starting over @pookanamedtara - Tumblr Blog

“While walking, for example, if we are talking or thinking at the same time, we get caught up in the conversation or thoughts we’re having and get lost in the past or the future, our worries or our projects. People can easily spend their entire lives doing just that. What a tragic waste! Let us instead really live these moments that are given to us. In order to be able to live our life, we have to stop that radio inside, turn off our internal discourse. How can we enjoy our steps if our attention is given over to all that mental chatter? It’s important to become aware of what we feel, not just what we think. When we touch the ground with our foot, we should be able to feel our foot making contact with the ground. When we do this, we can feel a lot of joy in just being able to walk. When we walk, we can invest all our body and mind into our steps and be fully concentrated in each precious moment of life. In focusing on that contact with the earth, we stop being dragged around by our thoughts and begin to experience our body and our environment in a wholly different way. Our body is a wonder! Its functioning is the result of millions of processes. We can fully appreciate this only if we stop our constant thinking and have enough mindfulness and concentration to be in touch with the wonders of our body, the Earth, and the sky.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise

detailedart

Detail of Selene and Endymion (1770), ♤ by Ubaldo Gandolfi.

merridews

detailsofpaintings

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with a reaper (detail)

1889

I cackled so loud you guys

philosophybits

“All art is but imitation of nature.”

— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius

pretty-sweet-vintage

Summer vibes…

skull-designs

Hove angels; ivy.

Hove Cemetery, East Sussex.

placesandpalaces

Wieliczka salt mine, Poland

In southern Poland, Lake Wessel lies inky and unmoving in the deep. Filling the bottom of an old salt mine, it’s just one component of the UNESCO World Heritage Site which has been a functioning mine since the 13th century. Featuring supreme carpentry, centuries-old brickwork and ornate salt-crystal chandeliers in cavernous dining rooms, this fantastical setting is a favorite for the Polish film industry. The mine’s attractions include dozens of statues and four chapels carved out of the rock salt by the miners. The older sculptures have been supplemented with new carvings made by contemporary artists. About 1.2 million people visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine annually.

(Source, source)

thebuffyfiles

dormouseking

This is what being over 25 on this website feels like

probablyasocialecologist

In the mid 20th century, whole cities’ sewage systems safely and successfully used fish to treat and purify their water. Waste-fed fish ponds are a low-tech, cheap, and sustainable alternative to deal with our own shit — and to obtain high protein food in the process.

Hanoi, the capital of the newly independent communist nation, fighting a drawn-out war against Western occupying forces, had no municipal wastewater treatment. Sewage led out into two rivers, which flowed south and eventually merged with the Red River. During the communist period of collectivization of farmland, Vietnamese farmer cooperatives were excluded from the international market and so often used whatever resources available to them to feed fish, such as slaughterhouse wastes or spoiled grains. Seeing the untreated wastewater in the canals—a resource out of place—farmers started pumping it into large ponds.

After trial and error, and investing the little they had in infrastructural improvements, they determined the right sewage-and-freshwater ratio needed that would dilute the wastewater enough so the fish wouldn’t die. They also let the untreated sewage water sit in primary and secondary ponds before mixing it into fish ponds, effectively killing harmful pathogens and allowing large solids to sediment, further promoting algal growth.

Farmers also grew plants such as duckweed and water hyacinth on the water and on its banks, which could then be fed to livestock—and had the dual benefit of drawing out heavy metals from the water. They also practiced fish polyculture, where species like catfish, carps, and tilapia were farmed together, and thus were more effective in cleaning the water and protecting small fry from predators. Every year, the ponds were drained, and the sludge at the bottom was then applied to nearby fields, further reusing available nutrients.

Eventually, these farmers developed a system that, by 1995, provided 40-50% of Hanoi’s total fish supply every year. Scientific measurements showed that the water from the fish ponds, when pumped back into the river, was well below the World Health Organisation’s recommended level for biological oxygen demand—an indicator to determine the efficiency of water treatment systems. Essentially, they had created a water treatment plant for a city of 1.5 million people, at almost no cost to the state.