiless position over physical beauty and identification let alone how I feel most of the time. This whole situation with ‘William’ (in regards to older blog posts) has made me feel like I need to be reminded that I’m actually a really likable person, I make people laugh, feel better about themselves, I want to know about them, to comfort in a deeply humane way and can easily understand their frustrations and am willing to in the first place. The problem with ‘William’ is that it was a romantic scenario and so has left the usual chasm of needing to be loved/knowing that you’re loveable, that ‘he’ should have loved me but didn’t. Ironically I didn’t need or want it to begin with and then I gave too much and he didn’t actually show me any love me at all, quite the opposite and tried to make it so that I couldn’t talk about what was/is going on. I’ve also been told by specialists that my case is “exceptional” and “extraordinary” (not in a good way), extremely frightening for me but not in a way that reflects badly on myself (something that ‘William’/his ‘people’ have done to/made me feel as if I’m bad, dirty, disgusting, ugly, ignorant, cybernetic/nothing but a tool, a ‘mark’ etc). My case is even harder to explain than ordinarily but not singular in a way that makes me more of a ‘threat’ – as society is led to see us – than one of the many other people in similar undiagnosed ‘psychoses’.
To transition on a slightly satirical note: I recently came across an automated system that asks you “if are terminally ill or have less than 6 months to live please press 1 otherwise please press 2” and in the circumstances it was just so insulting that I had to bitterly laugh and thought “no but I’d like to be so just so I don’t have to put up with this anymore”. That’s no disrespect to the terminally ill or prescribed as close to death but when you’ve got ‘mental health’ (that should actually mean you’ve got good health because you’ve got a healthy mind, our language is backwards because instead it sounds like you’ve got something contagious and bad) you are put behind those with ‘physical [ill] health’ and not seen as as much of a priority though we have similar and the same horror stories about dealing with institutions as those with ‘physical illness’ as a norm plus ‘physical illness’ causes ‘mental illness’ and vice versa. Come on when so much ‘mental health’ leads to self-destructive thoughts and vulnerability aren’t we eligible for the whole ‘living and possibly dying with dignity’ debate as well?
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Insanity as a symptom of humanity?
Nepal: It’s now a criminal act to force women into menstruation huts
Source: RT, Thu, 10 Aug 2017 21:28 UTC © Prakash Mathema / AFP
Nepalese women sit by a fire in a chhaupadi hut.
The Nepalese government has made it a criminal act to force women into cowsheds while they’re on their periods. The ancient Hindu tradition sends menstruating females into the sheds to keep so-called “impurity” out of the home.
Although the practice – called ‘chhaupadi’ – was banned by the Supreme Court in 2005, it remains common in Nepal’s remote west.
However, the government has now made the practice a criminal act that could come with jail time.
“The parliament has a passed a new law that makes chhaupadi a criminal act,” lawmaker Krishna Bhakta Pokharel, who headed a parliamentary panel that finalized the legislation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Anyone forcing women into seclusion during their period can now be sentenced to three months in jail.”
The new law will come into force within a year, according to Pokharel, as authorities want to spread awareness of the legislation before cracking down on offenders.
Some Nepalese communities believe they will fall victim to misfortune such as natural disaster if females are not sent into isolation while menstruating.
However, the practice – which exposes them to rape by men and attacks by wild animals – has led to the deaths of several women.
Just last month, a 19-year-old died from a snake bite while she was staying in a shed in the district of Dailekh. In December, another girl suffocated to death in a poorly-ventilated shed in the Achham district.
[Sott] Comment: Nepali teen dies from snake bite in ‘menstruation hut’
In addition to sending females into isolation, some communities also ban them from drinking milk and feed them less food while they are on their periods.
The law against banishing women to cowsheds has been praised by the National Alliance for Women’s Human Rights Defenders, a local Nepalese activist group, which has called the practice “inhumane.”
The group’s head has called on community members and activists to “remain vigilant and report any case of chhaupadi.”
“Such vigilance will force the government to strictly enforce the law,” Renu Rajbhandari said, as quoted by Reuters.
The ban comes after the United Nations joined up with the youth-led organization Restless Development Nepal in April, in order to push for an end to the practice which the organization said subjects women to “cold and isolation, often at risk of illness and animal attacks.”
The ancient and ongoing demonization of women is something else; I knew females were banned in temples and from even doing home pujas, even touching religious iconography at home but thinking natural disasters occur if they’re not shamed/isolated from the community and basically warning the entire community that they’re on their periods? And from one of the most spiritual places on Earth with some of the most enlightened learning and on the flipside fighting. It just highlights the hypocrisy and elitism of learning of the initiated. Hinduism and it’s later offshoots such as Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism are linked to vast amounts of knowledge on consciousness, how we function biologically, nature, space, how to live etc and yet these places somehow have and still have complete depravity, degradation and domineering behaviours. How are the rest of us supposed to cope if they can’t get it right?
It reminds me of people around the world who used to think it was bad luck to have females aboard a boat and blame misfortune on them and yes it included storms, hurricanes and being sunk. People are insane, what passes for ‘normal’ is based on how many of us are doing the same thing at any given time.
Night at the Circus and the Horror of Trying to Enjoy Myself
August 9, 2017
Tonight I went to somewhere which is supposed to be full of laughter and awe, and I did manage that a bit as I always do but at what cost?
I’ve always had a lot of respect for circus performers and acrobats; the work they do, their commitment and what they achieve. I like their spirit and their hard work. I also love the feats the human body is capable of.
The big top was full of children and people upto middle age mostly and I was dreading the clowns thinking it would be too childish (I’m adverse to clowns, I hate foolishness) and hoping only for the gymnasts (though I know many clowns are multi-discipline and have to be in order to put their acts together). However by the end of the night even I liked them and was clapping and shouting along like panto and hoping the giant inflatable ball they threw at the audience to pass around would reach me, which was something since I’ve never done that before, I love panto but don’t get involved. I think it shows how much I need to enjoy myself. The last circus I visited was the Chinese State Circus and their was a focus on martial arts and gymnastics, this was more traditional where the clowns entertained whilst the other performers and stage hands quickly set up, in the Chinese one they had the ‘monkey’ who as many probably know is also a martial artist but more of a court jester/a fool than a clown. These smaller, constantly traveling circuses really have to bring innovation and surprise to their acts with the big showstoppers around like Cirque Du Soleil and theatre in general.
We weren’t allowed to use flash photography and with all the movement it was hard to get good pics but here are the best; I was in the second row so I was close:
Those are lightweight, separate chairs that don’t interlink, they might have grip on them but it wasn’t visible.
Unfortunately trumpet playing was the only obvious skill on display with these clowns, kicking each other up the bum and foam pie throwing was the rest of it.
This guy was magnificent, magnificent. See those trapeze ‘ropes’ he’s using, their not ropes they’re chains. Yes chains. Ouch much. Yet he was so very elegant as he flew through the skies.
He was also a juggler and fire user (as pictured earlier).
That is a rocket, yes a rocket. It was actually gas propelled so that if it wasn’t tied to the ceiling it would have gone off in one direction, the power it had coupled with the rotation pulley it was on meant it travelled in a circle. So clever. And there were two people inside it! Another innovative trapeze.
She was spinning from her head possibly a mouthpiece so beautifully.
Yet another surprising aerial (and I’m so glad there were many sky high acts, they’re one of my favourite, I love the feeling of flying) – he’s using a net as his ‘rope’ or in his case more traditionally ribbons.
They really had their visuals on point, I love the use of fountains beneath him (he was the chair acrobat from earlier and he liked to dance).
A very elegant finish, she was lovely to watch. I still have to note though that as usual all of the males were fully covered like gymnasts (and ice skaters) always have the option of whereas the women were all in bum showing leotards and and ripped costumes. Not exactly decent but it’s easy to normalize women’s bodies to children young eh.
It’s really hard for me to do things, it’s easy for people in my condition to end up sitting in a dark corner in a personal, invisible hell and don’t move, unable to do things for themselves or they end up walking the streets talking to themselves so frustrated, distracted and vulnerable to accident. I can’t sit, stand or lie down comfortably; my particular psychosis is that I’m being raped in every way all the time by men, women, children, animals, aliens/spirits, incest and it doesn’t stop, it’s almost ‘with’ every person/creature I/they see and if it’s not rape it’s focusing on their sexuality/bodies – I hear voices and see them as people ganging up on me and see visions in general, I barely sleep and they continue in my dreams – the auditory hallucinations are literally 24/7, it doesn’t stop for 1 second. It’s like being part of a snuff move that doesn’t end. I can’t go to the bathroom easily, I don’t wash/shower/bath I towel clean instead like a bedridden patient and I have to hold myself completely taut at all times trying to ignore my breasts and holding my genitalia closed so as not to have any reactions or feel even more violated. My mouth is tightly shut all the time but constantly feels and looks like things are being shoved my throat – the tongue moves, throat gulps etc. It’s a case for euthanasia or patient assisted suicide. I can’t go to the cinema because the voices have something against it, I can’t spend time with my father because the voices make think I want to have sex with him/am having it with him/have had an affair with him. I can’t look or think about dogs anymore. They try to force me not to be vegan. I’m forced to watch and re-go through real trauma that’s happened and new ones, like watching the death of loved ones over and over in ever different ways, re-live real deaths, it reminds me of a series called Tinman (2007) a spin-off from The Wizard of Oz in which the evil Queen murders his family and then traps him in a tiny box just big enough for his body where he’s forced to watch it over and over again until he dies unable to do anything about it. Most of the time I feel like a woman dragged off the street by a gang and kept alive just enough tied up and beaten for them to keep her as a rape toy for as long as they can. The list goes on – some of which is HERE and added to the list of chronic pains I already developed over life such as problems with my bones, legs/hip and back. The discomfort of this puts so much stress on my body and medication makes that even worse including increased cardiovascular risk. There’s a lot of pressure on my bladder and egestion, the way I have to move constantly and hold myself doesn’t help, add to that the anxiety and constant indigestion means that I’m constantly needing to go to the bathroom which makes the whole situation worse, as soon as I feel the need the voices get even worse and want to rape more viciously and unlike anyone else who can get on with things until they have to go, the second I know that I’ll need to go soon I have to go because they get so rabid so quickly. Tonight I did my best to enjoy myself but the degrading commentary, feeling, visions are a constant battle, I’m constantly in a war within myself and I almost felt like I was going to soil myself on the walk home. The last time that happened another character ‘William’ showed up after a long time and mocked me. Humiliation, shame and ‘punishment’ figure a lot and then they tell you that they love you.
Despite all this I do my absolute best to keep trying to do normal things when I can afford them. I try to laugh which I’ve managed again because I couldn’t for a long time after my face froze three times since last August, I still can’t cry but to be honest I don’t want to work on that.
This happened recently when the voices got rabid and I was on a potholed ridden street; I fell, skidded and landed badly:
Even with all of this happening to me all of the time and tonight I still knew exactly how each act would play out and when, I knew when they would do what and how long each would last though I’d never seen them before. I’ve always been able to do this but the ‘voices’ didn’t believe me and now they do but obviously I can’t estimate anywhere near as well as I used to before they came along. I have a lot of memory loss and lost the knack/developed instincts of many things/subjects. It’s nice to know I still have something of myself left but that’s little comfort when you have to be forever vigilant and as soon as the second you calm/get tired comes along it gets worse; the walk home in the dark, empty streets in the pouring rain on those rough pavements was particularly trying with them shouting at me, thankfully I managed not to let them drown out all the other sounds and not get run over (almost got hit by a bus some months back).
Watching these amazing people reminds me that many successful athletes and performers and overpaid and pampered in comparison; these people are on the road constantly, sometimes live on it and take part in almost every aspect from ticket taking, meeting/greeting, selling merchandise/food to putting the tent and equipment together. There’s no airs and graces, autographs nor paying to see them individually; they will at one moment perform and the next be selling knick knacks and hotdogs throughout the crowd. These are real workers.
Sleeping Beauty – An Enduring Tale/Cycle of Dreaming and Waking/the Breath of the Unmanifested and Creation
August 5, 2017
Introduction to a Well Known Author:
Fairytales are atmospheric, creepy and often cruel showing us temptation in the form of hope usually after great turmoil and sacrifice. They’re not often stories for children but more warnings as Pamela Travers herself claimed she didn’t write the Mary Poppins books for children. To some of us they can be seen as culmination of learning and with her tempestuous life perhaps a yearning – Ms Poppins being someone she wanted to be or wanted to guide her through the storm? Poppins being someone who glided through extremities like only few and a ‘nanny’ (granny, Dark Mother figure – remember the Dark Mother is an honourary title, she doesn’t have to be a Mother).
The remakes of well known fairytales in recent years have emphasized further that they are not really ‘family friendly’ and even modern authors from Roald Dahl to J. K. Rowling have shown us ‘dark’ children’s and young adult fiction, easily read by adults, and yet they hold a map for childhood. Dystopian themes have made it to the forefront of youth fiction – but then did they ever really leave? The scary has always been at home with musical folk tales and poems of old and are always present watching and coming closer to us from the periphery, they sometimes get watered by the likes of Disney but even Disney shows protagonists in danger. Is it a safe ‘threat’ we hanker for like that of a roller coaster where we feel the thrill but never the peril or is there something in us that really wants to fall? We never really face the unknown we just go round in circles, patterns and trends.
But Disney was right to excise from Mary Poppins the Zen mysticism and symbolism, about which academics had preposterously written lectures and learned papers. And although Disney’s songwriters the Sherman Brothers are on record as finding Travers “a hellcat” to work with (“like having two weeks of ulcers”), she comes across in the film as ultimately sympathetic, commanding respect for facing up with spirit to the Disney men. Travers was fond of saying that all women pass through three phases: nymph, mother, crone.
…
As Lawson writes, in the initial days of Disney’s charm offensive, P L Travers “fell into Walt’s embrace like a lovesick fool, but the fortune he gave her almost made up for the betrayal”. She got $100,000 upfront and 5 per cent of the gross, so she had to forgive “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and dancing penguins. And after five years of “uneasy wedlock”, the film emerged – unsubtle, sugary, sentimental; “gorgeous, but all wrapped round mediocrity of thought” – and won five Oscars. Sam Goldwyn wrote an open letter saying everyone in the world should see it. Never mind that Disney’s editions of Mary Poppins books outsold hers; her own sales trebled. She would later say that she had written “a small unpretentious book, but as full of meat as a sausage is. The film made it grandiose, pretentious and took all the stuffing out of the story.” But she always praised Julie Andrews and even thought Dick Van Dyke’s cockney was “really not too bad”. She discussed a possible sequel without objection.
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/strange-life-creator-mary-poppins
Was he right to White wash (his own life and business White washed of course)? I love the Mary Poppins film (and I can understand why Emma Thompson was chosen to portray P. L. Travers due to her role as Nanny McPhee – the films of which I didn’t really like – and her bearing in general) but I’m aware there was more going on in her life and in the series. It seems as if Travers got caught up in great knowledge and mixed with great cultural icons who themselves did the same but like many were far too a bohemian, rich, elite set indulgent and immature for the wisdom they sought/practiced.
Too bad we can’t all be like the characters we create and adore; perhaps she wanted Mary Poppins but had some of that in her aunts and would have been better off with Granny/Mistress Weatherwax (another Dark Mother/Witch/Wise Woman/Crone figure) from Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’, whom many of us love… At a distance and with great respect and perhaps some bitterness and begrudgement, and she was the ‘good one’ out of her and her sister 😉 !
What we want and need are sometimes two very different things.
Discerning the Nature of Free Will
In the chapter entitled, “John and Barbara’s Story,” a starling, a wise bird, visits the nursery at Cherry Tree Lane and communes with Mary Poppins and the babies, John and Barbara. Through their conversation, we become aware that the babies, the starling, and Mary Poppins understand the language of the wind, the stars, and the sunlight. However, the starling laments that the children will soon forget everything about where they came from. The children, of course, vehemently protest. Soon, however, they do forget.
This theme is explored further in the chapter entitled, “The New One” in Mary Poppins Comes Back. When the baby Annabel is born, the starling makes another visit, and he turns somersaults on the windowsill, clapping his wings wildly together each time his head comes up. “What a treat!” he pants, when at last he stands up straight. (Now he had someone to whom he could speak again.) The starling asks Annabel to tell the fledgling that accompanies him to tell where she came from:
“I am earth and air and fire and water,” she said softly. “ I come from the Dark where all things have their beginnings. I come from the sea and its tides, I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the sun and its brightness—and I come from the forest of earth. Slowly, I moved at first always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters.” “It was a long journey! A long journey indeed!” said the starling softly, lifting his head from his breast. “And ah, so soon forgotten!”
This episode is reminiscent of the soul’s encounter with the river Lethe in Greek mythology. The souls of the dead bathe there before they are born, so they will not remember their previous history and choices made before birth (karma) until their life is over. If we knew what happened in past lives with the people we know in the present, we might avoid these people and many of life’s experiences. How can we operate with free will and choice if we know our sacred contracts, asks Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts. In The Secrets of Dr. Traverner, Diane Fortune, the occult fiction writer of the early twentieth century, wrote about a character who refused to come completely into her body because she knew her fate and was afraid to face it. This presents the paradox that from ignorance we exercise free will; from knowledge we forfeit our right to choose.
The above link explores symbolism in the Mary Poppins series and Travers was herself an ardent student of mythology and culture which brings us to one of her passions, a passion of intrigue with eternal beauty.
The Allure of Beauty in Death/Slumber, the Conflict of Choosing Between Immortal and Mortal Love:
I’m not going to explain the symbolism in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ such as a the Spinners/Fates/Wheels but simply quote some of Travers’ own words as found in the ‘Afterword‘ of her book ‘About The Sleeping Beauty’. Therein she outlines five versions of the story from different cultures following her own refashioning. Bear in mind that I do not agree with everything.
The idea of the sleeper, of somebody hidden from mortal eye, waiting until the time shall ripen has always been dear to folkly mind – Snow White asleep in her glass coffin, Brynhild behind her wall of fire, Charlemagne in the heart of France, King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon, Frederick Barbarossa under his mountain in Thuringia. Muchukunda, the Hindu King, slept through eons until he was awakened by the Lord Krishna; Oisin of Ireland dreamed of Tir N’an Og for over three hundred years. Psyche in her magic sleep is a type of Sleeping Beauty, Sumerian Ishtar in the underworld may be said to be another. Holga the Dane is sleeping and waiting, and so, they say, is Sir Francis Drake. Quetzalcoatl of Mexico and Virochoca of Peru are both sleepers. Morgan le Fay of France and England and Dame Holle of Germany are sleeping in raths and cairns.
The themes of the sleeper is as old as the memory of man. Where it first arose we do no know. One can never find where myth and fairy tale begin any more than one can find wild wheat growing. They are not invented, that is certain. They germinate from seeds sown by an unknown hand. ‘The Authors’, as the poet William Blake has said, ‘are in Eternity’, and we must be content to leave them there. The story is, after all, what matters.
…
The appearance of this lady at the Christening [in her version of ‘Sleeping Beauty’] is the great moment of the tale, the hook from which everything hangs. Properly to understand why this is so we must turn to Wise Women in general and their role in the world of men. To begin with they are not mortal women. They are sisters, rather, of the Sirens, kin to the Fates and the World Mothers. As such, as creatures of another dimension, myth and legend have been at pains to embody them in other than human shape – the winged female figures of Homer, the bird headed women of the Irish tales, the wild women of ancient Russia with square heads and hairy bodies and the wisplike Jinn of the Middle East who were not allowed grosser forms than those of fire and smoke. It was to do away with their pantomime image and give them their proper weight and authority that our version provided the Wise Women with their hairless heads of gold and silver and made their golden and silver feet hover a little above the earth as the gods do on the Greek vases. And in dressing them in colours of the spectrum that the Thirteen are parts of the single whole and the opposites complementary.
For it should be remembered that no Wise Woman or Fairy is in herself either good or bad; she takes on one aspect or the other according to the laws of the story and necessity of events. The powers of these ladies are equivocal. They change with changing circumstances; they are as swift to take umbrage as they are to bestow a boon; they curse and bless with equal gusto. Each Wise Woman is, in fact, an aspect of the Hindu goddess, Kali, who carries in her multiple hands the powers of good and evil.
It is clear, therefore, that the Thirteenth Wise Woman becomes the Wicked Fairy solely for the purpose of one particular story. It was by chance that she received no invitation; it might just as well have been one of her sisters. So, thrust by circumstance into her role, she acts according to law.
Up she rises, ostensibly to avenge an insult but in reality to thrust the story and keep the drama moving. She becomes the necessary antagonist, placed there to show that whatever is ‘other’, opposite and fearful, is indispensable an instrument of creation as any force for good. The pulling of the Devas an Asuras in opposite directions churn the ocean of life in the Hindu myth and the interaction of the good and the bad Fairies produces the fairy tale. The Thirteenth Wise Woman stands as the guardian of the threshold, the paradoxical adversary without whose presence no threshold may be passed.
This is the role played in so many stories by the Wicked Stepmother. The true mother, by her very nature, is bound to preserve, protect and comfort; this is why she is so often disposed of before the story begins. It is the stepmother, her cold heart unwittingly cooperating with the hero’s need, who thrusts the child from the warm hearth, out from the sheltering walls of home to find his own true way.
Powers such as these, at once demonic and divine, are not to be taken lightly. They give a name to evil, free it, and bring it to the light. For evil will out, they sharply warn us, no matter how deeply buried…
…
Without the Wicked Fairy there would have been no story. She not the heroine, is the goddess in the machine.
…
But if the Prince is a mysterious figure, how much more so is she who is the crux of the story, the maiden of surpassing beauty asleep behind her wall of thorns, she whom men from the beginning of time have pondered on and treasured. I say the beginning of time with intent, for when a woman is the chief character in a story it is a sign of its antiquity. It takes us back to those cloudy eras when the world was rule not, as it was in later years, by a god but by the Great Goddess. Here, as with the Prince, is a heroine who has ostensibly nothing to do, nothing to suffer. She is endowed with every blessing and grace and happy fortune, no slights or indignities are put upon her as is the case with her sister heroines, Show White, Cinderella, Little Two-Eyes, or the Goose Girl. She simply has to follow her fate, prick her finger, and fall asleep. But perhaps – is this what the story is telling us? – perhaps it is not a simple thing to do to faithfully follow one’s fate…
…
Who is she, this peerless beauty, this hidden sleeping figure that has kindled the imaginations of so many generations and for whom children go about on tiptoe lest she be too soon wakened?
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[My comment: The Princess is the representative on Earth, the Earth as the creation, she is the illuminated light illuminated from the light of the Mother like the moon to the sun; part divine, part mortal – the link between the Mother and potential creation, and the created. She is the Daughter and in a story involving a love interest she is like Persephone, abducted or tricked into staying in manifestation, separated from the Creator like a tool/weapon/treasure. She is the Fallen, fallen with creation which in itself is fallen because it is no longer with/an immediate part of the Creator. In this story and many she is Fallen by the actions of a Father figure and she is then through transformation of some kind, here it is sleep, rescued by the Dark Mother.]
There are those who see the tale exclusively as a nature myth, as the earth in spring, personified as a maiden, awaking from the long dark sleep of winter; or as a hidden deep in the earth until the kiss of the sun makes it send forth leaves. This is undoubtedly as aspect of the story. But a symbol, by the very fact of being a symbol, has not one sole and absolute meaning. It throws out light in every direction. Meaning comes pouring from it.
As well as being a nature myth, it is also possible that there are elements of a secret and forgotten ritual in the theme, reminders of initiation ceremonies where the neophyte dies – or sleeps – on one level and wakes on another, as a chrysalis wakes into butterfly. Or again it may be that since all fairy tales hark back to myth we are present here at the death and resurrection of a goddess, of Persephone down in the underworld biding her time until she returns to earth.
…
So, face to face with the Sleeping Beauty – who has long been the dream of every man and the hope of every woman – we find ourselves compelled to ask what is it in us that at a certain moment suddenly falls asleep? Who lies hidden deep within us? And who will come to wake us, what aspect of ourselves?
[My comment: And hopefully they shall not waken us with a kiss.]
Are we dealing here with the sleeping soul and all the external affairs of life that hem it in and hide it’ something that falls asleep after childhood; something that not to waken would make life meaningless? To give an answer, supposing we had it, would be breaking the law of the fairy tale. And perhaps no answer is necessary. It is enough that we ponder upon and love the story and ask ourselves the question.
I think she may have had a more conclusive answer being so well educated and thoughtful in her work and only seemed to naval gaze (as we all do at times) in wistful, poetic moments to make the prose (including her ‘afterword’) richer. Perhaps she thought the keys to the tale/threshold/door were not for us to know.
Or having to cover your head as many people and mostly females of many cultures do worldwide.
From one extreme to another:
I don’t actually mind burkinis, I really like them. I’m not religious or faithful to one culture but I have always had an issue with ‘modesty’ or ‘dressing appropriately for the situation’ (so that doesn’t always mean ‘modest’ because I ‘dress up’ too) and the weather. I personally don’t like revealing all or being too revealing. It’s usually two body parts (face and hands, and I often wear a hat and sometimes gloves even lace Summer gloves anyway) – I’m strange, I both like and dislike the sun, I think I’m partly Goth. My point is that I’ve always had a problem with swimwear; to me it’s just like going out in your underwear especially bikinis and they just get skimpier and skimpier. Waterproof underwear but still underwear, tankinis and two-pieces with shorts i.e. hot pants, or a tiny frill on a one-piece don’t help – they’re just like tokenism to ‘modesty’ and are more like ‘being girly’. It’s not my thing and I hate the hair removal process that goes with baring any skin for a female as well which if you don’t do you’re subject to additional public shame and humiliation. Somehow body hair on a female = dirty and an inability to be clean unlike men who can supposedly stay cleaner than us.
So over the years I’ve researched burkinis and found I like them as an alternative to normal Western swimwear. They do remind me a little of Victorian swimwear but they’re waterproof and a bit like wetsuits without being as heavy, however attitudes towards them are very Victorian. For example:
Brit tourists in burkinis made to do humiliating walk of shame out of Algarve pool as swimwear deemed ‘not acceptable for pool’
[Written by] Danya Bazaraa
Maryya Dean and her sister-in-law Hina claim they were told they could not wear their burkinis in the swimming pool while on holiday in Albufeira, Portugal.
They say they were told they ‘must wear a bikini to follow Portuguese culture’, during the incident on July 21 that left them horrified.
The family members were also outraged after a maintenance worker at the pool allegedly made Maryya’s nine-year-old daughter stand up to provide an example of what they should be wearing – a regular swimming costume.
Marrya, who suffers with bipolar disorder, says the week-long trip was supposed to be a getaway for her – but they were all affected by what happened.
They had booked a private apartment which had a pool shared with other flats in the complex.
Maryya, who was on holiday with her four children plus her sister-in-law and other relatives, told the Mirror Online: “Given my cultural background I was wearing a burkini.
“I was approached by the building security manager as someone made a complaint that I was not wearing a bikini and therefore not appropriate to be in the pool.
“I was compared to my nine-year-old daughter who was told to stand up out of the pool to see what she was wearing which I found completely rude – I was told I should wear that to swim.
“I was not allowed to wear swimming gear that I am comfortable in and that was actually made for women like me to wear.”
She said she asked the worker to point to a sign which said only bikinis could be worn, but there were no signs in sight. Maryya, 36, from Chessington, added: “The man then started making cultural references and said that Portuguese people wear bikinis and so should we.
“We were embarrassed as we came out of the pool with with four children and people were watching us like we’d committed a crime.”
Marrya’s sister in law, Hina, 31, was also in the pool wearing a ‘covered swim suit’.
The pair of them were not wearing full burkinis.
Hina described her swim suit as three quarter length leggings with a top which had sleeves down to her elbows, but it was water proof and designed for use in a pool.
She said Marrya’s was a regular swimming suit that also came with three quarter length ‘leggings,’ made for the water.
The kids were all in regular swim wear.
Hina said she spotted a gentleman speaking to Maryya’s younger sister, who was sat on a sun lounger at the time.
She claims he was pointing and said it was apparent there was an issue.
Hina went over to see hear what the problem was, as she said it was intimidating being pointed at.
She heard from the member of the maintenance team that they had received a complaint from a resident about them using the pool.
Hina said: “He said it wasn’t possible for me to be in the pool with clothes on, and said I must wear a bikini.
“We told him it was swimwear but he said ‘you have to wear a bikini or shorts. In Portuguese culture, it’s not acceptable.’ He said we had to abide by Portuguese culture if we were in the country.
“We told him we didn’t wear bikinis because we weren’t comfortable in them. It was a confidence thing.
“But he kept repeating ‘you have to wear a bikini’. We were feeling really humiliated.”
Hina said they wore more modest swimsuits for a mix of reasons – religious, cultural, confidence and comfort.
The sisters-in-law said they were the only family using the pool at the time but that people watched the incident from their balconies and they said it was “embarrassing”.
Maryya said they didn’t feel they could use the pool for the rest of their holiday after what happened, despite it being “baking hot”.
She said: “I keep thinking about it. We had to do a ‘walk of shame’ back to the apartment, it was disgusting.”
Firstly it’s just some man not even a lifeguard complaining about them, secondly he’s telling them they have to wear a bikini or shorts like he tells women what to wear, and thirdly he acts like he doesn’t even know what a one-piece if – why a bikini? Men wear t-shirts and/or proper shorts all the time on the beach or a proper shorts and/or a vest in pools. They have the choice to wear more risqué pieces but they have the choice.
I’d wear a burkini and I don’t give a damn, but then I usually wear a leotard with full sleeves and proper shorts in pools anyway (not that I like public pools and chlorine) or full lycra leggings (or shorts with a sarong) on a beach and people have not harassed me yet. That said I’ve not bothered with hair removal at times either. I still get compliments like “little mermaid” even though I’m more obviously dressed for aerobics than swimming but lycra is waterproof and people better not start with me.
Note – not all burkinis have a head covering and I’d think many Western women would find them cute too:
Either way, they look like and are sportswear and if women who wear them don’t mind or at least don’t ban or put down women who wear practically nothing as normal then why should we mind them being ‘decent’ as normal?
We’re finally used to seeing pregnant women on beaches (Madonna being the first obvious public example which sparked a trend years ago, though she has always been an extreme trailblazer in sexuality and gender politics – and I’m not a fan) and in clothing that isn’t too different in style from what they’d normally wear, we’re getting used to breastfeeding women (gawd we do sound backwards as a species don’t we) so why do we have to fight so much about what women wear to swim? As long as they’re not likely to drown (t-shirts banned in some places because of the way they swell in water) what’s the problem? We still see barely any clothing on women in tennis, figure skating or gymnastics for example and I remember judges looking down on me for wearing shorts in gym competitions because everyone else would wear leotards only including low cut, high leg ones even though we were children whilst the boys were allowed shorts and leggings – what is the bloody problem in dressing comfortably? I’ve seen volleyball playing with sticky tape on their arses (kinesiology) for crying out loud – just wear shorts they’ll give you support and don’t act like women’s volleyball and much of women’s televised and most popular sports aren’t about ‘the babes’.
Also remember that not all religious or very culturally minded women wear these and probably never will, many wear regular Western style swimwear and are fine with that and that’s their business but for some of these women if it wasn’t for swimwear like burkinis they wouldn’t be able to go in the water or to a beach at all.
I respect the young girl who was raped i.e. arranged marriage, to an old man, and then told by another ‘old man’ aka an ‘angel’ on behalf of an even older ‘man’ aka ‘God’ that she was having a special boy/son who was later called ‘the son of Man’ and even later ‘the Son of God’ and the baby was visited by ‘three Kings/Wise men’ (always the ‘three’). That poor girl her whole life and body was dominated by men, human and otherwise, and mansplaining. She had no chance, her existence was all planned out – if ‘he’ the chosen one, her son, was born knowing what would happen why choose to have his Mother’s life mapped out as well? He didn’t like how hard his life was/the direction in which it went and he knew in advance – both intentionally and unintentionally demonstrating that knowing something and go through it are two different things so why add to that and choose a girl who had no life/opportunity/choice at all? At least he could talk to God (or someone) and perhaps get an answer, she couldn’t at all as far as we know and it sounds like God or he and God (if they were even related in an immediate familial sense) picked a vulnerable/easily taken advantage of person to impose their plan(s) on. How nice. How good. Not. That is one of the types of innocent they were supposed to protect no? And no it wasn’t an honour or even an obligation/honour of duty as she may have seen it, she didn’t have a choice – she was a young girl she couldn’t make such big decisions herself let alone with informed, understood consent and she shouldn’t have had to – her choices were made for her. A child like the children in the world today who are married off and/or are children who have children and many of the rest of us in the world agree that even though it’s cultural we have moved on and/or we don’t like it/it’s not right and those who don’t mind are either of the ‘it’s not our children and there’s not much we can do about it so we don’t bother/just leave them to it’ mentality and those that want that kind of thing are deemed pedophiles.
Her festival including fasting period is almost overshadowed and even undone by:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration_of_Jesus
‘The Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus is celebrated by the most Christian denominations on August 06, 2017. Transfiguration is considered a major feast, numbered among the twelve Great Feasts in Orthodoxy. In all these churches, if the feast falls on a Sunday, its liturgy is not combined with the Sunday liturgy, but completely replaces it.
The Transfiguration is the second of the “Three Feasts of the Saviour in August”, the other two being the Procession of the Cross on August 1 and the Icon of Christ Not Made by Hand on August 16. The Transfiguration is preceded by a one-day Forefeast and is followed by an Afterfeast of eight days, ending the day before the Forefeast of the Dormition.
The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament in which Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant upon a mountain. Jesus and three of his apostles go to a mountain (the Mount of Transfiguration). On the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light, the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them. Jesus is then called “Son” by a voice in the sky, assumed to be God the Father, as in the Baptism of Jesus.
In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment, and the setting on the mountain is presented as the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between heaven and earth.
So even though I’m not Catholic or Christian I wouldn’t mind showing respect to this great female icon and I already have shown her recognition and sympathy by posting this and acknowledging this day two weeks ago but I don’t and didn’t need to fast even if I was of the necessary religious persuasion. Know why? I’m vegan and I fast/abstain more than that every day and I don’t even see it as fasting, vegans act every day for a better world via compassion to other creatures, the environment, human health and their own health. We don’t do too badly by the ethos of the New Testament do we. (Ha just recently I told a cleric I wasn’t going to have honey no matter what and outlined the reasons why even though it’s seen in many texts and science as a cure-all even in treatment for what I suffer from, so there. At first he was surprised and laughing but when I said I don’t laugh at his beliefs and it’s not funny he apologized, listened and quickly learned my ethos to be kind to all creatures great and small as something to be respected.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormition_of_the_Mother_of_God
“Dormition of the Virgin” redirects here.
The Dormition of the Mother of God (Greek: Κοίμησις Θεοτόκου, Koímēsis Theotokou often anglicized as Kimisis, Slavonic: Успение Пресвятыя Богородицы, Uspenie Presvetia Bogoroditsi) is a Great Feast of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches which commemorates the “falling asleep” or death of Mary the Theotokos (“Mother of God”, literally translated as God-bearer), and her bodily resurrection before being taken up into heaven. It is celebrated on August 15 (August 28, N.S. for those following the Julian Calendar) as the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates the Dormition not on a fixed date, but on the Sunday nearest August 15.
Dormition fast
The Feast of the Dormition is preceded by a two-week fast, referred to as the Dormition Fast. From August 1 to August 14 (inclusive) Orthodox and Eastern Catholics fast from red meat, poultry, meat products, dairy products (eggs and milk products), fish, oil, and wine. The Dormition Fast is a stricter fast than either the Nativity Fast (Advent) or the Apostles’ Fast, with only wine and oil (but no fish) allowed on weekends. As with the other Fasts of the Church year, there is a Great Feast that falls during the Fast; in this case, the Transfiguration (August 6), on which fish, wine and oil are allowed.
In some places, the services on weekdays during the Fast are similar to the services during Great Lent (with some variations). Many churches and monasteries in the Russian tradition perform the lenten services on at least the first day of the Dormition Fast. In the Greek tradition, during the Fast either the Great Paraklesis (Supplicatory Canon) or the Small Paraklesis is celebrated every evening except Saturday evening and the Eves of the Transfiguration and the Dormition.[1]
The first day of the Dormition Fast is a feast day called the Procession of the Cross (August 1), on which day it is customary to have an outdoor procession and perform the Lesser Blessing of Water.
Significance of the feast
In Orthodoxy and Catholicism, in the language of the scripture, death is often called a “sleeping” or “falling asleep” (Greek κοίμησις; whence κοιμητήριον > coemetērium > cemetery, “a place of sleeping”). A prominent example of this is the name of this feast; another is the Dormition of Anna, Mary’s mother. [My comment – remember Anna and Anna-Marie stem from Ishtar and Inanna.]
Up until the 5th century Church Fathers do not mention the Dormition of the Virgin and to the 6th century Dormition was not celebrated among the Christians as a holy day.[2]
For example, Epiphanius of Salamis, a Jew by birth, born in Phoenicia, converted to Christianity in adulthood and lived as a monk for over 20 years in Palestine with 335-340 for 362 years, writes in “Panarion” in “Contra antidicomarianst” about the death of the Virgin Mary following: “If any think [ I ] am mistaken, moreover, let them search through the scriptures any neither find Mary’s death, nor whether or not she died, nor whether or not she was buried — even though John surely traveled throughout Asia. And yet, nowhere does he say that he took the holy Virgin with him. Scripture simply kept silence because of the overwhelming wonder, not to throw men’s minds into consternation [my comment – I doubt it was out of wonder and/or respect, morelike patriarchy like some people’s gospels downplaying Mary Magdalene’s role]. For I dare not say — though I have my suspicions, I keep silent. Perhaps, just as her death is not to be found, so I may have found some traces of the holy and blessed Virgin.[3]” “The holy virgin may have died and been buried — her falling asleep was with honor, her death in purity, her crown in virginity. Or she may have been put to death — as the scripture says, “And a sword shall pierce through her soul” — her fame is among the martyrs and her holy body, by which light rose on the world, [rests] amid blessings. Or she may have remained alive, for God is not incapable of doing whatever he wills. No one knows her end. But we must not honor the saints to excess; we must honor their Master. It is time for the error of those who have gone astray to cease.[4]” Christians in the late 4th century had different opinions regarding Mary’s death; some believed that she was martyred. For this reason, Ambrose, for example, wrote: “Neither the letter of Scripture nor Tradition does not teach us that Mary had left this life as a consequence of suffering from bodily ulcers.”[5]
The events of the Dormition of the Virgin, and the burial of several known apocrypha: “Tale of the Dormition of the Virgin” Pseudo-John the Theologian (V emerged in the mid-century or later),[6] “De transitu Virginis Mariae” Pseudo-Melito of Sardis (5th century),[7] the composition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, “According to John, Archbishop of Thessalonica.” One of these apocrypha placed in the “History of the Church” Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos.[8] All listed Apocrypha quite late (5th and 6th century) and differ from each other content.
Therefore, the Church was not taken all their content, but only the basic idea that the Virgin Mary blissfully rested and Her soul was adopted by her Son Jesus Christ at Dormition. According to Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos in his “History of the Church,” the emperor Maurice (582—602), issued an edict which set the date for the celebration of the Dormition – August 15.[9] After that Christians in the empire began to celebrate the death of the Virgin Mary. Patriarch of Jerusalem Modestus (630—632) preaching, said at this celebration, regrets the lack of specific information about the death of the Virgin Mary.[10] In Rome the feast called Dormitio Beatae Virginis set by Pope Sergius I (687-701), borrowed from Constantinople.[11]
According to later Catholic tradition, Mary, having spent her life after Pentecost supporting and serving the nascent Church, was living in the house of the Apostle John, in Jerusalem, when the Archangel Gabriel revealed to her that her death would occur three days later. The apostles, scattered throughout the world, are said to have been miraculously transported to be at her side when she died. The sole exception was Thomas, who had been delayed. He is said to have arrived three days after her death in a cloud above her tomb and to have seen her body leaving to heaven. He asked her “Where are you going, O Holy One?” and then she took off her girdle and gave it to him and said “Receive this my friend” then she disappeared.[12] Thomas was taken to his fellow Apostles and asked to see her grave so that he could bid her goodbye. Mary had been buried in Gethsemane, according to her request. When they arrived at the grave, her body was gone, leaving a sweet fragrance. An apparition is said to have confirmed that Christ had taken her body to heaven after three days to be reunited with her soul. Orthodox theology teaches that the Theotokos has already undergone the bodily resurrection which all will experience at the second coming, and stands in heaven in that glorified state which the other righteous ones will only enjoy after the Last Judgment.[13]
Dormition versus Assumption
The Dormition of the Theotokos is celebrated on August 15 (August 28, N.S. for those following the Julian Calendar), the same calendar day as the Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption of Mary. The Dormition and the Assumption are different names for the same event, Mary’s departure from the earth, although the beliefs are not necessarily identical.
The Orthodox Church specifically holds one of two Roman Catholic alternative beliefs, teaching that Mary died a natural death, like any human being; that her soul was received by Christ upon death; and that her body was resurrected on the third day after her repose, at which time she was taken up, bodily only, into heaven when the apostles, miraculously transported from the ends of the earth, found her tomb to be empty.[14]
While some Roman Catholics agree with the Orthodox that this happened after Mary’s death, others hold that she did not experience death and she was “assumed” into heaven in bodily form, just as her son Jesus ascended. However, Pope Pius XII alludes to the fact of her death at least five times, but left open the question of whether or not Mary actually underwent death in connection with her departure, in his Apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), which dogmatically defined ex cathedra (i.e., infallibly) the Assumption.
On 25 June 1997 during a General Audience Pope John Paul II stated that Mary experienced natural death prior to her assumption into Heaven, stating:
It is true that in Revelation death is presented as a punishment for sin. However, the fact that the Church proclaims Mary free from original sin [my comment – sex though note that being raped and taken advantage of sexually in any way is still sex/sexual it’s not the victim’s fault and they are still innocent, perhaps even ‘innocent’ sexually in some people’s eyes too] by a unique divine privilege does not lead to the conclusion that she also received physical immortality. The Mother is not superior to the Son [my comment – was she not a chosen one as well? Who suffered and died not only for ‘God’/’his’ but for people as well?] who underwent death, giving it a new meaning and changing it into a means of salvation. Involved in Christ’s redemptive work and associated in his saving sacrifice, Mary was able to share in his suffering and death for the sake of humanity’s Redemption [my comment – ‘redemption’ nothing much has happened since has it? And the ‘second coming’ is supposedly about humanity’s ‘ascension’ – we haven’t even made up for any of our ‘crimes’ yet]. What Severus of Antioch says about Christ also applies to her: “Without a preliminary death, how could the Resurrection have taken place?” (Antijulianistica, Beirut 1931, 194f.). To share in Christ’s Resurrection, Mary had first to share in his death. The New Testament provides no information on the circumstances of Mary’s death. This silence leads one to suppose that it happened naturally, with no detail particularly worthy of mention. [My comment – seriously???] If this were not the case, how could the information about it have remained hidden from her contemporaries and not have been passed down to us in some way? [My comment – It’s called selective storytelling or truth telling, his-story and patriarchy, religious/culture ommission.] As to the cause of Mary’s death, the opinions that wish to exclude her from death by natural causes seem groundless. It is more important to look for the Blessed Virgin’s spiritual attitude at the moment of her departure from this world. In this regard, St Francis de Sales maintains that Mary’s death was due to a transport of love. He speaks of a dying “in love, from love and through love”, going so far as to say that the Mother of God died of love for her Son Jesus (Treatise on the Love of God, bk. 7, ch. XIII-XIV). Whatever from the physical point of view was the organic, biological cause of the end of her bodily life, it can be said that for Mary the passage from this life to the next was the full development of grace in glory, so that no death can ever be so fittingly described as a “dormition” as hers.”[15]
Both views agree that she was taken up into heaven bodily. The specific belief of the Orthodox is expressed in their liturgical texts used of the feast of the Dormition.[14]
The Eastern Catholic observance of the feast corresponds to that of their Orthodox counterparts, whether Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox.
More info about the practises of Dormition and Assumption on the above link and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary
So being a pure being, Mary was ressurected like Jesus? Mary in relation to Ishtar/Inanna i.e. Venus (Venus the planet and Venus/Aphrodite) the Morning Star? Ishtar/Inanna are goddesses of a race(s) which isn’t always known for dying but when they do so it’s usually dramatic and can involve resurrection or at least metaphor for death an ressurection e.g. the decent into the underworld/netherworld giving up mortal ‘trappings’ such as sexuality and clothing/graces facing the Dark Mother, seven levels and then ascent. Obviously by the time they became Mary ‘Mother of [a] Christ’ (the earlier and longest lived in history ‘Christ’ in history being Krishna – and the fact that he (avatar of Vishnu), Shiv[a] and Brahm[a] are not the be all and end all nor absolute creators in Hinduism or even pre-Vedic Hinduism, they’re not creators at all and at times of extreme distress usually of their own making call forth and pretend to pay tribute to the Mother of all Lalit[h]a – she is above all of the Hindu Mother Goddesses, she was there first*) came along the sensuality, sexuality, aggressiveness and cleverness of Ishtar/Inanna/Venus/Aphrodite was turned into the perfect innocent (but still typically a rape victim – many goddesses and divine females suffer rape) non-sexual free of ‘sin’ being even though she was married and even though ‘God’ choosing to use her baby to either be or be possessed by another ‘soul’/character (later commonly known as ‘Jesus’).
Either way kudos to her, she had it tough.
P.S. Interestingly enough as per the Gregorian calendar August 15 [1947 after WWII] is the anniversary of the Independence of India – the oldest still living Mother Goddess (though twisted/morphed version) culture.
*Ancient gods and God herself are written/told to spend much of their time sleeping (‘dormition’/asleep), dreaming and breathing/meditating – the breath of/or brahma i.e. the inwards and outwards motion of breath is the same as the movement of the universe and creation predominantly our galaxy towards and outwards from its centre and the Maya is the illusion/dream/barrier/veil between creation and potential or dreaming and waking, truth and lie. Creation/existence as we know it is seen as a dream perhaps even a daydream or forced dream and part of the or a cycle of breath of God.
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on August 13, 2017