melodrama @pavelalive - Tumblr Blog

Kindergarten game in China

Physical fitness, coordination, visual-spatial processing, self-confidence and teamwork in one simple/impressive exercise.

weloveshortvideos

so cute

redvelvetnegro-deactivated20161

the age old tale

excima

oh my god…

thethirdman8

This might be my favorite thing on Tumblr… volume up kids…

mordmardok

Good Bones Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. - Maggie Smith wait - what?

thegaymertrainer

They did it again

everythingstarstuff

HOLY WOW

dudewhoabides

R.L. Burnside: Poor Boy A Long Way From Home (1978)

riggio037

MAG-FUCKING-NIFICENT!!!

hailkingcheeto

Congratulations to Kentucky state senator Dr. Karen Berg for taking her ignorant Republican colleagues out to the proverbial woodshed and whipping their old white male asses with facts and logic. Shame on them and more power to her, science, and women’s choice over their own bodies and lives.

the-night-picture-collector

Inge Morath, From the Mask Series with Saul Steinberg, 1962

thesingalongsong

“And even though we ain't got money

I'm so in love with you honey

And everything will bring a chain of love

And in the mornin' when I rise

Bring a tear of joy to my eyes

And tell me everything is gonna be alright,”

zarya-zaryanitsa

Slavic beliefs about treshold and hearth

The negative role of the treshold

“Together with the door, the threshold co-created a part of the border between the two fragments of space. It was placed in a point where the continuity of the boundary was breached. The importance of the threshold resulted from its dual nature: the separation of spaces and the chance to move between the two created areas. In symbolic thinking, the threshold could be identified (and metonymically replaced) with the critical points that occur when switching between two states of affairs (e.g. nature/culture, night/day) or personal statuses (e.g. childhood/adolescence, single/ married). Being a fraction of the boundary and the exponent of its crossing, the threshold had the characteristics of a border area, and therefore it was ontologically insecure. And so, because every crossing of the border was related to the risk of contacting the undifferentiated chaos of the underworld, or with touching the sacred, the threshold required special protection and the ritualistic behaviours.

The significance of the threshold in family rituals is quite clearly written in eth- nographic material. The threshold was one of the important elements of weddings or deaths, pregnant women were isolated from it. This boundary of the house did also need magical treatments. Apotropaic actions were also related to the thresholds of cowsheds and stables. The main motive of these activities was burying animals, coins, and/or unbaptized children underneath the threshold, or laying axes, garlic, brooms, knives, and/or herbs braided in a wreath on its surface.

Very few historical documents also describe the role of the threshold among Early Middle Ages Slavs. According to archaeological sources, its protective role (and, at the same time, protection over the whole house) can be confirmed by an auroch’s skull found in Gdańsk (circa 1230-1255), which was found near the south- eastern wall of a house, placed in parallel with it, in an alley between two hous- es; it could have been nailed to the top of the house as a hunting trophy. Wreaths made of twigs and hair could also fulfil an apotropaic function. A large number of wreaths made of phloem (9 pieces) was found during excavations in Gdańsk and Wolin. They were found on the streets, the square, and the vicinity of house walls in Early Middle Ages Gdańsk. Willow wreaths from Wolin were found near a wat- tle-and-daub house wall. In a nearby house some collections of wreaths placed on a corner peg were also found1. The wattle-and-daub buildings were built in the 11th and 12th centuries. They were 5 to 10 cm in diameter and were made of willow. A wicker wreath was in turn found in Szczecin inside a log cabin dating back to the first half of the 12th century. Identical wicker wreaths were present in Slavic buildings in Lund.

A possibly apotropaic meaning is connected with wreaths found in Gdańsk, Szczecin, and Wolin that were made of different materials, including horsehair. The incompleteness of archaeological material relating to the Early Middle Ages period does not allow to determine the exact role of this part of the house in apotropaic treatments. Deliberately omitted in this work is the ban on sweeping garbage over the threshold (the broom was treated as a cleanser), which is evident in ethnographic sources. According to Slavic beliefs the broom, when set on the threshold of a house or barn, defended the entrance against witches and protected from evil eyes.”

The symbolic role of the hearth

“The important part of the house was a place used for preparing meals and getting warm. According to ethnographic sources, the stove is a common component of beliefs and rituals. It was clearly a developed form of the hearth in the form of a fireplace and as such will continue to be considered, because fire was an inseparable companion of existence. Stanislaw Ciszewski assigned the following functions to the hearth:

1. it was a social environment and as such it merged individuals into a solidary group of people; 2. it was a symbol of life and existence; 3. it was a form of altar, and as such was an intermediary between a group of people and the spirits of their ancestors and the extrasensory world

The hearth discussed in this chapter has been treated in two ways: as a symbol of family life and spiritual life. The hearth constituted an integral part of life for a man and his family. It connected them to the extent that any important event was associated with it. In turn, the hearth manifested itself in spiritual life as the eternal worship of fire, seen as a god who must be adored. I am aware that this is an artificial division, but the clear application of it will help “organize” apotropaic magic activities connected with the cult of the hearth.

The fireplace or stove were a symbolic centre of family life, around which re- sided the guardian spirits of ancestors. Rituals associated with the hearth, which are the expression of a particular respect, have been observed in ethnographic material. The most archaic of them is the habit of “feeding” the fire, guardian spirits, clan, and family. These treatments are also confirmed by written sources, which speak about demons of destiny and a house spirit called uboże, which had to be taken care of by leaving food in right places. Also the available archaeological material of the Early Middle Ages allows to confirm the submission of different types of bloody and bloodless offerings near the stove and fireplaces.

Both atmospheric fire and the earthly one had sacred value, because the effect of contacting with them was the dissolution of all shapes, or, as a result, the liquidation of the opposition that characterized human oecumene: beginning-end, light-dark, right-left, and so on. This fire also had to be tamed by applying appropriate apotropaic treatments, which in this case took the form of prohibitions or commands with regard to handling fire. On the other hand fire, ashes, charcoal, or smoke were quite commonly believed to have purifying and protective powers. In the light of archaeological sources the worship of a deified fire within the house is probably the most difficult to detect. Over the centuries magical rites related to the worship of fire have changed. Perhaps the two vessels (from Wyszogród near War- saw and Radzim, Greater Poland Voivodeship) with special lightning-shaped and figural engravings on them were used during the protective magic rituals.”

Slavic protective magic in the Early Middle Ages on Polish territories by Joanna Wawrzeniuk

Take all my money

… SHIT HE’S RIGHT

FUCK HE IS RIGHT

In a very limited sense, this is The Fall.

magic-and-moonlit-wings

“You might remember a few months ago, there was some talk about potentially remaking The Princess Bride, and everyone was all up in arms about it. ‘Why would you remake this move? It’s the perfect movie, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah’. I have to go another way. I think The Princess Bride is maybe the most remakeable movie in history.

Don’t hate me, don’t hate me, remember the TARDIS, let me explain -

At the end of the day, The Princess Bride is not about Westley; it’s not about Buttercup; it’s not about any of the characters; it’s not even really about True Love. The Princess Bride is a story about storytelling. The main characters of the movie are not Fezzik, not Inigo, but the Grandfather and the Boy.

My proposal for a ‘kinda sequel but really really remake’ of The Princess Bride: We would start with Fred Savage, the Boy from the first take of the movie, showing up to work. He then runs into his coworker, played by Queen Latifah, and asks, ‘Hey, is your granddaughter still sick?’, and she says, ‘Yeah, I’m actually going home early today, so I can watch her tonight’.

Savage’s character then smiles, hands her a book, and says, ‘Hey, when you go, read this to her. My grandfather used to read this to me, and I loved it.’

And every directorial decision you make for the whole movie process is how that little girl imagines the story as being told by her grandmother.

[whispers] It would be awesome and you know it.”

jhaernyl

Do it!!! He is right and we all know it!

worldcircus

As a guitarist, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost.

I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my guitar and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

Apparently, I’m still lost…

sacredfemininegypsyheart-deacti

You are a “Person” by Pure Consciousness Projecting itself from Spirit Into Matter. With Every Now Moment You are Projected into Form~ Again and Again. Continuity Is An Illusion. Every part of you~ Including your Body is Newly Projected Moment to Moment. Through Consciousness~ Filtered By Your Perception~ You Create from Belief to Thought to Feeling. What You Believe Creates Thoughts~ What you Think Creates Feelings and Your Energy Focus of these Combined~ Crystallize and Create Your Reality. This is True when You Create with Others~ and When you are Creating Yourself. By Nature~You Are A Perfect Creator. What Do You Want to Create? What do You Want Your Energy to Represent?

It is Always Your Core Beliefs that are Dictating what you Think and Feel. Beliefs that are Given and Accepted without Inquiry Create Unconsciously. Conscious Beliefs Are Simply Conscious Choices. If You want to Consciously Create Your Reality~Know Yourself. Know What You Believe. Observe what Your Beliefs make you think. Observe how your thoughts make you Feel. What Experiences are they Creating? Are they Positive or Negative? Are You Open or Closed? Do You Seek to Divide or Unite? Drop Out of The Story~ Whatever it Is~ and See With Awareness. Are You Unconsciously Running Fear Based Beliefs~Thoughts and Feelings~ Or Are You Consciously Creating From The Heart and Feeling to Knowing? There Can Only Be One. ~Krista Sophia

mysticallion

Karma is a term commonly misunderstood in the West. It’s a Sanskrit word that we have culturally appropriated from Hinduism and Buddhism, but like many such words, it’s suffered a lot in translation.

The most common street definition is “cause and effect,” but this misses the point almost entirely. Even the sort of scholarly definition found in the Oxford Dictionary—“the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences”—only captures the larger, more general perspective: namely, that ones actions have both direct and indirect consequences. This perspective seems to be describing some sort of mysterious, organic-but-thoroughly-mechanical force behind everything, like seeing Reality as a complex tumble of dominoes. And while the definition of karma can perhaps be spread this broad, even this understanding misses the point—at least in the way that matters most in actual, practical spiritual practice—because it ignores the primary culprit behind this whole tumble: the human brain.

Karma is, first and foremost, memory. When spiritual books and native Teachers use the term, it’s typically something like “karma is ripening,” or more specificly, they might say “karmic traces are ripening.” And all too often it’s simply left that way, leaving people to wonder what, exactly, was “ripening,” and what “ripening” meant anyway. Like a flower?

The answer is memories and memory traces. And in this case “ripening” means being reactivated. In other words, karma refers to both our conscience memories—those that we can voluntarily recall—and our unconscious memories, which of course far outnumber the conscious ones by an enormous factor. These memories and memory traces have been accumulating since we were still in the womb. They are actually structured into our tissues, in the way our nervous systems formed, the way our brains strung together countless clusters of neurons amid mad tangles of synaptic forest, and continue to do so, moment by moment, year after year. They are not just the source of our thoughts and “memories,” they are the source of our very identities and how we conceive of and process the world in every moment anew. Every thought, every way we conceive of and “make sense of” ourselves and the world, is made of memories. All the words and symbols and images and representations: all memories. All karma.

So in this understanding we can begin to glimpse the psychological sophistication of this insight: our actions are controlled by our thoughts and emotions; and our thoughts and emotions are “controlled” by their own productions, that is, by the automatic manner in which the nervous system responds to any sort of stimuli—either from the environment or from our own internal sources (thoughts, feelings, memories, emotions) or both. This essentially automatic response of the nervous system, this reflex of recall and reactivation and re-entry of information into the mindstream, is “ripening.” Karmic (memory) traces are being reactivated in response to something occurring in our present experience. Neurons are firing; biochemistry is responding: thoughts and emotions are occurring. And all this internal activity is directly and immediately influencing and driving our responses, our actions and behavior.

And when left to its own machinations, this entire complex production forms a sort of self-evolving, self-perpetuating feedback loop. Karma begets karma. Memories “ripen” in response to circumstances, creating new memories (future “potential karma”) while simultaneously strengthening the original trace (neurological connectivity). And so forth. Thus does the past define the present. And thus do our own minds, when left to their own unstructured patterning, trap us into all sorts of automatic patterns, compulsive behaviors, addictions, toxic relationships and many other unhealthy responses. Karma effectively renders us prisoners of our own unexamined mind, and so exposes us to suffering and to chronically perpetuating that suffering.

Different spiritual disciplines approach and seek to mitigate and eventually exhaust (or disempower) karma in numerous and diverse ways. But first and foremost, one needs to understand the actual nature and mechanics of the problem. This understanding must be, to some degree, intellectual of course: it’s how we can talk about it. But more importantly—as in most things spiritual—this sort of intellectual or conceptual understanding is insufficient to actually change much. Rather it must be used to point out something in ones own immediate experience. You have to understand this phenomenon and then see it directly as it is arising within (or tumbling through) your own awareness and, by extension, your own ongoing life experiences. Only then can the “spiritual remedies” and disciplines be properly pursued and applied. In time, via this process, you can become free from karma, from your own past, from all the endless tumble of habits and reflexes and patterns that control you. Only then can you really live, truly free and centered in the present.

neurosciencestuff

(Image caption: Newborn neurons under the microscope. Source: DZNE / CRTD / Kempermann Lab)

New insights into the mechanisms of neuroplasticity

Reactive oxygen molecules, also known as “free radicals”, are generally considered harmful. However as it now turns out, they control cellular processes, which are important for the brain’s ability to adapt – at least in mice. Researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden published the findings in the journal “Cell Stem Cell”.

The researchers focused on the "hippocampus", a brain area that is regarded as the control center for learning and memory. New nerve cells are created lifelong, even in adulthood. "This so-called adult neurogenesis helps the brain to adapt and change throughout life. It happens not only in mice, but also in humans," explains Prof. Gerd Kempermann, speaker of the DZNE’s Dresden site and research group leader at the CRTD.

A trigger for neurogenesis

New nerve cells emerge from stem cells. "These precursor cells are an important basis for neuroplasticity, which is how we call the brain's ability to adapt," says the Dresden scientist. Together with colleagues he has now gained new insights into the processes underlying the formation of new nerve cells. The team was able to show in mice that neural stem cells, in comparison to adult nerve cells, contain a high degree of free radicals. "This is especially true when the stem cells are in a dormant state, which means that they do not divide and do not develop into nerve cells," says Prof. Kempermann. Current study shows that an increase in the concentration of the radicals makes the stem cells ready to divide. "The oxygen molecules act like a switch that sets neurogenesis in motion."

Free radicals are waste products of normal metabolism. Cellular mechanisms are usually in place to make sure they do not pile up. This is because the reactive oxygen molecules cause oxidative stress. "Too much of oxidative stress is known to be unfavorable. It can cause nerve damage and trigger aging processes," explains Prof. Kempermann. "But obviously this is only one aspect and there is also a good side to free radicals. There are indications of this in other contexts. However, what is new and surprising is the fact that the stem cells in our brains not only tolerate such extremely high levels of radicals, but also use them for their function.”

Healthy aging

Radical scavengers, also known as "antioxidants", counteract oxidative stress. Such substances are therefore considered important components of a healthy diet. They can be found in fruits and vegetables. "The positive effect of antioxidants has been proven and is not questioned by our study. We should also be careful with drawing conclusions for humans based on purely laboratory studies," emphasizes Kempermann. "And yet our results at least suggest that free radicals are not fundamentally bad for the brain. In fact, they are most likely important for the brain to remain adaptable throughout life and to age in a healthy way.”

widewaterwoman

Do you have any tips for keeping the love? (in a relationship)

Yes,

stay forgiving and gentle, don’t lose sight of who u are, insist on growth as individuals, cook together and for each other, rub each other’s hands and feet regularly, make a point to engage in the other’s interests in some way (and be genuine about it), continue to exchange small tokens of love + appreciation on the regular (u know how u brought flowers for each other or made coffee or made something cute for them in the beginning when everything was fresh and cute? keep doing that), and consider communicating your goals and visions of the future with each other every so often. ask urself: how are u loving? let ur actions answer that question and let them reflect ur love and gratitude every day. love is more than a feeling, it’s a movement.

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melodrama