Kohada are one of the most traditional variety of sushi in authentic Edomae sushi.
Shimmering silver-skin kohada are such wonderful Summer treats.
They have a very special place in Japanese cuisine, especially sushi.
The general name for these fish is konoshiro, which are small sardine-sized fish.
In English, they have the unfortunately unappetizing name "Gizzard Shad."
As they grow, they get new names in Japanese to denote their size.
Kohada sushi tastes very flavorful and has a very rich umami flavors brought out by its preparation. Sushi chefs will usually "pickle" the kohada by lightly salting them for about 20 minutes then marinating them in rice vinegar for 30-40 minutes.
The fish tastes somewhat similar to very fresh sardines (iwashi) or less strong mackerel (saba).
It is very common to top kohada sushi with oboro (crumpled shrimp paste) as a traditional Edomae preparation. But many modern sushi chefs use a wide variety of toppings.
Though larger fish can be available throughout the year, kohada are small fish with short lifespans. Kohada start to come into season when the colonies begin spawning in April and May.
As the season moves into the Summer, they start to grow from shinko minnows into kohada most commonly served as sushi. They continue to be available as late as Autumn.
To prepare kohada for sushi, first brush away any scales with the knife being careful not to damage the skin. Slice off the head and tail. Cut open the belly and remove any innards.
Wedge your knife between the spine and the fish's back flesh and slice down the body to remove the spine. Then lay the body out flat and cut away any of the belly bones.
Sprinkle a layer of salt over the kohada bodies' flesh and leave it to draw out moisture for 20 minutes. After being salted, wash the salt off the fish with rice vinegar. Then proceed to marinate the kohada in rice vinegar for 30 minutes.
The kohada are now ready to be scored and made into nigiri. Many chefs use intricate cuts to showcase the silver skin of the fish, such as this cut which braids three strips together.
Kohada fish are native to Japan so most shops should have reasonably-priced kohada or shinko sushi.
https://sushimodern.com/sushi/kohada-sushi/
Man’s fascination with the concept of longevity beyond the 70 or 80 years of the typical human lifespan is documented in a variety of writings, myths and legends stretching back thousands of years.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, for example, wrote of a magical fountain in modern day Ethiopia that restored the youth of those who bathed in its waters, and Old Testament reckonings of the biblical patriarch Methuselah (grandfather of Noah) put his age at the time of his death at between 720 and 969 years.
Nonetheless, modern reality pales in comparison to such accounts, as the longest verified human lifespan in recorded history is that of Jeanne Louise Calment, who passed away in her native France in 1997 at the age of 122.
One of the more unusual cases of asserted human longevity in modern times involved Chinese resident Li Ching-Yuen (also rendered as Li Ching-Yun), mention of whom started appearing in U.S. newspaper accounts in the 1920s accompanied by claims that he had been born in either 1677 or 1736.
When Li Ching-Yuen finally died in 1933, at a reputed age of either 197 or 256, the New York Times noted of his passing that :
Li Ching-yun, a resident of Kaihsien, in the Province of Szechwan, who contended that he was one of the world’s oldest men, and said he was born in 1736 — which would make him 197 years old — died today.
A Chinese dispatch from Chung-king telling of Mr. Li’s death said he attributed his longevity to peace of mind and that it was his belief every one could live at least a century by attaining inward calm.
Compared with estimates of Li Ching-yun’s age in previous reports from China the above dispatch is conservative. In 1930 it was said.
Professor Wu Chung-chien, dean of the department of education in Minkuo University, had found records showing Li was born in 1677 and that the Imperial Chinese Government congratulated him on his 150th and 200th birthdays.
A correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote in 1928 that many of the oldest men in Li’s neighborhood asserted their grandfathers knew him as boys and that he was then a grown man.
According to the generally accepted tales told in his province, Li was able to read and write as a child, and by his tenth birthday had traveled in Kansu, Shansi, Tibet, Annam, Siam and Manchuria gathering herbs.
For the first hundred years he continued at this occupation. Then he switched to selling herbs gathered by others.
Wu Pei-fu, the war lord, took Li into his house to learn the secret of his living to 250.
Another pupil said Li told him to “keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.”
According to one version of Li’s married life he had buried twenty-three wives and was living with his twenty-fourth, a woman of 60. Another account, which in 1928 credited him with 180 living descendants, comprising eleven generations, recorded only fourteen marriages.
This second authority said his eyesight was good; also, that the finger nails of his right hand were very long, and “long” for a Chinese might mean longer than any finger nails ever dreamed of in the United States.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/li-ching-yuen/
We never know. There is no evidence against it, and all evidence existing are quite flawless. I will share a few with you.
New York Times once in 1930 posted about how the Qing government congratulated the man’s 150th birthday in 1827, and the Qing celebrated his 200th birthday in 1877. True documentations exist.
All lof the senior locals that lived next to Li Ching-Yuen have mentioned that many of their ancestors have seen Li.
There have been unproven legends that he has married 23 times, and had over 200 children (Another version says he had 24 wives, and 180 children).
A real, existing warlord during the nationalist party rule by the name of Wu Peifu, claimed to have seen Li, and said he gave him advice for a healthy life, along the following lines:
translates to “Make your heart calm like water, sit like a turtle, walk like a wild pigeon, sleep like a dog.”(The translation really ruins the beauty of the original phrase; the lines were very beautiful).
On his family documentations, which are usually very reliable, the man was born in 1677, during Emperor Kangxi’s reign. Till his death in 1933, he had lived for 256 years.
He was said to have picked and sold Chinese medicine for a living, and travelled across the country, and has been to other countries, including Cambodia, present day Myanmar, and Thailand. His long living legacy was usually explained to himself as keeping a healthy diet, and use of Chinese medicine.
Legend says there was a very old man(the tale reported was last century)that claimed his uncle used to be one of Li’s medicine picker. When Li was in his hundreds, and he can prove that Li actually was a indeed 256 years old.
Many western scholars have been to Li’s college lectures during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and many westerners have admitted Li’s legacy.
Again, we may never know. His lifestyle was so unbelievably different than our lifestyle in the modern era, we simply cannot use what we think as our “limit of humans” to measure what people have accomplished that do not live in a lifestyle similar to ours.
It's like a human and a cheetah racing in a 100M race. If Usain Bolt gets beaten by the cheetah, we can't say that's it's unreal, or that the cheetah took drugs or anything. They're different. Also, it's also nice to believe in miracles. Li was a miracle if mankind.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Li-Ching-Yuen-lived-to-be-over-256-years-old
TCM is based on the 2 manifestations of qi (Yin and Yang). If those 2 manifestations are in balance, then our health is excellent. Where and what is the qi? qi is the mitochondrial energy status of each cell's metabolism . Every function in the human body is controlled by 2 opposite manifestations of the same qi energy. (a) excitatory and (b) inhibitory. Just like the pH in between acidic and alkaline mediums whereas Yin is basic and Yang acid. Yin is reductive and antioxidant (cold) where Yan is oxidative and energy producer and consumming. In our brains we have Gaba and serotonin (Yin) while epinephrine and dopamine (Yang) play opposites. In a case of vitamins and/or minerals deficiency our body (as proposed in the Triage Theory) a compensatory process based on a self cannibalistic appropriation of vitamins from the manufacture of non vital proteins are removed and reassigned to more essential ones involved directly in our short term survival and reproduction (perpetuation of the species). What is the limiting or inhibitory force capable of inhibiting the Triage effect? (a) the immune system's ability to destroy malfunctioning cell mutations (NKs, T cells) (b) our own cell's apoptotic self program or suicidal process. If those 2 systems (qi by nature) are overwhelmed by a strong Triage effect (self cannibalistic appropriation of nutrients needed to support them) then chances are that fatal diseases like cancer find the conditions needed to develop. Years before cancer could be detectable, a steady increase of cell apoptosis, weakening immune system and mal nutrition are likely to precede unchecked.
"But in addition to the gods whom you have mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of what I have to tell is dependent on her favor, and if I can recollect and recite enough of what was said by the priests, and brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall satisfy the requirements of this theatre. To that task, then, I will at once address myself.
"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and those who dwelt within them: this war I am now to describe.
Of the combatants on the one side the city of Athens was reported to have been the ruler, and to have directed the contest; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of the islands of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent greater than that of Libya and Asia (Turkey); and, when afterward sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean.
The progress of the history will unfold the various tribes of barbarians and Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must begin by describing, first of all, the Athenians as they were in that day, and their enemies who fought with them; and I shall have to tell of the power and form of government of both of them. Let us give the precedence to Athens.
"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and in all the ages and changes of things there has never been any sediment of the earth flowing down from the mountains, as in other places, which is worth speaking of.
It has always been carried round in a circle, and disappeared in the depths below. The consequence is that, in comparison of what then was, there are remaining in small islets only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the country being left. . . .
"And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when I was a child, I will impart to you the character and origin of their adversaries (the Atlanteans); for friends should not keep their stories to themselves, but have them in common. Yet, before proceeding farther in the narrative, I ought to warn you that you must not be surprised if you should hear Hellenic names given to foreigners.
I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, made an investigation into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians, in writing them down, had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and retranslated them, and copied them out again in our language.
My great-grandfather, Dropidas, had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore, if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told you the reason of them.
Plato's Atlantis
Excerpt from "Timaeus" by Plato c.428 - c.347 BC
reprinted from "The Antediluvian World" by Ignatius Donnelly
"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows: I have before remarked, in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made themselves temples and sacrifices.
And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island which I will proceed to describe.
On the side toward the sea, and in the center of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the center of the island, at a distance of about fifty stadia (one stadia=606 feet), there was a mountain, not very high on any side.
In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter, who was named Cleito. The maiden was growing up to womanhood when her father and mother died.
Poseidon fell in love with her, and had intercourse with her; and, breaking the ground, enclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe out of the center of the island, equidistant every way, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not yet heard of.
He himself, as he was a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the center island, bringing two streams of water under the earth, which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly in the earth.
He also begat and brought up five pairs of male children, dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions: he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many men and a large territory.
And he named them all: the eldest, who was king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and the ocean received the name of Atlantic. To his twin-brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island toward the Pillars of Heracles, as far as the country which is still called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus.
All these and their descendants were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia (Italy).
Now Atlas had a numerous and honorable family, and his eldest branch always retained the kingdom, which the eldest son handed on to his eldest for many generations; and they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they could have, both in city and country.
For, because of the greatness of their empire, many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided much of what was required by them for the uses of life.
In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, mineral as well as metal, and that which is now only a name, and was then something more than a name -- orichalcum -- was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and, with the exception of gold, was esteemed the most precious of metals among the men of those days.
There was an abundance of wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of them.
https://www.facebook.com/hillmy7
Also, whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers or fruits, grew and thrived in that land; and again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible fruit and other species of food, which we call by the general name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks, and meats, and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to play with, and are fruits which spoil with keeping--and the pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these that sacred island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and wondrous in infinite abundance.
All these things they received from the earth, and they employed themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces, and harbors, and docks; and they arranged the whole country in the following manner: First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made a passage into and out of the royal palace; they began to build the palace and then the habitation of the god and of their ancestors.
This they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who came before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty.
And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress.
Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones were raised considerably above the water.
Now the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two, as well the zone of water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia.
This, and the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall, on either side placing towers, and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from underneath the center island and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side.
One kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red; and, as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out docks double within, having roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, which they intermingled for the sake of ornament, to be a natural source of delight.
The entire circuit of the wall which went round the outermost one they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel flashed with the red light of orichalcum.
The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed in this wise: In the center was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot in which they originally begat the race of the ten princes, and thither they annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, and performed sacrifices to each of them.
Here, too, was Poiseidon's own temple, of a stadium in length and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a sort of barbaric splendor.
All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, adorned everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; all the other parts of the walls and pillars and floor they lined with orichalcum.
In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot--the charioteer of six winged horses--and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them in that day.
There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private individuals. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the ten kings and of their wives; and there were many other great offerings, both of kings and of private individuals, coming both from the city itself and the foreign cities over which they held sway.
There was an altar, too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to the rest of the work, and there were palaces in like manner which answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.
"In the next place, they used fountains both of cold and hot springs; these were very abundant, and both kinds wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the sweetness and excellence of their waters.
They constructed buildings about them, and planted suitable trees; also cisterns, some open to the heaven, other which they roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths, there were the king's baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; also separate baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle, and to them they gave as much adornment as was suitable for them.
The water which ran off they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some set apart for horses, in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in.
Also there were guard-houses at intervals for the body-guard, the more trusted of whom had their duties appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, and about the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use.
Enough of the plan of the royal palace. Crossing the outer harbors, which were three in number, you would come to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea.
The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all sorts night and day.
I have repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts about the ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must endeavor to describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country.
The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre of the island two thousand stadia; the whole region of the island lies toward the south, and is sheltered from the north.
The surrounding mountains he celebrated for their number and size and beauty, in which they exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy inhabited villages, and rivers and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated during many ages by many generations of kings. It was rectangular, and for the most part straight and oblong; and what it wanted of the straight line followed the line of the circular ditch.
The depth and width and length of this ditch were incredible and gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so many other works, could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man.
But I must say what I have heard. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length.
It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain, and touching the city at various points, was there let off into the sea.
From above, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and again let off into the ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city.
Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth--in winter having the benefit of the rains, and in summer introducing the water of the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had an appointed chief of men who were fit for military service, and the size of the lot was to be a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand.
"And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude having leaders, to whom they were assigned according to their dwellings and villages.
The leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders upon them, and a light chariot without a seat, accompanied by a fighting man on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer mounted to guide the horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed men, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters, and three javelin men, who were skirmishers, and four sailors to make up a complement of twelve hundred ships.
Such was the order of war in the royal city--that of the other nine governments was different in each of them, and would be wearisome to narrate.
As to offices and honors, the following was the arrangement from the first: Each of the ten kings, in his own division and in his own city, had the absolute control of the citizens, and in many cases of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would.
"Now the relations of their governments to one another were regulated by the injunctions of Poseidon as the law had handed them down. These were inscribed by the first men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the people were gathered together every fifth and sixth years alternately, thus giving equal honor to the odd and to the even number.
And when they were gathered together they consulted about public affairs, and inquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment on him accordingly--and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another in this wise:
http://vietrealm.com/index.php?topic=35502.0
There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might take the sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the column; the victim was then struck on the head by them, and slain over the sacred inscription.
Now on the column, besides the law, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When, therefore, after offering sacrifice according to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of the bull, they mingled a cup and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they took to the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round.
Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels, and, pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish any one who had previously transgressed, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions, and would not command or obey any ruler who commanded them to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon.
This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his family, at the same time drinking, and dedicating the vessel in the temple of the god; and, after spending some necessary time at supper, when darkness came on and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifices on which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had any accusation to bring against any one; and, when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials with their robes.
There were many special laws which the several kings had inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following: That they were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any city attempted to over throw the royal house.
Like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the family of Atlas; and the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten kings.
"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterward directed against our land on the following pretext, as traditions tell: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned toward the gods, who were their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, practicing gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another.
They despised everything but virtue, not caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly on the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtuous friendship with one another, and that by excessive zeal for them, and honor of them, the good of them is lost, and friendship perishes with them.
"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, all that which we have described waxed and increased in them; but when this divine portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted too often, and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper-hand, then, they being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly.
To him who had an eye to see, they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power.
Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a most wretched state, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his most holy habitation, which, being placed in the center of the world, sees all things that partake of generation. And when he had called them together he spake as follows:"
[Here Plato's story abruptly ends. You get the image of this wise old bearded man taking a break to work out the words that Zeus would speak, and never coming back to it... ]
Plato's city of Atlantis
https://ascendingpassage.com/plato-atlantis-timaeus.htm
Plato has preserved for us the history of Atlantis. If our views are correct, it is one of the most valuable records which have come down to us from antiquity.
Plato lived 400 years before the birth of Christ. His ancestor, Solon, was the great law-giver of Athens 600 years before the Christian era. Solon visited Egypt. Plutarch says, "Solon attempted in verse a large description, or rather fabulous account of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men of Sais, and which particularly concerned the Athenians; but by reason of his age, not want of leisure (as Plato would have it), he was apprehensive the work would be too much for him, and therefore did not go through with it. These verses are a proof that business was not the hinderance:
"'I grow in learning as I grow in age.'
And again:
"'Wine, wit, and beauty still their charms bestow, Light all the shades of life, and cheer us as we go.'
"Plato, ambitious to cultivate and adorn the subject of the Atlantic Island, as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, to which also he had some claim by reason of his being related to Solon, laid out magnificent courts and enclosures, and erected a grand entrance to it, such as no other story, fable, or Poem ever had.
But, as he began it late, he ended his life before the work, so that the more the reader is delighted with the part that is written, the more regret he has to find it unfinished."
There can be no question that Solon visited Egypt. The causes of his departure from Athens, for a period of ten years, are fully explained by Plutarch. He dwelt, he tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There he conversed upon points of philosophy and history with the most learned of the Egyptian priests. He was a man of extraordinary force and penetration of mind, as his laws and his sayings, which have been preserved to us, testify.
There is no improbability in the statement that he commenced in verse a history and description of Atlantis, which he left unfinished at his death; and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to believe that this manuscript reached the hands of his successor and descendant, Plato; a scholar, thinker, and historian like himself, and, like himself, one of the profoundest minds of the ancient world.
The Egyptian priest had said to Solon, "You have no antiquity of history, and no history of antiquity;" and Solon doubtless realized fully the vast importance of a record which carried human history back, not only thousands of years before the era of Greek civilization, but many thousands of years before even the establishment of the kingdom of Egypt; and he was anxious to preserve for his half-civilized countrymen this inestimable record of the past.
Plato's History of Atlantis
Commentary on "Critias" from "The Antediluvian World" by Ignatius Donnelly
https://elenaandromeda.tumblr.com/
Critias: Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that there were of old great and marvelous actions of the Athenians, which have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction of the human race and one in particular, which was the greatest of them all, the recital of which will be a suitable testimony of our gratitude to you....
Socrates: Very good; and what is this ancient famous action of which Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action of the Athenian State, which Solon recounted!
Critias: I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias (the elder) was, as he said, at that time nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten years of age. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the registration of youth; at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sung the poems of Solon, which were new at the time.
One of our tribe, either because this was his real opinion, or because he thought that he would please Critias, said that, in his judgment, Solon was not only the wisest of men but the noblest of poets.
The old man, I well remember, brightened up at this, and said, smiling: "Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in this country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer, or Hesiod, or any poet."
"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the person who addressed him.
"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been most famous, but which, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, has not come down to us."
"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition."
He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a deity who is their foundress: she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, which is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes called Athene (Athena).
Now, the citizens of this city are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. Thither came Solon, who was received by them with great honor; and he asked the priests, who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old.
On one occasion, when he was drawing them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called 'the first,' and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to tell of the lives of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and attempted to reckon how many years old were the events of which he was speaking, and to give the dates.
Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age; said, 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man who is an Hellene.'
Solon, hearing this, said, 'What do you mean?'
'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you the reason of this: there have been, and there will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.
There is a story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.
Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing savior, saves and delivers us.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country neither at that time nor at any other does the water come from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below, for which reason the things preserved here are said to be the oldest.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers.
And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed--if any action which is noble or great, or in any other way remarkable has taken place, all that has been written down of old, and is preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are just being provided with letters and the other things which States require; and then, at the usual period, the stream from heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and thus you have to begin all over again as children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.
As for those genealogies of yours which you have recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children; for, in the first place, you remember one deluge only, whereas there were many of them; and, in the next place, you do not know that there dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, of whom you and your whole city are but a seed or remnant. And this was unknown to you, because for many generations the survivors of that destruction died and made no sign.
For there was a time, Solon, before that great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war, and was preeminent for the excellence of her laws, and is said to have performed the noblest deeds, and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.'
Solon marveled at this, and earnestly requested the priest to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens.
'You are welcome to hear about them, Solon,' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of the city; and, above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and protector and educator of both our cities.
She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and then she founded ours, the constitution of which is set down in our sacred registers as 8000 years old.
As touching the citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of the noblest of their actions; and the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with your own, you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours, as they were in the olden time.
In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next there are the artificers, who exercise their several crafts by themselves, and without admixture of any other; and also there is the class of shepherds and that of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are separated from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law only to engage in war; moreover, the weapons with which they are equipped are shields and spears, and this the goddess taught first among you, and then in Asiatic countries, and we among the Asiatics first adopted.
"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe what care the law took from the very first, searching out and comprehending the whole order of things down to prophecy and medicine, the latter with a view to health; and out of these divine elements drawing what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was connected with them.
All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men.
Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected, and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods.
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your State in our histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor; for these histories tell of a mighty power which was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end.
This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you call the Columns of Heracles (the Strait of Gibraltar, known as the Pillars of Hercules): the island was larger than Libya and Asia (Turkey) put together, and was the way to other islands, and from the islands you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent.
Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of the continent; and, besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy).
The vast power thus gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at one blow our country and yours, and the whole of the land which was within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she was the first in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes.
And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjected, and freely liberated all the others who dwelt within the limits of Heracles.
But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea.
And that is the reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.'[end excerpt]
Plato's city of Atlantis
Excerpt from "Critias" by Plato c.428 - c.347 BC
https://ascendingpassage.com/plato-atlantis-critias.htm
The Pledge of Allegiance has become an American tradition. The simple poem has had its share of controversy and has survived court challenges and changes through its 120-year-plus history.
The pledge was originally penned by Francis Bellamy as a part of the 1892 celebration of Columbus Day. That year marked the 400th anniversary of the Columbus landing. The World’s Columbian Exposition was going on that year in Chicago, and there was a push to have some kind of national way for school children to mark the occasion.
A magazine called the Youth’s Companion hired Bellamy, who was also chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. He was tasked with putting together a program for school children across the nation to take part in as a part of Columbus Day celebrations that year.
The Youth’s Companion was a supporter of getting flags in school houses, so Bellamy created a flag ceremony that included the pledge and a salute. The first pledge, published in the magazine on September 8, 1892, was slightly different than the one used today.
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” it read.
Schoolchildren recited the pledge and carried out the flag ceremonies on October 12, 1892 in conjunction with the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition.
The pledge gained popularity, but as people recited it, they also saw a need for change. In the early 1920s, the words “my flag” did not seem adequate. Through several alterations, the pledge was finally changed to “the flag of the United States of America.”
In 1942, Congress officially recognized the pledge, but a year later, the Supreme Court weighed whether school children should be forced to recite it.
In 1954, after lobbying from the Knights of Columbus, the words “under God” were added to the pledge. At the time, President Eisenhower said the addition was a nod to the country’s religious heritage and a reminder to be humble as a nation.
In 2014, some groups pushed to remove “under God” from the pledge. The American Humanist Association argued that the phrase “implies true patriots must be believers.”
The Supreme Court has avoided addressing the constitutionality of “under God” in the pledge, instead opting to assert the legality of the Pledge of Allegiance in general. The basic argument is that since reciting the pledge of allegiance is a free-will choice, it does not infringe on a citizen’s freedom of speech or religion.
https://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/pledge-of-allegiance-history-poem/2014/11/09/id/604690/
A fascinating exhibition illustrating the life and ethos of people living in Zhejiang Province is now open.
The exhibit, showcased at the West Lake Gallery of Zhejiang Provincial Museum, uses archaeological records and antiquities found in the area from the pre-historical era to the early 18th century to paint a picture of what life was once like in the province.
Divided into six units, in chronological order, the exposition gathers more than 100 cultural relics from 39 museums across Zhejiang.
It covers the Neolithic Age jade ware, Chinese ritual bronzes, ceramics, Buddhist sculptures, to textiles, paintings and calligraphy.
Many have been scarcely exhibited in public before.
“We’ve spent a lot of time designing the framework of the exhibition. The six units are like six selected acts that showcase the most essential parts in Zhejiang’s cultural and historical development,” said Chen Hao, director of Zhejiang Provincial Museum.
Zhejiang is now an affluent place with a high population density. But it was an underdeveloped region under the State of Yue some 2,700 years ago, when the central China states were already fully fledged both culturally and economically.
So when will romance return to our lives, May be when it's affordable, As poet's remind us, All is fair in love and war, Who can repair that was torn apart and cast asunder. Let us listen once again to poets vers, Let poet's woow and true lovers ponder. A breathless gasep in some direction. Let us all be pretenders once again.
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“In terms of bronze ware unearthed in the area, we are barely comparable to provinces in central China, either in quantity or in size,” said Li Yuxin, the museum’s historical heritage department head. “Most of them (we exhibited) are weaponry and agricultural tools.”
A rare Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) bronze cane found in Shaoxing City shows what the ancient Yue people looked like.
The cane, engraved with geometrical patterns throughout its body, is topped with a sculpted pigeon. A man kneeling at the bottom of the cane is found with a short haircut on his forehead and tattoos spread all over his body. This greatly differs from what we know of a central Chinese man during that time with robes, tied buns and hats.
The most important, and probably the best known, bronze in Zhejiang is the sword of Zhuji Yushi, king of Yue. The 52.4-centimeter sword with inscriptions on both sides of the blade was originally the property of Yushi, son of Goujian, who ruled the area from 464 to 459 BC.
Zhuji, referring to the present Zhuji City, was probably the place Yushi took as the capital of his state. It was common at that time to take the fief you owned, or place of residence, as a surname, indicating a state of nobility that differentiated you from commoners.
Ma Chengyuan, an expert of Chinese bronzes accidentally found the sword in Hong Kong in 1995. Later bought by the Hangzhou Iron and Steel Group at a price of 1.36 million HK dollars (US$173,363), it was finally given as a gift to Zhejiang Provincial Museum and returned to where it was born.
Along with the Yushi sword, the exhibition also displays four other swords of Yue, discovered in Jingzhou, Hubei Province. They belonged to the different kings of Yue. One of them, with rhombus patterns on its blade, looks similar to the sword of Goujian, a star exhibit now owned by the Hubei Provincial Museum.
“It is quite strange that the swords of Yue have never been excavated in Zhejiang. Most of them were found in the state of Chu, which translates into the present Hubei, Henan and Anhui provinces. The reasons are unknown, some say they were taken as part of the dowry for women marrying to Chu,” explained Li.
Other than the bronzes, the ceramic artifacts are probably closer to the Yue culture we know of today.
The Yue Kiln in north Zhejiang and the Longquan Kiln in the south had been producing celadon ever since the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) and came to prosperity during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The exhibition reveals celadon made in Zhejiang throughout the dynasties. There are also traces of foreign cultural influences, as Longquan ware had been reportedly exported to countries like Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, India and Egypt.
One Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) Longquan celadon double-gourd vase, excavated from a cellar underneath a department store in Qingtian County in southeast Zhejiang, is exceptional in its near-jade glaze color and perfect curved shape. It was included in a set of stamps issued in the 1990s featuring some of the best Longquan ware found in the country.
Another piece, a celadon incense burner with brown glazed ruyi (a curved ceremonial scepter symbolizing good fortune) and cloud patterns, is part of the grave items found in the tomb of Shuiqiu in Lin’an District of Hangzhou, who was the mother of Qian Liu, first and founding king of the Wuyue Kingdom.
“From archeological findings we could say that the Yue people were bellicose in the Bronze Age, but their culture gradually turned out to be genteel and refined.
The transition began since the reign of the Qian family, where their policy of keeping peace led its people away from wars and spared time for economic development, said Ni Yi, curator of the show.
The impact of the Qians is also represented in their piety in Buddhism. They funded constructions of numerous temples and Buddhist pagodas all over Zhejiang, including Baochu and Leifeng pagodas around Hangzhou’s West Lake.
The exhibition shows two pieces of historical relics excavated from the cellar of Leifeng Pagoda in 2001, including a gilt bronze Buddha sculpture seated on a lotus throne with a fire nimbus and a silver-gilt stupa containing Buddha’s hair.
Another excellent piece not to be missed from the Buddhist section is a 5th century gilt bronze standing statue of Mahasthamaprapta, who represents the power of wisdom.
Excavated from the cellar of Wanfo Pagoda in Jinhua City, the piece is the earliest gilt bronze Buddhist sculpture unearthed to date.
“I had been looking for it for many years,” Li Yuxin, who was an archeologist before working for the museum since 2003, told Shanghai Daily.
The statue was loaned to Tiantai Museum in the 1970s when Norodom Sihanouk, the former king of Cambodia, came for a visit. It was kept there until Li found it in 2015 in the museum warehouse.
“At that time China was divided between the Northern Dynasty (AD 386-581) and the Southern Dynasty (AD 420-589). I think the piece is, undoubtedly, the best among all gilt bronze statues we know from the south.
And more importantly it offers evidence to see how the south interacted with and influenced the north in terms of Buddhist art and culture, added Li.
https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1806180236/
Ham radios use frequencies that aren't being used by FM or AM stations and that are set aside by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for ham radio use.
There are more than 1,700 licensed ham radio operators in Wisconsin who are members of the American Radio Relay League, Moretti said, and many more operators across the nation.
A ham radio operator needs a power source, an antenna, a transmitter and a receiver and then can establish communications worldwide. That comes in handy during disasters, where cell phone towers, phone lines and the internet might be unusable.
But it's not something you can just plug in and start using, said Mike Johnson, president of the West Alice Radio Amateur Club, whose call sign is WO9B.
"It takes a fair amount of work," he said. "It's casting your bait into the pond, and sometimes you get a hit and sometimes you don't."
In order to use a ham radio, operators need to be licensed. Such licenses need to be renewed every 10 years, and there are three different classes of licenses — technician, general and extra.
https://taobabe.wordpress.com/
Technician licenses are entry level and to earn one requires passing a 35-question exam on radio theory, regulations and operations. This license gives clearance for operators to communicate with operators mostly across North America.
General licenses are given to those who pass the technician exam as well as a written exam, and allows operators to communicate worldwide.
George Spindler, left, and Arthur Monsees, California amateur radio operators, try to establish contact with Amelia Earhart, July 13, 1937. The boys claimed to have received a signal, as yet unverified. GM/AP Photo
Amateur extra licenses require passing all previous exams and a 50-question test.
Generally, the FCC restricts ham radio operators from broadcasting out and requires them to make contact with individual operators or groups.
The tradeoff is worth it to be able to connect with strangers, the operators agreed. For example, Johnson once conversed with a Swede who was convinced the United Stat one bumps into being a ham radio operator," Johnson said. "It's a lot of fun."
https://www.wpr.org/even-internet-era-people-go-ham-over-amateur-radio
You probably don’t think clams are the most exciting animals on the planet. But anyone who dismisses these marine bivalve molluscs surely cannot be aware of just how important they actually are. Without knowing it, they have taught us so much about the world we live in – and how it used to be.
Our research team has spent the past two decades examining the chemical composition of the longest-lived animal that doesn’t live in a colony known to science – the ocean quahogclam – to find out how the climate of the North Atlantic ocean has changed in relation to the atmosphere.
This quahog can live for more than 500 years – and, as it does, it lays down growth rings in its shell. As with trees, the growth rings are at wider increments when conditions are more favourable and narrower when less so.
By comparing these shell rings we were able to date each of them and find out what the temperature and salinity (or density) of the seawater was at the time of its growth.
Any clams that lived at the same time had the same pattern of lines on their shells. So by comparing many of them together, we managed to extend the record backwards beyond the lifespan of just one individual, to around 1,000 years.
Using this information, we have discovered how the ocean environment that these clams live in has changed. And we now have the first precisely dated, annually resolved, record of North Atlantic ocean variability covering the entire last millennium, allowing scientists to examine the timing of past changes in the marine environment relative to those in the atmosphere.
Perhaps one of the most profound aspects of our research is the finding that human-driven climate change, resulting in an overall warming of surface air temperatures, has led to a reversal in the long-term natural coupling of the marine and atmospheric climate systems.
Evidence from the shells shows that over the modern industrial period (AD 1800-2000) changes in marine climate lagged behind the atmosphere. Surface air temperatures responded much faster to human-induced climate changes than the North Atlantic did.
Though we cannot speculate on what this will mean for the future, this new information will play an important role in reducing uncertainty in predictions of future climate variability.
Though the shells of quahogs typically only grow up to 13cm in length, this finding from the study of the chemistry in their rings is astounding.
Until now, there has been no direct evidence that variability in the North Atlantic during the past 1,000 years drove changes in the atmospheric climate, or if the oceans were merely responding to changes in the atmosphere.
Our understanding of ocean variability timing in the North Atlantic, and the mechanisms behind it, were relatively poorly known until this study – and direct observations were limited to the 20th century.
Looking further back in time, the oxygen isotopes record developed from the clam shells shows marked changes in the climate over the past 1,000 or so years.
During the last millennium, volcanic eruptions, the power of the sun (solar irradiance) and human industrial activity all played a significant role in driving the conditions in the North Atlantic.
In addition, our research found that the North Atlantic probably played an important role in the switch from the relatively warm conditions of the medieval climate anomaly (from about AD 1000 to 1400) into the cooler conditions of the “Little Ice Age” from about AD 1450 to 1850).
The most intriguing result from this period came from comparing the clam shell rings with ice cores and tree rings. While the shells allowed us to uncover marine variability, the ice and tree trunks have previously shown scientists what the atmospheric surface air temperature was like during different time periods in the northern hemisphere and Greenland.
By comparing the shells with ice and trees, we found that over the pre-industrial portion of the last millennium (between the years 1000 and 1800) changes in marine climate preceded changes in northern hemisphere surface air temperatures.
Between 1000 and 1800, changes in the North Atlantic – brought about by solar irradiance, gases being expelled into the atmosphere from volcanoes and changes in air circulation – were fed back into the atmosphere. This influenced the temperature of the atmosphere then, and means that the North Atlantic ocean was playing an active role in influencing atmospheric air temperatures.
This continues to play a pivotal role in future climate variability, albeit now with a backdrop of long-term warming driven by greenhouse gases.
This clam may indeed be small fry, but what we have learned about the ocean climate from quahog clam shells has drastically changed our view of the world’s atmosphere.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/climate-and-clams-500-years-of-history-in-one-shell
Orichalcum or aurichalcum is a metal mentioned in several ancient writings, including the story of Atlantis in the Critias of Plato. Within the dialogue, Critias (460 – 403 BC) claims that orichalcum had been considered second only to gold in value and had been found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times, but that by Critias' own time orichalcum was known only by name.
Orichalcum may have been a noble metal such as platinum,[1] as it was supposed to be mined, or one type of bronze or brass or possibly some other metal alloy. In 2015, metal ingots were found in an ancient shipwreck in Gela (Sicily), which were made of an alloy primarily consisting of copper, zinc and small percentages of nickel, lead, and iron.
In numismatics, orichalcum is the golden-colored bronze alloy used by the Roman Empire for their sestertius and dupondius coins.
The name is derived from the Greek oreikhalkos (from oros, mountain, chalkos, copper), meaning literally "mountain copper".
The Romans transliterated "orichalcum" as "aurichalcum", which was thought to literally mean "gold copper". It is known from the writings of Cicero that the metal which they called orichalcum resembled gold in color but had a much lower value. In Virgil's Aeneid, the breastplate of Turnus is described as "stiff with gold and white orichalc".
Orichalcum has been held to be either a gold-copper alloy, a copper-tin or copper-zinc brass, or a metal or metallic alloy no longer known.
In later years, "orichalcum" was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite and also to describe brass. However, these usages are difficult to reconcile with the claims of Plato's Critias,[6] who states that the metal was "only a name" by his time, while brass and chalcopyrite were very important in the time of Plato, as they still are today.
Joseph Needham notes that Bishop Richard Watson, an eighteenth-century professor of chemistry, wrote of an ancient idea that there were "two sorts of brass or orichalcum". Needham also suggests that the Greeks may not have known how orichalcum was made, and that they might even have had an imitation of the original.
In 2015, 39 ingots believed to be orichalcum were discovered in a sunken vessel on the coasts of Gela in Sicily which have tentatively been dated at 2,600 years old.
They were analyzed with X-ray fluorescence by Dario Panetta of Technologies for Quality and turned out to be an alloy consisting of 75-80 percent copper, 15-20 percent zinc, and smaller percentages of nickel, lead, and iron.
According to the Critias of Plato, the three outer walls of the Temple to Poseidon and Cleito on Atlantis were clad respectively with brass, tin, and the third outer wall, which encompassed the whole citadel, "flashed with the red light of orichalcum".
The interior walls, pillars and floors of the temple were completely covered in orichalcum, and the roof was variegated with gold, silver, and orichalcum. In the center of the temple stood a pillar of orichalcum, on which the laws of Poseidon and records of the first son princes of Poseidon were inscribed.
Pliny the Elder points out that orichalcum had lost currency due to the mines being exhausted. Pseudo-Aristotle in De mirabilibus auscultationibus (62) describes a type of copper that is "very shiny and white, not because there is tin mixed with it, but because some earth is combined and molten with it."
This might be a reference to orichalcum obtained during the smelting of copper with the addition of "cadmia", a kind of earth formerly found on the shores of the Black Sea, which is attributed to be zinc oxide.
In numismatics, the term "orichalcum" is used to refer to the golden-colored bronze alloy used for the sestertius and dupondius coins. It is considered more valuable than copper, of which the as coin was made.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orichalcum
Research reveals that Baroque music pulses between 50 to 80 beats per minute.
Baroque music "stabilizes mental, physical and emotional rhythms," according to Chris Boyd Brewer, "to attain a state of deep concentration and focus in which large amounts of content information can be processed and learned."
brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com/2007/04/baroque-music-helps-you-focus.html
A couple of years ago, I wanted to know why there were so many Ancient Egyptian inspired objects in ‘New Age’ shops and what the connections where with tarot.
I was put in touch with a historian and practitioner Lena Munday and thought I’d share with you what she wrote:
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“A language in itself, a book of occult wisdom, a mode of communication invented by the Ancients that reaches us today despite centuries of persecution, distortion and neglect.
A coded system linked directly to Astrology, gnosticism, alchemy, ritual magic and Qabala…
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The Tarot is a mirror and a map of the soul reflecting the entire spectrum of human experience.
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From the infancy of the Fool to the completion and knowledge that finds its embodiment in the World, this system speaks the ancient language of symbols.
This book has evolved into a deck comprised of 78 cards, 22 of these are the Major Arcana and the remaining 56 are the Minor Arcana with four suits- Pentacles, Swords, Rods or Wands and Cups.
These number ace to ten and include pages, knights, kings and queens.
For each card there is an alchemical correspondence, an astrological sign and a number.
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The deck currently in widespread usage with its myriad of artistic interpretations, is based on the pack designed by Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite whose book ‘The Pictorial Key to the Tarot’ was published in 1910.
The occult revival during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries manifested some interesting study although much of this was male dominated.
An exception was the work of Helena Blavatsky who mentioned Tarot in ‘The Secret Doctrine’ and ‘The Unveiling of Isis’ connecting the origins of Tarot with Ancient Egypt.
As a system of occult meaning and esoteric guidance, Tarot was forced underground in Medieval Europe.
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Disguising the Tarot as a game was a way of enabling practicioners to continue its usage without persecution.
It was called ‘The Devil’s Picture Book’ by the Christian Church and heretics using it were put to death. This is why records are patchy and the Tarot appears to only to resurface at certain times.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMMPGC9Ow2FmYE6ogg48GFg
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Those in the know always used it, but secretly if they needed to. Aleister Crowley wrote in ‘The Book of Thoth:A short essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians’ (OTO 1944): ‘the origin of Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain.
It must stand or fall on its own merits.’ Unlike Crowley, many are concerned with Tarot origins and among these historians, practicioners, healers, mystics and writers there are many who believe the answers do lie firmly in Ancient Egypt.
The Theosophers, following on from Madame Blavatsky and her classic work ‘The Secret Doctrine’ (1888) are the alternative Egyptologists, writers that include John Gordon and Katy Noura Butler who assert that Ancient Egypt is more ancient than we think and that the Ancient Egyptians guarded the wisdom and knowledge of Atlantis.”
There are many different tales about the origins of Tarot cards ranging from: Gypsies bringing the cards from Egypt in the early middle ages; the Knights Templar, in the times of the Crusades; to a group of sages coming from Fez, Morocco who are said to have created Tarot to replicate the mystical wisdom destroyed at the great Library at Alexandria.
Most authorities agree that Tarot cards first started being used for divination purposes in the late 18th Century and since then they have had a fascinating history of use.
Here are some interesting Tarot trivia facts.
The first public show of divination using Tarot cards, now thought to have been done with the influence of ‘magic’, was by Jean-Baptiste Alliette in 1785 in France.
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He wrote a pamphlet which still closely resembles the interpretations we use today.
In 1781, although Alliette had started the public trend of using Tarot, Antoine Court deGebelin, a Swiss clergyman had published a book called Le Monde Primitif stating that Tarot cards were related to occult history and magic, and concluded (probably incorrectly) that they were related to the mythology of ancient Egypt.
In 1842 Napoleon used Tarot consultations with Mademoiselle Lenormand to make important decisions.
Tarot cards were never actually the ‘cards of the devil’ - normal playing cards were given that name by the church because they were used by congregations for gambling.
Until the early 1900’s only the major arcana and court cards were illustrated.
The numbered cards just showed the number of pips for each suit.
Arthur Waite, a Christian mystic and scholar of the occult, who belonged to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, designed (along with artist Pamela Coleman-Smith) and published the first Tarot deck in which every card in the pack was illustrated.
This deck is known as the Rider-Waite pack (Rider were the publishers) and is the most widely known today.
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2011/04/27/tarot-and-ancient-egypt-a-connection/
https://www.thecircle.com/us/magazin/TheCircle/ICS/Tarot_Cards_From_Ancient_Times_To_Now.do
During this sad season when tears overflow
I dream of being embraced by someoneI can’t express this feeling that makes me want to cry
Even tonight the cold rain falls
My patience has been reduced to nothing but a sigh
Even now, summer is returning to my heart
Say that you love me any time of the day
Follow me into my dream
Unforgettable heart and soul
I can’t put it into words
The names written in the sand have been erased
Where are the waves returning?
Love and roll are passing through
Love becomes like that
Like looking at a -100 degrees sun
This love wets my body
A dizzying midsummer’s fruit
Is ripening in my heart even now
Even if we’re far apart, at twilight
Traces of passion batter my chest
Say that you love me any time of the day
Follow me into my dream
Unforgettable heart and soul
The night won’t wait
The names written in the sand have been erased
Where are the waves returning?
Love and roll are passing through
Love becomes like that
Tonight I will not show any tears
I hope you’ll say we’ll meet again
Unforgettable heart and soul
The fruit of tears
Namida ga afureru kanashii kisetsu wa
Dareka ni dakareta yume wo miru
Nakitai kimochi wa kotoba ni dekinai
Kon'ya mo tsumetai, ame ga furu
Koraekirenakute tameiki bakari
Ima mo kono mune ni natsu wa meguru
Shirokujichû mo suki to itte
Yume no naka e tsurete itte
Wasurerarenai "heart and soul"
Koe ni naranai
Suna ni kaita namae keshite
Nami wa doko e kaeru no ka
Toorisugiyuku "love and roll"
Ai wo sono mama ni
Mainasu hyaku-do no taiyô mitai ni
Karada wo nurasu koi wo s****
Memai ga shisou na manatsu no kajitsu wa
Ima demo kokoro ni saite iru
Tooku hanaretemo tasogaretoki wa
Atsui omokage ga mune ni semaru
Shirokujichû mo suki to itte
Yume no naka e tsurete itte
Wasurerarenai "heart and soul"
Yoru ga matenai
Suna ni kaita namae keshite
Nami wa doko e kaeru no ka
Toorisugiyuku "love and roll"
Ai wo sono mama ni
Konna yoru wa namida misezu ni
Mata aeru to itte hoshii
Wasurerarenai "heart and soul"
Namida no kajitsu yo
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